Ohio Error, Lines; Voter Complaints

The Guardian is reporting that President Bush received an extra 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, Ohio; there were only 638 voters in that precinct. And a federal judge ruled Thursday that excruciating long lines "amounted to a denial of the right to vote."

MSNBC has mapped Voter Alert Line calls by state. Not surprisingly, the system causing the most complaints was electronic voting systems (22,737,000 callers); number two was "level" machines (10,643,000).

While mainstream news reports have typically led voting reports with words like "success" -- we cannot make this assertion because there is no way for voters to know if their choice was indeed what was recorded. All systems are "black box" -- that is, they are proprietary -- and only Nevada requires a paper record.

Wide and varied problems have been documented

• in Florida (as well as other states), voters said that their electronic voting machine incorrectly reported their selection (this behavior - associated with Sequoia Systems machines, among others - was also reported in primary elections earlier this year);
• in Louisiana, electronic voting machines failed to start (boot) and voters were reportedly turned away;
• in North Carolina, one precinct lost 4,500 votes when "too much information was stored on a computer unit";
• in Ohio, some voters were in line for as long as 10 hours and many minority precincts and those near colleges had 5-hour waits; although polls official closed at 7.30 pm, anyone in line at that time was reportedly allowed to vote - some polls had to remain open to 1 am;
• in Savannah, GA, all provisional ballots (25) in one largely-black precinct had been used before noon.

See also ABC, CNN, Cleveland Plain Dealer, ComputerWeekly Forbes, ILCA, NBC4i, Nature, Newark Star Ledger, USA Today, Verified Voting.