WASHINGTON --
U.S. election officials gave Florida the go-ahead Tuesday to use federal money to pay for voting machines with a paper trail, easing the way for the state Legislature to scrap touch-screen machines in Miami-Dade, Broward and 13 other counties.
The agreement capped a two-hour meeting before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which rejected the bid to tap one federal pot, then told the state how to get the $28 million it asked for anyway: Use the federal funds to reimburse itself for the millions Florida spent on new voting machines after the ''hanging chads and butterfly ballots'' debacle of the 2000 presidential election.

The initial rejection prompted an impassioned plea from Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who told the commission that without federal money, the state would be unable to move to paper ballots in time for the 2008 presidential election.

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