Oh, You Wanted To See THAT Evidence There Was Something Wrong With The Voting Machines

Okay, so this is March, four months after the Great Mysterious Undervote in Sarasota County, and only now are we finding this out? Here's the lead of Anita Kumar's front-page story today:

The maker of the voting machines used in last fall's disputed Sarasota area congressional race warned state and county officials that voters might have trouble recording their votes but the company's advice for fixing the problem went unheeded.

It turns out the machines had developed an extra delay of several seconds before recording votes, maybe enough to throw voters off (think about how fast a touch-screen ATM responds).

This is not proof that Christine Jennings won the race for Congress. But it's slap-your-forehead dumb and astounding that (1) the Sarasota elections office didn't do anything about it and (2) nobody since then thought this was worth mentioning, despite all the litigation and controversy.

Comments

kathy dent, supervisor of elections for sarasota, should have used her head and tried to avoid the appearance of impropriety. she did not. a large segment of the electorate, no matter what their political orientation, is left with a lingering distrust of the voting machines and their custodians.