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Rather Breaks News On 2000 Recount, D 13 Race

Posted Aug 16, 2007 by William March

Updated Aug 16, 2007 at 02:39 PM

In an investigative project for the HDNet television network, Dan Rather contends he has found evidence of faulty paper used in the famous Palm Beach County punchcard ballots in the 2000 election which could have caused many of the undervotes in that race; and evidence that faulty touch screens were used in the iVotronic touchscreen voting machines used in last year’s District 13 congressional race in Sarasota.

Rather interviewed a group of workers from Sequoia Voting System’s California factory, where the Palm Beach County punchcard ballots were made. They told him they received batches of inferior paper when they were producing the Palm Beach County ballots. When the ballots were tested, the employees said, they were more likely to produce “hanging chad”—partially punched ballot selections that can lead to “undervotes,” or ballots that fail to register a vote in a race.

Rather also interviewed factory workers and the American manager of a factory in the Philippines where the iVotronic machines were made. They told him they were supplied with defective touchscreens for use in the machines—screens that could register votes incorrectly. Rather produced court documents from a lawsuit involving the maker of the screens, in which the manufacturer indicated it was aware of the problems.

He reported that a materials scientist for the manufacturer, The Berquist Company, testified that the machines could lose calibration in a humid environment, and advocated a recall of the machines.

Berquist delivered the screens to a company that assembled the machines for Elections Systems & Software. In a statement, ES&S said it had dealt with the problems.

Rather’s findings, not previously reported, may be seen as important parts of the history of the 2000 Florida recount and the District 13 race, but they don’t appear to explain directly some of the questions long raised about both elections.

While the findings raise tough questions about the reliability of the touchscreen machines, they don’t appear to show directly how the machines could have caused the problem that led Democrat Christine Jennings to sue over the outcome—a disproportionately large, never-fully-explained “vote drop” in the race in Sarasota. That means thousands of ballots that didn’t appear to include a vote cast in the race.

While the findings about Sequoia ballots could explain the undervotes in 2000—ballots with no vote cast for president—they don’t appear to explain the problem with “overvotes,” ballots that included votes for more than one presidential candidate. Both kinds of ballots are equally invalid. Explanations including the “butterfly” ballot design have been cited to explain the overvotes.

You can watch the Dan Rather Reports segment here.