Below are screenshots from the much-discussed first two pages of the Sarasota, Florida, ballot as seen on the paperless ES&S touch-screens on November 7th, 2006. Some 18,000 voters did not register a vote in the 13th Congressional district race between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan. Or, at least, the ES&S voting machines failed to register their vote in any case.
When we first received these screenshots, it took us three or four times scrolling through them before we could even find the Jennings/Buchanan race. But see below and decide for yourselves.
Several non-partisan Election Integrity groups will be filing suit tomorrow in Florida to call for a re-vote in the election. The public-interest watchdog groups claim that voters were disenfranchised by the thousands in the race due to poor ballot design and a faulty voting system. A press conference tomorrow has been scheduled for Tuesday at 1pm ET on the steps of the Sarasota County Courthouse (the news release announcing the presser is posted in full at the end of this article).
A lawsuit contesting the results and calling for a new election was filed this morning by Jennings and, as The BRAD BLOG reported earlier today, Buchanan held a press conference this morning in which he called on Jennings to “stop listening” to the Election Integrity groups which he says “have hijacked the election.” (Full video, transcript here.)
Buchanan’s call for Jennings to concede comes despite the 18,000 lost votes and the microscopic 367 vote margin between the two of them as reported in the now-officially certified results.
Full-sized screenshots of the complete ballot can be downloaded here [PDF, 7.5mb]. Screenshots of the first two pages, resized to fit on The BRAD BLOG — where the Jennings/Buchanan race can be seen spilling over to the second page of the “ballot,” above the more clearly defined “STATE” races follow…
UPDATE 5:42pm PT: Pam Haengel, President of the non-partisan Voting Integrity Alliance of Tampa Bay, contacts us to mention they believe it was not only the easy-to-miss position of the Jennings/Buchanan race on the ballot which led to the massive undervote percentage.
She tells us the folks on the ground there believe something else was definitely amiss, as an obscure down-ticket Hospital Board race (see page 6 of the PDF screenshot collection) had a similar layout to the Jennings/Buchanan race, yet received at least 3,000 more votes. Haengel points out many voters who have reported they tried twice to register their votes in Jennings/Buchanan after their original selection failed to show up on their summary screen at the end of the voting process, suggesting a technical malfunction in the paperless ES&S touch-screen machines.
As well, she adds that Florida’s 13th district comprises some five Florida counties, none of which — other than Sarasota — had the same kind of massive undervote numbers in Jennings/Buchanan as occurred on the ES&S systems in Sarasota. That last point, of course, along with the very low undervote rate on paper absentee ballots, counters the notion being presented by Buchanan and the GOP that voters simply chose not to vote in that race since they didn’t like either candidate.
The news release on tomorrow’s press conference to announce a lawsuit by a number of non-partisan Election Integrity organizations follows in full…
November 21, 2006
CONTACT:
Drew Courtney or Nick Berning (PFAWF) ““ 202-467-4999
Brandon Hensler (ACLU) ““ 786-363-2722
Voter Action, People For the American Way Foundation, the ACLU of Florida, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation will hold a press conference tomorrow to announce a lawsuit calling for a revote in Sarasota County’s portion of Florida’s 13th Congressional District.
Speakers at the event will include Reggie Mitchell of PFAWF, Lowell Finley of Voter Action, and Larry Spalding of ACLU-Florida. The event will also feature one of the Sarasota voters who will be plaintiffs in the suit.
When:
1 p.m.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Where:
Front Steps of the Leon County Courthouse (2nd Judicial Circuit)
301 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Who:
Reggie Mitchell, Florida Legal Counsel, People For the American Way Foundation
Lowell Finley, Co-Director, Voter Action
Larry Spalding, Legislative Counsel, ACLU-Florida
Whoa. I went right by the Buchanan/Jennings race the first time I looked. You expect to have color help you find the beginning of the next race, and it’s not there.
I assume the color background seen here is on the ballot?
A reasonable design would have been to put color behind the headings UNITED STATES SENATOR and US REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS.
I would think the problem was ballot design alone, if there wasn’t such a broad assortment of additional problems experienced by voters attempting to vote in that contest.
Of course, the continuing obstructive behavior of Kathy Dent, the election official there, is a bit of a clue too.
Dent should resign. But I believe we’ve mentioned that on these pages once or twice now 🙂
And I agree with you, Pokey. That was the color as seen on voters screens Tuesday. I missed the race myself the first several times I when looking through all of the screenshots!
Brad, I think you hit the nail on the head. The biggest problem quite likely was that Jennings/Buchanan was listed above the bold line on the second page. I looked up and down both pages about SIX TIMES!!!! before I finally saw it. Looks to me like the biggest issue here is a badly designed ballot — the undervote may have had little or nothing to do with the horrible voting machines.
But of course, Florida will never own up to the problem. They already look like such morons to the rest of the world. This is just the icing on the cake.
I saw it the first time through. I guess I can understand people missing it, but I think people really should slow down and read. It doesn’t make sense to have the first race on a page start half-way down. That alone should have made them take a second look at the top of the page.
That being said, I hope Jennings wins. There is still the issue of the machines not registering an explicit vote in the race.
This ballot design blows. Have it IM me.
Good News: American whistle-blower folk-hero Stephen Heller has “resolved” his legal battle (won?) in which Diebold’s rabid servant LA DA Steve Cooley persecuted him with great gusto. The LA DA’s legacy will forever be his shameful legal attacks against an American hero who defended America’s democracy. Stephen Helle put American voters’ interests and the integrity of American democracy above his own narrow interests, and went through hell in doing so. Imagine that, LA DA Steve Cooley used taxpayers money to attack their very rights as citizens. LA DA Steve Cooley: Diebold’s Bitch. Stephen Heller: American Hero.
i missed seeing the race listing the first time, too. and i was looking for it. in an earlier story, the Herald Tribne (the Sarasota newspaper) said that the majority of the complaints they received were from voters who said they were certain that they carefully voted in the race, but that the race showed up blank on the summary page.
…indicating that there was MORE than just voter error/bad ballot design at work here, but an actual problem with the the software.
one woman said that she was afraid to go back and fix it, afraid that her entire ballot choices would be lost, then left in embarrassment. i think people are a lot more aware and careful now that the word has got around about these touch-screen machines, but it is still quite easy to be intimidated in the booth.
unless it has happened to you, it is hard to understand how people could miss it. yes, we all should exercise care when voting, take our time and not rush, and check our work twice, like in elementary school math. but when scores of careful, conscientious people have the same problem, there is something more going on than just carelessness.
elections officials actively smothering reasonable measures like paper ballots or even lame paper “trails” is something entirely different. that makes zero sense.
wow. the Jennings/Buchanan congressional race clearly looks like a continuation of the Senate race from the previous page, especially considering the color differences.
as a voter in Manatee County (neighboring county in FL-13), i can attest to the fact that there are quite a few seniors in this area.. if a 25 year old college student cant find it easily, i’d hate to think what all those old “snowbirds” down in Sarasota must have thought. they cant even see other cars when they drive, nevermind deciphering that touch screen ballot.
here in Manatee we use fill in the bubble optical scan paper ballots. there’s no reason they cant do the same down in ‘Sota… aside from the fact that Dent is an incompetent partisan hack that shouldnt have a job.
People need to slow down when reading and selecting their public representatives. Having another vote for those who were not able to see the race is ridiculous. Learn from this mistake, make better ballots, and be careful when selecting the candidates. With that said Vern Buchanan won the race and Jennings and the Democratic national committee needs to let go. Vern is an outstanding American who will not be bought by the lobbyists and will serve Districts 13 with all his heart.
Has anyone tried to canvas for the possibility of collecting affidavits from people to indicate that they voted in that race or intended to?
Similarly, is there racial population disparity that corresponds to the rate of undervoting or the ballot design disparity?
Have the people who designed this ballot been fired? With an electronic voting system, there’s no excuse for putting more than one race on a single page.
The ballot design is awful. And some voters may have missed the race, but not 18,382 times. I think most people read a page from top to bottom, and if voting, try to read everything on the page, carefully. With so many voters complaining about how the machines malfunctioned,you would think it would be in everyone’s best interest to investigate and examine the machines.
i have a feeling that JK #9 wouldn’t be so accepting if it had happened to him/her. Buchanan’s ability is irrelevant — what is at stake is the accuracy of the voting system, and 18,000 voters are supposed to matter as much as 18 million voters.
which begs the question — how many disappeared votes is an “acceptable” number, JK?
and remember that it wasn’t all voter error, or voters being too stupid or in too much of a hurry. the majority of complaints were about the voting machines flipping votes or erasing the voter’s choices. that’s the bigger problem.
with the future of our country at stake, along with the stability of the Middle East, and the lives of thousands of young people in the military, in your opinion how many voters would have to have have their votes “disappeared” for it to matter to you?
what a cheap trick by the masters of chicanery! I had to check and recheck this ballot three times for the names as they resemble a heading. I’d say this was intentional deception – preplanned and well thought through to deceive the public. It’s s fact that certain words like “of” are not counted by the human brain when asked to count them in a sentence….just as this was purposely devised by experts so the brain/eyes would skip over this race completely. What filthy tricks. Bravo for taking this to the next level…it needs to be done because, believe me…even the Sarasota Herald began a series of “buying elections” the week before the midterms to “out” Vern Buchanan for spending 7 million dollars on his campaign. The “buying of power” is something these thugs have been doing and continue to attempt to do. This situation demands a recount. This was the “premier race” of this area and to imagine that 18,000 voters did not register a vote is simply unbelievable! These election “crooks” need to be stopped in their tracks….and now.
This is a case of an “intentionally poorly designed ballot” I think.
Why wasn’t there a space for write-in in this race? There was one in each of the other two on these pages. That would have been a clue also, since that’s generally the last entry in each race.
I thought the ballot is quite clear. I read the picture before I got to the title and would have not missed voting were it my ballot. On the review page, the error would be quite obvious with red letters saying “no selection made”. It seems very unlikely that 18,000 people would make an error on this ballot. It is horribly designed ballot and I could see it fooling people into thinking that race is part of the page header. I am more inclided to believe the machine simply ate the votes and the bad ballot design is the excuse.
One question I have is why are there write in places in only some of the races? It would appear to add the confusion it minimizes that race compared to the next. Is that normal to exclude a write in for the representive race?
–Karl
Darn you CambridgeKnitter… You stole my question by 11 minutes!
–Karl
Wow- why are the republicans listed first in every race. I suppose that was just a random happenstance.
Has any canvassing been done to check with voters and get statements for the court case?
This needs to be done. I can see how the race could be overlooked if it weren’t for the fact this was the premier race for the district. People would check. 18,000 undervotes in one area; give me a break
Good lord,
Enough with the Sore Loserman antics. It is tiresome.
It really makes for an interesting contrast when you see candidates like Allen and Burns quickly concede in close races to the way Dems react to close losses. We’re seeing this in Mexico right now with Obrador.
Although I’m hoping for evidence from subpoena of secret machine codes or apprehension of a hacker, I also understand all the comments about nervousness in the booth. I vote in Ohio and I’ll tell you new procedures, devices, and layouts for every election have me so on edge, I’m taking twice as long to cast a ballot these days. When I was a kid, voting was considered so important teaching machines were brought into classes that were duplicates of the real thing. By the time I was old enough to vote I knew exactly what to do. Now social studies teachers spend their time cramming kids for government tests using textbooks published by politicians’ relatives. I sure hope this test lawsuit wakes everybody up!
X:
“It really makes for an interesting contrast when you see candidates like Allen and Burns quickly concede in close races to the way Dems react to close losses. We’re seeing this in Mexico right now with Obrador. ”
The contrast you see may not be because of the character of the contestants. Allens and Burns may have just conceded easily because they didn’t want to uncover the fraud that made their races appear close in the first place. Always keep in mind that how close a race appears in the end may only be a measure of how much fraud was involved in the counting!
What you see in the results put out by these machines is only an illiusion. Don’t ever forget that when evaluating the situation!
Mr Young hits one out of the park
They don’t want this scheme uncovered, as a Dem voter, you have an automatic 8 to 10%+ vote discrepancy right out of the gate that can only be made up by massive voter turnout by the Dem voters
I hope Jennings can hold out, she seems the only one really willing to….we’ll see
Looks like its going to be Hitlery in ’08 for the Dems, She has already been to all the Bilderberg meetings and met with Murdoch and all the other one World Government types
You don’t seem to get anywhere without being in the sack with them
First, to answer a few questions….
1) In Florida, write in candidates have to register as such (“qualified write-in candidates”). If there are no qualified write in candidates for a particular race, there will be no line for “write in”
2) Under Florida law, the candidate of the governor’s party is always listed first — if there was a democratic governor, Democrats would have been listed first.
***********
That being said, Kathy Dent is objectively pro-fraud. Despite the various demonstrations of how easily these machines can be hacked, she prominently features on her elections home page an article by Paul deGregorio originally published 10/26/06 called Hype over hacking shouldn’t shatter confidence.
Here is how the article starts (emphasis added)…
degregorio (see below) is flat out lying. Not only was the “live on the internet” hack done by Bev Harris while Howard Dean looked on not done is a “laboratory”, the infamous Hursti hack was done in the Leon County, Florida Elections Office, under the supervision of Ion Sancho, Leon County Supervisors and Chair of the Florida Elections Supervisors Association. Does anyone think that Kathy Dent was unaware of the Hursti hack?
I don’t. Which raises the question — why would she prominently feature an article with information she knew to be false on her website?
BTW, deGregorio is a GOP hack who in the Bush appointed “Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and Executive President and CEO of the International Foundation of Election Systems (IFES)” — the latter, while a “private foundation” receives over $13,000,000 each year from the Bush adminisrration, and is supported by companies like Sequioia and ESS.
I agree that this was a poorly designed ballot but how is poor ballot layout alone going to lose votes for the Dems over the Repugs?
As Brad points out, there was a similar layout in in a down ballot race that received 3000+ more votes.
There is obviously much more to this than poor ballot design.
Also, I thought the brilliant machines were supposed to alert you to all under votes in the summary. Maybe they only do that if you voted repug.
{ed note: Comment deleted. Aside from personal attacks on other commenters, this poster has also commented under different names including “Liberals Are Stupid” and “Hannity Rules!” Why “conservatives” feel they don’t have to follow rules is beyond me. – BF}
Oh my gawd…hacked machines…where? This is just another example of the learning curve everyone is going through not just voters but administrators too. Hang-wringers unite to harumpf and wail. Don’t bother making sense, someone will agree with you anyways.
{ed note: Comment deleted. Aside from personal attacks on other commenters, this poster has also commented under different names including “Liberals Are Stupid” and “Hannity Rules!” Why “conservatives” feel they don’t have to follow rules is beyond me. – BF}
Congress shouldn’t seat this guy until the challenge is settled. But, Republicans still control the House, so they probably would seat him even if the election hadn’t happened.
Heller is a hero.
Jennings is a hero and should fight fight fight.
A Democratic led House should never seat the designated winner of such a race. It should be well and truly settled in the state, not D.C.
{ed note: Comment deleted. Aside from personal attacks on other commenters, this poster has also commented under different names including “Liberals Are Stupid” and “Hannity Rules!” Why “conservatives” feel they don’t have to follow rules is beyond me. – BF}
Yeah, I guess we must OF, we’re just a bunch of HANG wringers
Does anyone have a shot of what the summary screen looks like when the votes are ready to be cast (with selections made)? Do the red markers change from no selection made to another color, or does it show the selection in red?
{ed note: Comment deleted. Disinformation. Also, personal attacks on other commenters are similarly not allowed here. Finally, in yet a third broken rule, this poster has also commented under different names including “Liberals Are Stupid” and “Hannity Rules!” Why “conservatives” feel they don’t have to follow rules is beyond me. – BF}
Just a question – is it obvious how one is supposed to go about “writing in” a candidate’s name on the touch-screens? If it is in any way more difficult than it is on a paper ballot then that’s yet another strike against the system.
lol
p.lukasiak #24
Don’t forget the live hack done by the Princeton professor before congress in hearings!
Floridiot #31
You can’t make this stuff up, can you. Hang ringers?
Looks like the “American Enterprise Institute” has tracked us down!
I missed the ballot entry for the race the first time through and I was looking for it. I had to go back through and find it again. The design was indeed poor. I’m sure many people trying to vote early and then get to work on time missed it.
Hello, Brad! Melissa w/ Video the Vote just sent me your link and I’m THRILLED to read you, today. Thank you so much for helping to keep the national spotlight on this unprecedented race. My VTV partner Leonard filmed Monday’s press conferences (I was working on some other angles and was unable to attend) and we will continue to work together to make sure we have independent footage of this entire coo-coo process.
To date, we have the entire recount on tape, as well as over 40 compelling testimonials from the hearings at the Hyatt held by the People for the American Way. We have also been working closely with Susan Pynchon, the executive director of the Florida Fair Elections Commission. We will be sending the footage directly to L.A., where our directors will edit/dupe/compile all footage as we go. We will continue to be a quiet, steady presence as these events unfold.
I’ve also been writing about this, logging all the relevant statistics daily, but I have been discouraged by a noticable DECREASE in my readership, (and from a politically charged community, too.) I believe this is because voters are still relatively naiive (which has been a great surprise to me); their assumption being that there is some office, group or individual who is regulating and addressing these problems. No one is. As I’m sure you know, the State is self-auditing, self-regulating, and accountable to no one. I’m horrified.
We are on the press list with Mrs. Jennings office, but much of the information regarding the Talahassee locations is currently difficult for us to access. Please do let us know when and where we should be in order to continue this work- it is of vital interest to the Country, even if they aren’t interested just yet.
My link: http://jeanniedean.livejournal.com/
Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Jeannie Dean-District 13
What would you do if you went to vote and could not find an important race on the ballot or screen? Or, if you did not see your vote on the summary you viewed after you made your selections? How paranoid would I be if I were voting in the state of Florida?
Answer: I would be paranoid as hell and the secretary of state / city clerk would need a whole team of stooges to shut me up? Enough is enough, folks! We need to have Haliburton (on a no bid contract) come to Florida and other states that are using those f*cking machines, dig a big hole (just like they do in Iraq) and smash, bury and burn those easily manipulated machines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As usual, Brad, you rock the fuck outta the house. This does indeed deserve national attention as much as Jennings deserves either an election or a fair recount (and not the sham that Buchanan got based only on the votes that were counted).
Now, if you woukd only get rid of this Green Bay Packers color scheme in favor of something easier on the eyes…
Ok, so some very vocal County Republican representatives claim that perhaps only the Democrat voters were too inept to read the ballot correctly. Of course this is ridiculous but suppose he is correct that means 18,000 votes for Jennings were dropped on the basis of a partisan designed intelligence test and Jennings actually won by a landslide. Suppose he is wrong and both Republican and Democrat voters missed the race in equal numbers. Then that means the Republicans lack the moral fortitude to come forth and state they had a problem with voting, wow what a big surprise! Or perhaps Republicans are not innately dishonest they were just too stupid to catch any errors when they were voting.
It would be a refreshing fantasy to see Sarasota Republicans support a special election in in order to provide an honest election.