The governor of Florida announced on Thursday a $33-million proposal to drop touchscreen voting systems and replace the controversial polling hardware with optical scan machines statewide, after numerous problems have plagued the state's elections.

The proposal, made as part of the state's budget process, would pay for 100 percent of the conversion, would only allow touchscreen system for disabled voters and for early voting, and would upgrade those systems to include a paper trail. The move is a setback for paperless polling machines and a rejection of the contention by former governor Jeb Bush, brother of U.S. President George W. Bush, that touchscreen systems are reliable.

"My recommended budget would allow a verifiable paper trail of Florida’s voting system, without placing a financial burden on county taxpayers," Governor Charlie Crist said in a statement announcing the proposal. "Our goal is to increase voter confidence and ensure Floridians have confidence in the voting process."

Many of the election problems that have fueled criticism of voting systems have happened in Florida. In November's midterm elections, a statistically improbable lack of votes in the hotly contested Congressional race between Republican candidate Vern Buchanan and Democratic challenger Christine Jennings resulted in Buchanan winning the election by a slim margin of 369 votes. Nearly 15 percent, about 18,000, of the people who used the iVotronic systems manufactured by Election Systems & Software failed to vote in the representative race. A coming report is expected to blame the undervote on poor ballot design and a lack of meaningful warning of missed elections by the system.

Such problems, as well as security issues, have led computer scientists and election officials to call for regulations requiring an audit trail that does not wholly depend on the machines' software.

Governor Crist was elected in November 2006 and took office in January.