Posted on 09/17/2002 6:44:11 AM PDT by ijcr
A week after Election Day, Miami-Dade County officials say they are confident every vote cast will be counted and reported by today's 5 p.m. deadline for state certification.
Broward elections officials wrapped up their count Monday and plan to present final results today to Tallahassee. However, they refused to comment about any detail of their process to recover votes.
Miami-Dade officials say their method of checking the count was almost foolproof.
''We have done everything within our power to make sure every vote has been counted in this election,'' assistant elections supervisor Gisela Salas said.
Not everyone was so sure.
''Given what we saw Tuesday, I don't think we'll ever be confident that every vote was counted,'' said Nicole Harburger, spokeswoman for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno. Her campaign indicated Reno will likely concede defeat today to Bill McBride in the primary if she doesn't get enough votes to overtake his lead.
''It is also evident that since then, [Election Supervisor David] Leahy has made a good faith effort to see that the votes are counted in Miami-Dade,'' Harburger added.
The day after the election, Miami-Dade officials determined the problem in getting an accurate vote count was caused almost exclusively by pollworkers failing to close down the machines properly last Tuesday night -- preventing their votes from being counted.
To close down a machine, a poll worker must insert a device called a master activator and collect all the votes. The process must be repeated in all the machines.
Aside from collecting votes, these activators store information about which machines were properly turned on and closed down. By running every activator through a computerized reader, Miami-Dade officials were able to get a precise list of machines that had not been closed down.
MACHINES IDENTIFIED
By the middle of last week, they had identified 265 machines in which they needed to ''reharvest'' the votes. To do so, they simply had to insert the activator into the machines, as should have been done on election night.
They began the process immediately, hunkering down in a dimly lit warehouse in Medley. But many machines were still at the polling stations. Locating and delivering the machines became the most time-consuming part of the vote recovery effort for workers from the county and Elections Systems & Software, the company that manufactured the iVotronic touch-screen machines.
The units did not contain serial numbers on their outer cases, so workers had to open them up, write the serial number down on a piece of masking tape and affix it to the outside.
By Monday night, Salas said activators -- like computer disks -- had been inserted into most of the suspect units and the votes were being recovered without a hitch. However, the department still had machines arriving from some polling places.
The results will be released after the county canvassing board certifies the election, Salas said.
BROWARD WRAPS UP
In Broward, election officials wrapped up as well, estimating they had recovered roughly 1,000 untallied votes in their ''reconciliation'' of Tuesday's vote. They would not reveal results of the new tally.
Election workers operated in secrecy over the weekend. Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant was not present for the count and refused to speak publicly.
No information came until Monday, when frustrated members of Broward's canvassing board demanded a response from Oliphant's office.
According to them, election workers were analyzing voting printouts from each precinct. They used that information to help determine which machines to check.
In many cases, election officials found that pollworkers had used the wrong activator -- there were more than one at every precinct -- to collect the votes, which meant they went unrecorded.
They flagged a total of 154 questionable precincts, said Diana Wasserman-Rubin, one of three people on the canvassing board that oversees Broward elections.
Machines from 15 precincts were unavailable until Monday afternoon because they were locked up in schools and other polling places over the weekend.
Administrative Judge Jay Spechler, who heads the canvassing board, demanded Monday in a letter that Oliphant's office answer in writing by 2 p.m. today exactly what transpired over the weekend and how the additional votes were tallied.
''That would give us, the canvassing board, the level of comfort we need to go forward,'' Wasserman-Rubin said.
Broward's review began last week when Reno's campaign pointed out 247 questionable precincts.
Miami-Dade's started on election night when officials noticed abnormally low results at some polling sites, such as Precinct 254 in Liberty City, which showed only 89 votes cast among 1,630 registered voters.
By the next day, they identified about 60 precincts that showed voter turnout of less than 10 percent.
In a few cases, the turnout was inordinately high, but that was resolved when officials determined election workers had accidentally combined the results of two precincts that shared the same polling station.
Leahy, the supervisor of elections, ordered staff to begin checking machines from the 60 precincts. They soon realized that all of the problems were caused by them not being closed down properly. That discovery allowed Leahy to change his game plan and check all the activators.
By the end of the week, he was able to focus on specific machines because the reader device would show which machines, listed by their serial numbers, were not closed down on Election Day.
Aside from the ones they had already reharvested Wednesday, there were 265 machines on that list. Whether these machines were in any or all of the 88 Miami-Dade precincts that Reno's campaign questioned is unclear.
So far, election officials have not analyzed which of the machines on their printouts match to which precincts.
''It's more important that we make sure to count every vote before our deadline,'' Salas said.
PENELAS' VISIT
Monday morning, Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas visited the Medley warehouse to see how the counting was going. He promised that officials' jobs would depend on the outcome of the next election.
''If elections don't go off the way they should in November, a lot of heads will roll,'' he said.
He declined to specify whose jobs were most in jeopardy, but Salas said it would likely include herself and Leahy.
Still, Penelas insisted he was taking responsibility for problems that left votes uncounted.
''I didn't come here to give any excuses,'' he said. ``I took responsibility from day one, and I'm not passing the buck to anybody.''
The mayor said he expects the county's inspector general to present a report on last week's chaotic balloting on Friday. Almost two dozen investigators are looking into it.
''Our main objective is to develop recommendations that are practical and can ensure the next election will be problem free,'' Inspector General Chris Mazzella said.
Given the short time-frame, he said they are just trying to find remedies rather than to point fingers.
In Tallahassee, Gov. Jeb Bush was quicker to assign blame.
''At the end of the day this is about human error and negligence by an elected supervisor and an appointed supervisor of elections . . . that were responsible to make sure that there was the proper work done,'' he said. ``If those machines were so bad, why did it work so well in other counties?''
'Cuz RATS are Ignorant Dolts!!
FReegards...MUD
Bingo.
Does this mean Reno was pure as the driven snow for the primary election?
There are not a lot of ways to cheat in this computerized system. At least they haven't figured out how. They also had a problem. This was a DEMOCRATIC primary and most of the older poll workers wanted JANET to win.
How do you fix it. First you wait as long as possible to order the machines. You nit pick about the software until there is little time to train. You bring in "NEW YOUNGER COMPUTER LITERATE" polls workers. You tell the older old timers the new kids will take care of the computers... You just supervise. Then they have the new younger computer literate poll workers NOT SHOW UP. Now you have a lot of older ingnorant poll workers on the job. Lots of people don't vote and they may be able to keep Janet from winning.
People say this conspiracy theory is not true. But they don't say why it can't be true.
I think the plan worked better than they thought it might. First it kept McBrides margin high enough that their would be no recount. They could not have known this when they took this course. If all the votes had been counted on election day, there would have been an automatic recount. Secondly there is an outside chance that Janet could have won if 4 or 5 thousand voters were turnned away.
By law boards of election are supposed to have both Democrat and Republican members. But you'll recall that in 2000 this was not true. If a county has a strong two party system there is little chance for hanky panky. But in total Democrat strong holds the hanky meets the panky big time.
The people running elections in these counties are not dumb. They knew what they were doing and why. They were just trying to ensure a McBride victory. They got it done.
One thing to remember.. This is a one trick poney. It will be hard to pull this one off twice. They need a better way to cheat. Th simplist way is to add machines that are not used but are prevoted.
I suspect they will have a new way to cheat come Nov 2nd.
Absolutely, 100% correct. And her people should have anticipated this... shows how inept they were.
So, we have a vote fer RAT Incompetence, one for RAT Corruption, and one fer RAT Corruption causing RAT Incompetence...in any event, it makes the RATS look STOOOOPID as rocks!!
FReegards...MUD
Interesting that you note the EffeteEliteRATS wanted McBride to win but the grassroots wanted the Butcher of Waco...why the schism? I cannot believe that either RAT candidates' policies would be that different...and while I can understand that the DEmonRAT officials recognized Reno as unelectable--I believe they both are--why would the have-nots be pulling for Reno? Is it simply name recognition or do these folks simply love Clintonistas who have thumbed their noses at the Constitution and the Rule of Law?!
FReegards...MUD
Funny that you shoud say so. It seems they are well underway.
Here is what Ragtime Cowgirl posted on another thread, summarizing an article from the Sun-Sentinel:>>>>
<<<<<<<"We can't post the complete Sun-Sentinel articles - to summarize:
"Art Kennedy - an Alcee Hasting's top aide - is head of a the "election task force."
"Urban League President Don Bowen said in the article that he, Holcombe and Trower may become the "human relations directors."
"Commission Chairwoman Lori Parrish is asking the county auditor to look into Oliphant's spending of the $5.3 million budget.
"Kennedy wants to bring in over a thousand local college students to be on "standby" to work the precincts if necessary..."brought in by local Sheriff's officials" (we were accused of racism because a police car was parked a mile away - are we being set up, Mr. Kennedy?).
"Finally, Mr. Kennedy wants to bus people to the polls....using the county's vehicles from various agencies (which people, Mr. Kennedy?).
Why don't we let Mr. Kennedy simply fill out all of the ballots and skip that messy "will of the people" part?" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is my guess, too. All those "poll workers" who unaccountably didn't show up in Janet's stongest precincts on election day were told (and perhaps paid) not to show up. Janet got royally screwed by her own party (the Clintons are dumping their trash) so that McBride would be the nominee. I would guess Janet is feeling just the least little bit used and betrayed these days. She turned herself into one of the two worst Attorneys General in the history of the U.S. (Ram Clark is the other) on the Clintons' behalf. But surely she got the point earlier when McBride's campaign was being handled by McAwful kin? It seems that Janet doesn't take hints too well.
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