And So It Begins...

From the Albuquerque Journal:

Kim Griffith voted on Thursday— over and over and over.

She's among the people in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties who say they have had trouble with early voting equipment. When they have tried to vote for a particular candidate, the touch-screen system has said they voted for somebody else.

It's a problem that can be fixed by the voters themselves— people can alter the selections on their ballots, up to the point when they indicate they are finished and officially cast the ballot.

For Griffith, it took a lot of altering.

She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. "I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush's name," she said.

Griffith erased the vote by touching the check mark at Bush's name. That's how a voter can alter a touch-screen ballot.

She again tried to vote for Kerry, but the screen again said she had voted for Bush. The third time, the screen agreed that her vote should go to Kerry. ...

Michael Cadigan, president of the Albuquerque City Council, had a similar experience when he voted at City Hall.

"I cast my vote for president. I voted for Kerry and a check mark for Bush appeared," he said.

He reported the problem immediately and was shown how to alter the ballot.

Cadigan said he doesn't think he made a mistake the first time. "I was extremely careful to accurately touch the button for my choice for president," but the check mark appeared by the wrong name, he said.

Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said she doesn't believe the touch-screen system has been making mistakes. It's the fault of voters, she said Thursday.

Cadigan, for example, could have "leaned his palm on the touch screen and it hit the wrong button," she said.

In Sandoval County, three Rio Rancho residents said they had a similar problem, with opposite results. They said a touch-screen machine switched their presidential votes from Bush to Kerry.

Bureau of Elections Manager Eddie Gutierrez also said he doesn't believe there are problems with the machines.

'It's the voters'. Perhaps technically correct, but morally confused. The point of the technology is to allow people to vote. It isn't the point of people to enable the machines to work correctly.

Touch-screens are finicky, and no one has grown up learning how to use one, like we do with pencils and paper. I'm sure that, if you touch them in just the right way, they work fine. But people are not standardized, and will move their hands in all sorts of erratic ways. So, not only will this confuse people, because the machines aren't doing what they are told, undermining their confidence in the voting process, but it will also increase the amount of time it takes to vote. Imagine having to "correct" your candidate several times for each spot on the ballot, and taking the time to painstakingly make sure you got what you wanted. How many will just not notice, and mis-vote? We'll never know. What a mess.