Christine Jennings:The Fight Continues for FL-13's Voters: We Filed Our Appeal

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When over 18,400 ballots showed no vote in the 13th District race in Florida, the Republicans were quick to ignore statistical realities and allow the intent of the voters to be cast aside.

On December 29th, Judge William Gary followed suit. Ignoring statistical evidence from the nation's preeminent expert on undervotes, he ruled that there could be no independent audit of the touchscreen machines that registered the undervotes without evidence that the machines malfunctioned--evidence that by its very nature cannot be obtained without conducting an independent audit of the machines.

Today, we filed our appeal on behalf of the voiceless voters of Sarasota County.

From our appeal:

This is a rare election-contest case because it involves a race that wasn’t even close. According to experts for both sides in this case, about 3,000 more voters in Florida’s Thirteenth District intended to cast their ballots for congressional candidate Christine Jennings than for her opponent, Vern Buchanan.

But when all the votes were tallied, the official state certification showed Buchanan with a 369-vote winning margin. And it also showed 18,000 "undervotes" — 18,000 ballots with no vote for either congressional candidate — in Sarasota County, the epicenter of what had been one of the most hotly contested, high-profile U.S. House races in Florida’s history. Experts for both sides also agree that these undervotes were unintended, the unfortunate consequence of something that went very wrong with Sarasota County’s iVotronic electronic touch-screen voting system.

But there, the litigants and their respective experts part company. Jennings, the plaintiff below, contends that the electronic voting machines malfunctioned. Buchanan, one of the defendants, claims that it was the voters who malfunctioned. Jennings alleges that votes legally cast for one candidate or the other were rejected by the machines and misrecorded as undervotes, probably due to a software "bug" not unlike the programming glitches people routinely encounter on their home or office computers. Buchanan alleges that voters, particularly Sarasota’s senior citizens, never actually cast their intended congressional votes, as they simply overlooked Jennings’s and Buchanan’s names on the electronic touch-screens, and then overlooked the race again when they got to the summary screen at the end of the ballot, and then missed the warning, in bright red letters, saying "No Selection Made."

To prove her case, Jennings moved to compel state and county election officials to produce components of Sarasota’s iVotronic system, so that her own computer-science experts could examine and test them. Defendants, exhibiting a disturbing lack of confidence in their own election technology and an even more disturbing lack of concern for the public’s trust in our democratic processes, have thrown up the "trade-secret privilege," claiming that Jennings’s discovery requests represent a grave threat to the reputation and business interests of the iVotronic system’s manufacturer, Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S), a privately held corporation.

So when the choice came down to protecting the voters of the 13th District and the integrity of our elections system, or protecting the corporate profits of ES&S, Judge Gary chose to throw out the right of Sarasotans to vote.

That is unacceptable, period.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/3/18370/73637

[Dr.Phool]

1. Not just you. 4 others in Florida filed today also.

For Immediate Release

For Further Information Contact:

Ms. Marty Ward, Media Relations Coordinator



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MEDIA ALERT

ATTENTION ASSIGNMENT EDITORS

ANNOUNCEMENT ON CONTESTED FLORIDA ELECTIONS

On January 4, 2007, Congressman Rush Holt will address the issue of the outstanding election contests on the floor of the House of Representatives. Congressman Holt will point out that the seating of the new Congress does not indicate that the House has decided the elections which are being contested before it pursuant to 2 USC § 381 et seq., the Federal Contested Elections Act.

Congressman Holt is expected to call for bipartisan support for the investigation into the wide-spread problems of under-votes and over-votes in precincts throughout Florida and for election law reforms to ensure that criteria are established to guarantee fair and verifiable elections in the future so that our country remains a representative democracy where our leaders are actually elected by the voters instead of possibly being elected by machine error or illegal manipulation of the vote count. For more information on Congressman Holt’s position on this important issue, please contact Matt Dennis at 202-225-5801.

The results of four of Florida’s Congressional elections are being contested before the House of Representatives, and five Congressional elections are being contested in Florida state court. John Russell is contesting the results of the 2006 General Election for U.S. Representative for District 5 of the State of Florida and the election of Ginny Brown-Waite. Frank Gonzalez is contesting the results of the election for U.S. Rep. for District 21 of Florida and the election of Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Clint Curtis is contesting the results of the election for U.S. Rep. for District 24 of Florida and the election of Tom Feeney. Mr. Russell, Mr. Gonzalez, and Mr. Curtis are represented by Mark A. Adams, Esquire of Tampa, and they are also contesting these elections in Florida state court. Interviews with them can be scheduled through Ms. Marty Ward at 954-732-1112. Mr. Curtis is also represented before Congress by Cynthia Butler, Esquire of Washington D.C. Gus Bilirakis’ election in District 9 is also contested in Florida state court.

Christine Jennings is contesting the results of the election for U.S. Rep. for District 13 of Florida before the House of Representatives and in Florida state court. For more information regarding Ms. Jennings’ contests, please contact Coffey and Wright at 305-857-9797.