Ah Florida, my home state. Land of alligators, strip malls, and recounts. Today, from the Sarasota Herald Tribune, comes an update on the contest between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan. You'll recall that Buchanan leads in their race to replace Katherine Harris by some 377 votes, but that more than 18,000 electronic votes have gone missing.

Why have they gone missing? For one thing, the machines in question do not leave a paper trail. But as today's Herald Tribune reports, something else is under suspicion: poor ballot design.

Nearly 13 percent of all ballots cast in Sarasota County did not have a vote in the District 13 [Jennings v. Buchannan] race compared to less than 5 percent in other counties in the district. "In engineering, when you have those kinds of results, you throw them out," said Ted Selker, director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project. "This is a call to arms for ballot design."

This brings to mind another interesting study conducted by Ohio State University that suggests that a candidate whose name appears on the top of the ballot is likely to receive 2 to 6 percent more votes than if his or her name is listed lower down. Each state has it own rules on which candidate will appear first on ballots. In Florida the party of the sitting Governor gets top billing, which is illuminating, considering the closeness of the 2000 presidential election. Of course, in the race in question, it was Vern Buchanan's name on top.

Is it not more than a little troubling, given the closeness of our recent electoral contests, that we cannot, as a nation, set about standardizing our voting procedures? Why shouldn't we take national measures to insure that the process is uniform and fair?

The first legal challenge has been filed in the Florida House race to fill Katherine Harris' old seat. Democrat Christine Jennings' campaign filed a lawsuit to make sure that all the voting machines and documents remain in their exact election day condition during the recount. Also of concern to Jennings, who trails Republican Vern Buchannan by 373 votes with over 18,000 electronic votes still unaccounted for, is the fact that Republican Secretary of State Sue Cobb has hired FSU professor Alec Yasinac, a self-proclaimed Republican activist to double check the touch-screen results.

According to an article in the Miami Herald, Yasinac might not be the most impartial observer to oversee this process:

...Here's what he told the Tallahassee Democrat [newspaper] on Dec. 3, 2000, while wearing a "Bush Won" sign on the steps of the Florida Supreme Court: "I'll never be a passive political participant again."

Remember, the machines used in Sarasota County did not leave a paper trail. So are we to leave it to the likes of Alex Yasinac to decide what to make of 18,000 under-votes?

The Florida election debacle of 2000 lives on. In the race to replace Rep. Katherine Harris in Florida's 13th district there is -- of all things -- an electoral snafu.

The 2006 election between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings will be long noted as a particularly dirty fight. One in which a record amount of money was spent distorting each other's positions.

The real story is the vote in the 13th district. Or, more to the point, the undervote. In Sarasota County, the coverage on the razor thin margin of Buchanan's lead (373 votes) over Jennings has been front page news since the election. More than 18,000 voters in Manatee County are presumed to have skipped the congressional race on their touch screen ballots. The Bradenton Herald and Sarasota Herald-Tribune have detailed the raging controversy and the likely litigation that will follow any recount.

The battle looming though is over the way America votes. The touch screen voting system which fails to provide a paper trail is at the center of the controversy. Sarasota supervisor of election Kathy Dent wrote a letter to the Sarasota County Commission stating in part, "...I am going to urge the county commission to find necessary funds to purchase voting equipment which will satisfy the expression of the voters and current federal and state law."

Whether the election in the 13th district to replace Harris is decided by a recount, a special election or by Congress itself, the irony remains. The taint of voting irregularities, if not outright fraud, will be once again carefully monitored nationwide. As for Katherine Harris, she leaves the national political scene haunting the integrity of the electoral process itself.

There will be a recount, after all. But not in Virginia. No, no, it's back to the place that practically made an art-form out of election snafus--The Sunshine State. Of course we Floridians don't use machines that leave a paper trail, so one wonders what a re-count even amounts to. We'll find out on Monday, when current Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb, Katherine Harris' successor, dispatches a team to Sarasota County, to decide Katherine Harris' successor to congress. Is your head spinning yet?

Republican Vernon Buchanan currently holds a 356 vote lead over Democrat Christine Jennings, but it turns out that some 18,000 people who bothered to turn up to the polls didn't indicate who they wanted to represent them in congress. Or, it might be that the voters thought that they'd used the ATM-style machines properly, but their votes didn't register. Who knows? Not us, that's for sure, because there's no paper trail!

So says Marybeth Kuznik of VotePA, a "progressive" voting rights group that pledges to remain non-partisan. They've set up hotlines to report fraud and people armed with video cameras to get the event on record:

Many of the groups share liberal roots, their members smarting from the narrow Democratic losses in the last two presidential elections. But they also share in Ms. Kuznik's assurances -- and the tax and lobbying status that requires them to remain nonpartisan -- that they simply want to see a clean count.

"I don't care who wins; I just want to know it's democracy," says Warren Stewart, policy director of VoteTrustUSA, an umbrella for 70 grass-roots groups, like VotePA, that lobby legislators and warn voters about election issues.

One would hope that they will be truly non-partisan and will note cases on both sides where shenanigans take place. History doesn't give me any confidence that'll happen. While many cases of voter suppression were alleged, one of the only proven cases of voting irregularities occurred in Milwaukee and the son of a Congresswoman was put in jail because of it:

The men, including the son of U.S Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, had pleaded no contest in January to misdemeanor property damage in a plea agreement with prosecutors who recommended no jail time.

Brennan told Moore's 26-year-old son, Sowande A. Omokunde, he was impressed by his expression of remorse and gave him the lightest sentence of four months in jail.

Shelby County, TN has lost numerous smart cards that can be used to rig votes on electronic voting machines. Interestingly, Shelby County is a long-time Democratic county, having voted for Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000. Most elected leaders are Democrats

Here's the type of machine they'll be using.

Shelby County has had issues in the past.

In what can only be seen as trying to halt historically Republican military votes from being tallied, Rep. Rush Holt from Princeton is questioning the voting procedures of our military men and women:

A New Jersey congressman raised questions Thursday about a new military voting program that lets service members request and submit their ballots by fax or e-mail.

The Defense Department, however, said the program is as secure as possible, and any risks are detailed for the military members when they access the e-mail system.

Why would Holt question the veracity of our military's vote? It seems at least as secure as the way we've voted in the past. This man is from a party that pushed for ex-convicts and illegals to vote, but has issues with our procedures for our military. Why does Ruch Holt wish to disenfranchise the good men and women in uniform? At the very least they can't be as stupid as those who voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore in 2000...at least if you ask anyone but John Kerry that is.

Just read an interesting article by John Ferro in the Poughkeepsie Journal on a fairly large number of dead people registered to vote in New York. Here are some of the findings:

- There were dead people on the voter rolls in all of New York's 62 counties and people in as many as 45 counties who had votes recorded after they had died.

- One Bronx address was listed as the home for as many as 191 registered voters who had died. The address is 5901 Palisade Ave., in Riverdale, site of the Hebrew Home for the Aged.

- Democrats who cast votes after they died outnumbered Republicans by more than 4 to 1. The reason: Most of them came from Democrat-dominated New York City, where the higher population produced more matches.

There is evidence from the study done by the Journal that as many as 2,600 votes may have been attributed to people who had died, although it is hard to determine if intentional fraud was involved (could be clerical error, etc.). But the fact that this problem exists allows for the potential of skullduggery (sorry, Halloween pun). Just another reason to have a Voter ID card, just like a driver's license.

I wonder if dead people respond to polls?

Thanks very much to ABC News' Sam Donaldson for again fielding questions submitted by our readers. Now, watch his latest replies:

Answers From Oct. 27, 2006
Why is it taking so long for Congress to settle the immigration problems?
-- Question from Linda Collins

Do generals speak freely about Iraq while they are still on active duty?
-- Question from Ed Kappes

Are candidates preparing to file legal action based on voting irregularities?
-- Question from Vicki Grant

Do the Democrats have a chance to win at least one chamber of Congress?
-- Question from Greg Lavergne

How do you define "spin" by the White House press secretaries?
-- Question from Woody Klein

Can a policy be enacted so that all states could participate equally in voting?
-- Question from Rene

Is it ethical for the president to use Radio Day for partisan purposes?
-- Question from Tom Austin

We've heard the left screaming about the evil Diebold company and their voting machines for years. Now we come to find out that a major voting machine manufacturer has ties to the little Castro-wannabe, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela:

The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez.

The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm's operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.

...Smartmatic was a little-known firm with no experience in voting technology before it was chosen by the Venezuelan authorities to replace the country's elections machinery ahead of a contentious referendum that confirmed Mr. Chávez as president in August 2004.

What will the loony-lefties say about this?

In a race as close as Virginia's Senate contest, could an electronic voting bug (and a waaay-more-confusing-than-necessary name choice) cost Jim Webb? AP reports:

U.S. Senate candidate James H. "Jim" Webb has lost his last name on electronic ballots in three Virginia cities where election computers can't cope with long names.

Webb's last name only goes missing on the summary page, where voters review their choices. So the impact should be minimal. But expect to hear more tales like this one.

Electronic voting was supposed to be the miracle cure for the butterfly ballots and hanging chads of 2000. Yet technical problems, a steep learning curve plus underlying security suspicions may all equal even more headaches on Election Day.

Do you think the new machines are an improvement? And do you trust them?