FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It had to happen. Things were just going too smoothly.
Early Thursday, as Broward County elections officials wrapped up after a long day of canvassing votes, something unusual caught their eye. Tallies should go up as more votes are counted. That’s simple math. But in some races, the numbers had gone … down.
It turns out the software used in Broward County can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward. Why a voting system would ever be designed to vote backward was a mystery to Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman. It had her on the phone late Wednesday with Omaha-based Elections Systems and Software.
Bad numbers showed up only in running tallies through the day, not the final one. Final tallies were reached by cross-checking machine totals and officials are confident they are accurate.
From the Palm Beach Post