Fergie's Tech Blog

3,400 Ballots Missing in Florida Election: Recount Flips Race

Kim Zetter writes on Threat Level:

Palm Beach County, Florida, is in the news again for another election mishap. This time the culprit isn't the county's infamous butterfly ballot that made headlines in the 2000 presidential race. Instead, the problem is ballots used with the county's new $5.5 million optical-scan machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems.

More than 3,000 optical-scan ballots have mysteriously disappeared since the county held an election last Tuesday.

According to tallies a week ago, a total of 102,523 ballots were cast in the election. But according to a recount of one of the races, which was completed this last Sunday, the total number of cast ballots was only 99,045 -- a difference of 3,478. Election officials say they can't explain the discrepancy, though critics are concerned that this is a precursor to problems that could arise in the November presidential election.

posted by Fergie @ 9/03/2008 01:54:00 PM