Today was the first day of electronic voting machines in Allegheny County and there are reports of
machines failing across the county.
County Chief Executive Dan Onorato today said 120 machines wouldn't produce "zero-count" printouts to start the day confirming there were no votes registered in the machines
Onorato received 400 calls before noon, and by 11 AM twenty polling places were still having problems -
nine machines had their screens cracked during transit to the polling places
Other problems reported at the Federal Street precinct, St. Justin's Church on Mt. Washington, no machines started at St. Bede Church in Point Breeze, other problems reported from polling stations in Shaler, Emsworth, Lebanon and Pittsburgh's East Side.
Some waited up to 80 minutes. Most precincts with problems resolved the issue with paper ballots.
And good 'ol Rick Santorum was unable to vote at his precinct in Penn Hills "when an elections worker failed to show up." It seems the elections worker couldn't get a ride.
As of right now, 62 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties have swithced to EVM's. Allegheny County is using the Election Systems & Software's iVotronic, which is also being used in Beaver, Butler, Cambria, Greene and Westmoreland Counties.
Diebold's Accu-vote TSX is being used in Armstrong, Clarion, Somerset and Washington counties. And Fayette County is using the Hart InterCivic eSlate.
Nice to see we have a state-wide standard. That's at least 3 different machines being used in Western Pennsylvania. And it pleases me to no end that the solution to most of the problems so far has been by issuing paper ballots.
Yes, in the modern world, simple is just not good enough. It must be techonologically superior, complicated and prone to repeated errors.
If only we could build a better, more reliable paper ballot!
If more information becomes available I will post an update.
[Update] -
Surrounding counties also were reporting problems with the zero-count printouts.
Larry Spahr said 20 or 25 of Washington County's 185 precincts reported problems. Mr. Spahr is director of elections...
"Most of our problems have centered around the printer on each unit," he said...
Westmoreland and Butler county officials said they had few problems but almost all of them were with the zero tapes.