Stephen Rosenfeld: Republicans Whip Up Fears of Rigged Voting Machines!

The Republican National Committee has opened another front in its propaganda war to discredit potential election results in a half dozen swing states. The RNC sent a letter to top state election officials this week, saying that it has received reports of electronic votes that are cast for Romney, immediately turning into votes for Barack Obama. The top election officials in two of those states, Nevada and North Carolina, quickly wrote back letters calling the RNC's charge "irresponsible and unfortunate," and based on little more than "rumors and Internet hysteria." Both gave detailed explanations why the RNC's alleged vote hopping scenario was little more than a blip. They said machine errors occur, but noted that voters are given multiple chances to review and change their choices. "The rumors and Internet hysteria surrounding allegations of DREs, direct recording electronic voting machines switching votes in North Carolina has centered around Guilford County," wrote Gary O Bartlett, Executive Director of North Carolina's Board of Elections. "Since early voting started in Guilford County October 18th, there have been reports of 24 alleged incidents on DRE machines. That is out of more than 1000,000 ballots cast. These incidents occurred early in the voting period, and all these voters in the alleged incidents noticed the concern in the review ballot and changed their vote." "Unfortunately, your letter fails to provide any direct evidence that any particular voter in Nevada experienced 'errors' with their voting machine, or any details which could be used to open an investigation," wrote Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, in his reply to RNC Chief Counsel John R Phillippe Jr. "To date, our multi jurisdictional task force has not received any direct, first hand complaints from voters experiencing voting machine errors of the type you describe."