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TAMARA LUSHThe machinery has been changed to avoid the debacle of 2000, but now elections officials are poised to handle electronic recounts.
BRANDON - Eleven men and women from the Hillsborough elections office sat around a folding table, drinking coffee, questioning security procedures and planning for the worst.
Their mission was spelled out on an illuminated screen in big black letters: RECOUNT PLAN.
Like elections officials throughout Florida, Hillsborough officials know recounts are expensive, complicated and controversial. That's why they planned ahead.
The 2000 recount for president was messy, drawn-out and ultimately futile. Photos of canvassing board members examining hanging chad with magnifying glasses ran worldwide, and voter confidence plummeted.
If this presidential election is just as close, or if a primary race on Tuesday is excruciatingly close, hanging chad won't be under the microscope. About half the state's ballots will be cast electronically. There will be no punchcards to scrutinize.
There still could be a recount.
It just would not be the same.
Since 2000, Florida's election laws and machinery have changed.
Fifteen counties have electronic touch screen machines. The rest have optical scan machines, which use paper ballots read by computers.
Gov. Jeb Bush says Florida is a model for the country. However, some critics' concerns center on the touch screen machines, which leave no paper trail, and how they would be treated in a recount.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state to force manual recounts on touch screen machines. Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said the machines "are not infallible."
"No one can argue that touch screen voting machines are going to work 100 percent of the time," he said. While voting technology has changed, the rules regarding a recount have not.
State law still requires that when a candidate wins by one-half of 1 percent or less, a machine recount is conducted unless the loser concedes.
In optical scan counties, paper ballots are sent through the optical scan machines again. The results are double-checked with the Election Day results.
In touch screen counties, the three-member canvassing board examines the results from each precinct and compares them to the overall result. If there is a discrepancy, the precinct results are presumed correct. Printed paper images of each ballot, which are available on some machines, are not required.
Then each county's canvassing board will submit results to the Department of State no later than noon on the third day after the election.
Elections supervisors in touch screen counties say they have faith in that process.
"We still go back in and verify those numbers off the touch screen units to ensure that we have accurate numbers, the same numbers we got on election night," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning said.
A machine recount with a touch screen system should produce the same total each time. Cartridges could be tampered with or misplaced, but elections officials say safeguards make that unlikely.
Critics say touch screen machines can be manipulated and there is no way to verify that votes were cast and counted properly without a paper trail.
Elections officials say machines have an error rate of less than one per 1-million votes.
"I don't think anything magically disappears," said Dan Nolan, chief of staff for Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson.
After a machine recount, a manual recount still can occur.
If the machine recount indicates the margin of victory was one-quarter of 1 percent or less, as in 2000, a manual recount will be held. But state elections rules say results from touch screen machines would not be counted again.
Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood has ruled that touch screens eliminate the need to discern voter intent. Over votes - when voters choose more than one candidate in a race - are impossible on touch screen machines.
There can be under votes, when voters do not choose a candidate in a race. But touch screen machines remind voters they skipped a race and offer another chance to decide.
The only thing to manually recount in touch screen counties are absentee ballots and provisional ballots, which are cast when it is unclear if the voter is qualified. Both types of ballots are paper, optical-scan ballots.
The local canvassing board appoints counting teams of at least two people from different political parties. They scrutinize the ballots where voters appear to have chosen two candidates. They also look at the ballots where voters apparently made no choice.
If ballots are ripped, marked or stained, a team duplicates them.
If a counting team is unable to determine voter intent, the canvassing board decides whether to count the vote or toss the ballot.
But critics from Washington to Florida are clamoring for changes.
"The public clearly has doubt that their votes are going to be accurately recorded by these touch screen machines," said Florida U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat. Last month, Nelson asked Hood and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to audit touch screen machines in Florida.
Experts such as Ohio State University law professor Dan Tokaji said touch screens are more reliable during the counting and recounting of ballots. But he said no system is foolproof.
"The sort of human error types of issues are comparable to those that exist with paper systems," said Tokaji, a voting systems expert who has prepared reports for Congress. "No systems known to humankind are impervious to fraud. Paper or electronic."