BadGimp

Florida - Secretary of state tries to calm voters

Secretary of state tries to calm voters

Secretary of State Glenda Hood hopes for a scandal-free election in November, even as she acknowledges a swirl of questions about the state's new voting machines.

- herald.com - BY LESLEY CLARK lclark@herald.com

Amid controversy over touch-screen voting machines and a purge of felons from the voting rolls, Secretary of State Glenda Hood sought on Thursday to reassure anxious voters that 2004 won't be a rehash of the 2000 presidential debacle.

Hood, addressing the League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade County, said she has ''great confidence'' that the state's 67 elections supervisors are ready for the November election -- and the scrutiny that will accompany it.

''I want the attention to be on Florida, but I always want it to be in a positive way,'' she said.

But Hood acknowledged her office is investigating a voting machine glitch in Miami-Dade County, which she said was not properly reported to the state.

A spokesman for Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan noted it was the county that detected the problem and said that Kaplan had sought to balance the need to report potential problems against unnecessarily alarming the public.

The glitch involves the auditing system of the iVotronic touch-screen machines Miami-Dade and Broward installed after the mishaps that plagued the 2000 presidential election.

condt.....................

Florida again ughhh..

posted by BadGimp @ 11:44 AM