Glitches Prompt GOP Suit Over Fairfax Tabulations

[Oilwellian]

Oh! This is beautiful!! ROFLMAO!

By Eric M. Weiss and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 5, 2003; Page B04


Widespread problems with new touch-screen voting machines delayed election results in Fairfax County last night and led to a legal challenge by Republican officials.

Nine malfunctioning voting machines were removed for repair and then put back in service, a move that Fairfax Republicans said broke election law. Several hundred votes were under scrutiny, not enough to affect the outcome of countywide races.

A Circuit Court judge will hear arguments this morning on whether those votes should be set aside.

The new machines, meant to simplify voting, made the tallying of the votes more problematic. More than half of precinct officials resorted to the old-fashioned telephone to call in their numbers or even drove the results to headquarters, elections officials said. A handful of precincts resorted to paper ballots.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1397-2003Nov5.html

[bluestateguy]

1. Didn't they want these machines?

:eyes:

[Oilwellian]

2. The irony of it all...

it's just too delish. :D

[aquart]

3. Small, tight smile.

Oh, hell, no. I'm just gonna grin.

[Virginian]

4. Just about everyone had modem problems...

The machines worked well. Some seniors were a little uncomfortable but adjusted. There did seem to be a heavy presence of Republicans complaining in the afternoon and evening.
My guess is that the Republicans had planned to litigate the election if the voters didn't want their super neocon candidate. Her TV ads were not logical. They called the Dem "a liberal through and through." What is that supposed to mean? Fairfax is the Internet capital and therefore has one of the most educated populations in the country. Maybe they understand that "liberal" is not dirty word. You can't just float innuendos when you are trying to influence people who think for a living.

[Virginian]

6. solar flares happen

Could the solar flares have had any impact on any electronics today, or will it be a day or two before they influence earth?

[truthisfreedom]

8. there's been so many solar flares lately,we've been bombarded continuously

for days, and now that the biggest one on record just happened (tuesday, late) we'll be seeing more interference in coming days. it takes somewhere around half a day to a day for the interference to arrive, and it lasts for a few days.

[Gin]

16. Has the BBV issue been in the news up there in Northern VA?

I am in Va Beach and the first time it was covered was yesterday.
There was a glitch in Norfolk.

[MountainLaurel]

17. Was breaking news last night

On the 10 pm newscast, and the WP covered it this morning.

[jburton]

5. BBV Terra 'ists

This will be interesting...

Wash Post, baby...

Hopefully this will get picked up by the TV media as well, but it might be hard to contend with the Dean/Confed and Penn Street win.

[meow2u3]

7. fed2dneck to GOP: Be careful what you wish for

You're getting it--in your face!

[truthisfreedom]

9. kinda special. wouldn't it be fun if the GOP started pushing for printed

records? heh. gotta love it.

[farmboxer]

10. The Republican Manufactured And Programmed Voting

machines turned on their masters?! LOL! We won't see that happen very much. Republicans will fix the problem, yes, they will "fix" the election, then it will be OK!

[Robb]

14. Just the low-tier GOP

These are just the Repubs that are "out of the loop", too unimportant to get the fix. :eyes:

[SoCalDem]

11. Count on them to let us do all the "leg-work"

and then they will somehow turn it to their favor.. Probably the court will agree with them, and hand the election to them.. They must not have liked the results.. Maybe they were "promised" that those machines were "set up" just right :)

[dusty64]

12. Boo hoo!

Nothing like the machines screwing a rethug to get the ball rolling on this "voting" method. Really, how many other places have had strange and serious problems over the last few years and no publicity in the washington post. Anything that casts doubts on these is good for me, but isn't it funny.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. No, no , no...

any criticism of BBV is left-wing sour grapes. The Ohio GOP have insisted that this is the case.

David Allen
www.plan9.org

Diebold Voting Machines
We vote for you, so you don't have to!

[Virginian]

18. Fairfax machines are NOT Diebold!

Maybe that was their complaint that Fairfax didn't order the machines from Diebold and the GOP couldn't get the fix installed in the Fairfax machines.

Or (tinfoil hat time) they rigged it for an off year for the Dems in minor elections so the Dems wouldn't contest the big race next year.

The county seemed to lean GOP in previous elections, this was the first one that leaned to the Democrats since 2000. I think the WP showed only three Republicans won and one of those was unopposed; while nine Dems won with three unopposed.

[DesignGirl]

15. Norfolk Also

Our local news reported that several machines in Norfolk, VA had gliches at the beginning of the voting. They used paper ballots for a while, but the machines were "fixed" and voters were able to use them for the rest of the day.
What is surprising is that the reporters made it like a cute story and the "old fashionedness" of using Paper to vote. They seem to have no clue as to what could actually be going on with the modern touch screen machines.