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Ian: Barry said he talked to you
about the high incident of accuvotes not accepting or rejecting ballots in
Dakota Co. Minn.. I will look at those units and call you today.
In Washington Co.
a unit failed during an election, #79464. The unit was alright till about 1200
ballots. Voter turnout was very heavy. The balot box was emptied at about 900
ballots and 1800 ballots. At around 1200 the unit started to reject several
ballots, at 1500 it stopped completely - no ballot could be inserted. The
election officials went to the polling site with another unit. When replaced the
other unit accepted 3 ballots then would take no more. They called and I went to
the polling site with another unit.
When I arrived the
replacement unit was working OK. It had apparently started to work after it was
inside for awhile. The officials felt the unit was cold and had warmed up. Does
cold (20F) have a significant effect on the units? The replacement unit seemed
to reject approx. 1 of 10 ballots, but accept on the second try. People were
voting as fast as they could walk up to the unit.
That part looked pretty good. I took 79464 back
to the office and attempted to force a ballot through to clear any debris that
might be in the unit. You could not force a ballot through. The motor would
start up when a ballot was inserted but it did not appear that the drive wheel
was turning. I removed the motor, turned the gear by hand and replaced the
motor. Same problem but I wqs able to force a ballot through from the back. This
seened to free up the wheels and i could push a ballot through in either
direction. After blowing out the read heads it would acceppt ballots OK. I ran
the read head test twice with good results. I also ran 50 of the famous name
ballots through with a reject (invalid ballot) of about 1 in 10.
Any ideas? I will
be working on the failed units in Dakota this morning. Give me a call if you
have any ideas. Thanks: Don
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