Supervisor quiet on paper trails

By Anthony Man
South Florida Sun Sentinel Staff writer
Posted January 5 2005

As he pledged to change the way elections are run in Palm Beach County on his first day Tuesday, Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson left out one thing the public likely expects from last year's campaign: printers to back up the electronic, touch-screen voting machines.

Besides serving as a referendum on former Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, last year's election had one overriding issue: distrust of the voting machines that replaced the punch-card voting system that led to the 2000 presidential election fiasco.

Anderson said Tuesday he intentionally omitted the paper trail from his remarks because he wants to go slowly. "I'll kind of take a wait-see position to see what kinds of developments take place in the industry," he said.

Echoing what LePore has said for the last year, Anderson said there aren't any printers on the market certified for use with the touch-screen machines, meaning there aren't any printers to buy.

Besides, he said, "there are some reservations in terms of the printers" including the "probability or possibilities" of malfunctions. Adding printers would create security and logistics problems.

That wasn't how Anderson framed the issue during the campaign, when he pledged his support for printers and didn't indicate that anything would slow his quest for a backup system.

In the final advertising push widely credited for propelling Anderson to victory over LePore, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, dipped into his campaign treasury to buy more than $80,000 of television ads in which he lauded Anderson as the man who was fighting along with him to get a paper-trail backup.

On Tuesday, Anderson said he would appoint a committee to review all options, including printers and whether to junk the new touch-screen machines and replace them with equipment that would allow people to vote on paper ballots.

Wexler said he wasn't concerned about the new supervisor's approach.

"I have no interest in judging Arthur on an hourly or a daily basis, and I'm going to watch, as will everyone in Palm Beach County, him proceed," he said. "I'm confident that Arthur supports a paper trail. I think Arthur will be judged by four years. If, at the end of four years, there is no paper trail, then people will ask questions."

Former Elections Supervisor Jackie Winchester, who preceded LePore, said she too thinks Anderson is "very committed" to printers.

Each of the three things Anderson said he would target were indirect criticisms of the way LePore operated her office for eight years.

He said the absence of an Elections Office in the largely low-income, minority communities of the Glades was "an atrocity," and promised to open a permanent branch office. He said he would provide more polling locations in communities with high numbers of minority voters. He said he also would do more to help people with language difficulties vote.

"We were headed in a direction that was most unhealthy," Anderson said. "This is a first step in changing direction."

Most of the audience of about 125 clapped. Only a few of the three dozen holdover Elections Office staffers who stood in a back corner applauded.

Anderson said he didn't take that as a lack of confidence in his leadership, while Winchester said she heard from some employees who date back to her time in office that they were looking forward to working with the new boss.

Anderson's immediate task is preparing for municipal elections. Palm Beach and Ocean Ridge, if they have contested elections, are set for Feb. 8. The big day, nine weeks after Anderson takes office, is March 8. If candidates file for every potential open seat, he would have to oversee dozens of races in as many as 31 communities.

The invitation-only gathering to mark Anderson's taking office was a "who's who" of the county's political establishment.

Sid Dinerstein, a LePore backer and chairman of the county Republican Party, was present. He said he was confident that Anderson would "work as hard as he can to give us the fairest elections he can."

Wexler, however, was absent. He was in Washington, D.C., for the first day of the new Congress.

Anderson also took an oath, though that was a formality because he became supervisor just after midnight.

In a scene out of the political television drama West Wing, Anderson arrived about 9 a.m. and realized he'd forgotten his mother's Bible at home. Chief Deputy Supervisor Charmaine Kelly, a holdover from LePore, knew of an employee who had a Bible and it was pressed into service.

It was a modern version, with a colorful cover, prompting retired Circuit Judge Edward Rodgers to tease Anderson about taking the oath on something other than the usual black-covered Bible used for such a serious event.