Voter Finds Another Romney-Loving Machine in Pennsylvania

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County officials have found another Romney-loving robot: A faulty electronic voting machine in Union County, Pennsylvania, has been recalibrated and put back online after it wouldn’t allow a vote for President Obama, Mother Jones has confirmed.

Earlier today, MJ reported on another incident this morning in Perry County, Pennsylvania, in which a voting computer’s touchscreen ballot converted all Obama votes into votes for Romney. The second machine came to light after a local college professor found he couldn’t cast his vote for Obama on it.

“I spoke with a poll worker there and saw her fold up the machine. I also called [a national wattchdog hotline] to report the incident,” said Andy Hirsch, director of media communications at Bucknell University, who posted a video of the machine’s malfunction on Vimeo after it failed to record his ballot choices.

John Showers, chairman of the board of elections for Union County, confirmed that there was a problem with the calibration of the machine; the problem has since been fixed, and the machine has been returned to service. He said: “In general, there’s a calibration issue with one machine in each election here, so we had this one, and it was taken care of,” he said.

Hirsch said he’d learned about that previous machine snafu in Perry County, just before he set out for his own polling station. “I watched that video right before I left, and wondered whether or not it was real,” he said. “Now I’m not surprised!”

Watch the video here:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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