There are still a few House seats around the country that are undergoing recounts or court battles for which the winner has not yet been decided definitively. One of these is Florida's 13th Congressional District, which perhaps fittingly, is the House seat vacated by the infamous Katherine Harris (the Florida Secretary of State during the 2000 election recount) who ran for Senate and thankfully lost by a landslide.
Thus, there was an open seat contest in this heavily Republican district centered on Sarasota, Florida between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan. The final results were extremely close on election night, triggering an automatic recount under Florida law. The final count showed Jennings still down by 369 votes but Jennings sued for a new election on the basis of 18,000 undervotes (ballots where the voter did not vote for a candidate in the House race) in Sarasota county. This was a rate of nearly 15%, much greater than that in surrounding counties, where the undervote rates ranged from 2-5%.
Why did so many people choose not to vote for such a closely contested race? Many believe it was the extremely poor ballot design on the electronic voting machines that caused people to miss the Congressional race entirely. In addition, many voters reported being unable to get their votes to register on the touchscreens or voting only to find the wrong candidate highlighted on the summary screen before the vote was cast.
These machines lacked paper trails (a receipt that the machine gives you after voting so you know your correct votes were registered) so it's impossible to know for sure the voters' intentions. But Christine Jennings has a pretty good case to make because she was favored in Sarasota County where there the abnormally large number of undervotes were cast. In addition, an analysis of the undervoted ballots by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that the voters who failed to register votes in the House race overwhelmingly supported Democrats in other statewide and national races on the ballot.
It's hard to imagine that Jennings would not have won if the voting machines hadn't been so screwed up. This just underscores the vulnerabilities and disadvantages of electronic voting machines, especially those that lack paper trails. This hasn't gotten a lot of coverage nationally, probably because control of Congress is not in doubt and election reform is hard to get excited about. However, we really are just one close election away from another litigation nightmare like Florida in 2000 and 2008 is not that far off. This should not be a partisan issue; mandating fair elections and functioning voting equipment nationally should be a no-brainer for this next Congress.
Thus, there was an open seat contest in this heavily Republican district centered on Sarasota, Florida between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan. The final results were extremely close on election night, triggering an automatic recount under Florida law. The final count showed Jennings still down by 369 votes but Jennings sued for a new election on the basis of 18,000 undervotes (ballots where the voter did not vote for a candidate in the House race) in Sarasota county. This was a rate of nearly 15%, much greater than that in surrounding counties, where the undervote rates ranged from 2-5%.
Why did so many people choose not to vote for such a closely contested race? Many believe it was the extremely poor ballot design on the electronic voting machines that caused people to miss the Congressional race entirely. In addition, many voters reported being unable to get their votes to register on the touchscreens or voting only to find the wrong candidate highlighted on the summary screen before the vote was cast.
These machines lacked paper trails (a receipt that the machine gives you after voting so you know your correct votes were registered) so it's impossible to know for sure the voters' intentions. But Christine Jennings has a pretty good case to make because she was favored in Sarasota County where there the abnormally large number of undervotes were cast. In addition, an analysis of the undervoted ballots by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that the voters who failed to register votes in the House race overwhelmingly supported Democrats in other statewide and national races on the ballot.
It's hard to imagine that Jennings would not have won if the voting machines hadn't been so screwed up. This just underscores the vulnerabilities and disadvantages of electronic voting machines, especially those that lack paper trails. This hasn't gotten a lot of coverage nationally, probably because control of Congress is not in doubt and election reform is hard to get excited about. However, we really are just one close election away from another litigation nightmare like Florida in 2000 and 2008 is not that far off. This should not be a partisan issue; mandating fair elections and functioning voting equipment nationally should be a no-brainer for this next Congress.
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