BBV: Florida judge rules that ban on touchscreen hand recounts violates st

[Kadie]

Florida judge rules that ban on touchscreen hand recounts violates state law

DAVID ROYSE, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 27, 2004


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(08-27) 19:35 PDT TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) --

A state rule barring the 15 Florida counties with touchscreen voting from conducting manual recounts is at odds with state law, which requires hand recounts in some close elections, a judge ruled Friday.

A coalition including government watchdogs and other interest groups sued the state, arguing the law requires provisions for hand recounts in every county, no matter what voting technology is used.

Administrative Law Judge Susan Kirkland agreed, writing that state law clearly contemplates "that manual recounts will be done on each certified voting system, including the touchscreen voting systems."

With a primary election Tuesday and more than half the state's voters in counties that use touchscreens, it is not clear what those counties will do.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who issued the ruling preventing manual recounts in touchscreen counties in April, was considering appealing Friday's decision, a spokeswoman said. An appeal would keep Hood's rule in place.


more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/27/national2056EDT0783.DTL

[krkaufman]

1. Excellent. Thanks for the info. n/t

[BevHarris]

2. Good catch! The Maryland case and the Riverside case are also

going well. Maryland (a group of activists, TrueVoteMD.org) is seeking an injunction to bar the machines, and candidate Linda Soubirous is seeking to enforce a release of the flash memory inside the machines as part of her recount, where Sequoia techs got at the central tabulator during the vote count.

The courts are beginning to swing at a few of the pitches!

In California, the courts knocked it out of the park when the county registrars tried to sue secretary of state Kevin Shelley over his improved audits, and he won resoundingly, but now he's under a viscious attack, and the $10 million that was allocated to help audit the machines this fall has been blocked, and the papers are trying to pillory him for getting legal advice before he made that decision (?!?)

This is going to be a real battle.

Bev