Are touch-screen machines secure?
By Jack Gurney of the Venice Gondolier-Sun (Florida)
More than half of Florida's registered voters including 234,000 currently registered in Sarasota County will have a chance to participate in this fall's general election on direct-recording electronic systems also known as "touch-screen" machines.

While versions of the touch-screen voting machines have been in use since the mid-1980s, critics have only recently pointed out that they do not produce a paper record that matches a registered voter with his or her vote in the event of a post-election dispute.

Given the political sensitivity many Florida voters still feel after the 2000 statewide presidential election debacle which was finally called for George W. Bush by a divided (5-4) United States Supreme Court there have been calls for a more credible accounting system.

Vapor votes

On Jan. 6, when Broward County voters chose a replacement for State Rep. Connie Mack, records show that 10,296 residents either went to the polls or cast absentee ballots. But only 10,157 were actually counted. What happened to the other 139 votes is still a matter of conjecture.

Since Broward County uses touch-screen machines, its experience has only increased the skepticism some voters feel about Florida's ability to conduct fair elections. A handful have called for the installation of printers that would provide written records of each vote.

"I don't think it's necessary," Sarasota County elections supervisor Kathy Dent said. "There is nothing I can go out and buy right now that has been certified by federal and state elections officials. If there was, it would cost the county another $1 million to $1.5 million."

Sarasota County officials got burned after the 2000 election when they purchased $4.7 million worth of new touch-screen voting machines to replace antiquated punch cards, with a promise that they would be repaid. All they've received is $532,500 from the state.

"When Congress allocated federal funds," Dent recalled, "unfortunately the state paid itself back for what it had given the counties and no other money filtered down. We've heard some more federal funds might come through, but all we've received is a little money for voter education."

Possible explanations

What recently happened in Broward County has raised eyebrows among some election watchers, but Dent said the 139 missing votes can be explained in three ways. "All of the candidates were Republicans," she said. "When some Democrats saw that, they may not have voted."

A second explanation is that a handful of the voters may not have recognized any of the candidates' names and chosen not to vote, while others may have touched a candidate's name but failed to push the "vote" button that electronically records that ion.

"It was not equipment failure," she said. "There are so many security measures in place to keep someone from tampering with the machines that there is no way to gain access. They are not hooked into the Internet, so there is no way to break in."

The over and under

In the 2000 election, 164,000 of Sarasota County's 223,000 registered voters went to the polls. Election laws require a machine recount if a race is decided by .5 percent or less, and a manual recount of "over" and "under" votes if the margin is between .25 and .5 percent.

What are known as "over" votes occur when someone picks more than one candidate in a race. Touch-screen machines aren't supposed to allow them. An "under" vote can happen when someone doesn't pick a candidate, but pushes the vote button and records a nonvote.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Democrat from Boca Raton, sued Florida and Palm Beach County election officials to force the use of printers that can generate a paper trail from the touch-screen voting machines. But a local judge ruled he had no legal standing.

Wexler argued that without a paper trail, a manual recount isn't possible. Dent disagreed.

"We can print out every ballot," she said, "but the system scrambles them and we can't tie the name of a voter to a vote. It would violate the right of a person to cast a secret ballot."

While Wexler pursues an appeal, others mostly Democrats want state elections officials to either certify printers that could be used to verify the credibility of election results, or identify another independent verification system that works.