Human error causes frustration at polls
By Mary McLachlin
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
WEST PALM BEACH The human oops factor caused more upset than technology failures in Tuesday's balloting, according to the complaints of confused, frustrated or angry voters.
The most reported problem: Democrats couldn't vote in their party's presidential primary because poll workers pushed the wrong buttons to activate their voting machine key-cards.
Some caught the error in time, but others realized it only after voting in municipal races and then asking why their ballots didn't have the presidential primary. They said they got either apologies for the mistake or blame for not speaking up sooner, but in either case, they didn't get to vote. To many, it revived the indignation over the November 2000 election that put George W. Bush in the White House.
"I'm mad about it," fumed David McCarty of Lake Worth, who said he reported the problem to the Democratic National Committee. "I'm an American citizen, I'm a Vietnam veteran, and they took something I fought for away from me. We're over there trying to teach Iraq how to run a democracy, and we can't even get it right here."
Former Lantana Councilman John Vivian had the same experience and same reaction. He said he's never missed voting in 50 years and wanted to cast his ballot for a fellow veteran.
"I have 23 years in the military," Vivian said, "and it angered me to think that I couldn't vote for John Kerry."
Voters also complained about other, more common election day glitches: no signs and difficult access to polling places, balky machines plagued by long delays in showing ballots, not being allowed to cast write-in votes, lack of privacy while voting, power outages and poll workers unfamiliar with audio ballots for the blind.
Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore said all 680 polling places were open on time at 7 a.m. and that the touch-screen voting machines worked well overall. She attributed the reports of trouble that kept bubbling up to human error.
In Palm Beach Gardens, poll workers accidentally allowed a Republican to vote as a Democrat. The voter skipped the only Democratic race on the ballot, the presidential contest, then complained to television stations instead of alerting elections workers, LePore said.
Workers also had early morning problems with card activators at the Salvation Army on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, but West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel said she had no trouble voting at the poll between 7:30 and 8 a.m.
At Century Village in suburban West Palm Beach, some elderly voters said the machines wouldn't record their votes at first.
"You really have to press it," said Al Greenberg, 77, who finally got his vote for Dennis Kucinich to register. "He's not the guy who's going to win, but I had my say."
Fredda Butowsky of Ibis in West Palm Beach said she was still waiting for the presidential candidates to appear on the screen when the machine spat out her card. She said her vote for Kerry wouldn't have mattered that much, since he has the nomination virtually sewn up — "but it will make a difference when I vote in the election in November. I don't want it to be an omen of 'Florida, Florida, Florida.' "
Absentee voters had their own oops problems, which had nothing to do with machines. The county canvassing board examined and rejected 161 absentee ballots Tuesday afternoon because they didn't have proper signatures or addresses. Among them:
• A Belle Glade voter whose ballot bore the witness signature of a City Commission candidate — a violation of election law.
• State Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach, whose witness had no address listed.
