Electronic voting machine glich

I've heard a lot of complaints (on both sides) of these machines doing this.  I think it's legitimate and the excuse that is often cited is that the machines need to have their screens calibrated.  Kind of like the old school touchscreen phones that you had to touch all the dots to calibrate the screen.

The good news is it's very obvious if your guy doesn't get selected so I doubt it's causing very many wrong votes, but it's still not cool.

I personally HATE the idea of electronic voting machines.  How the heck can they do a true recount without paper ballots.  i don't get into conspiracy theories about people changing votes on them, but seriously if somebody did how could you go back and audit them?  You can't.

I completely agree with you on this one.  I like my district.  we have a scan tron.  fast to count and paper so it can be recounted.

yeah.  I'm the same.

We do too and I think it's a good system.

My district uses a hybrid system.  You make your selections electronically, then it prints a paper ballot, which you confirm is accurate with your choices, and that goes into the "box" and your vote is recorded.  You don't handle the paper, you only view it through a window, but it's a decent method imho for dealing with the auditability and backup aspect of electronic voting.

Yeah, I've seen those.  Probably the best compromise.

Looks like something similar happened in my city - once on one machine at least:

Dave Brubaker, who voted at Countryside Christian Church, 1919 S. Rock Road, experienced technical problems with his machine when it repeatedly switched his vote from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama.

“I don’t think it’s any kind of conspiracy like people on the Web write about,” Brubaker said in a phone interview.

I never got to vote on one of those. I remember seeing them when I was in middle and high school and thinking they were very cool.  The term "pulling the lever" for someone just doesn't translate anymore. 

Same here.  The electronic machines that my district/county has are pretty simple, no touch screen, just simple LEDs next to the candidates.  Still an uneasy feeling when you press that "Vote" button, and the thing turns off.  It just doesn't exude confidence that the vote really goes anywhere.

And on the issues people have with the touchscreens, displaying a different vote makes no sense if you're trying to steal votes; seems you would not want to attract any attention.