Touchscreen Election Solution Tested

Palm Beach County residents participated in a mock election on Saturday, testing the county's new touchscreen machines in an effort to avoid a repeat of the 2000 election debacle.

Residents voted on whether the Pledge of Allegiance should include the words "under God," as a way to test the county's 3,100 new touchscreen machines.

At malls and supermarkets, voters were also answering questions on the best president, favorite holiday, greatest American athlete, greatest American coach and favorite patriotic landmark, holiday or song.

"This thing is taking on a life of its own," said Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore. "Everybody's just gone nuts over this thing."

Some Florida congressmen have criticized the mock election because the machines will be placed at malls and grocery stores, not in the voting precincts normally used on Election Day.

The $14.4 million touchscreen machines were supposed to help the county and state live down the memory of the "butterfly ballots" and "hanging chads" that marked the 2000 election. But their debut in city elections this winter brought suspicions about their accuracy.

The touchscreen system registered a three percent under-vote, meaning 3 percent of those who showed up failed to actually cast a vote, possibly due to a machine error, reports CBS News correspondent Bobbi Harley.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson told Harley that's not good enough. "Would you buy a Rolls Royce and accept three percent failure? Every hundred times you get out to start the car, if it didn't start three percent, three times, you wouldn't accept that," he said.

Lepore joked to Harley that "the perfect voting system does not involve humans. Every time you inject humans in the process, something ... there will be something."