County Voting Issues Make National News

This week Guilford County Board of Elections Director George Gilbert said he had a major, major scoop for The Rhinoceros Times.

"There are other inhabited planets," Gilbert said. "There are other planets with life on them."

He said that, though he had wondered before, he could now confirm that fact because, after some recent nationwide publicity over a few calibration errors in Guilford County's voting machines, he was hearing not only from other parts of the country, but also, seemingly – based on the content of the calls – from those who lived in other solar systems.

"Some of the calls I've gotten – well, they're from another planet," an exacerbated elections director said.

News of calibration problems in some county voting machines began to spread on Monday, Oct. 22, after a woman at the county's early voting site at Bur-Mil Park had trouble casting her vote for Mitt Romney.

A woman contacted The Rhinoceros Times – and apparently several other media outlets – and said that she experienced problems voting. She said she intended to vote for Romney and even though she pushed on Romney's name, the machine checked the box for Barack Obama. After repeated attempts to vote for Romney and selecting Obama, she notified an election worker and eventually cast a vote for Romney.

Gilbert said the cause was a calibration issue that sometimes occurs with all touch screen systems.

Those machines, he said, must be calibrated periodically – especially when in heavy use – and Gilbert said that's one reason a fail-safe is in place to allow the voters to review their choices.

He said that, whenever any issue or concern arises, a voter can notify a poll worker who will help them cast a vote on that machine or will move the voter to a new machine that isn't experiencing calibration problems.

According to Gilbert, there's nothing out of the ordinary about a touch screen voting machine needing recalibration. He said election staff calibrate the machines frequently to make sure they are operating correctly.

Gilbert said the mistake happens in both directions. He said sometimes people intend to cast a vote for Obama and the vote initially will register for Romney – though he acknowledged that, in the recent Guilford County cases he's aware of, most of the issues seem to be votes cast for Romney that show up as votes for Obama.

He said the same thing may happen in other races on the ticket as well. However, people tend to notice it less in those races.

Even though the mistake at Bur-Mil was caught, the woman began contacting news stations and newspapers and – in the highly charged period before a contentious national election – word spread rapidly over talk radio, blogs and Facebook.

One version of the story was that, in Guilford County, the machines were rigged in favor of Obama so that, even if voters cast their votes for Romney, the vote would be counted for Obama.

Gilbert said it's simply a misconception that there have been major problems in Guilford County, or even, he said, anything out of the ordinary.

"Both parties have observers in most of the early voting sites," Gilbert said. "If they were seeing widespread problems, I think we would have heard from them first."

The story made the Drudge Report, local television news, Rush Radio 94.5 FM and talk radio in other parts of the country, and it also spread like wildfire across the internet.

The website TheBlaze.com had a headline, "Why Are N.C. Early Voting Machines Changing Romney Votes To Obama?" and another website, the John Birch Society's TheNewAmerican.com, ran the story with the headline "Obama Gets Endorsement of Voting Machine in N.C."

Another website called it an "ongoing scandal," while some bloggers voiced concerns of a pro-Obama conspiracy.

Gilbert said that, over the last week, he's received calls and emails from Wisconsin and Palm Beach, Florida, and much of the rest of the country as well.

He said that most of those contacting his office had been civil, but not in every case.

"We've been called thugs and thieves," he said.

Gilbert said he now has a standard reply that he sends to many who email his office on the matter.

The boilerplate email states: "Thank you for letting us know of your concern about reports of voting errors in Guilford County. In fact, there were no erroneous votes cast during the reported incidents. A small number of voters have activated a vote for the wrong candidate when they first attempted to make their selection but corrected the error before casting their vote. Our voting machines highlight the names of the selected candidates as well as displaying them on the Review screen before a vote can be cast."

The email goes on to explain that calibrating the touch screens is "a normal part of our voting machine maintenance process."

The recalibration process involves an election worker touching a series of X's on the screen so that the machine can automatically adjust and match the spot precisely where the voter's finger touches.

Guilford County switched to electronic voting machines in 1994 and most of the machines currently in use were purchased in 2006.

According to Gilbert, over 60,000 Guilford County voters have voted early so far, and only a very small number have experienced calibration problems.

Gilbert isn't the only one getting calls regarding the controversy. A staffer at the Republican headquarters in Greensboro, who said she didn't want her name used because she isn't an official spokesperson for the party, said the Republican office had taken many calls on the issue.

"It's been crazy," she said.

She said some callers have been upset over fears that their vote might be counted for Obama.

The staffer said party workers had been attempting to calm people down and said that calibration problems are a normal part of any election process – which is the reason there are safeguards.

"We're the party of personal responsibility," she said. "So people need to take responsibility into their own hands and check when voting."

NC State Board of Elections member Chuck Winfree, a Greensboro attorney and former Guilford County commissioner, said there are some legitimate concerns over the county's calibration issues, but he doesn't seem overly alarmed.

"There is no perfect voting system," Winfree said. "Any system we come up with is susceptible to mistakes."

Winfree said this type of problem is likely exacerbated by the extended early voting period in North Carolina.

"It wasn't that much of a problem when machines were in use for one day," he said. "Now, some machines are in use for weeks at a time. That amplifies a problem that may have existed before."

Winfree said that, given recent concerns over Guilford County's voting machines, it's probably advisable, after the election, to examine the maintenance practices of the county's election staff and double check that all machines are consistently, frequently and properly maintained.

Like Gilbert, Winfree said this is nothing new. He said these same issues came up in 2010. He also said it occurs with any touch screen voting machine in use in the country.

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The day after the Guilford County issue blew up, Fox 8 News reported a similar incident in Forsyth County – a voter cast a vote for Obama but it showed up as a vote for Romney on the review screen. There were also problems in Jamestown reported.

And one woman in another part of the county said her vote, which she cast for Obama, initially showed up on the screen as a vote for Romney.

It may be that voters are more attuned to noticing any problems in the voting process right now since it has been in the news and they are reporting glitches to the media that otherwise would be resolved at the polling place but not reported.

Winfree said that, while there are problems with touch screen voting machines – such as these calibration issues – there are also problems with the optiscan system in use in many other parts of the state. Voters fill in circles on the optiscan ballot – much like when taking the SAT or GRE test.

Twenty-four of North Carolina's 100 counties rely on touch screen voting machines.

Winfree said there are problems with the optiscan system as well.

"It can allow you to over vote," Winfree said.

He said that happens when a voter accidentally fills in two circles on one line. In those cases, the votes for both candidates are thrown out.

Also, with the optiscan ballots, there's no notification when a voter hasn't voted in some races.

"Optiscan doesn't warn you about under voting," Winfree said. "It doesn't say, you didn't vote in this race."

Gilbert agreed that optiscan voting systems bring their own set of problems. He said, for instance, a voter using an optiscan ballot might have mistakenly filled in the wrong circle but, since there's no feedback, he or she would never know.

Gilbert said the touch screen machines have added safe guards.

"There are three times to check your vote," he said.

Voters see the check box, then they are given a confirmation screen, then the votes are printed on the paper tape, which may also be checked by voters.

"If you vote and never look at the screen, then I can't help you," Gilbert said.