Illinois Voting Machines Always Votes Democratic

Eventually, both voters were able to vote for the Republican candidates, as they say they preferred. They said the screen appeared to be poorly calibrated, so that while pressing anywhere in the box for a Democrat registered a vote for the Democrat, only pressing the bottom half of the Republican box did so for the Republican. The only way to make the correct vote, they said, was to press the incorrectly checked box to “uncheck” it, then press low in the Republican’s box. The voters say they were able to figure this out without calling over an election judge for help. One of the voters who spoke with me says his attempt to vote for Kinney’s Republican opponent was registered as a vote for Kinney. He eventually voted for the Republican. Jon Schweppe, a spokesman for the Schilling campaign, says he called an official on the Illinois state board of elections on Friday afternoon about the voters’ complaints. “I spoke with Bruce Brown at the Illinois State Board of Elections,” Schweppe says. “He called me back about an hour later after speaking with the Rock Island County Clerk’s office. He told me he suggested a full recalibration to fix the problem. He said it was a common problem and easy to fix.” Kinney told the Times she recalibrated the machines on Friday, though the video above (taken days later, on Monday) suggests that did not fix the problem. Others in Illinois, where early voting began on October 20, have claimed similar problems with electronic voting machines. One Republican state house candidate in Cook County claimed his attempt to vote for himself was initially regsitered as a vote for his Democratic opponent.