From EFF: Judge Voids Election Because of E-Voting Snafus .
Good news from California’s Alameda County — a judge has voided election results after the county botched its response to a contested race conducted on Diebold electronic voting machines. The judge ordered that the disputed Measure R — an initiative addressing the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries — go back on next year’s ballot.
Good news because it increases the burden on elections administrators to make sure they have adequate audit trails. It’s an unusual step: “This is only the second time in Californian history that a court has ordered than an election be rerun.” It represents a substantial expense to the county, and obviously would be a much bigger mess if we were dealing with a larger jurisdiction; what if the election in question were statewide, and the margin close enough that this county’s votes were enough to call the entire election into question.
And this was a ballot measure that could reasonably be revoted in a regularly scheduled upcoming election. An election for office would raise urgency issues not present here.