A voter in Pennsylvania attempted to vote for Barack Obama this morning but the machine appeared to be a stout Republican and chose Romney instead. The voter then uploaded the video to YouTube with the following description:
My wife and I went to the voting booths this morning before work. There were 4 older ladies running the show and 3 voting booths that are similar to a science fair project in how they fold up. They had an oval VOTE logo on top center and a cartridge slot on the left that the volunteers used to start your ballot.
I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.
I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said “It’s nothing to worry about, everything will be OK.” and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.
There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I’m not a video guy, but if it’s possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.
Could it be the voting machine was simply broken or are we in for another debacle reminiscent of the 2000 Election all over again?
bystander
Its a mis-calibrated touch screen everyone. Calm the fuck down and think for a second. If you were gonna rig an election machine, why would you have it show the WRONG CANDIDATE AT ALL!
marc sfe
@bystander: Yo bystander – what if someone is NOT paying attention it could sway the election. And please, tell me how YOU know it’s not been rigged – the answer is you DON’T know because you’re not there. It would be quite easy to jack around with it, since it’s a piece of electronic equipment to do that. So no, we should NOT “CALM THE FUCK DOWN!!!”
Cam
@bystander:
Funny, you seem to have been all ready with your pat answer. Fact is, Tag Romney’s company is one of the connections supplying voter machines to some of the states. Is it false? Who knows, but don’t be so quick to assume everything is the voters fault.
bystander
I suppose I don’t KNOW its not rigged. I don’t KNOW the entire video isn’t fabricated. But why would anyone be so stupid as to rig an election machine in such a way as to so clearly leave evidence its been rigged? Its far more reasonable to conclude its a faulty machine. And as someone who has both worked with similar machines as an election worker for 6 years, and as someone who has owned any number of touch screen devices which at times click on the wrong place, I’m concluding the most reasonable explanation is the touch screen needs some calibration or has a dead spot. Giving the number of machines out there, its not surprising in the least.
bystander
I have the answer pat because I’ve already had this argument about this video before with people who have no idea what their talking about today.
Tagg Romney: (toke me 5 secs to find)
http://factcheck.org/2012/11/does-tagg-romney-own-ohio-voting-machines/
Ron Jackson
If nothing else the video is a good argument against this type of machine. Good grief it’s a touch screen. EVERY state should have machine read paper ballots that can be looked at later and verified.
It’s hard to believe in this so called bastion of liberty called the USA that we can’t have safe, secure, provable elections. How many times do we all have to have this argument?
2eo
Not surprising at all. Romney and his domestic terrorists and their sympathisers have done everything to end democracy, why not just end the election process and seize control and jail dissenters which they actually want.
GreatGatsby2011
One of the several reasons I request a paper ballot on election day. I’m all for reducing the use of unnecessary paper wherever we can, but the ballot box is not the place.
Just my opinion.
hyhybt
@bystander: Perhaps because it’s easier for whoever did it (if anyone; I’ve had similar problems clicking the right spot on my iPod) than either registering one thing but displaying another or altering the vote after it’s been cast?