The media often exaggerates the nefariousness of the “undervote,” some of which is intentional and quite natural. But it sounds like there’s a real problem in Sarasota County, Florida:
A review of Sarasota County voting results shows that in almost every precinct a high percentage of voters didn’t cast ballots in the hotly contested 13th Congressional District, a trend that likely affected the outcome of the race.
Democrat Christine Jennings lost to Republican Vern Buchanan by 368 votes, making it the second closest congressional race in the country. [Connecticut’s 2nd CD is the closest. Woohoo! We’re #1! We’re #1! -ed.]
More than 18,000 voters who showed up at the polls voted in other races but not the Buchanan-Jennings race.
That means nearly 13 percent of voters did not vote for either candidate — a massive undercount compared with other counties, including Manatee, which reported a 2 percent undervote. [Oh, the Hugh Manatee! -ed.]
If the missing votes had broken for Jennings by the same percentage as the counted votes in Sarasota County, the Democrat would have won the race by about 600 votes instead of losing by 368, according to a Herald-Tribune review. Even if the undervote had been 8 percent — more than three times what it was in Manatee — Jennings would have won by one vote.
While some have speculated that people simply chose not to vote in the District 13 race, many voters say the unusual undervote was caused by badly designed touch-screen ballots, which they say hid the race or made it hard to verify if they had cast their vote.
More than 120 Sarasota County voters contacted the Herald-Tribune to report such problems, almost all regarding the Jennings-Buchanan race. …
A review of precinct-by-precinct voting results in Sarasota County shows that voting problems were widespread and cut across party lines. Virtually every precinct had relatively high undervotes. Among the worst was La Casa Mobile Home Park, a retirement park for seniors where 30 percent of people who showed up at the polls did not have a vote recorded in the Buchanan-Jennings race.
Meanwhile, the estimated undervote in DeSoto County was 1 percent based on the number of people who voted in the governor’s race versus the District 13 race. In Hardee County, the undervote was roughly 5 percent.
The review of Sarasota County results showed high numbers of undervotes occurred in precincts regardless of whether Jennings or Buchanan was the preferred candidate.
Although some blame the undervote on anger at the mudslinging in the race and general dislike of Buchanan by some other Republicans, that seems unlikely given that the undervote was not repeated in other counties and was not heavier in strong Republican precincts. In fact, in precincts that went for newly-elected Gov. Charlie Crist, the number of undervotes was slightly less than in precincts that went for his Democratic challenger.
In addition, absentee voters, who didn’t have to use the voting machines, had only an estimated 1.8 percent undervote.
Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political scientist who specializes in Florida and congressional politics, said he finds it hard to believe so many voters would intentionally refuse to vote in the high-profile race but then cast ballots for little known races such as hospital board. The hospital board race in Sarasota had more votes than the District 13 race.
“It’s possible people just declined to vote, but it doesn’t seem likely to me,” Jewett said. “It’s certainly a very unusual situation.”
(Hat tip: Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog, who says, “Do not be surprised if a court orders a revote.”)
To me, it seems like the key question, legally, is what exactly it means that the voting machines “hid the race or made it hard to verify if [voters] had cast their vote.” If we’re simply talking about a confusing electronic ballot design, then this situation is analogous to Palm Beach County in 2000: a tragic but unfixable case where the intent of the voters clearly was not accurately reflected by the results, thanks to voter error that would not have occurred if the ballot design had been better, but where nevertheless there’s nothing you can do about it because it’s fundamentally still voter error, not machine error. On the other hand, if we’re talking about an actual machine malfunction of some sort, then a re-vote (always an option of last resort) might indeed be appropriate.
|
Categories: Election 2006
|
November 9th, 2006 at 4:07:50 pm
You would think with all the knowledge and intelligence and ingenuity that this country demonstrates in many of the great achievemnts and advancements we have made over the years we could figure out how to make a voting machine that was secure, easy to use, and reliable.
Secure…easy to use….reliable… quick someone get Steve Jobs on the phone! We need a Mac OS X based voting machine stat!
November 9th, 2006 at 4:33:04 pm
You have to remember that the companies who build these machines are likely the ones who claimed they could do it for the least money. They should be required to pay penalties when (if) their machines screw up like this.
November 9th, 2006 at 4:40:11 pm
“You would think…we could figure out how to make a voting machine that was secure, easy to use, and reliable.”
We could & we did, David. Many long years ago. Mechanical lever machines. :)
Yeah, this one’s Real, BLL. (”Thousands of ballots! THROWN OUT!!!” :) The normal-level Congressional undervote on the paper AB’s clinches it: the Touchscreen undervote was almost entirely Unintentional.
But I agree with you that a Re-vote calls for proof that the machines ~ including their visual on-screen ballot presentation & Review page ~ in effect Malfunctioned. (Bearing in mind that over 87% of those voting did manage to register a Congressional choice.)
November 9th, 2006 at 6:58:50 pm
To say “it’s still fundamentally voter error” is misleading.
You have to take human nature into account. And when you’re dealing with large numbers of people, the more difficult you make a task, the more of those human beings are going to fail at doing it correctly.
Voting should not be some kind of test, although in this case it wasn’t any kind of intentionally constructed “test.” But in a sense it was still a “test”….It sounds like a game of “Button button who’s got the button?” Does a voter really have to search a touch screen to find the race? That does not sound like “voter error” to me when over 10 K people could not find it.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:41:29 pm
Nun,
But somewhow, miraculously, 87% of the voters DID “find” it. Must have been extremely tricky.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:47:45 pm
Mouse:
Do you believe that the voters who inadvertantly punched Buchanan instead of Gore in Palm Beach County committed voter error?
November 9th, 2006 at 9:44:58 pm
Helloooo, Mister Mouse :). How they Squeakin’? :>
This sounds to me like a case in which Official error (or, perhaps Procedurally-correct official Mediocrity :), re foresightful preparation of the touchscreen ballot-Display and/or Review feature ~ magnified the everpresent Opportunity for, and Probability of, Voter error.
Remember, to suggest that Voters OR Officials erred ~ and/or, were Mediocre :) ~ is not Necessarily to Condemn them. People engaged in the act of Voting will never All perform with Unerring Excellence. Neither will all people engaged in the act of Officiating. Thus, sadly, the Voting Person’s tendency to Err can never be entirely Estopped by the flawless Perfection of the Officiating Person’s work-product.
* * * * * * * *
But Enough of that crap :}, my faithful readers know the ould antiperfectionist homily by heart anyways :>. Certainly ballots, in all their various incarnations, should be as User-friendly as is Feasible. / I actually Do hope that sufficient legal grounds may be found for a Revote here. E.g., proof of a very substantial & burdensome difficulty in Spying the Congressional contest at all, on plainly-flawed touchscreen ballot Displays.
November 9th, 2006 at 11:25:43 pm
Here in IL, we had to “complete the arrow”. Seriously, there was the front and back of an arrow and all we had to do was fill in the middle of the arrow next to the candidate of our choice. People still fucked it up!!! I mean, seriously, can you get any easier than that??