News

Florida primary dogged by touchscreen ballot problems

September 10, 2002

MIAMI -- Florida election officials, looking to distance themselves from the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election by upgrading their balloting technology, instead were embroiled in another peccadillo on Sept. 10 when problems with the state's new touchscreen ballots delayed voting.

Precincts statewide were affected by the problems, which led Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to declare an emergency order keeping polling places open beyond their 7 p.m. closing times.

One major problem appeared to be with operating the touchscreen ballots, brought in to replace the hole-punch ballots at the center of the 2000 presidential dispute. Lori Nance Parrish, chairwoman of the Broward County Board of Commissioners, told the Washington Postthat she discovered the night before the election that poll workers at 50 election sites had not picked up the devices needed to turn on the machines.

Calls to various state officials either went unanswered or unheeded until the problems surfaced on election day, Parrish said. "We warned them," she told the Post.

At some polling places, voters were forced to wait for several hours before the touchscreen ballots were turned on. At others, poll workers simply did not show up in time. And in Orange County, more than 40 percent of ballots had to be hand counted because they tore while being fed through optical scanning machines, according to the Post.

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, a Democratic candidate in the Florida governor's race, had to wait more than 20 minutes to vote, with television crews and reporters waiting alongside to record the moment.

Bush blamed officials in Miami-Dade County for the problems there, saying the county had not properly prepared workers for the new technology.

"It's shameful," Bush told the Post. "The state put up money -- significant sums of money -- for training, for machines. Â… There's no excuse for not having precinct workers in a precinct for voting, no excuse for not turning on the machines."

More than $100 million was spent in Florida to replace aging or inadequate voting machines. The voting machines in question are iVotronic touchscreen devices manufactured by ES&S, an Omaha, Neb.-based company that has been developing election equipment for three decades. ES&amp's officials were not quoted in several stories on Florida's election problems.