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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

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Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Touchscreens ...

    take another hit:
    In a surprise vote Monday, Volusia County Council members rebelled against a state mandate by narrowly rejecting a contract to buy controversial touch-screen voting machines -- devices needed to comply with disability-accessible regulations for elections after July 1.

    A slim majority of council members said, in effect, that they do not like the only equipment option they have to allow disabled people to vote independently -- touch-screen machines that don't produce paper ballots -- because they are uncomfortable with the idea of paperless voting.
    This on the heels of a report from Miami-Dade's elections supervisor that recommended replacing the Dade County's touchscreens machines with optical-scan machines.
    By voting against a contract their legal advisers said should be approved, [Volusia County] council members made Volusia what is thought to be first county in Florida to fight new rules that essentially require counties to have at least one touch-screen machine at each voting location.
    "Volusia tosses plan for touch-screens". So, why did they reject touchscreens:
    One of the council's concerns was [SOE] McFall's possible plan to use the touch screens for early voting -- not just as alternative for disabled voters. The early voting site must accommodate voters from anywhere in the county, meaning each site would have to have hundreds of different paper ballot styles -- probably more than one early voting site can even store, McFall said.

    The idea played into some critics' fear that the touch screens ultimately would replace the paper ballots.

    [Council member] Giles said he became increasingly concerned after reading about various problems with electronic voting, including one that led to a recent proposal in Miami-Dade County to replace the county's touch screens with optical scan systems. The county would keep some touch screens for voters with disabilities.
    "Council kills ballot machines".

6:08 AM

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