PA Dumps Some Touch Screen Machines

Pennsylvania officials Thursday barred three counties from using a touch-screen voting system that apparently contributed to an unusual number of uncounted votes in the November election.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said officials do not believe the undercount would have changed the outcome of any races in Mercer, Beaver and Greene counties.

Still, he said, "there are enough problems with this system that in our estimation it's in the best interests of the voters" to stop using them immediately.

The decertification of the UniLect Patriot voting machine came barely a month before this year's May 17 municipal primary election.

It was not immediately clear how voters in the three western Pennsylvania counties, the only ones in the state using the UniLect system, would cast their ballots.

The system also was blamed for lost votes in two North Carolina counties last year.