Submission + - Forgotten memory cards nearly flip election result (indystar.com)
CorporalKlinger writes: Many of America's larger election districts have already switched to electronic touchscreen voting. Despite all of the usual complaints about software security and lack of paper records for auditing purposes, one of the less insidious flaws with digital election recording came to light in Indianapolis this week: the ease with which an election could be flipped if officials simply 'forgot' to count votes on memory cards from specific districts. 'Two computer memory cards inadvertently left inside voting machines on Tuesday held enough votes to give the victory to Democrat incumbent Angela Mansfield in the race to represent City-County Council District 2. Tuesday, with all precincts reporting, [Republican candidate Schumacher] was listed as the winner on the Marion County Election Board's Web site. By 2 p.m. Thursday, after the memory cards were retrieved and the votes on them counted, [Schumacher] had 5,591 votes compared to Mansfield's 5,900. The reversal of fortune for Schumacher would leave the GOP with 16 seats and give the Democrats 13.' It leaves one to wonder how many other election results may be in error from November 6th due to mistakes such as this.