Jennings Legally Challenges Vote Count

Christine Jennings is officially contesting the the election results in 13th District Court.

"This is a miscarriage of the democratic process," Jennings' lead attorney, Kendall Coffey, said at a news conference in Tallahassee.

The challenge was filed at about 11 a.m., two hours after the state Elections Canvassing Commission certified Republican Vern Buchanan's 369-vote victory over Jennings, a Democrat. The final result was 119,309 votes for Buchanan, 118,940 for Jennings.

The Jennings campaign issued a press release explaining their actions.

Citing statistical and eyewitness evidence of significant machine malfunctions sufficient to call into doubt the result of the election for Florida Congressional District 13, the Christine Jennings campaign today officially contested the election in Circuit Court. The complaint specifically requests the judge to order a new election “to ensure that the will of the people of the Thirteenth District is respected, and to restore the confidence of the electorate, which has been badly fractured by this machine-induced debacle.”

More than 17,000 undervotes (15%) were recorded on Sarasota County’s electronic voting machines, a rate nearly 6 times higher than the undervote rate in the other District 13 counties or in Sarasota’s paper absentee ballots. Jennings won Sarasota County by a 53% - 47% margin, while losing the district-wide manual recount by 369 votes. As noted in the complaint:

“The failure to include these votes constitutes a rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to place in doubt, and likely change, the outcome of the election.”

The complaint also cites significant eyewitness accounts describing a consistent pattern of voter difficulty in having their votes recorded in the House of Representatives race, but not in other races on the ballot.

“This is clearly a case of machine error – not ballot design error and not voter error,” added Jennings campaign attorney Kendall Coffey. “We’re asking the courts to ensure that the will of the people of the 13th District is respected and end the crisis of confidence among the electorate by ordering a new election.”

As part of the discovery process, the Jennings campaign seeks expedited discovery of items including audit and ballot-image logs generated by the iVotronic system, iVotronic machines and related hardware that generated particularly high undervote rates, and the software – particularly the source code – used to operate that hardware.

Vern Buchanan has been declared the winner and is calling on Jennings to concede.

Much has been made of the 18,000 undervotes. The machines were tested, re-tested and certified by the state. There's no evidence for malfunction.

Before the polls closed on election day, the lawyers and special interest groups had mounted a deliberate and shameful attempt to erode voter confidence in the outcome of this election…Which shows the blatant disrespect for the voters and a disregard for the electorial process.

The problem with Buchanan's statement is that if the machines were malfunctioning they would leave no voter tally. This is a reason Sarasota County residents voted to go back to paper ballots. There are problems with the Sarasota County Elections Systems & Software during the early voting. The Orlando Sentinel found other counties had undervoting problems with ES&S machines.

Jennings attorneys are attempting to get independent programmers to examine the voting machines. They are attempting to prove that the machines were so faulty that a new election must be held. Roll Call is floating the idea that there is the possibility this race could be decided in a Democrat-controlled House Administration Committee. That would unhinge wingnuts if Democrats ruled to give Jennings the seat. What works against the Jennings legal team is the Roudebush v Hartke decision.

Incumbent Senator Hartke was certified by the Indiana Secretary of State to the Governor as the winner of the close 1970 Indiana senatorial election. Candidate Roudebush filed a timely recount petition in state court. The state court denied Hartke's motion to dismiss on the grounds of conflict with the Indiana and Federal Constitutions, and granted the petition for a recount. Hartke sought an injunction against the recount in United States District Court, invoking jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1343 (3) and claiming that the recount was barred by Art. I, 5, of the Federal Constitution, delegating to the Senate the power to judge the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members. The three-judge District Court issued the requested injunction. After appeals were filed here, the Senate seated Hartke "without prejudice to the outcome of an appeal pending in the Supreme Court . . . and without prejudice to the outcome of any recount that the Supreme Court might order." Hartke then moved to dismiss the appeals as moot.

ActBlue is raising money for Jennings and other Democratic candidates going through recounts.