The Class of ’06 is attending freshmen orientation in DC, including two representatives from Florida’s 13th Congressional District. Why two, you ask? They’re recounting the votes in the race to succeed Rep. Katherine Harris. Yes, that Katherine Harris.
The uncertified count has Republican Vern Buchanan leading Democrat Christine Jennings by 414 votes. But 18,382 undervotes were cast on Sarasota County’s paperless voting machines.
Unlike when Harris was counting, or more accurately, not counting the votes, there's a mandatory recount underway. Jennings says she "will not rest until every vote is counted."
My colleague Lillie Coney, coordinator of the National Committee for Voting Integrity, says that recounting “paperless e-voting systems would yield little chance of a change in the outcome.”
The bottom line: There is no bottom line when there are no paper ballots.
As the New York Times editorialized:
The serious questions about the Buchanan-Jennings race only add to the high level of mistrust that many people already feel about electronic voting. More than half of the states, including California, New York, Ohio and Illinois, now require that electronic voting machines produce voter-verified paper records, which help ensure that votes are properly recorded. But Congress has resisted all appeals to pass a law that would ensure that electronic voting is honest and accurate across the nation.
Rep. Rush Holt is renewing his push for a voter-verified paper audit trail. He's calling for an up-or-down vote on H.R. 550, the “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act,” early in the 110th Congress.
