State rules on how to conduct recounts

By Linda Kleindienst and Jeremy Milarsky South Florida Sun Sentinel
Staff Writers
Posted October 16 2004

In answer to a judge's order, Secretary of State Glenda Hood on Friday night issued a new state rule on how to conduct manual recounts on touch-screen voting machines like those used in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Hood's action in Tallahassee did little to assuage the concerns of voting rights groups that have battled to insure ballots are accurately counted in the 15 counties that use the ATM-like machines.

In a separate legal battle on Friday, Hood suffered a blow when Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes decided said she will accept 72 voter-registration applications in which the would-be voter failed to check a box affirming their U.S. citizenship. Hood, the state's top election official, said federal and state law compels elections officials to reject all incomplete applications.

A federal judge in Miami meanwhile started to hear a lawsuit filed by the AFL-CIO regarding as many as 10,000 other instances around the state where voter registrations had been rejected because of missing Florida driver license numbers, Social Security numbers or because residents did not check off a box that they are not convicted felons.

Federal Court Judge James Lawrence King will have to issue a decision by next Friday, Oct. 22. Any later and elections officials will not have enough time to alter voter lists, find precincts for each voter and send out registration cards.

In Tallahassee, the ACLU has led the coalition of civil and voting rights groups who legally challenged Hood's earlier decision to shield the touch screen machines from undergoing manual recounts in a close election.

The groups contend that Hood should mandate that voters be given a paper ballot option. They also say an election recount should be put under a federal court's supervision and that poll workers should make sure that every vote counted matches the number of people who vote.

"It seems like every opportunity they have, they find a way not to come down on the side of voters and protecting the right to vote," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Hood, said the rule gives guidance to counties faced with a recount.

"It's very specific on what happens should a manual recount be mandated," she said. "It addresses what would happen if there are any discrepancies."

The new rule merely requires that election workers scan ballot images to reconcile the number of "under votes" where the voter did not a candidate in one or more races against a printout from the machine to insure there is no discrepancy. If, after two tabulations, a difference remains, the county elections canvassing must investigate.

But since there is no paper receipt to check a voter's intent, it would have no effect on the election's outcome.

"If they would have given us an opportunity to engage in a genuine dialogue, I'm confident we would have improved this rule," said Simon, who met with state elections officials on Tuesday.

Broward's stand

In Broward County, Snipes' decision to accept ballots without the citizenship box checked puts her in alignment with at least two other local supervisors Bill Cowles of Orange County and Constance Kaplan of Miami-Dade County, who were already accepting the forms.

The state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit this week seeking to compel state officials to accept such forms, arguing that although they didn't check the box, applicants still signed an oath affirming their citizenship on the same form.

"Our voters shouldn't be penalized because of this redundancy in these registration forms," said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami. "I hope that supervisors in other counties will also come to this same common sense conclusion."

A spokeswoman for Hood said the secretary disagrees with Snipes, Cowles and Kaplan, who has been accepting the forms since earlier this month.

"Supervisors of elections should not make mandates which supercede federal and state law," said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Hood.

Several local elections supervisors, including Theresa LePore of Palm Beach County, said earlier this month that they will reject incomplete voter-registration forms. The last day to register for the presidential election was Oct. 4.

Also this week, some Broward County voters who received absentee ballots in the mail noticed the return envelope asks for too-little postage. The envelope asks for 60 cents in stamps, while a form inside calls for 83 cents.

The discrepancy happened when election officials noticed too late that the ballot was too long to fit on two pages. The extra page added weight to the ballot package, which requires 83 cents in stamps. Voters who didn't use sufficient postage shouldn't worry letter carriers will still deliver their ballots, and the remaining postal cost will be paid by Snipes' office, said Enola Rice, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service.