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Palm Beach County - Voting Problems . . Again!

Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Anyone think they will ever be able to get it right?

Sun-Sentinel

2,700 of 3,400 missing ballots found from Palm Beach County elections

Confidence in optical-scan voting at stake

By Mark Hollis
Sun-Sentinel.com
12:37 PM EDT, September 4, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH

Working in pairs inside a vote-tabulation center, more than 30 Palm Beach County workers are attempting today to count by hand every ballot cast in the Aug. 26 primary.

In hopes of accounting for all 102,523 ballots that officials believe were cast on Election Day, the staffers are searching for 3,478 ballots that went missing after a weekend recount.

Shortly after midnight, and before hand counting began, county authorities said they had identified 2,700 of the 3,478 missing ballots.

At a 5 a.m. meeting, members of the county elections canvassing board called in more workers to begin the vote counting. That board will meet again at 5 p.m. today, when ballot counting is expected to be complete.

Workers are only counting ballots and are not yet attempting to decipher how people voted on those ballots, said Kathy Adams, a spokesperson for Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson.

Tonight, the county elections canvassing board is expected to order a second recount of the vote in a close race between Circuit Judge Richard Wennet and challenger William Abramson.

"If we end up not being able to find remaining ballots, we'll leave the race as is," said Mary McCarty, a member of the canvassing board. "We won't be able to certify the race [and the candidates] will have to sue and go to court and let a judge decide."

On Wednesday, Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning came to West Palm Beach with a stern warning that county workers will have only until 5 p.m. Friday to give Tallahassee a precise count of ballots cast on Aug. 26.

Browning said Gov. Charlie Crist and other leaders are "seriously concerned" about the possibility of public skepticism of new optical-scan voting equipment if Palm Beach County can't confirm how many people voted locally.

"My desire is to have as much information and a sense of certainty and control over our election by Friday," Browning said. "We need to do whatever it takes. We may need to go back and make sure there's not a box of ballots tucked away in a corner. We need to just look for them. … We need to find ballots."

When voting finished Aug. 26, election workers said ballot scanners in polling places indicated 102,523 ballots had been cast.

But after recounts were conducted over several days, officials could account for 99,045 ballots, or 3,478 fewer than the election night total.

The Friday night deadline looms because that's when a statewide canvassing board, including the governor, will certify all 67 Florida counties' primary election results. That board already this week postponed statewide certification because of doubts about Palm Beach County's vote.

Officials also are in a rush to prepare the Nov. 4 general election ballot and to put into the mail thousands of ballots to residents living overseas by a mandated Sept. 20 deadline.

The missing ballots that have been found were located, according to Adams, by comparing precinct-by-precinct totals on election day with those after the recount. When discrepancies were found, workers counted ballots stored in bins where the ballots are separated for each of the county's 780 voting precincts

Staff Writer Jerome Burdi contributed to this report.

Mark Hollis can be reached at mhollis@SunSentinel.com or 561-228-5512.

Copyright © 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
 
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California

Charter Member
Site Supporter
I don't think anyone is surprised this time.

Isn't this where Socialist Labor Party won more votes than the total they had won cumulatively over 70 years, marking a night/day change in political affiliation for the rest home residents who were said to have cast all those surprise votes?
 

Cityboy

Banned
I don't think anyone is surprised this time.

Isn't this where Socialist Labor Party won more votes than the total they had won cumulatively over 70 years, marking a night/day change in political affiliation for the rest home residents who were said to have cast all those surprise votes?

Socialist Labor Party? They're pretty much the same as Democrats, right? :poke::hide:
 
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