Florida race may determine future of e-voting

The legal battle brewing in Florida District 13, where Dem. Christine Jennings is contending that 18,000 "undervotes" cost her the election vs. Republican Vern Buchanan, could have implications well beyond Florida. After the State of Florida certified the election for Buchanan on Monday, a lawsuit filed by Jennings, and a separate motion filed by the ACLU and other public interest groups, is challenging the very use of unverified electronic voting:

Both suits allege that faulty touchscreen voting machines skewed results by improperly processing up to 18,000 ballots cast in the race. Known as undervotes, these votes show selections in all the other races on the ballot but do not have a vote recorded for either candidate in the congressional race. The Florida Department of State's election division recorded 238,249 votes overall in the race.

The lawsuits may end up casting an unflattering light on electronic voting across the the U.S., where 36% of voters cast ballots on electronic machines in the last elections. Critics have long worried about flaws in electronic machines, particularly those like the ones used in the Florida race, which do not produce a paper trail to help verify results. A bill pending in Congress would require paper records to be used on all electronic machines.

"This is a message to every other district in the country that is using these machines," said Florida ACLU Director Howard Simon. "An election meltdown may be coming to your neighborhood unless you take steps to prevent it."

Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel has poured over nearly all of the 18,000 "undervote" ballots, and is reporting that the evidence strongly suggests Jennings would have won they election had the problems not surfaced:

The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.

Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes.

The trend, which continues up the ticket to the race for governor and U.S. Senate, suggests that if votes were truly cast and lost -- as Democrat Christine Jennings maintains -- they were votes that likely cost her the congressional election. [...]

"Wow," University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said. "That's very suggestive -- I'd even say strongly suggestive -- that if there had been votes recorded, she [Jennings] would have won that House seat."

David Dill, an electronic-voting expert at Stanford University, put it this way: "It seems to establish with certainty that more Democrats are represented in those undervoted ballots."