Oct 23, 2008 11:10 AM

ES&S Voting Machines in Tennessee Flip Votes

Touch-screen voting machines used in Decatur County, Tennessee, have been giving early voters problems this week by registering their votes for Republican presidential candidate John McCain as votes for Democratic candidate Barack Obama. At least three voters complained of the problem while casting their ballot in early voting last Saturday. It’s the same problem early […]

At least three voters complained of the problem while casting their ballot in early voting last Saturday.

It's the same problem early voters in several West Virginia counties reported having this week when they tried to vote, except their votes for Obama and other Democratic candidates were switched to McCain and other Republican candidates.

As I reported Monday, early voters in at least three West Virginia counties complained that when they tried to vote for Democratic candidates in the presidential, gubernatorial and senate races, the machines registered their votes for other, Republican, candidates instead.

The machines in question are all iVotronic touch-screen machines made by Election Systems & Software, the largest voting machine company in the country, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska. West Virginia's ES&S touch-screen machines produce a voter-verified paper audit trail that voters can review as they make their selections; the machines in Tennessee do not have a paper trail. All of the machines in West Virginia and Tennessee do, however, provide a review screen for voters to check their selections before casting their ballot.

The problems the voters described can occur when machines are miscalibrated or lose their calibration with transport, jostling and other conditions. West Virginia counties have re-calibrated their machines to address the issue they were having. But Teresa Bedingfield, deputy director of elections for Decatur County said two technicians examined the three machines they used for early voting and found nothing wrong with them. She told Threat Level the problem was voters who inadvertently touched the wrong part of the screen to cast their ballot. She said voters are supposed to touch a small box next to a candidate's name but that the voters who complained their vote was flipped didn't touch the center of the box.

"But (the machine) gives you several opportunities to go back and change any time you want to, and it has a review page," Bedingfield said.

Franklin Boroughs and his cousin Barney Blasingim, two of the voters who complained about the problem disputed this and said they were touching the center of the box. Both told Threat Level they were able to fix the problem the second time they touched the screen. They said election officials told them the problem was the design of the ballot -- the races were too close together -- and the height of the voters. Voters who are too tall don't have a good view of the ballot and might think they're touching the center of the box when they're not.

"(The machine) would be ideal for someone who is five foot tall," Blasingim said, "but if you're taller than that, even though you're touching (the box) in the center like you should. . . . That's what they told me."

Election Commissioner Grafton Dodd told the Decatur County Chronicle that he blamed the issue on poor software design and said the screens likely had sensitivity issues as well. He advised voters to review their choices carefully on the review screen at the end of the ballot. Voters are also being given the option of using a pointer tool to make their selections instead of using their fingers.

ES&S has not yet responded to a call for comment.

ES&S touch-screen machines have a history of problems, some of them having to do with calibration. In 2003, a Florida county returned more than 1,000 ES&S touchscreens because calibration problems caused the machines to think voters were touching one part of the screen when they were touching a different part.

In 2006 in Sarasota County, Florida, ES&S touchscreen machines were at the center of a disputed congressional race in which 18,000 ballots showed no vote cast in the U.S. Representatives 13th Congressional District race between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan. The undervote rate in the race was five times what is considered normal.

Calibration issues were suspected as the problem. Documents that Wired.com obtained showed that hundreds of voters had complained to officials throughout the day that the machines weren't registering their vote when they tried to vote for Jennings or registered a vote for Buchanan instead. Jennings lost the race by fewer than 400 votes.

Months before the election, ES&S had sent a memo to Florida counties saying the machines had a flaw that sometimes caused them to respond slowly to a voter's touch, but the county did little to address the issue before the election.

Jennings sued to uncover what went wrong with the machines but an investigation by the Government Accountability Office concluded that while investigators couldn't provide "absolute assurance" that the voting machines didn't play a role in the excessive number of undervotes that appeared in that race, the GAO's testing "significantly reduced the possibility" that the machines were responsible. Election officials blamed the design of the ballot, and said the location of the 13th District Congressional race on the page had caused voters to miss it.

[By the way, I want to remind voters who have problems casting ballots this year to send us their reports at vote@wired.com or add it to our election map so we can track and investigate issues that come up. If you're adding info to the map, please provide as much detail as you can to make it possible for us to verify the information. If you can provide us with your name and contact information to follow-up with you and get more details, that would be even better. If you don't feel comfortable putting your name on the map, contact us at vote@wired.com.]

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