Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 01/08/05)

Bernalillo County, New Mexico. November, 2004. 8,656 phantom votes reported in the certified election results. New Mexico certified election results show 187 precincts reporting presidential phantom votes (more votes recorded than ballots cast). Each of the 1239 phantom votes in the presidential contest in Bernalillo County is an unacceptable anomaly. For example:
	Precinct 558 reported 178 early voting ballots and a total of 319 votes for president. That's 141 phantom votes, nearly as high as the number of ballots.
	Precinct 512 reported 166 ballots, with 318 votes for president. In that precinct, Bush alone received 206 votes, 50 more than the number of ballots.
In the presidential race and 14 down-ticket contests examined and shown in the chart below, a total of 8,656 phantom votes were reported in the certified canvass report. In October of 2004, Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera admitted that phantom votes had been added to several elections over the past two years. She also said her vote-counting experts have always found the phantom votes before they were added to the final tally.** But not in this election.

* Bernalillo County Canvass of Returns of General Election Held on November 2, 2004 State of New Mexico.
* Brief Summary of Bernalillo County Election Data January 5, 2005. By Ellen Theisen

** Voting Machine Mess-Up (Displayed 10/29/04)

See also: Summary Report on New Mexico State Election Data. December 21, 2004. By Warren Stewart and Ellen Theisen.

News stories make it rapidly apparent that
electronic voting is not reliable, accurate, or secure.
Any one who claims otherwise is either uninformed or deceptive.
~ Joseph Holder