ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – With days to go before Tuesday's mayoral election, the Election Board is responding to complaints of touchscreen machines switching the votes of some absentee voters.
"We don't think it's an extensive problem at all," said Republican Director of Elections Gary Stoff, after a handful of voters complained their picks for mayor or aldermen were being overridden by the touchscreen voting machines.
Stoff says three touchscreen machines have been pulled from the floor and replaced.
"Sometimes just in moving the machines from one floor to another, they might get jostled around and it might throw that calibration off a little bit," Stoff said.
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Asked about the possibility that someone could program the machines behind the scenes to switch votes, Stoff says that's not likely.
"To do that you'd have to have collusion between at least two individuals, because everything we do here is bi-partisan," Stoff said.
Stoff also dismisses the possibility that some outside actor could hack the machines to switch votes.
"I don't know how that would happen, frankly, because all the machines are free-standing," Stoff said, "And all the machines go through extensive testing procedures required by state law."
The three machines removed from the floor have been set aside, but Stoff says no one is taking them apart to analyze whether they were tampered with.
If a touch screen voting machines tries to swtich your vote in Tuesday's eleciton, Stoff says notify a poll worker of the problem right away.
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