Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 08/28/04)

Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. July 1998. Microvote
Touch screen machines shut down when voters scroll through ballots.

County Elections Supervisor Bill Culp purchased the rejects from Montgomery County and continued having the same problems with the machines shutting down when voters scrolled through the ballots.*

In 1998 Culp was indicted on a federal charge of accepting kickbacks and bribes from MicroVote vendor Ed O'Day of Columbia and election-machine repairman Gene Barnes of Stuarts Draft, Virginia.**

Former Mecklenburg County Elections Supervisor Bill Culp was indicted by a federal grand jury July 7 on charges that he accepted more than $134,000 in kickbacks and bribes from a voting machine repairman and a salesman who won millions in county contracts.***

* A Place in Politics for Salesmen and Wares. Los Angeles Times. December 11, 2000. By Times Staff Writers.

** Culp Enjoyed Carte Blanche With Office, Critics Say. The Charlotte Observer. July 12, 1998. Mary Elizabeth Deangelis and Carol D. Leonnig, staff writers. [Purchase through Charlotte Observer archive service.]

*** Ex-Meck official indicted. Charlotte Business Journal. July 10, 1998.

See: Microvote in the News

There's really no way
that I could prove to a voter,
post tally, that their vote
exactly counted the way that they voted it.
~ James M. Ries Jr.
President of Microvote