Thousands of absentee ballots miscounted in Palm Beach County

By Patty Pensa and Anthony Man
South Florida Sun Sentinel

Posted September 2 2004

In a bizarre twist, the election that cost Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore her job became mired Wednesday in a major vote-counting problem when thousands of absentee ballots were counted twice.

Palm Beach County voters cast 31,138 absentee ballots on Tuesday. But when the counting was done early Wednesday morning, the totals showed 37,839 absentee ballots an extra 6,701.

With LePore skipping work the day after her narrow loss to Arthur Anderson, the discrepancy was disclosed during a Wednesday morning meeting of the elections Canvassing Board.

The recount, which entailed resending the ballots through optical scanning machines, started at 11 a.m. and finished late Wednesday. Determining the exact number of absentee ballots proved challenging: early Wednesday the total was 31,095. By day's end it was 31,138.

State election authorities heard from county election workers Wednesday morning, said Alia Faraj, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Glenda Hood.

Faraj said human error was the apparent cause. An elections worker possibly ran an already counted box of absentee ballots through a tabulator again, she said.

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, said he heard the error might have involved double counting of information from a computer cartridge containing absentee ballot results. County Commission Chairwoman Karen Marcus, a member of the Canvassing Board, offered a similar explanation.

County elections officials assured the state that the absentee recount would be completed in time for today's deadline to certify preliminary election results.

"It was human error, but Supervisor LePore has a process in place, which is how they noticed the issue and why they are addressing it," Faraj said. "They were very forthcoming."

One of the odd elements of the recount was that LePore's loss to Anderson was one of the closest countywide contests. His victory wasn't undone by the recount, though the margin tightened.

Anderson went from a 5,533 vote lead to a 4,051 vote advantage.

The tighter margin wasn't a surprise to Wexler, who was Anderson's top supporter.

Many absentee votes were cast shortly after newspaper accounts detailed problems with Anderson's personal finances, including a series of federal tax liens.

By contrast, people who went to the polls made their choice after late campaign visits by former presidential candidate Howard Dean and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the 2000 vice presidential nominee. Those high-profile politicians boosted Anderson's campaign, as did $80,000 of pro-Anderson TV ads paid for by Wexler.

Competence was a central theme of Anderson's campaign.

LePore is best known for the 2000 presidential election, with the butterfly ballot design some voters found confusing and for a stance during the subsequent recount that Democrats said hurt their party's candidate, Al Gore. Every time a glitch came up in recent months, Anderson fired off a press release or called a news conference labeling LePore incompetent.

County Commissioner Burt Aaronson, also an Anderson supporter, said the results back up what LePore's critics had been saying.

"Once again, an error in the supervisor's department. It shouldn't happen. If in the event this now becomes very contentious and very close, once again the state of Florida and Palm Beach County will be in every newspaper in the country," he said. "Here it is again."

Harriet Lerman, winner of the District 3 County Commission Democratic primary, was concerned.

"Oh God, another disaster," Lerman said. "Already we've got a problem."

Democratic state Reps. Irv Slosberg of Boca Raton, Susan Bucher of Royal Palm Beach, and Shelley Vana of Lantana were afraid of the same thing. They rushed to the Elections Office to monitor the recount, but Slosberg was unhappy they weren't allowed to oversee the recount.

"They wanted to do that in the dark," he said.

As a result of the recount, voters might question the process and wonder how their votes were tallied, said Linda Johnson, tri-county area director for the NAACP.

"Whoever wins or loses might feel they weren't treated fairly," she added.

Pasco County elections supervisor Kurt Browning, who's been in office for 24 years, said LePore should not be judged by this problem.

"It's unfortunate," said Browning, legislative chairman of the state association of supervisors of elections. "Obviously the supervisor cannot be in all places at all times so they rely on staff to ensure that it's being done and being done properly.

"Thankfully, they caught it. That's why I keep telling people it's not official until it's certified. That's why we have the checks and the balances and the auditing to make sure it is correct."

County Judge Barry Cohen, a member of the Canvassing Board, hailed Tuesday's election as virtually flawless.

Cohen cautioned voters from over-analyzing the recount, which, he said, was not completely out of the ordinary. About 300 lawyers watched the polls on Tuesday and came up with few problems, Cohen said.

"It was the most scrutinized race in the history of Palm Beach County, particularly for a primary," Cohen said. "I, frankly, believe it exceeded expectations."

The errors might satisfy LePore's detractors, said Sid Dinerstein, chairman of county's Republican Party, but he said LePore shouldn't be the immediate target.

"There was no doubt that Theresa showed up every day to do to the job to the best of her ability and to get a straight count," he said. "That doesn't preclude honest error. It just precludes malice."

Wexler, though, said the recount underscores why he's been pushing for paper printouts to backup the electronic, touch-screen voting machines.

Although the problem involved absentee ballots completed on paper and tabulated through optical-scan equipment, Wexler said the public benefits because a recount can be conducted. If a problem arose with the computer equipment, a recount would be impossible because there's nothing to recount.

Along with the ballot problem, officials said there was a problem with voting data from two of 4,300 cartridges from the electronic, touch-screen machines.

The data did not download properly. But the votes were retrieved from the machines that were used, said Marty Rogol, elections office spokesman.