gary at advance indiana found this troubling quote on the indy star website:

Marion County officials are facing widespread problems bringing new electronic voting machines online this morning.

County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler said the problems involve about half of the county's 914 precincts. The problem, she said, is that poll workers have forgotten how to start and run the machines.

Paper ballots are being used where machines are not working, the clerk said. She said 50 technicians are going from precinct to precinct to get the machines working. That process, she said, will take several hours to complete.

Sadler said she expected some problems and does not see serious issues at this point because people can still vote.

strangely, the story he linked to not only doesn't include this passage, but it doesn't include anything even remotely similar. did he just get the link wrong, or did that information vanish from the site?

the story does, however, have this (new since my last post):

Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy blasted Republican election officials for what he declared was the "criminal" way in which they are running today's election.

Providing lists to reporters to back up his assertions,Treacy said 20 Republican-appointed precinct inspectors failed to show up to open polls this morning and machine problems were reported in 173 precincts.

"As we predicted, it was utter chaos this morning and we're furious," he told reporters outside the Marion County Election Board office. "People were turned away. I was telling everyone this was going to happen, and everyone thinks I'm living in some fantasyland. There is criminal intent in doing this stuff."

He said Democratic attorneys were determining how the party would respond. In addition, Treacy said Democrats are poring over lists of poll workers to identify those who are not registered to vote in Marion County. He will ask that they be prosecuted.

update: the older bits of the star story are back up, after having disappeared for a few hours. according to the star, as of 9am "Only about 90 "problem polls" remained on the Marion County repair list". (originally, there were problems with "about half of the county's 914 precincts", which is somewhere about 460 polling places (!).¶

I think the Star has been editing that story as they go. ¶

my my, not stunned are wwe? ¶

it does say "This report will be updated through the day", but it doesn't say "We will delete large chunks of information, probably the ones that our Marion county readers would be most interested in." ¶