Votes made today won't be recounted

08/31/04
By JACOB OGLES
Daily Commercial Staff Writer
There will be no recount of votes cast on touchscreen machines in Lake or Sumter counties for today’s election, despite a ruling by administrative judge Susan Kirkland.

In a court ruling issued late Friday, Kirkland said counties using touchscreen voting machines should not be exempt from recount regulations, essentially throwing out an administrative rule issued earlier this year by Secretary of State Glenda Hood. No decision has been made by state officials as to whether the ruling will be appealed, but with a statewide election taking place today, no change in policy has been issued immediately.

“The whole reason that the touchscreen machines were put into place, and why several counties decided to use them, was to avoid the problems that happened in 2000,” said state spokeswoman Jenny Nash. “This is a step backward to that time.”

Not everybody feels that way. The judicial ruling was in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, one of many groups to express concerns about the accuracy of the electronic voting machines used in 15 counties, including Lake and Sumter counties.

Lake County Supervisor Emogene Stegall said she was upset a court ruling would be released so close to an election.

“They have been talking about this issue for months, and to wait until four days before an election to do this is not reasonable,” she said.

The electronic machines store information electronically in three memory devices on the machine. But in the event of a recount, an audit trail can be uploaded into a computer and printed images of every vote cast may be produced.

Both Lake and Sumter counties use iVotronic voting machines produced by Election Systems and Software.