Groups challenge Florida ban on touchscreen machine vote recounts

BRENT KALLESTAD

Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A coalition of election reform groups asked an administrative law judge Tuesday to strike a state rule that prevents counties using touchscreen voting machines from conducting manual recounts from the machines.

State election officers say touchscreen recounts are not needed since the machines tell each voter if they're skipping a race, known as an undervote, and won't let them vote twice for the same race, known as an overvote. The officials also maintain that the computer systems running the machines can be trusted to accurately count the votes as they're cast, and give the final numbers when needed.

But lawyers representing the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause of Florida, People for the American Way Foundation and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said the state should require a paper trail in case a physical recount is needed, as it was in the 2000 presidential race in Florida.

"I have concern about votes that are cast, but not recorded," said Howard Simon, executive director for ACLU of Florida, adding that democracy depends on an open, fair and reliable electoral system.

Election supervisors from some of the 15 counties using thouchscreens had asked the state if they would need to go through the laborious process of printing screen images of each ballot during a recount. That could involve about half the votes cast in a statewide election - Florida had about six million presidential votes in 2000 - since the touchscreen counties include the state's most populous.

The Division of Elections then ruled that state law only requires a recount to determine voters' intent, and that it is impossible to question voter intent with touchscreen ballots.

The state's other 52 counties use optiscan technology, in which computers read voters' pencil marks on paper ballots, and would be able to do physical recounts in races where the margin of victory is less than one-half of 1 percent of the votes cast.

At the same time the hearing was being held, Secretary of State Glenda Hood was conducting a hands-on demonstration of the two types of voting systems.

"We want to make sure that the people of Florida have the highest level of confidence in the systems that are in place," she said. "We are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were in 2000 and we are far ahead of most every other state in the nation."

Judge Susan B. Kirkland has 30 days to make her decision after receiving the transcript, which is due back in 10 working days.

Florida's voting system has been under a microscope since the 2000 debacle, when it took five weeks of hostile legal maneuvering and a group of recounts before Republican George W. Bush was declared president on the strength of a 537 vote advantage over Democrat Al Gore.

Despite the state spending millions of dollars on improvements in new technology and voter education, the scrutiny has remained, thanks in part to several botched or questioned elections in the past three years in some parts of Florida.

Hood's office has also been the target of other suits by felons seeking to have their voting rights restored.

Tuesday's hearing before a Division of Administration hearing judge sought assurances on the touchscreen systems.

John L. Seibel, president of TrueBallot, Inc., a Maryland-based company that designs and build elections systems and administers elections, mostly for labor unions, said the lack of an audit system makes it anyone's guess what happened during the voting process.

"There is no way to know, period," testified Seibel, an attorney who said he has spent 10 years working with voting machine technology in his business.

"What the computer is doing with the data, you simply have no idea," he testified, adding it can also contribute to frustrated voters sometimes leaving without voting.

Those concerns, Florida attorney George Waas argued, weren't sufficient to give standing to the plaintiffs.

"They're not entitled to a manual recount," he said.

He said the touchscreen technology provides for the intent of the voter up front and informs the voter on issues or races they did not cast a vote.