Excuses are a dime a dozen. I woke at 3am this morning, turned on my computer and still nothing. Organized confusing? Sounds like 1985 Venezuela to me. As much as we progress, we continue to fall behind.

Oh this electronic voting system is so great, huh? It is only as good as the people running it. This article blamed the problem on election judges who didn't know what they were doing. Another article said there was a server crash that caused the delay. What really happened? I'd like to know. This renews my belief that there needs to be a paper trail in addition to our votes going into cyberspace. What if this crash had lost all of our votes? Then what? This crash or judge mistake just caused a delay. Next time, it could be worse.

In Baltimore County - At the start of each day each machine has two reports printed, showing that the counts are zero. One report is hung in a viewable spot and the other is left in the machine. At the closing of the polls a long report is generated on the same roll of paper left in the machine for the "zero" report and records on paper all votes cast for that machine that day. Then a short report reflecting the accumulated total cast on that machine is generated, and left attached to the machine "zero" report and "long" report. These are then sent to the Board of Elections by the Chief Judges. A second "short" report is also generated and hung next to the opening day zero report for that machine. So if someone tried to tamper with the counts as recorded on the memory card it could be identified.
In defense of the election Poll workers and Judges, this is a grueling day where we are sequestered starting at 6AM and ending after the polls close. We are not allowed to leave the polling site. The "volunteer" and I say volunteer because although they get paid (about $200) it is not a large amount for 16-18 hours of work which includes setting up 45 pound machines and taking everything down. All the hourly reports needed, dealing with voters who need a Civic lesson on why we have a Primary elections, explaining to someone why they cannot just vote at our polling place when they need to go a mile down the road to vote in their assigned polling spot, trying to stop an electioneer from coming within the legal distance of the building, calling the Police on the electioneer who is violating the law, and my favorite from yesterday, the electioneer who asked why I could not give him a cup of coffee (a) because we don’t have any and b) you can leave and go to 7-11 and get some and we cannot). AND then when something fails, like the power at 7:57 PM last evening, it's the judges fault.
Try packing up all teh equipment and do your reports in the dark, not fun.
It’s all in a day work, why you may ask do we do it, because we feel everyone should participate somehow in our election process.

No final results in N.Y, Md., DC. All had computer problems using million dollar machines. Let's go modern, one vote then a purple finger in the air. Worked in Iraq and they have a political system similar to ours--DEADLOCK