Most expensive Senate race in U.S. history - and balance of Senate along with it - may be determined by 100% unverifiable votes...

Brad Friedman Byon 11/3/2014, 3:45pm PT

So far, in the run-up to Tuesday's mid-term election, we've covered 100% unverifiable touch-screen votes reportedly flipping on screen in Texas (D to R), in Illinois (R to D), in Tennessee (NO to YES on anti-choice initiative), in Maryland (R to D) and in Arkansas (unclear which direction the votes were flipping in several different counties.)

Now, votes are reportedly flipping from Democratic to Republican in the "toss up" U.S. Senate race in North Carolina, a crucial contest if Democrats have any chance of hanging on to the majority in that chamber. The "down to the wire" contest is also reportedly turning out to be the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history.

So can supporters of either candidate actually have any confidence at all in results to be reported after the close of polls on Tuesday in the Tar Heel State?...

As the News-Record reports:

GREENSBORO - Another Guilford County voter has reported having problems casting a vote for a U.S. Senate candidate. Percy Bostick, 69, of Greensboro said he tried casting a vote for Democrat Kay Hagan at the Old Guilford County Courthouse, only to have the machine register Republican Thom Tillis as his choice. "I called one of the poll workers over," Bostick said. "She said do it again. And again, I touched the screen at the proper place for Kay Hagan, and it again reported it for Thom Tillis." On his fourth attempt, the machine registered the vote for Hagan.

...

Charlie Collicutt, Guilford County elections director, said his office has received 14 reports of voting problems since early voting started Oct. 23, including seven from people who became concerned after they got home.

Should voters be worried about votes flipping on touch-screen systems? What should you do if it happens to you or someone else at the polls?

See our first report of the 2014 election season on this issue for answers to those questions, as well as several of our subsequent reports (all listed below). Unfortunately, we have to file similar reports election-cycle after election-cycle after election-cycle, since, despite the by now very-well-known shortcomings of these systems, so many elected officials simply don't give a damn about whether their voters are able to cast overseeable, verifiable votes.

More than a quarter of U.S. voters this year will cast 100% unverifiable votes on such e-voting systems which may, or may not, record and register any votes the way that voters intended. There is no way for voters to ever know one way or another.

Whenever a "winner" is finally announced in the North Carolina race, based on the completely unverifiable computer tallies from the state's ES&S-manufactured touch-screen voting systems, supporters of the "losing" candidate are likely to yell foul if the margin of reported victory is smaller than the number of votes cast on the oft-failed, easily-manipulated touch-screen voting systems. Given that so many NC votes are still, shamefully, completely unverifiable touch-screen votes in 2014, those partisans (from either party) will have every right to do so.

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