Horry Co South Carolina is now reporting that they had more problems than reported on Saturday. It seems that not only could they not get 80% of the machines to start-up on Saturday morning but many of those same machines could not be turned-off when the polls closed. It seems that the internal clocks were set for the ES&S iVotronics to be closed-out next Saturday evening following the Democratic primary. Those machines had to be taken to the county election office and the clocks had to be changed. The county was still counting ballots late on Sunday. I had a reporter call me from one SC newspaper. He asked how I felt about this delay in getting the results out. My response was that quick and early results were for the media not for the voter. We want our votes counted accurately; not quickly. It is, in part, the media that has driven election officials to waste our tax money on the purchase of machines that give some result as quickly as possible upon poll closure. It may not be an accurate number but it is a number that can be reported. Tomorrow the Republican South Carolina primary will be forgotten as all eyes turn to the next primary and the next potential disaster. ...

**"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or Scoop.**

Two weeks ago South Carolina election officials told their voters that they needn’t be concerned about the negative reports relative to the state’s chosen voting system, ES&S iVotronic DREs, that have come from Ohio and Colorado. Officials talked about how security in the state was top-notch. So yesterday, in Horry Co, the voting system melted down forcing voters to cast their ballots on any paper they could find. A state representative told the media even paper towels would suffice if necessary. OK, so the problem turned out to be what appears to be a human error again. Someone forgot to complete the last step of testing and the machines would not start at the polls without the testing being closed out. Early reports were that 80 to 90% or more of the machines in the county were affected. Today, one day after the meltdown, damage control has kicked-in and one media outlet is even saying that just 20 machines in the county were affected. But no matter, yes it appears to have been human error and that error may have affected 20 or 20,000 machines, the fact is that some voters went away from the polls without voting. The fact is also that state election officials provided the counties with a voting system that may be too difficult and too technical for use by someone without a computer sciences degree. I would lay better than even odds that an ES&S representative or two were there when the machines were tested and probably had an active role in that testing. Even they failed to follow the instructions and complete the process. Voting should be easy. Voters should be able to walk away from the polls with a feeling of pride in taking part in our democracy; not concern for whether the paper towel they voted on would actually by counted. The KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid - rule should apply....

**"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or Scoop.**

Voters went to the polls in Horry Co South Carolina this morning in hopes of casting their vote in that state’s Republican primary. Unfortunately testing of the voting machines had not been completed by the county and ES&S so poll workers were not able to start the machines. Over 80% of the machines used in the county sat dark until technicians could be sent out to get them cleared and ready for the voters. While county election officials were telling the media that no voters had been turned away, voters were telling the media the truth. Voters were sent away without voting.

Ohio SoS Jennifer Brunner has moved back a bit from her plans for November. Gone are her demands for vote centers and gone is her mandate for only central count. Now she will allow counties to use precinct based optical scan to unofficially count the ballots at the precinct level so they can compare those numbers to the official centrally counted tally. There is still no mention of accessible voting for voters with disabilities or federally mandated over vote protection. ...

**"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or Scoop.**

Direct Recording Electronic voting is on the wane. New Mexico has already gone from DREs to paper. Florida is in the process of making the change and will be there by Nov. Ohio may make the move from DREs to paper ballots before Nov. Colorado clerks in all but three counties want to go to vote-by-mail for all elections and their SoS has now flip-flopped over to their side. Maryland has now budgeted $6.8M to make the move. Yet officials in Northampton Co, Pennsylvania have decided to buy DREs from Sequoia and they won’t even have a vvpat printer. Even the vendors are beginning to admit that while they have made hundreds of millions of dollars selling flawed technology their time is coming to an end. Soon the DRE purveyor will go the way of the snake-oil salesman. But officials like those in Northampton need to look beyond their county border and realize there is a world out there and they can learn from more than just a “slick-willie” salesman who is selling them junk.

Tax payers in four California counties need to question their counties decision to file a wasteful lawsuit against the Secretary of State. How much San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Kern money was wasted in this attempt to not follow the rules? Kern stupidly announced they were joining the suit on Wed. and heard the tentative ruling against them on Thurs. That’s great planning....

John Gideon
Executive Director www.votersunite.org

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