Citizen journalists strengthening democracy by observing elections and sharing the results

Electronic voting equipment (touchscreen machines, tabulators, electronic poll books, etc) malfunctioned and broke down at an alarming rate during this election. The problem of equipment failure was widespread and pervasive, perhaps the biggest impediment to voting this year. In many places across the country, new equipment was being implemented for the first time, often with little testing or poll woker training.

Whether or not shoddy manufacturing or poorly planned implementation can explain these failures, they disenfranchise voters just as much as the more overt and obviously intentional tactics of past elections. And with only a malfunctioning box of circuits to point the finger at, it's much harder to establish that an active effort to suppress voters exists.

Regardless of how or why voting equipment failed voters this election, we need to recognize that these machines are the now greatest source of disenfranchisement and that we must confront the problem as vigilantly as we have other forces of suppression.

When voting equipment fails, not only does it affect individual voters, it also can also create significant delays and bottlenecks at polling places that affect thousands of voters. This year, equipment failures caused lines long enough to force many voters to leave without voting, and to turn voting into an inconvenient and exhausting experience for those who could wait for several hours.

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All of these problems undermine public trust in the integrity of the election system and the results of elections, and that lack of confidence almost certainly functions to reduce turnout.