Voting Machines

WOLF BLITZER declared recently on CNN that in the primaries, "some states are already finding serious problems with their electronic voting machines, and they are ready to give E-voting a grade of F. " On Election Day 2004, the Verified Voting Foundation had more than 500 reports of E-voting problems, including malfunctioning machines, ill-trained poll workers and an inadequate supply of terminals. The lever machines of the past had problems at times with preserving votes, but after being replaced in some places with punch cards, decades went by with little demand for any changes.

Camden County election officials yesterday conducted a court-ordered count of votes that went missing after poll workers forgot to retrieve electronic cartridges from voting machines on Election Day. The count, which took place in a warehouse where the machines are impounded after the election, didn't change the outcome of any race or public question, said Ken Shuttleworth, spokesman for the county government. The count discovered the votes of 114 people who voted on electronic voting machines in Camden and in Gloucester City, Shuttleworth said.

A Superior Court judge yesterday ordered eight Camden County voting machines whose totals were not counted on Election Day to be opened and the computer cartridges that record votes to be removed. County elections officials said the votes would be counted next week, with revised totals expected on Tuesday. The uncounted votes are not expected to change the results of any election, officials said. The voting machine cartridges - from Camden, Gloucester City, Winslow Township, Cherry Hill and Pennsauken - are impounded for 15 days after an election, said Elections Superintendent Phyllis Pearl.

New Jersey's attorney general yesterday asked a judge to open eight Camden County voting machines whose votes were not retrieved by poll workers after the election Tuesday. Camden County election officials had said they would ignore any votes cast on the machines, which poll workers mishandled on election night, for now. But after The Inquirer raised questions about that decision, Attorney General Anne Milgram's office yesterday petitioned Superior Court to open the machines and keep any votes from being disregarded.

Distasteful how bakers ignore trans-fat risks Re "Just for tradition's sake, trans fat might stay," Oct. 11: Trans fats kill or disable by heart attack or stroke. That is a fact. So what we have is a gang of greedy merchants who sell pound cakes, cannoli, chrusciki or other killer pastries and are asking for the right to continue killing and disabling. In the article, one of these merchants said she represented "the blue-collar bakeries" whose customers could not afford higher prices.

I have made a point, in recent elections, to ask for paper verification of my vote, but I always know the answer in advance: "We can only verify that you voted; we can't show you how you voted. " This year, the poll worker remembered me and declared, "This is an honest shop. " I assured him that I trusted the good citizens on duty, but I did not have the same level of confidence in the integrity of electronic voting machines (a.k.a. computers). I learned later to my surprise that New Jersey already had passed voter-verified paper record legislation in 2005.

If the presidential election were held today, a quarter of America's registered voters would vote on paperless voting machines that couldn't be checked or recounted in any meaningful way. That's a problem. These machines, known as DREs (for direct record electronic), record votes directly to computer memory and provide no other way to verify or retrieve that information. If the machines crash or malfunction, votes would be lost. A hacker's attack could easily go undetected.

Two Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices - Thomas G. Saylor and Ronald D. Castille - got it right last week: They sided with Philadelphia voters' right to have their say on whether to limit where casinos can be built in the city. So it's troubling that the five other members of the state's top appellate court appear willing to entertain the notion that a duly-authorized City Charter change referendum can be struck from the May 15 ballot. The court's 5-2 majority decision on Friday to put a temporary hold on the referendum means citizens could be denied even the right to vote on the charter question - up or down.

A divided state court turned down efforts by the Department of State to dismiss a legal challenge to the use of touch-screen voting machines in Pennsylvania counties. The four-judge Commonwealth Court majority opinion issued Thursday keeps alive a lawsuit that seeks to stop the use of electronic voting machines and order Secretary of State Pedro Cortes to establish new criteria for testing them. "Electors allege that the machines are not reliable or consistent in recording votes cast and that electors have no way of knowing whether a [direct-recording electronic machine, or DRE]

One day into a manual vote recount, Republican Shannon Royer had a slim lead over Democrat Barbara McIlvaine Smith in the race for the 156th District state House seat - and control of the state House. With less than half of Chester County's 23,000 ballots tallied, Royer leads with 5,236 votes to Smith's 5,141. Not included in that count are nine ballots that are missing and 15 others that have been challenged. And Clifford Levine, an attorney for the Democrats, said Smith had actually gained two votes in the counted precincts.