County official disputes report of troubled e-vote

SAN DIEGO – A San Diego County official today disputed a published report that state and federal investigators are reviewing the recent election due to problems with the county's electronic voting machines. 
 
No state or federal agencies are investigating the March 2 election, said Linda Miller, San Diego County's director of media and public relations.

The only local review of last Tuesday's election was being done by the county, Miller said. A county report on voting problems is scheduled to be released tomorrow, she said.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported yesterday that "state and federal regulators also are conducting independent reviews."

Among the alleged problems was a claim by homemaker Kim Perl, who told the Union-Tribune she was allowed to cast a second ballot after the computer spit out her activation card while she was weighing her choices.

She told the newspaper that the card showed her original vote had been counted.

But Miller said that only one of Perl's ballots was actually counted.

Reports of difficulties with the card that activates the voting machines began to come into the Registrar of Voters office soon after the polls opened last Tuesday.

Hundreds of people were turned away from their polling places when the problems could not immediately be corrected.

After the polls closed, signatures on voter rolls in at least one precinct did not match the number of ballots recorded by machines, according to the Union-Tribune.

Poll inspectors across the county complained they had been poorly trained to deal with even minor problems, the newspaper reported. For long stretches on election day morning, the hotline set up to tackle emergencies was so swamped that poll workers were not able to get through, according to the Union-Tribune.

About 10,000 voting machines were in use throughout the county during the primary election.