Early West Virginia Voters Report Ballot Problems (Updated)

A trio of early voters who tried to cast their ballots in Jackson County this week tell The Charleston Gazette that touch-screen voting machines "kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates."

"When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain," Virginia Matheney of Kenna told the newspaper.

Two other voters alleged the same problem while trying to cast their ballots for the Democrat. Matheney and one of these others also reported it occurred while trying to vote for the Democrats running for governor, the state Supreme Court and the local state Senate seat.

"Why didn't she [the polling clerk] tell me before I even used the machine that might happen?" said Calvin Thomas, 81, of Ravenswood. "And how many people, especially my age, didn't notice that?"

Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Bailey told The Gazette that "When we received a call about this, we immediately called the county and told them to recalibrate the machines to make sure the finger-touch [area] lines up with the ballot..."Sometimes machines can become miscalibrated when they are moved from storage facilities to early voting areas. We get a couple of calls about this each election year."

Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright said his workers recalibrated the machines after getting the call, but also said voters may not be touching the right parts of the machine screens.

"People make mistakes more than the machines," he told the paper, "but I went in yesterday and recalibrated the machines. We are doing everything we can not to disenfranchise anybody."

Update: Voters in Putnam County report similar problems to The Gazette.