2016 Postmortem

Bill USA

(6,436 posts) Tue Apr 19, 2016, 04:46 PM Apr 2016

New York City primary voters outraged by broken machines, closed polling places

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-primary-voters-outraged-broken-machines-late-polls-article-1.2606810

New York primary voting at some Brooklyn and Queens polling places was a disaster Tuesday morning — with early morning voters arriving to broken machines and belated polling.

Queens resident George Mack said he came to P.S. 52 in Springfield Gardens to vote right at 6 a.m. He, and about 50 other early voters, learned all three machines on site were broken. Volunteers at the school told voters to place their ballots in a slot, and they would all get processed later.

“It’s a recipe for disaster,” said Mack, 55, who voted for Hillary Clinton.

“Somebody at the end of the day is gonna feed (the ballots) through a machine? I don’t have confidence in that.”
(more)

Jesus! I thought New Yorkers were supposed to be capable of running an election. Broken machines? Why the hell weren't these machines checked out weeks before the primary?!

8 replies

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New York City primary voters outraged by broken machines, closed polling places (Original Post) Bill USA Apr 2016 OP

why the hell didnt sanders supporters check out the election laws and rules weeks before? a mystery msongs Apr 2016 #1

You know the main guy interviewed in that article is a Clinton supporter? Ash_F Apr 2016 #3

Bad, but there don't seem to be widespread reports... pat_k Apr 2016 #2

We don't know until we compare this primary day with any other election day in New York apnu Apr 2016 #4

Well the problems happen for all voters. Shit happens every election. nt Jitter65 Apr 2016 #5

I understand the NY elections commissioner is a republicon WhiteTara Apr 2016 #6

The current voting machines are past their useful life Gothmog Apr 2016 #7

Yu do not want "interesting new technologies" in voting machines. Baobab Apr 2016 #8

msongs

(67,413 posts)

1. why the hell didnt sanders supporters check out the election laws and rules weeks before? a mystery

Reply to Bill USA (Original post)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 04:49 PM

Apr 2016

Ash_F

(5,861 posts)

3. You know the main guy interviewed in that article is a Clinton supporter?

Reply to msongs (Reply #1)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 05:01 PM

Apr 2016

pat_k

(9,313 posts)

2. Bad, but there don't seem to be widespread reports...

Reply to Bill USA (Original post)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 05:00 PM

Apr 2016

...of problems and lines. So that's something I guess.

apnu

(8,758 posts)

4. We don't know until we compare this primary day with any other election day in New York

Reply to Bill USA (Original post)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 05:05 PM

Apr 2016

And see if the broken machines and polling place confusion is more frequent this year than previous years.

Machines break, people forget and screw up polling locations, people also oversleep or otherwise mis-communicate polling hours. It happens in every election to a certain degree.

Until we know that this day's issues are uncommon or not, we should not jump to conclusions.

Jitter65

(3,089 posts)

5. Well the problems happen for all voters. Shit happens every election. nt

Reply to Bill USA (Original post)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 05:09 PM

Apr 2016

WhiteTara

(29,718 posts)

6. I understand the NY elections commissioner is a republicon

Reply to Bill USA (Original post)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 05:14 PM

Apr 2016

and so I have little hope for an easy election. Of course the machines should have been checked out and certified some time ago.

Gothmog

(145,291 posts)

7. The current voting machines are past their useful life

Reply to Bill USA (Original post)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 05:34 PM

Apr 2016

I was an election judge for the runoff during the May 2014 runoff and the Judge Booth Controller died six times. I have to reboot the JBC and all of the units 7 times that day. We need new machines and there are some interesting new technologies being tested

Baobab

(4,667 posts)

8. Yu do not want "interesting new technologies" in voting machines.

Reply to Gothmog (Reply #7)

Tue Apr 19, 2016, 06:24 PM

Apr 2016

NJ has obsolete voting machines that have a touch screen and NO PAPER BALLOTS which means they are easily hackable and insecure as hell.

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/evtwote09/tech/full_papers/appel.pdf

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/avc/

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