Political science and voting-system experts believe they know exactly what happened.

A group of seven e-voting experts hired by the state of Florida to review the case and check iVotronic's software will likely conclude that a poorly designed ballot and a lack of a meaningful undervote warning on the Election Systems & Software machine resulted in many voters missing the Congressional race, a source familiar with the group's deliberations told SecurityFocus.

The theory is backed by a 60-page statistical analysis penned by four political-science researchers that concluded that, if the county's voters had used the election equipment and ballot design that were used by other counties, Jennings would have received at least another 3,000 votes and won the election.

"I think that one thing this election will do is show that we need to study to how best to represent a ballot," said Michael Herron, professor of government at Dartmouth College and one of the authors of the analysis.

In the paper (PDF), Herron and his colleagues used statistical analysis to show that the undervote only happened in three counties: for the U.S. House of Representatives' race in Sarasota and for the Attorney General's race in Charlotte and Lee counties. In all three cases, the race with the large number of undervotes was paired with another election contest on the same page.

Putting a single race on each page could solve the undervote problem, but having a more obvious warning to the voter that they missed a race could be a better solution. ES&S's iVotronic does not have an immediate undervote warning but does show that the voter did not make a selection in a review screen at the end of the process.

"Every iVotronic has a review screen giving voters a chance to check their choices and see if they missed a race," said Ken Fields, a spokesperson for the voting system maker.

The group of seven voting experts hired by the state of Florida, and led by Alec Yasinsac, an associate professor of computer science at Florida State University, will likely conclude that the ballot review at the end of the voting process is not enough to prevent undervotes, according to a source familiar with the deliberations of the group. So far, no major flaws in ES&S's software have been found that could have affected the election, said the source, who asked not to be named.

The fight may have ended for all practical purposes, but the Jennings campaign has not given up. Jennings legal team and another group of voters appealed a circuit court decision last week, after ES&S and Florida officials successfully prevented the challengers from winning an order to open up the voting machine maker's source code.

Finding that the election problems were primarily caused by ballot design will likely mean that the result will stand, said Dan Tokaji, a professor of law at the University of Ohio's Moritz School of Law. Since there is no way to determine how the people who missed voting would have voted, the only way to change the election would be to have a revote--an unlikely outcome, he said.

"If it was a software problem, then I think the argument for a revote is much stronger, but if it because (voters) missed the race, then I think that a revote is much more unlikely," Tokaji said. "There are problems and glitches in every election, so we have to ask ourselves the question that in what circumstances are the problems so serious that we can't stand them and need to have a new election."

Looking beyond the election, it's not clear what the best solution would be to the undervote problem.

A dialog box box that pops up to warn a person when they have not voted in a race could become a distraction, Tokaji said. "When we get to the point of having dialog boxes to warn of undervotes, I worry that we are going to slow down the voting process," he said.

Forcing voters to vote in every race, but giving them another choice--none of the above--could also solve the problem, but could also take more time. The strategy also raises the fear among politicians that a majority of voters could choose "none of the above," essentially casting a vote of no confidence in the candidates.

However, it's a choice that Florida's current winner has now also proposed.

"State legislators should put an end to the mystery of 'undervotes' by requiring a 'none of the above' box be included for all races," Rep. Buchanan said in last week's statement.

"That would render a ballot invalid if a choice weren't made in all races, and poll workers would spot the omission and alert voters immediately so they could correct it," he said. "There would be no more frustrated voters who fear their votes weren't counted."