by Lesley Clark -- McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Two longtime congressional critics of electronic voting machines seized on the turmoil in Florida Wednesday to renew a call for a paper trail of voter ballots.
As investigators in Sarasota County, Fla., continued to sort out why 18,000 blank votes, or "undervotes," were recorded in the race to replace Rep. Katherine Harris, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Rush Holt charged that the inaccuracy of the machines "poses a direct threat to the integrity of our electoral system and to our nation's democracy."\"Without a voter-verified paper audit trail, no satisfactory resolution is possible," said Holt, adding that machine problems also cropped up in New Jersey. "One side or the other will always doubt the result."
Florida officials continued to investigate Sarasota County's touch-screen voting machines. The "undervote" in the congressional race was far more than the undervote in other counties in the congressional district.
But Holt noted that without a paper record there was no way to tell what happened.
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