Problems with electronic voting machines in today's Republican South Carolina presidential primary and reports that voters were being turned away from the polls as a result of those problems underscore the need for Congress to move swiftly to provide states with funding to have emergency paper ballots on hand in the event of a machine failure and to replace paperless voting systems so that meaningful recounts and audits can occur. <\/p>
\"Voters are understandably outraged that in this important primary election they could not exercise their right to vote because of the machine malfunctions,\" said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause. \"This was a preventable and foreseeable crisis. Congress and state election officials must move fast to fix this problem by the general election in November.\" <\/p>
En raison d'une erreur de programmation, les machines de vote \u00e9lectroniques iVotronic ne fonctionnaient pas correctement aujourd'hui dans le comt\u00e9 de Horry, o\u00f9 se trouve Myrtle Beach. Les agents \u00e9lectoraux distribuaient des bulletins de vote papier dans les bureaux de vote concern\u00e9s, mais certains bureaux de vote n'avaient plus de bulletins de vote papier et envoyaient les \u00e9lecteurs dans d'autres bureaux de vote pour voter provisoirement. Un porte-parole de la Commission \u00e9lectorale de Caroline du Sud a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 que si 80 % des bureaux de vote \u00e9taient concern\u00e9s dans le comt\u00e9 de Horry, seuls 12 \u00e0 15 bureaux de vote disposaient de machines de vote \u00e9lectroniques qui \u00e9taient toutes inop\u00e9rantes pendant au moins une partie de la journ\u00e9e. Les machines de vote iVotronic utilis\u00e9es en Caroline du Sud \u00e9taient du m\u00eame fabricant et de la m\u00eame marque que celles utilis\u00e9es en Floride, bien que le mod\u00e8le soit diff\u00e9rent.<\/p>
Common Cause is pushing for emergency legislation that would provide funding for the 20 states, including South Carolina, to print up emergency paper ballots and to replace paperless voting systems like the iVotronics machines, which can't be subject to a meaningful recount or audit. The Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008 (HR 5036), introduced Thursday, is a critical first step in addressing what could be nothing short of a national emergency around the presidential election. <\/p>
\"Paper never fails to boot up\" said Duncan Buell, author of a white paper detailing problems with the iVotronics voting machine. \"We need to replace the system we have here in South Carolina and we definitely need to have emergency paper ballots on hand in case of machine failures next week.\"<\/p>"}}]},"yoast_head":"\n