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1962-2005
A good man, a tireless activist, and for too short a time, a friend.

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Friday, October 24. 2008

Report in Texas- Touchscreens Flipping Straight Ticket Votes

You vote, the machine decides. This time in Texas it is ES&S iVotronic Touchscreens flipping votes. One of the voters who complained also insisted that the machine be taken out of service immediately. Don't select the straight party option on the ballot or machine, there is too much that can go wrong.

October 24, 2008
Concerns raised over electronic voting
Two say machines tried changing their straight-party Democratic votes to straight Republican choices.
By Libby Cluett lcluett@mineralwellsindex.com

At least two Palo Pinto County residents say they experienced early voting problems when the touch-screen voting machines they used kept switching their straight-party vote from Democratic to Republican.

“When I cast an early vote [Wednesday] at Palo Pinto County Courthouse, my vote was switched from Democrat to Republican right in front of my face - twice!” reported Lona Jones, a Precinct 1 county resident.

Intending to vote straight party on the Democratic ticket, Jones said she was surprised Wednesday when the electronic voting machine “on the left as you face the machines” in the courthouse basement asked her if she wanted to cast her vote for a straight Republican ticket.

Velvet Revolution has advice on what to do if a machine flips your votes:

So if you're voting on an electronic voting machine and you see your votes being flipped (or if the machine malfunctions in any other way), what should you do?
Here are some suggestions from election integrity experts at TrueVote.us, and from Emily Levy of Velvet Revolution's StandingForVoters.org and Ellen Theisen of VotersUnite.org.
Get the machine's serial number, if possible
Call over a poll supervisor to observe the problem
Insist on filling out a problem report
Refuse to vote on that machine
Request that the machine be taken out of service and impounded for later forensic examination
Tell all the voters waiting in line exactly which machine flipped your vote (third machine from the left, or whatever)
Report the problem via election integrity hotlines, twitter, and the voter suppression wiki. Information on how to do that is here.
Call the county, city, and state election offices and report the problem. Find those phone numbers here.
Call reporters and tell them about the problem