E.J. Dionne on the voting problems in Sarasota:
Imagine if 18,000 votes had just disappeared in either of the key Senate races. Or imagine a presidential election in which the electoral votes of Florida were decisive and the state was hanging in the balance by — to pick a number that comes to mind — 537 votes. And, by the way, in 2000 we could at least see those hanging and dimpled chads. In this case the votes have — poof! — simply disappeared.
. . .
But there is good news here: This is a problem in just one congressional district. Control of the House does not depend on how this race turns out. It is therefore in the interest of both parties, not to mention the country, to be simultaneously aggressive and judicious in figuring out what went wrong in Sarasota and to use that knowledge to fix the nation’s voting system before a major disaster strikes. Sarasota is the canary in the electronic coal mine.
