Tight Florida House race reveals flaws in Broward voting machines

By Jeremy Milarsky
Staff Writer
Posted January 13 2004

FORT LAUDERDALE A contentious battle for a coastal state House seat might have come an end Monday evening, but along the way, it proved there might be no such thing as a flawless election.

The Broward County elections canvassing board certified the results of the Jan. 6 special election for House District 91, which generally runs along the coast from southeast Boca Raton to Dania Beach. The result: Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale political consultant, won by a mere 12 votes. State officials might certify the election today, and Bogdanoff would take office Jan. 28. Her term ends in November.

The narrow victory was magnified in Broward by 134 undervotes, or cases in which voters showed up but cast no vote, even though District 91 was the only contest on the ballot. Palm Beach County had three machine-cast undervotes.

The scene reminded many of the 2000 presidential election, but instead of squabbling over hanging chad, politicians argued about how to perform a hand recount of computer ballots that are not made of paper and ink, but exist only in microchips of a voting machine.

Because of the slim margin, officials in both Broward and Palm Beach counties were required by state law to recount all of the election's disputed ballots by hand.

Bogdanoff's closest competitor, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Mayor Oliver Parker, told Broward elections officials that the results of the election wouldn't be legal until they counted all the undervotes by hand. And since machine ballots can't be counted by hand, Parker said the voting machines in South Florida are illegal.

Broward County Canvassing Board Attorney Ed Dion dismissed the claim, saying the voting machines had been approved by state officials. A letter Monday from the office of state Secretary Glenda Hood, Florida's top election official, left the decision of how to perform the manual recount up to the local officials. The letter said state law was unclear on how to resolve the Broward dilemma, adding that state recount rules were currently being revised.

Parker conceded after Broward's canvassing board chose to manually recount only the five invalid paper ballots cast by absentee and not revisit machine-cast ballots.

"I feel that for a special election ... it would be an unwarranted expense on the county and hardship on the voters to go through court on this matter," he said.

Despite the election's end, South Florida's politicians are wondering how they can prevent such a dispute from happening again.

"I don't want to do this again in March," Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman said, referring to the nationwide Democratic presidential primary and municipal elections in several Broward cities on March 9.

Lieberman favors voting machines that produce "paper receipts," or a printed report of a ballot for a voter to review after using the machine.

It's unclear whether such machines would have changed the results of the District 91 election. Parker found it hard to believe that 134 people would have bothered to go to the polls on Election Day without choosing a candidate.

But at least one did.

George Burger, 55, of Fort Lauderdale, went to his precinct on Election Day and deliberately chose no one. Burger, a Democrat, mistakenly had thought he could vote for a Democrat in the race, but all seven candidates were Republicans. A 1998 state constitutional amendment allows for open primaries including Democratic voters if all the candidates in an election are from one party.

"Not one of them on that ballot deserved my vote," he said.

Before Burger officially cast his undervote, the voting machine warned him of his non-choice twice. Politicians like Lieberman and U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, don't think that's good enough.

They want Broward County to purchase and for state officials to approve improved voting machines which show voters a paper receipt of their ballot. A spokeswoman for Election Systems and Software, the company that sold Broward its machines in 2001, said a prototype machine that uses paper receipts has been made, but it needs government approval and will cost the county more.

Company spokesperson Becky Vollmer could not estimate what the cost would be. But in Palm Beach County, printers available from Sequoia Voting Systems the manufacturer of that county's voting machines could be attached to every voting machine for about $500 each, said Alfie Charles, vice president of business development for Sequoia. That means it would cost Palm Beach County at least $2.5 million to outfit all 5,000 voting machines with printers.

Unlike dangling chads, paper receipts would serve as one more reminder for voters to correct mistakes. But those receipts still could not be used later to determine voter intent, like a dimple or errant mark could with a paper ballot.

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore said it's just not possible to have a perfect election, no matter how good the technology.

"Not when humans are involved," she said.

While at least one resident undervoted as a protest, at least one other did so in error.

Gary Perkins of Lighthouse Point mistakenly cast an undervote, submitted his ballot, realized his error, but he was too embarrassed to ask the poll worker for help and the non-vote was recorded.

"I fully intended to vote," Perkins said. "But I was confused."

Staff Writer Michael Mayo contributed to this report.

Jeremy Milarsky can be reached at jmilarsky@sun-sentinel.com or 954-572-2020.