Vote paper trail suit going to trial

A lawsuit seeking paper records of votes cast on electronic machines will go to trial 16 days before voters go to the polls to pick a president.

BY ERIKA BOLSTAD  Miami Herald  09 October 2004

With just 23 days to go before voters go to the polls to cast ballots for president, a federal judge on Friday set a trial date for a lawsuit seeking a paper record of ballots cast on touch-screen voting machines.

The trial once considered a frivolous exercise by U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler will begin Oct. 18, the same day that early voting begins across Florida.

Wexler's lawsuit charges that the procedures the state uses to recount touch-screen results in close elections are unconstitutional and has urged the state to require a paper record of every vote cast on the equipment.

It's too late to equip touch-screen equipment in 15 counties with printers, acknowledged Wexler's attorney, Jeffrey Liggio.

''They have successfully played the clock,'' Liggio said.

Instead, Liggio said that Wexler's efforts will focus on ways to ensure that people who vote on the equipment have confidence their choices are counted. That includes asking the judge to consider federal monitors who will oversee the election workers who program machines and count the votes.

Liggio said they're also considering asking the judge to give people in the 15 Florida counties using electronic voting equipment the option of voting on touch-screen equipment or using a paper ballot.

That's unlikely to be granted, in part because it would be nearly impossible for election officials to print enough ballots between now and the election, said Ron Labasky, the attorney representing Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore.

Also, the state is about to issue rules outlining how to handle manual recounts with touch-screen equipment. In August, a state administrative judge threw out a state rule that prohibits manual recounts in counties using the equipment.

NEW GUIDELINES

State officials are scrambling to come up with new guidelines, said Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood.

State law requires a recount in close elections. If the difference between candidates after the first automatic recount is less than one-quarter of 1 percent, election officials are required to do a manual, or hand, recount of all overvotes and undervotes. Overvotes are votes for more than one candidate in a race. Undervotes are no votes at all in a particular race.

Liggio said that the new recount rule probably won't be enough to satisfy their concerns about the recounts and touch-screen machines and that he expects the case to go to trial.

In a separate election-related legal challenge, U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Hinkle ruled Friday in Tallahassee that voters who cast provisional ballots on Election Day must do so in the precinct where they would vote if there was no question about their registration status.

The Democratic Party of Florida had challenged the law, saying that people who believe they are registered to vote but who don't show up on the voter rolls on Election Day should be able to vote a provisional ballot in any precinct.

`THE RIGHT PLACE'

''We are going to redouble our efforts to make sure people actually show up at the right place,'' said Mark Herron, an attorney for the Florida Democratic Party.

The party will decide whether it will appeal the ruling when it sees the wording of the final order, he said.