Tech glitches could mar 2016 election

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“Habitual” technology failures in an “obsolete” and glitch-prone state voter registration system could have devastating effects in 2016 if not addressed quickly, elections officials across the state say.

The aging state computer system is used to check in voters locally, ensuring their eligibility, before they cast ballots. But local elections supervisors say the state system is prone to crash, sometimes for days, precluding efforts to verify that eligibility.

They also say the state has been slow to upgrade the hardware, despite millions in federal funding.

Voters line up for early voting in 2012. Tech glitches plaguing the state's voter registration system could have a devastating effect on the 2016 election. (Associated Press Archive)

Pembrooke Pines voters line up to hit the polls early in 2012. Tech glitches plaguing the state's voter registration system could have a devastating effect on the 2016 election. (Associated Press Archive)

Florida’s top elections official, Ken Detzner, was not available for comment on Friday. But his spokesman said fixing the system will be his “highest priority.”

In a memo to local elections officials this week, the state said it was moving to address the problem this month.

Still, several county elections officials expressed alarm that Florida has not been more aggressive in fixing the issue, especially since it has already affected the outcome of at least one local election.

With the state’s next presidential primary barely one year away, elections officials say they are increasingly worried — especially given Florida’s reputation for election problems.

Officials who recall the 2000 presidential election and the ensuing “hanging chad” debacle here fear the potential for another unflattering return to the spotlight.

“This is going to be a bellwether of an election,” Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho said. “This problem must be fixed and the changes and repairs cannot wait.”

Adding to the frustration is that Florida has received more than $174 million from the federal government to upgrade its election system in the last 10 years.

Manatee Elections Supervisor Mike Bennett said an audit may be needed to see where the money was spent.

If the computer problems are not fixed, the consequences would be significant:
• Voters in 2016 could be subjected to longer lines to cast ballots as people try to sign in at polling sites.
• More people could be forced to vote on paper provisional ballots because they cannot be verified as eligible voters. Historically those provisional ballots have had a higher probability of not being counted than other types of ballots and are harder to count in general, which can create delays in reporting results.
• Elections supervisors would not be able to catch fraudulent behavior as easily if someone tries to cast multiple ballots in different counties. The problematic voter system is supposed to be able to raise a flag when a voter has already cast a ballot elsewhere in the state.

The problem is the Florida Voter Registration System, which supervisors use to check in voters and ensure their eligibility to vote.

For the last year, the decade-old system has frequently crashed for days at a time, making it impossible for elections officials to verify all voters — particularly new voters and those who have moved recently.

“When the system goes down, my staff is dead in the water,” said Brian Corley, the Pasco County supervisor of elections.

Corley said that when the system went down for a few minutes or a few hours, it was inconvenient.

But now that the system crashes for days, the problem is becoming vastly more worrisome.

“It seems to be getting a lot worse,” he said.

Okaloosa County Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux said that during the 2014 gubernatorial election, his office noticed the system becoming far more sluggish as more counties used computerized poll books to check voters in for the first time. Since then, the system has been beset by unscheduled outages.

In Palm Beach County, the outages have already reshaped a campaign for the City Commission in Delray Beach and delayed voters trying to cast ballots in other municipal races.

When the state computer system crashed during the second week of February, it coincided with the filing deadline for municipal races in Delray Beach.

That prevented Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher from being able to quickly verify all of the signatures on petitions that candidates running for office there must submit to get on the ballot.

For candidate Ryan Boylston it meant the elections supervisor could not notify him that he was five eligible signatures short until it was too late for him to collect more.

If the voting system had been working, Boylston likely would have known sooner and could have sought additional signatures. Instead his would-be opponent was re-elected with no opposition.

When the system crashed again last week, it hit during early voting in Palm Beach County. The result was that voters could not be issued ballots because their addresses could not be verified.

If the problems are not fixed by next year, elections officials say, outages could happen during voting in the presidential election, when far more people weigh in and the system would be under much greater stress.

“That is what I’m worried about,” said Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards. “It would be truly a nightmare for all of us.”

Edwards said for new voters and people who have recently moved from another county, the issue is particularly acute because there is no way to determine whether they are eligible voters when the system is down. The result is that those voters could be forced to use provisional ballots that are not tallied immediately and have to be further reviewed before being counted, she said.

A voter system outage in late February — over three days — was the final straw for elections officials. They say Detzner, Florida’s secretary of state, whose office oversees elections, has not responded to their repeated pleas for action.

The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections sent its second letter this year to Detzner warning about the problem.

The latest letter was far more direct.

“As elected supervisors, we have repeatedly encouraged the state to modernize its obsolete system and are troubled by the repeated hardware failures that have compromised our state-wide registration system and crippled the operations of local Supervisor of Elections offices around the state,” wrote Duval County Supervisor Jerry Holland, president of the state association.

Sarasota County Elections Supervisor Kathy Dent said even before those letters, she and others raised the issue with Detzner last summer. She said the lack of action has only put Florida closer to a presidential election cycle with a faulty system when the state — for better or worse — will be under national scrutiny.

Detzner was “out of the office” and not available to be interviewed about the issue on Friday, said Mark Ard, communications coordinator for the secretary of state’s office.

But there are signs the state is starting to heed the supervisors’ warnings. Detzner’s office on Thursday told the attorney for the state supervisors’ association that the agency will start seeking a replacement to the voter registration system this month.

In an ideal scenario, that new system would be operational as soon as July 2015.

Still, Lux, the Okaloosa County supervisor, worries about that timeline.

He said the state needs to stage a “stress test” of that new system as soon as possible to ensure that it is going to work when Florida holds its presidential primary elections in March 2016.

The last thing Florida needs to do is test new computer hardware during a major election with national implications, he said.

“Until we see a statewide stress test we really are not going to have the measure of assurance that we are all looking for,” Lux said.

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Jeremy Wallace

Jeremy Wallace has covered politics for more than 15 years. He can be reached by email or call (941) 361-4966. ""More Wallace" Make sure to "Like" HT Politics on Facebook for all your breaking political news.
Last modified: March 6, 2015
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