Submitted by Ofer Inbar on Thu, 09/14/2006 - 12:30pm.
This Tuesday, a number of state held primary elections. One of them was Maryland, where the state tried all-electronic voting for the first time, using Diebold touchscreen voting machines and voter roll sign-in computers instead of paper pads. The Baltimore Sun summarized the outcome:
Maryland's first statewide run of an all- electronic voting system stumbled out of the gate Tuesday, with major glitches in Baltimore City and Montgomery County that frustrated thousands of would-be voters
They were too kind. "Clearly, there is something wrong with the way elections are run in Maryland", wrote the
Washington Post in a
scathing editorial:
In Baltimore, many people who tried to vote early Tuesday found polling places shut because election judges hadn't shown up for work. In Prince George's County, the Board of Elections inexplicably went home early yesterday morning without counting all the primary ballots. And Montgomery County endured not only the morning fiasco with inoperable machines but also chaos at night as election officials ran out of paper ballots for extended voting.
The Baltimore Sun adds,
In Baltimore, voters turning out early found locked doors and absent workers at polling places from Highlandtown to Mount Washington. Those workers who did report for duty on time
struggled with a balky new electronic voter list, which at times erroneously declared a voter had already cast a ballot. It was unclear how many voters were turned away, or
gave up when faced with long lines and computer glitches.
In Montgomery County, the problems and voting delays were even more widespread, as election workers failed to distribute ATM-sized key cards needed to operate the touch-screen voting machines. It took up to three hours to get the necessary cards distributed.
The Post includes a helpful Q&A of what went wrong in Montgomery. Computer Science professor Avi Rubin, who volunteered at the polls, gives us a detailed account of problems with Diebold on election day. And as usual, BradBlog has more.
What happens when voting machines and processes break down? In "The Mess in Montgomery", the Washington Post notes,
"With important local, state and federal offices at stake, some were questioning the legitimacy of the election even before the polls closed."
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