ANNAPOLIS, Md. - An organization that put more than 400 poll watchers in Maryland precincts on election day reported Tuesday that its volunteers found scattered problems with the state's electronic voting machines.

Among the problems were machines that crashed, incorrect ballots and touch-screens that failed to work properly.

Since the TrueVoteMD had poll watchers in only about 6 percent of precincts, the 201 machine-related problems they reported "really represent a small part of what probably happened that day," said Linda Schade, a founder of the group.

TrueVoteMD presented its report and a series of recommendations for improving the administration of elections to the State Board of Elections.

Linda Lamone, state elections administrator, said the election was a success, but that there are problems with any voting system because "you've got people involved in running the election."

The most frequent problem cited by TrueVoteMD was machines that crashed, and Jillian Aldebron, a TrueVote member, questioned whether votes that were cast before the machines crashed were counted. Lamone said the votes were stored on the memory card and were counted.

Providing a voter-verifiable paper trail was at the top of a list of recommendations TrueVote delivered to the election board.

© Copyright 2004 Associated Press

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