Florida Poised For More Voting Scandals

The New York Times reports that anyone holding their breath to see if Florida will have a repeat of its 2000 election fiasco can exhale -- it's already happened. Almost all the voting records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost. (Among other things, they never backed up the harddrives via blank CDs or other media.) Also, Florida law now says it's illegal to do a recount of electronic voting because it's impossible for voters to make a mistake by voting for two people. However, touch-screen voters were EIGHT times more likely not to register any vote at all -- obviously a sign of error on the machine's part rather than disinterest from the voter in the booth. Add this to the shameful incident where the Republicans in power tried to keep Hispanic felons on the voter rolls while eliminating blacks and you've got yourself a full-blown scandal.