Unlike Texas, the state of Florida is still very much in play in this Presidential campaign. In order for George W. Bush to have a reasonable expectation of victory, he will need to carry Florida. At this point, that hardly seems to be a given.
TALLAHASSEE - Nearly one-third of Florida voters have ''deep concerns'' about the new touch-screen voting machines and the state's elections process as a whole, according to a new survey that also shows negative feelings about President Bush are cresting to an all-time high.
The poll of 1,094 Florida registered voters by Quinnipiac University of Connecticut says Democrat John Kerry is leading Bush 49 percent to 42 percent. If independent candidate Ralph Nader were on the ballot, he would get about 4 percent of the vote. When Nader is included in the question, Kerry gets 47 percent to Bush's 41 percent.
This is the first major survey to measure attitudes about elections machinery after news reports detailing touch-screen software glitches, lost data and flaws with the now-discarded list identifying potential felons ineligible to vote.
The poll, conducted in English and Spanish, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
This year, thankfully, "hanging chads" will not be part of the equation. That hardly means that Florida has it's act together, electorally speaking. You would think that after almost four years, Florida would have done everything within it's power to make certain that it does not once again become a national embarrassment. Well, if you'd been thinking in those terms, you'd have been wrong.
Only 21 percent of poll respondents said they were ''very confident'' that the touch-screen machines ''will solve the voting problems'' that occurred in 2000, characterized by a month's worth of acerbic partisanship and dangling chads. Another 43 percent said they were 'somewhat confident' while 30 percent said that they were ''not too confident'' or 'not confident at all' in touch-screen machines.
About 47 percent of people are ''very confident'' their vote will count. About 33 percent are somewhat confident, and 19 percent are either ''not too confident'' or ''not confident at all'' that their vote will count.
'I don't count the `somewhat confident' as a positive sign. There is deep concern out there about the system in Florida,'' said Clay F. Richards, pollster for the university in Hamden, Conn.
"You would think in the American system that you would be able to go in the voting booth without having any doubt about your vote counting.''
Apparently, Georges Santayana never ran an election in Florida. History may well be about to repeat itself. So much for lessons learned.
There is something sad about even the perception of votes not counting, especially since the very same issue raised it's ugly head in Florida in 2000. Could we see a repeat of that fiasco, only with touch-screen voting? The early returns aren't promising.
