SARASOTA COUNTY -- Amid questions surrounding the touch-screen voting system that registered an 18,000-ballot undervote in Tuesday's congressional race, Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent now says she will comply with voters who want a new voting system -- one that produces a paper trail.

Dent will encourage county commissioners to replace the touch-screen machines with a paper ballot system.

Her announcement Friday marks a reversal for the elections supervisor, who had promoted and adamantly defended the touch-screen system the county purchased for $4.5 million in 2001.

Although a ballot initiative that called for a paper trail and spot audits of election results won 55 percent approval Tuesday, the switch to paper still seemed uncertain, as Secretary of State Sue Cobb, Dent and the County Commission were slated to challenge its constitutionality in the appellate court.

"As a result of the (referendum) vote, irrespective of any determination by the courts, I am going to urge the county commission to find the necessary funds to purchase the voting equipment which will satisfy the expression of the voters and current federal and state law," Dent wrote in a letter Friday. "I will also urge state election officials to expedite review and approval of the system. The sooner we can acquire the new voting system, the sooner we can implement it."

Dent estimates that returning to a paper ballot system would cost about $3.6 million and that the ballots would cost $175,000 for each election.

Sarasota County is among the 15 of Florida's most populous counties that opted to convert to paperless, touch-screen voting machines in 2001.

The switch followed an overhaul of the state's election law intended to avoid reoccurrence of the hanging chad debacle during the 2000 presidential recount. The other 52 Florida counties use an "optical scan" system in which voters mark their choice on a paper ballot that is then fed through and read by a machine.

In January, several local activists formed a grass-roots political action committee, the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections, to get an amendment in the county's charter requiring a paper trail and the successful completion of an immediate, independent audit of results before they were certified.

In 10 months, the group raised more than $71,000 -- much of it from major Democratic donors, though the group is nonpartisan -- and collected the 12,000 signatures necessary to get the measure on the ballot.

"It's a wonderful letter," said Kindra Muntz, 62, a Harvard graduate who organized SAFE. "We look forward to working with the supervisor of elections and the county commissioners to implement the new paper ballot system, and we also welcome the opportunity to cooperate with all parties in an attempt to address any remaining concerns about the amendment."

Though other advocacy groups have tried, none in any of the other 14 counties has succeeded in turning its county back from touch-screen to paper, making the Sarasota effort something of a precedent-setter.

Sarasota County attorneys fought the amendment in court, arguing that the language conflicted with state law, which requires a uniform system. On Sept. 13, Circuit Judge Robert Bennett Jr. ruled in favor of SAFE.

Less than two weeks later, Secretary of State Cobb joined Dent and the commission in appealing that decision to the Florida Supreme Court, which declined to hear the appeal in October, kicking it back to the appeals court and ensuring that the amendment would land on Tuesday's ballot.

The amendment called for instituting the paper trail by January 2008, a deadline Dent said she hoped to meet.

"I also plan to ask the state to complete the review of the other provisions of the charter amendment," Dent wrote. "There are provisions in it that have potential conflict with the conduct of reviewing the results of an election. They should be cleared up before the 2008 election cycle. The last thing we need is to encourage more litigation over the results of that process."

A spokesman for the secretary of state said they planned to move forward with their court appeal, on grounds that the auditing and certification provisions conflict with state law. But the county may replace its touch-screen machines with the more common "optical scan" system at any time, said the spokesman, Sterling Ivey.

Three county commissioners and one commissioner-elect who could be reached late Friday said they would support the switch to paper ballots, citing the undervote in the 13th District congressional race.

Commissioner Jon Thaxton said the cost of the equipment isn't as important as replacing the electronic system, which he called "problematic" and "subject to failure."

"Now, recognizing that the systems are clearly subject to public mistrust and very possibly subject to failure, if I had even an inkling of thought back then I would have never bought them and I don't think my board would have either," he said.

Commissioner Paul Mercier agreed but voiced reservations about running afoul of state election law in revamping the county's system.

"The citizens have told us they want a paper trail, so we're going to get a paper trail. Some of the technical aspects of the referendum are out of sync with the state and I think the state is going to push us," he said.

The more than 18,000 ballots that left blank the choice between the two congressional candidates, Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings, have called into question the reliability of the touch-screen system. Voters have come forward saying that their choice in the race never appeared in the summary screen that appears before the ballot is cast. Others said they do not remember seeing the congressional race, which appeared at the top of the second screen of the electronic ballot.

SAFE attorney Thomas Schults said the difference between the paper and electronic systems will become evident in the recount that's expected to come Monday. Manatee and DeSoto counties, which use paper ballots, ought to provide far more certainty in the tally, Schults said.

"They can actually look if they need to at what the voter did with their own hand," said Schults.

Dent said her support of the switch to a paper system simply reflected the opinion of a majority of county voters.

"As I've always said, I have confidence in our voting system," Dent said. "But if the people of Sarasota County want a paper voting system, we're certainly going to implement a paper ballot system."

According to Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm that has tracked voting equipment use since 1980, 34 percent of the nation's counties have bought new equipment during the past two years.

The firm's president, Kimball Brace, said 36 counties in the United States changed from electronic touch-screen systems to optical scan systems from 2000 to 2006.

"What was taking place, particularly over the past two years, is people are looking at the controversy over the paper trail and are starting to move to the optical scan as kind of the safe bet," Brace said.
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Staff writer Victor Hull contributed to this report.