Voting Woes Spark Call for Congressional Probe

Three members of Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to look into irregularities with voting machines after reports of problems in North Carolina and other states during Tuesday’s elections.

In a letter sent yesterday to the GAO, Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) asked the watchdog agency to “immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration,” Wired.com reports.

In Carteret County, N.C., more than 4,500 votes were lost in the latest election because UniLect Corp. gave local officials incorrect information about the storage capacity of its electronic voting equipment. Problems with e-voting equipment were also reported in Craven and Mecklenburg counties.

There were problems Tuesday in other states as well. In one Ohio precinct, a memory card reader gave George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. And voters in Ohio and Florida have complained that when they tried to vote for John Kerry, the machine either wouldn’t register the vote or would indicate the vote was cast for Bush, according to Wired.com.

Conyers, Nadler and Wexler are among the 157 co-sponsors of H.R. 2239, which would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified permanent record or hard copy of ballot choices. Democratic Reps. Frank Ballance Jr. and David Price of North Carolina are also co-sponsors of that measure. It is currently stuck in the House Administration Committee, where Chairman Bob Ney (R-Ohio) opposes its passage.

This year is not the first time North Carolina has experienced problems with e-voting equipment. Here in Wake County, machines made by Election Systems & Software failed to count 436 ballots (PDF) in November 2002. Company officials confirmed that the machines were defective.