Slow count blamed on computer indexing
Machine vendor Sequoia Voting Systems diagnoses what delayed the ballot tabulation.
By JEFF TESTERMAN, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Published September 4, 2004

TAMPA - Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson said Friday he'd slept only about 12 hours since election night, while he fretted over the cause of a computer malfunction responsible for a dramatic slowdown in vote tabulation.

Finally, two full days after the election, the problem had been diagnosed, not by Johnson's staff but by Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif., company which sold the county a $12-million package of touch-screen voting machines.

The failure of a software indexing system that sorted the votes by each race caused the problem. The malfunction caused Johnson's computer server to repeatedly search its entire data base before recording any single vote, Sequoia said, a process that slowed the election tabulation to one-fifteenth the normal speed.

Friday, Johnson called an 11 a.m. news conference to explain what had happened.

"We're still not sure why the indexing was not working properly, but it is now fixed," Johnson assured reporters. "We're now working to ensure this isn't repeated in the November general election."

Johnson also acknowledged that there was a test available prior to election day that would have assured the Sequoia indexing software was working, but it had not been used by his office.

After his news conference, Johnson hurried to the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel, where he was scheduled to be one of the featured speakers at the Tiger Bay Club of Tampa. Johnson had forgotten about the noon luncheon and showed up 30 minutes late. Once he arrived, he had to explain everything all over again, this time with political challenger Rob MacKenna sniping at him.

Johnson, 50, is a former GOP state legislator and co-founder of BuddyFreddys restaurants who was appointed in 2003 to the $119,584-a-year elections supervisor's job after Pam Iorio resigned to run for Tampa mayor.

MacKenna, 33, is a computer programmer for the Eckerd Corp. and Florida organizer for failed presidential hopeful Howard Dean. He handily won the Democratic primary Tuesday and quickly seized on the tabulation problem as a key campaign issue.

At Tiger Bay, Johnson told his listeners it had been "a beautiful election," except for the vote counting. He offered a lengthy explanation of the indexing problem.

Well, exactly, preened MacKenna, when it was his turn. He reminded the audience he had told several attendees before the meeting that he suspected all along it was a computer indexing problem.

Johnson, sitting next to the lectern, smiled and tapped his hands together in mock applause. But his smile appeared strained when MacKenna said, "We are the laughingstock of the state and the nation because we can't count our votes."

Many local candidates went to bed election night not knowing for sure if they had won or lost. Because of the computer server slowing to a crawl, Johnson's staff did not complete counting Hillsborough's 138,389 ballots until 5:10 a.m. Wednesday.

Pinellas County, which also uses Sequoia touch screen voting machines, finished counting its 130,482 ballots 10 hours earlier, at 10:40 p.m. on election night.

Johnson said he made a "management decision" not to tinker with the Sequoia equipment on election night, letting the computers work at a snail's pace to preserve the accuracy of the tabulation.

Then, he sought Sequoia's help. Its technicians discovered the indexing problem and told Johnson's staff how to remedy it if it ever crops up again. No one seems sure why it happened in the first place.

"We haven't seen this in the past," Sequoia director of public affairs Alfie Charles said Friday.

At a question-and-answer session at the end of the Tiger Bay luncheon, Johnson and MacKenna were asked whether they favored the elections supervisor being elected or appointed.

Johnson said he could see it working well either way.

MacKenna took another jab at the non-elected incumbent. "It's an interesting question," MacKenna said, "Because it's supposed to be elected but (in Hillsborough) it is currently appointed.

"It would be good to take politics out of it," added MacKenna, "but you have to make sure whoever oversees the position is answerable to the people."