Fla. judge requires manual recounts

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

___

Dave Farber  +1 412 726 9889



...... Forwarded Message .......
From: Barry Ritholtz <ritholtz () optonline net>
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:38:10 -0400
Subj: Fla. judge requires manual recounts

Hey Dave,

I'm surprised no one else picked this up:

Barry L. Ritholtz
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Big Picture:  A blog of capital markets, geopolitics, with a dash 
of film!
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/


Fla. judge requires manual recounts
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9519301.htm
Posted on Sat, Aug. 28, 2004

A state judge threw out a Florida Division of Elections rule barring 
the 15 counties that use touch-screen voting systems from conducting 
recounts by hand.

BY GARY FINEOUT AND MARY ELLEN KLAS
gfineout () herald com


TALLAHASSEE -In a decision that could require the state to provide a 
paper trail of votes on touch-screen machines, a judge on Friday threw 
out a state rule that prohibits manual recounts in counties using the 
ATM-style equipment.

The immediate effect of the ruling and its impact on Tuesday's primary 
election was unclear Friday night. But the groups that brought the 
lawsuit against Secretary of State Glenda Hood said the ruling means 
some sort of paper backup on electronic voting is required.

''The law is clear; the law requires a manual recount,'' said Howard 
Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Florida. ``Which one of those words does the state not understand? This 
judge should be applauded for standing up for the law.''

Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Hood, said no decision has been made on 
whether to appeal the decision. But Nash said requiring a manual 
recount in counties that use touch-screen machines would return Florida 
to the chaotic days following the bitterly contested 2000 presidential 
election.

''It's important to note that use of touch-screen machines was to avoid 
the problems counties had in that election,'' Nash said. ``This ruling 
is a step backward to that time.''

Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, however, called 
manual recounts ''doable'' in touch-screen counties -- Broward did it 
in a close election in January -- but said it will take a lot of staff 
and computer time.

LEGAL CONFLICT

The ACLU was among a coalition of groups that sued the Department of 
State in July, saying the agency had overstepped its legal authority 
when it ruled that the 15 counties that use touch-screen machines 
cannot do manual recounts in close elections. The groups contended the 
rule violated the state's 2001 election reform law that requires manual 
recounts.

More than 50 percent of Florida's voters reside in counties that use 
touch-screen machines, including Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach 
counties.

State law requires recounts when elections are decided by a razor-thin 
margin. An automatic recount is done when an election is decided by 
less than one half of one percent of all votes. If the election results 
after the first recount are still less than one quarter of one percent, 
election officials are required to do a manual, or hand, recount of all 
overvotes and undervotes.

Overvotes are when a voter chooses more than one candidate in a race, 
while an undervote results when a voter appears to have skipped the 
race and not chosen any candidate.

Earlier this year, a close state House race in Broward led to a manual 
recount. In the aftermath of that election, however, the state Division 
of Elections issued a legal opinion, and then a rule, saying that 
counties that use touch-screen machines were prohibited from doing 
manual recounts in the future.

Despite the state law requiring manual recounts, the Florida Division 
of Elections argued that such recounts are pointless, since 
touch-screen machines do not allow voters to cast overvotes and that 
there is no way to figure out why a voter cast a blank ballot, or 
undervote, in a race.

But the ACLU and other groups said the lack of a manual recount in 
counties that use the touch-screen machines would mean that outside 
groups may never learn if there was a malfunction with the machines on 
Election Day.

`PLAIN LANGUAGE'

Administrative Judge Susan Kirkland said the no-manual-recount rule 
''is contrary to the plain language'' of the law and that Hood and her 
agency exceeded its authority.

''The Florida Legislature made no distinction between voting systems 
using paper ballots and those not using paper ballots when requiring 
manual recounts,'' Kirkland wrote.

``If the Legislature had intended that no manual recounts be done in 
counties using voting systems which did not use paper ballots, it could 
have easily done so; it did not.''

The question remained late Friday how state elections officials would 
respond to the ruling and whether they would appeal it to the First 
District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee.

The groups that sued Hood and the Department of State said they hoped 
that state officials would drop their rule and instead focus on how to 
have counties that use touch-screen machines do a manual recount.

One possible way would be to order voter-verified paper trails -- 
meaning a machine would give voters a printout showing how they voted.

Another is to require a printout of the ''ballot image'' recorded on 
the touch-screen machine after each vote, which shows what a voter did 
on each contest on the ballot.

Snipes said she was not surprised by Friday's ruling because, when 
Broward was faced with a close election in the District 91 House race 
between Ellyn Bogdanoff and Oliver Parker, election officials 
interpreted the recount law to require them to print out the ballot 
images stored on the machines and count them by hand.

''It took most of the weekend,'' she said. ``The experience of 
downloading the ballot images, recounting the ballot images and 
reconciling the ballot images took time. But they matched perfectly -- 
they still had 12 votes difference.''

In a general election, she said it would take longer and counties would 
have to hire more people and have more laptop computers.

But she said she believes ``it's doable. The capability is there.''




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