Here we vote again

By Tim O'Meilia, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 2, 2004

WEST PALM BEACH Remember the butterfly ballot/hanging chad fiasco of November 2000 that took 37 days and a U.S. Supreme Court intervention before a new president could be declared?
 
Recall that Palm Beach County was the seat of the electoral turmoil?

Despite that, only three citizens showed up Monday to watch the obligatory testing of the voting equipment that will be used March 9 in the Democratic presidential preferential primary and for elections in 11 municipalities.

Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore was amazed there were that many. "We can count on one hand how many people come out for this over the past few years," she said.

One observer was Lantana council candidate Rosemary Mouring, wearing a homemade political button. "I want to learn everything I can learn," she said.

The other two were simply suspicious of the entire touch-screen voting system. An optical-scan system would have been better, cheaper and provide a paper ballot to examine if recounts became necessary, said Glenn MacLean, who is challenging LePore in the nonpartisan race for elections supervisor.

Richard Kerr of Palm Beach Gardens pondered this: What if someone "puts in four or five lines of source code that tells the system that between 2 and 3 p.m. on such and such a date, every fourth vote for Candidate B be switched to Candidate A? Would testing be enough to catch that?"

Change five votes on each of 2,000 machines and that's a 20,000-vote swing. Florida was decided by 537 votes. Of course, that would take a real inside job.

Testing went perfectly on the 47 sample machines of the 2,293 that will be deployed across the county. The rest have been examined by elections workers outside Monday's public test.

Still, there's room for confusion and controversy. The Democrat primary ballot has nine names, the most in a single race since the 10 choices on the 2000 presidential ballot.

This time, the ballot will be single file, instead of the butterfly method of six on one side, four on the other.

Trouble is, five of the nine candidates have already withdrawn, all after Jan. 7 when the state approved the ballot. After today's "super primary," several more may out.

Florida Democrats will be choosing among more non-candidates than candidates. "We're already getting calls saying how stupid we are because some of the candidates have withdrawn," LePore said. "But it's too late to change the ballot" set by the state elections office.

Only Democrats can vote March 9 except for the 11 municipalities that are holding council elections and referendums.

tim_omeilia@pbpost.com