• Originally published in the Orlando Sentinel (Florida) July 30, 2004 Copyright 2004 Sentinel Communications Co.

By Mark Hollis, Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- Embarrassed Republican Party officials apologized Thursday for sending mixed signals about touch-screen voting equipment after the discovery of a GOP campaign brochure that urged some Miami voters to cast absentee ballots instead of using the electronic machines.

Democratic Party officials and several civil-rights groups pounced on the flier as either a laughable foul-up or a sign that Republican leaders also question the reliability of the machines.

Gov. Jeb Bush, Secretary of State Glenda Hood -- both Republicans -- and many GOP legislators have been saying for weeks that the touch screens are accurate and the state is ready to run a fair election.

"Have no doubt that we are confident of Florida's elections system, and that means the entire electoral system is accurate and secure," said Joseph Agostini, spokesman for the Florida Republican Party. "We regret any misunderstanding over this issue."

The glossy mailer, paid for by the state GOP and featuring two pictures of a smiling President Bush, tells Miami voters to use absentee ballots.

"The liberal Democrats have already begun their attacks, and the new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount," the front page of the mailer reads. "Make sure your vote counts, order your absentee ballot today."

Democrats and advocacy groups have been pushing Bush and Hood to create a system for manual recounts of touch-screen results. But Bush and Hood have refused to do so.

"It stinks," said Sharon Lettman-Pacheco of the People for the American Way Foundation. "The damage is done. There is no time now to flip-flop. I don't care about the apologies. They just need to put in place an audit trail to make sure every vote gets counted."

The Republican flier was sent to an unspecified number of voters in a state House district in which two Republicans are facing off in a hotly contested Aug. 31 primary.

The mailer was distributed in Miami-Dade, one of 15 counties, including Lake and Sumter, that switched from punch-card ballots to touch screens after the 2000 presidential election debacle. Absentee ballots are filled out on paper and tallied on optical scan machines after the ballot is returned by mail.

The mailing first surfaced this week at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, prompting Democratic leaders from Florida to express outrage.

"It wasn't only inappropriate, it was outrageous," said state Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, by telephone from Boston. "If the voting equipment isn't a problem, then don't create political literature and issue political statements which are designed to scare people or intimidate them."

A Bush spokeswoman said the governor, who was on a trade mission in Canada on Thursday, has not seen the flier.

"He does not agree with any message that is going to criticize the touch-screen system because it works," said Jill Bratina, Bush's communications director. "We had elections in 2002 on electronic machines. . . . They work, and voters should be comfortable using them."

The brochure came on top of the discovery this week that, in Miami-Dade County, the electronic records of the Democratic governor's primary between Janet Reno and Bill McBride had been largely lost because of two 2003 computer crashes.