Batteries in several Broward County voting machines die

02 November 2004
TALLAHASSEE - Several touch-screen voting machines in Broward County malfunctioned this morning when their batteries went dead, but the Florida Secretary of State's office said no votes were lost.The machines went dark just after 9 a.m., in the middle of the morning rush to cast votes.

The machines have layers of redundancy built into the cartridges that record votes, and county elections supervisors told the state department that no votes were permanently lost, said Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for the department.

"It did not lose anything because once a vote is cast, it goes into the cartridge and is saved," Faraj said.

She said no other touch screen machines in the 15 Florida counties using them had reported any problems.

-Aaron Deslatte, Gannett News Service