You will remember the wonderful company Election Systems & Software from the 13th Florida Congressional District where their machines appear to have eaten or blocked about 15,000 predominantly Democratic votes.
FL-13
Then there was the story everyone thought was funny about the candidate in Arkansas who got no votes and his wife asked if he had voted for himself. Randy Wooten
Now there is a county where ES&S has magically catapulted the turnout from 49% to 83% (by far the highest in the state), incidentally changing a race from a Democratic victory to a Republican victory and at least one precinct with over a 100% turnout.
Benton County, Arkansas
Cheryl Murphy [ran for] District 2 justice of the peace candidate. Revised results released Thursday showed Murphy had lost her race to Republican Frank Winscott. Tuesday's results first showed she was winning and later showed she would face a runoff with Winscott.
Tumey [Murphy's spokesperson] said she is prepared to file an injunction to stop the Election Commission from certifying the election. She said she and McCarthy looked over the results together. Some, such as a Rogers precinct with more than 100 percent voter turnout, alarmed both of them. He then gathered the voting system's computer disks and flash drives and told her he was headed to the Election Systems & Software office in Little Rock, she said.... An employee who answered the telephone at the Election Systems & Software office in Little Rock said he could not speak to the media. Election Systems & Software media representatives in Omaha, Neb., where the company is based, said they were not aware of the situation and could not comment.
A close analysis of Thursday's results show in two races, more people voted in a mayoral race than live in the town, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's July 2005 estimates. In Gateway, a town of 122 people, 199 votes were cast in an uncontested mayoral race. In the Pea Ridge, 3,997 votes were cast in a contested mayor's race for the city of 3,344 people.
I don't know there is anything important enough about any of the Arkansas races to lead anyone to deliberately bugger the machines, but it seems clear that these machines need to be taken off the market and the manufacturer sued by the governments involved for breach of the warranty of merchantibility.
Another clear indication that the FL-13 results need to be thrown out and started over again. Unfortunately, I don't suspect this can be used in the Florida litigation.
How many other races around the country came out the wrong way because of these voting machines?