It’s official — the election mess in Florida’s 13th District is heading to the House of Representatives. January will be an interesting month, indeed.
Meanwhile the court case in Florida proceeds along. Today, an expert testifed on behalf of Democrat Christine Jennings that glitches with the voting machines cost her the election.
Details about the challenge are provided in the Jennings campaign press release below. You can read our prior coverage of Florida’s 13th here.
The full release:
Christine Jennings today filed a notice of contest with the U.S. House of Representatives. With legal proceedings continuing today in Tallahassee, the notice filed in Washington allows the U.S. House to continue to monitor the legal proceedings while leaving open the possibility of a Congressional investigation if the Florida courts fail to provide the type of full investigation that will serve to restore voter confidence in the nation’s voting system.
“This is not about Democrats and Republicans or Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan, it’s about fixing a system that appears to be broken,” said Jennings. “One-third of all Floridians use the iVotronic machines by E S & S. Voters need to have confidence that their vote will count and be counted accurately.”
“The voting system in place in Sarasota clearly failed the voters of that district, and has triggered a national crisis in voter confidence. Forty percent of all Americans vote on touch screen voting machines. Ultimately, the U.S. House is responsible for the type of legislative investigations and safeguards that will ensure a situation like we saw in Sarasota never happens again,” said Kendall Coffey, attorney for the Jennings campaign.
The Notice of Contest outlines Jennings’ case as follows:
– The vote totals in the 13th Congressional District contest certified by the State of Florida are wrong because they do not include thousands of votes that were cast in Sarasota County but not counted due principally to the pervasive malfunctioning of electronic voting machines.
– Statistical analysis from Professor Charles Stewart of MIT as well as eyewitness accounts from hundreds of voters attest to the widespread machine failure, possibly linked to the machine setup and calibration process.
– The machine malfunction and ensuing undervote clearly changed the outcome of the race, denying the people of District 13 their choice of Representative. The only fair and appropriate remedy is to conduct a revote, allowing all voters the opportunity to record their choice for Congress.The fact that the outcome of this race was changed â and the will of the voters denied â is also supported by Michael Herron, one of the experts hired by iVotronic manufacturer ES&S in the legal case pending in Florida Circuit Court. According to Herron’s study [1]:
“There is essentially a 100 percent chance that Jennings would have won the CD 13 race (Abstract)â¦Jennings would have received a net advantage of between 3,068 and 3,359 votes ( p.6)”
Jennings seeks remedy through the U.S. House consisting of an independent investigation of the ES&S voting machines, software and source code used in the Sarasota election, as well as a revote that would allow all of the people of Florida’s District 13 â including the 18,000 undervotes â to choose their next representative based on the will of the people.
As noted in the Contest, the House has, on numerous occasions, granted such remedies when circumstances warrant. In contested-election cases, the House has found the contestant to be entitled to the seat on 128 occasions. And the election has been voided, and the seat vacated, in another 66 cases.
The Jennings campaign expects that the U.S. House of Representatives will closely monitor the Florida court proceedings currently underway.
“Our preference is for Florida courts to address the situation and ensure a thorough, independent investigation. But by filing today with the U.S. House, we ensure that the House retains its right and responsibility to address the situation in Sarasota and provide assurance to the all U.S. voters that their intended votes will be counted fairly and accurately,” added Coffey.
[1] Michael Herron, Associate Professor in Dartmouth College’s Department of Government, is co-author of ” Ballot Formats, Touchscreens, and Undervotes: A Study of the 2006 Midterm Elections in Florida.”
