brennan center for justice

May 2004December2008ES&SM150PremierAccu-Vote ES2000ArkansasCaliforniaThe Jonesboro Sun reported that the initial results of aconstable race in District 13 showed that onecandidate received all 158 votes cast in one precinct.When the opponent questioned the results of theelections, the machine was inspected and an error wasfound in a computer chip’s code. A recount showedthat both candidates received votes, though theoutcome of the election was unchanged. 308Fulton County, ARAccording to the South Missourian, a malfunction ina ballot scanner caused county election officials torecount ballots for the primary election by hand.County officials blamed the machine manufacturerfor incorrectly programming the machine. Thecompany blamed the county officials for not sendingall of the sample ballots needed for the company toprogram the machines accurately. 309Humboldt County, CAAccording to the Times Standard, “a glitch in the[Humboldt] county election's software . . . resultedin almost 200 ballots not being included in initialvote totals and the county certifying inaccurateelection results.”Carolyn Crnich, the Humboldt County Registrar ofVoters, told the paper that she realized there was aproblem when “she discovered a deck of 197 vote-bymailballots for the precinct that had been runthrough the ballot counting optical scanner, but didnot seem to appear in the final vote tallies.” 310Wired and Computerworld magazines reported thatthe voting system manufacturer, Premier, was awareof the software flaw that caused the problem foryears, but failed to notify federal or state authorities,opting instead to send an e-mail to county officials.Crnich states that the information in this e-mail wasnot passed onto her. 311November2008SequoiaAVC Edge IICaliforniaFor more on this incident, see case study 2 on pages 12 -13 of this report.Santa Clara County, CAIn Santa Clara County, the San Jose Mercury Newsreports, “fifty-seven electronic voting machines forthe disabled malfunctioned Tuesday and could not50 | Brennan Center for Justice