Reported problems with optical scan voting machines

Well today is the big day in the United States which some records being set in voter turnout. At the same time we are still hearing of problems with voting machines across the country. So far Colorado and Florida are among the first to report problems with the Sequoia optical scanners. In both cases the problem seems to revolve around the creases that are folded mail-in ballots.

The problem that has both voters and officials concerned is that the optical scanners are programmed to reject ballots that have overvotes in a race – more than the number of votes allowed in a race. It appears that the readers are seeing the fold in the ballot as being a vote

The Palm Beach ballot is designed with broken arrows next to candidates’ names, that readers are supposed to connect to mark their vote. But machines were reading the creases as a connected arrow and recording votes for more than one candidate.

When this occurred, officials would duplicate the ballot and scan the duplicate.

In Boulder County in Colorado the officials are concerned that dust in the crease of mail-in ballots could lead to inaccurate results.

[via Kim Zetter – Threat Level]