Election Chaos Strikes Palm Beach Again  (FL)

CATHERINE DOLINSKI   The Tampa Tribune    06 September 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Welcome to Recount 2008!

The scene: Palm Beach County, where the search continues for thousands of missing ballots that were apparently cast on Aug. 26. At least one race is heading to court. More may follow.

It's not quite the infamous Bush versus Gore recount of 2000. There are no hanging chads, no presidential race at stake. But once again, Palm Beach County is ground zero for electoral chaos, lawsuits and bad publicity for Florida's long-suffering election system.

All this, after a primary that turned out only 18 percent of Florida voters. What happens in November, when record numbers of voters in the presidential election are expected to tax election office resources in Palm Beach and across the state?

"I think we have to go on the premise that November's going to be fine," said Secretary of State Kurt Browning, Florida's top election official.

But election watchdogs are alarmed.

"This is a train wreck," said Pam Goodman, president of the Palm Beach County League of Women Voters. "We're on the tracks, heading for a train wreck in November. We have a lame-duck supervisor of elections and a huge mishap in Palm Beach County - and you're telling me, we're going to be able to conduct a November election properly?"

The state will work with Palm Beach elections officials to make sure November's election runs smoothly, Browning said. But Browning, a former Pasco County elections supervisor, also spoke candidly about Palm Beach's election supervisor, Arthur Anderson, who lost his own primary race last month.

"He's, as I would be, demoralized, I think, after having been defeated in an election, and now having to stick with it through another general election - another 60 days, at least 60 days, until he leaves office," Browning said. "He's got another eight weeks before the general election - he's got a lot of work to do. He needs to make sure that it gets done."

Recount Affects Race For Circuit Court

Browning and other members of the state Elections Canvassing Commission on Friday certified the results of the August primary - all except for the "irregular" vote counts from one Palm Beach judicial race.

Still unaccounted for: an estimated 2,521 ballots, Anderson said Friday afternoon.

Browning said he thinks the discrepancy, which emerged during a recount, is the result of ballots being miscounted or otherwise mishandled, not actual missing ballots.

The results for 15th Circuit Court judge initially showed William S. "Bill" Abramson ahead of Circuit Court Judge Richard I. Wennet, 45,371 to 45,356. That triggered a recount, in which 3,478 ballots came up missing during the Labor Day weekend.

The county's election canvassing board, pressed to meet a 5 p.m. deadline Tuesday, certified the results anyway. At least two of the board members had no knowledge of the voting number discrepancy, Anderson said, and signed certificates bearing no voting numbers.

"Personally, I would, as a member of a canvassing board, never sign a blank certificate," Browning said. "I would - as a supervisor, I would never have offered up a blank certificate."

Anderson said the board members signed the certificates under time pressure, understanding they could address problems afterward if any arose.

Anderson added that Browning had no cause to suggest he was "demoralized," for any reason.

After a visit from Browning on Wednesday, Palm Beach election workers said they thought they had accounted for 2,700 of the missing ballots. But after further counting, the number missing was back up to 2,521 on Friday.

Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, called the election office "dysfunctional."

"We're in a worst-case scenario right now - we're clueless," Dinerstein said.

Anderson is a Democrat, but Dinerstein said the judicial race was nonpartisan and noted that only Democrats ran for Anderson's seat.

'Ballot Accounting, Administration Issues'

Palm Beach is one of two counties in Florida that use optical-scan voting machines from Sequoia Voting Systems. The other county, Indian River, accounted for all of its ballots last month.

"There is absolutely no indication of any type of machine problem at all," Sequoia spokeswoman Michelle Shafer said of Palm Beach's system. "This appears to be ballot accounting and administration issues."

Browning stressed the same point to reporters Friday, seeking to dispel skepticism about the state's move to all-paper ballots. At Gov. Charlie Crist's urging, the Legislature adopted the statewide "paper trail" in 2007 in response to criticisms of touch-screen voting technology that some counties adopted after the infamous 2000 election.

Crist, a member of the state election canvassing commission, deferred largely to Browning on the Palm Beach imbroglio. Crist hopes, he said, that the recount problems will not cause voters to distrust the new system.

He said the county doesn't need new voting machines or more resources but "may need something else new," raising speculation about Anderson's remaining tenure in office.

Anderson said the quest to reconcile the ballot counts will continue. Browning said he is certain the outcome will be settled in court, and late Friday, Abramson said he intends to sue state and county election officials early next week.

"Every other race in my county was certified by the state based on the election night numbers," said Abramson, a criminal law attorney. "Mine should be as well. ... If mine is called into question, than everyone else's is, too. Either the election was valid, or it wasn't."

In addition to several lawyers in South Florida, Abramson has hired Mark Herron, a key member of Al Gore's legal team during the 2000 recount.

Steve Perman, who lost his Democratic state House primary by 198 votes over several counties, said he may also sue.

"It begs the question, when between 500 and 3,500 ballots are unaccounted for," said Perman. "Holy mackerel - I have to at least keep my eye on it."

Counties Need More Time, Supervisor Says

The primary has also raised questions about the time and resources needed for recounts.

In Pinellas County, where the primary went smoothly but a close outcome triggered a recount, elections supervisor Deborah Clarke said counties need more time than the state is allowing to re-count paper ballots.

"We know there is not adequate time for us to conduct a recount in a responsible way," she said. "It is a rushed process, and when people are rushed, they are more inclined to make more mistakes."

Clark said it took about seven hours to recount 77,000 ballots in a close judicial race with low turnout, after the time-consuming process of setting up and testing the necessary equipment. Additionally, the state election commission did not order the recount until the end of the week.

With a large turnout, she said, some election supervisors expecting a recount order from the state may be compelled to start the process early - which may or may not be legal, Clark said.

The need to certify primary results in time for the general election leaves no room for extending the recount time frame, Browning said. "The schedule is what it is," he said.

But Anderson said issues arising from the new paper ballots need to be considered.

"You have all of this paper, and there are new challenges," he said. "There are new procedures that are going to have to be developed. This is something that communities are going to have to be geared up to deal with."