Reports of vote flipping from McCain to Obama in Decatur County, Tennessee:
Several Decatur County voters are concerned about problems with the voting machines at the Election Commission Office. Voters claim they tried to vote for McCain for President but the machine checked Obama instead.
At least three voters encountered the problem when casting their early ballot on Saturday morning. Franklin Boroughs says he intended to vote for Republican but rather the computer had checked the Democratic candidate instead.
Wanda and Barney Blasingim similarly said they tried to vote for McCain but the machine switched the vote.
“I noticed the problem immediately,†Wanda said Monday. She says she touched the “button†for McCain a second time and the problem was corrected. Her husband said he asked for assistance from election workers and was told the error sometimes occurs when a person’s finger touches close to the line of the box the candidate’s name is in.
While Blasingim maintains that his finger was not on the line, Election Commissioner Rick Box said the trouble may be that when a person is standing in front of the machine, it may appear their finger is poised over one button but it is actually closer to the button above.
“The way the machine is set up, when you are standing in front of it and seeing it at a certain angle, it looks like you are touching the middle (of the button) when you are actually touching the line above it,†Box said.
Box and fellow Election Commissioner Grafton Dodd tested the machines on Monday. Dodd could not be reached for comment but Box said he found the area of the screen where the buttons for President are located are extremely close together. He blames the problem in part on poor design by software programmers, and adds that there may be sensitivity issues with the screen itself.
Election Registrar Irene Campbell disagrees. She said there was no problem with the machines, though at the urging of state officials machine technicians were called in late Monday afternoon to investigate the problem.
Decatur County, NOT coincidentally, uses the same machines, the ES&S iVotronic, that are used in Davidson County as well as three counties in West Virginia (Ohio, Putnam, and Jackson) where vote flipping is also being reported. A map of voting machines in Tennessee county by county is at Tennessee.gov.
This is real. It’s happening. And it’s wrong. No matter what your party affiliation or ideology.
What’s even more annoying is that in case after case, election officials would rather blame the voter or deny the problem than fix it, fix it, FIX IT! Whether they do so out of insecurity or laziness doesn’t matter. We, the voters, entrust them to run our elections and we should be treated as most precious customers.
