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.
On an unrelated note, Florida required a photo-ID, and so far thare have been no complaints. Let's see the rest of the country catch up to this.
IMHO, the only reason there were any irregularities is because the Dims hadn't figured out how to rig the results.
Georgia will use electronics in our November general election (the demo unit didn't work in our primary).
When I voted in the priamry and runoff (yesterday) in Georgia, we had to show photo-id. That I support wholeheartedly. Electronics without some backup/redundancy/verification is something else.
I've no doubt Democrats purposely screwed this up so they could blame the whole fiasco on Jeb Bush.
Once the Democrats sort out who their candidate will be, watch the whole machine turn on Jeb and use this as a campaign issue.
This is a preview to November and eventually to 2004. Unless the state courts get tough and tell the Democrats to go pound sand, watch for this rerun to appear in an election near you.
Gore almost successfully used the liberal SCOFLA to rewrite the state's election statutes to his benefit. Why not try it in a dozen or more other states?
They have both the computer touch screen and the optical scanners. My mother-in-law runs a voting precinct in Jacksonville. They have the "fill in the dot" optical scanners there. I emailed her telling her I had read about the mess yesterday and asked her how it went at her precinct. Here is what she said:
"Wasn't that a mess? We only had 2 problems with our scanner. One ballot had a little crinkle in it and wouldn't go through. Another ballot had been torn at the corner when the lady tore it from the stub. It wasn't the voters, it was the old workers. They are ancient and can't hear or see. *****(marked out her son's name that lives in Tampa) said the poll worker that he had was 87 years old. The vote are still not completed. The Governor made it mandantory that we stay open until 9, but some closed anyway. I guess we will have a good pay check. We had 10 hours of training at the Jr. college to do that scanner. Some of the polls waited for someone to come start theirs for them. Is that dumb? Why did they give us the classes."
My mother-in-law has been working at her precinct for 30years. I tell ya, she has some wild stories to tell.
Because the SCOTUS ruled that only the legislatures have the power to make the laws determining how electors are selected. Also, there is a federal law passed after the 1876 presidential election, that requires the states to use the procedures their legislatures have in place on election day to choose electors. SCOFLA (isn't that a descriptive acronym) was violating this federal law in two ways. First, it was usurping the plenary powers of the state legislature to determine how electors are selected; second, it was changing the law after the deadline for making changes in the law. SCOFLA claimed it was interpreting the Florida Constitution, but in the process it was violating both federal statutes and the US Constitution.
The Computers are probably set to default to a straight ticket Dimocrat vote!
I'm more worried about the flaky people running the elections.
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