MIAMI -- A computer glitch caused Miami-Dade County's electronic voting machines to throw out hundreds of ballots in a special election this month and raised questions about votes in five other municipal elections, officials said.

The problem came to light when officials noticed a high number of undervotes in the March 8 election on whether to have slot machines at tracks and jai alai frontons. Undervotes are ballots with no recorded votes.

The elections department also identified five other suspicious municipal elections: West Miami, Bay Harbor Island, Surfside, Golden Beach and Cutler Ridge.

The undervotes wouldn't have changed the results of any of the elections, county Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan said.

But County Manager George Burgess wants all the votes reviewed.

"It's disturbing, and that's an understatement," Burgess told The Miami Herald. "We have to take our responsibility seriously. Every vote needs to be counted."

Kaplan said 477 of 1,246 electronically cast undervotes in the slot machine referendum could be blamed on a faulty computer program. Bad coding told the machines to reject ballots if voters didn't press a red flashing button to complete the process. Normally, other safeguards would have ensured those votes were counted.

Kaplan blamed human error and said two supervisors have been reassigned. She said a project manager with Elections System & Software, which makes the machines, should have detected the problem.

The company said the county bears ultimate responsibility for all aspects of an election.

© 2005 The Associated Press

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