The original poster gives no valid reason for believing as they do and even less for stating their belief.

Ridicule is all that’s left to a thinking person.

People vary greatly in height and finger size and that can affect touch points calibrated by someone of significantly different height and finger size

That said. They’re horrible for a voting system. Absolutely horrible. Nothing wrong with the ol Scantron type ballot

They press too hard and a 'swipe' is beyond their abilities.

The interface is controlled by a wheel to move between items and a button to select. If a person were to turn the wheel to select the Democratic straight ticket and turned it a little too far, then it is possible that an extra step would be registered. The next item after the straight ticket selection is the Senate line for Ted Cruz. It wouldn't go the other way because of the way the controls work.

These are the same machines we use in OC CA. Basically detents on mechanical wheel. They always feel clunky when using. Think about it as a wheel with the clock positions being the stops. It rests at 12. You roll to the 1 position to go to the next choice, go slightly past and the software picks up the next choice. So you are rolling forward/back to make the correct pick. It is critical that you watch closely to make sure that when you are turning the wheel you haven't moved slightly past your required choice.

That being said, it somewhat pisses me off that the standard user error excuse is made. It is technically user error but the wheel/interface design sucks. The movement of the wheel requires a bit of a spin, too far and you make the wrong choice. Also, they have years of experience with these machines so they would know positioning on the ballot would have an impact on how many incorrect votes to expect.

If you miss the straight democratic ticket mark, and only vote for the next item (Cruz), then you didn't select straight Democratic ticket - so you would have to vote individually for every other Democrat.

The result of your scenario would be one vote for Cruz and no vote for any other race. The scenario you propose is not compatible with what is being reported, a straight ticket Democratic ballot with Cruz selected, or a straight ticket Republican ballot, with no vote for the Senate race.

... and still work for children today.

One machine maybe 2 or 3 on purpose.

Apple or Samsung can get touchscreens right on a far larger scale with a lower failure rate

This isn't a calibration issue. The selections are controlled with a wheel and a button.

... ticket dem

The way that the machines work, selecting a straight ticket apparently just pre-selects all of the candidates from that party. Individual candidates can be changed before getting to the summary screen.

... I've heard about and seen this before.

Seriously

Can't fat-finger that one, it has to be hardwired.

A bad hardware design could cause an extra step to be registered by the wheel when selecting an item. I'm just pointing out that the software could register that step as selecting the next item on the ballot, which happens to be the line for Ted Cruz.

The un-American GOP are just ripping peoples votes off.

i'll probably get flamed for this........ but if someone is going to "steal" votes by "hacking" a machine, do you really think they are going to SHOW you the wrong vote right on the screen for you to see? If someone is going to mess with votes they are going to mess with the totaling/adding that happens inside the machine, and you're never going to see it.

It's a point I've been making for years. If you have the sophistication to steal votes - and it is a lot harder than the demos in artificial settings make it appear - you have the sophistication to make it steal the votes silently (and you would do so, because you are far more likely to get away with it than drawing attention to the theft).

Voters select straight ticket - and instead of a straight ticket, in one race the selections are shifting. Beto to Cruz, and Cruz to no one.

That's not voter error. I don't believe it is vote stealing - but that is a programming error - not a crappy interface error. Crappy interface errors (and there are many out ther) would impact single votes - not the functionality of selecting all by choosing straight ticket.

I'm having a hard time sorting out how this error would work - as long as Cruz is properly programmed as a Republican and Beto is properly programmed as a Democrat, there would be no logical reason for all but one Democrat to be selected, and a Republican selected in his place. So that leaves me to wonder if they are improperly programmed - but that ought to impact the display (i.e. Beto should be appearing on the interface as a Republican - and I haven't heard of that problem.)

So, while i agree it's not vote stealing, but rather crappy machines/programming, I don't think it's the interface calibration that caused this particular problem.

It is not a voter error, it is a programming error or cheat.

The error occurs when a straight ticket vote is selected. It does not occur when each each race is selected individually. That indicates that in the race for Senator, Cruz is the Democrat for Strait ticket voting and Beto is, well, nothing.

The problem with direct selection machines is there is no way to reliably replicate the actions of a human for testing purposes.

Minnesota uses paper ballots read by a tabulator machine. The same set of ballots can be run through the same machine multiple times or run through many machines to validate they are correctly reading the ballots. There is no way to duplicate a human touching a screen or scrolling a wheel.

The only acceptable interpretation is that this is an intentional hack that, apparently, the programmers were too stupid to hide...

and then later, if there is a problem, we’ll speak up about it.

on the poll watchers nominated by your candidates.

Nothing is going to change, but your vote. That's the way it is, at the moment.

Sometimes, throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks IS entertaining, regardless of whether that's acceptable or not...

I vaguely remember some toy from back then where you selected some barn animal sound on a wheel — (somebody help me out here). The machine I voted on (in Texas) felt like a toy. I double checked my selections before finalizing my vote, but I left feeling insecure. The “toy” feeling didn’t jive with the responsibility of voting.

can result in all Democratic names except for Beto.

salvage peoples' votes is yet another way for rethugs to steal votes. If the malfunctions were working to the advantage of the dems, things would play out differently. The malfunctions have been mentioned for years as one of the vote stealing tactics.

but went through each one just to make sure.

No excuses, just negligence or corruption. The SoS's job is to make sure the voting system is fool-proof and it can be done, it's just NOT being one. Big surprise.

Link to tweet

This phenomenon of eSlates changing votes has been a problem since they were introduced around 2004. I think that it happens when you advance to the next page on the ballot. I think you're supposed to press a "Next Page" button but if you turn the wheel (which is what you do to select the next line on the ballot) instead the machine interprets that as changing the last voting selection. At any rate, it behooves the voter to review the summary page listing all the voting choices you've made before pressing Cast Ballot.

Like I said, this has been a long-running problem. I'm looking forward to Travis County scrapping the eSlates before the next election.