Washington > Campaign 2004 > Lost Record ’02 Florida Vote Raises ’04 Concern” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/politics/campaign/28vote.final.html”>Lost Record ’02 Florida Vote Raises ’04 Concern. By Abby Goodnough, NYT July 28, 2004 (login required).

Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near.

The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary. A citizens group uncovered the loss this month after requesting all audit data from that election.

In other news, Paul Krugman, in today’s NYT op-ed section, dropped another FL bomb: “Jeb Bush insists that electronic voting machines are perfectly reliable, but The St. Petersburg Times says the Republican Party of Florida has sent out a flier urging supporters to use absentee ballots because the machines lack a paper trail and cannot “verify your vote.”"

I haven’t been able to verify this little tidbit, but it sure is interesting. I just volunteered to work at the polls in November. Shouldn’t you?!

Related posts:

1. Electronic Voting addressed at American Institute of Physics
2. Questions about Voting Machines
3. CA allows e-voting in November
4. E-voting machine irregularities in FL
5. E-voting does not have to be “Direct-Recording Electronic”