Voting Machine Incident Roundup, 10/29

[cross-posted at the OurVoteLive blog.]

Since I'm an expert in election technology, I'm going to focus my comments here over the coming week about those kinds of issues. I'll do a periodic "Incident Roundup" where I highlight things interesting to an academic from the new incidents showing up in the OurVoteLive database.

Here are some that caught my eye this morning:

• OVL#11385: In a twist to the typical "vote-flipping" complaint, this Texan caller reports that the final screen said that her "vote may be not be valid". This voter likely voted on a Hart eSlate DRE which has an iPod-like "dial selector" and "enter" button instead of the typical touchscreen voting machine. I've never heard of an eSlate displaying a message like that. It could have been an error message from the voting system saying something about storage space, etc.
• OVL#10678: A caller from Illinois, who is also voting on an eSlate, complains that she accidentally cast a blank ballot. This is unfortunate and one of the first cases I've heard of where a voter on an eSlate accidentally cast a blank ballot. If I recall correctly, it should be pretty difficult to do this on an eSlate, with multiple warnings and clear evidence that your ballot is blank. Most of the reports we hear of a voter accidentally casting a vote early occur with older "first generation" DRE voting machines like the Danaher/Guardian ELECTronic 1242 or the Sequoia AVC Advantage.
• OVL#8984: A caller from New Orleans reports a possible case of vote-flipping. I wouldn't usually highlight such an incident as it appears pretty normal. However, the caller makes a good point: if you have a problem while you're voting and the poll workers on-hand aren't much help, what are you supposed to do? Well if you could use a phone in a polling place, you could call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Alas, phones are not allowed in many polling places, for very good reasons. I'd recommend that the voter request to make a phone call outside of the polling place and come back later to complete voting.
• OVL#8482: A Floridian calls and reports that their optical scanner is broken at that the ballots are being placed in a "black box" and that the poll workers will feed the ballots through the machine later in the day, once it is fixed. While this might seem alarming, especially if it is your ballot at stake, this is a pretty typical back-up plan in case the optical scan system goes down or the power goes out (and the system's battery doesn't last). When the scanner breaks, there may not be much of a chance to fix it unless the problem is relatively simple and there are technicians on-hand that can do the work. Jurisdictions plan for scanner failures by either buying scanners with integrated "emergency" ballot boxes or by providing a ballot box to each precinct that can double as an "emergency" ballot box. In some jurisdictions, these emergency ballots will be cast on that scanner later in the day when it is fixed or they will take the ballots to election headquarters and scan them using a high-capacity (central) optical scanner. So, don't fret if this happens to you. If you're concerned, you can ask the poll workers questions like: When will these ballots be counted? Is there a security seal on the ballot box that would show tamper-evidence if someone were to attempt to mess with these ballots? Are two people (hopefully from different parties) with these ballots at all times until scanned and delivered to election headquarters? (And, remember to be nice to your poll workers, at all costs... they work very very very long hours and are horribly underpaid.)
• OVL#8016: A caller from Georgia reports a troubling but increasingly common practice: poll workers "helping" people vote. Of course, poll workers are there to help; it's their job to help. But selecting choices and casting ballots should never be something that a poll worker engages in unless the voter cannot possibly perform these actions without assistance. Most jurisdictions allow someone to have this level of assistance if they request it, but poll workers should not do these things unrequested. As this incident highlights, it can be very upsetting if someone casts your ballot for you without your permission.