New rule set on Florida touch-screen recounts; No Option of Paper Ballot

New rule set on Florida touch-screen recounts; voter rejections fought - No Option of Paper Ballot
The state set a new rule for recounting touch-screen ballots Friday - just 18 days before the presidential election. The move angered voter rights groups that had sought to help shape the language. In other Friday actions affecting Florida voting, a Miami judge urged a quick trial on a lawsuit challenging the rejections of more than 10,000 voter registration cards, and Palm Beach County officials completed a critical test of their touch-screen system after a computer crash delayed it by several days. Secretary of State Glenda Hood's office released the new recount rules late in the day. If the Nov. 2 election is as close as the 2000 contest between President Bush and Democrat Al Gore, county elections supervisors will be told to review each electronic ballot image to see if the number of so-called undervotes, those on which no candidate was chosen, matches the undervote totals given by the machine. If the numbers don't match up, the machines will be checked for problems. If that doesn't solve the discrepancy, the elections officials are told to trust that the original machine count was accurate. The new rule is a far cry from what a coalition of voter activists were seeking. They wanted voters in the 15 counties that use touch-screen voting machines to have the option of using a paper ballot. They also wanted to create a process to make sure all votes cast match the number of people who voted and have a federal court oversee a recount if one were necessary. [more