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How many remain undetected? Here are two recent reports. Florida Special Election Proves Need for Paper Trail Broward County, Florida. In a special election for the State House District 91 seat, ES&S electronic voting machines showed a total of 134 undervotes - that is, 134 ballots in which voters did not select a candidate in the single-race election. In this single-race election, all candidates were Republicans. The winner, Ellyn Bogdanoff, received 12 more votes than the runner-up. Florida law requires a manual recount of invalid votes when the winning margin is less than one-quarter of one percent, which it is in this case. However, it is impossible for election officials to comply with Florida law because the 134 invalid votes were cast on electronic voting machines, and there is no record of the voter's original votes. "Secretary of State Glenda Hood told local election supervisors that they had the option to print out a paper report from each voting machine in which a flawed vote had been registered. That report, however, does not link the gaffe to a specific vote, but merely verifies that a voter during the day failed to select a candidate. It would be useless in determining if a vote should be changed." http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pcofficial10jan10,0,471697.story?coll=sfla-news-palm and http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7655457.htm Last July, Representative Robert Wexler (D-FL) warned Ms. Hood of the potential problem, and has issues a press release pointing out that "Florida State House Election Proves Need For Paper Trail". http://www.wexler.house.gov/press_releases/Jan_09_04.htm He also wrote a scathing response to a Sun Sentinel article entitled "Don't Require Paper Ballots" unfortunately published the day before the disastrous election. The Sun Sentinel article is here:
Wexler's response is here:
Virginia GOP Calls November's Electronic Voting a "Failure" Fairfax County, Virginia. A January 9, 2004 report by a county GOP committee declares that the touch screen voting machines used in the November election were a "failure." The investigation was prompted by the electoral board's removal of 10 malfunctioning machines during the election - an action the Republican party claims is illegal. "The Republican report cited dozens of e-mails and letters from precinct workers and voters who described problems such as machines that repeatedly crashed, screens that balked at registering votes and delays in tallying votes." One of the citizens reporting machine breakdowns was Delegate J. Chapman Petersen (D-Fairfax). Republican and Democratic state legislators are now drafting bills aimed at avoiding future problems. One of the bills would require voter-verified paper records of the votes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4790-2004Jan9.html |