A “coding error” was to blame for a voting machine flipping votes in a local election in Pennsylvania earlier this week, a mistake that will likely prompt new criticism of such machines and a call to return to paper ballots.
“A coding error in Northampton County, Pennsylvania’s voting machines, caused a significant issue during a recent election. The glitch resulted in votes being incorrectly flipped on a ballot question concerning the retention of two state judges,” Resist the Mainstream reported.
The malfunction affected votes for candidates running for the Pennsylvania Superior Court, Judges Jack Panella and Victor Stabile, according to The Associated Press. Votes marked “yes” to retain one judge and “no” for the other were switched on printouts from touchscreen ballot machines, County Executive Lamont McClure said, per the AP.
The reports said that the problem was significant, affecting more than 300 voting machines. Voters noticed the glitch after seeing discrepancies on printed records. The AP noted that the Pennsylvania Department of State confirmed that the issue was limited to Northhampton County and didn’t occur in any other races.
“Panella’s votes will be returned to Panella, and Stabile’s will be returned to Stabile,” McClure said, downplaying the severity of the malfunction and referring to it as a “relatively minor glitch.”
“The county has pointed to the voting machine vendor, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), as the source of the error. Katina Granger, a spokesperson for ES&S, attributed the mistake to human error and emphasized that it was an isolated incident, affecting only the judicial retention question in Northampton County,” Resist The Mainstream added.
Hellbound and Down 