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c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

Picked via Bruce Schneier's Cryptogram, the story of a massively electronic vote count fuckup, luckily paper ballots were available [boingboing.net]

_{Note: the original story ran on nytimes [nytimes.com], but I respect their choice to not let me read their stories with 'Do not track' activated}

Vote totals in a Northampton County judge’s race showed one candidate, Abe Kassis, a Democrat, had just 164 votes out of 55,000 ballots across more than 100 precincts. Some machines reported zero votes for him. In a county with the ability to vote for a straight-party ticket, one candidate’s zero votes was a near statistical impossibility. Something had gone quite wrong.

The worse news:

The machines that broke in Northampton County are called the ExpressVoteXL and are made by Election Systems & Software, a major manufacturer of election machines used across the country. The ExpressVoteXL is among their newest and most high-end machines, a luxury “one-stop” voting system that combines a 32-inch touch screen and a paper ballot printer.

The good news was that the chairwoman of the county Republicans realized the numbers made no sense and promptly initiated an investigation. When officials counted the paper backup ballots generated by the same machines, they realized Kassis had narrowly won.

How many trees still need to die until humans learn how to do voting properly? (large grin)

Original Submission