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Non-functioning machines give voters pause in Cottage Grove, Richfield

Posted on November 4th, 2008 – 1:30 PM
By James Shiffer

Chris Rossley reports that at his precinct, Crossroads Church in Cottage Grove, the election officials had to open up the machine and store the paper inside, because the device refused to read the ballots. “The guys just open it up and shove it in the side. Everybody kind of had a sour look on their face, wondering what’s this guy doing?” Given that I’ve heard the same story at this point from Maple Grove, Minneapolis and Minnetonka, among other places, Rossley should feel comforted that he has company.

Natalie Madgy found the same trouble first thing at her Richfield precinct, at 73rd Street and Portland Avenue. Here’s her account:

I arrived at 6:30am and was one of the first 10 to vote. I was uncomfortable having to leave my ballot in a slot of the scanner, to be scanned later, as the machine was not working

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Election Day, Polling problems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Non-functioning machines give voters pause in Cottage Grove, Richfield”

  1. david Says:
    November 4th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    yeah 10 year old computer equipment that in some cities only gets heavily used once every two years is going to have glitches no matter how much it is tested beforehand…

  2. Joan Says:
    November 4th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    I worked with these machines for several years and even though we test them before hand sometimes they malfunction. Remember they are only used once or twice a year if that. Anyway, rather than make the voter wait while we get a technician in to correct the problem (how would you feel about that?) we simply place them in a safe area of the cabinet until the technician can repair the problem. The ballots are then fed through the machine by the election judges and the votes are thus counted.

  3. Becky Says:
    November 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    this was also happening in Elk River early this morning and alot of people were upset. You could tell that they are afraid that their vote will not count- I was one of the people who had to put my vote into a slot with the reassurance that it will be fed through later- leaving my voting area at 7:30am I have to admit I was a little unsettled that the machine was not working. I am really hoping that this is not a sign of things to come tonight!

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