Gambling vote glitch mars tally

BY ERIKA BOLSTAD AND CURTIS MORGAN  Miami Herald   05 November 2004

Broward County corrected a computer glitch Thursday that had miscounted thousands of absentee votes, instantly turning a slot-machine measure from loser to winner and reinforcing concerns about the accuracy of electronic election returns.

The bug, discovered two years ago but never fixed, began subtracting votes after the absentee tally hit 32,500 a ceiling put in place by the software makers.

''Clearly it's a concern about the integrity of the voting system,'' said Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman, a canvassing board member who was overseeing the count. ``This glitch needs to be fixed immediately.''

The problem, which resulted in the shocking discovery of about 70,000 votes for Amendment 4, a measure allowing a referendum on Las Vegas-style slots at parimutuels in Miami-Dade and Broward, came to light just after midnight Wednesday when Broward's canvassing board shut down.

Lieberman, Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes and several lawyers on both sides of the gambling amendment noticed votes suddenly disappearing on Amendment 4.

The problem was quickly traced to software in what is known as the central tabulation machine, a computer that collects data from optical scanners that read the individual mail-in ballots.

Besides reversing the Election Night outcome on a controversial gambling question, the error spurred finger-pointing and provided more ammo for critics of high-tech voting.

Florida's election chief, Secretary of State Glenda Hood, downplayed the significance of a miscount she blamed on ''inadvertent human error'' in the Broward elections office. Hood stressed that double-checking procedures had caught what she described as an isolated error.

Hood maintained that the incident shows the system worked. ``It's not a problem. . . . They made the correction.''

FINGERS POINTED

County officials blamed Election Systems & Software, the company that sold the machines and counting software to Broward.

County officials say they think ES&S failed to follow through on a problem that was brought to their attention two years ago, during the 2002 general election.

ES&S spokeswoman Becky Vollmer said the glitch which limits the number of votes that can be counted in each precinct to safeguard against ballot stuffing will be fixed in software s they are submitting to the Division of Elections next year.

''This was not an error with the tabulating system,'' Vollmer said in an e-mail. ``This was a programming oversight that caused the results reporting software to contain incorrect information for preliminary, unofficial results. No votes were lost and no other ballot questions were affected.''

But Broward County Administrator Roger Desjarlais said ES&S was accountable. ``I believe they had an obligation to fix it. They just have an obligation to provide a product that works.''

ISOLATED PROBLEM?

While Broward insisted that the problem had exposed another hidden bug in the electronic voting system, the view was different in Tallahassee.

Alia Faraj, Hood's spokeswoman, said ES&S had not previously submitted any information about the counting cap in its tabulation software, which is supposed to be certified by the Secretary of State's Office.

But she said programmers had admitted a ''human error'' in setting up the absentee count and said there were no reports of similar problems from any of the 15 counties in the state that use electronic systems, 11 with the same ES&S gear. Another 21 use ES&S systems to tabulate paper ballots counted by optical scanners.

Other counties that use the same vote-counting software say they've never encountered the problem and it was never brought up at the users group meetings held annually.

Theresa LePore, Palm Beach County's elections chief, said her technology experts were aware of the potential issue, but that nothing like that had happened in the county, which uses different software. ''As long as you know about it, you can turn it off,'' LePore said.

The tabulation software was set to reverse the vote count at 32,500. It was triggered when Broward counted all 97,535 absentee ballots in one mega-precinct Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

The glitch only affected Page 2 of the ballot the one with five of the amendment questions because it contained only statewide measures that drew enough voting to trigger the cap, county officials said.

OTHER RESULTS STAND

Results on the other amendment questions were changed, as well, but, unlike the gambling question, their outcomes had not been in doubt.

When they saw the count going haywire, election officials were able to go to individual scanners feeding the main computer and obtain the correct vote count. Suddenly, they found thousands of uncounted votes that gave the gambling initiative a big boost.

Opponents of the amendment said they were suspicious of the newfound votes, especially because 94 percent of the 78,000 votes cast on Amendment 4 were in favor of the amendment. Other votes from Broward were 65 percent in favor.

''It certainly seems statistically remarkable,'' said state Rep. Randy Johnson, a Republican from Winter Haven who is chairman of No Casinos from Celebration.

CRITICS SPEAK UP

Lale Mamaux, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Boca Raton Democrat, said the miscount had proved the necessity of a paper trail that Florida elections officials have resisted for voting machines.

Broward was able to correct the count because they could simply run the absentee ballots through scanners again. That can't happen with touch-screen voting.

Wexler, an outspoken critic of Florida's election system, sued to create a paper record for manual recounts in close elections like the contentious 2000 presidential race. A federal judge rejected the suit late last month.

ANOTHER BLACK EYE

Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, said such errors can undermine public confidence.

''The bigger picture is that it cast doubt on the accuracy of the elections,'' she said. To resolve any concerns, Rodriguez-Taseff said Broward should recount everything not just absentees.

The miscounted votes were the second major flaw in Broward's election, which was also marred when thousands said they didn't get their absentee ballots in the mail.

''I wish it hadn't happened, in that we're trying to regain credibility for this office,'' Snipes said. ``But people will have to look at the whole issue and put it in perspective.''