Comparing FL 13 to NC 08 Congressional Races

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

I would like to supply information not covered by
the "Scoop" article about the NC 08 and FL 13 contests

Wrong Winner Chosen Twice by Same Voting Machine
Monday, 15 January 2007, 4:42 pm
Article: Michael Collins
Congress Seats Two Clear “Losers”
Wrong Winner Chosen Twice by Same Voting Machine
Examining Florida 13th and North Carolina 8th
Congressional Districts Leaves Little Doubt
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00173.htm

The scoop article says that the same problems in FL 13 happened
in NC 08 in Mecklenburg County NC.

Some of the information for this article may have come from this website:

The Mysterious Mecklenburg Undervote of 2006
In the November 2, 2006 election, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
had several very close results in both national and state races...
http://home.earthlink.net/~meckvote06/
The website info was was put together by Vinod Thomas,
an observer for the Larry Kissell campaign. (This is very interesting)

However, an examination of the data at the Mecklenburg County BOE website
shows:

the Mecklenburg County undervote was 4%. 150,952 of 157,252 voters,
or 95.99%, cast a vote for a US Representative. Isn't that normal,
more or less? From the summary http://www.meckboe.org/pages/Election/Summary.html ,

Meanwhile - A few things not covered in the article:

1. NC has a different version iVotronic than Sarasota,
and it has a "paper trail".

2. Larry Kissell (D) requested and obtained
a manual recount of the VVPAT in Mecklenburg County.

Larry Kissell's attorneys and observers were there,
and reporters were there.

In spite of what some say, at least some voters do check their paper printout,
regardless of what others say. I know because I hear from people.

The State Board of Elections advised me that -
"instructions were also included (page 13) in the four million voter guides"
(instructions on how to verify the vote on the iVotronic)

3. Carrie Levine, reporter for the Charlotte Observer stated that she observed
the recount and that it did follow protocol and the law completely.

Levine answered my many questions thoroughly, because I had so many doubts.
(I had heard doubts from an observer).
clevine @ charlotteobserver.com

Levine, who has done some good writing on election issues was
adament that the paper was recounted as the law orders.

Levine advised that the "paper trail" was extremely difficult to recount,
because the iVotronic doesn't print a summary, but prints everything, and it
takes longer to find the final selection in a contest. Counters had to go back and
count some ballots several times because they were very very hard to read.

4. The Scoop article says that NC 08 was a stronghold for Larry Kissell,(DEM).

How can the NC 08th be a stronghold for Larry Kissell,
considering that Kissell is a high school social studies
teacher and former textiles worker who never ran for office before,
and who did not get serious backing from the democratic party?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kissell

Kissell's opponent, Robin Hayes (R) is also the incumbent,
and has held the seat since 1999.
Before that, Hayes served two terms in the NC House of Reps.
Hayes was the GOP nominee for Governor in 1996. Kissell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hayes