Issue #38, December 14, 2006

ANOTHER FOUL-UP IN FLORIDA AT THE POLLS

By Dan Rattiner

There has been a break in the case of the strange voting practices that took place in the 2006 election in 13th Congressional District of Florida this past November. We still don’t know who won. But we now know what went wrong with the computerized ballot machines. As usual, it was humans.

For those not familiar with the case, Vern Buchanan was the Republican running for Congress against Christine Jennings, the Democrat. In the final tally, almost 300,000 votes were cast, with Buchanan winning by 386. A recount confirmed it.

But then the Democrats filed a lawsuit. In one part of the County, in a district largely consisting of the City of Sarasota where normally 40,000 votes would come from, it was found that a huge number of people didn’t vote for either candidate. They voted in other races. But they said they could not find the place on the video screen where they could vote for Congressmen. Hundreds of them called the local daily paper to report this glitch. When it was looked at, it was found that the people in this district failed to vote for Congressman at a rate nearly ten times what would be considered normal. Something was wrong. And since this district usually voted Democratic, the Democrats wanted a re-vote.

Nothing was wrong with the computerized ballot machines. Nobody tampered with them. One week before the election, in this particular district, the Supervisor of Elections, Kathy Dent, mailed out a sample ballot to every voter in the county. The letter accompanying it said this is what the ballot would look like on the computer screen. But it didn’t. Many residents memorized the sample ballot. And when they got to the voting booth and couldn’t find the Congressional race, they did a brief on-screen search and then gave up.

The sample ballot sent out was wrong because it had been printed wrong. It said the Congressional race would be on the computer screen next to the race for Senate. In the booth the Congressional race was on a screen you had to scroll down to, next to that for Governor.

Ever go to a supermarket looking for something and you can’t find it on the shelf so you have to ask? And it turns out its been right there all the time?

Ms. Dent explained said she had sent out an inaccurate sample ballot because it saved the money it would have cost to reprint it and because, although it was wrong, it was really okay because everybody running for office was there in one place or another.

When it was pointed out that if you send something out wrong, claiming it is right, you’re asking for trouble, she had this to say. “I don’t think if anyone looked at this they wouldn’t be able to figure out what’s on the ballot. Anyway, the issue is moot. Next election, I’m switching back to paper ballots.”

It remains to be seen who is the Congressman from the 13th District. Both candidates are going through orientation in Washington.