Election angst

Florida's crisis of confidence is real

A TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT EDITORIAL

Let's assume that U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson was grandstanding Monday when he announced his request that the Justice Department audit the upcoming Florida elections.

That's what Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Republican appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, implied about the motives of Mr. Nelson, a Democrat. At the same time, the secretary dismissed the concerns that Mr. Nelson echoed regarding the reliability of touch-screen voting machines used in 15 of Florida's 67 counties. Those 15 counties are home to more than half of Florida's black registered voters.

Even if Mr. Nelson was grandstanding, so what? The doubts that he articulated are so widely held that they've become cocktail-party conversation. Only a political ostrich could fail to acknowledge them.

It remains to be seen whether Florida's upcoming primary and general elections will go smoothly. But the growing uncertainty should come as no surprise to anyone given the 2000 election fiasco; questions concerning the tabulation of presidential preference primary results; and how the state grossly mishandled questions arising from a potential list of ex-felons to be purged from voter rolls, all the time insisting that the entire affair was much ado about nothing.

In his announcement, Mr. Nelson cited a statistically much-higher chance that votes on touch-screen machines will be blank - eight times higher. This claim was first reported in an analysis by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which reviewed 350,000 ballots from the March 9 Democratic presidential preference primary.

The Division of Elections, which Ms. Hood oversees, could easily research the claim by asking all 67 supervisors of elections to report their percentages of "under-votes" and to check those numbers against the technology that each uses.

The Florida election code authorizes the secretary of state to actively seek such data to determine whether there is a problem. Instead, Ms. Hood and other defenders of the state's role say "Trust us."

If they were to find that the Sun-Sentinel's numbers were correct, it also should come as no surprise. A 2001 study by Cal Tech and MIT found that under-voting on touch-screen machines occurs more frequently than when paper ballots are used, as they are with Leon County's optical scan machines.

Some under-voting is normal. But the statistical disparity raises real questions, especially since there is no way to conduct a manual recount of touch-screen votes that are cast without paper backup.

There is no question that partisan politics has polluted a process that should be as nonpartisan as possible, but state officials have only added fuel to the fire. Meanwhile, Floridians and others apparently will just have to hope that potential election problems don't materialize.

Again.