Although hundreds of problems with election machines have been documented (see here) Sarasota County, Florida saw the worst and most obvious problems in the country last election day. Votes were undercounted by 18,000 votes, suggesting that either the ballots were bad or the machines lost the votes somehow.
The parties to the election are battling it out in court, fighting for and against recounts, and so forth. Other organizations are taking testimony from people to understand the problems. They are doing what they can. But the real loser in this is our democracy itself, and the right of the people to have their votes counted properly.
What is needed in Sarasota is a class-action voter lawsuit for infringement of civil rights of the voters. People for the American Way, the ACLU, or a similar organization ought to organize voters and file that suit. State, local, and federal government needs to feel the heat of the voters on this. It is not the candidates who are disenfranchised by the loss of 18,000 votes, but rather the people ourselves. Nothing should be more basic to our democracy.
In the long term, the only real solution is a Free and Fair Elections Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees the right of the people to paper ballots and accurate count of the votes. I’ve drafted and published it in my book Call to Liberty: Bridging the Divide Between Liberals and Conservatives, as follows:
A well regulated election, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to an audited, voter-verified, certified paper record of the vote, shall not be infringed.
In the short run, a proper lawsuit filed on behalf of the people of Sarasota could be challenged on the basis of the definition of civil rights. Those rights are stated in various places, but they do not appear in the dogma of the nation, the Constitution. This amendment makes accurate vote counting and proper record of the votes an integral part of the dogma of American democracy.