Bad ballots in Florida doubled in 2008

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Election officials in Florida say they found twice as many ballots were rejected as invalid in 2008 as in 2004.

After switching nearly all voting to paper ballots and optical scanners for the 2008 election, officials said the rejection rate of 0.75 percent was considerably lower than in 2000, when it was 2.9 percent, the New York Times reported Thursday.

However, a study found that twice as many ballots were rejected as invalid in 2008 as in 2004.

Ballots are considered to have "no valid vote" if a voter recorded no choice for a specific office, selected more than one candidate or listed an incorrect write-in candidate, the Times said.

Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said he wasn't surprised by the increase in invalid ballots in 2008, saying the main reason was that Florida forced 15 counties to switch from touch-screen machines to optical scan machines, the Times reported. Touch-screen machines do not permit voters to choose more than one candidate.

"Obviously there's a trade-off when changing voting machinery," Browning said. "You are not going to find a voting system that protects voters from themselves."

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist sought to eliminate touch-screen machines after a tight 2006 congressional election in which thousands of voters in Sarasota County did not cast a ballot. It was the second time since the 2000 election, which went before the U.S. Supreme Court to be resolved, that Florida had overhauled its voting systems.