The percentages of undervotes in Sarasota are just stunning.

[trumad]

SARASOTA - With 18,382 votes either not cast or not recorded in one of the nation's most closely contested congressional races, Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb announced Thursday that she will send a team to observe an upcoming recount and review Sarasota County's voting procedures.

<snip>

Though Sarasota County is overwhelmingly white, Coffey chose a predominantly black neighborhood for his news conference, explaining that the precinct -- the 31st -- had been among the hardest hit by undervoting. Twenty-three percent of the 493 ballots cast there did not record a vote in the Buchanan/Jennings race, according to the results posted on the supervisor of elections' website.

By contrast, only 4 percent of people undervoted in the Senate race listed right above Buchanan/Jennings on the ballot, and 3 percent undervoted in the gubernatorial race listed below.

Another of the county's four black-majority precincts showed a 38 percent undervote in the race.

In all, 11 precincts showed undervoting rates of 20 percent or greater. Two of the precincts were predominantly black, while in the nine others, the population was more than 85 percent white.

The percentage of undervoting was fairly evenly spread across the county's other 145 precincts.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15975371.htm

Check out the email sent by the elections supervisor:
http://www.miami.com/multimedia/miami/news/recount_email.pdf

This race stinks to high heaven.

[mcg]

1. Let's fight this, donations needed.

see this thread:

FLA Dems need cash NOW to help with legal battle re: Harris's (former) seat - donate now!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2950989

donation link:

https://secure.fladems.com/page/contribute/cd13recount

[Cooley Hurd]

2. ...and it won't change as long as FL has a repug governor...

They had a chance to change it, but the blew it.:thumbsdown:

[trumad]

3. I disagree

I think Sarasota will become the model for change and become one of the main reasons that we will have paper ballots in the future.

[lonestarnot]

6. I hope you are right!

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Sarasota had the same problems in 2004

with their touchscreen machines.

Since this is now a pattern of behavior and their SOE didn't think this was a big problem 2 years ago and has done nothing since then to correct it, she should be held liable.

[trumad]

5. Agree

this time though, the problem is so glaring that there's no chance to sweep it under the rug.

I honestly believe that this mess in Sarasota is a God Send for those who want paper ballots.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. Apparently there was a county charter amendment in Sarasota

for paper ballots which passed by a wide margin.

Sarasota County Charter Amendment

Mandatory Voter Verified Paper Ballots; Independent Random Audits of Election Results; Audits Required Before Certification.

Amend the Sarasota County charter to require that, effective Jan. 1, 2008: (1) all County voting systems provide a voter verified paper ballot; (2) in addition to election code audits, mandatory independent random audits of election results be conducted in every election comparing hand counts to machine counts; (3) mandatory manual audit of all paper ballots if audit discrepancies reach specified thresholds; (4) no election certified until all mandatory audits are complete and any accuracies involved.

Vote YES for the amendment
Vote NO against the amendment

COUNTY CHARTER AMENDMENT
Vote for 1
(WITH 157 OF 157 PRECINCTS COUNTED)
Yes, for the amendment . . . . . . 73,918 55.41
No, against the amendment . . . . . 59,479 44.59
Over Votes . . . . . . . . . 2
Under Votes . . . . . . . . . 8,885

[trumad]

8. 59,479 44.59 voted against it? Amazing

it's as if they had no clue what they were voting for.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. This is the county

that elected Katherine Harris in 2004 after all.

[trumad]

11. And wear Pee Wee got busted for tugging the worm.

:-)

[porphyrian]

9. I'm not sure if it would help or not, but contact Ion Sancho in Leon county...

He's the Supervisor of Elections that was on that recent movie about the Diebold machines that gave Bev all the credit. Anyway, he's a real stand up guy, and while he might not be able to do anything directly, he could probably point you in the right direction. Worth a shot, anyway.

[trumad]

12. kick+

[texpatriot2004]

13. In 2004, there was an extremely high number of undervotes in TX

and there were a corresponding high number of straight party Dem votes that didn't get counted.