Voting Machines Found Not at Fault in Fla. Election
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TALLAHASSEE, Feb. 23 -- An audit of touch-screen voting machines at the center of a dispute in a congressional election found no evidence of malfunction,  Florida's secretary of state said Friday.
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The big surprise of the 2004 election: For the most part, the voting went smoothly. By the close of polls across the country, despite heavy turnout, there were only scattered reports of equipment trouble and human error at the voting stations. And none were major.
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Once again, Florida is embroiled in a dispute over vote counting in the presidential election.
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Florida elections officials were lax in their oversight of the company that created a flawed database of felons and dead voters, but there was no intent to disenfranchise anyone, an internal audit of the project found.
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Florida pulls back from high-tech electoral reforms  -  and critics cheer
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Florida election officials will not be required to process incomplete voter registration forms for the presidential election, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
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Election officials are questioning how many of a batch of 58,000 absentee ballots reached Broward County voters who requested them more than two weeks ago. State police investigated but found no criminal violations.
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Eight days before Election Day, a federal judge ruled Monday that Florida's touch-screen voting machines do not have to produce a paper record for use in case a recount becomes necessary.
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A federal judge rules that Florida doesn't have to provide a paper trail for electronic votes, tossing out a congressman's lawsuit. Jacob Ogles reports from Orlando, Florida.
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The touch-screen voting machines used in 15 Florida counties appear to work smoothly during the state's primary election Tuesday.
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The testing of the electronic voting machines in FloridaÃ¢ÂÂs disputed 13th Congressional District race is expected to conclude Friday night. State elections officials then will proceed with additional audit activities to determine whether voting machine errors affected the outcome Ã¢ÂÂ certified by state officials as a narrow 369-vote victory for the Republican nominee, car dealership owner Vern Buchanan.
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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A computer crash that forced a pre-election test of electronic voting machines to be postponed was trumpeted by critics as proof of the balloting technology's unreliability...
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It was a wish come true Sunday for Florida's elections officials: no cameras, few questions and a clear decision.
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FORT LAUDERDALE, United States  - The disappearance of tens of thousands of ballots has raised new questions about Florida&#39;s ability to avert a repeat of the 2000 debacle, and fueled protests in the battleground state.
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Florida officials said initial glitches had been sorted out in early voting, which was marked by a strong turnout as the presidential candidates focused much of their attention on the key battleground state.
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After a series of tests on e-voting machines, a U.S. government auditor still doesn&#39;t know what contributed to 18,000 unmarked ballots in a Florida congressional race in 2006.The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) checked the firmware and the ballot display and ran calibration tests on a sample of Election Systems &amp; Software (ES&amp;S) iVotronic e-voting machines, the agency said in a report released Friday. Those tests, combined with others done by the GAO and state of Florida, &quot;have significantly reduced the possibility that the iVotronic [machines] were the cause of the undervote,&quot; said the report, authored by Nabajyoti Barkakati, acting chief technologist for the GAO&#39;s applied research and methods division.The GAO believes the ES&amp;S machines have been adequately tested, the report says. &quot;Given the complex interaction of people, processes, and technology that must work effectively together to achieve a successful election,&quot; other factors, including intentional undervotes or ballot interaction problems, may have caused the undervote, the GAO said.Democratic candidate Christine Jennings lost by 369 votes in the 2006 13th Congressional District race, but more than 18,000 people who cast votes in other district races failed to have votes recorded in the congressional race. About 4,000 more votes were recorded in the Sarasota County Southern District Hospital Board election than in the House race.Jennings is again running for the congressional seat this year.The GAO report &quot;leaves most of the major questions unanswered,&quot; said the Verified Voting Foundation, an advocacy group critical of e-voting machines. The GAO report didn&#39;t address potential problems with touch-screen sensitivity and low batteries, or reports of undervotes in other races, the foundation said in its own report , based on a leaked copy of the GAO report.&quot;The GAO report leaves us with almost as many questions as before, and the most important one -- what caused the ... undervote problem -- is left unanswered,&quot; the foundation report says. &quot;The nature of the complex voting system in question, and the difficulty in auditing such a system, may mean such questions will remain indefinitely, but it is clear that more can and should be done to resolve the outstanding issues.&quot;The foundation suggested auditors could conduct more tests, including tests of touch-screen sensitivity and a check for software bugs beyond the GAO&#39;s check that the software matched versions certified by Florida.&quot;As someone who&#39;s interested in what happened in this election, my questions aren&#39;t answered,&quot; said David Dill, the foundation&#39;s founder and a computer science professor at Stanford University. &quot;I don&#39;t think we&#39;re going to get any idea about what happened in that election without a lot more investigation.&quot;The GAO report &quot;cannot be interpreted as a clean bill of health for the machines,&quot; Dill added. &quot;They did three little tests ... out of a spectrum of a lot of things, and they aren&#39;t the most important things to look at,&quot; he said.ES&amp;S, in a statement, said the GAO report shows its machines &quot;performed well&quot; in the election. GAO&#39;s findings echo studies by Florida State University and the Florida Department of State, both saying there was &quot;no evidence&quot; of ES&amp;S machine malfunction, the company said. &quot;The collective findings of these and other tests demonstrate that Sarasota County&#39;s voting system performed exactly as it was designed to function,&quot; the company said.The Election Technology Council, a trade group representing ES&amp;S and three other e-voting vendors, said the report suggests that a paper ballot to accompany the e-voting machines wouldn&#39;t necessarily solve problems. The Verified Voting Foundation and other groups have pushed for printouts to be used with e-voting machines.Elections include people, processes and technology, said David Beirne, the council&#39;s executive director. &quot;Paper is not a magic bullet,&quot; he said. &quot;It can provide an additional layer of verification for the voter, but it alone is not going to satisfy all of the stakeholders, which is why it is important to look at all of the circumstances surrounding an election to determine its overall performance.&quot;The GAO report shows the need for assurance tools that verify the operation of the e-voting machines&#39; software, Beirne added.
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With polls showing nearly equal numbers of Florida voters for President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, the election's outcome may again hinge on a Florida recount. And the more that Floridians learn about how voting machines work, the more they question whether the 15 counties with paperless voting systems can accurately count and recount votes.