Excellent
Posted on 09/11/2002 8:04:25 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
MIAMI (AP) - Florida's first major election since the 2000 debacle was marred by mechanical and human glitches that frustrated voters and prompted Janet Reno ( news - web sites) to consider challenging results that showed her trailing in the race for governor.
Political novice Bill McBride jumped out to an early lead over Reno in the Democratic primary when initial results were counted, but Reno remained in striking distance as votes were still being counted in South Florida counties where she held a better than 2-to-1 margin.
Despite $32 million spent to reform the voting system, Tuesday's primary was tarnished by faulty vote-counting machines, absent poll workers and exasperated voters unable to cast ballots.
Problems were reported in 14 of Florida's 67 counties, including six of the seven that were sued after the 2000 vote. The governor called it "shameful."
"It's deja vu all over again," said Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe. "Even before the polls close, we know that election reform in Florida has failed its first test."
The Democratic race between Reno and McBride remained too close to call. Broward and Orange counties suspended counting by 5 a.m., leaving Reno and McBride waiting until sometime Wednesday — and possibly longer — to learn who would face Republican Gov. Jeb Bush in November.
Early Wednesday, with 97 percent of precincts reporting, McBride had 596,472 votes, or 45 percent, compared with Reno's 577,380 votes, or 43 percent. State Sen. Daryl Jones ( news, bio, voting record) had 154,367 votes, or 12 percent.
Two months ago, polls had shown Reno leading McBride by about 25 percentage points.
"We'll see what happens," McBride said early Wednesday. "I thought it was going to be close, but I thought it would have been settled by now. I just hope this gets straightened out."
Reno had not conceded when she left a meeting with supporters at 2:30 a.m., saying only that her campaign was assessing the numbers. Campaign manager Mo Elleithee said no decision had been made on whether to contest the race. Reno was at home Wednesday morning and did not comment.
"We need to wait-and-see what the numbers look like and what the full impact of today's voting irregularities are," Elleithee said.
Republican National Chairman Marc Racicot said some problems could have been expected in the first election after such widespread changes. The responsibility for conducting elections in Florida lies with the individual elected county supervisors of elections.
Gov. Jeb Bush ordered polls statewide to stay open an additional two hours to handle unhappy voters — but some refused and closed at 7 p.m. as scheduled. At one precinct, residents said poll workers refused to reopen the doors and shouted profanities at would-be voters.
"I frankly wonder what in the hell have they been doing for two years," said Secretary of State Jim Smith, Florida's top elections official.
Smith, a former secretary of state, returned to his old job after the resignation this summer of Katherine Harris. Harris won the GOP primary Tuesday for a seat in Congress after presiding over the 2000 recount that eventually led to George W. Bush's razor-thin victory over Al Gore ( news - web sites).
The state changed voting laws and outlawed punch card ballots after the presidential election. Millions were spent and more than half of the state's voters used — or tried to use — the new touch-screen machines intended to replace punch card and butterfly ballots.
But ballots jammed in optical-scanning machines used in some counties. Poll workers didn't show up, forcing some precincts to open late into the morning. And some Democrats were given Republican ballots.
Duval County officials sued for a 90-minute voting extension in a precinct at a senior center after it opened 90 minutes late because poll workers didn't realize they were supposed to turn on machines themselves.
"It's shameful," Bush said. "The state put up money — significant sums of money — for training, for machines. ... There's no excuse for not having precinct workers in a precinct for voting, no excuse for not turning on the machines."
Miami-Dade County officials said electronic ballots from 31 precincts had not been processed as of early Wednesday because voting machines had not been shut down properly.
"Our community suffered a black eye on a day we expected to celebrate our democracy," Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas said.
This is the BEST of all worlds. No clear winner in the Demmycrat primary because Janet Reno chooses to play the whining Algore game.
Excellent
BWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Well, it's nice to see that democrats are turning on each other. Let Janet whine. It shows what kind of party the dems have become. No republicans to cry foul about this time!
The BEST would be for Reno to sue and it go all the way to SCOFLA. Let's drag this sucker ot for 4 or 5 more weeks. Let the name calling begin. Heh Heh.
It will be even better to see if the SCOFLA acts as they did before in ignoring deadlines in the law and start pulling new deadlines out of thin air.
Will they be consistent or will they stick to the law as written this time?
Now watch the slimey Demos cry for Katharine Harris to come back and clean-up the mess! I want Judge Sanders Sauls judging the court battle!
We are going to trust our elections to flaky computers? I mean, what would happen to them in a power outage?
You're ignoring the dark side. If Florida can't get its electoral act together in two years, what makes you think they will in two months? What happens when Jeb's election is contested next November because of its own irregularities?
Electoral chaos opens the door to fraud, and always benefits Dems. And it doesn't look like next November's election will be free of chaos or fraud.
Not sure if I'm the first to notice this, but simply add a "W" to the acronym for the Florida Supreme Court, and you get pretty close to spelling "scofflaw!"
How appropriate!
"And you shake it all around. . . ."
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