Scattered e-voting problems reported

Computerworld - U.S. citizens went to the polls today amid scattered reports of e-voting problems in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Indiana that caused long lines to form at some polling places and delayed voting in a handful of areas.

In other places such as Maryland and North Carolina, where past e-voting snafus had occurred, voting seemed to be going more smoothly, according to elections officials.

"We've had a remarkably smooth start to the elections this morning in Maryland," said Linda Lamone, administrator for that state's board of elections. She cited good voter turnout and "exceptionally smooth performance from the voting machines and the election judges."

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Elections officials in Montgomery County, Md., and elsewhere complained of problems with the polling books during the September primary. Diebold said it had remedied the problem.

It was in Montgomery County where primary balloting was delayed because memory cards for the Diebold TS machines hadn't been delivered. Today, things were running more smoothly, according to one official.

"Everything is going great," said Marjorie Roher, administrative specialist for the Montgomery County Board of Elections. "All polling places opened on time this morning, and while we do have some long lines due to turnout, everything seems to be functioning properly. There were maybe a dozen cases of power cords not being included in the supply bag; however, the poll books operate with a battery backup and were able to work without the cord until it arrived within 60 minutes.

"We are very pleased," Roher said.

In neighboring Pennsylvania, however, problems cropped up early in the day. In Lancaster County, Pa., 67 out of 232 Hart InterCivic Inc. eScan voting machines did not work properly when the scanning devices on the machines would not scan paper ballots as they were fed in, said Mary Stehman, chief clerk and registrar for the Lancaster County Election Board.

The 67 machines "have a small problem," Stehman said. One problem was that elections officials at the polling places did not tear off the ballot stub at the end of the paper ballot, she said, "so the machine jammed." The ballot stub is a receipt given to the voter to show that he has voted. If the stub isn't removed before the ballot is fed in to the scanner, it can disable the machine, she said.

The problem has occurred despite previous training by the county to teach poll workers how to use the new machines, Stehman said.