The Theft Of Democracy

County to investigate latest election snafu

One error in last week's election "should not have been possible," Faulkner County Election Commissioner Bruce Haggard said, if an electronic voting machine had been functioning correctly.

The error contributed to a reversal in the District 45 State Representative Democratic Primary election.

In the East Cadron B voting precinct, Haggard said, the district 45 representative ballot was entirely absent from the touch-screen voting machines. The error was caught by county clerk Melinda Reynolds before the polls opened, Haggard said, stressing that no voters were disenfranchised.

Paper ballots were prepared for the district 45 race before voters came to the polls, he said, and these ballots were accurately counted on election night.

But the error that deleted the electronic district 45 representative ballot hid another error that went unnoticed.
...
One error in last week's election "should not have been possible," Faulkner County Election Commissioner Bruce Haggard said, if an electronic voting machine had been functioning correctly.

The error contributed to a reversal in the District 45 State Representative Democratic Primary election.

In the East Cadron B voting precinct, Haggard said, the district 45 representative ballot was entirely absent from the touch-screen voting machines. The error was caught by county clerk Melinda Reynolds before the polls opened, Haggard said, stressing that no voters were disenfranchised.

Paper ballots were prepared for the district 45 race before voters came to the polls, he said, and these ballots were accurately counted on election night.

But the error that deleted the electronic district 45 representative ballot hid another error that went unnoticed.
...
"We assumed, erroneously, that it would not record that race since it was not on the ballot," he said, adding that the votes for the constable race were later found to have recorded accurately on the voter-verifiable paper trail and therefore would not have appeared erroneous to voters either.

As it happened, Fiddler's name had been paired with the vastly more popular constable candidate. This falsely inflated his total number of votes and, as the race was so close, indicated that he had won.

A recount requested by Tyler proved otherwise.
...
What makes the situation all the more baffling, he added, is that the machine in question, along with its associated software and coding, were found to have worked to perfection during early voting.
...

Let’s see we are going to bring in the company that made the defective machine in the first place to audit and determine how the machine failed, boy how much you want to bet that that official result will be “human error” at county level. It’s not rampant voter fraud(like those pesky old nuns), we need to worry about but the stealing of our elections by the likes of Diebold(Premier) and ES&S.