Missing Link
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This article appears to have disappeared from the Los Angeles Times website about two weeks after it was posted to the WantToKnow.info elections cover-up summary. Because this information has disappeared, we are providing both the text of the article (below) and the full original article that we downloaded previously. To see the original article, please click here
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As this article was taken from Associated Press and picked up by other media, you can still find this same article on the San Francisco Chronicle's website at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/11/12/national1205EST0543.DTL
Computer Glitch Changes Election Result
BROOKVILLE, Ind. – A hand recount of ballots
cast using optical scanning technology gave a Democrat enough extra votes
to bump a Republican from victory in a county commissioner's race.
The erroneous tally was caused when the Fidlar Election Co. scanning system
recorded straight-Democratic Party votes as votes for Libertarians in
southeastern Indiana's Franklin County.
The recount Thursday pushed Democrat Carroll Lanning from fifth to third in
the three-seat commissioners race, while Republican Roy Hall fell to fifth.
Democrats had suspected a glitch after preliminary election results
included a Libertarian congressional candidate winning 7.7 percent of the
vote in Franklin County, more than four times better than he did across the
entire district.
Fidlar workers said no programming problems were found in the Accuvote 2000
ES system, but said the Rock Island, Ill.-based company is going over its
programming elsewhere in the state and in Wisconsin and Michigan, which,
like Indiana, have straight-party voting.
Fidlar national sales manager Bill Barrett on Friday called the glitch an
"isolated incident" and said no other election results were in
question.
A spokeswoman for the Indiana secretary of state's office said state
officials were waiting to learn more from the company and Franklin County.
Pre-election tests had found no problems, Kate Shepherd said, and the state
was unaware of other similar troubles.
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