Sidebar: Officials Defend Systems, Despite Early E-voting Problems

Computerworld - Since early voting began on Oct. 18 in Florida and at least seven other states where tight presidential contests are expected, voters have reported hundreds of problems to the Election Incident Reporting System, some of which resulted from technical glitches in the computers being used to support the voting process.
The incident reporting system is an online database set up by grass-roots organizations, including Verified Voting Foundation Inc. and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. Of the 666 incidents reported in Florida as of last Wednesday, 33 were linked to alleged malfunctions of e-voting systems in nine counties. In Broward County, for example, some voters claimed that touch-screen systems presented incomplete ballots.
Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Florida Deputy Secretary of State Dave Mann, said that contrary to news reports, there have been no problems related to any of the touch-screen e-voting systems being used in the state during the early voting period. "The touch-screen systems have been operating as planned," Faraj said.
The only problems, she added, involved laptop PCs that were used to check voter-registration rolls in some counties. Those problems were fixed immediately by a simple reboot of the laptops, Faraj said.
Will Doherty, executive director of the San Francisco-based Verified Voting Foundation, said that despite Faraj's characterization of the laptop malfunctions as minor, his organization is aware of dozens of Florida voters who were turned away from the polls "because of that minor system crash."
Doherty also said there have been multiple reports of touch-screen calibration problems in Florida. Some voters have said that when they touched the screen next to their candidate's name, the screen highlighted the name of the opposing candidate, according to Doherty.
In addition to the Florida counties, localities in Colorado, Tennessee and Texas, as well as two-thirds of Georgia's counties, have experienced connection problems between their early voting sites and the central servers that hold voter registration databases, said VotersUnite, a nonpartisan voter advocacy group.
Alfie Charles, a spokesman for Sequoia Voting Systems, said it's important not to confuse a minor glitch in a voter-registration system with voting problems. All touch-screen systems are reportedly operating normally, he said.