Burnt Orange Report

Electronic Voting Machines Crash, Burn in Houston election

By Jim Dallas

Although isolated (it appears) to one voting location, the Houston Chronicle reports that...

...[s]ome Houston voters had trouble casting their votes in the city's mayoral race and light rail referendum this morning.

Those who showed up early at the Holiday Inn at 7787 Katy Freeway to vote found that the eSlate machines that were supposed to make voting so much easier and more accurate were on the fritz. While technicians made repairs, election judges passed out sheets of paper torn in half, along with sample ballots, and telling voters to write in their votes.

David Puckett said he sat down on the floor and spent 25 minutes scribbling down his choices while other voters just took the time to write in their votes on the top races before dropping their homemade ballots into a pasteboard box. He said an election judge told him to write on the back of the paper if he ran out of room and then told him he might need to vote again this afternoon if the eSlate machines come back up. Then, Puckett said, the judges decided a second vote wasn't such a good idea.

"They're making up rules as they go," he said. " It's unbelievable."

Puckett's worried his vote won't count.

"I will come back if I need to. I want my vote to count," he said. "It's my privilege. It's my duty. I want my people to win.

The machines are manufactured by Hart InterCivic and are similar to the ones used in Travis County.

UPDATE: It's now two precincts, and both are being blamed on operator errors --

The problem at the Katy location was quickly resolved, but he said there was a report of another polling site with equipment problems. Those problems too turned out to be cases of operator error.

A volunteer working for the Urban League said voters were unable to cast ballots when the polls first opened at the Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church on Houston's northeast side, at Calgary and Bainbridge.

Voter advocate Frankie Young said some people who'd hoped to vote before work had to walk away without voting because there were no paper ballots available as a backup.

"It's sad," she said. "It can get pretty discouraging for people if they came out and the machines aren't working. They could have at least had a replacement ballot."