Palm Beach County vote results still incomplete (FL)
Palm Beach Post. November 05, 2008. By JANE MUSGRAVE, Staff Writer

Candidates have conceded. Victory parties have been held. Pundits have moved on to talk about what it all means.

But in Palm Beach County, thousands of votes remain to be counted.
 
Problems with four cartridges have prevented county election officials from posting complete unofficial results of Tuesday's race. While tests were still being done, Assistant County Administrator Brad Merriman said it is likely the ballots themselves will be run through tabulating machines later today.

The bad cartridges, from early voting sites in Belle Glade and the county library on Hagen Ranch Road in suburban Boynton Beach and two precincts, represent thousands - not tens of thousands of votes, said Merriman, who is overseeing the office for ailing Election Supervisor Arthur Anderson.

The Supervisor of Election web site this morning reported these locations with partial results:

- Precinct 5148 - Pines of Boca Barwood

- Precinct 6070 - Palm Beach County Fire Rescue No. 26 in West Palm Beach

- Precinct 7036 - Mangonia Park City Hall

There are also thousands of absentee ballots to be counted. Roughly 118,000 had been returned to the election office by mid-day Tuesday but additional ones continued to stream in before the 7 p.m. deadline, he said. About 100,000 have been counted. Because some of the yet-to-be-counted ballots will have to go before the county elections canvassing board, a final tally of absentee ballots probably won't occur until later this week, he said.

But, he said, it doesn't appear the results of any election would be affected.

The closest race is the District 83 state House race between Republican incumbent State Rep. Carl Domino and his Democratic challenger Bryan Miller. Of 79,709 votes cast, they are now separated by 2,579 votes.

Merriman said none of the bad cartridges from early voting sites or the precincts is from the north county district. The absentee ballots are from all over the county so, he said, it is unlikely Domino's roughly 3 percent lead would change when all the votes are counted.

A recount is triggered if vote totals are within 1/2 of 1 percent.

Merriman said it isn't unusual to encounter cartridges that can't be read by computer tabulation machines. Out of 900 cartridges countywide, there's bound to be problems, he said.

Because there's ballots - the much-vaunted paper trail - people's votes are protected. The ballots can simply be run through the machines.

Anderson, who announced in after the primary that he has incurable but treatable blood cancer, called Merriman on Tuesday to thank him for his hard work.

Staff writer Christine Stapleton contributed to this story.