Valley voter says machine rigged for Reid

Wildhorse resident Jim Partridge said when he went to vote on Monday the machine had already picked Sen. Harry Reid for him.

Partridge, 77, and wife Kerry went to vote early at the old Courthouse in Minden.

"After we got our cards, we went over to two of the machines," he said Wednesday. "I put my card in and looked down and Reid's name was already checked off."

Partridge said at the time he didn't think anything of it.

"I mentioned it to my wife and she said, 'Well, take it off,'" he said. "Then I voted for the person I intended to and checked to the left where it was printing out."

Partridge said the correct name came up on the paper ballot, but when he heard on the news that the same thing was reported in Las Vegas, it caused some concern.

"After hearing that, I know I didn't touch the screen," he said.

Partridge is registered a nonpartisan and is no stranger to the touchscreen technology.

Kerry Partridge said she was concerned that people won't be watching the screens as closely and might not catch the error.

Clerk-Treasurer Ted Thran encouraged anyone who encounters a problem like the one Partridge described to call an election worker.

"We'd love for someone to please point it out to us," he said.

Thran said until the story hit the news, he'd received no other complaints and nothing similar came up in testing the machines.

"We've had 8,000 voters and no complaints until it made the news," he said. "If someone had called us over, we could have looked at it."

Thran said those responsible for certifying the machines represent both parties.

"Technically, it's impossible for the machine to preselect," he said.

A Las Vegas television station reported voters in Clark County said Harry Reid's name had been preselected when they went to vote. The accusation is that county workers represented by the Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Harry Reid, are in control of the machines.

Clark County Voter Registrar Larry Lomax issued a statement saying that union employees do not have any control over the voting machines.

"The supervisors over the machines are not union eligible," Lomax said. "There may be union eligible technicians that work on and around the machines, but they are not involved in programming the equipment."

Lomax said that state law requires that the software and firmware used in each election be validated before and after the election to ensure that the integrity of the programs has not been violated.

"Extensive security measures are in place throughout the election process to prevent access to election equipment that would allow tampering," he said. "A certification demonstration attended by representatives from each major party is conducted before the beginning of early voting and again before and after Election Day to validate the accuracy of the tabulation equipment."

The association that represents county employees has not announced an endorsement for any candidate in the election.

Douglas County has a substantial Republican majority and all of its partisan offices are held by Republicans.

Secretary of State Ross Miller said Wednesday that the Nevada Election Integrity Task Force has not received any formal complaints of voter or election law violation, despite numerous media accounts and e-mail chains that repeat rumor and speculation about suspicious election activity.

The task force is made up of elections officials and investigators from the Office of Secretary of State, the Nevada Attorney General's Office, the US Attorneys Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"I will not tolerate any attempt by an individual, organization or campaign to deny any Nevadan the right to freely cast their vote in a safe, secure and private manner," he said. "But neither will I stand by and allow the public's confidence in the electoral system to be undermined by unsubstantiated rumors and allegations."