WKSU News: Ohio voting is already under the microscope

Friday, November 2, 2012 Ohio voting is already under the microscope Challenges are underway over electronic voting, and much more is expected Story by GRANT ENGLE AND M.L. SCHULTZE This story is part of a special series.

In The Region:

Lawyers from both parties, both presidential campaigns and a lot of other organizations are expected to crowd into Ohio next week to watch over voting and to raise questions about whether the vote count is fair. WKSU’s M.L. Schultze notes that a lot of those questions already are in play.

SCHULTZE: Calibration question

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For months and even years after George Bush beat John Kerry in 2004, Democrats, progressives and some voting-rights advocates raised questions about whether Ohio’s touch-screen voting machines could be rigged.

Now it’s the GOP, proactively, raising questions about the machines. The Republican National Committee has sent a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted citing unspecified complaints that some machines have recorded a vote for President Obama when the voter wanted to pick Mitt Romney.

It demanded that all touch-screen voting machines be recalibrated before Tuesday.

Brad Cromes is the deputy director of the Portage County Board of Elections. He says the county had only one issue with a voting machine this year, and it wasn’t a calibration problem.

“It’s not too dissimilar from using an ATM. If you have long finger nails or touch the ATM with multiple fingers, sometimes it won’t right away recognize what you’re doing. I think that’s a very similar thing to what you see happening on a voting machine.”

Cromes says Portage County already plans to inspect all voting machines before they are sent to polling locations for Tuesday's election. That will include calibration testing.

A voter in Marion County claimed she had to try three times to get a machine to record her vote for Romney.

Listener Comments:

Unspecified reports. The smokescreen has started. The Republicans are going to bring up more and more of these "unspecified" events. That way when Husted tries to change the votes on the night of the election, it just sounds like two-way complaining. The Karl Rove technique. Blame the other side for what you are doing and make it sound like bickering.

Posted by: Christopher Larson (Seattle, WA) on November 5, 2012 1:11AM

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