Election 2004: Florida under microscope again heading into election

By RACHEL LA CORTE, Associated Press
August 18, 2004

MIAMI — Questions about electronic voting machines and a series of embarrassing blunders have stoked concerns months before the November ballot about another bungled vote in the state that was the epicenter of the 2000 presidential election fiasco.

Many of the concerns are centered around ATM-style touchscreen voting machines that are Florida's solution to the much-maligned and no-longer used punch-card ballots that were responsible for delaying the outcome of the 2000 race between George Bush and Al Gore for more than a month.

Critics argue the new system, which is deployed in more than a dozen states and could be used by up to 50 million voters in the fall, is vulnerable to tampering and glitches. They say the machines threaten the integrity of elections because many states don't require a paper record that can verify votes if there are problems.

"I'm very worried that if the election is very, very close, the outcome will not be believed by a lot of people," said Avi Rubin, professor of computer science and technical director of the Information Security Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

Gov. Jeb Bush and his top elections official, Secretary of State Glenda Hood, have repeatedly answered concerns about touchscreens by pointing to hundreds of problem-free elections since they were first used in 2002. And manufacturers say the system can dramatically reduce voting errors.

But attempts to reassure the public have been undercut by recently disclosed problems.

Audit logs of touchscreen machines made by Election Systems & Software Inc. and deployed in 11 Florida counties, for example, were corrupted by a software flaw caused by low batteries. The company and state officials said the problem has been fixed with a software patch and wouldn't have affected the vote count.

And Miami-Dade County elections officials revealed last month that audit logs from the contested 2002 gubernatorial primary were lost in computer crashes last year. Officials said later that back-up copies of the data, an electronic trail skeptics say is critical to analyzing election problems, were simply misplaced.

Critics say these problems underscore their concerns about the machines, which will get another important test during Florida's Aug. 31 primary. The machines are used in 15 of the state's 67 counties, including Miami-Dade, Broward and West Palm Beach, where 2002 recounts were most contentious.

"We're putting all our faith in these machines to work," said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause Florida, a Tallahassee-based government watchdog group. "Florida voters suffered trauma in 2000 and basically we need to give them the confidence that that won't happen again."

On the new systems, voters make their ions by touching a computer screen showing candidates' names. The computer then tabulates the votes. The other 52 Florida counties use a computer system that reads and tallies votes marked on a paper ballot.

Supporters of touchscreens say the machines will avoid a repeat of the 2000 debacle. They say the machines will avoid questions about voter intent because they don't let people vote for more than one candidate. And because they are paperless, there will be no issues over improperly marked ballots.

But skeptics worry the machines could malfunction or lose vote data.

A study by the American Civil Liberties Union after the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2002 concluded that 8 percent of the votes on Miami-Dade's touchscreen machines in 31 precincts were lost. There were problems operating the new machines that day.

An analysis by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper found that touchscreen voting machines did not perform as well as those that scanned paper ballots. The paper found that touchscreen machines had a higher rate of unrecorded votes.

Backers of touchscreens say it is impossible to determine how many people may have intentionally gone to the polls but declined to vote. But without a paper receipt, critics argue, there's no way to know for certain.

"It is no longer credible for me for state officials to claim that undervotes are people choosing not to vote," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU in Florida.

Just last week, a poll of more than 1,000 Floridians indicated less than half were "very confident" their vote for president would be counted correctly, and only one of five said they were "very confident" in the machines. Officials said a public test completed early Saturday had perfect results, though there were some problems. A computer program to detect fraud froze up some results from the mock election, because more ballots were cast than active registered voters.

The problems have come not only in Florida.

In 2002, more than 400 ballots were lost in North Carolina because of a computer glitch. And in one New Mexico county, turnout was 48,000 for an election but only 36,000 votes were tallied. And during March's presidential primaries, modem problems delayed vote counts in Maryland, and a power surge made the wrong screens appear on at least half of San Diego County's touchscreens, preventing some people from voting.

Activists have mounted a campaign to block the use of touchscreens in coming elections unless they provide a paper record of votes. They have sued, pressured lawmakers for legislative help and held rallies to highlight the issues.

Earlier this month, a Florida appeals court dismissed a lawsuit that sought a paper trail. U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., had argued that the new machines will not allow for an accurate manual recount — such as the one needed during the 2000 presidential election fiasco. He's pursuing a similar complaint in federal court. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments in the case Aug. 20 in Atlanta.

The stakes were raised last month when Florida elections officials ruled that manual recounts aren't required for touchscreen systems. They said the machines can automatically retabulate votes and manual recounts are only needed to determine voter intent — which will not be an issue with touchscreen votes.

Electronic voting was the answer to the 2000 election problems, when hanging chads and questions over voter intent led to recounts that lasted for 36 days until they were halted by the U.S. Supreme Court. President Bush won a 537-vote victory in Florida and enough electoral college votes to win the presidency.

Florida is considered a battleground state in the 2004 race. Recent polls show a statistical dead heat between Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry in Florida. And the state's 67 supervisors of elections are under increasing pressure to make sure the election goes without a hitch.

"In most places it's going to work well, but in our situation, any flaw is going to be magnified," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida.

Even as he defends the system, Gov. Bush's own Republican party recently paid for a flier criticizing the new technology and urging some voters in South Florida to use absentee ballots to make sure their vote counts. Bush said he was unaware of the mailing before it was sent.

Nevada is the first state in the nation to install print paper receipts on its touchscreen machines. At least 20 states have introduced legislation requiring a paper record of every vote cast.

The controversy over touchscreen machines has not been the only issue for Florida.

Florida officials recently were forced to scrap a list used to purge felons from voter rolls because of a flaw that overlooked Hispanics. The list had been criticized by voter-rights groups but had been defended by the governor and other officials.

The state acknowledged 2,500 ex-felons were on the list even though their voting rights had been restored. Most were Democrats, and many were black. Hispanics were largely absent from the list due to a technical flaw.