PBC gets glimpse of election scrutiny
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, Aug. 11

A routine test of some of Palm Beach County's voting machines on Wednesday offered a glimpse of the election scrutiny Florida can expect between now and the Nov. 2 election.

The "logic and accuracy test" is normally a ho-hum exercise that few candidates or electronic voting critics bother to attend. But Wednesday's test of 86 touch screens drew Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, national and local media, concerned citizenry and a pair of sheriff's deputies to the county elections office in suburban West Palm Beach.
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"We're all here to learn. The most important thing is that we keep that voter confidence high," said Hood. "We recognize that we're going to be the focus of attention after the 2000 election."

Other current and former state officials and three university presidents are scheduled to attend similar tests of voting machinery in six other counties today and Friday.

Florida law requires that 2 percent of each county's machines be "publicly tested to ascertain that the equipment will correctly count the votes cast for all offices and measures on the ballot." The other 98 percent of machines are also tested, but the tests are not open to the public.

Wednesday's test involved putting cartridges in the 86 voting machines (2 percent of the county's 4,270 touch screens) to simulate votes being cast a predetermined way. Additionally, an elections employee manually voted for specified candidates on each tested machine. The results were then matched up against the scripted outcome.

There were no discrepancies Wednesday.

Electronic voting critics were not satisfied.

Arthur Anderson, challenging Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore in the Aug. 31 election, said using the simulation cartridge doesn't compare to having actual people vote on the machines.

Democratic congressional candidate Jeffrey Fisher and Bruce Serell, a member of local group that opposes paperless electronic voting, complained that one machine finished its test, then sounded as if it started back up again.

Elections employees tested the machine again and it produced the same results as the first test. Fisher left the room briefly and said he had reported the incident to Verified Voting.org, a national group that advocates a ballot "paper trail" to accompany touch-screen voting.