Despite new state leader, election worries return four years after Bush-Gore fiasco

By Linda Kleindienst and Buddy Nevins
Staff Writers
Posted July 13 2004

TALLAHASSEE Nearly four years after the 2000 presidential fiasco, new controversies are swirling around the state elections division raising questions about how Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood is running her office and kindling fears about what lies ahead for voters in November.

When Gov. Jeb Bush tapped Hood as Florida's chief election official, one of her key missions was to prevent a repeat of the balloting debacle that made the Sunshine State the target of late-night comedians and kept the nation waiting 36 days to find out who would be president.

But nearly two years later, nobody is laughing about a recent series of missteps in Hood's office.

The former Orlando mayor, a longtime Bush family political ally who was Bush's first significant appointment of his second term, has indeed been preparing for the elections with a $3.2 million voter registration and education effort, including television ads in which she is prominent.

Yet her office has undergone major staff changes and she is under siege from lawsuits challenging the accuracy of touch-screen voting machines.

On Saturday, she beat a retreat from a 47,000-name list designed to keep felons from voting, citing a glitch that could have allowed Hispanic felons more likely to be Republicans than Democrats, some say to vote. Meanwhile, analyses by Florida newspapers revealed the voting roll purge list contained the names of some 2,000 felons whose voting rights had been restored.

And despite Hood's consistent support of electronic voting, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis revealed that Florida's new ATM-style voting machines, which will be used by more than half the state's voters this year, are not as accurate as systems that use paper ballots tallied by an optical scanner.

"The [state] Division of Elections seems to be in complete disarray," said Ion Sancho, Leon County elections supervisor and a past president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. "They don't seem to be looking out for the general protection of the public."

Lance deHaven-Smith, a Florida State University political scientist, said the chaos surrounding Hood's office leads him to fear the upcoming election will not be run fairly.

"We know problems haven't been corrected. The felon disenfranchisement is just one. The problems in that office raise serious doubt about the motives of the people in charge in Tallahassee," he said. "It appears the Republican election officials don't have a strong desire to improve, making sure there is easy access to the polls, that the machines work, that the election is accurately counted and that everybody eligible can vote."

Conspiracy theories have been swirling around the administration of Hood, who took office in February 2003 as the state's first appointed secretary of state, as they did around her predecessor, now-U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who was Florida's chief election officer during the 2000 presidential recount. Although Hood will not serve as a co-leader of President Bush's re-election as Harris did four years ago she still has strong connections to the Bush family and was at one time considered a potential running mate for the governor.

Hood's job has not been easy. Her office has been bombarded by complaints almost daily from a wide range of organizations, from the Internet liberal powerhouse Moveon.org, to Democracy for America, which grew out of Howard Dean's presidential bid, and the Democratic Party.

Today Hood, 54, will again be the target of protests. Verifiedvoting.org is scheduled to conduct a rally on the Old Capitol steps in downtown Tallahassee and six others around the state as part of its national "The Computer Ate My Vote Day." One will be at 2 p.m. at the Broward County Government Center, 115 S. Andrews Ave., Fort Lauderdale.

After the Tallahassee rally, Hood will be presented with petitions demanding that printers be attached to touch-screen voting machines, a move she and Bush have steadfastly resisted.

"We know the world is watching Florida; we welcome the attention, because we know we are doing the right things," Hood said recently. "Everything with the election system has changed. What happened in 2000 could not happen again."

Her optimistic streak is often characterized by an unwavering smile in the face of criticism.

"I think it's unfortunate that there will always be those who want to undermine the confidence people have in their government by throwing around misinformation," added Hood, a fourth-generation Floridian and native of Orlando who became the city's first female mayor in 1992 and served three terms.

Hood's office said she could not respond to requests for an interview on Monday.

Bush, however, continued to back the accuracy of the touch-screen voting machines, saying the safeguards are there to prevent problems, even though a Sun-Sentinel analysis of records from this year's presidential primary shows that votes were not recorded for one of every 100 voters using the new machines.

"If you ... didn't vote for some reason ... you are prompted. And you are prompted again. After three prompts, one could suggest that you are not going to vote in that election," he said. "That's not not counting all the votes, in all due respect."

Jim Smith, a former Republican secretary of state who again stepped into the role in 2002 when Harris resigned to run for Congress, said the public has the unfortunate perception that it is possible to hold a flawless election.

"But we're talking humans and machines," he said. "You know it's not going to be perfect."

Yet the state's vigorous defense of the machines and mishandling of the felons list has convinced U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, that the elections office is not being run correctly. He voiced fears that Florida could see a repeat of the 2000 election, when a 537-vote margin decided the presidential election but this time around there will be no possibility of recounts.

"People have lost confidence that the governor and secretary of state are acting in a fair-minded way," said Wexler, who filed lawsuits in state and federal court to require a way to recount ballots, such as installing printers on the touch-screen machines.

South Florida legislators meanwhile say they are hearing concern and distrust from their constituents.

State Rep. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, said he fears a potentially dangerous byproduct to this appearance of chaos: His black constituents believe their vote won't be counted in November and may not bother to go to the polls. So he is using Hood's actions as a get-out-the-vote tool for Democrats.

"When I go around my district churches, barber shops, places like that I tell folks that they've got to get out and vote or those people in Tallahassee have won," he said. "And I tell them to bring an extra person to the poll."