Suit accuses LePore of data request delay

By George Bennett

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

WEST PALM BEACH ? A group conducting a "fraud audit" of the 2004 election sued Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore on Tuesday, accusing her of stonewalling requests for public records related to the Nov. 2 voting.

A dozen other Florida counties could face similar lawsuits, said Bev Harris, executive director of Black Box Voting Inc.

The Seattle-area activist is in Orlando this week attending a conference of Florida elections chiefs. Harris became a celebrity among electronic-voting critics last year when she publicized the existence of an unsecured Web site that contained proprietary source code and other internal documents for Diebold touch-screen voting machines.

Black Box Voting wants to examine internal audit logs and other records from voting machines and tabulating machines in each of Florida's 67 counties. The group also wants copies of correspondence and e-mails between elections offices and voting equipment vendors between Oct. 12 and Nov. 3.

Harris said she hasn't been satisfied with the responses from most of Florida's large counties, but Palm Beach County has been the worst.

"They seem to be running out the clock," Harris said.

LePore countered: "They want stuff and they want it right now. They don't understand that we've got procedures to go through."

LePore said her office is still figuring out how much it will cost to produce the records Harris' group wants. LePore expects the total to be at least $3,000 and said she'll demand advance payment.

Black Box Voting has made similar requests to about 3,000 jurisdictions nationwide, Harris said, but is focusing first on Florida because the state has broad public-records laws.