Voting machine problems

So there are reports that some electronic touch-screen voting machines are registering votes for the wrong candidate.

Apparently, if you finger is slightly off, but mostly in the right place, it was registering a vote for Obama as one for McCain. It seems it could have gone the opposite way depending on the order of the candidates.

They showed the machines on CNN, and the part you press to choose your candidate is pretty small. It looks like it would be easy to have a lot of "fat finger" syndrome going on.

Electronic touch screen voting machines should have LARGE SPACES between choices so it's hard to accidentally push the wrong one. There really needs to be standards of usability put in these things.

I'm glad they use scantron type things here. That makes it easy to get a result fast, and leaves a paper trail and it's not super easy to accidentaly vote the wrong way. You don't get things like hanging chads, that's for sure!

Is that in West Virginia?

I think that's what they said, but I'm not sure.

yeah, I saw that. Disturbing. Fortunately, I think people will be like "HELL NO I'm not voting for McCain! Fix this NOW!" lol

lol I know I would

I just seen that on cnn

Yeah they were talking about it on the radio here, too

Electronic voting machines should be allowed under one condition:

The machine must produce a piece of paper with the candidates' names printed onit, and this piece of paper is the ballot actually turned in and counted.

Electronic vote tallying should be summarily outlawed.

yeah, there's needs to be physical evidence of the vote. And I think there should be a bar code that generated for each voter on that paper containing the voter info like who they voted for. That way the receipts can be put through a machine that can scan and tally the physical votes.

I think it is user error I saw it on the tv and the guy demonstrated what happened. If you have a little tiny bit of your finger on mccain it votes for him instead of barrack.

Apparently people these days are too incompetent to point and click properly. The last several elections I've voted in have been electronic ballots. There's a screen that you confirm your vote on before you submit.

I suppose if you are too uncoordinated to place your finger on the correct area and too slothful to double check your vote that this could be a problem.

thats the only thing I am worried about is people not checking to make sure Obama is highlighted.