Touch-screens dealt a blow (Florida)

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Thu, Aug. 05, 2004

Touch-screens dealt a blow

BY GARY FINEOUT
[e-mail]


TALLAHASSEE - While state election officials publicly proclaim their faith in touch-screen voting machines in the midst of criticism, their own reports may have been the first to highlight potential shortcomings in the technology more than 18 months ago.

In January 2003, state election officials reported that there was a higher rate of so-called undervotes among voters using the ATM-style equipment than those voters who mark paper ballots and feed them into an optical scanner.

At the time, the Florida Division of Elections compiled a detailed report that looked at how each county's voting equipment performed during the 2002 general election, when Gov. Jeb Bush defeated Democratic challenger Bill McBride. Bush received 2.85 million votes to McBride's 2.2 million votes.

The report shows that more than 44,000 votes weren't counted in the governor's race because of undervotes, overvotes and problems with absentee ballots. Of that total, about 34,000 were undervotes -- in which voters apparently failed to make a choice at all.

Many election officials maintain that there is no way to tell for sure why someone chooses not to vote in a particular race or election contest. But the state report, which was sent to Bush and the Florida Legislature, shows that counties that used touch-screen machines reported a higher percentage of undervotes than counties that rely on optical scanner machines.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/9321494.htm
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[Robbien]

1. Hasn't this undervoting already been reported many months ago?

Has it taken them this long to begin to think undervoting may be a good reason not to use touchscreens?

[soup]

3. Championship foot dragging

is a requirement to participate in the Florida government.

Plus if they fix it, jeb the devious will NOT be able to hand the state to his *brother again. No way. No how.

[0007]

6. I sure hope your right, because I can't conceptualize what will happen

if we have a repeat of 2000.

[ursacorwin]

9. lol!

that's rich..."championship foot dragging." i guess the bush clan is really good in at least one category.

[struggle4progress]

8. Maybe people need to hear it more than once ...

Touchscreen voting problems in Fla.
Machines performed worse than optical scanners
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:46 p.m. ET July 11, 2004

... An analysis of just under half of the ballots from the March 9 election shows that votes were not recorded for about one out of every 100 people using the new machines, or a 1.09 percent rate of undervotes, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. An undervote is when a selection cannot be detected on a ballot.

That’s at least eight times the number of undervotes in the same election on paper ballots marked with pencils and tallied by an optical scanner, which had a 0.12 percent rate of undervotes, the newspaper reported ...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5417439/

[tlcandie]

2. More bullshit from another bffe member.... lil jebbie...

People would NOT on purpose NOT vote for governor or president after making a concerted effort to get to the polling place!

WHAT IDIOTS THEY THINK WE ALL ARE!!!

[soup]

5. 37,973 Missouri voters did just that on Tuesday.

In the final tally, the total votes for Governor were 1,453,825. The total votes for the 'marriage definition' amendment were 1,491,798. The number differences are even wider for the other statewide races.

I was stunned. Haven't followed up to see if there were problems that would explain it, or if 37,973 people actually went to the polls and voted on a marriage definition amendment but not for Governor. :crazy:

Missouri Primary results:
http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrweb/allresults.asp?eid=116

disclaimer: possibly talking apples and oranges here. and before I get jumped on - yes, I realize MAJOR voting problems exist in FL.

[Mountainman]

4. Maybe they didn't count the votes in places they thought Jebb would lose.

It seems to me that it would be very easy to program a computer to not count certain votes on a particular day.

[cthrumatrix]

7. Jeb and voting has a very troubled past when it comes to truth

he could care less about ethics and validating the votes.