Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 12/14/04)


Bexar County, Texas. October, 2004. ES&S.
Touch screens register votes incorrectly.

In Bexar Couny, the theory is that voters who rest a hand on the touch screen while voting may inadvertently cast their votes wrong without knowing it.*

A San Antonio Business Journal reader brought the problem to the attention of the newspaper after he claims his vote was registered for the wrong candidate. He said the bad vote was cast because he inadvertently rested his hand on the screen of the voting kiosk while using his other hand to vote.

"The machine registered the vote from my thumb when I rested my hand on the screen to vote," the reader claims.

The reader says he caught his error on the review screen before finalizing his vote, but he questions whether everyone -- especially new voters -- would do the same.

[Bexar County Elections Administrator Clifford] Borofsky says his office has received only two reports in 60,000 votes cast of votes being registered by individuals inadvertently resting their hand on the voting screen. However, there is no way to know how many people made the mistake without knowing it.

* You touch it, you voted for it. San Antonio Business Journal. October 21, 2004.

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