10,000 Special Ballots Being Counted - A Crush of Voters and Unanticipated Turnout Caused a Shortage of Paper
Poll workers, “scared” of technology, refused to make touch-screen machines available, Miller said. “Some of our workers don’t like the electronic machines,” she said. “Some of them tried to hide them. . . . They will not be asked to return.”
About 10,000 people, who could not be found on the voter rolls or were not registered members of a party, submitted special ballots in the District’s presidential primary Tuesday, contributing to the ballot shortage that caused long lines and confusion at the polls, the executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics said yesterday.
… the District has one electronic machine for each precinct and depends more heavily on paper ballots. The ballots apparently did not fit in the sleeves and some ballots did not fit in the machines because they were not properly torn from their stubs. The stubs jammed some machines. Miller said the board would work to resolve the issues before the District’s September primary for local offices.
First, they have to review those 10,000 special ballots.
Sheila Parks: The right to vote, as well as the principle of “one person, one vote,� are cornerstones of our democracy. The anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, and civil rights movements as well as the expansion of voting to young people are all part of the history of electoral reform in this country. Equally fundamental is the assurance that each voter knows that her or his vote counts and is counted as intended. At this time in our history, many have lost confidence in our voting system.
Currently there is no government agency that regulates the voting machine industry in the United States. Roughly 80% of votes in the 2004 presidential election were cast and counted on machines manufactured by two private companies, Diebold and ES&S (Election Systems & Software, Inc.), both controlled by registered Republicans. There are two principal types of machines now in use: (1) touch-screens (DRE – Direct Response Electronic), on which no audit or recount is possible because they have no paper trail and (2) optical scans, which use paper ballots for the vote but are counted by central tabulators (particularly susceptible to fraud).

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