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Paperless Voting Machines + Katherine Harris's Old District = Bad Election Karma

By Barb Burt
Posted on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 09:00:22 PM EST

Yes, it's her old district

Common Cause Calls for Investigation into 18,000 Lost Votes

Sarasota County Election Should Not Be Certified

Common Cause is calling for an independent investigation into the alarmingly high number of missing votes in the District 13 Congressional race in Sarasota County. More than 18,000 voters, nearly 13% of those who showed up at the polls, cast votes in other races but not the closely contested Congressional race between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan. It represents a massive undercount compared to other counties, including Manatee, which reported an undercount of 2%.

"Sarasota County voters deserve an explanation," said Ben Wilcox, Executive Director of Common Cause's Florida office. "The machines should be impounded, audited and tested to determine if voters were unable to cast a ballot and why. A 13% undercount is unacceptable and this election should not be certified. Election officials should conduct a revote in this county."

An undervote rate of this magnitude is statistically improbable. In 2004, according to a report released this summer by the Brennan Center for Justice, the residual vote rate for these machines in "top of the ticket races" i.e., President was 0.7%. And the residual vote rate for "bottom of the ticket races" i.e. ballot initiatives was only 6.7%. This is twice as high. And it's a top ticket race. "Something clearly went wrong," said Wilcox. "To certify this election would make a mockery of democracy."

Several ironies here: this is Katherine Harris's old seat. AND, the citizens in this county placed a referendum question on the ballot, asking voters to mandate a voter-verified paper record (which county elections supervisor Kathy Dent strongly opposes). The question passed by a large majority.

Common Cause is a member of the MyVote1 Consortium, a broad array of nonpartisan policy and grassroots organizations, each committed to assisting voters and improving our electoral system. Common Cause collected and analyzed data on election irregularities from voters in this election, including complaint messages from calls to the MyVote1 phone line. There were many reports from concerned voters in Sarasota County, who said that Christine Jennings' name did not show up on the ballot summary after people had voted for her.

Articles in the Herald Tribune and also here, and the Miami Herald.

TO HELP US WITH OUR VOTING REFORM CAMPAIGN - GO TO GETITSTRAIGHTBY2008.ORG


Tags: florida, election, voting machine (all tags)


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Paperless Voting Machines + Katherine Harris's Old District = Bad Election Karma :: 4 Comments

Common Cause calls for recount to help Democrat

Barb,   Does your calling for a recount have anything to do with the fact that the winner is a Republican??   How about demanding a recount for AZ Republican J.D. Hayworth??  Oops I forgot your a Democrat, you only help your own party!!

by La Perla on Mon Nov 13, 2006 at 12:01:09 AM EST


Was there a 13% for undercount for J.D. Hayworth??

...If so, then definitely recount. But the problem lies in the fact that no one can really KNOW what the count was if it is contained, in an electronic "record", in a machine whose operation, absolutely, cannot be verified, in a provable way.

by DGarrett on Mon Nov 13, 2006 at 01:58:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]


Voting technology privatized

 It is a nice idea to require a paper trail, and random audits, but the real solution to fraudulent elections, in the U.S., won't happen until we take the whole process; machines, source codes, operation, and tallying out of the hands of partisan corporations. We must "nationalize" the voting systems.

by DGarrett on Mon Nov 13, 2006 at 01:44:03 PM EST


106,000 undervotes in Georgia in 2004

So where the hell was Common Cause when it was WORSE in Georgia?  106,000 voters thrown to the wolves.  We begged for help.

Published in the AJC/Political Insider column on: 10/27/04

Here's a stunner.

Last summer, we told you that Republicans had captured the title of majority party in Georgia, by virtue of the number of GOP ballots cast in the July primary. The numbers were unofficial. The secretary of state's office simply used the total votes cast in the U.S. Senate race in each party.

As it turns out, that's not the whole story. Not even close.

In the next few days, Secretary of State Cathy Cox will release numbers showing that on July 20 voters requested more Democratic ballots (731,111) than Republican ones (671,961). The numbers are based on ballot counts slowly being assembled from the 159 counties.

For Democrats, the good news is that they're entitled to hold on to their majority-party status, at least until 2006. But there's bad news, too. On the Democratic side of the U.S. Senate race, 625,115 votes were cast. That means nearly 106,000 Democrats -- 14 percent of the total -- took a look at the eight-candidate field. And passed.

Denise Majette came in first. Cliff Oxford came in second. But None of the Above was a close third -- and nearly made the runoff.

Given the current state of the electorate, more than one top Democrat could be administering self-inflicted kicks to the posterior on Tuesday, for not taking the race more seriously.

Roxanne Jekot

by RoxanneJekot on Wed Nov 15, 2006 at 11:38:04 AM EST


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