More Fairfax E-Voting Fallout

Posted on January 11, 2004

The fallout from last year’s e-voting debacle in Fairfax County continues — this time, it’s the county GOP bashing the Electoral Board:

New touch-screen voting machines used in Fairfax County’s local elections in November were a “failure,” and county electoral officials were unprepared to deal with the equipment’s problems, according to a county GOP committee report released yesterday.
In their report, Republican officials urged the county to investigate the “poor performance” of the machines, and they recommended state regulations that would require localities with the new equipment to follow stringent procedures.
“Neither the Fairfax County Electoral Board, nor the new voting machines was ready for Election Day,” the report said. “The new touch screen machines were a technological and procedural failure.”

Well, that’s pretty hard to dispute, you would think. But Electoral Board Secretary (and galactic-scale bonehead) Margaret Luca gives it the old college try nonetheless:

Margaret K. Luca, secretary of the county Board of Elections, disputed the GOP committee’s report, calling it inaccurate.
“It was about as good as an Election Day as we’ve ever had,” Luca said. Her staff “bent over backwards” to prepare for the election and held numerous demonstrations and seminars for the public beforehand.
“I feel so hurt that anyone would say we were not prepared; I mean, we were so well prepared,” Luca said. She said that every technical problem cited in the report was fixed in the weeks after the election.
“We anticipate having a perfect election in February,” she said. The Virginia Democratic presidential primary will be held Feb. 10.

Just like you anticipated having a perfect election in November? Oh, this oughta be good.

A better question is, why the hell are you whining about feeling hurt by this report? Shouldn’t you just be happy that you still have your job, after the November screw-up? Oh, people pointing out your mistakes hurts your feelings. Boo frickin’ hoo. Fair and honest elections are more important than keeping you from feeling unappreciated, Ms. Luca. If I was in your shoes, I’d be so thankful that I hadn’t been run out of the county on a rail that the idea of griping that people weren’t being nice enough to me would be pretty low on my priority list.