Data from 2002 Florida primary found, elections official says

BY TANIA VALDEMORO

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

MIAMI - (KRT) - Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Constance Kaplan told county commissioners Friday that her department has found electronic voting records from the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Democrats Janet Reno and Bill McBride that had been considered lost to computer crashes.

"This morning, my secretary found within some files in a conference room near my office a CD that had the audit data," Kaplan said.

The revelation came during an afternoon workshop called by Commission Chairwoman Barbara Carey-Shuler, who wanted to get to the bottom of "what was going on in the Elections Department."

Carey-Shuler called the meeting after the New York Times reported Wednesday that the electronic records - ballot images and event logs from an election in which voters used touch-screen machines for the first time - had been destroyed.

After the report, county elections officials said the county was still trying to figure out how the data were lost from its computer system and if it existed elsewhere. But on Friday, Kaplan assured the commissioners that her department had never lost the results primary results. "We have always had the results of the election and all the papers we need to maintain them," she said.

Kaplan also promised that data from upcoming elections would be safe.

"We have implemented backups and additional safeguards to ensure that data retention issues do not return," she said. "We do not anticipate having problems of this nature in the future," she said.

Since December 2003, the Elections Department has been transferring data from its computer servers onto tapes and putting backup data on compact discs. Kaplan said her department would begin storing backup disks offsite and in other election supervisors' offices elsewhere in Florida.

Kaplan's deputy Lester Sola said later that a technician from Election Systems & Software, the manufacturer of the county's iVotronic voting machines, had found backup computer files during a search of computers in the department's tabulation room on Wednesday. Those files also containing the missing audit logs, Sola said.

Omaha-based ES&S sold Miami-Dade with 7,200 touch-screen machines after the 2000 presidential election for $24.5 million.

The Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition had requested the voting data on July 1 to determine how the machines performed in the county during the September 2002 primary won McBride, when 1,544 ballots in 31 black precincts weren't recorded by the touch-screen machines, said Martha Mahoney, a coalition member.

Mahoney said county and state officials did not examine the audit logs after an American Civil Liberties Union study first revealed the missing ballots in October 2002.

Voter advocates said they are glad voting records have been found and plan to study them.

"I believe in Christmas again but you have got wonder how Santa Claus came upon these ballots," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition. "Saying they found this data now is akin to saying they found a trunk load of paper ballots," she said.

But Rodriguez-Taseff and other critics of the machines fear the newly found data has been tampered. They want a third party to verify the authenticity of the data.

"We have absolutely no evidence that the data is clean. It's still very suspect because ES&S was involved," she said. "That's outrageous that ES&S is sifting through elections data."

Kaplan also sought to assure county commissioners that her department was doing everything to make the Aug. 31 primary and Nov. 2 general election run smoothly.

Commissioner Betty Ferguson said she did not want to be the last to know when the Elections Department was having problems.

"I just don't like the tone and the perception that's out there. It's not a perception, it's a reality," Ferguson said. "I'm talking about all the issues. Heaven knows how many issues we will have between now and November 1."

Carey-Shuler said she was displeased the missing voting data had become an international story. "We don't intend to be the laughingstock of the world this year and in this election," she said.

"We will not tolerate the debacles of the past."