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<p>RICHARD CLARKE was the perfect person to be coordinating antiterrorism work out of the Clinton and Bush White Houses, perfect because he was both a zealot as well as Chicken Little. Because he was continuously alarmed and thought everyone else should be, too, his colleagues in both administrations say they sometimes had trouble evaluating his warnings. "It's tough when the sky is always falling," said one. That challenge, however, ought to be worth the periodic aggravation, given the stakes. In addition to zeal and well-grounded alarmism, Clarke was also frustrated with both White Houses, and I suspect that in the atmosphere of post-9/11 self-examination, nothing vexed him more than the knowledge that the government failed to learn from its one success -- its frustration of Al Qaeda's plans to attack the United States on a significant scale around the millennium.</p>

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Suspended Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant has been charged with 55 counts of violating election laws. Oliphant, already facing a Senate trial for her conduct in office, is accused of not opening polls on time and not keeping them open late enough during the September 2002 primary. The Florida Elections Commission levied the charges against Oliphant at its Feb. 19 meeting. If found guilty, Oliphant faces a fine of up to $55,000. She has 30 days to respond and can choose to appear in administrative court or in front of the Elections Commission. Oliphant, a...

<p>POLITICS ASIDE, the quick endorsement of John Kerry by presidential candidate emeritus Wesley Clark might best be understood as an act of contrition for two egregious sins that ironically serve as bookends for this month's degrading detour into campaign slime.</p>

<p>The sin of commission occurred during an astonishing, even for a rookie, judgment lapse with the gaggle of reporters covering his campaign on its final day last week. Bantering with them at length under supposedly off-the-record ground rules, Clark actually said he was still in the race because he thought Kerry's campaign was going to implode over what he inelegantly called an "intern" scandal.</p>

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - More than 6,600 ballots in next week's mail-in elections in four Broward County cities have been returned to the elections office because they were sent to people who no longer lived at addresses listed in county voter rolls. Election Supervisor Miriam Oliphant's office late last week finished sending out 100,000 ballots for Nov. 4 mail-in elections by voters in Southwest Ranches, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach and two neighborhoods near Cooper City. About 2,500 residents have voted. Beside the undelivered ballots, another problem appeared Tuesday when several residents of Pompano Beach and Deerfield Beach reported receiving...

Oliphant: I Will Not Resign Broward Mayor Tells Oliphant To Step Down By Noon Friday NBC 6 News Team POSTED: 6:51 p.m. EST January 16, 2003 UPDATED: 6:57 a.m. EST January 17, 2003 FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Broward County Mayor Diana Wasserman-Rubin has asked embattled Broward County Elections Supervisor of elections Miriam Oliphant to resign. Wasserman-Rubin made the request Thursday, asking Oliphant to step down by noon on Friday. FeedRoom Oliphant Told To Step Down The mayor said she planned to hold a meeting with the county commission on Friday to request that they send a letter to Gov. Jeb...

Broward County Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant told her chief financial officer on Friday to quit or be fired at the same time her office is locked in a budget dispute with the County Commission and is without money to meet its payroll on Oct. 15. Dick Wallsmith, who had worked for the elections office nine months, said he was told to leave after talking to reporters about Oliphant's budget dispute with the commission. He did not know what Oliphant found offensive.

Broward County's elections office was littered with mail after last September's primary -- thousands of letters and cards stacked in piles in the mailroom, cubicles, hallways and even Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant's private office. Buried among them were envelopes containing uncounted votes. Two hundred sixty-eight of those absentee ballots are now stored in a cardboard evidence box at the offices of state prosecutors in downtown Fort Lauderdale, wrapped in rubber bands and still unopened. Investigators never found hundreds of other ballots that election office employees reported seeing in the weeks following the primary. Even though prosecutors have cleared Oliphant of...

Broward County's embattled elections supervisor, Miriam Oliphant, wants the county to increase her budget sixfold so she can add dozens of workers and buy thousands of extra voting machines in preparation for next year's presidential elections. The request would boost her spending from $5.8 million to $35.6 million and comes at a time when the county is struggling to deal with hefty state budget cuts. Her staff is justifying the mega-increase as essential to ensuring residents don't wait in long lines to vote and the area is not again the butt of national jokes. But the proposal is all but...

Just and urgent reminder that there is an election in Broward County Florida on March 11, 2003. With one stealth homosexual lawyer (trantalis) running for the Fort Lauderdale city commision, and other smaller cities having their commisions up for election it is VERY urgent that Freepers make sure their voices are heard. Broward County has been the butt of jokes and still has many democrat party controlled problems. This is an off election and the politicians COUNT ON low turnout! so VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!!!!

An employee in Broward County's elections office has told prosecutors that there are more uncounted absentee ballots from September's primary than those found this week in a file cabinet. The lawyer for the employee said she discovered more than 500 unopened ballots in the office mailroom two days after the election. According to the story she laid out to prosecutors, she notified her supervisor and was told there had been a mix-up and that the votes needed to disappear.

The director of Hallandale's Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade said Sunday the county's mayor would no longer be welcome at today's event because of her role in the controversy over Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant. If Broward County Mayor Diana Wasserman-Rubin showed up to serve as grand marshal, today's parade would be cancelled, director Angie Glass said. Last week, Wasserman-Rubin and a majority of county commissioners were poised to ask Gov. Jeb Bush to remove the embattled elections chief from office. Bush said Friday that under the state constitution he had no grounds to remove Oliphant, and an obviously shaken...

Broward County Mayor Diana Wasserman-Rubin has called a special meeting for tomorrow so that commissioners can pass a resolution asking Gov. Jeb Bush to suspend Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant -- unless the beleaguered election supervisor resigns by noon tomorrow. A majority of county commissioners polled by the Herald support recommending Oliphant's suspension. Wasserman-Rubin called the meeting today, one day after nearly everything fell apart for Oliphant, including the technical contract to run the county's new voting machines during the February municipal primary. If commissioners pass the resolution, it will be up to the governor to decide Oliphant's future....

Audit of Broward elections chief prompts ethics complaintBy Scott Wyman Staff writer Posted November 23 2002 State ethics investigators have been asked to look into findings in last week's audit that Broward County Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant mishandled tax money and broke state law while running up a $1 million deficit. Andrew Greene, a former teacher and longtime critic of Oliphant, said Friday that he filed the ethics complaint after becoming concerned that she seemed to be going unpunished for the way she has run her office. Greene won $600,000 in a seven-year legal battle with the School District after...

Bush sets deadline, debates suspending Oliphant from officeBy Scott Wyman Staff writer November 20 2002 Expressing "grave concern" about allegations of widespread mismanagement in Broward County's elections office, Gov. Jeb Bush has given Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant a tight deadline to explain how she will restore public confidence. Oliphant has until Dec. 9 to lay out her case for why Bush should not use his constitutional authority to remove her from office for misconduct. In a letter to Oliphant on Tuesday, Bush's general counsel wrote that an audit ordered by county commissioners documented that she had failed to adhere to...

Audit says Oliphant overspent Elections Office budget by $921,263FORT LAUDERDALE – A 50-page audit released on Friday says embattled Broward Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant overspent her office budget by $921,263 last year. The largest cost deficit -- $514,254 -- went for salaries and payroll related costs. Capital improvement expenditures were $273,715 over budget and operating costs were $133,294 over the budget. The audit also concluded that Oliphant failed to discipline an employee who bought almost $14,000 in goods from a company owned by the employee's children. State law says the employee could be fired, but instead she got a 25...

<p>Voters who have been cursing Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant since the chaotic Sept. 10 primary will be happy to know they are now giving her a raise.</p> <p>"You must be kidding," says George Kaplan, one of the many in Broward County who say they are outraged by Oliphant's conduct before, during and after the primary.</p> <p>Oliphant's salary was hiked this week -- from $122,446 to $125,963. She can thank a state formula that automatically increases the pay of many elected officials annually.</p>

Black ministers, disturbed over what they see as an attempt to undermine Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant, met privately Wednesday to strategize on her behalf. As the ministers met, another Oliphant supporter blasted county officials on radio. And Oliphant insisted she is still in charge of her office, even though she has ceded most of her authority to the county. Critics blame Oliphant for election mishaps in the Sept. 10 primary, including inadequately trained poll workers, no-show clerks and incorrect voter registration cards. In a closed-door meeting with County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion, ministers Wednesday aired concerns about the county's...

Posted on Sun, Sep. 29, 2002 Poll: Don't blame Bush for difficulty in votingBY TYLER BRIDGEStbridges@herald.com Late-opening precincts, malfunctioning machines, missing vote totals: Who was to blame for the primary Election Day mess in South Florida?Not Gov. Jeb Bush, most voters say, despite efforts by Democrats Janet Reno and Bill McBride to convince them so.Three out of four Florida voters put the blame for the Sept. 10 election problems on local election officials, poll workers or voters themselves, according to a new Herald/St. Petersburg Times survey of 800 voters statewide.Only 16 percent pointed the finger at Bush, while 36...

Broward's first black supervisor of elections is the victim of a racist plot to undermine her authority and dignity, according to several members of the black community who attended a community forum on Friday. Over the past two weeks, critics have repeatedly lampooned and blasted Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant for mishaps in the Sept. 10 primary election. They cited shoddy poll worker training, no-show poll clerks and incorrect voter registration cards. But those who attended Friday's forum, offered support for Oliphant and blamed other factors for the troubled election. They cited county commissioners who would not purchase the...

Miriam Oliphant, supervisor of elections in Democrat-controlled (and, not coincidentally, corruption-plagued) Broward County, Fla., today surrendered most of her duties after botching this month's primary. "I've fallen short in the office when it comes to management," Oliphant admitted to county commissioners. She apologized "for all of the issues that have been out there." But instead of resigning, she will remain on the taxpayers' dole, even though she won't have much to do except count the votes - or attempt to count them. The public will have to pay for a new lieutenant for operations, and the (Democrat-run) county commission will...

Gary "Peace Queer" Trudeau Ben "Rest Stop Anal Angel" Sargent Pat "Bill's Bukkake Bowl" Olifag Tom "Save Mother Earth, Kill Tobacco Lobbyists" Toles

Challenge for clan chief title A clan chief and a London banker are preparing to do battle over the title of a historic Scottish family. City banker Richard Oliphant is challenging the current head of the clan of Oliphant in the hope that he will be able to use the title "the Oliphant of that Ilk and of Condie". He has lodged a petition to claim the title with the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh, who decides on such hereditary matters. The current, honorary clan chief is Laurence Blair Oliphant of Ardblair and Gask, who lives in Ardblair...