RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Florida: The Fuck Up

West Palm Beach ballots are all kinds of FUBARed, once again. If anyone is going to make this thing complicated, it'll be us.

Again.

you're a pal and a confidant

NBC reports ballot confusion in Palm Beach
05:13 PM PT, Nov 4 2008

Tim Russert’s famous white board was reincarnated in another form tonight. Reporting from West Palm Beach, NBC correspondent Kerry Sanders held up a white piece of paper on air and quickly scribbled a diagram with black ink to explain why some voters there were confused by the ballot.

The tricky design had two boxes by the name of each candidate. Voters were supposed to fill in the space between the two boxes to indicate their selected candidate. Instead, Sanders said, some voters said they checked one box or put an X in the middle.

“Whether it’s a very close vote here in Florida, specifically in Palm Beach Country, that will then become an issue,” Sanders said.

Anchor Brian Williams shook his head incredulously.

“How many people are watching right now saying, 'Does it have to be this hard?' ” he said.

-- Matea Gold

thank you for being a friend.

that's crazy

Palm Beach County's ballot-counting machines off by dozens in tests
Rejected under-votes and over-votes tallied; totals off by dozens

By Brian Haas | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
October 2, 2008

Palm Beach County's high-speed ballot counting machines couldn't count the same ballots the same way twice in tests performed Wednesday evening.

As part of a challenge to a disputed judicial race, elections officials tested two Sequoia 400-C counting machines to see how they handled ballots they previously rejected as either over- or under-votes.

Gerald Richman, attorney for Circuit Judge Richard Wennet, has argued that the machines are unreliable and the election his client lost should be redone in November. William Abramson, who was certified by the state as the winner of the election Monday, declined to discuss the tests or the legal challenge.

"I'm just very excited to have been declared the winner," he said. "I'm very comfortable with the fact that this will be upheld."

The race for Wennet's seat took three sets of recounts and 30 days to sort out because of problems counting the ballots.

Wednesday's tests were simple. Election workers took 262 ballots previously rejected by the machines as over- or under-votes in the judicial race and ran them through two machines. All of them should have been rejected again in the tests.

That didn't happen.

On the first two tests of 160 ballots, the machines accepted three ballots as good votes. On tests on 102 more ballots that should have been rejected, the machines first accepted 13 ballots as good votes and then 90 on a second run.

Representatives from Sequoia Voting Systems were not at the test and could not be reached to comment Wednesday night.

Election officials did only limited tests on two machines because they're all scheduled to be reprogrammed, starting today, for the Nov. 4 presidential election.

Richman wondered what other problems the machines may have in counting ballots and said they need to be examined more thoroughly.

"The machines do not accurately count," he said. "As a voter and a citizen, I am very concerned."

Brian Haas can be reached at bhaas@SunSentinel.com or 561-243-6633.

we force you to secede from the union!

i live in a rural county, total population 27k, and we have zero trouble. why in this day and age, cant they get it right?

in florida, they vote using the plinko board on the price is right

Do they tally the votes using the mountain climber guy?

heh. florida went to obama...

jaaaaasooooooon!!!!!

I wonder when they will start investigating this issue?

Floriduh