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Sidebar: Where E-voting Went Wrong

By Dan Verton
October 18, 2004 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - 1. California, 2003: Diebold installs uncertified software without notifying authorities.


2. California, 2004: State Senate committee passes an urgent bill to ban all computerized voting in 2004.


3. California, 2004: Secretary of state decertifies Diebold for November election.


4. Alameda County, 2004: Diebold control modules fail to start up.


5. Orange County, 2004: Hart InterCivic Inc. DREs trip circuit breaker and shut down when batteries die; voters are turned away from the polls.


6. Orange County, 2004: Hart access-code confusion causes 7,000 voters to receive the wrong ballots.


7. San Diego County, 2004: Diebold DREs lose votes; control modules fail to start up properly.


8. Bernalillo County, 2002: Insufficient memory results in failure to count 12,000 of 48,000 votes.


9. Arapahoe County, 2004: Failure to maintain DRE battery charge results in expenditure of more than $100,000 to replace batteries.


10. Dallas County, 2002: Election Systems and Software Inc. (ES&S) iVotronic systems mark incorrect choices on voting screens.


11. Harris County, 2003: Hart DREs don't start; voters must use makeshift paper ballots.


12. Hinds County, 2003: DREs overheat and break down; election invalidated, then reheld.


13. Indiana, 2004: ES&S installs uncertified software on iVotronic system and admits the older, certified version won't tabulate votes.


14. Floyd and Coveta Counties, 2002: Diebold DREs lock up; access cards malfunction; wrong candidates are marked on-screen.


15. Bryan and Terrell Counties, 2002: Diebold DRE ballots display wrong races and omit some altogether.


16. Muscogee County, 2003: DREs register "yes" when voters vote "no."


17. Georgia, 2004: Diebold ballot encoding mix-ups prevent voting in primary.


18. Montgomery County, 2004: Diebold DRE shows incomplete ballot when font is magnified.


19. Sarasota County, 2004: ES&S DREs fail to count 189 votes.


20. Wake County, 2002: ES&S iVotronic software loses 436 ballots.


21. Broward County, 2002: ES&S iVotronic error results in failure to count 22% of the votes.


22. Broward County, 2004: ES&S DREs lose 134 votes; margin is 12 votes.


23. Miami-Dade County, 2002: ES&S iVotronic system fails to count 8.2% of the votes.


24. Miami-Dade county, 2004: Severe audit log bug in ES&S iVotronic system is revealed; it had been detected nearly a year earlier.
















A snapshot of various places around the country where problems with electronic voting systems have been reported.


Where E-Voting Went Wrong




Source: VotersUnite.org

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