corrente

David Cho of WaPo reports:

New touch-screen voting machines [purchased from Advanced Voting Solutions of Frisco, Tex., for $3.5 million] used in Fairfax County's local elections in November were a "failure," and county electoral officials were unprepared to deal with the equipment's problems, according to a county GOP committee report released yesterday.

In their report, Republican officials urged the county to investigate the "poor performance" of the machines, and they recommended state regulations that would require localities with the new equipment to follow stringent procedures.

"Neither the Fairfax County Electoral Board, nor the new voting machines was ready for Election Day," the report said. "The new touch screen machines were technological and procedural failure."

The Republican report cited dozens of e-mails and letters from precinct workers and voters who described problems such as machines that repeatedly crashed, screens that balked at registering votes and delays in tallying votes.

Why, one wonders, would the national Republicans be willing to spend billions of dollars on this techology?