Activists crash tribute to LePore at election supervisors meeting

By Beth Kassab
Orlando Sentinel
Posted December 1 2004

Even as colleagues tearfully eulogized her controversial tenure as Palm Beach County's election supervisor, Theresa LePore had to fend off verbal attacks by critics who crashed the surprise tribute.

Speaker after speaker, many choked with emotion, heaped praise on LePore at a meeting of county supervisors at an Orlando hotel on Tuesday. Suddenly, two women and a man, one with a handheld video camera, burst in through an exit door in the back of the room and stomped onto the podium.

One woman, identified as Bev Harris of Black Box Voting by several supervisors, announced she was "serving" LePore with papers regarding a dispute with her office over public records.

As the crowd realized the drama was real, not part of a farewell skit as some first thought, the supervisors booed and screamed as a woman with a video camera panned the room.

Orange County Supervisor Bill Cowles, president of the state group, pounded the gavel and ordered hotel security to remove the three, but they quickly left through the same door without being stopped.

Cowles tried to recover from the incident, quickly pointing out that LePore's record is 53-0 for lawsuits filed against her office since 2000, when her name became synonymous with the notorious butterfly ballot that some Democrats say helped defeat Al Gore.

Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes walked up to the microphone and continued the outpouring of praise and thanks to LePore, the only supervisor up for re-election in November who was defeated.

"I really want to salute you," Snipes said. "You go out with your head held high. We in South Florida will miss you."

When more than a dozen supervisors had publicly offered her their praise, LePore thanked the crowd and remarked that she's had round-the-clock bodyguards for the past six months but did not have them with her in Orlando.

"I don't know if I'll ever get back into true elections again because I've really had my share," LePore said. "But who knows, maybe things will change."

Cowles said that for LePore to reach a full 30 years of service with Palm Beach County and get full retirement benefits, she would go to work at the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office for six months as an election fraud investigator.

The supervisors gave her a standing ovation.