UPDATE: Third Test Attempt a Success for New Op-Scan Machines in State's Most Populous County...
By Brad Friedman on 2/29/2008, 4:36pm PT  

Bad news and/or good news, depending on how you wish to look at it...

First this...

POSTED: 5:06 pm EST February 29, 2008
UPDATED: 5:22 pm EST February 29, 2008

CLEVELAND --- The first public tests of the new optical scanners at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections have failed.

Chief Investigator Duane Pohlman reported that the board ran two tests of the scanners on Friday, and during both tests, the computer repeatedly showed an error message.

Followed by this reassuring(?) update to the same article, posted 57 minutes later...

POSTED: 5:06 pm EST February 29, 2008
UPDATED: 6:19 pm EST February 29, 2008

CLEVELAND --- The third time was the charm for pretest of the new optical ballot scanners at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

Chief Investigator Duane Pohlman reported that the board ran two tests of the scanners on Friday, and during both tests, the computer repeatedly showed an error message.

However, a third test ran successfully.

The Board of Elections said previous tests of the scanners were successful, and officials do not know why the scanners did not initially read the ballots.

Pohlman reported that the BOE is looking into possibly having a batch of bad disks.

Friday's tests were public pretests that are required by law.

Why must it always come down to Ohio?

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