Activists: Miami-Dade had procedural problems in November vote

The Associated Press    25 May 2005
MIAMI
A voter's rights group said Wednesday that its audit of November's presidential election ballots in Miami-Dade County showed counting problems during the voting and an unintentional but worrisome instance of ballot stuffing.

A report released by the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition said that during the elections there were "serious problems with policies and procedures that are supposed to protect the integrity of the ballot."

In many precincts, the number of people who signed in to cast votes was not tracked carefully, or in some cases was not compared to the actual number of ballots cast at those precincts.

The group also said there was a touchscreen machine malfunction at Precinct 816, in a church in the southwestern suburbs of Miami. When the votes were tallied the results from one machine had been counted three times, creating a discrepancy of 171 votes that became part of the certified canvass, the group said.

"It slid right through and nobody caught it," said Martha Mahoney, a professor at University of Miami and a group member.

Evidence showed that the extra votes were unintentional, but that was not found to be reassuring, the group said.

"If you do it unintentionally, you can do it intentionally," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, head of the coalition.

Fifteen of Florida's 67 counties used touchscreen machines, including most of the heavily populated ones.

Election officials welcomed the criticism and said the machine that gave a 3-for-1 tally has been sent for testing.

"We generally think that the more voices that you have the better off you are," said Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the elections office. "We're all on the same team here. We are all extremely interested in running the best elections possible."

The group said that out of 436 Miami-Dade polling stations, only 176 had perfectly matching numbers of reported voter signatures and ballots.

The report did not have recommendations for elections officials and was not meant as a comprehensive audit of the fall elections, the group said.

But the group has asked elections officials to "study the problem and address the procedures," Rodriguez-Taseff said.

"They are not doing it to our satisfaction," she added.