MIAMI – With less than four months to go before the November presidential election, Florida officials are once again hovering over voting equipment. This time, they’re worried about a software glitch in their touch-screen machines.
Last year, a Miami-Dade (search) elections employee discovered that weak batteries caused the voting machines to jumble serial numbers — a serious technical blip that officials say could delay an audit of all votes if there’s another close election as there was in 2000.
Critics say that possibility is unacceptable.
The company that designed the machine, Electronic Systems and Software (search), reportedly knew of the problem more than a year ago, but never notified state officials. The company says the flaw doesn’t affect the equipment’s ability to correctly record each vote.
Touch-screen machines are being used in 11 of Florida’s 67 counties. Miami-Dade alone spent $25 million on more than 7,000 machines. County officials stand by the equipment, but admit that correcting a software glitch so close to the election makes for bad public relations.
Click on the video box near the top of the story to watch a report by FOX News' Orlando Salinas.
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