Claims increase of machines switching votes in Ohio, other battlegrounds
Imagine going to vote for your presidential candidate and pushing the button on a touch-screen voting machine -- but the "X" marks his opponent instead.
That is what some voters in Nevada, North Carolina, Texas and Ohio have reported.Fox News has received several complaints from voters who say they voted on touch-screen voting machines -- only when they tried to select Mitt Romney, the machine indicated they had chosen President Obama. The voters in question realized the error and were able to cast ballots for their actual choice.
"I don't know if it happened to anybody else or not, but this is the first time in all the years that we voted that this has ever happened to me," said Marion, Ohio, voter Joan Stevens.
Stevens said that when she voted, it took her three tries before the machine accepted her choice to vote for Romney.
"I went to vote and I got right in the middle of Romney's name," Stevens told Fox News, saying that she was certain to put her finger directly on her choice for the White House.
She said that the first time she pushed "Romney," the machine marked "Obama."
So she pushed Romney again. Obama came up again. Then it happened a third time.
"Maybe you make a mistake once, but not three times," she told Fox News.
Marion County Board of Elections Director Sophie Rogers, though, said: "My personal opinion is that she hit it too hard."
"We've noticed people just punch on them. She might not have hit the square that she wanted," Rogers said. (yeah, that sound about right.....
Rogers insists there are no problems with the touch-screen machines in Marion County and that after learning of Stevens' complaint she took the machine out of circulation and had it reexamined and recalibrated. She says there was nothing wrong with the machine to begin with.
But in response to the growing number of complaints, the Republican National Committee has sent a letter to election officials in six states -- Ohio, Nevada, Kansas, North Carolina, Missouri and Colorado -- demanding tighter controls on touch-screen machines.
The RNC wants the machines to be re-tested, more technicians added to fix any problems, and verbal reminders given by election workers telling voters to double check their ballots.
Multiple voters from several states wrote Fox News to report problems similar to what Stevens reported.
One voter asked: "I wonder how many voters just hit the 'Cast Ballot' without reading the machine?"
"How can we be sure our votes are not being stolen electronically?" asked another.
Funny how there does not seem to be any "errors" that give a vote to Romney and take it away from Obozo......