Not again

From today's Miami Herald-

After a week of early voting, a handful of glitches with electronic voting machines have drawn the ire of voters, reassurances from elections supervisors -- and a caution against the careless casting of ballots.

Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step.

Election officials say they aren't aware of any serious voting issues. But in Broward County, for example, they don't know how widespread the machine problems are because there's no process for poll workers to quickly report minor issues and no central database of machine problems.

In Miami-Dade, incidents are logged and reported daily and recorded in a central database. Problem machines are shut down.

There have been problems up here in Palm Beach County also, but with machines not working or being slow. Back to the Herald article.

Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.

That's exactly the kind of problem that sends conspiracy theorists into high gear -- especially in South Florida, where a history of problems at the polls have made voters particularly skittish.

That makes me skittish too. I don't like Davis, but I want a fair election. The article also notes problems in Broward County. Can Florida ever pull of an election without controversy or voting machine foul-ups?

Rick at SOTP has more commentary. He doesn't believe the mistakes are coincidental. Hmm......
Linked to- Third World County, Bright and Early, Right Wing Nation,