Problems a few West Virginia voters experienced with touch-screen machines switching their votes is gaining wide attention.

VideoTheVote.com, a Berkeley, Calif., group, recently produced a video, aired on YouTube, depicting Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright demonstrating how his county's voting machines work.

The Independent, a London-based newspaper, reported on Wednesday:

"A county clerk in West Virginia invited a video crew to watch his demonstration of the reliability of the disputed voting machines but instead he saw the machine flipping the votes, as critics claimed. He put this down to the faulty calibration of the voting machine. However, even after he recalibrated the machine it continued to flip votes."

The video had been viewed more than 305,000 times by late Wednesday afternoon.

But Waybright said VideoTheVote did not include the full footage of the video, which, he said, would have showed the voting machines are working properly.

"The part they are showing is a total misrepresentation and a fraud. I misspoke during a part of that video. But the machine actually voted properly.

"I admitted my mistake. I made a slip of the tongue. I misspoke. I don't know it if was nerves. But I caught it and we reshot it. That portion was not used in the production" that is now on YouTube, Waybright said on Wednesday.

Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Bailey said a spokesperson from VideoTheVote told her they now plan to post the entire footage from the Waybright interview.

"They have acknowledged the video was inaccurate and the machine was operating as it should. For our standpoint, these false representations of the way these machines operate might scare voters. This video tries to undermine the value of the recalibration."

Bailey said her office has reported the controversy to the Voting Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University sent letters praising Secretary of State Betty Ireland's efforts to oversee voting machines to her colleagues in 16 other states that also use iVotronic voting machines.

They include: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

"Ireland has directed all counties in West Virginia to re-calibrate their machines each morning during early voting, which runs until November 1st, and on Election Day, November 4th." The Brennan Center letter added Ireland has also "reminded voters that they should contact a poll worker if they have any problems using an electronic voting machine, and that they should carefully confirm their candidate choices."

Problems a few West Virginia voters experienced with touch-screen machines switching their votes is gaining wide attention.

VideoTheVote.com, a Berkeley, Calif., group, recently produced a video, aired on YouTube, depicting Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright demonstrating how his county's voting machines work.

The Independent, a London-based newspaper, reported on Wednesday:

"A county clerk in West Virginia invited a video crew to watch his demonstration of the reliability of the disputed voting machines but instead he saw the machine flipping the votes, as critics claimed. He put this down to the faulty calibration of the voting machine. However, even after he recalibrated the machine it continued to flip votes."

The video had been viewed more than 305,000 times by late Wednesday afternoon.

But Waybright said VideoTheVote did not include the full footage of the video, which, he said, would have showed the voting machines are working properly.

"The part they are showing is a total misrepresentation and a fraud. I misspoke during a part of that video. But the machine actually voted properly.

"I admitted my mistake. I made a slip of the tongue. I misspoke. I don't know it if was nerves. But I caught it and we reshot it. That portion was not used in the production" that is now on YouTube, Waybright said on Wednesday.

Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Bailey said a spokesperson from VideoTheVote told her they now plan to post the entire footage from the Waybright interview.

"They have acknowledged the video was inaccurate and the machine was operating as it should. For our standpoint, these false representations of the way these machines operate might scare voters. This video tries to undermine the value of the recalibration."

Bailey said her office has reported the controversy to the Voting Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University sent letters praising Secretary of State Betty Ireland's efforts to oversee voting machines to her colleagues in 16 other states that also use iVotronic voting machines.

They include: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

"Ireland has directed all counties in West Virginia to re-calibrate their machines each morning during early voting, which runs until November 1st, and on Election Day, November 4th." The Brennan Center letter added Ireland has also "reminded voters that they should contact a poll worker if they have any problems using an electronic voting machine, and that they should carefully confirm their candidate choices."

The iVotronic machines are made by Election Systems & Software, an Omaha, Neb. company that has provoked criticisms across the country in states including Ohio, Florida and California.

After George W. Bush won the 2004 presidential election in Florida, state officials there stopped using the controversial touch-screen voting machines they bought for $16 million.

"There was no printed record of votes, which raised suspicions about the tallies, so the electronic machines were scrapped," USA Today reported in its leading article Wednesday about voting machine controversies around the country.

Touch-screen machines are used in 34 West Virginia counties.

In this election, Florida is using optical scanners to record votes, machines similar to those used in 19 West Virginia counties, including Kanawha County. Wyoming and Braxton counties still used paper ballots in recent elections.

In 2005, Ireland gave West Virginia's 55 counties the choice between using touch-screen and optical-scanning voting machines, sold to the state under an agreement negotiated between Ireland and Gary Lee Greenhalgh, who then worked for ES&S.

Kent Carper, president of the Kanawha County Commission, said the commission chose optical-scanning machines because they create a clear paper trail for all votes.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has written widely on election fraud, believes electronic voting machines have shifted too much control over elections into private hands, especially after passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

In a September 2006 article in Rolling Stone, Kennedy criticized HAVA for placing "much of the nation's electoral system in the hands of for-profit companies," turning elections into a "corporate-revenue enhancement scheme."

Four companies provide almost all voting machines used across the country: ES&S, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia Voting Systems and Diebold, now called Premier Election Systems.

Reach Paul J. Nyden

at pjny...@wvgazette.com  or 348-5164.

On the web: To see the video go to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc9Gd5g3DFY