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"The above video, allegedly showing e-voting machine fraud in Pennsylvania, caught the attention of the social web Tuesday morning. It's already received nearly 3,000 comments on YouTube and more than 4,500 upvotes on Reddit, hours after going online.\nThe anonymous uploader, known only as \"centralpavote,\" claims he was unable to select Barack Obama as his choice for the president. He also claims a poll worker was unhelpful when presented with the problem, saying, \"It's nothing to worry about, everything will be OK,\" before resuming her work.\nNBC News confirmed the machine was \"taken out of service after being captured on video changing a vote for President Obama into one for Mitt Romney,\" but the report didn't clarify what the problem actually was.\nDoes the video show nefarious vote-tampering at work? Probably not. Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Senior Staff Technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, argues calibration, not vote tampering, is to blame. \n\"Calibration issues are something we see a lot of,\" Hall told Mashable. \"These are touchscreens, they get shaken around a lot, temperature variations can cause them to go out of whack. And a lot of these are 10- to 15-year-old computers, so it's not too crazy to expect them to do some funny things.\"\nHall pointed out that touchscreens can potentially lose calibration in individual areas of the screen, causing strange errors like the one possibly documented in the video. He also said users can interfere with touchscreen calibration by inadvertently touching a screen with another part of their body as they use it, though he added that's mostly a problem experienced by older voters (the uploader says he's a software developer, which means he likely knows how to operate a touchscreen). \nNeed more evidence nothing sinister is happening here? The electronic video machine in question is subject to touchscreen calibration errors, as documented by Video the Vote in 2008 and a local television station last month. Below, a poll worker explains the calibration issue and shows the steps to fixing it.\nMashable has reached out to the uploader of the video as well as the Pennsylvania State Board of Elections, and we'll update this post with any response.\nUpdate: A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State told Mother Jones that a voting machine which was malfunctioning was re-calibrated and put back into service. He didn't, however, confirm it was the same machine starring in this video.\n\n\n\n\nMashable explores the trends changing politics in 2012 and beyond in Politics Transformed: The High Tech Battle for Your Vote, an in-depth look at how digital media is reshaping democracy. Read a few of the top posts from the series:\n\nElection 2040: The First President for Digital Natives\nVoter Data: What the Candidates Know About You\nHow to Market the Next President\nGaffesplosion: The Unrelenting Hype of Modern Politics\nHow Social Media Can Safeguard Your Vote\n\nTake it with you, buy  Politics Transformed: The High Tech Battle for Your Vote on e-book and get access to four exclusive interviews!\nMore Coverage of Election 2012\n\nBarack Obama Tweets Victory in 2012 Presidential Election\nYes, We GIFed: Obama\u2019s Animated Election Victory Celebration\nDonald Trump Freaks Out on Twitter After Obama Wins Election\nA Look Inside the Obama and Romney Headquarters on Election Night [PICS]\n15 Funny \u2018Moving to Canada\u2019 Tweets for Election Night\nObama\u2019s Victory Tweet Is His Most Retweeted Ever\nKarl Rove Refuses to Accept Obama\u2019s Election Win [VIDEO]\nWatch Mitt Romney Deliver His Concession Speech [VIDEO]\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/11/06/pennsylvania-voting-machine-error/>