Florida completely ditches electronic voting machines

Miami Herald:

Florida's experiment with touch-screen voting machines is over.

The Florida Legislature voted Thursday morning to spend nearly $28 million to scrap the ATM-style machines used in 15 Florida counties, including Miami-Dade and Broward, and replace them with ones that use paper ballots.

The push to switch Florida from the touch-screen machines was a top priority of Gov. Charlie Crist, who said he doesn't want the state to be embarrassed anymore by its elections. [...]

Under the bill that Crist will sign, the 15 counties that use touch-screen machines will have until summer 2008 to replace them with optical-scan machines. The bill gives counties until 2012 before disabled voters must also have access to machines that have a paper trail.