humbubba@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Florida Judge Rules on Manual Vote Recounts
>By DAVID ROYSE, Associated Press Writer
>Friday, August 27, 2004
>http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=548&u=/ap/20040828/ap_on_el_ge/florida_voting&printer=1
>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A state rule barring the 15 Florida counties with
touchscreen voting
>from conducting manual recounts is at odds with state law, which requires
hand recounts in
>some close elections, a judge ruled Friday.
>A coalition including government watchdogs and other interest groups sued
the state,
>arguing the law requires provisions for hand recounts in every county, no
matter what
>voting technology is used.
>Administrative Law Judge Susan Kirkland agreed, writing that state law
clearly
>contemplates "that manual recounts will be done on each certified voting
system, including
>the touchscreen voting systems."
>With a primary election Tuesday and more than half the state's voters in
counties that use
>touchscreens, it is not clear what those counties will do.
>Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who issued the ruling preventing manual
recounts in
>touchscreen counties in April, was considering appealing Friday's
decision, a spokeswoman
>said. An appeal would keep Hood's rule in place.
>Elections supervisors in some of the 15 counties with touchscreens had
asked the state
>what they should do about a law requiring manual recounts when elections
are particularly
>close, because the machines the counties use are not programmed to create
a paper record
>of each vote.
>The Division of Elections issued the rule in April saying that because
touchscreens do not
>let people vote for the same candidate twice or unintentionally fail to
vote in a
>particular race, there was no reason for touchscreen counties to conduct
hand recounts.
>"The touchscreen machines were put in place to avoid the problems that
were encountered in
>the 2000 election," said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Hood who
criticized Friday's
>ruling. "This ruling is a step backward to that time."
>Florida's voting system has been under scrutiny since 2000, when it took
five weeks of
>legal maneuvering and some recounting before Republican George W. Bush
was declared
>president over Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites).
>In her ruling, Kirkland said the statute clearly requires manual recounts
"when the margin
>of victory is one-quarter of a percent or less or when there is a proper
and timely
>request for a manual recount."
>Kurt Browning (news - web sites), the elections supervisor in Pasco
County, which has
>touchscreens, said his county had no plan for recounting by hand, and
said there was no
>practical way to do so.
>But Vicki Cannon, the supervisor of elections in rural Nassau County,
north of
>Jacksonville, said she could do a hand recount of touchscreen votes if
the election were
>close enough to require it.
>"Certainly we could if the state directed us to," Cannon said. "I would
assume that we
>would print our ballot records, and count the candidates' names. Time
consuming, maybe.
>Difficult? I don't think so."
>Officials in larger counties agreed a recount would take time.
>"It's not something that would just happen in a day ... at least a week."
said Gisela
>Salas, deputy elections supervisor in Broward County, which has the most
voters in the
>state.
>Also Friday, a Maryland judge said he would decide next week whether the
state must take
>additional steps to ensure that Maryland's touchscreen voting machines
will provide an
>accurate vote count in November.
>
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