Election 2008: Live blog

Computerworld's Election Day live blog:

8:40 PM EST --Patrick Thibodeau reports: Secret e-voting booth video: 'I'm seeing some strange things' ... Software tester takes camera into Virginia booth, comes up with 'failed' (see video within)

6:34 PM EST -- Computerworld's e-voting wrap... E-voting '08: Problems, yes, but it could have been worse

6:14 PM EST -- Breaking... full story to come from Patrick Thibodeau: A person who identifies himself only as a “former software quality assurance tester” voted in Fairfax, Va. He brought a video camera into the voting booth and for eight-and-half minutes tested the electronic voting system by repeatedly tapping on various voting choices and navigating between screens. He says nothing during testing –- just follow what he does –- until about 7:45 into the film, when he says: “I’ve seen some strange things." It's the only comment he makes. The title of his video: "WINvote Electronic Voting Machine Quality Assurance Tests? FAILED"

6:08 PM EST -- Update from a spokesman from election office in Texas, where there were some concerns raised by early voters: "We've had a very good day."

6:00 PM EST -- For some scope on the e-voting problems ... the BBC reports "There were reports of glitches with electronic voting machines in states including Florida, Ohio and Virginia. But most were minor malfunctions thought unlikely to disrupt the process in any systemic way."

5:54 PM EST -- Despite all of the voting problems, media outlets are gearing up to call the election as soon as 8 p.m. Eastern, reports NYTimes.com.

5:49 PM EST -- A lack of tech support may have caused voting delays many polling places. In South Norfolk, Va., voters were not allowed to cast ballots for one hour after the polls opened because of problems with the electronic system used to look up voter names and addresses, The Virginian-Pilot reports. The systems weren’t set up properly, but were fixed after technicians arrived. In other states, optical scanner jams were a common source of problems, requiring repair. The backup system is for poll workers to simply hold on to the ballots until the scanner is fixed, but there’s a risk that the voter error rate can increase. A voter who scans in their ballot will be able to fix any problem identified by the scanner.

5:00 PM EST -- Pat Thibodeau reports... Robert Guess, an assistant professor who teaches computer security at Tidewater Community College in Norfolk, Virginia, has “absolutely zero faith” in the security of the electronic voting system that he voted on today in Virginia Beach. The lack of paper trail especially troubling, and he would rather see the state adopt paper ballots with optical scanners. But he did give the electronic voting machine credit for usability; in one contest, when he voted for only one of two possible choices, the system flagged that in a red color, he said. It also presented him with a summary of his vote.

4:46 PM EST --OurVoteLive.org, the voting problem tracking site we've been following, has reported its own tech glitches today.

4:41 PM EST -- What state has the most voting machine problems? asks Pat Thibodeau. It's Virginia. It has had problems with broken electronic machines as well as issues concerning the usability of the ballot on the screen, said Joshua Smith, a spokesman for Our Vote Live. The problems resulted in a least one voter line that was seven hours deep, he said. Problems with Florida’s optical scanning machines, may put that state number two on the list.

4:35 PM EST -- In its national update, Jon Greenbaum, the Election Protection Coalition’s legal lead, said problems reported with machine votings in Florida, California and other states today show that that the election community has not been able to come up with a satisfactory system for machine-voting. As far as solving the “machine problem” for elections, “All we’ve done is gotten rid of punch cards and lever machines” but not the issues with the machines themselves, he added. “Some of that is due to problems within the machines themselves, and some is due to issues involving humans,” he said. "This is an areas that really calls out for some investment in terms of technology; greater uniformity would also help. If we had greater uniformity for the type of technology that is being used it would be easier to fix problems. Take Virginia ... you have eight or nine different types of equipment being used. You can’t take voting machines from one jurisdiction and have another jurisdiction that needs them use them. You can’t have the state stock up because there are too many different types of machines used.”

4:15 PM EST -- Nancy Bignell, assistant supervisor of elections in Manatee, Fla., told the Herald Tribune that voters at a church in Palma Sola had to have their ballots collected and stored in an “emergency compartment” on a voting machine because the machine was malfunctioning. The ballots will be entered when the polls close at 7 p.m., she added. She invited any voter to return to the poll at 7 p.m. to watch their ballots being scanned, reports Heather Havenstein.

4:07 PM EST -- Early voters in at least eight Texas counties told election officials that e-voting machines were "flipping" on Friday, but on Election Day elections administrator Javier Chacon told the El Paso Times that the voting process in El Paso county had been "going great." OurVoteLive.org reported six voting machine problems as of about 3:30 EST. The Secretary of State's office has not yet returned calls about any not-yet-reported electronic voting problems.

3:55 PM EST -- Patrick Thibodeau reports... Virginia may get today's weirdness award. inRich.com, a lively local news site, quoted Richmond Registrar J. Kirk Showalter with this memorable line: "It's not like part of the ballot dissolved." She said that in response to a question about the reliability of voting machines. Other items: Two poll workers from opposing campaigns got in a fistfight for reasons unknown. One electronic machine didn't bring up the ballot in a U.S. Senate race; optical scanners jammed, and a wireless network that was suppose to turn a voting machine on, didn't. Long lines and traffic were an issue at many polling places. "We're going to have problems all day," one Richmond police officer said. An understatment no doubt.

3:50 PM EST -- Heather Havenstein reports from a watchdog's national update... Jon Greenbaum, legal lead for Election Protection Coalition, said at 3:30 p.m. that Florida -- which has gone statewide with optical scan machines -- has had “massive breakdowns” of these machines. The coalition has gotten more than 35 reports in 15 counties of machines breaking down, he added. “They were putting the optical scan ballots into the optical scan machine [and] it wasn’t working,” he said. “They started putting the ballots into a lock box in the machine. So many people have voted, and this began happen so early in the day, that the lock boxes began to overflow. A lot of [poll officials] have been putting ballots in duffel bags. They are putting these ballots on the floor -- not the most secure place.”

3:45 PM EST -- The San Francisco Chronicle reports that in Orange County, Calif. some 400 people were on alert in case problems were reported with the all-electronic voting system, said Brett Rowley, community outreach manager for the county registrar. "We've got paper ballots as a backup," he said. Reports said voting officials reported waits of less than an hour. Machine problems totaled 45 at 3:45 EST, according to Our Vote Live.

3:40 PM EST -- Computerworld's Valerie Potter reports in Voting technology: Arrows vs. ovals for optical scan ballots of her experience in Alameda, California. Mike Barton: Mine were oval-only in Folsom, Calif. and there were a few elderly folks at my polling station. Wish we had the arrows...

2:39 PM EST -- Colorado Secretary of State spokesman Rich Coolidge said that no problems had been reported across the state at about 2:30 Eastern. Colorado's counties use "all of the above" -- from OCR to touchscreen machines. "Everything is going very smoothly," Coolidge said. OurVoteLive.org reported two equipment problems for the state.

2:30 PM EST -- Heather Havenstein reports: Michigan voters are continuing to report massive voting machine malfunctions at more than 20 locations, says the Election Protection Coalition. These malfunctions have resulted in long lines forming, discouraging some voters who are leaving before voting. Some voters are being asked to visit other polling stations because of the malfunctioning machines. Grosse Pointe Woods City Clerk Lisa Hathaway told the Detroit Free Press that the complaint about voting difficulties in her city was the result of two malfunctioning ballot tabulators. The machines were rejecting ballots, but began accepting them again when a blocking device was removed, she told the newspaper. "They were down for about an hour, and the problem was fixed," Hathaway said. "The voting process never stopped." While the lines at those polling places were long, it was more about high turnout than the broken machines, she said.

1:49 PM EST -- Patrick Thibodeau reports: The electronic voting machines in New Jersey are suppose to make a chriping sound after the voter presses the "cast vote button," but that's not happening in Princeton, NJ., according to Andrew Appel, a professor at Princeton. "Configuring the machines in this way is not a good idea. It makes the voters more uncertain about whether their vote was cast, and it makes it easier to inadvertently or deliberately cast extra votes," he wrote on the blog, Freedom to Tinker. Appel has been an expert witness in the ongoing lawsuit about the electronic voting machines in that state.

1:43 PM EST -- It looks like fairly smooth sailing in the "Gold Standard" state for e-voting, California, which uses paper forms and OCR.. Our Vote Live reports only 28 equipment problems...

1:35 PM EST -- LOL, from The Onion... E-voting machine becomes president ... DRE700 came out of nowhere to defeat Barack Obama and John McCain and become the first machine president..

1:20 PM EST -- Of the 6,801 voting problems logged by the Election Protection Coalition as of 1 p.m. Eastern, 1,127 were related to voting equipment problems, second to polling place problems and registration problems.

1:15 PM EST -- From Colorado (key battleground state) ... Boulder County’s election officials are predicting smooth sailing Tuesday, despite a "paper dust" flaw they’ve discovered on some ballots that could result in inaccurate results if they’re not properly inspected.

1:06 PM EST -- More from Patrick Thibodeau's report on VA ...The usability and design of the voting screen interface is a problem, said Thomas. On the right hand side of the screen, local and state candidates are listed. He made his choices and hit “next” and was taken to a screen where he was asked to confirm and finish voting. But Thomas hadn’t yet voted for president. Thomas returned to the initial screen and then realized why he missed the presidential candidate listings. The check boxes on the right hand side for local and state candidates were much larger than those for the candidates for president. “I almost voted without actually voting for president,” he said.

1:06 PM EST -- Election Protection will call for the voting hours in Virginia to be extended by 2 hours. See problems, reported by CW and The Caucus, below.

1:00 PM EST -- CW's Patrick Thibodeau reports... In Virginia, David Thomas, a retired Veterans Administration social worker, voted today in Henrico County near Richmond, using an electronic voting machine for the first time. In his polling place, one of the machines was inoperable. He said he heard overhead poll workers talking about it, with one worker, suggesting that “‘if you pull this lever that might get rid of the results that are in it so far.’ “Thomas believes the poll worker was joking around, but he has little confidence in electronic voting. “Anybody who has a computer knows how easy it is to screw things up,” he said, in a telephone interview. Thomas also wrote about his experience on his blog, Virginia Breeze.

12:58 PM EST -- CW's Heather Havenstein reports... A spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State's Office, says the state is not seeing widespread problems with voting machines. Before the election, during testing of the machines, the state found "some areas where we didn't perform some routine maintenance," but those issues were resolved before the election. While there may been some isolated reports of a scanner jamming, the spokeswoman said that poll workers can easily swap out one machine for another. "The voters are not delayed," she added. "They are not unable to vote."

12:48PM EST -- Factoid: 60% of the country now using optical scan, reports MSNBC

12:41PM EST -- CW's Todd Weiss reports: Ohio Secretary of State spokesman Jeff Ortega says that with an expected voter turnout of 80%, there were some delays of up to an hour at some polling places, but that most lines have been much faster than that across the state. By noon EST today, there have been "no major problems to speak of in terms of activities at the polls" across the state, he said. The problems that have occurred include "some minor hiccups in various places around the state" related to the voter-verifiable paper trail print-outs that are attached to the touchscreen e-voting machines, he said. In some cases, it has taken some time and several attempts to get the paper to feed.

12:37 PM EST -- The Election Protection Coalition has received more than 1,000 calls from voters in Georgia with voting problems. In some precincts, voting machine
breakdowns and power outages are causing long lines, and voters are being given paper ballots, the coalition said.

12:32 PM EST -- Just in at CW... Problems with e-voting arise early in key battleground states... "Problems with e-voting machines were reported early on Election Day in several U.S. states, including Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia."

12:26 PM EST-- More from The Caucus report: "In Pittsburgh, Pa., some lines were stretching several hundred voters long by 7 a.m. In Philadelphia, lines were equally long and at one polling place on in the east side of the city several voting machines were not working because there was no extension cord available to help them reach the electrical outlet."

12:24 PM EST -- NY Times' The Caucus blog: Virginia voters said they encountered broken touch-screen machines and paper jams in the scanners that are supposed to read the ballots at polling places in Richmond, Alexandria, Newport News, Chesapeake, and Vienna. Polling places in Virginia Beach were not opened at 6 a.m. when they were supposed to be...

11:51 AM EST --In Florida, some voters are reporting major concerns with optical scanners that are either not working or have jammed, according to reports from the watchdog group, Election Protection Coalition. Ballots that may have a rip or have been folded seem to get jammed, according to the group.

11:45 AM EST -- In Henricho, County, VA., five of seven e-voting machines broke down this morning at one polling place, according to the Election Protection Coalition. Voters had to wait in line for four hours because the registrar had not provided paper ballots. As of 11:30 a.m. that poll still did not have paper ballots, the coalition said.

10:54 AM EST -- A spokesman from the Louisiana Secretary of State's office said that the state has not experienced any e-voting related problems so far.

10:52 AM EST -- The watchdog group, the Election Protection Coalition, is reporting "dozens" of calls from across Virginia of machines breaking down and in some cases voters not getting paper ballots. Other problems include poll workers issuing provisional paper ballots.

10:45 AM EST -- In Michigan, some voters are reporting malfunctioning machines, resulting in long lines and in some cases poll workers administering paper ballots to get votes tallied, according to callers reporting problems to the non-profit election watchdog group, the Election Protection Coalition. Other callers reported that election officials were not equipped to resolve machine malfunctions, according to the coalition’s site.

10 AM EST -- In Kansas City, Mo., the Kansas City Star newspaper is reporting problems with voter registration lists at various polling places. The lists are apparently missing the names of registered voters, according to the report.

8:50 AM EST -- Guam completed voting at 5 a.m. EST. The island, a seven hour flight from Hawaii, is known as the place where America's day begins, is using paper ballots. The island has 100 electronic voting machines but they aren't being used because of a need for training, public education and testing. Tabulation is still going on the island.

8:48 AM EST -- CNN is reporting that voting machine problems in Richmond, Va., have forced a switch to paper ballots at one location, the Math and Science Center in Richmond.

8 AM EST -- E-voting problems are being reported across many areas of Virginia, according to a report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Web site, InRich.com.

Reports of problems include paper jams and e-voting machines that are not working at all, according to the story. Other reports said that only one of seven machines in a polling place was working at Godwin High School in Henrico County, while other machines in at least two locations did not provide a place to make a selection in the presidential race, according to the site.

"They set me up in front of the computer and I got no help," said Nancy Scheie, 66, of Buchanan in Botetourt County, according to the report. The e-voting machine she used at Buchanan Elementary School did not give her a chance to cast a vote for president, taking her instead to the Senate and U.S. House of Representative races, the report said. "The screen for president never showed up. I complained, and they said I'd already cast my vote for president. I feel like I've been duped, like I've been totally taken advantage of. I was so excited about voting for president because I'm tired of the way things have been going. I just wish they'd put a piece of paper in front of me, a paper ballot, then I'd know what I was doing."

6:45 AM EST -- A federal judge in Virginia has rejected a last-minute election lawsuit from the NAACP that alleged that the state "is violating the U.S. and state constitutions by not providing enough voting machines, poll workers and polling places, particularly in precincts with large minority populations, according to the Associated Press story published in The Washington Post today. The lawsuit alleged that the shortages could result in long lines and lost votes, according to the AP.

The suit was filed a week ago to try to force the state to make last-minute changes to accommodate what is expected to be large numbers of voters going to the polls to cast their ballots.

"We are urging all voters to stand in line," NAACP President Ben Jealous said after the ruling, according to the AP. "Americans have waited 230 years for this -- a multi-gender, multi-generational, multiracial [campaign]. This is a big day. Stay in line."

The court decision came down last night, just about 13 hours before the pools opened in Virginia, according to the AP.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Also be sure to check out our round-up of e-voting news stories and opinions -- featuring an interactive map that shows which states use e-voting technology and what problems have been recently reported.

If you encounter any e-voting related problems on Election Day, send us a note at evoteproblems@computerworld.com.