|
Black Box Voting
The following are excerpts from the book Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering In The 21st Century. These examples help illustrate the concern with "black box" computer voting.
November 1990, Seattle, Washington--At one point several hundred ballots added to returns didn't result in any increase in the number of votes. But elsewhere, the number of votes added exceeded the number of additional ballots counted. A Republican candidate achieved an amazing surge in his absentee percentage for no apparent reason. And no one seemed to notice (until a determined Democratic candidate started demanding an answer) that the machines simply forgot to count 14,000 votes.
November 2002, Baldwin County, Alabama--No one at the voting machine company can explain the mystery votes that changed after polling places had closed, flipping the election from the Democratic winner to a Republican in the Alabama governor's race. "Something happened. I don't have enough intelligence to say exactly what," said Mark Kelley of ES&S. Baldwin County results showed that Democrat Don Siegelman earned enough votes to win the state of Alabama. All the observers went home. The next morning, however, 6,300 of Siegelman's votes inexplicably had disappeared, and the election was handed to Republican Bob Riley. A recount was requested, but denied.
It should be noted however, that not all anomalies were in favor of the Republican party.
November 1996: Bergen County, New Jersey--Democrats told Bergen County Clerk Kathleen Donovan to come up with a better explanation for mysterious swings in vote totals. Donovan blamed voting computers for conflicting tallies that rose and fell by eight or nine thousand votes. The swings perplexed candidates of both parties. For example, the Republican incumbent, Anthony Cassano, had won by about 7,000 votes as of the day after the election but his lead evaporated later. One candidate actually lost 1,600 votes during the counting. "How could something like that possibly happen?" asked Michael Guarino, Cassano's Democratic challenger. "Something is screwed up here."
|
