Texas officials admit voting machines are glitching, blames voters - Polidicks

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/midterms-2018-texas-race-voting-machines-changing-ted-cruz-beto-o-rourke-a8604576.html?utm_source=reddit.com Voters in Texas are having their selection flipped to an entirely different party by the state’s 20-year-old ballot machines, officials have admitted. Dozens of people attempting a straight-ticket choice – where they vote for the same party in all posts being contested – have reported their commands being disobeyed by the devices. Republican voters say they have found themselves staring at screens telling them they have selected democrat Beto O'Rourke for the US Senate. Democrats say the same machines have told them they have favoured the Republican Ted Cruz for the same position. It is unclear if anyone has actually voted for the wrong party as a result of the flipping as the machines give users the chance to correct any errors before confirming. But the issue has added one more controversy to one of the most acrimonious midterm elections in American history. Concerns with the devices were first raised on social media but state officials confirmed on Friday they were aware of the problem – which they then blamed on voter misuse. “The Hart eSlate machines are not malfunctioning,” said Sam Taylor, spokesman for the office of Secretary of State, according to the Press Association news agency. “The problems being reported are a result of user error – usually voters hitting a button or using the selection wheel before the screen is finished rendering.” The Hart eSlate machines in question are used in 30 per cent of Texas counties, including the state’s largest, Harris, which includes the city of Houston. In a statement on Friday, Ted Cruz said he had heard of “multiple reports” of race selections changing and told supporters: “Once you select the Republican party ticket, please be patient and do not select ‘next’ until the ballot has populated all of the selections.” Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democrat party chairman, demanded a public service announcement to warn voters, training for poll workers on the issue and the removal of “malfunctioning machines”. But Zenén Pérez, of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the problem would keep happening until the state increased investment in its election infrastructure. "Texas just hasn't spent the resources necessary to modernize," he told GQ magazine. "Until they do, we're going to continue to see this kind of thing on a regular basis."

All this has made me scared. I triple checked my vote and I am still scared I somehow voted for Ted Cruz.

The voting machines aren't all that's glitching, I tell you what. “The Hart eSlate machines are not malfunctioning,” said Sam Taylor, spokesman for the office of Secretary of State, according to the Press Association news agency. “The problems being reported are a result of user error – usually voters hitting a button or using the selection wheel before the screen is finished rendering.” This is so stupid. You have to make these things foolproof. This seems like the kind of bug that would happen in some code that I wrote, not something that could determine a whole election. They might as well be broken.

So what they're saying is that my tax dollars are paying for programmers to design electoral voting machines whose resumes include "gmod rape swep"

who the fuck decided that the best method of voting is through easily hackable electronic machines? no wonder people think that trump colluded with the russians lmao

I guess it's cheaper then buying one use paper ballots, GOP state governments are so stingy with spending, even with things like election integrity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI relevant video

if you support E-Voting them you're either attempting voter fraud, or painfully stupid sometimes technology is the last thing you want.

Only Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, and South Carolina use exclusively electronic voting. Every other state uses just paper, paper and electronic depending on location, or mail only. What's disturbing is that 5 of those six states have no paper trail that can be taken from the machine for recounts or audits.

How the fuck can paper ballots be more expensive?! Knowing how the US works, the companies manufacturing these machines probably get away with selling them for thousands of dollars. A few hundreds/thousands pieces of paper and envelopes would only cost a couple hundreds at most.

It's 100usd per inch of paper if the goberment is buying it, knowing how good we are with money

Republican voters say they have found themselves staring at screens telling them they have selected democrat Beto O'Rourke for the US Senate. Democrats say the same machines have told them they have favoured the Republican Ted Cruz for the same position. At least it seems to be a non-partisan fuck up?

Good god, I can already see this being used as an excuse to declare the elections no good. If it was only changing votes to one side or the other, it'd be easy to point fingers; since it's doing it for both it becomes possible to call the entire election into question.

I can sort of believe that excuse. I always disliked the stupid wheel thing because if you went too fast with it there's a chance it slides to the next option without you noticing. So I'd always be super careful and wait a few seconds before confirming. I can definitely see some elderly people or just computer illiterates having trouble with it.

how the fuck are those machines incapable of nearly instant rendering, its 2018 and they're not rendering 4k graphics just flat text on colored screens.

Windows 3.1 embedded?

At least the Zodiac killer will let you live... ... Long enough for the next nuclear war by Trump

No no, more technology is always better! That's why we need internet in absolutely every appliance in our house!

Wifi connected door and window locks, alarms, fridges, and water sprinklers

The ever-growing "Internet of Shit".

What if they're connecting to a webpage that the machine has to be online to reach? That would be the cherry on this cake made of terrible software decisions.

Does any other country in the world, aside from the US, actually use voting machines? Given all of the controversies, flaws and just straight up bad theory behind the machines, you’d think the US would do as the rest of the western world does and just use pencil and paper?

According to this, Brazil, Estonia, India, and Venezuela use electronic only. Canada, the United States, Peru, and Argentina use it in some areas.

This is like the time where I didn't do my homework so I deliberately corrupted a random word file and handed it in.

No offence to any members from Estonia, but what a list, lmao.

The US is kind of like Microsoft Windows, we do a lot of things archaically and ass backwards, but we're so influential it sticks around.

i just voted and my state's machines aren't too bad, there's probably security issues but they use some kind of pin/sim card and they have a paper ballot that gets cast that you can audit. the interface was just flat text on colored rectangles, it might as well have been an ibm terminal from the 80s

Going to take this with a grain of salt considering the spokesperson for the guy in charge of running the elections is calling a clear software/hardware issue "user error".

Useful in factories though for data collection and having cnc machines auto correct themselves without all the wiring costs associated.

In fairness to India can you imagine the logistical challenge of like 750 million paper ballots?