Touch-screen suit to be heard before vote

By George Bennett, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 23, 2004

FORT LAUDERDALE U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler's federal lawsuit challenging paperless electronic voting will go to trial before the November elections, a judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge James Cohn agreed with Wexler's request for fast-track consideration of his suit and scheduled a trial to begin sometime between Aug. 16 and Aug. 27. Attorneys representing Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood and county elections supervisors had wanted the trial delayed until after the November elections.

If Wexler prevails, he wants ballot printers or paper-based voting systems in place by November. Wexler said elections officials should begin making multimillion-dollar "contingency plans" to buy new voting equipment in case he wins.

Wexler, D-Delray Beach, claims the paperless voting machines used by 15 Florida counties violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution because those votes can't be manually recounted while the votes in 52 other Florida counties can be reviewed by hand.

Wexler favors adding ballot printers to the touch-screen voting machines, but his lawsuit does not suggest a specific remedy. At Monday's hearing, Wexler attorney Jeffrey Liggio raised another possibility: scrapping touch screens and forcing counties to use optical-scan ballots.

Wexler is joined in his lawsuit by Democratic Palm Beach County Commissioners Burt Aaronson and Addie Greene and by Democratic activist Tony Fransetta of Wellington. Defendants in the suit are Hood, Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore and Indian River County Elections Supervisor Kay Clem, who heads the state association of elections chiefs.

Before going to federal court, Wexler filed a similar suit in state court. It was dismissed last month and Wexler has appealed.