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Most of the proceeding examples have been blamed on computer/human error, yet many seem fantastical enough to suspect that other forces may have been at work.
1968 Missoula County, Montana - "Through a programming error in a few precincts, ballot cast for Nixon were counted for Humphrey or vice versa."[Dugger, pg. 52]
1970 Los Angeles, California - In a primary voters voted for wrong candidates due to missing ballot pages and "incorrect rotations." Due to a computer malfunction hundreds of votes weren't recorded. Ballot cards jammed the machine and clerks had to duplicate the cards. They were seen poking holes in punch cards with pencils. The central computer ceased six times and it was found out later that five hundred precincts had been overlooked. [Dugger, pg. 54]
1976 Los Angeles - The outcome of a legislative race is reversed twice. The first recount is down by a machine. The second by holding every punch card ballot to a light and counting the tab holes.
Blame: "hanging chad", it occurs when the tabs on the punch cards are not pushed out all the way and are bulging or hanging. This can cause the vote-counting machines to make mistakes or invalidate a voter due to under or over-voting. [Dugger, pg. 56]
1978 Madison County, Illinois - A comptroller candidate after suspecting he didn't lose the county by a large margin discovers that the totals had "flipped", and he had won the county. [Dugger, pg. 56]
1978 El Paso, Texas - Marvin Gamza was deprived of his victory of the school-board race when the computer failed to count three precincts. Those three precincts had computers that were programmed for a previous ballot layout. Suspicions arose that the mistake had been deliberately left uncorrected. Judge John Wood preceded over the case and learned that some of the ballots had been burned. He concluded that "a willful effort" had been involved in the error and installed Gamza on the school board. On appeal Gamza's appointment was rescinded on account that he filed his protest to late. [Dugger, pg. 56-57]
1980 Orange County, California - Due to programming error the computers gave 15,000 Democratic-primary votes meant for Jimmy Carter or Edward Kennedy to delegates for Lyndon La Rouche and Jerry Brown. [Dugger, pg. 57]
1980 Fort Pierce, Florida - Democratic ballots were read well by the computer, but Republican ballots were not accepted. Qoute from the supervisor of elections, James Brooks, "Those damn machines must have been built by the Democrats." [Dugger, pg. 57]
1980 San Antonio, Texas - In the Presidential election the computer program could not tally more than 9,000 votes. In the recount election officials took unmarked ballots home overnight. [Dugger, pg. 58]
1984 Carroll County, Maryland - In a school board election T. Edward Lippy finished third. When the ballots were recounted in another town with a different machine about 12,500 uncounted votes were found and Lippy was, in fact, elected to the board. [Dugger, pg. 58]
1984 Moline, Illinois - A candidate for alderman served three months of the term before he was removed from office. It had been discovered that a slipped timing belt in the vote-counting machine had lead to a failure to count a large number of votes. [Dugger, pg. 58]
1989 St. Petersburg, Florida - In a municipal election it was discovered that the election supervisor had authorized the use of two different computer programs to count the votes, while a third program - not certified by the state - had merged the two sets of results. In this election one precinct with no registered voters acquired 7,331. Of these new voters 1,429 cast ballots. The incumbent mayor had won the race by 1,425 votes. [Peterson, pg. 283]
Though no formal convictions have been brought against any parties in these instances there is increased speculation with each new election. In using a computerized system, that relies on people more than hardware, there are many weak points that are open for manipulation and fraud. In evaluating an election arena that is being set up with the possibility of great fraud New York City serves as an example.