Reply #2: I know this can happen

[ClarkinMich]

but it might be purely due to incompentance and poorly designed machinery.

This exact thing happened to my wife here in Michigan.

Same situation -- 2 precincts, 1 polling place, different ballots. We have optical scan balloting, but similar to Ohio, the ballot is scanned by machine as the last step.

ONE DIFFERENCE -- THE MACHINE IN MICHIGAN WOULD NOT SCAN HER BALLOT IN THE WRONG PRECINCT.

So the machine told her a spoiled ballot. The inattentive election worker gave here a new ballot... now from the wrong precinct. She filled it out... and when she went to scan it, they then figured out she was scanning at the wrong machine (which had no sign on it for which precinct it was for). The election workers then got in her face, told here she made the mistake and she couldn't vote. She was trying to call the election protection hotline when the Democratic challenger stepped in and argued with the elections officials to give her a 3rd ballot, which they eventually did and she filled out and scanned it in the correct machine.

The democratic challenger took her complaint, and I think it is one of the 37,000+. When I got there to vote 1 hour later, there were big signs on the machines as to which precinct they were and the workers at the scanners were asking every voter which precinct they were in.

Now the kicker of it all -- her franchise was saved and, because of the Democratic challenger, her vote for W was counted.

AND THEY SAY THIS IS A PARTISIAN ISSUE!!!!!!

THIS IS ABOUT THE KEY RIGHT OF A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY -- THE RIGHT TO VOTE!!!