Congress Asked To Probe Fla. House Race

Democrat Christine Jennings Blames Faulty Electronic Voting Machines For 369-Vote Loss

(CBS)  By CBS News Producers Phil Hirschkorn and Allison Davis..

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Florida Democrat Christine Jennings is asking the House of Representatives to investigate — and potentially invalidate — her disputed Nov. 7 loss to Republican Vern Buchanan, which Jennings blames on faulty electronic voting machines.

Jennings filed papers with the House Administration Committee Wednesday, the same day a Florida judge concluded two days of hearings into whether the touch-screen machines made by ES&S and used in Florida’s 13th congressional district malfunctioned. Jennings is suing for a new election.

Six weeks after Election Day, this is the only one of 435 House races where the declared loser has not conceded. The outcome won’t change the balance of power, where Democrats gained 30 seats and will control 233 seats to the Republicans 202 in January.

Buchanan, who has 30 days to respond to Jennings' petition, will be sworn in Jan. 4 and serve as the district’s congressman while the legal process and House investigation move forward.

"This is not about Democrats and Republicans or Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan, it's about fixing a system that appears to be broken," Jennings said. "One-third of all Floridians use the iVotronic machines by ES&S. Voters need to have confidence that their vote will count and be counted accurately."

Nationwide, about 40 percent of voters used touch-screen machines made by a variety of manufacturers in November, but Florida is one of 15 states that used machines that do not generate an internal paper trail for every ballot cast. Stalled legislation to mandate a paper trail is expected to get new life in the next Congress.

Officially, after a recount, Buchanan beat Jennings by 369 votes out of nearly 240,000 counted.

Jennings contends machines in the district’s most populous county, Sarasota, either malfunctioned or were poorly programmed, resulting in nearly 18,000 lost votes. One out of six, or an unusually high 16 percent, of Sarasota electronic ballots recorded no House vote, compared to a 5 percent or less House “undervote” in the district’s four other counties or by 2 percent of Sarasota voters using paper absentee ballots.

Since Jennings won 53 percent of the votes in Sarasota, she contends the alleged machine mishap cost her the race. Applying her winning percentage to the “missing” votes would garner her more than 900 votes, enough to overcome the losing margin.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean has said the House should “absolutely not” seat Jennings. A spokesperson for House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi has said the leadership is monitoring the situation and called the Jennings filing appropriate.

"The Federal Contested Elections Act was written specifically to address such serious situations -- where thousands of voters may have been denied participation in the election and the outcome is in doubt," said Brendan Daly, a Pelosi spokesman. "However, we hope that this case is resolved satisfactorily in the Florida legal system, based on all facts."

State Judge William Gary, in Tallahassee, has heard two days of testimony whether experts can examine the machines – both the hardware and software, known as the source code. ES&S opposes this, citing trade secrets, and blames the visual design of the ballot by county election officials as the problem.

Judge Gary is expected to issue his ruling on the request for access to the machines on Friday.

From 1933 to 2005, the House has considered 105 contested election cases, but has reversed the results only three times, according to the Congressional Research Service.

[randalds]

18,000 lost votes in a highly democratic district. Reason enough for a new election based, if not on fraud, then on equipment failure. There is no excuse for that many votes not being counted and not just because they might change the outcome of the election, but because it's unacceptable to have that many voices unheard in a country that values the right to vote above or equal to all others.

[honest_news]

RandalDS is exactly right.

I would add that, in addition to mandating a paper trail for all electronic voting, Congress should also require that manufacturers of voting machines make ALL machine hardware and software available for analysis in the event of a contested election, or else be subject to severe fines and lengthy imprisonment for interfering with a public election and criminal mischief. We are talking about the core exercise of democracy, and no interference or obstruction of this process should be tolerated.

[randalds]

Absolutely a paper trail. A written receipt handed to each voter when they finish showing how they voted. If it's not written down somewhere for people to review then for all purposes it just didn't happen and that can not be allowed in this country. The first step toward anarchy is the loss of faith in the ballot box. If we no longer think our vote is sacred then what is there left to defend? Nothing.

[thomderr]

A paper trail,YES!
A 'Highly Democratic District' - not as much as you think.
Did we ever so often blame the simple vote counters, who taskfully poured over each and every ballot, as much as we now fault the machine that took their place?

[bluestardad]

How messed up can a state be. I guess this is another of the Bush boy's oversight problems. When are they going to put Mark Foley in Jail?

[rharrin1]

Can't everybody remember how confident the decider was before the election, then the look of dismay when he realized they didn't fix it enough.

[creeper00]

We need to get this right. We can't afford the precedent of saying, "Oh, just one questionable race doesn't matter."

It's almost funny listening to election officials and Republicans going through logical contortions in an attempt to justify a 16% undervote in the highest-profile race on the ballot. Or it would be if this weren't the heart of what our nation is about.

rharrin1, I'm just paranoid enough to wonder if the landslide last month might have been even greater than reported. The biggest lesson of Florida '00, to me, was "make the margin big enough that nobody can steal it."

As a side note, I was a poll watcher in November. We had six voting stations. Five of them were cubicles where you could fill out a paper ballot which was then fed into a machine. One of them was a touch-screen machine, with no paper trail. People avoided the touch-screen machine like the plague. "Ma'am, the machine is available now." "No, thank you, I'll wait until one of the paper ballot stations is open." (Interestingly, the vast majority of people who did use the touch screen machine were Republicans.)

It's a shame they didn't have a choice in Sarasota.

[perception5]

Why is it that only Democrats whine about losing an election???? Dems grow up and take a page from Republicans.......be graceful in defeat.

[jn122736]

perception5:

The answer to your question is answered by another question%u2026Why is it that only democratic candidates prove to be the victims of under voting or uncounted votes and Republican candidates who benefit, like one instance where Bush, in one district, received several thousand more votes than there were registered voters.
In answer to the rest of your comment, they are %u201Cgrownup%u201D. A defeat is one thing robbery is quite another.

Quote from article:
%u201CState Judge William Gary, in Tallahassee, has heard two days of testimony whether experts can examine the machines %u2013 both the hardware and software, known as the source code. ES&S opposes this, citing trade secrets, and blames the visual design of the ballot by county election officials as the problem."

The importance of the right for every vote being counted MUST outweigh any trade secrets rights. If a company does not want their equipments software to be subjected to oversight inspection they should not sell the equipment for this purpose and states should not purchase the machines in the first place.
Critically important is making electronic voting without a valid and countable paper backup illegal everywhere in all public elections.

[kevboom]

North Carolina recently ended a scandalous superintendant of education race where the republican wouldn't concede defeat. A House race too. "Whining" is not a democratic thing. It is, however, a term republicans use to spin their way out of questionable voting practices cloaked from the public by quality individuals like Katherine Harris.

[jn122736]

%u201CAbsolutely a paper trail. A written receipt handed to each voter when they finish showing how they voted. If it's not written down somewhere for people to review then for all purposes it just didn't happen and that can not be allowed in this country. The first step toward anarchy is the loss of faith in the ballot box. If we no longer think our vote is sacred then what is there left to defend? Nothing.%u201D
Posted by RandalDS at 12:01 AM : Dec 21, 2006

Very true, but I would add one critical point.
The SAME paper backup ballot handed to the voter for their personal inspection must be retained by the precinct for recounts if called for.
Any software capable of showing the voter one result and then registering a different result would be capable of printing two different paper backups for the same ballot.

[grumpas]

The answer to your question perception5 is because Republican's cheat! They stole the election in Florida in 2000 and it's been one long series of problems they have created ever since! We can be graceful when the defeat was done honestly! But, when it was done dishonestly that is a whole different story! We have a President in power who hasn't won an election honestly yet! He ursurped the office in 2000 by not allowing the votes in Florida to be recounted! He did it again in 2004 with funny business in Ohio and Florida both! And you have the audacity to think someone is whining????? I would love to hear Republican's if the same thing happened to them! There would be no end to the whining and crying! They did enough when they lost legally in 2006! Just because their fascist rein came to an end!

[houser123]

I for one would favor the system used in Iraq. Paper ballots, ink on the ole finger designating we voted. So what if it takes a few days or even a couple of weeks to count all the votes. Why do we really need to know who won within 45 minutes of the polls closing. Let's get the media out of running our elections. Elections are to important to rush the results. Heck, these people can plan their victory or concession speeches later. What's most important is all "OUR" votes are counted , not the candidates time or which network makes the announcement faster. Remember, who the employer is.

[getserious1]

yes yes yes, Bush 'stole' the election in 2000.....LOL..Get a life, you have NO proof of your statement, just left or right malarky. First the Dems SCREAM for new machines (no more 'chads'!!), they get them and still they complain, because they didn't win 100% of the vote. I don't doubt that there is a bunch of cheating in the elections and result counting, it has been proven (BOTH DEMS AND REPUBS) over and over again in just about every single election ever held. Even if you had a paper trail, how do you prove that IT is correct? In any 'anonymous' election, there is opportunity for corruption. There is NO way to validate each and every vote, because the vote is not identified to an individual. The only choice for absolute proof is to identify the voter with the specific vote. Are you prepared to give up your annonimity in order to have less chance of a corrupted election? Think of the consequences before answering.

[getserious1]

There shouldn't be a need to review the machine source code. All that is needed is robust testing of the machines in question. Put 130,000 (or any amount) votes in the machine, with different vote values and test the results with your known inputs and see if the votes are computed properly. Why does this seem so hard?