Honest Voting

The good news about Florida counties switching to optical scanners was that they no longer used touch-screen systems. The bad news, however, is that current Florida law only permits hand recounts in a small percentage of cases. Jim Stratton writes for the Orlando Sentinel:

When legislators passed the new law, they made no provision for a full hand recount, rendering the paper trail of optical-scan systems virtually useless. The law requires that only ballots with too many or too few marks — so-called overvotes and undervotes — be reviewed by hand. The rest won’t be checked.

“By law, humans can’t look at that paper record,” said Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho. “The system is sort of bass-ackwards.”

State law mandates *machine* recounts for any race decided by less than half a percentage point. So the votes are run back through scanners again. If after that process the margin drops to one-quarter of a percent, a hand recount is ordered — but only for ballots showing undervotes or overvotes. The rest of the ballots can’t be reviewed unless a candidate sues.

Florida’s secretary of state, Kurt Browning, had wanted a provision for a full hand recount, but relented when county officials demurred. Florida has one of the shortest voting certification periods in the nation, 12 days, and many felt that wasn’t enough time to provide a complete recount. Voting activists hope this will be changed, along with what they call insufficient auditing procedures.

PS to any readers from Florida: Today was the deadline for registering to vote in the Aug. 26 primary election.

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