Florida Sets Touch-Screen Recounts Rule

[Bossy Monkey]

Oct 15, 11:10 PM EDT

Florida Sets Touch-Screen Recounts Rule

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
Associated Press Writer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The state set a court-ordered rule for recounting touch-screen ballots in close elections Friday, but voter-rights groups complained the changes fell far short of what is needed to ensure a fair vote.

In cases where a manual recount is required, the rule calls on county elections supervisors to review each electronic ballot image to see if the number of so-called undervotes, those on which no candidate was chosen, matches the undervote totals given by the machine.

If the numbers do not match up, the machines will be checked for problems. If the discrepancy remains, elections officials will rely on the original machine count.

State law requires a manual recount if the election is decided by less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the vote, as it was in the 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

(more)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLORIDA_VOTING?SITE=SCCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[countmyvote4real]

1. "If the discrepancy remains..."

They ignore the problem and go with a questionable outcome? Again?

I'm pretty sure this won't be the case when Kerry wins.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Now you know why I'm hesitant to file a lawsuit in this

state. When you know the defendants have co-defendants who have friends who can make these kinds of state rules, you wonder if it isn't just cheaper to accept the damages.

But then, nothing will change.

[ET Awful]

2. Of course that violates the very court ruling that stopped the

recounts in 2000. That court (Bush v. Florida I think, correct me if I'm wrong) ruled that the recounts must be stopped because there was no uniform method for ALL counties to do recounts. They also ruled that they must make it a universal system for all counties.

Too bad the Bushites don't want to follow the very rulings that got them into office in the first place.

[Born Free]

4. IS it true democrats use electronic machines?

I heard a caller say the heavy democratric areas are getting the electonic machines whereas the republican areas will be using ballots that are easier to verify the count. It almost sounds like they are preparing for another special election where democrats votes don't get counted. What good is an election if they don't count all the votes, how long before Americans realize this is what seperates us for the rest of the world and insist we have fair elections?

[slater71]

6. That`s true

All of south Florida is touch screen. Broward,Dade Palm, and it is also where they tested the machines last Tuesday and the main computer crashed. They tested again on Friday and they say it worked ok. Why can`t people see that Bush not wanting a paper trail or recounts in the touch screen counties is a red flag? I mean they just might as well tell us that we will steal the election.

[teryang]

5. Fiasco 2004 already underway

This court ruling is ridiculous. If the discrepancy can't be resolved then we go with the discrepancy. This has been the problem with evoting from the outset and is inherent in their design. All the experts recognized this from the outset.

[ryban]

7. More from FL: FDLE urged 'pull the plug' on voter purge

FDLE urged 'pull the plug' on voter purge
By CHRIS DAVIS and MATTHEW DOIG
STAFF WRITERS
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Several days before the state's felon voter list was sent to county elections offices across Florida, state officials expressed doubts about its reliability.

The doubts were serious enough that Gov. Jeb Bush was advised to "pull the plug" on the entire project, according to an e-mail written by a state computer expert and obtained by the Herald-Tribune.

Bush refused the request, the e-mail said, and told the Department of State to proceed with the purge of nearly 48,000 voters.

Two months later, after flaws in the list were exposed in the press, the state abandoned the effort to purge voters on the list. Those flaws were revealed after Secretary of State Glenda Hood lost a court battle to keep the list hidden from the public.

Bush said Friday that he was never warned about any problems before the list was released.

But his denial contradicts a May 4, 2004, e-mail in which Florida Department of Law Enforcement computer expert Jeff Long describes how election officials told Bush the list needed to be abandoned.

"Paul Craft called today and told me that yesterday they recommended to the Gov that they 'pull the plug,'" on the voter database, Long wrote in an e-mail to his boss, Donna Uzzell.

Long added that state election officials "weren't comfortable with the felon matching program they've got."

"The Gov rejected their suggestion to pull the plug, so they're 'going live' with it this weekend," Long wrote.

<snip>

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, called the e-mail a "smoking gun" that ties Gov. Bush to the flawed effort to purge felons.

"This governor has overseen the most biased, the most unfair election effort in modern Florida history," Wexler said. "He's essentially trying to rig the election for George Bush."

<snip>

A Herald-Tribune reporter gave Bush a copy of the e-mail at a press conference Friday in Punta Gorda. In a brief interview afterward, Bush denied that any meeting took place May 3 with Craft or other election officials.

"He didn't call me," Bush said of Craft. "Once it became clear after talking to the secretary of state that there were problems with the list (in July), that's when we decided to end it."

<snip>
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041016/NEWS/410160348

[Bossy Monkey]

8. Now AP has picked up this story too

Probably worth a separate thread, but I'm not sure how the rules handle this.
Edit: Never mind; already a separate thread.

Oct 16, 7:04 PM EDT

Paper: Jeb Bush Ignored Felon List Advice

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ignored advice to throw out a flawed felon voter list before it went out to county election offices despite warnings from state officials, according to a published report Saturday.

In a May 4 e-mail obtained by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida Department of Law Enforcement computer expert Jeff Long told his boss that a Department of State computer expert had told him "that yesterday they recommended to the Gov that they 'pull the plug'" on the voter database.

(etc)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLORIDA_FELONS_VOTING?SITE=SCCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT