Jefferson County Voters Continue To Raise Concerns About Voting Machines
October 28,2006. KDFM.com
 
Early voting for the November election started Monday, and during this first week of it, Jefferson County has experienced high turnout.

By the end of Saturday, which was the sixth day of early voting, the Jefferson County Clerk's office was reporting that 7,416 had cast ballots.

When you add the number of absentee ballots mailed in, turnout stands at 7,774 voters.

Rogers Park (2,200 voters) and the Nederland Recreation Center (1,673 voters) have seen the most voters of all the nine early voting sites in the county.

Early voting runs through Friday, November 3rd.

KFDM continues to get complaints from Jefferson County voters who say the electronic voting machines are not registering their votes correctly.

Friday night, KFDM reported about people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.

Some of those voters including Lamar University professor, Dr. Bruce Drury, believe the problem is a programming error.

Saturday, KFDM spoke to another voter who says it's not just happening with straight ticket voting, he says it's happening on individual races as well, Jerry Stopher told us when he voted for a Democrat, the Republican's name was highlighted.

Stopher said, "There's something in these machines, in this equipment, that's showing Republican votes when you vote for Democrats, and I know Ms. Guidry's a nice lady, and she's working hard, but her theory that my fingernail was somehow over the Republican button is just unrealistic, my fingernail was not. The equipment is not working properly as far as I can tell."

Jefferson county clerk Carolyn Guidry says her office has checked the calibration of the machines and found no problems.

She says the electronic system is very sensitive.

She told KFDM that's a concern she has expressed since county commissioners chose the machines.

Guidry advises voters to carefully review their choices, and make any changes before pressing the vote button.

Another reminder for voters is that just because you press the straight party button, doesn't mean you can't got to individual races and vote for a candidate of another party.