Miami Herald: Florida lawmakers ready to cut some corners to get faster election recounts

03.10.2020 / By MARY ELLEN KLAS
Miami Herald: Florida lawmakers ready to cut some corners to get faster election recounts

“Technology is a tool not a process. This recount concept is not ready for prime time,” said Liza McClenaghan, Common Cause Florida state board chair. Both Common Cause and the League of Women Voters say the technology offers promise as a way to give supervisors of elections another tool to store and track paper ballots, but they say the state’s rush to encourage counties to start using digital images of ballots for recounts is a mistake. “The proposal that the digital image generated by the software is trustworthy while the paper ‘may’ be consulted is ludicrous,’’ McClenaghan of Common Cause said.

TALLAHASSEE — In the interest of speeding the process of recounting votes in a close election, the Florida House passed legislation Monday to allow county supervisors of elections to purchase special equipment to conduct both machine and manual recounts.

But there’s only one vendor — ClearAudit digital imaging system from Clear Ballot Group of Boston — and the prospect that the state could be dependent on a single proprietary software tool has supporters worried that security could be undermined.

“Technology is a tool not a process. This recount concept is not ready for prime time,” said Liza McClenaghan, Common Cause Florida state board chair.

Both Common Cause and the League of Women Voters say the technology offers promise as a way to give supervisors of elections another tool to store and track paper ballots, but they say the state’s rush to encourage counties to start using digital images of ballots for recounts is a mistake. …
“The proposal that the digital image generated by the software is trustworthy while the paper ‘may’ be consulted is ludicrous,’’ McClenaghan of Common Cause said. …

McClenaghan of Common Cause Florida says Earley’s use of the technology has been impressive. Every day, after early voting, he runs the paper ballots through equipment, stores the ballot images and keeps tracks which ballots were cast, she said. If he is required to conduct a manual recount, he will be able to conduct an audit quickly.

“Two days after the election, every ballot has an image,’’ she explained. “So when you’re looking at the recount process, he can pull up images and decide if someone circled the oval or did something else.”

But McClenaghan said not every supervisor would use the equipment this way and the state should not be authorizing the automation of ballots without a better system in place.

“It’s not ready for prime time; they haven’t thought it all the way through,’’ she said. “They’re just saying this will be faster and there is nothing in elections that is important to be faster.”

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