Voting Machines

You might remember last november when I was elected Judge of Elections for my precinct. It only took one vote (my wife's), and I'm in.

The next election isn't until May 16th, so there's still some time, and presumably I get some training on the operations of the machines.

The "new" machines, that is.

Montgomery County’s machines have to be upgraded to comply with new federal law. The upgraded technology was tested for two days this week in order to be certified by state election officials, but problems were discovered.

Michael Shamos, the certification examiner, says the manufacturer had to make modifications like adding technology for blind voters and then had to update the central tabulation system to accept votes from the all the different equipment the company makes:

"And the central tabulation software has bugs in it and those bugs became evident during the examination."

Shamos says the company will work on the problem with an eye toward more tests in mid-April.

If these machines aren't up to snuff, they still have the ability to fall back to the previous machines.

... and as of this writing, I'm scheduled to be on the ballot for a two year term on the county GOP committee representing my precinct.

Politics Posted by AlexC at March 30, 2006 1:26 PM