Problems fade as early voting resumes in Broward

By Rafael A. Olmeda
South Florida Sun-Sentinel  Posted October 20 2004

Early voting resumed in Broward County on Tuesday with few of the glitches and interminable waits that marred Monday's launch.

Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes said precincts were equipped with two more laptops per polling place, connected to the central computer at her office. The extra laptops enabled poll workers to process voters faster, even with hundreds turning out at each of the county's 14 early voting sites.

Janet McClintock, a poll watcher for the John Kerry presidential campaign, said she was amazed at how smoothly voters were being processed and sent to the voting machines at the Main Library in Broward County. She clicked a hand-held counter each time a voter went to a machine, and at one point she joked that she was having trouble keeping up.

"This is good," she said. "If people see long lines, they might be discouraged from voting. It looks like we got the right mix between the number of processors and the number of voting machines."

As of Tuesday evening, the elections office reported 11,653 voters cast ballots in the first two days of early voting in Broward.

Voters from anywhere in the county can go to any of the 14 polling sites to cast their ballots for president, senator, U.S. representative and other races, as well as proposed Florida constitutional amendments. When voters arrive, poll workers need to check with the supervisor's office to make sure the voter is registered and, if so, where. Each voter must be matched with the ballot matching the precinct of his or her home address.

A computer glitch disconnected poll workers from the supervisor's central computer at nine sites on Monday, generating long, slow-moving lines of frustrated voters who had to wait as poll workers called the supervisor's office to get information over the phone.

Jeannette Henry of Fort Lauderdale gave up after waiting too long on Monday at the Main Library, but on Tuesday she was trying again at Oakland Park City Hall. This time she was in and out in 10 minutes.

She shrugged off the extra trip she had to make to cast her vote.

"Things happen, even in a good state like Florida," she said.

The longest line seemed to be at the branch library in Tamarac. The line weaved around corners and behind book stacks, but it was still half as long as it was Monday.

Mike Sahr and others queuing to vote said they had waited about an hour before entering the voting room.

"It's not bad at all," Sahr said. "And they have chairs for people who can't stand in the line the whole time."

Outside the library, Louis Arslanian counted voters for the Kerry campaign. He had clocked more than 500 votes at the library in about three hours, but said he had seen more people leave the library without voting.

The experience there was atypical, Snipes said. The average waiting time she heard from poll workers was half an hour.

Throughout the county, voters expressed surprise and gratitude that the lines were moving steadily.

Bruce Hutchinson, 55, of Fort Lauderdale, went to the Lauderhill Mall because he didn't want to get involved with the traffic and parking downtown.

"I'm surprised how quickly the line is moving," he said. "I'm hoping that it continues so that everybody gets out to vote no matter what the choice is."

Sabrina Murray, 43, of Lauderhill, was voting early because she didn't want to go out on Nov. 2. "It's moving fast. I've been here about 15 minutes," she said.

In Palm Beach County, early voting complaints on Tuesday focused on long waits at the county branch library west of Boca Raton.

Voting didn't start there until about noon.

Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore said poll workers were so frazzled Monday night that they made a mistake in shutting down the voting machines.

For regular elections, workers turn two knobs to shut off the power and close the polls. For early voting, they're only supposed to turn off the power, not close the polls. Monday night they did both, which meant they couldn't be turned on Tuesday.

One spare machine was sent quickly, but four required setup work. LePore said she doesn't have extra machines because most are being shipped to regular polling places for Election Day.

There were no lines Tuesday outside the Stephen P. Clark Government Center in downtown Miami, where U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, asked County Manager George Burgess and county commissioners to do everything possible to keep lines short at the county's 20 polling places during early voting.

"Both parties are encouraging people to vote early," Meek told county officials. "We need to be aware that this constant flow of voters will continue to happen."

Burgess told Meek the Miami-Dade Elections Department had added more laptops so voters could be checked in more quickly. He said more county employees have gone to several polling places to help disabled voters.

Staff Writers Madeline Baro, Anthony Man, Tania Valdemoro, Toni Marshall and Sarah Halasz contributed to this report.