Posted on Sat, Jan. 10, 2004  
 
HOUSE DISTRICT 91
Board delays certifying vote
Left frustrated by confusing state instructions for a recount, Broward's canvassing board decided not to certify a House election until it has written guidelines from Tallahassee.
BY ERIKA BOLSTAD
ebolstad@herald.com

There will be no victory party for Ellyn Bogdanoff, elected Tuesday to the state House District 91 by 12 votes over her opponent.

Broward County's canvassing board on Friday postponed certifying the election until it receives instructions on how to count 134 ''undervotes'' cast on electronic voting machines.

The undervotes occurred when people cast a ballot without choosing a candidate.

Because the race was so close, by state law, the county canvassing board has to do two recounts: one of all votes cast and another of all ''undervotes'' and ''overvotes.'' Overvotes occur when those voting by absentee ballot pick more than one candidate in the same race.

The issue has been complicated by contradictory instructions from the state Division of Elections, a cautious new county supervisor of elections and a lack of any paper record that would shed light on how the 134 residents who cast their ballot, but didn't vote for any candidate really intended to vote.

''I'd like to make sure we're operating appropriately,'' said Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes. ``I'm just asking for clarification, that's all.''

The same review must be done in the four Palm Beach County precincts in the district.

Both Broward and Palm Beach ran into snags Friday when the state ordered that all undervotes and overvotes be counted, not just the five found on absentee and provisional ballots.

Broward election officials objected, saying that aside from the five paper ballots there's nothing to count. The undervotes cast on the electronic machines would show nothing more than the equivalent of zeros added into a sum on a calculator.

And even if they could print out a ballot-by-ballot account of each undervote which they cannot on the electronic machines they would show nothing.

''They'd have a blank ballot,'' said Broward County Attorney Ed Dion, who serves as the lawyer for Broward County's canvassing board.

The state only has guidelines for reviewing undervotes cast on optical-scan ballots, the only other type of voting equipment allowed in Florida. It has no such guidelines for counting undervotes on electronic machines, in part because there's no individual record of each ballot cast.

Also, voters cannot overvote on an electronic machine, unless they are deliberately trying to do so. Several on-screen warnings pop up, cautioning that they're about to cast the equivalent of a blank ballot.

But state election officials told Snipes Friday that they wanted the county to print out and review the closest approximation to ballots it had: audit reports from every one of the machines used at the 51 polling places in the election.

However, county officials objected, saying the request is no more than oral instructions from state bureaucrats, not a law or even a published legal guideline for recounts.

A frustrated Oliver Parker, Bogdanoff's opponent, said he agreed with the state's order to print out individual report from each machine and review them before certifying the vote.

''You can't count them in cyberspace,'' he said of the undervotes. ``You have to do it in real space.''

No one with the state Division of Elections could not be reached for comment late Friday.