The room was too small and the table was too crowded. The ballot marking machine locked up once and had to be rebooted. The ballot scanner got tripped up by a test ballot and had to be reprogrammed. The voting machine managers from ES & S were unable to answer some questions about their equipment. They spent a fair amount of time on the phone to HQ getting things worked out.

That was the scene Monday in the office of the Iowa Secretary of State. Election Systems and Software of Omaha had come to town to get state certification of a new piece of voting equipment. It is intended to make it easier for blind voters and others to cast private ballots.