Important Voting News

voting-is-sexyOr not.

This doesn’t bode well for freedom and democracy in Georgia. I wonder if this is the reason that getting your Voter Registration address changed has been moving at a snails pace. I hear folks are having to go directly to the SoS office to get it done.  Early voting begins October 14th ish. I say “ish” because we’re not sure clear if Columbus Day is or is not a Holiday around these parts. Anyway you get the point, heck it’s not like you all are going to go the first day anyways.

Election chiefs wary of state’s new voter registration system

BY JOHNNY EDWARDS – THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

Elections chiefs for several metro Atlanta counties are warning that glitches in the state’s new voter registration system could cause frustrations for voters when polling starts in four weeks.

Data entry is more cumbersome, they say, and the new software often puts streets and houses on the wrong sides of district lines, which have been adjusted to account for the 2010 census.

“It’s very, very complex,” DeKalb Elections Director Maxine Daniels said. “We’re just concerned about how this is going to come together before November.”

Some county officials are concerned that voters could cast ballots in the wrong council races or get blocked from using touch-screen machines because precinct workers can’t find them in their computers.

Problems have already cropped up in the first jurisdiction to use the new system — Macon-Bibb County, which is holding an election Tuesday to pick the leaders of its newly consolidated government. During early voting, dozens of people cast ballots in the wrong commission races, and lines stalled for hours as poll workers checked addresses against district maps.

The Secretary of State’s Office started moving all 159 counties onto ElectionNet late last year, after spending $2.6 million to replace an antiquated program that had been in use since 1995. It’s not clear if the state’s software is to blame or if some other problem, such as user error, is plaguing Macon-Bibb, said Merle King, executive director of Kennesaw State University’s Center for Election Systems.

However, both the state and the software provider, Connecticut-based PCC Technology Group, acknowledged some problems with the software, saying they’re working feverishly to make fixes before early voting starts statewide on Oct. 14.

“We have people working around the clock to resolve these issues,” PCC Technology President Joe Singh said.

To read the rest you have to pay.

Which really sucks if you care about elections and ya know “freedom & democracy”.


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6 responses to “Important Voting News”

  1. JMPrince Avatar
    JMPrince

    No. Never gonna happen. Never has happened. Not even close. The DoD will remain accounting & accountable free, likely forever. Because: Freedom is just another word for… ‘Nothing to declare’ other than pay up & shut up!
    JMP

  2. Juliana Avatar
    Juliana

    No Tim there never is… hell the US Army is 9 years into their accounting reform begun under Rumsfeld. Several acts of Congress, three major consulting firms, oversight and millions of dollars but by year 10 they should be able to tell the DoD what bullets and bases actually cost the taxpayer.

  3. Tim Cairl Avatar
    Tim Cairl

    Is there ever an easy upgrade from one technology platform to the next. They all seem to suck. Anyway, I hope this is quickly resolved before the really heavy early voting starts. Oy!

  4. Scapegoat Avatar
    Scapegoat

    And Brian Kemp wants to blame former Secretary of State Karen Handel when the system was selected on his watch!

  5. Juliana Avatar
    Juliana

    I saw some folks posting on FB about the delays, I think it’s a serious problem esp. since we have such strict ID requirements. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when they have to compare the ID to their system only to find out there is no match.

    Folks need to be faxing the change of addresses in, and keeping the time stamped receipt. Just an idea.

  6. Boondocks Avatar
    Boondocks

    It’s terrible and seems to be impacting all aspects of VR. A friend of mine mailed his application to the state in mid-June and still has not received confirmation from the county BoE nor is showing up via SoS MVP.

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