Governor Jeb Bush and the Florida Department of State pledged on Friday to investigate tens of thousands of missing e-votes spread across at least four counties. This will be the second such investigation in only four years. A large percentage of the votes cast in Florida's just completed election came up missing. These are known as “undervotes” where the pick is not recorded on the machine, but all other races have selections. The affected e-voting machines were all manufactured by iVotronic.
Four Democratic leaning counties were affected. In Sarasota County alone 13 percent of the completed ballots had no vote at all in the Congressional election. That percentage accounts for over 18,000 missing votes out of a total of 142,284 tallied. In that race Christine Jennings was narrowly beaten by a margin of only 373 votes by Republican Vern 
Buchanan. The same ballots suspiciously showed no more than 1.5 percent undervotes in the Senate race for the same election.
Incredibly, Sumter, Lee and Charlotte Counties reported that more than one in five ballots cast were complete, but had no vote registered for Attorney General. Ironically Katherine Harris, who during the controversial 2000 election certified George Bush as the winner of the Presidential race, held that office.
Governor Bush agreed with the assessment that the high percentage of missing votes warranted an official investigation. The Governor called for a quick review of the clearly questionable results. Common Cause has called for a complete re-vote in the affected counties, but because of the holiday, elections officials couldn’t be reached.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jet in Columbus
Everyone who's surpised raise your hands. Jeb Bush has already called for an investigation!
2 - Clavos
Jet,
Would you give us some links (other than the ones in the story) for your sources, please?
I found some factual errors in your article:
Katherine Harris was not Florida's Attorney General during the 2000 election; she was the Secretary of State, and in 2002 was elected to Congress. The race in question, for the 13th Congressional district, was to replace her.
I could find no references to vote problems in either Sumter or Lee counties; do you have a link for that?
Charlotte county is included in the recount because a small portion of FL-13 lies in that county.
FL-13 consists of all of Sarasota, De Soto, and Hardee counties, as well as most of Manatee county, plus the small portion of Charlotte.
The under vote, (the exact figure is 18,382) is predominantly in Sarasota county with a much smaller under vote in Manatee, which uses optically scanned paper ballots. The others are being recounted because the entire district must be recounted.
The district is historically heavily Republican, and the under vote was found in 11 precincts, two of which are predominantly African American, while the remaining 9 are more than 85% white.
My information came from The Miami Herald (requires free registration) and Wikipedia.
3 - Jet in Columbus
In Sumter, ballots with no recorded votes -- known as "undervotes" -- accounted for 22 percent of all ballots in the attorney general's race. In Lee, 18 percent of ballots in that race were unvoted, and in Charlotte, 21 percent were blank.
By comparison, undervotes in those same counties in the U.S. Senate race were no higher than 1.5 percent.
The attorney-general undervotes in Sumter, Lee and Charlotte, representing about 45,000 blank ballots
For the rest of this article click anywhere in the underlined section
4 - sr
Jet,
I consider you a friend. You have given me many laughts with your extraordinary wit. I dont care about your sexual orientation. STOP BRINGING IT UP. Just be the man you are. Wish I had your intellect.
sr
5 - Dave Nalle
Hmmm. I think I may be guilty of undervoting. I know I left several sections blank on my ballot because I knew nothing about the candidates or just didn't care. Why isn't it sensible to assume that this is what people in Florida did as well?
Dave
6 - Martin Lav
uh...because you were the only one that took your lame advice from your other article "Make Your Protest Vote Send a Real Message"
and Thank God...by the way ;-)
7 - Clavos
Jet,
Thanks for the link.
I see now why i couldn't find any mention of the supposed under votes in Sumter and Lee counties, also from your link:
The attorney-general undervotes in Sumter, Lee and Charlotte, representing about 45,000 blank ballots, presumably would not have affected the outcome of that race, in which Republican Bill McCollum defeated Democrat Walter "Skip" Campbell. McCollum won handily in all three counties.
(emphasis mine)
Obviously, it wasn't widely published because it was an Orlando local issue with no statewide importance, because it made no difference to the outcome of the AG race.
Anyway, thanks for the link.
8 - Jet in Columbus
SR: When did I bring it up? I didn't mention it once in this article.
9 - Jet in Columbus
Dave asks: "Why isn't it sensible to assume that this is what people in Florida did as well"
18,000 people in one county????
ahem
Please!
10 - Jet in Columbus
Dave even the Republican Governor Jeb Bush thought that odd enough to initiate and investigation.
11 - Jet in Columbus
Thank you Martin, my sentiments exactly. I thought we were all supposed to stop being partisan now?
12 - Jet in Columbus
Clavos, the ballots weren't blank, they were filled out all but mysteriously that one race. 45,000 is a lot to be missing.
13 - Clavos
Jet,
I didn't say they were blank--that's in the cut-and-paste I did from your source/link.
Here's another, from the same source:
In Sumter, ballots with no recorded votes -- known as "undervotes" -- accounted for 22 percent of all ballots in the attorney general's race. In Lee, 18 percent of ballots in that race were unvoted, and in Charlotte, 21 percent were blank.,
which should look familiar, as you also cut-and-pasted it in your #3, above (emphasis mine).
BTW, the 21% percent figure quoted by the Orlando Sentinel is incorrect according to both the local registrar and the Secretary of State's office, as quoted by the Miami Herald. The Charlotte under vote is reported as "very small."
14 - Clavos
Jet,
45,000 IS a lot to be missing; but since the margin of McCollum's victory was about 250,000 votes, they didn't make any difference to the outcome of the race.
The situation in Sarasota county is a different story, however, since the outcome of that race MAY have been affected.
15 - Jet in Columbus
Clavos, the sentences got rearranged when I put the photo of the voting machine in and two lines from different paragraphs inadvertantly got stuck together in the wrong order.
Attorney General and secretary of state were mixed together.
My bad.
I'm going to ask an editor to move it back to the end of the article where it belongs
Jet
Sorry about the confusion.
Jet
16 - Jet in Columbus
You're right indeed Clavos, 45,000 people all coincodently not filling out their choice on the exact same line of a ballot, but filling out the others is rather insignificant isn't it?
I bet Governor Bush is embarrased that he agreed enough with that point to call for an investigation.
17 - Clavos
Not insignificant, Jet. Just meaningless.
18 - BriMan
Meaningless as in the process is flawed???
19 - RJ Elliott
"Common Cause has called for a complete re-vote in the affected counties"
Not likely...
20 - Jet in Columbus
Meaningless Clavos, Yes if you were on the losing side of the argument you'd consider 45,000 meaningless.
21 - Jet in Columbus
No Briman, branding it meaningless as in a right leaning ploy to distract from the fact rather than face it.
22 - Jet in Columbus
Dearest R.J. Re your comment: On one of your strings I asked you a serious question about Ohio State's chances tomorrow and also if you'd heard anything concerning Joe Paterno.
I even made a point of apolgizing because I new I was commenting on a string about the NFL.
I figured if anyone would know anything about the sports world you would and I respected your knowledge of the subject enough to ask.
You replied
Ohio State is favored over Northwestern by 113. And Coach Paterno is dead.
The next time I take your word for any credible opinions I'll ask Mr. Sussman instead, I expect sour sarcasm from him, but I thought you had more integrity.
You seem to share his brain.
But of course I'm only being sarcastic.
Love Jet
23 - Jet in Columbus
Just so everyone knows and I can't get an editor's attention... the sentence
Ironically Katherine Harris, who during the controversial 2000 election certified George Bush as the winner of the Presidential race, held that office.
belongs at the end of the article, not the end of the third paragraph. it happened when I put the picture of the voting machine in.
Jet
24 - Jet in Columbus
...Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb sent a team here Thursday to observe an expected recount in a tight race to replace U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris...
...Jennings trails her opponent by 373 votes in preliminary results.
"There is nothing like this in any other place in Florida; in any other election," he said. "We've got to find the truth of what went so terribly wrong in Sarasota County on Election Day."
Cobb has ordered her team to audit procedures in the Sarasota County elections office and to examine the touch-screen voting machines that recorded more than 18,000 ballots that had selections in other races but not in the 13th Congressional District.
A spokeswoman for county elections supervisor Kathy Dent said late Thursday that Jennings' concerns were not being ignored and referred questions to a county attorney. The
telephone number at the lawyer's office did not accept messages.
Republican Vern Buchanan has declared victory in the race with a less than 0.2 percent lead over Jennings...
For the rest of this article click anywhere in the underlined section
25 - Clavos
I'm not distracting from anything, Jet, nor am I engaging in any ploys; If it's determined that someone did something to deliberately screw up those votes they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Fact: 45,000 votes were left blank.
Fact: The margin in the AG race was 250,000.
Fact: 45,000 < 250,000.
Fact: The outcome was not affected.
Ergo, meaningless.