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By Johnny Kampis | Missouri Watchdog
ST. LOUIS — Claims of faulty machines giving votes intended for Mitt Romney to President Obama are unfounded, the Missouri Secretary of State’s office says.
The Republican National Committee sent letters to six secretaries of state, including Missouri Democrat Robin Carnahan, on Thursday expressing concern over voting machines.
In the letter, John R. Phillippe, Jr., chief counsel for the RNC, wrote that “in a significant number of cases” voting machines in these states populated votes for the wrong presidential contender, giving the tally to Obama instead of Romney.
Phillippe asked the secretaries of state to make sure all machines are calibrated and to remind voters they should ensure their choices were properly recorded before leaving the polls.
The Missouri SOS office provided Missouri Watchdog with the Friday response from executive deputy secretary of state Rich Lamb, in which he noted the RNC letter failed to specify any particular Missouri voters who experienced errors when using the state’s electronic voting system.
“To date, our office has not received any complaints regarding the issue,” Lamb wrote. “We are aware of a report in a newspaper article, which was addressed by the local election authority.”
St. Louis County voter Diana Neff told KMOV she twice tried to vote for Romney when casting an absentee ballot on an electronic voting machine last month, but the machine tried to register the vote for Obama. A poll worker reset the machine, which functioned property afterward.
Stacie Temple, communications director for Carnahan’s office, told Watchdog that election authorities cannot begin counting absentee ballots until Tuesday.
Lamb wrote that he had sent the RNC letter to all of the local election authorities in the state, as voting systems are under their control.
LAMB: Missouri’s voting machines are rigorously tested.
He said the machines are tested for accuracy before and after each election.
“Further, the voting systems have a voter verified paper audit trail that can be directly verified by the voter prior to casting their ballot,” Lamb wrote.
He also noted that a voter’s bill of rights is posted in each polling place, alerting them of that ability.
Contact Johnny Kampis at johnny@missouriwatchdog.org. For more Missouri Watchdog updates, visit Facebook and Twitter, or sign up for a free newsletter.
