We all saw with horror as yet another Florida election was mired in uncertainty and missing votes. A whopping 18,000 votes for Congress in the FL-13 Congressional race disappeared, mostly from Democratic districts. This is an almost unprecedented undervote that raises red flags that SOMETHING went seriously wrong with that election. This is further evidence that touchscreen voting machines are just too unreliable. And many elections experts agree that the results of the election were affected by this undervote and, had those votes been properly recorded, the Democratic candidate, Christine Jennings, would have won.

But...it looks like the Florida election board had full warning there was a problem and were even offered a patch but IGNORED IT. Then they tried covering it up.

According to a letter dated August 15th (PDF from the Christine Jennings campaign) from the company that made the machines used in FL-13 to the Florida elections board, a problem had been identified that gave a slow response time on the computer, slower than what a voter would expect. The letter claims that this would not affect the integrity of the vote (covering their asses) but it is likely that this kind of delay could lead to a voter being out of sync with the computer and would be exactly the kind of thing that could lead to an unrecorded vote. If the computer takes too long to respond, and the voter has moved on, then a vote will go unrecorded. It warrants further investigation to see if the delay is the cause of the undervote.

But...the key is that the company promised that they could fix the glitch with a patch by the November election. The Sarasota Election Board NEVER ASKED FOR THE PATCH, so it was never sent and the problem was never fixed. But it gets worse...

The company also sent posters that were meant to be placed at each polling place to warn voters of the problem. The Sarasota election board NEVER POSTED THE POSTERS even though the company recommended it.

Furthermore, according to the Christine Jennings campaign, this letter was withheld by the office of Kathy Dent, the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections, in violation of discovery requests made by Christine Jenning's legal team. The letter only came to the attention of Christine Jennings legal team after it was posted on an activist group's election reform website.

Gross incompetence or outright fraud? Whichever the original failure to act on the advice of the company was, the cover up is fraud. Discovery requests were issued, and the letter was withheld. Once again, something stinks in Florida.

Christine Jennings is asking for help so she can keep up her legal challenge. It is pretty clear that the election was mishandled and the problems that resulted changed the results. People didn't like it when John Kerry was perceived as giving up too early after a suspicious election. Well, Christine Jennings refuses to give up, but she needs support. You can donate to her legal challenge here. If we want clean elections, this is the exact kind of fight we need to stubbornly persist with. So please help and please spread the word.