McKinney to file election challenge

08/11/2006 @ 12:58 pm
Filed by Brian Beutler

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), who lost Tuesday's runoff bid to challenger Hank Johnson, is seeking to legally contest the results after alleging that error-prone electronic voting machines and constituent disenfranchisement had caused her campaign to suffer.

RAW STORY has learned that, as of yesterday, her campaign officials had tallied 25 sworn affidavits and believed that several dozen more had yet to be counted.

Karon Edge-Fitzpatrick, a poll watcher for the McKinney campaign, told RAW STORY that she and other officials would be meeting with attorneys late yesterday to discuss available legal avenuea, but did not immediately return numerous calls for comment later in the afternoon and today.

The Atlanta Progressive News today published copies of two affidavits. One, written by voter Genie Armour noted:

“I came to cast my vote for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Unfortunately, I experienced a problem that concerns me. When I touch the screen to vote for Ms. McKinney, it automatically record Mr. Johnson’s as though I had voted for him. I attempted to correct this mistake by retouching the screen, but it would not clear. So I had to go back to the instructions and then return (2-3 times) before I was able to clear the incorrect vote. Immediately after clearing the misvote and another voter had a similar complaint. He had voted for Congresswoman McKinney but it was recorded as a vote for Mr. Johnson. We immediately notified the poll worker and they told us that we could check our votes before we cast them at the end. I noticed before casting my vote that the block for Congress was cut off and could easily be overlooked if not careful.... My opinion is many voters will not take the time to check their selection and as a result an incorrect vote can easily be made.”
Another, from voter Albert Scott, read:

“Put card in the machine, scrolled the names down, the machine voted for the candidate on its own. Voter requested assistance from poll manager, voter was told by manager he couldn’t help him. Machine went to last page then ejected card and was told he couldn’t do it again.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, state election officials told RAW STORY they had “confirmed that there were no incidences of McKinney’s name being left off of ballots in District 4 when they should have been.”

McKinney was defeated by over 12,000 votes, a nearly 18 percent margin.