Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 10/04/04)


Alameda County, California. March, 2004. Diebold.
Bug in optical scan software miscounts absentee ballots.

A bug in the software caused the machines to count absentee ballots inaccurately. The County must use a workaround.*

The problem resided with the (unique) internal precinct ID numbers exceeding the largest number that is possible to print on the optical scan ballot.

... The high number of the database imports inadvertently caused the precinct ID number to exceed the largest number that it is possible to print correctly on the optical scan ballot.

... For future elections, should a required change be found late in the database proofing process, DESI [Diebold] recommends the County not re-import their election set up file into the same database and instead build a new database.

* (Ironically entitled) Report of Assurances to Alameda County. April 26, 2004. By Diebold Election Systems, Inc. Pages 2,3.

See: Diebold in the News


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