posted
Long lines, glitches reported during early voting High early voter turnout reported in many states across the country Some states report long lines and computer glitches Call CNN's Voter Hotline toll free at 1-877-462-6608 if you encounter problems
(CNN) -- In many states across the country, voting has begun, and in some cases, so have the headaches.
With the issues that marred the 2000 election singed into the electorate's collective memory, the reports of problems are troubling signs for many who are skeptical of whether their votes will count.
Forty-two percent of those surveyed in a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said they were not confident that their votes could be "accurately cast and counted." That number is up 15 percentage points from a similar poll conducted four years ago.
The poll was conducted October 17 through October 19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
As of Tuesday, 29 states were accepting early ballots, and election officials are reporting record turnouts. Voting problems, ranging from computer glitches to long lines, have been reported in a few states. Read about how the early voting numbers suggest a historic turnout may be in store
Florida has switched to its third ballot system in the past three election cycles, and glitches associated with the transition are causing headaches and long lines, election officials said. The state went back to using paper ballots this year after trying out touch screens.
"We're having problems with the poll machines," a voter in Jacksonville, Florida, told the CNN Voter Hotline. "They're not aligned correctly, so you're not sure about which candidate you're voting for, so they said they brought in 10 new machines as backup machines, but they've corrected the issue."
Part of the trouble stems from having to train election workers for the new system, said Buddy Johnson, the elections supervisor for Florida's Hillsborough County.
"When you've got brand new equipment and you're shifting from a touch screen, a digital system, to a more paper-oriented system, as we are this year, it's a familiarization process," he said.
Early voters are waiting for hours to cast their ballots as a result of the transition.
In Broward County, 17 of approximately 300 polling places are open for early voting, which ends November 2.
"Total disaster," said a voter in Florida's Broward County. "You get up there, and you waited three hours, and then the line totally stops. It's very frustrating."
On Monday night, one Broward County polling site closed at 10:30 p.m., three hours past the scheduled time, reported CNN's Sean Callebs. Watch Florida voters endure the long lines »
High turnout was causing long lines in other states, including North Carolina, Ohio and Nevada, states that are key to the electoral strategies of Barack Obama and John McCain's campaigns.
If early tallies are indicative of overall voter interest, it raises the question of whether states and counties are prepared for what might be a historic turnout on Election Day.
Voting machine troubles in West Virginia
In West Virginia's Jackson County, there were some reports that voting machines were accidentally recording the wrong vote.
"I went in there and pushed the Democrat ticket, and it jumped to the Republican ticket for president of the United States," said Calvin Thomas, an 81-year-old West Virginian. iReport: Tell us about your early voting experience
Thomas has voted in West Virginia in every election since Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in 1948.
The same thing happened to his daughter, Micki Clendenin, when she cast her ballot. In both cases, poll workers at the site had them touch the screen a few more times, and the voting machine changed their ballot to their candidate choice.
"The lady came in, and she was -- very nicely, she just said, 'it's just been doing that.' She said, 'just hit it again.' So we hit it again, and this time it did go to Obama," Clendenin said.
CNN's Brian Todd reported that at least five voters in two West Virginia counties said they encountered the same problem. State and local officials said that they were isolated cases and that poll workers fixed the problems so the correct vote was cast.
The machines were manufactured by an Omaha, Nebraska-based company, Election System and Software. The machines will be used in several states this year and were among those that had problems in Ohio in 2004.
The company said that it has inspected the machines in West Virginia and that no one there has cast an inaccurate vote.
The West Virginia secretary of state's office said most of the problems occur because the machines are not calibrated properly. Jeff Waybright, the Jackson County clerk, disagreed and said the problems reported there were probably the result of voter error.
"There are no problems with the machines as recalibrated," West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland said Wednesday, according to an Associated Press report. "Touch-screen voting in West Virginia is accurate and secure."
Ireland directed the state's county clerks to recalibrate their machines each morning during the early voting period and on Election Day.
In Georgia's Fulton County, several polling sites apparently lost their connections to the state's voter database, causing some long wait times for voters.
"We live in a country that can send a guy to the moon, but they can't get the computers up, so it's very discouraging for me," voter Quentin Cottrell told WGCL, an Atlanta-based news outlet. Read the full WGCL report
The Georgia secretary of state's office told CNN that the glitches were intermittent connectivity problems that did not involve voting machines. Election officials said the problems have been resolved.
Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel said the long lines were the result of robust turnout, generated by a high level of interest in the election.
"I'll be candid: Voters should expect some wait time," she said. "Voters understand that this is a truly historic election."
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Posts: 3311 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Are people dumb????? The whole point of early voting is for no lines. Why not wait and vote a couple of days after early voting starts? Sometimes I just don't understand. Are we as a society really this dumb?
Posts: 1458 | From: Ohio | Registered: Mar 2004
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"Florida has switched to its third ballot system in the past three election cycles, and glitches associated with the transition are causing headaches and long lines, election officials said. The state went back to using paper ballots this year after trying out touch screens."
Does this mean we're in for another cross-eyed guy checking for hanging chads???
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Posts: 3311 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by osubucks30: Are people dumb????? The whole point of early voting is for no lines. Why not wait and vote a couple of days after early voting starts? Sometimes I just don't understand. Are we as a society really this dumb?
Thinking just as you, I waited 'til the third day to avoid possible lines. I had to wait in line.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
From the news reports this afternoon, there are still lines most places even a couple of days after I voted.
As to that being good for Obama, yes, I think so, but!!!
Traditionally, blacks, latinos, young people, and newly registered people don't do a good job of actually voting and those are four of Obama's strongest groups of supporters.
We shall see?????
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I vote in every election, on election day. We almost never have lines here. Ohio must be doing something right.
Posts: 1577 | From: Ohio | Registered: Oct 2007
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posted
Not only should you be a property manager, you should be an ELECTION manager!
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Propertymanager: I vote in every election, on election day. We almost never have lines here. Ohio must be doing something right.
In Ohio, tens of thousands of people were denied the vote because they had to stand for hours and hours in lines in the rain in oder to get into the poling place, except in primarilly republican districts!!
Those were working people and parents. Life denied them the privilege of waiting in line long enough to vote, but the republican machine in Ohio is who denied them the vote.
You are not just a liar, you are a sick Party first, country later one.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Published on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by the Columbus Free Press (Columbus, Ohio) Hearings on Ohio Voting Put 2004 Election in Doubt by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
Highly-charged, jam-packed hearings held here in Columbus have cast serious doubt on the true outcome of the presidential election.
On Saturday, November 13, and Monday, November 15, the Ohio Election Protection Coalition’s public hearings in Columbus solicited extensive sworn first-person testimony from 32 of Ohio voters, precinct judges, poll workers, legal observers, party challengers. An additional 66 people provided written affidavits of election irregularities. The unavoidable conclusion is that this year's election in Ohio was deeply flawed, that thousands of Ohioans were denied their right to vote, and that the ultimate vote count is very much in doubt.
Most importantly, the testimony has revealed a widespread and concerted effort on the part of Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to deny primarily African-American and young voters the right to cast their ballots within a reasonable time. By depriving precincts of adequate numbers of functioning voting machines, Blackwell created waits of three to eleven hours, driving tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters away from the polls and very likely affecting the outcome of the Ohio vote count, which in turn decided the national election.
On November 17, Blackwell wrote an op-ed piece for Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times, stating: “Every eligible voter who wanted to vote had the opportunity to vote. There was no widespread fraud, and there was no disenfranchisement. A half-million more Ohioans voted than ever before with fewer errors than four years ago, a sure sign on success by any measure,” Blackwell wrote. Moon's extreme right wing Unification Church has long-standing ties to the Bush Family and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Additional testimony also called into question the validity of the actual vote counts. There are thus serious doubts that the final official tally in Ohio, due December 1 to Blackwell’s office, will have any validity. Blackwell will certify the vote count on December 3.
While Blackwell supervised the Ohio vote he also served as co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, a clear conflict of interest that casts further doubt on how the Ohio election and vote counts have been conducted.
At the Columbus hearings, witness after witness under oath gave testimony to an election riddled with discrimination and disarray. Among them:
Werner Lange, a pastor from Youngstown, Ohio, who said in part:
“In precincts 1 A and 5 G, voting as Hillman Elementary School, which is a predominantly African American community, there were woefully insufficient number of voting machines in three precincts. I was told that the standard was to have one voting machine per 100 registered voters. Precinct A had 750 registered voters. Precinct G had 690. There should have been 14 voting machines at this site. There were only 6, three per precinct, less than 50 percent of the standard. This caused an enormous bottleneck among voters who had to wait a very, very long time to vote, many of them giving up in frustration and leaving. . . . I estimate, by the way, that an estimated loss of over 8,000 votes from the African American community in the City of Youngstown alone, with its 84 precincts, were lost due to insufficient voting machines, and that would translate to some 7,000 votes lost for John Kerry for President in Youngstown alone. . . .”
“Just yesterday I went to the Trumbull Board of Elections in northeast Ohio, I wanted to review their precinct logs so I could continue my investigation. This was denied. I was told by the Board of Elections official that I could not see them until after the official vote was given.” http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-30.htm
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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i especially liked the part where Biden laughed at her questions...
he didn't seem all that p-o'ed to me...
canceling his wife interview is SOP after that kind of questioning...
equating this "spreading the wealth" comment with Marxism is worthy of being in Duck Soup...
hasn't it occurred to anybody that spreading the wealth literally means making more opportunities for the middle class, in the last year? the stock market has lost 7 TRILLION$ in market cap...
since Bush took office the middle class has LOST money.... that is fact.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Lieberman on Friday skirted a question on whether vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is ready from day one to be president, saying "thank God" she won't have to be.
Lieberman, I-Conn., who has helped prep the Alaska governor on foreign policy issues, said his pal and GOP presidential nominee, John McCain, is in good health.
"Thank God, she's not gonna have to be president from day one, because McCain's going to be alive and well," Lieberman said in a conference call with reporters.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
and? the honeymoon is over between John and Sarah:
Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image -- even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.
"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.[...]
Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.
"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," said a McCain insider, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign. [...]
"A number of Governor Palin's staff have not had her best interests at heart and they have not had the campaign's best interests at heart," fumed the McCain insider, noting that Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign."
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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McCain's Brother Leaves Campaign After 911 Flareup Joe McCain apologizes for calling 911 to angrily complain about traffic
Joe McCain said Friday he'll withdraw from campaign activities for his brother, GOP presidential nominee John McCain, after calling 911 to angrily complain about traffic. Joe McCain has apologized for making the call.
The candidate's younger brother, who lives in Alexandria, Va., told Washington radio station WTOP he was returning from a campaign event in Philadelphia around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18 when he got stuck in traffic on Interstate 495 at the Wilson Bridge. Police say the call was made about 1:30 a.m. Oct. 21.
Frustrated because of the traffic, Joe McCain called 911 to find out what was going on. The operator asked him to "state your emergency."
"Well, it's not an emergency, but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic's coming the other way?" Joe McCain said.
The operator asked him if he was calling 911 to complain about traffic. McCain then uttered an expletive and hung up the phone.
McCain told WTOP that he thought his cell phone was on mute.
After hanging up with 911, McCain said he called Alexandria police to ask them about the traffic on the bridge and got a similar reaction.
"I did not mean to swear at the officers themselves," McCain said. If he were in their situation, "it would have really frosted me too and I absolutely understand their reaction."
Joe McCain said: "I feel terrible about having hurt the campaign over this incident. I won't be doing any more campaigning because of that." He said he's going to write a note of apology to the 911 operator and to the Alexandria police and he hasn't spoken to his brother, the candidate, about the incident.
"He's not going to be happy about it, I'm sure," Joe McCain said.
McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said: "Joe McCain recognizes his mistake and has apologized. We are moving on."
One of John McCain's rallying cries in his campaign has been to highlight the concerns of Joe the Plumber, an Ohioan named Joe Wurzelbacher who has become the central thematic element in speeches by McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
They note that Joe the Plumber accused Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama of fostering tax plans that would keep him from buying the two-man company where he works.
McCain's brother has been in the news on other occasions recently.
Joe McCain, speaking at an event in early October in support of his brother, called two Democratic-leaning areas in Northern Virginia "communist country."
"I've lived here for at least 10 years and before that about every third duty I was in either Arlington or Alexandria, up in communist country," the younger McCain, a Navy veteran, said at an event in Loudoun County, Va. Joe McCain then apologized, but the remark reportedly drew laughter at the event.
About a week later, the candidate's brother sent an e-mail blasting the campaign's "counter-productive" strategy.
"Let John McCain be John McCain," Joe McCain wrote in the e-mail. "Make ads that show John not as crank and curmudgeon but as a great leader for his time."
McCain's brother was sharply critical of unidentified top campaign officials who "so tightly 'control the message"' that they are preventing reporters from speaking with those, like himself, who know the candidate best.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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