The e-poll books are supposed to be operated by tapping a small plastic stylus against the computer screens. The terminals are linked together and are used to register, among other things, whether a voter has shown up at the polls.
But during last month’s primary election, on occasion, one machine in a precinct would show voters as having cast ballots, while another would say they had not come to the polls.
To fix the problem, Diebold officials said yesterday the units could be operated with computer mouses and that they could provide the state with 5,500 of them in time for the general election. Or they could install new software and allow election judges to touch the screens.
During yesterday’s test inside the Marriott’s banquet hall, the mouses were in use. But one poll worker did not heed the warning to operate the equipment using only the mouse, causing the machine to lose contact with the five others it was linked to. It took less than 30 seconds to reboot the machine.
The inexplicable thing about this is that the Sun describes this as “a relatively smooth test.” But my question is: smooth compared with what? Paper ballots don’t have to be rebooted if someone touches them the wrong way. It’s not possible to vote twice with the same paper ballot. It may be the case that compared with previous Diebold tests, this one was relatively smooth, but compared with more traditional voting systems, Diebold’s machines are still an disaster waiting to happen.
Hat Tip: Techdirt
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