Fueled by concerns about "poor management and organizational incompetence," Maureen Murphy, vice chair of the county GOP and a member of the county Board of Review, said she has met with about 200 suburban election judges who detailed a litany of problems from the March 21 primary.
Among the issues, she said, were a touch-screen voting machine that "blew up like an M80" and had to be unplugged; machines showing votes that hadn't been cast; and machines not working at all. In one meeting she asked about 125 judges how many of them were confident that every vote at their polling place had been counted, and no hands went up, she said.
"We tell people every vote counts. But we do not believe every vote has been counted," she said. "This makes what happened in Florida, folks, look like a textbook election," she said, referring to the 2000 presidential election.
Election officials have agreed that faulty equipment led to Election Night mishaps, and they are pledging to withhold $15 million owed to the vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, until two investigations are finished. One will be conducted by an outside computer analyst, Langdon Neal, chairman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said.
Some elections officials just don't seem to be aware that the "Train Wreck" of failed elections is bearing down on their constituents. They've either got their eyes closed or they are open and the officials are like a deer in the headlights. It's time they all realize that there is a way out of this mess. They need to take action and stop making excuses for the vendors. They need to take that action very soon though. Secretary of State Rokita is doing his job and hopefully MicroVote and ES&S will realize that they must meet their contractual and legal obligations in Indiana. As long as officials like Secretary Ireland and the officials in Chicago/Cook County make excuses for their vendors, the voters in those jurisdictions will be losers as will the rest of the nation along with them. Maybe it is time for the voters to take the whole mess to court and tell everyone we are not going to take it anymore.
Until they do, I imagine, the coming train wreck will stay right on course"
Among the issues, she said, were a touch-screen voting machine that "blew up like an M80" and had to be unplugged; machines showing votes that hadn't been cast; and machines not working at all. In one meeting she asked about 125 judges how many of them were confident that every vote at their polling place had been counted, and no hands went up, she said.
"We tell people every vote counts. But we do not believe every vote has been counted," she said. "This makes what happened in Florida, folks, look like a textbook election," she said, referring to the 2000 presidential election.
Election officials have agreed that faulty equipment led to Election Night mishaps, and they are pledging to withhold $15 million owed to the vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, until two investigations are finished. One will be conducted by an outside computer analyst, Langdon Neal, chairman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said.
Until they do, I imagine, the coming train wreck will stay right on course"
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