Why Electronic Voting Really Is a Problem: FL-13

Despite Michael Bouldin's disregard for those of us who are concerned about DRE machines, the FL-13 race is indicating exactly why we have to stop these machines.

From the Orlando Sentinal:

The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.

Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes.

The trend, which continues up the ticket to the race for governor and U.S. Senate, suggests that if votes were truly cast and lost -- as Democrat Christine Jennings maintains -- they were votes that likely cost her the congressional election...

"Wow," University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said. "That's very suggestive -- I'd even say strongly suggestive -- that if there had been votes recorded, she [Jennings] would have won that House seat."

David Dill, an electronic-voting expert at Stanford University, put it this way: "It seems to establish with certainty that more Democrats are represented in those undervoted ballots."

...About 15 percent of ballots cast on Sarasota's touch-screen machines registered no choice in the bitterly fought congressional race. That percentage was about six times greater than the undervote in the rest of the House district, which spreads into four other counties.

Since Election Day, dozens -- if not hundreds -- of voters have reported problems at the polls. Some say their vote for Jennings never registered after they touched her name. Others say they never saw the congressional race on the machine's screen...

On Monday, Jennings filed a lawsuit in Tallahassee seeking to reverse the results or hold a new election...

The results of the election are also being challenged by four advocacy groups: the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way, Voter Action and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Now here is my key point: because there is no legal paper trail with these machines, there is no possible way to ever determine what happened. None. Period. An anomaly has been found, experts agree that it looks suspicious and clearly favored the Republican, and yet the machines are designed so that there is no way to figure out what went wrong.

Please help Christine Jennings go through the long and expensive court battles (and possibly a second election) by donating to her recount effort (you can also donate on the same page to help three other Democrats whose elections are not yet decided). Also please write your local media and your local officials and your Congressman to demand that a new election be held in Florida and that voting machines without a legal, verifiable paper trail be used in future elections.

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