From the Chicago Sun Times:
The last name of Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney is misspelled as “Whitey” on electronic-voting machines in nearly two dozen wards — about half in predominantly African-American areas — and election officials said Wednesday the problem cannot be corrected by Election Day.
The misspelling turned up on touch-screen machines in 23 wards overall. Whitney’s name is spelled correctly on the machines’ initial screens showing all of the candidates’ names, but it is misspelled on review screens that later show a voter his or her choices, said Jim Allen, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections.
So all of a sudden when it gets media coverage, they are able to reprogram and test the machines in time?
I’m with Dale – what kind of programming wouldn’t link the names from the first screen to the confirmation names?
It got a lot of coverage. It was on the MSNBC website and the New York Post carried it and a lot of other places.
This got a brief mention on msnbc Keith Olbermann show a little while ago.
Chicago election officials said that they will be fixing all machines for election day:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2803178,rich-whitney-spelling-error-election-101410.article
The fact that they do not directly use the name from the first screen to verification screen makes me wonder if the candidate that you are voting for really gets your vote.
If these were printed ballots I could see the claim that it could not be changed in time, but electronic machines cannot be change in time seems like crock to me.
I agree with Hayden… there is NO REASON they can’t fix this “glitch” /typo in the next 2 1/2 weeks
Being Chicago I wouldn’t doubt that this was done on purpose. If one of the major party candidates names was misspelled you know that it could be corrected within hours.
If nothing else, the Rich Whitney campaign should probably demand to know the name and/or title of the employee who gets FIRED for making such a critical mistake.
Why in the name of Stroustrup would you have two different spellings of a candidate’s name in your system?