Official: 245 votes not counted until weeks after August primary

The Associated Press  18 September 2004

TAMPA, Fla.
A total of 245 electronic ballots weren't counted in Hillsborough County until more than two weeks after the Aug. 31 state primary, an elections official said.

The error came when a staffer incorrectly set up an ATM-style touchscreen voting machine, Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson said. No outcome was altered by the ballots found Friday, but touchscreen critics worry about problems in a state the decided the presidency in 2000 by 537 votes.

"What they lost was about half of what elected the president in 2000," said Reggie Mitchell, election protection director at People for the American Way Foundation.

Critics like Mitchell's group want electronic machines to have a paper trail, but equipment makers contend that the devices accurate.

"We're very disappointed this happened. That's the bottom line," Johnson said. He assured voters that the error wouldn't be repeated for the presidential election Nov. 2.

The machine made by Sequoia Voting Systems was used for early voting at a library, but was left in test mode, he said. That means votes were recorded and stored but not counted initially.

Johnson said the votes were found as his staff found the number of people who signed in to vote at the precinct was more than the number of ballots cast there.

"It didn't make a lot of sense that there was that many undervotes," Johnson said.

The county had 118,699 votes cast in the primary, but there were close contests. In the Republican primary for state House District 47, Kevin Ambler defeated Bill Bunkley by 130 votes.

Hillsborough had other primary problems that delayed final until Sept. 1. Johnson's office met the statutory requirements for getting results to the state, which has now recertified vote tallies to include the 245 votes.