Six months after a national controversy over electronic voting machines in Sarasota County, federal, state and local governments vowed to create a paper trail to stop such problems from happening again.

But when Floridians vote in the presidential primary in January, about half the state's electorate, Charlotte County voters included, will do so on the same touch-screen machines.

The only county in Florida likely to have changed its touch-screen to a paper system is Sarasota County, which is required to do so by a voter-mandated Jan. 1 deadline.

But in the other 14 counties that currently use touch-screen voting machines, no changes are anticipated until next summer -- after the presidential primary.

By replacing its machines, Sarasota County hopes to avoid a repeat of last fall's congressional election, the results of which are being contested in court and in Congress after the electronic machines showed 18,000 ballots with no choice for either Republican Vern Buchanan or Democrat Christine Jennings.

Voting advocacy groups are stunned that Florida cannot make the changes statewide before the presidential primary.

Other states have been able to make the full transition from touch-screens to optical scan systems in less than half the time Florida is proposing.

"I think Florida can do it faster," said Pam Smith, president of Verified Voting, a national group opposed to paperless voting. "I think it's a matter of will."

State and county voting officials say confusion over who will pay for the new systems and training for poll workers have all delayed the implementation.

In addition, voting machine companies are struggling to get a new generation of optical scan voting machines developed and certified by the state for next year's election.

Those systems might not be available until the end of 2007.

When the Florida Legislature voted to move the presidential primary to Jan. 29, with early voting starting Jan. 14, it gave counties even less time to get a new system in place.

Like other touch-screen counties, Charlotte County has ruled out getting a paper trail in place for that election.

Voters there will use the same iVotronic touch-screen system.

In all, there are 14 counties besides Sarasota that are trying to change out electronic voting for paper-based voting systems. Those counties includes some of the state's most populous: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Pinellas and Hillsborough.

While Sarasota will be the first of the 15 touch-screen counties to switch to paper, Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent is hardly comfortable with the timetable.

"We will be done, because we don't have a choice," Dent said.

Dent said she wishes she had more time to prepare for the change, fearing Sarasota will be a "guinea pig" for counties trying to figure out what lies ahead in switching back to paper systems.

"Unfortunately, we're going to find out how difficult it is," Dent said.

Dent said she has been talking to voting machine manufacturers, hoping they can provide a temporary system for the presidential primary election until a permanent optical scan system is in place.

With four to six months needed to put in a new system, Dent said it is not likely one will be widely available for the state until after the Jan. 29 election.

Vendors are facing orders from more than just Florida. Already, 27 states have created laws mandating voter-verified paper voting.

Another dozen could have similar legislation passed this year.

With an optical scan system, voters would fill out a paper ballot that would then be fed into a reading machine.

While the state and county seem to be in agreement on changing to an optical scan system, there are still unresolved questions.

One of the biggest is funding: how much money Sarasota, Charlotte and other touch-screen voting counties will get from the state and federal governments, and how much the counties will have to pay.

Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning has received clearance from the federal government to use more than $28 million from the "Help America Vote Act" fund to pay for much of the transition.

But local officials are already declaring that amount will not be enough. Palm Beach County officials say they will need $19 million for their county alone.

Help may come from the federal government. Congress is considering legislation that would authorize $1 billion to be spent nationwide to get all states to turn to paper-based voting.

"We can't afford to wait any longer to give people confidence that elections are accurate and verifiable," said Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who is the bill's sponsor.

But even Holt's legislation concludes it will not happen in time for the presidential primary elections.

For Florida counties the issue is not just money. Local and state officials are still trying to determine which vendor will be chosen and whether it will be handled by the state or the county.

"Let's get a complete picture of how complicated this is before we solve it," said Jono Miller, the chairman of the county citizens task force charged with recommending a new voting system in Sarasota.

That Citizen Oversight Committee on Voting Systems meets again today, likely for the last time. The group is expected to vote on a recommendation for which of three voting machine companies the county should contract with.

This month the proposal would go to the full County Commission, which will also get recommendations from Dent and the county's purchasing department on which vendor the county should turn to.



Jeremy Wallace can be reached at 361-4966 or jeremy.wallace@ heraldtribune.com.