Orange County, FL, voting machines may have crashed.

[madfloridian]

Heads up from the Orlando Sentinel blog:

Machines may be down all over Orlando.

"posted by Orlando Sentinel on Oct 31, 2008 11:38:08 AM
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Our Mary Shanklin is checking into this, but we hear from the downtown Orlando public library that early voters are being told there'll be a four-hour wait because machines are down "all over the city."
More as we learn it."

[AndyA]

1. Florida. Voting problems. Again. Still. WTF?

Get it together, Florida! :eyes:

[Jennicut]

3. Seriously. I think things won't change there unless they get a Dem governor

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Depends on who the Dem is.

[ensho]

2. kicking for further news

nt

[UndertheOcean]

4. How can machines be down all over the city ?

[MidwestTransplant]

8. Good question. Do they use electronic voting machines?

[UndertheOcean]

10. Even if they use DRE's , I don't think they are interconnected,are they

[MidwestTransplant]

12. I would hope not as that would be a serious concern. I hope these machines didn't break

down on purpose so they can come out and "fix" them.

[liberal N proud]

5. Here we go again...

They are going to pull this shit until someone stops them.

[No Elephants]

6. Please join me in praying Florida secedes.

[flpoljunkie]

7. Machines reported back up at 11:45AM, but a number of folks had abandoned their effort to early vote

Poll workers at a library in southeast Orange County said at about 11:45 a.m. that the problem had been resolved and lines would begin moving again.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-early-voting-orlando-103108,0,4628867.story

[madfloridian]

9. And were the votes preserved that had been already cast? Or not?

We need a hell of a lot more info than that. Keep me posted what else you find. Inexcusable.

[Orsino]

22. Mission accomplished.

[madfloridian]

11. Yes, it affected all of Orlando's sites. How is that possible?

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-early-voting-orlando-103108,0,4628867.story

"Democrats said they were prepared to ask for special consideration given that only one full day remains for early voting on Saturday in Orange.

The lines were becoming so long that voters may see them and decide not to waste their time, said one party official, who asked not to be named.

Orlando Sentinel reporter Leslie Postal reported that poll workers at the downtown Orlando library told voters the problems affected all of the county's voting sites."

[UndertheOcean]

14. That sounds very fishy ? ALL the sites ?

[madfloridian]

21. Doesn't make sense....all went down at once. Why would they be connected?

I don't see much about this being posted at any blogs. Wondering.

[Orsino]

13. Machines down?

I thought voters were bubbling in, and the only machines involved were optical scanners. That shouldn't cause waits for voters, should it?

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Republican counties had optical scanners.

Orange County is Dem.

[Mojorabbit]

23. I am in Orange county

and we have always had optical scanners. I voted absentee this time but I would imagine they still are using the scanners.

[FloridaGrl]

24. Paper ballots are statewide now

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. Good thing.

[glowing]

25. Because they are general voting areas, each person has to have their

ballot printed according to their precinct.. That's the MAJOR hold-up... and their are not enough printers or processors at these sites.. One in Miami had only 2 printers.. They are doing this on purpose.. BUT the ballot is preserved in a box... Hopefully, those boxes aren't thrown out. AND hopefully a lot of these Pugs are thrown out... My SOE only opened up 3 sites in the entire county.. ass hat is going to make Tuesday a loooooong day for a lot of people.

[Orsino]

29. Ah. You get rid of touch-screen voting in favor of optical scanning...

...and someone foists dedicated print servers on you to gum up the works. Sorry, y'all. :(

[glowing]

31. In all fairness... on Tuesday, the correct ballots will be pre-printed.

Hopefully, they are lined up correctly for the machine to read.. and hopefully, they have enough ballots.. this is going to be a record turn-out, and many counties are planning on 50% turnout.. its going to be a long night in FL, particularly in down-ticket races.

[d_b]

15. no worry

once the vote is flipped everything will be back to normal.

[madfloridian]

18. I did not think machines were interconnected or connected to anything else

Outside of the site. Am I just not understanding this?

There must be interconnection if they all went down at once.

[madfloridian]

19. Kick to find why they would be interconnected at all?

Maybe I am not understanding.

[gravity]

20. I don't understand why they still use machines

I mean they are suppose to be easier and more efficient, but they just seem to cause more problems without really solving anything.

[ddeclue]

26. Orange County has a DEMOCRAT for Supervisor of Elections: Bill Cowles.

Cowles is HIMSELF up for re-election this election and has gone to a lot of effort to insure as glitch free an election as possible.

Cowles is a loyal Democrat and will NOT screw us.

Let's not jump to any conclusions here. It may well be that the system has been overloaded - voting turnout has been unprecedented this cycle.

Doug D.
Orange County Democratic Activist

[madfloridian]

30. I am not accusing. Calm yourself. I am asking why ALL went down.

And looking for answers. Machines should not have such connections all over the city or county...that would mean some kind of internet connection perhaps which they are not supposed to have.

Just asking.

[renate]

27. I simply do not understand why the country doesn't vote by mail

It's not a flawless system but clearly neither is the status quo.

No time off work. No long lines. No machines breaking. There's a paper trail. It saves money.

No machines flipping votes, either. So I guess that's the reason.

:shrug:

[mohc]

28. These may not be voting machines.

I voted in Palm Beach county this past Saturday after a 2 hour wait in line. The part that was taking the longest and causing the wait was registration verification. After coming in and showing your ID, instead of finding you on a paper list like they have done in previous elections, they had to verify you against a database. Based on what the poll worker said to me, this was a networked system that was reading off a state database. The process took about 3 minutes for my registration record to be pulled up on his laptop. If these lookups were not working it would also cause the same problem as the ballot readers being down.