Says State Report 'Provides Even More Compelling Reasons to Seek Investigation'...
By Brad Friedman on 2/23/2007, 5:08pm PT  

The Christine Jennings (D) campaign has just sent us a statement concerning today's release of the state-commissioned audit of the flawed election during her race against Vern Buchanan (R) last November in Florida's 13th Congressional District.

See our earlier full coverage of the state reports here...

"The audit of Sarasota County’s voting system was flawed, incomplete, and provides even more compelling reasons for the Christine Jennings campaign to seek a thorough investigation by outside experts," the statement begins.

The complete Jennings statement follows below...


Friday, February 23, 2007
MEDIA ALERT
CONTACT: David Kochman, 954-703-0245

State Audit of Sarasota Voting System Flawed, Incomplete

Tallahassee, FL – The audit of Sarasota County’s voting system was flawed, incomplete, and provides even more compelling reasons for the Christine Jennings campaign to seek a thorough investigation by outside experts.

The audit contained several critical flaws:

- The investigation was incomplete: Experts were not allowed access to the machines, causing Princeton professor Ed Felton to call the audit “far from the complete, independent study I had initially thought they wanted,” and forcing the team to rely on the flawed parallel testing conducted by the Secretary of State’s office. On page 19 of the final report from FSU’s SAIT lab, the researchers acknowledge “We did not conduct a comprehensive election audit…The team’s task was not to examine the iVotronic systems or the PEBs used in the election, or to perform forensic analysis on those systems to determine whether a problem in them caused the undervote.”

- The audit ignored the analysis of MIT’s Dr. Charles Stewart, who found a strong statistical correlation between the date of machine set-up, number of machines prepared that day, and increased undervote rates.

- The report added even more credibility to the belief that the undervote changed the outcome of the race, a fact supported even by ES&S’ expert Dr. Michael Herron. The report acknowledged, “There is no dispute that this undervote is abnormal and unexpected and that it cannot be explained solely by intentional undervoting (p.7).”

“A doctor can’t diagnose a medical problem without examining the patient, so how can you diagnose an election problem without examining the machines?” said Jennings Communications Director David Kochman. “It’s unfortunate that the state’s election officials were more concerned about sweeping the problem under the rug than finding out the truth about what went wrong with Sarasota County’s voting system.”

“This issue is too important for anything less than a real investigation by outside experts – not just for District 13, but for the millions of voters nationwide who vote on touchscreen machines,” added Kochman.

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Christine Jennings for Congress * PO Box 49135 * Sarasota, FL 34230 * 941-366-8121 * www.christinejenningsforcongress.com

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