Voting Machine Mess-up

Guilford County, North Carolina. Fall, 2003, ES&S
Votronic Voting machines lose 354 ballots.

Records from Gilbert’s office [George Gilbert, Guilford County director of elections] show that voters in mostly rural precincts — where the bond was the only item on the ballot — cast 354 blank ballots. The blanks amounted to only about half a percent of the total vote and could not have changed the outcome of the election. The bonds were approved by a 2-1 margin.

Gilbert said the percentage of blank ballots was “extraordinarily high” in some precincts. A few of the blank ballots were because of mistakes by poll workers, he said. But he said he has no explanation for most of them, though he is sure the voting machines are not to blame.*

* Report questions secure use of voting machines. News & Record. February 8, 2004. By Alex Wayne, Staff Writer.

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