Here we go again: Blame the victim. The voter often takes the rap, especially when a ballot is butterflied — or a chad hangs in the balance and with it, an election. Touch-screen voting was supposed to remove all risk in voting, and doubt about the tally. That’ll be the day. For now, some voters in Boulder City, Nev., are rightfully steamed that an election official is blaming them for ballots gang aft agley. When these folks in a town about 20 miles outside of Las Vegas were casting ballots for Republican Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate Monday, they discovered that the touch-screen machine already had come up snake eyes.
Instead of a check at Angle’s name, the machine checked Angle’s opponent, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, according to a report on
Channel 5 Fox News in Las Vegas.
Voter Joyce Ferrara told Channel 5 that her machine wasn’t the only one showing a checkered past. The same thing happened to her husband and several others at the same time. "Something's not right," Ferrara told Channel 5. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time — that's wrong."
On the other side of the touch screen is the registrar, who suggests not only that the voters are wrong but also that the problem is their fault.
The touch screens are sensitive, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax told the TV station. But he’s not, sensitive, anyway, judging by his next comment: "Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot. Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in."
Voters should have faith in the system, he told Channel 5.
Comments about “elderly” voters might spur them to find faith in a system that could show him the door. He'll be old someday, too.
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