Ohio’s Doing It Again
Well, I’m absolutely fascinated by the fact that the Main Stream Media doesn’t appear to be reporting anything about the fact that Ohio’s Primaries yesterday had major issues with the voting machines.
Akron’s NewsNet5.com reported that a judge ordered the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to keep the Garden Valley Neighborhood House polling location open until 9:30 p.m. when poll workers had trouble setting up equipment in the morning, which meant that that the polling place didn’t actually open until 1:30 p.m for voting. (Remember, Cuyahoga’s Board of Elections is under investigation for voting fraud from the 2004 elections.)
Plus, it turns out that about 17,000 absentee votes will have to be hand counted because of a problem with the optical scanners with the new electronic macines made by Diebold. One wonders why they weren’t tested ahead of time.
Cuyahoga had other problems aparently:
Because of some confusion at the polling locations, citizens were given ballots to fill out by hand, said Micheal Vu, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
“We knew there were going to be glitches. Eighty percent of our workers did a wonderful job. The other 20 percent, we had to mitigate,” Vu said. “This whole election is about process. We want the voter to understand their ballots will be counted>” [“Cleveland Polling Place Delays Statewide Election Results” (NewsNet5.com)]
Remember, part of the reason that they got into trouble for the 2004 elections is that they didn’t want to do a hand count. Karma is biting them in the ass big time.
At about 6:45 a.m. at Woodbury Elementary School in Shaker Heights, a resident left the polling location after growing extremely frustrated about the process.
On Cleveland’s east side at Beachland polling place, supervisors who were trained to set up the machines never showed up Tuesday morning. It took about three hours for workers to figure out things for themselves and get the machines operating.
At St. Dominic’s in Shaker Heights, the machines were set up but they didn’t work.
A technician was sent over to troubleshoot. She received directions via phone, but couldn’t fix the problem.
The switch from punch cards to more sophisticated technology was mandated by the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, prompted by the punch-card-driven mess in Florida following the 2000 presidential election.
Polling sites in all 88 Ohio counties were using either touch-screen electronic machines or ones that electronically scan ballots that voters have marked, eliminating punch-card ballots. Half the counties had their first election with the new machines in November. The rest got up and running in Tuesday’s primary election.[“Cleveland Polling Place Delays Statewide Election Results” (NewsNet5.com)]
And in a strange case of “Poll Rage” from Ohio:
CLEVELAND — A 61-year-old man was arrested after an alleged poll rage incident, NewsChannel5 reported.
Officials said Marc A. Fenster was arrested after he knocked over two voting machines worth $2,700 each.
They also said he assaulted a 17-year-old outside the polling place.
Fenster faces disorderly conduct, obstructing official business and resisting arrest charges.
It took several people to restrain Fenster, who was trying to vote at a 4330 Jennings Road.
It’s unclear what caused him to become upset. [“Poll Rage? Man Breaks Poll Machines At Polling Location” (NewsNet5.com)]
And the blogosphere is full of little antidotes, even if the Main Stream Media isn’t:
I just got off the phone with a friend in Ohio. He went to vote today in a Cleveland Heights (heavy Dem) precinct this morning. He showed up to vote at 6:30, when the polls open. After 15 minutes, 2 of the 9 Diebold machines were finally working, and he was able to vote. The poll workers didn’t know how to work the machines, and the “help line” calls went unanswered. The printed receipt didn’t work on any of the machines.
Over at another (Judson Park) precinct, guess what? Impossible to vote– the machines were just being delivered and assembled at 7 AM, 30 minutes after the polls opened. [“Problems with voting today in Ohio… surprised?” (MyDD)]
So, who thinks November is going to be any better? Really, the machines should have been set up ahead of time and everything should have been ready when the polling places opened. Everyone should have been trained ahead of time. There should not have been these kinds of problems. This isn’t conspiracy type things; this is pure incompetence. Michael Vu at Cuyahoga’s Board should be fired and his staff should be replaced with people who can do the job.
Extra Reading: The Brad Blog , blackboxvoting.org
tags: Ohio, Voting Irregularities, vote, politics
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