Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 11/07/04)


Craven County, North Carolina. November, 2004. ES&S.
Tabulation software fails to give error warning.

All vote totals in nine of the county's 26 precincts were electronically doubled. Correcting the mistake changed the outcome of at least one race.*

The glitch occurred Tuesday night as absentee ballot totals for one-stop early voting at three Craven County locations and ballots mailed-in were being entered, said Tiffiney Miller, Craven County Board of Elections director.

The Elections Systems and Software equipment had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time.

An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, Miller said.

* Election problems due to a software glitch. The Charlotte Observer. November 4, 2004. By Richard Rubin and Carrie Levine, Staff Writers.

See: ES&S 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 uninformed or deceptive.
~ Joseph Holder