Official: Central Pa. vote-switching machine fixed

The central Pennsylvania voting machine shown Tuesday in a YouTube video recording a vote for President Obama as a vote for Republican challenger Mitt Romney was broken and has been fixed, a state official said.

The video, reminiscent of a 2008 parody on The Simpsons, went viral and attracted national media attention as it raised concerns about voting-machine fraud.

YouTube user "centralpavote," who posted the video, wrote that when he tried to cast a ballot for Obama, the light in the voting booth lit up for Romney. In the video, he clears the vote and tries several more times, only to get the same result.

He wrote that when he alerted a woman poll worker, she said "It's nothing to worry about, everything will be OK."

That apparently was the case, according to Ron Ruman, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State.

Ruman said the voter, who lives in Perry County, complained that his voting machine would not allow him to select the button for Obama - and that it kept defaulting to Romney.

The voter was taken to another machine to vote, and he was the only one who reported such a problem, Ruman said.

He said the machine was taken offline, recalibrated and returned to service, and "has not had any problems since."

In a 2008 election parody video, Homer Simpson tried to vote for Obama but was repeatedly informed that he had voted for Republican John McCain.

"This doesn't happen in America! Maybe Ohio, but not in America!" Homer screams as he is sucked into the machine.