Editorial: Supervisor of Elections offices
Problems must be solved

By Naples Daily News. November 8, 2004

We're as glad as anyone else that voting went smoothly for the most part in Florida last Tuesday.

We surely did not need another election-buster on the magnitude of the butterfly ballots and hanging chads of the presidential election of 2000. We say that not for the smarmy jokes and ridicule heaped upon our state.

Floridians' confidence in the system matters far more, and that confidence was shaken.

Which brings us to 2004, and we have to speak bluntly: Our area's elections officials have to realize that glitches with planning for and counting our area's votes are not to be taken lightly.

If margins among candidates in key races had been as close as they were for president in 2000, the situation would have been truly bad. The Collier Supervisor of Elections, and to a lesser extent the Lee supervisor, would have been part of the problem.

With so much time between elections, and with knowing full well what is going to happen ? lots of people are going to come and vote ? we fail to understand what problems cannot be anticipated and solved in advance. What situation cannot be simulated? Tested? Retested?

Other operations assigned to track vital data and compute it with a sense of urgency manage to get the job done. Banks with automated teller machines do it. Credit card companies do it. This newspaper gets by ? and delivers electronically with plenty of paper backup.

Working in the public interest, the Collier office cannot go on getting surprised by the influx of information-seekers via phone, mailing sample ballots long after they are needed for "early voting" and seemingly improvising the vote-counting technology each election night.

Both of the offices in Collier and Lee were caught off guard by demand for absentee ballots, which led to reprint orders, which led to problems with the weight and texture of the paper, which led to problems with postage and photocopying ...

Ugh. Enough.

Because the elections office is an institution of great influence and power, there are few public figures willing to say what needs to be said. Thus the job falls to this newspaper.

The main mission of the supervisor should be fundamental: Connecting voters with ballots, and counting the ballots quickly and accurately. Computers and people who know how to use them can do both.

Though the Lee office displayed a rare lapse in readiness that delayed absentee tallies, the focus belongs on Collier for mistakes that keep cropping up. The Collier office's quality of service is not up to the level for which the voters elect and pay the supervisor.

The office owes it to the public to do what needs to be done.