Electionline's newsletter, read by election officials across the country, led off this week with an article by Mindy Moretti with the upbeat title "Texas primary goes well, state officials say; glitches reported locally". The article reads like a PR piece from the voting machine vendors - it might as well be just that. The primaries in Texas last week were an unmitigated disaster as John Gideon's letter to Ms. Moretti points out. Thankfully we have John's Daily Voting News to let election officials and the voters they serve know what really happened last week in Texas. And just what is it that makes it okay if it was just a "glitch"?

Ms. Moretti,

Thank you for the work you put into writing this article. Unfortunately you probably should have spent a bit more time researching and then telling the whole story.
    

You mention a couple problem areas, using the typical "glitch" when there were some huge problems. You talk about Tarrant Co. but you don't tell the whole story; 100,000 extra votes added to the total. The county has admitted they really don't know what the results were and now, even after promising the candidates that the county would pay for the recount, the candidates will have to pay for any recounts. In Jefferson Co. ES&S failed so badly that they have volunteered to pay to do the recount.

You mention that voters liked the machines. You didn't speak about the fact that where voters had a choice between paper or electronic, they overwhelmingly chose to use paper ballots. When precincts completely run out of paper ballots and there are e-voting machines sitting there, that seems to point to voters making a choice.

The opinion of the election officials you chose to quote notwithstanding, it was actually pretty bad last week and the problems were not 'glitches'. In many cases they were big problems that are resulting in recounts and possibly worse. Of course, the state who forced the counties to use these new machines won't tell the truth and the counties won't tell the truth. We need to accurately report the facts to let everyone know the truth and not report fluff to cover up what has really happened.

Here are some of the news stories that appeared "locally" over the past week from Texas. Perhaps you need to read the articles and try again:

El Paso County - Recount sought in District 78 race

Galveston County - New voting system, same problems (Hart eSlate and eScan)
 

Hidalgo County - Garcia Won't Concede Election, Questions Many Ballots (ES&S iVotronic)
  

Hidalgo County - Elections administrator sends complaints to state office
 

Hidalgo County - Salinas earns majority over Garcia with all precincts in (County found votes on unused machines) (ES&S iVotronic)
 

Jefferson County - County to Recount Votes Monday Afternoon (ES&S will be paying for this recount)

Jefferson County - Jefferson County election recount (ES&S iVotronic)

Jefferson County - Election officials try to work out bugs (ES&S)

Jefferson County - Voting woes mar debut of electronic ballots (ES&S iVotronic)

Jefferson County - Confusion mars new voting process

Jefferson County - Jefferson County recounts votes; same winners, different numbers

Jefferson County - Highest turnout in years meets technical glitches (ES&S iVotronic)

Potter and Randall Counties - Electronic voting goes smoothly - not tallying (Potter – ES&S iVotronic Randall – Hart eSlate)

Potter County - Hairy Potter elections (ES&S)

Robertson County - Robertson County vote tallies delayed (ES&S)
 
Robertson County - Robertson County says glitches delayed results (ES&S)

Tom Green County - Computer problems delay election returns (Hart eScan)

Tom Green County - Election official: Paper ballots will stay despite delays

Webb County - Cuellar defeats Rodriguez in congressional grudge match (Counting problems

 – ES&S)

Webb County - Election uproar; Webb County officials say there were plenty of red flags

Webb and Bexar County - ‘Glitches' get blame in Webb (ES&S)

Webb and Bexar Counties - Editorial: E-voting continues to present problems (ES&S

Williamson County - Ballot counting runs into lags in Williamson County (ES&S iVotronic)