Two computer crashes last year destroyed most of the electronic records from recent Miami-Dade County elections, raising fears about the touch-screen technology the county bought to prevent a debacle similar to the 2000 presidential election.

Elections officials say they that have since fixed the problem, and that the crashes occurred long after any potential call for a recount passed. For at least 10 days after an election, they say, the votes are kept in a memory device called a ``flash card.''

''Immediately after the elections, the flash cards still exist,'' said Seth Kaplan, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade Department of Elections. ``They could have done a recount.''

Still, the department has no idea what caused the server to crash in May and November 2003 and erase nearly all of the electronic data from the previous year's gubernatorial primary and general election.

The November incident happened shortly after a major municipal election. The elections department could not say whether the crash could have jeopardized a potential request for a recount. Luckily, no recount was called for.

The Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, which discovered the problem, said the loss of data highlights the unreliability of a system that has been wracked with glitches since the county began using it in 2002. More ominously, they say, it shows how ephemeral votes can be in an electronic system with no paper trail to rely on for a recount.

''We will never know how good or bad the audit capability because the data is gone,'' said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, an attorney and chairwoman of the coalition. ``What this shows from a big-picture perspective is that no one knows what's going on.''

For months, the coalition has been raising concerns about the voting system -- manufactured by Omaha-based Election Systems & Software -- and its ability to do a recount.

TWO PATHS

Mainly, reformers want the votes recorded on at least two separate electronic paths. That way, if one is corrupted, officials can compare the data from both to discover discrepancies.

As it is, every touch-screen machine records the day's votes, which are downloaded into a personal electronic ballot when the precinct closes. That data is then tabulated at a central clearing house.

FLASH CARDS

If that data is recorded incorrectly or corrupted, officials could go to the flash card, where the votes are separately stored. But the flash cards have had problems. This year, a county information technology expert found that the audit trails in the flash cards were scrambled.

ES&S could not initially explain why this happened.

This month, the company said it discovered the glitch in the code and fixed it so that the audit trails are reliable.

By law, the data from the flash cards must be saved. Until December 2003, the elections department was saving it to computer servers before sweeping the flash cards clean for re-use.

The revelation that the servers crashed and lost most of the information, including several municipal elections, is not likely to inspire voter confidence. This discovery was first reported by The New York Times.

STORED ON TAPE

Kaplan, the spokesman, said the data is now stored on a tape every day, making it immune to any type of computer failure.

But Rodriguez-Taseff is unswayed. She said the elections department was told before the November crash to save the information on compact discs. ''They never did,'' she said.

''What do they even know about these crashes?'' she asked. ``Have they even investigated them?''

© Copyright 2004 Miami Herald

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