Will changes cause more nightmares this Election Day?

[flashl]

John Kennedy | Tallahassee Bureau Chief | May 23, 2008

PENSACOLA - With record turnout expected and the state's biggest counties switching to new optical-scan voting machines, Florida's elections supervisors acknowledged Thursday that they are anxious about this fall's elections.

"I think early voting this fall is going to be ugly," said Pinellas County Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark, who said she fears that compared with the three-hour lines seen in the days leading up to the 2004 presidential contest, this year's turnout will swell because of the fiercely fought race.

The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections ended a four-day conference Thursday in Pensacola Beach, with most elections chiefs saying they are confident but cautious about the state's prospects for a flawless election.

The biggest wild card: the 15counties that are abandoning touch-screen voting machines and joining the rest of the state in using paper ballots tabulated on optical scanners. Lake County is among those switching, as are Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

Orlando Sentinel

Yes, because it's Florida? :shrug:

[DCKit]

1. No, because they're going to have to get a whole lot more creative...

if they want to steal this one. "Avarice" and "Greed" rarely equate with "Intelligent" so they're either going to have to import some old hands who remember how to stuff, lose or otherwise compromise paper ballots, or suck it up and lose HUGH. It's easy when someone else provides the simple "fix" that they got with electronic voting, quite another when there's a paper trail.

Despite all the crazy news from FL, I used to live there and I don't believe the sane people are being represented. They're going to come out and vote in November and I, for one, hope to be blown away.

[flashl]

2. An FL election observer present in the room did not know this was occuring until years later ...

Escambia voters had a great turnout - but not that great
Published November 16, 2004

“A problem with the way tabulation machines information into the computer system” caused the total number of voters that cast votes to be inflated."

A tabulation error had nearly 85 percent of the county's registered voters voting. It was more like 75 percent.

In the wake of the election, records showed that 84.9 percent of the storm-ravaged county's 189,833 voters cast ballots, well above the average state turnout of 72 percent.

Not true.

A problem with the way tabulation machines feed information into the computer system caused an inaccurate number, said Bonnie Jones, Escambia's supervisor of elections.

While the machines accurately counted the number of absentee votes, they began feeding an incorrect result into the office's computers, she said.

"It skewed the total vote," Jones said.

Elections officials noticed the problem almost immediately when the system showed that no one had voted yes on Amendments 7 and 8. That, she said, was a glaring error.

After they figured out the problem, workers manually added the absentee totals into the reporting system, Jones said, and she called the state Division of Elections to report what had happened.

[Wilms]

3. What a messed-up story that is!

Thanks for sharing it.