A Nation's Values

Readers of this blog will remember that I wrote last year about the disputed Sarasota, Florida congressional election. The Republican won by 369 votes, yet the ES&S (Electronic Systems and Software) direct record machines (iVotronic touch screen) registered 18,000 uses with no vote for either candidate. By historical standards that is a very large undervote for a prominent race.

In the latest development, a Florida judge has rejected the Democrat's request to examine the electronic voting machines' "innards". Of course state election officials, the vast majority of whom are Republican, claim that the machines were operating properly. The Omaha, Nebraska company claims tests showed they were working properly. But the undeniable fact is that there is no independent way of determining if the machines were operating correctly at the time of the election. This is so because the machines do not create a real time record of vote tallies that can be audited. An examination of the machine's electronic circuits could reveal an executable program embedded in the hardware and not detectable without such an examination. Predictably the judge ruled that the possibility of lost votes did not warrant disclosure of the company's trade secrets. However, there should be no question that a system of voting that does not allow an independent means of verifying accuracy is appropriate for use in a democracy that fundamentally depends upon transparency and accountability in elections.


We now know that in Florida a corporation's bottom line is more important than a fair election. The Democrat has appealed the court ruling and also contested the election in the House of Representatives. But the new Democratic leadership has decided that the putative winner will be seated as the representative of Florida's 13 district pending a decision on the challenge. If the U.S. House does not act to invalidate the 13th District election, we will know that the nation's values are the same as Florida's: Democracy is for sale.