Election-year déjà vu all over again

. Florida and Ohio, whose electoral votes decided the presidential race in 2000 and 2004, respectively, are provoking anxiety again this time around. Here in the Sunshine State, Palm Beach County (home of the "butterfly ballot" in 2000), 3,478 optical-scan votes disappeared between primary-night counting on Aug. 26 and the official recount a few days later (flipping the outcome of at least one race).

. In Ohio, officials claim they have fixed a software-logic tabulating error in Premier Election Systems machines used in some counties (according to a spokesman for Premier, that error had been present for the last 10 years). And the Ohio secretary of state has ordered election officials to end the practice of taking voting machines home at night during election season "for safekeeping," even though such "sleepovers" had been encouraged in order to protect the machines from tampering.