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Machines Escape Undervote Blame

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By MITCH STACY, The Associated Press

Published: February 7, 2008

TAMPA - Touch-screen voting machines likely performed properly and were not to blame for the large number of undervotes in the District 13 congressional election in 2006, federal investigators said in a draft report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office will present the report Friday to a House task force that has been investigating the District 13 congressional election. Republican Vern Buchanan beat Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes to win the southwest Florida seat 15 months ago.

At issue was whether malfunctioning voting machines failed to record more than 18,000 votes in the congressional election, or whether a large number of voters - nearly 15 percent of the total - just skipped that particular race on their touch-screen ballots.

Jennings has asked Congress to throw out the election results, claiming that the Sarasota County voting machines failed to count the votes. Buchanan was declared the winner after two recounts and a state audit found no problems with the machines.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, plans to tell task force members Friday that while it cannot provide "absolute assurance" the voting machines didn't contribute to the large number of undervotes, the GAO's testing "significantly reduced the possibility" that the machines were to blame. Voters themselves are more likely to blame, the report said.

"GAO acknowledges the possibility that the large undervote in Florida's 13th Congressional District race could have been caused by factors such as voters who intentionally undervoted or voters who did not properly cast their ballots on the voting machines, potentially because of issues relating to interaction between voters and ballot," it said.

"This is a huge victory for democracy and the people of the 13th District," said Hayden Dempsey, Buchanan's attorney.

"It tells losing candidates you cannot overturn an election simply because you don't like the outcome. ... It is significant to note that the GAO investigation was initiated at Jennings' request by a Democrat-controlled Congress, yet it reached the same conclusion as every other study over the past 15 months - the voting machines worked," he said.

In part because of the District 13 dispute, Gov. Charlie Crist pushed the Legislature to pass a bill that largely replaced touch-screen voting machines with optical-scan machines that leave a paper trail.

Jennings never conceded the 2006 race and is challenging Buchanan for the seat again this year. Campaign manager Mitch Kates said she feels her goal of assuring voters their votes are counted was accomplished.

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