Posted on 10/23/2012 5:15:34 AM PDT by Elle Bee
Underscoring the deep concern surrounding Palm Beach County’s latest election snafu, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner is sending two observers here on Monday as workers begin an unprecedented process of duplicating an estimated 27,000 absentee ballots.
In a letter to Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher late Friday, Detzner said he is sending two deputies to “observe and examine the registration and election processes and the condition, custody and operation of voting systems and equipment.”
The deputies, he wrote, are empowered to “supervise the preparation of the voting equipment and procedures for the election.” Both will report their findings to him and file a written report with Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Sharon Bock.
State law allows the secretary of state to take such action “as he sees fit.” But the law also allows candidates, party leaders and others to request that observers be sent in.
A spokesman for Detzner said, “This was the secretary’s decision.”
Those who have watched the news of a printing error on the November ballot get worse and more complicated with each passing day said they aren’t surprised by Detzner’s action. With polls showing President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a dead heat to win the state, he had no choice, they said.
“I would have been surprised if they didn’t because Palm Beach County has an unbroken streak of major screw-ups,” said Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the county Republican Party.
Attorney Gerald Richman, who has been involved in battles over several botched elections, including the infamous 2000 presidential election debacle, was less critical.
“I think the state is concerned that it be done right,” he said. “It’s an important election.”
The problem started when an Arizona company that printed the ballots failed to include a heading over the merit retention elections for judges on the Florida Supreme Court and 4th District Court of Appeal. The mistake was discovered and corrected after the first 60,000 ballots were printed and 50,000 mailed.
It was soon discovered that the error would affect all races on the flawed ballot. When the header was inserted, the races on about half of the ballots shifted, Bucher said. The shift will make it impossible for tabulation machines to count the votes on an estimated 27,000 of the bad ballots. Saying it would be impossible to program machines to read the defective ballots, Bucher said the only alternative is to duplicate them by hand.
Late Friday, she sent Detzner a report, outlining how the process will unfold Monday when workers begin opening, sorting and copying the roughly 15,000 absentee ballots that have been returned. Of the total, she said about 8,600 are flawed.
Ten two-person teams will copy votes from the bad ballots to clean ones. Each team’s members will be from opposite political parties. Their work will be reviewed by a supervisor, who will make sure the votes were copied correctly.
Three people representing candidates will be allowed to sit behind each duplicating team. One must represent a Republican candidate, the other a Democrat and the third a non-partisan candidate. She didn’t say how the people would be selected. Earlier this week, she said it would be on a first-come, first-served basis.
Campaign attorneys and political consultants predicted the process would quickly turn into chaos. Those reached late Friday declined comment.
But privately some said there are still many questions to be answered. For instance, only the canvassing board — Bucher, County Judge Caroline Shepherd and County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor — can determine voter intent. Voters often do crazy things, like drawing lines, crossing out selections or making stray marks on the ballot.
Campaign strategists said they want to know who gets to raise questions if it appears the duplicating teams are determining voter intent, and how they make their concerns known.
Such questions are expected to be answered over the weekend in private meetings between Bucher and top state officials for the Obama and Romney campaigns.
Dinerstein, like others, said he isn’t worried about fraud or someone intentionally trying to subvert the election. But, he said, mistakes happen.
The last time a top state official became involved in a county election was in August 2008 when roughly 3,500 ballots inexplicably evaporated in a close judicial race. Then-Secretary of State Kurt Browning visited the county to meet with elections officials to review their procedures.
Dinerstein said such history explains, in part, Detzner’s action. But, he said, the decision to bring in observers is important for other reasons.
“The issue right now going forward is voter confidence,” he said. “It’s about saying to the voters of this state that we think the count you are getting is an honest one.”
Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher stands amid the boxes of ballots as she oversees the recount of over- and under-votes from the race for Florida Senate District 27 between candidates Jeff Clemens and Mack Bernard Aug. 17, 2012.
Related
Letter from Secretary of State Ken Detzner to Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher
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That’s nothing—I just got my THIRD absentee ballot here in Maryland. Something about having been to the Motor Vehicles, according to the Board of Elections.
I already voted in Palm Beach County before I relocated temporarily to Dubai. The ballot I completed is the “fill in the blank space” type - no chads, no punch cards. If this is the ballot that will be used in November as I was told it was, I don’t see much opportunity for fraud or senior ballot dementia as it was in 2000.
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