Florida--problems with tracking paper ballots [View all]

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/aug/06/florida-falls-flat-when-it-comes-to-rules-for/

Florida's myriad voting systems are ranked "generally good" by the report — the rough equivalent of a "C" — in part because the state mandates the use of paper ballots for everyone except some disabled voters. Martin County's touch screen equipment and St. Lucie and Indian River county's optical scan machines all produce paper ballots, officials confirmed.

But Florida's rules for tracking those paper ballots after an election come up short, the report concluded, and that's key, given the fact that virtually all elections systems have demonstrated some type of technological failure.

"We all know computers crash," said Susannah Goodman, director of Common Cause's Voter Integrity Campaign. "Voting machines are no different."

For instance, the March Wellington election was among troubling incidents cited by the report. There, a software system implicated in four problems in as many years — including double-counting of more than 10,000 votes in 2008 in Indian River County — miscounted votes in the mayoral and two city council races. Months before the county agreed to buy it, security experts blasted an earlier version of Sequoia Voting Systems' equipment, now operating as Dominion Voting Systems, as riddled with bugs that jeopardized votes.