There are nine unresolved House races remaining, but none are quite as interesting — or likely to be as contentious — as the fight over Florida’s 13th. Not incidentally, it’s the open-seat contest created after Katherine Harris (R) ran for the Senate.
Though Republican Vern Buchanan was favored to win, Democrat Christine Jennings surprised a lot of people with the strength of her support. On Election Night, Jennings trailed, but by fewer than 400 votes. The closeness sparked an automatic recount, but that’s not the real problem. The issue here: 18,000 votes that seem to have disappeared.
In Sarasota County, 18,000 voters — fully 13 percent of people who voted — did not cast a ballot for either Buchanan or Jennings, a huge “undervote” when compared to the adjacent counties, where the percentage of voters not casting a ballot in the same race was about 2 percent. Some election officials have suggested that those voters in Sarasota intentionally chose not to cast a vote in that race, as a protest against an ugly campaign. But the unusually high undervote rate compared to the neighboring counties makes that highly unlikely: “The idea that this is some kind of protest vote simply makes no sense,” says Mark Lindeman, a political scientist at Bard College.
Many Sarasota County voters complained to election officials and watchdog groups about the ES&S iVotronic machine, which shows voters a review screen to check over their ballot before submitting it, but leaves no paper trail. Some voters reported that when they viewed the machine’s summary screen, no candidate had been checked in the Buchanan-Jennings race, so they had to recast that vote. How many other voters had the same problem, and just didn’t notice, hastily paging through the review screen?
In other words, in one of the closest House races in the country, 18,000 votes — more than enough to dictate the outcome — may never be counted because voting machines didn’t work as they were supposed to, and there’s no paper trail.
Jennings’ lawyers have asked a state court to secure the voting machines and election data, as part of an aggressive legal strategy.
Paul Kiel explained:
It’s just the first step of what is likely to be a litigious aftermath to a close and ugly election (thanks in part to the NRCC’s rampant robo calling in the district). The state began a recount and audit of the election yesterday. Once the audit and second recount is completed and the results certified on November 20th, the Jennings campaign has ten days to contest the results of the election if they still show Jennings down. Before the recounting began, she was down 386 votes. […]
A study by the local paper, The Herald Tribune, found that one in three of Sarasota election officials “had general complaints from voters about having trouble getting votes to record” on the electronic machines for the Congressional race. Since 53% of voters in Sarasota County picked Jennings over the Republican Vern Buchanan, those missed votes would likely have put Jennings in front.
I suppose it could have happened anywhere, but there’s just something beautiful about this happening in Florida. Likewise, it could have happened in any of Florida’s 25 congressional districts, but it just had to be Katherine Harris’ district.
For what it’s worth, Buchanan and Jennings are both attending freshman orientation on Capitol Hill this week, though only one will be coming back in January.