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Loading ...Ghost Of 2000: Voting chaos in Palm Beach County
09.11.2008 12:00pm EDT
(Miami, Florida) Missing ballots. A cadre of lawyers. An election recount. Welcome to Palm Beach County in 2008.
With less than eight weeks before the November general election, Palm Beach County leaders – and Florida elections officials – are still trying to sort out what happened during a local election Aug. 26.The problems remind some of the chaos during the Bush-Gore recount in 2000, albeit without the hanging chads, butterfly ballots and high stakes.
A judicial race sparked the latest mess. William Abramson was leading incumbent Circuit Judge Richard Wennet by 17 votes after an initial count of 102,523 ballots. That triggered a re-count, which turned up some 3,500 fewer ballots and put Wennet ahead by 60 votes. Election officials don’t know if the ballots are missing or never existed.
“An accurate count is the lifeblood of our truly democratic process,” said Mark Siegel of the Democratic Executive Committee of Palm Beach County. “A complete mystery is worse than tampering.”
Now Abramson is suing to be declared the winner and Wennet is calling on Gov. Charlie Crist to authorize a special election on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.
Holding a special election on any other day this year would cost Palm Beach County $1.6 million.
Crist spokesman Sterling Ivey said the governor is reluctant to order a new election, at least for now, because it’s not clear whether he has the authority.
Normally, Florida’s governor can call a special election if a judge resigns or dies and a vacancy must be filled. In this instance, Ivey said, Crist would prefer Abramson’s suit to be heard in court.
Said Ivey: “This is uncharted territory.”
Adding to the confusion: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson leaves office in 60 days, just after the Nov. 4 election. He was defeated in his own primary race last month. State officials have pledged to help him ensure that the November election runs smoothly for the county’s 800,000-plus registered voters.
Jennifer Krell Davis, spokeswoman for Florida’s Secretary of State, says technical experts from her office have been helping Palm Beach officials with ballot accounting procedures, among other things.
A Tallahassee judge was set Wednesday to discuss Abramson’s suit with lawyers for both candidates.
Meanwhile, the two main political parties and a bipartisan coalition of voting rights advocates, including the League of Women Voters, fumed about Palm Beach County’s election problems during a telephone press conference Wednesday.
Palm Beach County is no stranger to such issues. In the turbulent 2000 presidential election, the county’s butterfly ballot confused some voters and led them to cast their votes for third-party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore. The Supreme Court halted a recount after 36 days and handed a 537-vote victory to President Bush. The county, along with other parts of the country, has since switched to electronic voting equipment.
Voting rights advocates said the county must avoid similar problems during the November presidential election.
“Everybody wants the same thing for the voters: an election of accuracy and integrity,” says Pam Goodman, president of the League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County. “We need help in Palm Beach County to help ensure that.”
Also on the ballot in Florida this November will be a proposal to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
article, of course, good, but something it lacks.
STATES TO WATCH FOR FRAUD THAT THE MCcAIN CAMPAIGN IS ALREADY GEARING UP FOR CAGING:
wisconsin
pennsylvania
virginia.
As reported on Air America Today, McCain is sending out misleading Absentee ballots to Democrats with false return addresses, or postage-paid ballots to the RNC!!!!
Double check to make sure you are registered. Call your Election supervisor and ask. Use the internet. Do not take for granted you are registered.
If you live in a state battling anti-gay ammendments it is ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT for you to check your registration status.
If this election is lost to McCain because of proper voting – fine!
But if this election is lost to Voter Fraud by the republican party (for a third time) you ALL know what we have to do…..!
US citizens (including President Jimmy Carter) volunteer to go to third-world countries to observe elections and report on their accuracy and fairness. I think we need a cadre of out-of-state non-partisan volunteers to do the same all over Florida. If fair elections are desirable in third-world countries, shouldn’t they be required in the US?
Attention America (particularly LGBT America):
This is an open letter to you and the Obama campaign. PLEASE READ.
I am a Palm Beach County voter who has voted since 1992. Take it from me: OUR ELECTIONS OFFICE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT IS DOING, AND FLORIDA CAN’T COUNT VOTES!
We have not improved even marginally since 2000. We have now changed our system of voting for the THIRD TIME in eight years, and come November, we will have our third ELECTIONS SUPERVISOR in eight years!
We just can’t get it right. Here are some examples.
I went to vote on Aug. 26 at the same precinct I have gone to for at least the last 4 years. It took longer for them to find my name on the voter rolls than it did to vote. I had my photo ID and everything. I found my name on the list and had to point it out to the election volunteer! Guy couldn’t read!
We now have optical scan machines with paper ballots. You darken to fill in the arrow to the choice you want, or simply draw a line. Many voters here couldn’t even follow directions on the ballot. Many voters put smiley faces and check marks where they were to draw a line!!
And now to our beloved incompetent in charge, Arthur Anderson. He was voted in because he conned the elder “Seinfeld” voters in the southern part of the county to vote for him in 2004 at the insistence of Congressman Robert Wexler. Anderson had no elections experience whatsoever. I’m sure Wexler is now regretting he even came across Mr. Anderson.
Anderson is so incompetent that he told the press that election results will NOT be “fast AND accurate”! Huh?? We wasted millions of our local tax dollars, promised that would be the case. In 2006, he sent out election results to the press, but the problem was there was no precinct count! We had numbers, but had no idea how many precincts were counted! All night we saw “0% Precincts Reporting”!
I can’t even MAKE this stuff up! Check out the archives at http://www.palmbeachpost.com and do a search of Arthur Anderson and the local elections of ‘06 and ‘08.
If anyone from the Obama campaign is reading this, please heed this advice: WIN WITHOUT FLORIDA. Don’t make the same mistake Gore and Kerry did by wasting time and resources here. Win in Ohio. Win in Colorado. Win in Virginia. Win anywhere else but here! It can be done. Clinton did it in ‘92.
As for me, I am still voting come November 4. As to whether it will ultimately be counted, I have a better chance sighting Sasquatch in the Everglades!