Voting machine glitch in 5,000 machines not reported by company

INDIANAPOLIS -- A voting machine company is working to fix a software glitch in 5,000 machines in Indiana that forced a voting systems developer to prevent voters from casting a straight-party ballot.\nOfficials with the Indiana Election Commission were upset that MicroVote General Corp. did not tell them sooner about the software problem. The general election is Nov. 7.\n"I am disturbed by their lack of candor, and the commission is disturbed by their lack of candor," said commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, who sent a three-page letter to every county election official who uses MicroVote's Infinity system.\nThe Infinity voting machines are used in 47 Indiana counties. The company disabled the straight-party voting function so the machines could be certified for use in the primary election but did not tell election officials.\n"I don't know if they just thought they would just get it fixed or no one would notice or what," Wheeler said.\nThe software glitch would have allowed voters in split precincts casting a straight-ticket ballot to illegally vote for a candidate outside of the area where they live. Split precincts can straddle municipality boundaries.\nTime constraints before the primary led an independent lab, Colorado-based CIBER, to recommend that the straight-ticket function be disabled, said MicroVote attorney John R. Price.\n"They said you can either spend the time to fix it now or disable it and we'll fix it later," Price said. "That was an easy call. MicroVote said, 'We'll disable it now, and we'll fix it later.'"\nLaura Herzog, Hendricks County's election supervisor, said she stands behind MicroVote. "I don't know why it's been so difficult for them to get certified," she said.\nLast week, the commission approved the new upgrade after receiving a letter from the independent lab confirming that the system meets federal requirements.\n"If the vendor had been more forthright and candid earlier, it probably wouldn't result in the counties having this work done in the last half of September," said Brad King, Republican co-chairman of the Indiana Election Division.