| Date |
Problem Type |
State
|
Vendor
|
Description
|
| 11/4/2009 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart Intercivic |
Galveston County. The election management system reported that all votes had been counted, when less than half had been counted. Officials thought this was because the system was based on 121 precincts, rather than the 40 super-precincts (voting centers) used in the election.
Story
Archive.
|
| 11/22/2008 |
Malfeasance |
KY |
Hart InterCivic |
Harp Enterprises president, Roger Baird, told the Kentucky Board of Elections that nearly 100 counties that use Harp Enterprises to maintain and program their eSlate voting machines violated state law by NOT testing the machines before the election. He pointed out that Kenton County's misprogramming would have been detected by the pre-election tests required by state law.
Story
Archive
|
| 11/5/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
CO |
Hart InterCivic |
Boulder County. Ballots are scanned by a Kodak scanner and the images are read by the tabulation system. The system was misreading some ballots because of a vertical streak on the image. The county speculates that this streak was caused by dust on the ballots, possibly coming from the creases after the mail-in ballots were folded.
Story
Archive
Story2
Archive2
Note: This problem also occurred in Yakima County, WA in 2004. Story
Update 9/19/2009. After further investigation, "County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall released a report Friday that said the problem was an incompatible device driver installed on scanning machines. The incompatible driver disrupted communications between the scanners and ballot-counting software from Hart InterCivic."
Story
Archive
Story2
Archive2
|
| 11/4/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
KY |
Hart InterCivic |
Kenton County. The Kenton County Board of Elections has halted voting on the eSlate electronic voting machines (supplied and maintained by Harp Election Services) because they are not properly recording straight-ticket voting. Voters complained that straight-ticket voting in the State Senate race between Republican incumbent Jack Westwood and Democrat Kathy Groob was not being counted.
Story
Archive
Update: A judge ordered the county to shut down 108 eSlate machines. The malfunctions could affect the tightly contested state Senate race.
Story
Archive
Story2
Update 11/9/08: Poll workers had continued to allow voters to use the machines so the county had to separate out the straight party votes. In an unusual display of accountability, Harp Election Services accepted responsibility for misprogramming the machines, and Kenton County Clerk Rodney Eldridge accepted responsibility for not checking the operation of the straight-party selections on the machine before the election.
Story
Archive
|
| 11/4/2008 |
Poor design |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Reported to VotersUnite: Even though I know better than to vote a straight-party option, I selected straight-party Democratic on the eSlate electronic voting machine in Precinct 60. All the Democratic candidates were selected. Then I deselected the straight-party option, but all the Democratic candidates remained selected.
I then attempted to remove the Democratic selections by hitting the LIBERTARIAN PARTY straight ticket selection. That worked. Now I was voting only for Libertarians. I could find NO WAY to NOT vote for one of the straight ticket choices (Dem, Rep, Libertarian) once I had first selected any straight ticket. Even if all three straight ticket options were unchecked.
I asked the pollworker to give me a clean slate, and erase everything. He looked around (I know he has worked elections before), shrugged and said, no, I would have to go through and just uncheck all the selections. |
| 10/30/2008 |
Wrong ballot |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Galveston County. More than 100 voters in Santa Fe may have been given the code for the wrong ballot during the first two days of early voting. The mistake could call into question the validity of the outcome of the local school district’s $65 million bond proposals.
Story
Archive |
| 10/29/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Galveston County. Vote-flipping on the eSlate electronic voting machine. Straight-party Democratic vote switched to Republican presidential candidate.
Story
Archive |
| 10/26/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Brazoria County. Vote-flipping on the eSlate electronic voting machines. Straight-party vote flipped the vote for president. In other cases, a straight-party vote didn't select the president.
Story
Archive
One voter selected straight-party Democratic, then selected Obama for President separately, and McCain was selected instead.
Story2
Archive2 |
| 10/22/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
TN |
Hart InterCivic |
Knox County. The eSlate electronic voting machine displays only the first three letters of the selected candidate's name on the review screen. So, people voting for Obama found that the review screen said they voted for "Electors for BAR". This is particularly egregious since another candidate for president is Bob Barr, so voters aren't sure who they are voting for.
Story
Archive |
| 10/21/2008 |
Deceptive practices |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Travis County (Austin). A "poll cat" gave misinformation to voters, telling them that if they vote a straight-party ticket, they must also then select their Presidential candidate. Actually, doing this will deselect the Presidential candidate.
Story
Archive |
| 10/20/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Harris County (Houston). Vote-flipping on the eSlate. Some voters voted straight-ticket Democrat then discovered that the electronic voting machines indicated they had voted for John McCain in the presidential contest.
Story
Archive
Story2
Archive2 |
| 7/10/2008 |
Poor design |
TX |
Hart Intercivic |
The Democratic party is charging that the eSlate electronic voting machines don’t count some votes when voters cast a straight-party ballot. A spokesman for the party said voters have selected the straight party option, and then selects the candidate again in an “emphasis vote,” which really deselects the candidate on the ballot. According to a release by the Texas Democratic Party, they believe the problem has changed the outcome of at least one Texas election.
Story
Archive
Story2 |
| 5/19/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Cass County. Flawed ballot programming from Hart InterCivic allowed voters who were not in District 1 to vote for the District 1 city council seat. Although only 41 residents of District 1 were signed in to vote, the number of combined votes received by the District 1 candidates was 198. The only way to remedy the situation is to have one of the candidates file suit to have the election overturned.
Story
Archive |
| 3/6/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Travis County. Only one of about nine eSlate polling machines was working properly. A technician discovered that the machine responsible for printing out access codes for voters was broken. Voting resumed about 10 a.m. after the machine was shut down and replaced with a new one.
Story
Archive |
| 2/27/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Travis County (Austin). eSlates were not "connected to the system" and had to be rebooted after one voter noticed an error message telling her "Reconnect to system to record vote."
Story
Archive |
| 2/17/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
CO |
Hart InterCivic |
Testing discovered that the eScan optical scanner continues to have the problem that led to its initial decertification in the State. It fails to detect and count marks on the ballot consistently, leading to inaccurate results.
Story
Archive
Colorado Voting Systems Testing Board Report |
| 2/5/2008 |
Wrong ballot |
IL |
Hart InterCivic |
Peoria County. "A handful" of voters in Peoria, Illinois received the wrong electronic ballots, with only federal candidates, not local ones. These were intended for people who moved within 30 days of the election. However, people who had not moved got the ballots, apparently due to election judge error. "What happened in the situation this morning was that the judge just pushed the wrong button and issued the wrong access code and, even though they're trained, did not look to see that it was a federal only ballot."
Also, 15-minute power outages resulted in some voters using emergency paper ballots to vote and re-booting of electronic voting machines.
Story
Archive |
| 2/2/2008 |
Wrong ballot |
IL |
Hart InterCivic |
Kane County. The wrong electronic ballot was loaded into the eSlate voting machine for at least one voter. He accidentally cast his ballot before he realized he had not been able to vote on local races.
Story
Archive |
| 11/14/2007 |
Wrong ballot |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Harris County (Houston). Incomplete ballots appeared on the eSlate electronic voting machines in three early voting precincts, thus denying voters their votes on a tax proposal. Though election day voters were given the correct ballots, the article says "it was too late to have those votes recorded on the main computer." So, the county technician hacked into the computer and changed the totals to include the votes from election day.
John R. Behrman, a computer expert and longtime election observer representing the Democratic Party, astutely pointed out, "Basically it turns out, without regard to any ballots that have been cast, you can enter arbitrary numbers in there and report them out in such a way that, unless you go back to these giant (computer) logs and interpret the logs, you wouldn't know it has been done."
Story
Archive |
| 11/7/2007 |
Machine malfunction |
OH |
Hart InterCivic |
Hamilton County. Some of the memory chips (probably "memory cards") from the eScan optical scanners were "giving false readings."
Story
Archive
|
| 11/7/2007 |
Machine malfunction |
PA |
Hart InterCivic |
Blair County. eSlate voting machines weren't accepting votes. It took most of the day to resolve the programming problem.
Story
Archive |
| 11/6/2007 |
Machine malfunction |
PA |
Hart InterCivic |
Bedford County. None of the eScan optical scanning machines were working at any of the polling places. "Election commissioner Peg Koenig planned to visit all 40 precincts in the county to reprogram machines."
Story
Archive
|
| 6/19/2007 |
Machine malfunction |
PA |
Hart InterCivic |
Bedford County. "Peg Koenig, director of elections in Bedford County, said there was a memory card problem in voting machines on Election Day. Koenig said the Northern Bedford County School District had a massive write-in campaign that was much larger than expected. She said the memory cards in the e-scan voting machines became so full that the machines spit the ballots out." Commissioner Mike Shaffer lost the Republican primary by eight votes to Michael Herline. The entire Republican primary election results will be recounted. The article suggests that the ballots will be recounted by machine.
Story
Archive |
| 5/16/2007 |
Machine malfunction |
PA |
Hart InterCivic |
Blair County. eSlate e-voting machines. "Palmer Brown went to vote early Tuesday at the Catfish District of Blair Township, the Reservoir Church, the voting machines were not working. The only thing that came up when he tried to cast his ballot was 'old election data.' "
Story
Archive |
| 5/15/2007 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Denton County. "The county's voting machines were programmed to print the totals by precinct because of the amendment, but it didn't give totals for Flower Mound's two council races, two alcohol propositions and 10 charter amendments."
Story
Archive |
| 12/15/2006 |
Malfeasance |
CO |
Hart InterCivic |
Montrose County. In violation of state law, county election officials did not perform pre-election testing. Appropriate testing is likely to have detected a ballot programming error affecting write-in selections. Nor did the county submit a security plan before the election, as required by a court order.
Story
Archive |
| 11/17/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
CO |
Hart InterCivic |
Montrose County. Machines broke down in all seven vote centers. Montrose Pavilion was the worst, where 11 out of 12 eSlate electronic voting machines broke down. Insufficient paper ballots were available, so poll workers made copies, which the scanners failed to read.
Story
Archive
Story2 |
| 11/12/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Nacogdoches County. Eight eSlate electronic voting machines malfunctioned on election day. One broke down while a voter was using it. Vendor technicians were called to fix it.
Story
Archive |
| 11/9/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
KY |
Hart InterCivic |
Bell, Bullitt, Breckinridge, Henry, LaRue, Livingston, Marion, Pulaski, Union, Warren, Wayne, Webster and Woodford Counties. Scanners used to read absentee ballots weren't working properly.
Story
Archive |
| 11/9/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
KY |
Hart InterCivic |
Scott, Woodford, Bourbon, Boyle, Bullitt, Daviess, Grant and Nelson Counties. Trouble combining totals from the old Danaher 1242 machines and the new Hart InterCivic eSlate machines caused headaches and long hours for election officials. Democratic House Speaker Jody Richards yesterday called the new electronic voting machines "horrible."
Story
Archive
Story2
Archive2 |
| 11/9/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
KY |
Hart InterCivic |
Vote-switching on the Hart InterCivic eSlate e-voting machine was reported to the Attorney General. The eSlate is not a touch screen machine.
Story
Archive |
| 11/9/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
PA |
Hart InterCivic |
Lancaster County. A third of the county's 232 polling stations experienced malfunctions on the Hart InterCivic eScan ballot scanners. In many cases, the memory cards were test cards, not set up for election results.
Story
Archive |
| 11/9/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
TN |
Hart InterCivic |
Knox County. Circuitry in a Hart InterCivic eSlate fails, calling into question over 2600 e-ballots. Knox County Election Commission Chair Pamela Reeves explains what happened to the machine. "Apparently, what it did was it smoked. I don't know what caused it to smoke, but it was literally smoking. So they unhooked it at the time. Of course, we don't read the votes and we didn't know there was a problem until we went to read the votes Tuesday night."
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2006 |
Too few machines |
CO |
Hart InterCivic |
Douglas County. The county's 300 eSlates weren't enough to handle the turnout with such a long ballot, says the County Clerk in an apology to the voters. 200 more are needed to avoid long lines.
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Tarrant County. Vote-switching. Some voters said they selected gubernatorial candidate Democrat Bell and the eSlate machine switched their vote to Republican Perry. The eSlate is not a touch screen machine.
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Medina County. 420 people lost the opportunity to vote in the US Senate race, which was "inadvertently omitted" from some ballots (presumably on the eSlate).
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2006 |
Poor design |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
San Patricio County. Workers had to tally votes by hand because some ballots were three pages long and [Hart InterCivic Ballot Now scanning] machines were only designed to handle two pages. "When those workers were done, they had to start all over because they realized they had tabulated the straight party ballots incorrectly."
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2006 |
Wrong ballot |
TX |
Hart InterCivic |
Tarrant County. Poll workers gave voters the wrong eSlate e-ballot for nearly eight hours, even though many were from a different precinct. The "meet and confer" proposition was missing from some ballots. Though poll workers said they could fix the problem if notified before the ballot was cast, this wasn't the case in at least one instance.
Story
Archive |
| 11/7/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
CA |
Hart InterCivic |
Orange County. eSlate voting machines in over 30 heavily Democratic precincts are not working and at most of these locations there are no paper ballots available as backups.
Story
|
| 11/7/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
PA |
Hart InterCivic |
Lancaster County. Undefined malfunctions of eSlate machines, voter confusion over how to use them.
Story
Archive |
