FL. District 13: The First Voting Machine Audit Results Are In...

SARASOTA, FL (NS)  - The first test expected to help restore public confidence in SarasotaCounty's electronic voting machines instead raised some more questionson Tuesday... The results of a simulated election held on spare machines didn'texactly match what state elections officials had scripted. Of fourmachines, the results of which were compared to actual election-dayresults, three had one to three fewer votes for Democrat ChristineJennings in the 13th Congressional District race... Officials quickly called the discrepancies "minor and not surprising,"and predicted that a review today would determine their cause... "It's going to be human error when we go back to look at it, that'swhat we expect," said Jenny Nash, spokeswoman for the Florida Secretaryof State's office, which conducted the mock election as part of anaudit of the county's voting system...Now please ask me if anybody is surprised to hear that the voters and 'human error', either intentional by not voting or unintentional by not paying attention, are mostly the cause for the undervote??? "Possible causes for discrepencies also include state electionsemployees not following scripts telling them how to vote and errors inthe scripts themselves," Nash said. If today's review doesn't find thecauses, State officials then will then look inside the machines... The Jennings campaign, which contends the county's machines lost atleast 14,000 votes and cost her the victory in the Nov. 7 generalelection, was not quite ready to blame human error... "We want to look at it (today) to see what it could be, but three outof four, that's pretty intriguing," said Kathy Vermazen, her campaignspokeswoman... An attorney for Republican Vern Buchanan, who was declared the race'swinner after two recounts, said a few discrepancies among the 251ballots cast Tuesday "aren't a smoking gun." "Had the machines lost asmany votes as Jennings contends, the results would have shown even morediscrepancies," Hayden Dempsey, an attorney representing Buchanan,said... "These results show Jennings' claim doesn't hold any water," Dempseysaid... Are the State Audits insufficient? The differing opinions show the mock election, the first of two plannedthis week, won't immediately answer why the county's machines reportedmore than 18,000 blank votes, or "undervotes," in the congressionalrace earlier this month. The second simulated election, scheduled forFriday, will be done on five touch-screen machines that were used inthe general election... The county's top elections official, Kathy Dent, requested the review because of therace's high undervote rate and voter complaints that the machines'review screens didn't always show their congressional choice... Magnifying the issue was the razor-thin vote difference betweenJennings and Buchanan. After two automatic recounts triggered by theclose margin, the state declared Buchanan the winner by 369 votes outof more than 238,000 cast... Jennings is challenging that in court, arguing the machinesmalfunctioned. She wants a judge to either declare her the winner ororder a new districtwide election...Does anybody think that Vern Buchanan won't take the FL-13 Congressionalseat on January 3rd, 2007??? A group of voters, backed by several voter advocacy groups, also iscontesting the election results. A Leon County circuit judge Tuesdayordered both cases, which were filed separately, be consolidated... Lawyers for Jennings and the voters also criticized Tuesday's exerciseas too limited in scope, saying it didn't accurately re-createelection-day conditions. Critics contend that only a broader,independent audit will prove if those blank votes actually were lost... "It's not the kind of thorough, independent process that voters want,"Jennings' attorney Kendall Coffey said... Lots of 'eyes' are on the process... The mock election began at 7 a.m., when county elections workers openedthe "polling place" - a roughly 15-by-25-foot room inside a countywarehouse off Fruitville Road east of Interstate 75... Inside the room were five of the tablet-style voting machines, eachhung on an office partition wall. In front of each sat a team of twostate elections division employees who volunteered for the job... As one employee read aloud from a script, the other tapped themachine's screen to select candidates and answer ballot questions asscripted. Each script contained one of 10 different voting patterns inthe congressional race... Sometimes Jennings was chosen, sometimes Buchanan. Sometimes one waspicked, then dropped in favor of the other. And sometimes neither wasselected... Each time, the team reviewed their choices on three summary screensbefore pushing a flashing red "Vote" button to cast the ballot... Monitoring every screen touch was a video camera mounted on a tripoddirectly behind the state employees. The cameras sent audio and videofeeds to a bank of recorders and televisions in a back corner of theroom... Lawyers and experts for both campaigns, as well as the media, watchedthe process from two vantage points: either through four large windowsor inside the room as silent observers... Of the candidates, only Jennings was at the audit site. She made abrief mid-afternoon appearance, repeating her refusal to concede asBuchanan and others have urged her to do... "I am here to say I will never give up until we truly, to the best ofour ability, know what happened," she said. "I will not let the votersdown."And there are many who have a problem with Jennings intentions since a lot of the players of the 2000 FL Election 'chad' debarcle are present for this election challenge... Buchanan was at Harvard University, attending a program for newlyelected members of Congress, his campaign spokeswoman said. "He intendsto take his seat when the 110th Congress is sworn in Jan. 3," Buchananspokeswoman Sally Tibbetts said... The State Audit is going according to plan... Tuesday's test was designed by state elections officials and an expertretained by Jennings to "duplicate election day as much as possible,"secretary of state spokeswoman Nash said... But critics said it was anything but, citing numerous differences... The touch-screen machines were hung vertically instead of lying flat asthey were on Election Day. Most who cast ballots in the Nov. 7 electiondid so once in private while standing up, not repeatedly in plain viewof onlookers and video cameras while sitting down... And the test teams, whose members appeared to range in age from themid-20s to early 50s, also didn't accurately represent real voters,critics said...Imagine that! I can walk upright but I can't sit down because the resultsthat you'll get will be different. How nice that is to hear from somebody who is grasping at 'straws' trying to find 'anything' to use... "They're professional testers," Coffey said of the state employees.Once again Coffey was clawing for 'anything' to create doubt... Critics also said the 10 machines to be used in the mock elections aretoo few to yield any meaningful results. The county used 1,498 machinesin the real election... "If you're going to go about an audit the right way . . . you don'tstart out with these kinds of clear mistakes from day one," Coffeysaid... But the ultimate decision appears headed for a FL State Court. TheJennings side in the 13th FL. Congressional race appears determined tohave that happen. What will happen there, who knows???  For more, go to: http://www.newssarasota.com