State: Sarasota Voting Machines Not to Blame for Undervotes

State Voting Machine

An audit of Sarasota County's voting machines shows that although some faults were found in the machines software, no evidence was found it caused the 'undervote.' More than 18,000 ballots did not record a vote for the Congressional race.

Republican Vern Buchanan beat Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes. Jennings and the liberal advocacy group People For the American Way Foundation filed suit against the state to get the source code used by the voting machines.

Judith Schaefer is the group's associate legal director.

SCHAEFER: Eighteen thousand votes in a hotly-contested congressional race just don't disappear without one or more things going terribly wrong. And for the secretary of state of Florida to put out a press release and say in boldface, no evidence that the certified results are incorrect is really an insult to those voters in Sarasota County.

Meanwhile, some residents are pressing Jennings to drop her challenge for the vote.