Voters in W.Va. Say Electronic Voting Machines Switched their Obama Votes to McCain

According to multiple news reports, voters in West Virginia say that electronic voting machines changed their votes from Barack Obama to John McCain when they cast their ballots during early voting last week.

Voters in Jackson and Putnam counties have related experiences that when attempting to vote for Senator Obama and other Democratic nominees, including Sen. Jay Rockefeller who is seeking reelection, the electronic voting machine placed the check mark next to the Republican nominee.

As Paul Nyden reports in the Charleston Gazette:

Shelba Ketchum, a 69-year-old nurse retired from Thomas Memorial Hospital, described what happened Friday at the Putnam County Courthouse in Winfield.

"I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican," she said. "I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.

"I asked them for a printout of my votes," Ketchum said. "But they said it was in the machine and I could not get it. I did not feel right when I left the courthouse. My son felt the same way.

"I heard from some other people; they also had trouble. But no one in there knew how to fix it," said Ketchum, who is not related to Menis Ketchum, a Democratic Supreme Court candidate.

Ketchum's son, Chris, said he had the same problem. And Bobbi Oates of Scott Depot said her vote for incumbent Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller was switched to GOP opponent Jay Wolfe.

"I touched the one I wanted, Rockefeller, and the machine put a checkmark on the Republican instead," Oates said of her experience Thursday.

Republicans who oversee elections in both counties blamed voters for not being more careful when casting their ballots. "People make mistakes more than machines," said Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright.

Nyden also reports that Jackson County voters had similar experiences last week:

Virginia Matheney, one of those voters, said Friday, "When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain."

Retired factory worker Calvin Thomas of Ripley said he experienced the same problem.

"When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude.

"After I finished, my daughter voted. When she pushed Obama, it went to McCain. It happened to her the same way it happened to me," Thomas said.

As unconfirmed reports of additional voting machine errors are coming in from Berkeley County, West Virginia's Secretary of State Betty Ireland (Rep.) denies that any shenanigans are occurring.

Sec. Ireland noted that the machines are programmed by Casto & Harris and not by county clerks or members of her office. Ireland said Casto & Harris "has been working with clerks for 35 years in West Virginia to handle our election matters". According to Ireland, a technician will visit both counties to double check the machines.

Sec. Ireland cited potential problems with how the machines are calibrated as they are set-up after being moved from storage. She also reiterated comments from the Jackson and Putnam County Clerks that voters may have touched the wrong part of the touch screen.

(There was no word whether "the wrong part" was actually the check boxes next to the Democratic nominees.)

Comments

[sueturney]

All the voting machines need to be jettisoned into never-never-again-land. In Canada, it's paper and pencil, you put your official vote in a box in the presence of 3 volunteers registered to 3 different political parties. Those boxes are guarded at all times by a 'tri-partisan' team. When the ballots are counted, reps from all parties are present. there's virtually no chance for fraud. Until the USA returns to good old paper and pencil, we can never trust the outcome of any election.

[k pr]

Being someone who has worked with and set up touch screens, the calibration is critical. Basically the screen needs to be aligned. If it is not calibrated; touching one area of the screen could result in an action being taken in another area of the screen, as described in the article.
That being said, negligence is still not acceptable. This comes from improper or slip-shod training of the staff. The machines should be set up by technical staff, not volunteers.
I also agree with RAWhite. Let's set national standards for elections, and not just the machines but also the whole process. Hell, there are even difference in the way polling places are run from county to county and from precinct to precinct, allowing for too much room for error by improperly trained volunteer staffs (by the way, kudos to those who do give of their time, I blame the system, not them) or for local political machines (as in political machine, not voting machine) to cause trouble.
Oh, and one other thing, Election Day should be a holiday and/or voting should run from midnight to midnight. This bullshit of a 12-hour window to vote when most people work 8 hours a day and probably have at least an hour commute is stupid.

[undrgrndgirl]

and so what happened to the votes? were they counted for mccain?? were they counted for obama?? what is being done to rectify the situation??

[mdk1]

Here we go again. If you're a Repub candidate, you can win with 50% + 1 vote, if you're a Democrat, you'll need 50% + whatever percentage extra (5%? 10%?) the voting machines (all manufactured by Republican-owned companies, natch) are rigged to steal. If they try to steal this one, I say rise up en masse and shut down the country until investigations are launched, the culprits are arrested and a new election is held!

[RAWhite]

Nationalize Voting Machines

A federal government monopoly would manufacture voting machines with the same degree of security enforced by the Treasury to print currency.
To further guard against tampering, the voting machines would be shipped under security to election commissions around the country. In between elections, their integrity would be safeguarded by storage in a secure federal facility.
The 2002 Help America Vote Act funds states to purchase or lease voting machines from private companies. The government would offer honest voting machines at little, or no cost. By furnishing all polling places with sufficient machines, people no longer will be forced to wait hours in line to vote. To minimize the inevitable delay causing glitches, the contract could provide for a standby technician on election day.

1- Because of the very reasonable doubt that voting machines will truthfully count their votes, in this election many people will not bother to go to the polls.
2- In a show of disrespect that does not go unfelt by those already alienated by the campaign, neither candidate has even mentioned, never mind offered a solution for, this widespread legitimate concern.
Ergo- A credible promise by Obama to nationalize voting machines - assuring the disillusioned that they will never cast in doubt another election - might well be the election issue to win over more than a few of those still undecided voters.

[redpepper]

This is not new people. The same thing was said about the machines in Ohio last time around.
Get real.