Florida: Touch screens more likely to be flawed than Pencil & Paper Ballots, analysis finds

Florida's touch-screen voting machines performed better in the Nov. 2 presidential election than they did in the March primary, but were still outmatched by older voting devices that use pencil and paper ballots, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis. Voters using the ATM-style voting machines in November were 50 percent more likely to cast a flawed ballot or have an unregistered vote in the presidential race, compared to voting machines employing simple paper ballots. "I'm not surprised at all," said U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, who lost a federal lawsuit last year that demanded touch-screen machines generate a paper receipt. Fifteen of Florida's 67 counties use touch-screen voting machines, including Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. The pros and cons of the newer technology have been debated around the country, with the secretary of state in Ohio this week announcing touch-screen machines would no longer be used in elections. Generally, Florida has praised the performance of touch-screen devices, touting them as the future of voting and the solution to the punch-card machines that added to the confusion of the controversial 2000 presidential election. While optical-scan machines once again seemed to outperform touch screens in November, both obtained an error rate of less than .5 percent. In the 2000 presidential election, the undervote rate in Florida counties using punch cards was 1.5 percent; the rate for optical-scan counties was 0.3 percent, according to a University of Florida study.  [more]