Elections chief, senator fire back

Dara Kam for Palm Beach Post
Saturday, August 7, 2004

TALLAHASSEE Sen. Ron Klein and Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore agree on one thing: They've both had it.

Thursday's outburst had been brewing since LePore's handling of the 2000 election, and it escalated about a month ago when Klein, the Florida Senate Democratic leader, came to her office with a three-page list of questions and the suggestion that she simply isn't doing her job.

The tension between the two elected officials came to the boiling point Thursday, after LePore learned that Klein wants voters in the 15 counties that use touch-screen voting machines to be able to cast their ballots on paper.

"I've been holding back in saying this, but I've just about had it," LePore said.

"I have intentionally not been going after her, but I've about had it," Klein said upon hearing that she slammed his three-point plan to increase voter confidence.

When told that LePore said she has worked in the elections office since 1971 longer than Klein has lived in Florida he retorted: "That doesn't mean she's doing it well, though."

Klein, of Delray Beach, reiterated Friday that he is "very, very concerned" that LePore isn't doing everything she should to ensure that Palm Beach County citizens feel confident that their votes will be counted.

The standoff between them has become so bad, he said, that she refuses to return his calls. Since last week, Klein said, he has called LePore's assistant eight times and had yet to receive a response by early Friday evening.

"Can you even imagine that?" an indignant Klein asked. "If my office responded that way to one constituent forget being a state senator any constituent, they should hang me out to dry."

LePore, who said her assistant had just a single call from Klein's staff, said she feels he's been hounding her and that she's fed up with his accusations, many of which she says are based on his ignorance of election laws.

"To be quite honest, I don't answer to Senator Klein," she said. "I answer to the constituents of Palm Beach County. I've got a job to do, and I can't have legislators trying to tell me how to do my job when they're not familiar with the process."

Klein says he has voted using the touch-screen machines and has no problem with them.

But he says he believes that many area residents are worried that their votes may again go uncounted, after reports of the machines' malfunctions in Miami-Dade County and in other states, error rates higher than those found with optical-scan machines and lingering doubts of voters still smarting from the specter of hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads.

Klein's plan would require placing at least one optical-scan machine, which range in price from $4,100 to $5,500 apiece, in each precinct to tabulate the paper ballots. LePore said the county now owns four such machines and would need at least 696 more to meet Klein's demands adding up to $2.8 million, at least.

"That's real money," LePore said.

"If that's the case then that's the case," Klein said. "We need to have one. Whatever we have to do to make it right, that's what we should do. I don't want to hear excuses from the Division of Elections. I don't want to hear excuses from the governor. I don't want to hear excuses from the supervisors of elections. How much would it cost to screw it up again? We made serious mistakes in Florida. But we should have learned lots of lessons in this."

Klein's attitude, LePore said, exemplifies his lack of knowledge of the mechanics of running an election.

"Can the manufacturer manufacture that many machines in that short amount of time? No," an obviously irritated LePore said. "Can you train the poll workers in that short amount of time? No. Do we have the storage space in our current facility? No.

"You've got the paper issues, printing issues, security issues. There are a whole lot of issues that the advocates of the paper ballot don't comprehend or don't want to understand."

If it weren't for the gravity of the issue at stake fair and open elections the sniping about the questions and answers after last month's nearly two-hour meeting with the state senator during one of LePore's busiest times of the year, would carry the he-said, she-said quality of schoolyard bickering.

"It's never been about her," Klein said. "I'm not going to get dragged in the mud on whether she's a nice lady or not. That's not my issue here. I am just concerned that her office does the important things to make sure people are properly trained and that people know where to go and how to vote and that their votes get counted."

Klein took LePore's answers to the three-page questionnaire he had presented LePore during their meeting and sent them to his constituents in an August newsletter, but he's still not satisfied.

His focus is what he characterizes as a lack of information from LePore's office to the entire electorate of the county.

This includes, Klein said, the standardized sample ballot that LePore plans to send out this year. He said this one-size-fits-all ballot will just confuse people.

LePore countered that sample ballots customized for each precinct would be cost-prohibitive.

"All they had to do was look at the number and look at the page and be done with it," LePore said of the standardized ballot. "God forbid we have to read and follow instructions."

Klein also said LePore hasn't done enough to let elderly voters know they can fill out a form that allows them to their signatures and not be turned away from the polls because their signature doesn't match the one on file.

Workers in the Delray Beach elections office on Thursday did not know when the absentee ballots would be mailed, Klein said. LePore said she could not have predicted when they would be sent out until they all came back from the printer. They arrived Friday, and LePore said they would be sent to voters Monday.

"I think Senator Klein is nitpicking on a lot of things that he knows nothing about," LePore said.

Klein did praise LePore for her thoroughness in testing every machine and offered to assist her to get the word out to voters.

"Time's a-wasting," he said. "We need to take action and make sure these procedures are put to bed. And if she needs help in getting the word out, I'll talk to every media outlet in town."

That's where he and LePore agree.

"I need to get on with my job and I need to get back to concentrating on putting on a good election Aug. 31 and Nov. 2," she said on her way to demonstrate voting machines Friday evening. "I don't have time for this nonsense."