MIAMI: Florida's infamous hanging chad has gone forever, but not everyone is convinced the state that made such a mess of the presidential election four years ago can avoid a similar debacle this time around.
In 2000 the state's unreliable old punch-card voting system caused so much confusion that a month of recounts proved inconclusive before George W. Bush was eventually declared President by a US Supreme Court ruling. The main argument raged over whether a hole not fully punched through - the so-called hanging chad - counted as a legitimate vote.
In an attempt to avoid a repeat in this November's election, Florida has spent millions of dollars on thousands of new but as yet unproven electronic touch-screen counters to replace the punch-card machines in many counties. Critics say the new technology is prone to error, vulnerable to hackers and, crucially, offers no paper confirmation of votes to facilitate a manual recount.
"The lack of the paper trail is the most controversial thing about it," said Robert Richie, executive director of the Washington-based Centre for Voting and Democracy. "If there are claims of strange or inaccurate results, there is no way to prove anything. In Florida, where the stakes are so high, it's too early to say that there aren't going to be problems."
Florida's Secretary of State, Glenda Hood, has defended the machines. But her reassurances have done little to appease the doubters. In elections for Florida's House of Representatives last month, one district's touch-screen recorders registered 127 blank votes in a count decided by a majority of 12.
In last month's presidential primary, 80 voters in southern Broward County were deemed not to have selected a candidate in precincts where the average voter is aged 65 or over. "We have a large number of folks who are elderly and just not comfortable with these machines," said Mitch Caesar, Broward's Democratic Party chairman.
Anger over touch-screen voting also prompted a lawsuit from Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler, supported by the Florida Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who called for the electronic machines in all of Florida's 67 counties to be equipped with printers for vote confirmation. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service.
