Election protection activists are already busy promoting legislative fixes designed to assure that all eligible Americans can vote and get those votes counted in 2008. It's vital work. But if we are serious about addressing what's wrong with our electoral system, we must look backward as well--to what happened in Florida's 13th Congressional District last year.

That contest was "decided" for Republican Vern Buchanan over Democrat Christine Jennings following a recount that put Buchanan up by 369 votes. What the recount did not resolve, however, were questions raised by apparent voting machine malfunctions in Sarasota County, a base of strength for Jennings. Machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S) recorded 18,000 "undervotes"--ballots with votes cast for other positions but not for the House seat--in precincts that tended to favor Jennings.

Republicans claim the dramatic disparity--nearly 13 percent of ballots registered no House vote--can be explained by Floridians' lack of interest in the Buchanan-Jennings race, despite its being one of the most expensive and closely watched contests of the year. But, argues the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, "while some have speculated that people simply chose not to vote in the District 13 race, many voters say the unusual undervote was caused by badly designed touch-screen ballots, which they say hid the race or made it hard to verify if they had cast their vote."

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