article on sarasota, on academic study

["Margit Johansson" <margitjo@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/012407/jennings.html

A new academic study of voting in Florida's 13th district congressional
race refutes the prevailing opinion of experts that the large undervote
in the race in November was likely due to poor ballot design.

Democrat Christine Jennings lost by 369 votes out of 240,000 cast, and
has contended that the undervote — more than 18,000 Sarasota County
ballots didn't include a vote in the congressional race — could be
attributed to malfunctioning electronic voting machines.

The new study points to an error message that the experts say correlates
with the undervotes, as well as to voting patterns that show unusually
high undervote rates for Democratic voters. The study's authors say more
information, specifically the secret software used by the voting
machines, is required to draw any real conclusions.

The Jennings campaign plans to tout the study, which was researched
independently by Stanford University computer science professor David
Dill and Cornell University government professor Walter Mebane, as
support for its appeal in a Florida court.