Keep tabs on touchscreens State should heed calls for election-system audit

Florida officials have been far too hasty in rejecting calls for an independent audit of state-certified touchscreen voting systems.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, joined the chorus of people requesting the audit. Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Republican, quickly accused him of grandstanding.

That retort, truthful or not, is irrelevant. The issue at hand is the credibility of touchscreen machines. An audit or review done by experts uninvolved in the purchase and approval of these new election systems would be a reasonable response to the rising doubts about this technology.

Nelson's call to action came on the heels of a study (done by the South Florida Sun- Sentinel) that found a sharply higher rate of undervotes on touchscreens, compared with optical-scan systems.

Undervotes (no ion recorded) are enigmatic, because they can be intentional or accidental. For instance, a citizen faced with a confusing constitutional amendment may decide to skip it and go on to the next ballot item. But when there's only one issue on the ballot, the idea of someone going to the polls intending to cast a blank ballot is harder to accept. When undervotes occur in these single-issue elections, suspicion rises that voter error or machine malfunction is the culprit. The Sun-Sentinel's study focused only on undervotes that occurred with one-issue ballots.

Intentional or not, the rate of undervotes shouldn't differ markedly between touchscreens and optical scans. Both systems, after all, are required to meet state-set certification standards.

The undervote discrepancy, along with reported glitches in touchscreen data retrieval, ballot mix-ups and boot-up problems in some counties, are warning flags against overconfidence. State officials should heed these signs and mount a thorough, neutral review before Election Day. The results will either affirm the accuracy of touchscreens or identify ways they can be improved. Either way, the citizens of Florida win.