Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 07/28/04)

Scurry County, Texas. November, 2002.
ES&S Model 650 optical scanner.

A landslide victory for two commissioner candidates caused poll workers to question the results. The chip, provided to them by ES&S, contained an incorrect ballot program. ES&S sent a new chip, and the county officials also counted the votes by hand. The opposing candidates actually won by large margins.*

VotersUnite! spoke with county Elections Director, who said the machine was an ES&S 650 central-count optical scan machine.

* Ballot glitches reverse two election results. Houston Chronicle, 8 November 2002. (Referenced in Black Box Voting by Bev Harris.)

See: ES&S in the News and Ballot Programming Introduction

Election security must not depend
on tight control over code
~ David Jefferson