The Electronic Frontier Foundation held a conference call to report on problems in the 39 states using electronic voting machines. Sixty lawyers have been working with EFF as part of the Election Protection Network.
The biggest problems have been with machines which didn't boot up by the times polls were supposed to open. This has happened in a number of states. In Pennsylvania, most polling places experiencing problems had paper back up ballots, but some had only 30 and quickly ran out.
In New Orleans, there were over 80 reports of problems with machines starting by early this morning. There were no back up paper ballots and voters were turned away including in some precincts with large student populations. Lawyers have gone to court to require election officials extend voting hours. In other states, they've negotiated to get longer voting hours.
There also have have been problems in several states including Florida with voters gettting to the summary screen to see the vote was registered for a candidate they didn't intend to vote for. Sometimes it took 4, 5, even 9 tries to get the proper result.
Cindy Cohn, EFF's legal director, said she had an "uneasy feeling they are only the tip of the iceberg." They are only getting reports from people who are aware of the hotline. She said it may take many open records and FOIA requests to really evaluate what happened since many election officials are reluctant to reveal there were problems.
She urged "voters who go ahead and vote." There have been reports of people refusing to vote on back-up paper ballots.
Ed Felten, a Princeton computer science professor, said the most serious problems wouldn't show up until after the polls close and because most electronic voting machines don't have a paper trail, there could be mistabulations which are never caught.
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