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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

No widespread voting problems reported across South, nation

Despite glitches with voting machines in some precincts and charges of voter intimidation in isolated races, yesterday's election seems to have been free of the sort of widespread, catastrophic breakdowns that plagued the 2000 and 2004 contests.

CBS News reports that it found "notable problems in roughly 15 states, although all were sporadic. Most of the issues came early in the morning when poll workers had problems starting up their new electronic voting machines."

Officials with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, established to help states after the 2000 meltdown in Florida, said they were satisfied with the results, according to the Los Angeles Times.

As reported here yesterday, there were some problems at precincts in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as in the Southern states of Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Mississippi.

In New Orleans, some voters had to be redirected to correct poll locations and a handful of voting machines malfunctioned, but there were no generalized problems in the city's elections, the first to be overseen by the recently installed Orleans Parish Clerk of Criminal Court, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

However, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund told the newspaper that its monitors reported malfunctions in at least six precincts with only one voting machine, with one machine out of service for more than an hour.

Regarding one of the more serious problems that arose on election day, the FBI and State Board of Elections in Virginia will be investigating allegations of voter suppression tactics in the hotly contested Senate race between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb, as Chris Kromm reported here yesterday.

The Virginia Board of Elections says Webb is leading that race by a razor-thin margin.

For more details on the voting problems reported nationwide, visit the Election Protection Coalition's Web site.
posted by Sue Sturgis at 3:14 PM | Email this post | Post a Comment
2 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course there weren't any widespread problems. The Democrats came out ahead this time. There's only problems when they lose.

11/09/2006 2:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bush won Ohio by over 100,000 votes in 2004 and the Democrats cried voter fraud.

Webb wins Virginia by 7,000 and all is just fine.

11/10/2006 10:40 AM  

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Who Are These Folks?

CHRIS KROMM blogs three days a week for Facing South. Chris is Executive Director of the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of the Institute’s award-winning magazine, Southern Exposure.

SUE STURGIS blogs four days a week for Facing South. Sue is the Institute’s Editorial Director and a former reporter for The Independent Weekly and The Raleigh News & Observer.

DESIREE EVANS blogs four days a week for Facing South. Desiree is a Research Associate at the Institute and former policy analyst for TransAfrica.

The views expressed on Facing South are those of the authors and not necessarily represent the views of the Institute for Southern Studies. The editors reserve the right to reject comments that are abusive, offensive, misleading, or that promote commercial goods and services.

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