Florida court allows local rules on voting machines

[csziggy]

Florida court allows local rules on voting machines
By Howard Troxler, Times Columnist
In Print: Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Now and then, as you know, Florida has had a spot of trouble with its elections. So in 2006, the voters of Sarasota County decided to take extra precautions. They passed an amendment to their county charter that said:

• Touch screen voting machines were banned in that county and only paper ballots would count. (This was before the rest of the state switched back to paper ballots, too.)
• Elections would be audited more extensively than state law requires, in some cases even counting every ballot manually.
• No election could be certified until any "cause for concern" was resolved.

These changes were the handiwork of a group called the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections, which got the amendment on the ballot via a petition drive.

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Instead, the state sued, saying that state law did not allow Sarasota County or anybody else to start cooking up their own election rules. The case went to the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled Thursday. All six justices who took part agreed that state law does not block Florida counties from adding certain of their own election procedures. Our law, the court said, "undoubtedly recognizes that local governments are in the best position to make some decisions for their localities."

More: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/florida-court-allows-local-rules-on-voting-machines-election-audits/1073468

[DirkGently]

1. Excellent

[csziggy]

2. This is terrific news for Floridians who live in more Democratic states

The only part the state Supreme Court did not uphold was the right of the county to delay certification of an election - that is specifically address in the state constitution and so cannot be over ridden by a county.

What i AM surprised at is that this happened in Sarasota County - I always thought that was a very conservative area!

[fldemvets]

3. Mess

What a mess this entire thing is turning out to be. Just getting worse and worse and worse!

Sarasota will have some changes at the helm in 2012 when we replace Dent with a Marine. The Democratic Veterans Caucus of Florida has been transformed by him and I would not be surprised if the SOE office would be too!

www.fldemvets.org

The Democratic Veterans Caucus of Florida is going to be a helluva organization and strong force in Florida's future!

www.fldemvets.org