Pike exit poll confirms new electronic vote

DINGMAN - A Dingman Township man says the tabulation of an exit poll he and several other volunteers ran on election day compared favorably with the recorded vote. Donald Minasian said 49 percent of the voters casting ballots at the township maintenance garage took part and the poll results were within three percent of the reported vote, which he deemed to be “within a normal margin of error.” Minasian had expressed concern about the security of the Diebold machines against computer hacking. He’d still like to see the computer tally backed by a paper receipt. “Our citizens feel strongly about democracy. This will make them feel even more secure,” he said. Things did not go as well in Northampton County, where elections officials had to manually add up printed totals from some of the county’s new electronic voting machines. Problems delayed unofficial results from being posted on the county’s Web site until about 4:30 a.m. last Wednesday. The WINvote touch-screen voting machines recorded the votes accurately and no votes were lost, said Deborah DePaul, registrar of elections. But she said some poll workers were unable to electronically combine the votes from individual machines into precinct totals when the polls closed Tuesday. In about 40 of the county’s 149 precincts, the precinct totals did not capture the votes from every machine, and election officials used printouts from each machine to compile the precinct totals, she said. “Ultimately, in the end, we find everything,” DePaul said. “There’s no missing votes. It’s just how we report it and how long it takes.” Final tallies will go to state officials by Nov. 27.