Counties urged to add paper ballots

Democrats: Voters should have choice

By Nancy Cook Lauer

Tallahassee DEMOCRAT  06 August 2004

Democratic leaders in the Legislature are calling for counties using touch-screen voting machines to add a paper ballot system for voters who don't trust the touch-screens.

Senate Democratic Leader Ron Klein of Boca Raton and House Democratic Leader Doug Wiles of St. Augustine sent a letter to Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday asking him to require the independently elected election supervisors in the 15 counties using touch-screens to offer a choice. Those counties account for more than half of the state's registered voters.

"I'm comfortable that they'll work, but we need to alleviate the concern that some people have," said Klein, whose county uses the equipment.

The governor won't do it, said Bush spokesman Jacob DiPietre. For one thing, he said, state law gives election supervisors the authority to pick which of the systems they want to use from the ones that the state has certified. He also said it isn't necessary.

"Every single machine goes through a rigorous certification process," DiPietre said. "The governor has every confidence in the system."

The demands by the legislative leaders - and similar demands made Thursday by People for the American Way - are just the latest in the controversy over the touch-screen systems. A Democratic congressman has filed suit asking that printers be added to touch-screen systems so people can be sure their vote was recorded. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a complaint alleging that the Division of Elections overstepped its authority when it declared that recounts in a close election won't include ballots cast on touch-screens.

Klein said he doesn't know how much it would cost to offer the option of a paper ballot, but he said the state has money in its rainy-day fund to handle it.

Kurt Browning, Pasco County supervisor of elections, said the cost of an inventory of blank ballots and the optical scanning equipment to read them in every precinct isn't the only issue. Adding a new system this late in the game would require extensive additional training of poll workers and could end up causing even more confusion.

Browning suggested that voters who are leery of the touch-screen systems get an absentee ballot from their county's election office and make sure they return it by 7 p.m. on Election Day.