Florida Candidate Demands New Election In County Where E-Voting Machines Ate The Vote

from the do-over! dept

Tue, Nov 21st 2006 12:33pm — Mike Masnick

Two days after the election, despite claims in the press that there were "no major problems" with e-voting systems, it became clear that Sarasota County in Florida had a pretty serious problem to deal with as somewhere between 8,000 and 18,000 votes on e-voting machines appeared to have gone missing. There were various explanations, but it seems like the machines just didn't record the votes when people hit the touchscreen. levi stein writes in to let us know that the Congressional candidate who lost that election by a mere 369 votes, Christine Jennings, is challenging the election and demanding a new election. She's pointing out that there was clearly something wrong with the machine as the missing votes don't fit statistically with votes from any other county in the district, and that this particularly county had the majority voting in her favor (suggesting those missing votes very likely would have tipped the election). It will certainly be interesting to see what happens in the lawsuit she's filed, as it could open up plenty of similar lawsuits in other areas. Hopefully, the risk of such lawsuits will be just one more thing that elections officials will take into account when deciding whether or not to trust their elections to these problematic machines.

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17 Comments

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another, 21 Nov 2006 @ 12:42pm

On a related note, in the town where the guy who voted for himself for mayor and his vote wasn't counted.

Why, with a town with the population of 80, need an electronic voting maching?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:02pm

Party?
Which party won this seat? I need to know if I think there should be a revote or not....
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- Matt Bennett, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:12pm
  
  Re: Party?
  see now, that'd be funny if it weren't true for som many people.
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 4:01pm
  
  Re: Party?
  You're attitude is the embodiment of what's wrong with the entire process and the current American attitude.
  
  I hope you find yourself neck-deep in manure.
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Kerry, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:12pm

Party?....Shmuck!
Why should it matter which party one? A faulty election is a faulty election. Isn't it more important that everyone's vote get counted?

And what is up with Florida? Is their electile dysfunction chronic or what?
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:46pm
  
  Re: Party?....Shmuck!
  Hey nimrod! He was being facetious. In case that's too big a word for you, it means:
  
  fa‧ce‧tious /fəˈsiʃəs/ [fuh-see-shuhs]
  –adjective
  1. not meant to be taken seriously or literally: a facetious remark.
  2. amusing; humorous.
  3. lacking serious intent; concerned with something nonessential, amusing, or frivolous: a facetious person.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2006 @ 4:03pm
    
    Re: Re: Party?....Shmuck!
    Hey Dilwack! It wasn't funny and he's right to say so. Seems you two have the same shit-ass sense of humor. Grow up.
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Monarch, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:39pm

Well Florida has proved that election officials there are unable to count, even when a machine does it for them.
Hmmm.., wonder if it's Jeb who's been trying to fix elections there?
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Grant, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:46pm

seriously, how hard could it possibly be to make a program that records which button was pushed or which check box was checked, and do it securely? especially with the millions that these companies are getting
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Grant, 21 Nov 2006 @ 1:53pm

seriously, how hard could it possibly be to make a program that records which button was pushed or which check box was checked, and do it securely? especially with the millions that these companies are getting
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Sanguine Dream, 21 Nov 2006 @ 2:19pm

Oh no...
not more lawuits. The thing that worries me here is that lawsuits would be pointed in the wrong direction. The suing candidate would probably sue the "winner" and not the provider of the e-voting machine.
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Faz, 21 Nov 2006 @ 2:58pm

ARGH
Why are voting machies such a big problem in our country. :( why cant they print a receipt saying cograts you voted.

and why cant we sue the bloody voting comanies and fix them.

maybe they need Microsoft software LOL LOL
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Nov 2006 @ 6:26am
  
  Re: ARGH
  Mine in Columbus OH did. Every vote was registered on paper under a glass window for me to see.
  
  Doesn't prevent fraud internally, but it makes me all warm and fuzzy looking at it.
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Charles The Tech, 21 Nov 2006 @ 3:59pm

They already use microsoft
Diebold uses MS Access database for their voting machines.

With IT decisions like that, is it any wonder there is problems with the machines they create?
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Robert Murphy, 21 Nov 2006 @ 4:42pm

voting
Until such time as the software becomes open sourced, allowing people to continuously test and improve, there will never be a fair election. Black box code will always leave a bad taste and unfair elections.
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Levi Stein, 21 Nov 2006 @ 5:22pm

I am really interested in all of this because in my county, where we did not (to my knowledge) get the chance to vote on whether or not to vote using e-voteing machines, has had some problems. Although the problems might hva ebene local during the 2000 and 2004 elections myself and atleast 3-4 other voters each time had error messages show up on our machines and our vote not counted from that machine.
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Ed, 22 Nov 2006 @ 8:46am

Bla Bla Bla!!!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... I... can t hahahahaha stop to laugh

Ha ha ha ha h aha h ah ah aha MS hahahahahaha!!! Access hahahahaha!!! Stop stop please!

They can't count simple push butons hahahahahahaha

They can put a man on the mon and can't count hahahaha!!
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