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Task Force Formed to Investigate Florida 13th Election
By Rachel Kapochunas
Congressional Quarterly
Friday 23 March 2007
Nearly five months after Florida Republican Vern Buchanan narrowly defeated Democrat Christine Jennings in the state's 13th District, a congressional committee has organized a task force to investigate the controversial election.
California Democratic Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, on Thursday announced the formation of the task force, which she said was needed to investigate "possible voting rights violations" in Florida's 13th, where Buchanan prevailed by 369 votes.
Bandele McQueen, Millender-McDonald's chief of staff, told CQPolitics.com on Friday that Millender-McDonald formed the task force after an August 2006 letter surfaced last week in which Electronic Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S) - the company that manufactured the electronic voting machines that were used in the Florida 13 election - told election officials that the voting screens exhibited slow response times during testing.
ES&S said in the letter that the delays would not affect the "integrity or reliability" of the election - but the company nonetheless recommended machine updates and suggested poll workers and voters be apprised of the slow response time.
But Millender-McDonald's committee said in a statement Thursday that "nothing was done nor were poll workers informed."
Jennings and her political allies have long maintained that malfunctions of the electronic voting machines in Sarasota County - the dominant jurisdiction in the southwest Florida district - resulted in more than 18,000 "undervotes," or ballots on which votes were cast for other contests but not for the House race, and thus cost her the election because Jennings defeated Buchanan in Sarasota County.
Millender-McDonald said the task force will "review and raise questions such as, 'What went wrong, how long before the election did state and county officials know of this malfunction, and why were safeguards not taken by state and county officials."
Rep. Charlie Gonzales, D-Tex., will chair the three-member task force, which will also include Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and a Republican designated by Michigan Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee.
Jennings said in a statement Thursday that she was "pleased" that the task force had been organized.
Jennings and voting rights groups filed lawsuits in Florida courts that are pending. Jennings last December formally contested the election in the House of Representatives.
Salley Collins, a spokeswoman for Ehlers, told CQPolitics.com on Friday that the House Administration panel should defer to the pending legal action in the Florida courts.
"We strongly believe that we shouldn't even be having hearings or dealing with any of the issues surrounding the contest until it's had a chance to play out in Florida," Collins said.
Collins said that Republicans will "hold off" on appointing a GOP member to the task force until Republicans receive clarification from Millender-McDonald on the task force's agenda.
Gonzales told CQPolitics.com on Friday that Democrats recognize the role of the courts but said that "nevertheless, there's a role for Congress reflected in the Constitution of the United States" regarding contested elections.
McQueen said that the legal system could no longer be "relied upon."
"Had that letter been discovered and was turned over as part of discovery, and the legal process was going along without any hiccups, there might not have been any need for the task force to be created," McQueen said. "Upon looking at that information, the chairwoman determined that it was important for the committee to step in to safeguard the rights of all the voters."
After two recounts of votes, Florida Secretary of State Sue M. Cobb, a Republican, on Nov. 20 certified Buchanan as the winner by 369 votes in the race to succeed two-term Republican Rep. Katherine Harris, who left the seat open to pursue a Senate bid that was unsuccessful.
Jennings and her supporters cried foul, pointing to the large undervote in Sarasota County. Because Jennings prevailed in Sarasota County, her backers said that Jennings would have won had the electronic voting machines worked properly.
But Buchanan and his allies said the undervotes in Sarasota could be attributed to where the contest appeared on some ballots - or that voters simply opted not to participate in the election.
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