A routine test of Palm Beach County's electronic voting machines was canceled Tuesday because the computer network at the elections office crashed, halting the public exercise. Not to worry, the Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore said the "computer crash" won't affect the electronic touch-screen voting machines to be used during the upcoming presidential election.
Florida state law requires that a some of the machines be tested publicly to ensure that the equipment will count the votes cast for all the offices and measures on the ballot. In Palm Beach County, epicenter of the 2000 election fiasco, 86 of the 4,720 touch-screen machines are to be tested publicly, the rest are tested (or not) behind closed doors.
Apparently the computer crash that cancelled the test was due to a power failure during hurricane Jeanne which allowed the machines to over heat.
Under Florida law, vigorously defended by George W. Bush's brother Governor Jeb Bush, there is no verifiable paper record created when a voter uses the electronic voting machines. And, of course, the Florida Republican party has advised its supporters in electronic machine precincts to cast absentee ballots because they would result in a paper trail.
Florida voters would be well advised to vote, and then pray.
Palm Beach Post - Computer glitch delays routine voter machine test
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