Florida Officials Oppose Elections Audit

Following a disclosure that a computer crash erased records from Miami-Dade County's first widespread use of touchscreen voting machines, election reform groups want an audit in more than a dozen counties during Florida's Aug. 31 primary. State officials Wednesday insisted auditing wasn't necessary because all touchscreen votes were counted during the 2002 gubernatorial primary election, even though records of the votes were lost during computer crashes last year. Some records of other elections also were believed lost. A coalition of election groups contend the problem, however, could be indicative of further problems with the machines - and the only way to know for certain that votes are cast, tabulated and reported accurately is if an audit is done during a live election. They want the state to audit touchscreen voting machines in 15 counties. [more]