Florida election spotlights IT training need

IDG News Service - MIAMI -- As Florida deals with another election gone wrong this week, the spotlight is on untrained poll workers who had difficulty operating new electronic-voting systems bought precisely to prevent election-day problems.
The embarrassing situation, which has some candidates pondering whether to file lawsuits and demand recounts, highlights an old IT maxim: A computer system is effective only if people know how to use it.
Florida's latest election fiasco also serves as a warning to counties nationwide that even electronic-voting technology can't ensure a smooth election. The voting system, be it punch-card based or computer-based, must be staffed with properly trained poll workers, observers said.
"This proves the point that changing the technology isn't the magic solution that will end all [election] problems. It's just part of the solution, and it may not be even the main part," said Tova Andrea Wang, special counsel and program officer at the Century Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit research organization that addresses election reform and other public policy issues.
"The focus should be more on training poll workers and voters, regardless of the technology," she said, adding that the latest election problem shows that Congress needs to step in to improve the election process nationwide.
The Florida Legislature outlawed punch-card systems after the chaotic 2000 U.S. presidential election and ordered all 67 counties in the state to have either a touch-screen computer-based system or an optical-reader paper-based system in place by Tuesday's primary elections. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush was elected president after a recount of Florida votes that was triggered by irregularities discovered in the balloting.
Miami-Dade and Broward counties, where most of the problems occurred in 2000 and again this week, spent millions of dollars to replace their decades-old punch-card systems with electronic-voting systems from Election Systems & Software (ES&S) Inc. in Omaha.
The new iVotronic systems include wireless touch-screen terminals and feature the ability to transmit precinct results electronically, via modem, to election headquarters. Expectations had been high that Tuesday's elections would go off smoothly, with all counties using either optical readers or touch-screen systems. In fact, 10 other counties in Florida used the iVotronic system on Tuesday, according to a statement from ES&S.
But things went very wrong in Broward and in Miami-Dade, including voting delays and tabulation errors that have thrown into question the integrity of the election, which had some close races, including the Democratic primary for governor that former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno lost by about 8,000 votes, according to the latest tallies.