Digest

More District 13 voting machine tests sought

By Times Wires
Published October 3, 2007

WASHINGTON

Federal government investigators want to do more testing of touch-screen voting machines to make sure they were not the cause of undervotes in Florida's disputed District 13 congressional election, a report released Tuesday stated. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is investigating the election at the request of a congressional task force, said tests already conducted by Sarasota County and the state of Florida are not enough. "Further testing could provide increased but not absolute assurance that voting systems did not cause undervotes in Florida's 13th Congressional District," GAO technologist Nabajyoti Barkakati told the House committee task force. Democrat Christine Jennings has asked Congress to throw out the election results, claiming that touch-screen voting machines failed to register up to 18,000 votes. Republican Vern Buchanan was declared the winner by 369 votes after two recounts and a state audit found no problems.

MIDDLEBURG

Pit bullterriers attack, kill owner

Two pit bullterriers fatally attacked their owner who had raised them since birth, authorities said Tuesday. Tina Marie Canterbury, 42, was walking to her back yard when the 2-year-old redbone pit bullterriers attacked her, according to the Clay County Sheriff's Office. One of Canterbury's sons tried to help her, but the dogs attacked him. He was not seriously injured, authorities said. A family friend shot at the dogs to scare them away. A deputy shot one of the dogs. The other dog ran away but was found two hours later and killed, authorities said.

BARTOW

Missing girl, 15, is found safe

A teenage girl was found alive and apparently well after she sneaked out of her house to rendezvous with a high-risk sex offender she met online, a sheriff said Tuesday. The girl, 15, was located at a Wal-Mart in the Florida Panhandle - 400 miles away and about 35 hours after her parents awoke Monday to find her gone. William Joe Mitchell, 46, the Jacksonville man accused of running off with her, is still on the loose and is believed to be armed with a handgun, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

MIAMI

Two held in case of crew that vanished

Investigators found bullet casings on a charter boat whose four crew members are missing and one of the two men held in the possible quadruple slaying had blow gun darts and knives when found at sea, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. The new details came as a judge ordered the two men held without bond in the unsolved mystery of what happened to the crew of the Joe Cool. Kirby Logan Archer, 35, and Guillermo Zarabozo, 19, have not been charged with homicide as prosecutors keep investigating. The two boarded the boat Sept. 22 and the crew was last heard from a day later. The day after that, the Coast Guard found the pair in the boat's life raft, a few miles from the abandoned vessel. Authorities don't believe Zarabozo's story about the boat being hijacked on its way from Miami to Bimini, Bahamas. He told the FBI that unknown pirates boarded the vessel and shot the captain and three crew members, forcing him to throw the bodies into the sea.

[Last modified October 3, 2007, 01:34:05]