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Trump for Senate? Machine mistake irks Virginia voters

Posted at 12:08 PM, Nov 08, 2016
and last updated 2016-11-08 18:37:17-05

NOTTOWAY COUNTY, Va. -- A mistake on an electric voting machine in Nottoway County, Virginia has resulted in everyone on the presidential ticket being listed as candidates for U.S. Senate, not President and Vice President, on the display screen's summary page.

Several Nottoway voters reached out to WTVR CBS 6 Tuesday morning upon noticing the mistake.

"This morning I cast my vote for the Republican ticket using the touchscreen style system," one Nottoway voter reported. "At the end, I noticed that the header of the last page said, Trump Pence U.S. Senate. I knew that this was not correct."

trump-senate

The voter said he addressed the issue with poll workers who, he said, allowed him to vote with a paper ballot.

"There was an issue with programming of the DREs, where the summary screen, right before the voter cast their ballot, has a header that indicates US Senate above the presidential candidate name," Virginia Department of Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortés said. "That error was caught after reports from voters. The good news for voters is that their vote for president will be counted accurately."

Cortés added names appear correctly on the ballot, the header issue is only on the summary screen.

"It is correct when they are selecting candidates, and it’s correct on the results total at the end of the night," he said.

To correct the issue, the registrar has alerted voters to the programming issue, but ensured them it will not affect how their vote is counted, state spokeswoman Dena Potter said.

"In some precincts in that county, they use both DRE (touch screen) machines and optical scanners (paper ballots), so they switched to all optical scan," Potter added.

What caused the mistake was not yet available.

This post will be updated as new information is gathered.

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