From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: "Second touch-screen test underway."
Florida election officials are conducting a "re-do" of Tuesday's simulated election in Sarasota County, with results to be released later tonight. This is a repeat of a test that failed miserably, as detailed yesterday by Kos in a front page post, "FL-13: officials unable to explain most of problems in test."
From the Herald-Tribune:
State elections workers cast the first of 251 scripted ballots at 7:08a.m. Friday in the second simulated election of an audit that began this week to investigate how the county's touch-screen voting machines functioned in the Nov. 7 election. State elections employees will follow scripts when casting ballots on four voting machines from different precincts.
They will also vote about every 15 minutes on a fifth machine using scripts based on various scenarios that Sarasota County voters reported encountering when casting ballots in the Congressional District 13 race, the results of which prompted a recount and a state audit.
Two hours into the test, state spokesman Sterling Ivey said it was running "smoothly ... Nothing has come to light ... "
David Drury, Bureau Chief for the Division of Elections Voting Systems Certification, is overseeing the audit. After review of scripts and video of Tuesday's fiasco, attributed to "human error," Drury changed the scripts and reminded the elections staff "to closely follow the scripts."
For those who have missed this story, the Ocala Star-Banner has a pretty good summary; excerpts:
... The audit of Sarasota County's voting machines is trying to determine why they recorded more than 18,000 blank votes & or undervotes & in the Nov. 7 contest between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. A manual recount showed Buchanan won the House seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Katherine Harris by 369 votes. But Jennings sued to contest the election, arguing that voting machines malfunctioned in Sarasota County. Jennings said Tuesday she still wants an independent audit of the voting machines and is prepared for a long fight if necessary.
"I am here to say I will never give up until we truly, to the best of our ability, know what happened," she said. "I will not let the voters down."
[...]
The audit is trying to discern if there was a glitch in the machinery when almost 18,000 Sarasota County voters cast ballots in other races but did not register a vote in the race between Buchanan and Jennings. The percentage of skipped votes is about six times higher than in the district's other counties, a statistic Jennings cites in her legal challenge of Buchanan's 369-vote win. She has asked a judge to order a new election.
According to the Herald-Tribune article, "... Lawyers for District 13 Democratic candidate Christine Jennings have filed a lawsuit requesting access to the code, which is kept secret on behalf of the machines' manufacturer, Electronic Systems and Software." Today's attempt to verify that the voting machines work properly is being observed by representatives from the Jennings and Buchanan campaigns, along with "voting rights advocacy groups, media and staff from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration."
Christine Jennings is asking for help in financing the legal fees for the recount effort. From her campaign website:
We need your help! Christine Jennings is committed to ensuring that every intended vote is counted and counted accurately in this election. Please contribute to help us ensure that our next representative is chosen by the will of the people, not a glitch at the ballot box.
Contributions can be made through ActBlue.
In related news, People For the American Way is involved in the recount effort, and has joined with several other groups to organize a "Revote Rally" for Sunday. From the PFAW website:
In the recent elections, voting machine flaws in Sarasota County led to a massive undervote of more than 18,000 ballots in the 13th Congressional District race – where the current vote totals separate the candidates by less than 400 votes.
PFAW Foundation has been on the case from day one. Immediately after the election, we launched an investigation into the undervote and called the nation’s attention to this debacle. Then, we held a public forum that provided disenfranchised voters an opportunity to tell their stories. Now, PFAW Foundation is pursuing legal and political avenues of bringing about a revote that will allow disenfranchised voters to cast votes that count. PFAW Foundation and allied organizations are representing Sarasota County voters in a lawsuit seeking a revote that has been filed in state court, and we and our allies are working to rally public opinion to support both a revote and an independent investigation that can get to the bottom of this mess...
...UPCOMING - Sunday, December 3: PFAWF is partnering with the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections, the local branch of the NAACP and other groups to organize a "Revote Rally" where Sarasota County citizens can make clear to the larger public their desire for a revote.
As reported yesterday on Daily Kos, Democrats "are already planning hearings on the mess."
UPDATE: Jeff in CA advised in a comment that today's test was not a "re-do."
Rather than paraphrase:
... today's test was not a "re-do" of Tuesday's simulated election in Sarasota County. It was planned from the start as a second round of testing. The first round was held on five spare machines that were not used on Election Day. The second day (today) was planned for the tests to be run on five machines that were actually used in the election. The idea then was to compare the two sets of results.
As far as the errors that were made on the first day, the audit officials plan to review all of the videotape that was taken on Day 1, and then adjust the results based on the errors that they see on the tape.
Thanks for the clarification, Jeff.
UPDATE #2: electionlawyer posted a link to a draft study released 12/01/06 by Dartmouth University. (NOTE: Link is to a fairly large pdf file.) The study, "Ballot Formats, Touchscreens, and Undervotes: A Study of the 2006 Midterm Elections in Florida," says in the Abstract:
... Using a combination of ballot-level and precinct-level voting data, we show that the high undervote rate in the 13th Congressional District race was almost certainly caused by the way that Sarasota County’s electronic touchscreen voting machines placed the 13th Congressional District race above and on the same screen as the Florida Governor race...
with the Conclusion:
... explained the undervote rate by drawing on variance in ballot formats across counties and types of voters (election day, early, and absentee). In particular ... the touchscreen voting machines in Sarasota County grouped races and in particular grouped a Congressional race with the Florida governor’s race... Thus, what looks on the surface like a Sarasota County issue is in fact more general...
... it appears that the Sarasota ballot format in the 2006 midterm elections was pivotal to the winner of tightly contested 13th Congressional District race in Florida. We estimate that, had Sarasota used a ballot format akin to those in neighboring counties, with probability 0.9 Jennings would have beaten Buchanan...
... There remain two key issues .. The first is the precise reason as to why grouping races on touchscreens is a problem... Second ... we cannot completely rule out voting machine malfunction as a source of the Sarasota undervote... We conclude with what we believe is a simple and conservative implication of our main finding: iVotronic touchscreen voting systems should not combine important races on the same voting page. Regardless of why exactly combining races is a problem, this proposal seems likely to avoid it...
Thanks, electionlawyer.