Elections records lost in Miami-Dade server crashes

HILARY ROXE

Associated Press

MIAMI - Detailed electronic records from Miami-Dade County's first widespread use of touchscreen voting machines were lost in computer server crashes last year, prompting more questions about the use of the machines.

The crashes occurred in May and November of 2003, erasing information from the September 2002 gubernatorial primaries and deleting some records of other elections, Miami-Dade elections officials said Tuesday.

In December, officials began backing up the data daily, to help "avoid this kind of thing in the future," said Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the county's elections supervisor, Constance Kaplan.

The malfunction was made public after the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a citizen's group, requested all data from the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride.

The loss of data underscores problems with the touchscreen voting machines, the citizen's group said.

"This is a disaster waiting to happen," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition. "Of course it's worrisome."

Electronic voting records on the machines work like the black boxes on airplanes, marking everything that happens from the time the machine is turned on, she said.

Though elections officials have said the touchscreen machines do not allow human error, studies suggest the machines may cause problems by, for example, failing to record some votes, The New York Times reported for Wednesday editions.

A study by the American Civil Liberties Union after the 2002 primary found that 8 percent of the votes on the county's touchscreen machines were lost. Members of the election reform coalition said they requested the data because they never heard a sufficient explanation for the "lost" votes.

The group is concerned about the machines' effectiveness, following revelations about other problems with the system. Last month, state officials said the touchscreen systems used by 11 counties had a bug that would make a manual recount impossible. Earlier this month, a newspaper study indicated touchscreen machines did not perform as well as those that scanned paper ballots.

"Every time they tell you that these systems are perfect, they're wrong, and this proves it," Rodriguez-Taseff said.

Under Florida law, ballot records from elections for state and local offices must be kept for a year. The records for federal races must be kept for 22 months after an election is certified.