Recent news about Florida experiencing more voting problems prompts wags to exclaim sarcastically, "Really?  What else is new?"  Voting difficulties are now etched into Florida's firmament as indelibly as bright sunshine, sandy beaches, hurricanes, and humidity.

I can qualify as a before and after experiment pertaining to my own experiences living recently in Florida as well as what I encountered when I moved one year ago to my current home of Seattle.  The voting procedures were as different as between day and night with land of sunshine Florida occupying the level of darkness in the stark equation.

After much enthusiastic trumpeting Florida's political power elite gushed that a new and advanced age of technology had arrived with the advent of touch screen voting.  I was present when the new technology made its debut in my Fort Lauderdale precinct.

The new apparatus was being unveiled in Broward County at a time when the circumstances appeared at least superficially simple.  I turned out to vote against Mayor Jim Naugle in his umpteenth reelection attempt, spurred on once more by the local power structure.