State party officials monitored the problems in Westmoreland County and throughout Pennsylvania, where numerous issues with electronic voting machines were reported.

State GOP Chairman Rob Gleason Jr. issued a statement yesterday afternoon urging counties in which there were machine failures to pull those computers offline and use paper ballots.

"We need to make sure this election is fair and that every single Pennsylvania voter gets an opportunity to cast their ballot. Machine failures are occurring in various parts of the state, and we need to take the appropriate steps to ensure an accurate vote," Gleason said.

State Democrats also were monitoring the elections.

"We're hoping the results are not tainted," said Abe Amoros, spokesman for the state Democratic Committee.

Watchdog groups critical of the electronic voting systems, which in the primary replaced the 50-year-old lever voting machines, said they were not confident the vote tallies reported last night were accurate.

"It may be OK, but it may be a problem," said Mary Beth Kusnic, a Westmoreland County poll worker and a member of VotePa, a watchdog group that has complained about Pennsylvania's reluctance to allow the electronic voting machines to generate paper trails to ensure accuracy in reporting vote totals.

"The machines are so new, we don't know. It makes me sad this happened, but I'm not surprised," Kusnic said.

Susan Hansen, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the impact of the technical error could invalidate the election.

"I'm not sure there is a right answer. This is all new territory," Hansen said.

The malfunctions had an initial impact in getting the votes counted last night.

While it could take days to get all the votes counted, delays in having initial vote tallies were directly related to the software issue.

Unity Township's Roble precinct lost both of its machines for about 30 minutes yesterday morning and had to turn people away.

Judge of Elections Lisa Burkardt said the first machine malfunctioned after three voters used it. The second machine broke down a short time later. ...

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news/westmoreland/s_478760.html

Remember though, as the nation again focuses on O.J. - gone uninvestigated is the election of 2006 and those malfunctioning electronic voting machines across the county.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, voters were assigned to an incorrect voting precinct because "maps" weren't up to date. We've posed, whatever happened to the SURE system which was supposed to be used to make sure people were voting in the correct location.

Meadow Lane residents cast ballots in wrong congressional district By Rich CholodofskyTRIBUNE-REVIEWTuesday, November 14, 2006

About 60 residents of a new housing development in Hempfield Township cast ballots last week in the wrong voting district, according to officials in the Westmoreland County Election Bureau. Homeowners in the two-year-old Meadow Lane Farm Estates plan near Bovard were incorrectly directed to vote at the Bovard Volunteer Fire Department rather than at the township's Fox Hill precinct.

 http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news/westmoreland/s_479651.html

 Pre-election, as recently as September 24, 2006 Officials Wary of Electronic Voting Machines.

Pre-Nov. 2006 print media and the internet resounded with pointed election fraud allegations

The Nation's Ronnie Dugger posed How They Could Steal the Election This Time July 29, 2004 (August 16, 2004 issue) and Electronic Voting: The Stolen Election of 2004. A Pennsylvania group, Coalition for Voting Integrity, highlights Voters Unite Electronic Voting Problems--Examples of the Week.

Hopefully, the same will be conducted for Nov.7, 2006, but don't hold your breath.

Pre-election warnings of malfunctions and breakdowns proved true all day during November 7, 2006 - more than a couple of machines had breakdowns on November 7, 2006, how about all, every single machine in Westmoreland County, PA, programmed incorrectly with the "wrong" date, (see Some electronic voting machines not 'up to date').

Shockingly we are hard pressed to find the same election watchdogs, activists, Mark Crispin Miller- believers and followers, news commentators, columnists, net press, and officials (warning such malfunctions would be evidence of a rigged election, tampering, and fraud,) raising a ruckus heard round the world now: voting machines malfunctioned = evidence of a stolen election.

We'll watch how things unfold up to the time the election returns around the country are certified and deemed "official."

There is the situation of Florida again. Beware. Thousands of undervotes for a House race in the same district wherein a referendum to return to paper ballots was approved.  Course, the Republican candidate's ahead there... so there's something suspicious...

 Here's the Gov-Sen-House vote totals for those races in the five counties... The undervote in Sarasota -- nearly 12 percent -- was far higher than in the surrounding counties, which had an undervote rate of less than 3 percent. Also, the undervote rate for absentee ballots, cast on paper for fill-in-the-blank Optiscan machines, was about 3 percent in Sarasota....

 Just speculating. Wouldn't it be easy to manufacture fake machine votes, coordinating them with electronic polling books, and then have a bunch of them be "undervoted" in a race expected to be "tight?"

Voter Trust USA tracking, not demanding investigations everywhere