Re: no reason to suspect

[Lou Puls <lpuls@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Among some Tuesday problems:
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"... there were also several dozen voters in six states — particularly 
Democrats in Florida — who said the wrong candidates appeared on their 
touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said.

In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry but when 
the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead 
opting for President Bush, the group [Election Protection Coalition, an 
umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone 
hotline] said.

... Roberta Harvey, 57, of Clearwater, Fla., said she had tried at least 
a half dozen times to select Kerry-Edwards when she voted Tuesday at 
Northwood Presbyterian Church.

After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County 
resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to 
clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its 
eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts 
to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended 
selection.

... Election officials in several Florida counties where voters 
complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night.

A spokesoman for the company that makes the touch-screen machines used 
in Pinellas, Palm Beach and two other Florida counties, Alfie Charles of 
Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., said the machines' monitors may need to be 
recalibrated periodically"
Wed Nov 3,11:22 AM ET
RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer
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Hmm ... bad programming maybe? Is the recalibration necessary to keep 
the COUNTED checkout screen from showing up BEFORE the final submission, 
rather than the usual checkout screen the sucker voter thinks was voted? 
Does such a glitch only show up on a few outlier machines, while most 
"work" fine - forever leaving voters with the impression that their vote 
counted, and was counted. Sorry 'bout that.

Lou
--

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.   -- Albert Einstein