brennan center for justice

November2008November2008March 2008ES&SiVotronicPremierAccuVote-TSXPremierAccuVote-TSXOhioOhioOhioprovided. 452Knox County, OHThe Columbus Dispatch reported that one touchscreenelectronic voting machine in Knox Countyomitted Obama and McCain from the electronicballots. An election worker eventually solved theproblem by resetting the machine. It was not clearwhat caused the issue. 453Stark County, OHSome of the voting machines in Stark County,according to the Canton Repository, experienceddifficulties. One of the machines “failed to print outa paper ballot.” And voters had difficulties withother machines. Jeanette Mullane, Stark CountyBoard of Elections director, said, “‘The machine issueis more of a paper jam issue,’ . . . . ‘It's not that themachines are down. I think it's a problem with theset-up and our elections technicians are going out tohandle those calls.’ 454Butler County, OHIn a letter to voting system manufacturer Premier,Butler Count officials stated that they noticed votesbeing dropped when they transferred totals fromindividual machines to the system’s central tallyserver after the March 2008 primary election. 455 TheDayton Daily News reported that a subsequentinvestigation by election officials revealed that at least1000 ballots were undercounted in 44 counties. 456Though Premier initially blamed the problem onantivirus software installed on the machines, thepresident of the company later conceded in a letter tothe Secretary of State that the server softwarecontained a “logic error” that caused the problem. 457March 2008ES&SiVotronicOhioFor more on this incident, see case study 1 on pages 10 -11 of this report.Franklin County, OHAccording to the Columbus Dispatch, an e-votingmachine reportedly removed the name of aDemocratic candidate from some electronic ballotsand replaced it with a gray bar that said “candidatewithdrawn.” Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner wasone of the voters who received an erroneous ballot.Brennan Center for Justice | 83