[Fox News last night mentioned McBride wants to move on. Where is the outrage about counting every vote? I guess they used it all up in the presidential election, huh. I wonder how Reno is going to handle the issue of the guy in charge of one of the precincts who closed up early because he had a Lion's meeting he had to go to.]

Reno's campaign works to build case against new voting machines

Knight Ridder Newspapers

MIAMI - Janet Reno's campaign for governor is trying to build a sweeping case against the now-infamous touch-screen voting machines that campaign officials believe may be responsible for Reno losing the Democratic nomination.

The case, summarized in a draft document obtained by The Miami Herald, would not be used to challenge the results of last week's election, even if Bill McBride is certified Tuesday as the nominee, campaign officials said Saturday.

Instead, the evidence would become part of a larger effort to put the blame for Florida's latest election fiasco at the feet of Gov. Jeb Bush and the election reform law he signed with great fanfare last year.

"What we're doing is far more important than whoever the nominee is," said Reno campaign manager Mo Elleithee.

According to the draft document, headlined "Suspected Problems with Florida's Electronic Touch-Screen Voting Machines," the campaign has consulted with an expert who has studied the machines in use.

Among the allegations: touch-screen machines suffer from the buildup of smudges as more people vote that create inaccuracies; some voters saw the wrong candidate's name light up when they touched the screen; and many machines may not have properly calculated votes.

Election Systems and Software, the company that manufactures the iVotronic machines used in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, could not be reached late Saturday. Last week, ES&S said in a statement that its machines "accurately captured 100 percent of the votes which were cast. No votes were lost or not counted."

Eleven counties in Florida used the iVotronic equipment Tuesday, but only Miami-Dade and Broward had serious problems. The election supervisors in the four counties that used systems identical to those in Miami-Dade and Broward told The Herald that their elections went smoothly.

Reno's campaign officials still made it clear Saturday that they had not given up their hope for victory.

Miami-Dade elections officials continued to examine voting machines from precincts where hundreds and perhaps thousands of votes were not counted.

Reno strategists hope that Broward officials will soon begin the same review. Together, the campaign believes, the two counties may contain enough uncounted votes to close McBride's 8,100-vote lead.

McBride, meanwhile, is intent on putting the primary behind him, rallying nearly 200 members of the state teachers union in Orlando Saturday and telling reporters that he would spend the weekend at his home near Tampa, organizing his campaign staff.

"What we can't do as Democrats is to have this diversion keep us from what is really important, that is, electing a new governor," said McBride.

Reno's lawyers said Saturday that they had not ruled out a lawsuit against the state canvassing board, which on Friday rejected their request for a statewide manual recount.

The evidence being gathered about voting machines would not be a part of that challenge, strategists said.

But the strategy of making election reform an issue to use against Bush - specifically targeting the voting equipment - is designed to remind loyal Democrats of their frustration after the contested 2000 presidential election in which Bush's brother, George W. Bush, narrowly won the White House.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2002