Voting glitches found in 6 recent elections

A computer error failed to count votes during the March 8 special election, calling into question five other local elections and the future of the county's elections supervisor.

BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE AND NOAKI SCHWARTZ

tfigueras@herald.com

 

Electronic voting machines tossed out hundreds of ballots during this month's special election on slot machines and elections workers have traced the same computer error to five other municipal elections in the past 12 months.

Raising the red flag: An alarmingly high number of so-called ''undervotes'' in the March 8 election which only had one item on the ballot.

Embattled Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan has said that the incorrectly tabulated undervotes would not have affected the outcome of the elections. But County Manager George Burgess wants to review the outcome of five other elections.

''It's disturbing, and that's an understatement,'' Burgess told The Herald. ``We have to take our responsibility seriously. Every vote needs to be counted.''

Adding to Kaplan's woes: She also faces an independent audit of her department, demands from the gambling industry to call a new election and talk that her job may be on the line.

The reports of uncounted votes also bring renewed criticism from those who have been wary of the paper-free electronic voting machines an unsettling development for a county that had poured substantial resources into escaping the chad-filled ghost of the 2000 presidential election.

''Her leadership is in question and has been in question for a long time,'' said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, head of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition and a longtime critic of the elections department.

ON THE HOT SEAT

Burgess called Kaplan into his office Wednesday for an hourlong closed-door talk. Through her spokesman, she told The Herald: ``I'm very concerned about this matter. We are continuing to review and improve our operations.''

Burgess, in a blunt memo to Mayor Carlos Alvarez and county commissioners, wrote that he found Kaplan's explanations ''to be inadequate'' and ''unacceptable.'' He said he expects better answers from Kaplan by Friday.

The problem came to light after a review showed a ''significantly higher proportion'' of undervotes cast on the iVotronic machines than on undervotes submitted on absentee ballots, Kaplan wrote in a memo.

A total of 1,246 undervotes were recorded on the iVotronics for the March 8 slots referendum, versus 61 on the absentee ballot. ''Undervoting'' means a ballot was cast but no choice was made.

According to Kaplan:

Of the electronic undervotes, 477 could be blamed on an faulty computer program that should have protected people's votes even if they didn't press the flashing red button that finalizes the process.

In those cases, poll workers are supposed to a cartridge that tells the machine to count a ''Yes'' or ''No'' vote. But the bad coding told the machines to ignore the voter's ion.

ASSIGNING BLAME

Kaplan called it human error. Two election supervisors have been reassigned. She also blamed Elections System & Software, which makes the iVotronic. Kaplan said a project manager with ES&S failed to detect the coding problem.

In a statement, ES&S wrote: ``Ultimate responsibility for all aspects of an election lies with the county . . . Under no circumstances would we ever have recommended this change to this particular default setting. In fact, we train election workers against it.''

Kaplan didn't offer a reason for the 769 other undervotes tabulated on the iVotronic, but said her staff reported that some voters were ''confused,'' thinking they were going to vote on schools and jobs not slots so they left without completing their vote.

The slots campaign, which passed in Broward but failed in Miami-Dade, focused on a message that slots would create jobs and boost education funds through taxes.

Ron Book, lobbyist for the parimutuel industry, which fought hard to get slot machines into South Florida parimutuels, says his clients will ask for a new election.

''Come on, anyone who is going out to vote in a special election knows what they're voting for,'' he said. ``I don't buy it.''

Kaplan said the November election, which included the presidential race as well as those for mayor and county commission seats, was not affected by the error.

ERROR REPEATED

The department has identified five questionable municipal races: West Miami, Bay Harbor Island and Surfside as well as a February election in Golden Beach and a January vote on incorporating Cutler Ridge.

Kaplan's memo says that none of the suspicious undervotes would have changed those results. Burgess said that those election results are under review.

OFFICE CRITICIZED

News of the undervotes come a month after Miami-Dade Inspector General Chris Mazzella ripped Kaplan's office for poor oversight of campaign financing in the November election. She disagreed.

Kaplan took over the troubled elections department in June 2003, nine months after a disastrous September primary marred by poll workers who were inadequately trained to operate the new iVotronic machines.

County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez said he is dismayed by the newest flap, saying Burgess should consider placing the elections department on probation ``at the very least.''

''Now I wonder, was my vote counted?'' he said. ``There shouldn't be undervotes with only one [item on the ballot].''

But not all the blame should rest on Kaplan, said Commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler, who has long voiced her unease with the iVotronics.

''I don't think she should be made the sole scapegoat in this,'' Carey-Shuler said. ``This is a new technology, and we're the guinea pigs.''