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Voting problems few and touchy? |
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Written by Tom Lyons
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Wednesday, 08 November 2006 |
Like every supervisor of elections, Kathy Dent is really busy now. You know, what with Election Day being Tuesday and all.
Last week at her Sarasota office, in the middle of early voting, I thought Dent was handling the stress well. She seemed calm.
She had a gripe, though. It was about a woman from Longboat Key who had sent Dent, and this newspaper, an e-message.
Bonnie Zeeman had been the first voter, and at that point the only one, to say a touch-screen machine had, at first, failed to register a vote.
Zeeman voted early last week, partly to vote for Christine Jennings, the Democrat who is up against Republican Vern Buchanan for a seat in Congress.
The screen highlighted Jennings' name to show that Zeeman's ballot selection had been noted, she said. But when the list of all her votes appeared, no vote was listed in the Jennings-Buchanan race, Zeeman said.
No harm done, it seems. She got advice from poll workers and simply re-did the Jennings vote, and that time the list showed it had been accepted.
Still, she wondered if that had been a common experience, and whether some voters failed to catch the mistake.
So she wrote her very polite e-message about the experience. After she got a reply from Dent, Zeeman told me she thought Dent was very nice and was doing the right things. That is, Dent was instructing employees to make sure that every voter was told to carefully check the final computer-screen ballot selections before leaving the voting booth.
It all seemed friendly. But Dent had said to me -- and later said the same in an e-message sent out to numerous people -- that Zeeman should have contacted a poll worker at the time instead of going home and then sending an e-mail to the press and to an organization promoting the need for paper trails and other safeguards to make sure all votes are counted.
Dent made it all sound suspicious. By then, she had received two similar complaints. And in Dent's public response, she complained that all three voters who reported problems had contacted the media before contacting anyone in her office.
Well, gosh, Mrs. Dent, in the e-mail you received from Zeeman, the one you responded to so nicely, she clearly told you she had told a poll worker about the problem.
It seems likely your poll workers didn't mention that to you because Zeeman was so polite and constructive about it all.
And her e-message was sent to you and this newspaper, at the same time.
That was totally appropriate.
Zeeman can and should tell anyone she wants to tell. But Zeeman says she didn't even know the name of the organization seeking a paper trail, the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections, and was taken aback at Dent's casting aspersions about her.
"She was very grouchy," Zeeman said.
Another voter from Longboat, Ellen Fedder, was also irritated that her polite complaint about an identical experience resulted in the same reprimand.
Fedder responded to an inexplicable comment from Dent. Dent had told her and the others who had reported problems: "I hope we can stop looking for ways to disrupt the process and disenfranchise voters."
Huh?
Fedder responded with more politeness than I could have mustered, but she made the right point.
"The process is scary when our official seems to attack us for having concerns," Fedder told Dent. "The fact that you seem so angry is one of the problems I must take to heart."
Exactly. Dent has long been getting mad at anyone who raises any concern about her voting machines. No matter how reasonable or polite the people may be, they are assumed to be up to no good.
I was also struck by Dent's claim to me on Thursday, after just a handful of reported problems and little or no press coverage.
"These reports of alleged problems with the voting machines have been blown out of proportion," Dent said.
What? By whom? And how? Is mentioning a problem now bad judgment?
I asked Dent to explain, but got no answer.
Dent also insisted, in another e-mailed message, that the reports of problems actually indicate the machines are working properly, because all the accounts ended with successful votes.
That is quite a conclusion. It ignores the obvious fact that if some machines are sometimes losing ballot choices, anyone who didn't notice the error would, of course, not be able to complain.
But there's a bright side for unknowingly disenfranchised voters, if there are some: Dent won't be chewing you out and accusing you of disrupting her election.
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Florida News