Pennsylvania Voting Machine Switches Barack Obama Vote to Mitt Romney! [Video]

Rucuss staffNovember 6, 2012

Every vote counts so make sure your ballot is recording your correct pick.

Luckily for a Pennsylvania voter, he spotted a discrepancy just in time. The man posted a video on YouTube of an electronic voting machine changing his vote from President Barack Obama to Mitt Romney. After playing with the keys for a few minutes, he figured out he had to tap his selection in a certain area for Obama to be picked. All of the other candidate selectors worked fine.

The voting machine was was taken out of service on Election Day 2012, NBC News has confirmed. MotherJones.com reported that the machine was recalibrated and returned to service.

“There was a single complaint, so they recalibrated the machine, did a test run, and put it back online. We’ve had no complaints since then,” Mathew Keeler, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, told Mother Jones.

Here’s what the voter posted on YouTube:

“My wife and I went to the voting booths this morning before work. There were 4 older ladies running the show and 3 voting booths that are similar to a science fair project in how they fold up. They had an oval VOTE logo on top center and a cartridge slot on the left that the volunteers used to start your ballot.

I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.

I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She calmly said “It’s nothing to worry about, everything ill be OK.” and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.

There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I’m not a video guy, but if it’s possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.

After many people watched the video and read his comment, they called the Justice Department. Someone on Facebook posted a hotline number to report the machine discrepancy in response to the video.

“No matter who you’re voting for, a voting machine should not do this. If it happens to you, be sure to document it with your phone and call the Voter Hotline at 855-444-6100.”

Watch the video below.