Glitches cause long lines at early voting sites in Broward

By Jean-Paul Renaud South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Staff Writer
Posted October 19 2004

A computer glitch that disconnected poll workers from crucial ballot information shut down nine of Broward County's 14 early voting sites on Monday, leaving some irate voters waiting in lines for as long as two hours and raising the specter of another 2000 election embarrassment for South Florida.

With no contingency plan in place, election officials had to scramble to get the poll workers the information they needed to process thousands of voters trying to take advantage of the state's first early voting experiment.

While voters' patience was sometimes sorely tested, election officials were quick to note the problem was not with the controversial touch-screen voting machines, and they were able to get the last voting site up on line by about 2 p.m.

"This election is important," said Joe Krepps, who waited 40 minutes in Oakland Park City Hall to cast a ballot. "I don't care if I had to stand there for two hours."

Paul Hecht of Coconut Creek came to early voting because he wanted to avoid a general fiasco on Election Day. He ended up waiting in line at the Northwest Regional Library in Coral Springs for 45 minutes before he finally gave up.

"People were leaving in droves," he said. "I found it unbelievable. I don't have any trust in the system now."

While state elections officials called the first day of early voting a success, many voters in Palm Beach County expressed some of the same concerns as voters across the state. Some of the polls opened late, they said, and others reported waiting as long as two and three hours. They complained there were not enough poll workers and not enough voting machines or laptops on which clerks could immediately verify eligibility.

Broward officials said they began noticing problems with their laptop computers early.

Between 9:30 and 9:45 a.m., the connection failed at the polling sites, which rely on connections to the main computer at election headquarters.

During early voting, when citizens can go to any of the 14 polling sites, poll workers must be able to identify the voters, make sure they haven't voted in other locations and determine in which local races they are eligible to cast ballots. Once they have that information, the voter is allowed to go to a voting machine.

Without a connection to the voter database, poll workers could not determine which ballot to provide to voters. So for the hour after the connection failed, lines throughout the affected sites, from Hallandale Beach to Deerfield Beach, were at a standstill.

Five election satellite offices were unaffected because they were directly connected to the database, elections officials said. More than four hours passed before officials were able to switch to a backup server.

"We really never thought it would take so long to get the system going," said Gisela Salas, deputy supervisor of elections.

Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said the system had not been given the same scrutiny as the touch-screen machines.

The last time the laptop connections were checked by the department's technology division was two weeks ago, Salas said.

As a result, when there was a problem, officials said they had no contingency plan.

Their solution was made on the spot: Instead of using their laptops, poll workers stayed on the phone with election workers in the main office who gave them the necessary information for each voter.

"If I was thinking clearly, I would probably have established a solution at my site faster," said Salas, who was heading the poll at Southwest Regional Library in Pembroke Pines. "But we got it together. Someone called all the sites and established a contact person for each of the locations."

For hours, poll workers sat patiently on the other end of the phone line, slowly spelling last names and double-checking addresses. The county's Information Technology department was asked to solve the problem, Salas said.

The staff downtown was so inundated that even the assistants to Snipes and Salas were assigned to field calls from the affected polling sites, Salas said. The department's phone lines were tied up. And two laptops at each voting location were not enough to keep the lines moving quickly.

"We were constrained by that," Salas said. "If you had more laptops you could make it go faster. We have room for improvement.

"We expected lines, but nothing like this."

By 2 p.m., the problem had been repaired at most polling sites, Salas said. She said she does not expect any more problems.

Poll workers said they were given extensive training on what should be done if election machines failed, but very little was said about the computer connection.

"This wasn't really part of the training," said Katherine Peterson, a clerk at the Oakland Park City Hall voting site, the last to have its system restored. "This is beyond my technical expertise. They hired people that were computer literate, not computer technicians."

In total, 18 laptops, two at each affected polling place, were useless, according to county elections officials.

But officials said the lines kept moving thanks to a quickly devised back up plan.

"All the administrators thought of a solution at the same time," Salas said. "The ones that didn't think about it got called."

Early voting will continue for the next two weeks until the general election on Nov. 2.

"With this being such a high-profile election, we anticipate high voter turnout on general election day and we would encourage voters to take advantage of early voting over the next two weeks," said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood.

The considerable turnout on Monday was sparked in part by a weekend early voting campaign blitz by the presidential candidates as they traveled through South Florida.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek downplayed the troubles. Meek, a Democrat, is chairman of Kerry's presidential campaign in Florida. Meek said he was more impressed by the volume of voters.

Candidates have been urging voters this week to vote early. Many of them did, or at least tried.

Meek said the voting hitch Monday wouldn't cause people to lose faith in the system.

"I think people are going to even get more energized about voting," Meek said. "So much happened in 2000. We're letting people know from the beginning that we're fighting for access."

Republicans expressed similar views.

Mindy Tucker Fletcher, senior adviser for the Florida Republican Party in Tallahassee, said the party knew about the problems "but we did not get a large number of complaints."

"In the grand scheme of things, I think we had a pretty smooth day all around," she said.

Election officials say think the problem has been overcome. They promise more voting machines, laptops and staff for the rest of the early voting period.

"You learn from your experiences and tomorrow will be a better day than today," Salas said. "We're in good shape. I would encourage those who left to come back. If they don't want to stand in line, they can vote on a paper ballot. This was just an isolated experience."

Staff Writers Brittany Wallman, Diane Lade and Linda Kleindienst contributed to this report.