VOTER VOICES

Ballot instructions 'cryptic'
Marvin Redfield was a systems engineer for NASA, in Washington and at the Kennedy Space Center. The 84-year-old registered Democrat feels comfortable with technology, but the touch-screen voting system at the 108th Precinct was a challenge.

He voted carefully and was shocked when the review screen said he had missed the Buchanan-Jennings race, he said. He found the instructions to fix his ballot "cryptic" and wondered if the apparent undercount resulted from people misreading the screen or misunderstanding directions.

"It's hard for me to figure out the enormous numbers of undervotes," he said.

'Definitely something fishy'
Joan Nasser voted the second day of early voting. She was careful and checked all the screens, she said, but was warned at the end that she had not voted in the Buchanan-Jennings race.

"I thought, 'Well, maybe I missed a page,' which struck me as funny because I was careful about what I was doing," said Nasser, 73, and a Democrat.

But the next day she heard people on the radio talking about the same problem. "It seems to me there is definitely something fishy there."

'It's your responsibility'
Mary Lukowski worked her way through the touch-screens when she voted Nov. 2 at the county building in Venice.

At the end, the machine said her vote for Buchanan had not registered. So she went back and fixed it.

The system may have had a flaw, but it worked in the end.

"It's your responsibility to review your ballot," said Lukowski, 41.

But people's failure to do so shouldn't be seen as costing Jennings the race, she said. "If people didn't review their ballot, it could have been for either one."

'I know I hit the button'
When the voting machine said Bill Krueger had not cast a ballot in the congressional race, he was surprised but not particularly upset.

"I know I hit that button to hit Jennings over Buchanan. I didn't like either one of them, but the lesser of two evils," he said.

At the 2nd Precinct, he and his wife both had to use the review page twice.

"Did everyone else have this problem?" the 69-year-old Republican asked. "I never thought the election system was crooked until this one."

No trust in voting machines
Michael Sanderson's wife had warned him about the problems voters were having with the congressional race. When the 52-year-old registered Republican tried to tap the box for Christine Jennings, it didn't check.

He tried to hit it a couple of more times, and it finally registered.

Yet when he went to the review screen, the Jennings box was not checked. He had to go back and vote for Jennings again.

"I would suspect that maybe people didn't review like I did," said Sanderson.

He has no trust in the voting machines. "Not after this experience here," he said.

Shocked to find boxes empty
Sharon Wagner, a 61-year-old Sarasota County resident and retired nurse, said that she was shocked to find both the Jennings and Buchanan boxes empty when she reviewed her vote for the first time at the Gulf Gate Library Oct. 28.

"I knew that when I went through the first time, I know I voted," said Wagner, a Republican. "I know exactly that I voted for Christine Jennings."

Wagner said she backtracked to the second page, and again put in her vote for Jennings.

"This time it took," she said.

She left wondering if it was her mistake, if she had just missed it. That was until she read about others' experiences with the voting machines.

'They need to do a revote'
Lisa Garcia had a baffling experience at Bahia Vista Mennonite Church, the Precinct 102 polling place.

"What happened is, I started out voting, and then towards the end, I didn't remember voting for Christine Jennings," the 48-year-old said.

She reached the review screen and saw that she indeed had not.

"I just scrolled back, thinking it was an error I made. When I heard more, maybe it wasn't an error I made."

Poll workers said nothing about problems finding the candidates, telling her she may have needed to press harder on the screen.

She thinks the problems cast doubt on the validity of Buchanan's apparent win.

"I think they need to do a revote," she said. "Something's fishy. I hope they find out what's going on."

An exercise in futility?
Poll workers at Precinct 80, on Tamiami Trail just south of Phillippi Creek, warned Joanie Stewart that the 13th Congressional District candidates were tucked away on page two of the ballot.

"At the very top -- you could almost miss it -- was the race between Buchanan and Jennings," she said.

The race was so important that it should have had its own page, she said.

She cast her vote, but headed home with a feeling that the election might go awry.

"I left the polling place with the feeling, 'Oh well, was that just an exercise in futility?'"
_____

Staff writers Heather Allen, Frank Gluck, Latisha R. Gray, David Gulliver and Mike Saewitz contributed to this report.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061109/NEWS/611090312/1006/SPORTS