Atlantis candidate won't contest election

By George Bennett, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 11, 2004

After losing by four votes in an election that saw voters cast 42 blank ballots on touch-screen voting machines, Atlantis City Council candidate Eric Mangione declined to contest the results Wednesday and turned down an offer from U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler's office to join in a lawsuit challenging paperless voting.
 
Mangione's narrow loss to incumbent Councilman Lester Fields was a landslide compared with his last time on the ballot. In 1994, Mangione lost an Ocean Ridge race by a single vote.

Fields had 413 votes to Mangione's 409 in Tuesday night returns, a difference of 0.48 percent. There were 42 "undervotes," which are ballots marked for neither candidate.

The Fields-Mangione race was the last of three council races on the Atlantis ballot. There were 21 undervotes in incumbent Fred Furtado's victory over Jodi Schaffer and 13 undervotes in Dave Cantley's win over incumbent William Howell.

Because the Fields-Mangione race was closer than 0.5 percent, the county canvassing board was required by state law to conduct a machine recount Wednesday. That exercise produced the same results.

The recounted results also were close enough that Mangione could ask for a manual recount. Mangione has until 5 p.m. Friday to do so, but said, "I seriously doubt I'm going to challenge it."

Mangione played tennis rather than attend Wednesday's 5 p.m. canvassing board meeting.

Wexler, D-Delray Beach, filed a federal lawsuit this week challenging paperless voting. Wexler says the electronic touch-screen voting machines used by Palm Beach County and 14 other Florida counties should be outfitted with printers so elections officials could consult a paper record in close elections.

Meanwhile in Washington, Sens. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., introduced a $155 million bill Wednesday that would require that computerized voting systems provide a paper record to voters, which could be used in case of a manual recount. The bill would require that the paper backup system be in place for the 2004 elections.

Mangione called the 42 undervotes in his race "strange" but said he didn't have a problem with touch-screen voting.

"I thought it was clear, and I think it's safer than the old punch-card system," Mangione said.

Mangione, 62, served on the Ocean Ridge Village Council for 12 years before losing a 1994 election by one vote. He challenged those results in court after learning that a town employee who did not live in Ocean Ridge had cast a ballot in the race. The court refused to order a new election.

"That one bothered me," Mangione said Wednesday. "This one, Mr. Fields is a very nice guy and I'm surprised I got that close as a new resident." Mangione has lived in Atlantis about six months and said he might run for office again in the future.