Diebold Optical-Scan System Fails in Iowa GOP Straw Poll!
Results Delayed as Atleast 1500 Paper Ballots Re-Counted By Hand (Fortunately, There WERE Paper Ballots To Re-Count!)
Ron Paul Supporters Were Right to be Worried About Republican's Choice of Diebold to Tally Votes...
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Guest Blogged by John Gideon of http://VotersUnite.org
As we reported on July 15, Ron Paul's supporters were concerned that Diebold touch-screen voting machines were going to be used in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll. Well, it turns out the concerns about touch-screens were misplaced, as the GOP chose paper-based Diebold optical-scan machines instead. But their fears of Diebold may well have been justified as two of their op-scan systems failed and delayed the reported results.
While GOP candidate Mitt Romney may have walked away with a winning edge in the Iowa Straw Poll, Diebold was true to form as their voting system failed to count ballots correctly. As the Des Moines Register is reporting two of Diebold's optical scanners failed and 1500 paper ballots had to be manually recounted by hand...
At least there were paper ballots that could be hand counted when the machines failed. Had the Republican's used Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines --- as millions of Americans are forced to do each Election Day --- there would have been nothing to go back to when the machines failed.
UPDATE: The Atlantic is reporting the number of ballots which had to be "re-run" as 4500.
Either way, there were reportedly 14,203 total ballots cast. So going by the Des Moines Register's reported numbers, more than 10.5% of the ballots had to be recounted. If we go by The Atlantic's reported numbers, nearly 32% of the ballots in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll had to be recounted by hand.