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Hillsborough Vote Goes Smoothly; Sarasota Reports Problems |
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Written by By CATHERINE DOLINSKI and ELLEN GEDALIUS
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Wednesday, 08 November 2006 |
TAMPA - Election Day ended smoothly in the Tampa Bay area as an embattled Buddy Johnson, Hillsborough County elections supervisor, wrapped up a near flawless process late Tuesday. Not so in Sarasota County, however, where attorneys for Christine Jennings reported that 50 to 60 voters complained they were having trouble voting for the District 13 congressional candidate on electronic touch screens.The Sarasota complaints were among the most serious in a largely trouble-free Election Day. As Florida and other states move to electronic voting, some voters reported problems with calibration of the machines causing votes to appear in the wrong place.In addition, several precincts did not open on time in Broward County because of a mix-up in voting-machine cartridges. Delays ranged from half an hour to about three hours.
Hillsborough's Only SnagJohnson's office hit a stumbling block about 10:45 p.m. as it struggled to recover information from as many as six cartridges. Within half an hour, Johnson reported the count was finished "and we did not lose any votes."The smooth count stood in stark contrast with recent Hillsborough elections, said Chris Griffin, a Democratic activist in Tampa and a lawyer who fields election-day calls about voting problems."In 2002 and 2004, we were just slammed with busy calls all day," said Griffin, who also worked on the Florida presidential recount in 2000. "Today I've gotten a total of five calls. … It's quiet - which is good news."
Sarasota ProblemsThe Jennings campaign said some voters reported the House District 13 race was missing from their touch-screen ballots, said Tami Conetta, a Sarasota lawyer volunteering with the campaign. Democrat Jennings was losing Tuesday to Republican Vern Buchanan in the race for a seat left open by Senate candidate Katherine Harris.Kim Schwartzkopf of Sarasota said she voted for Jennings then found the race was missing from the electronic summary of her ballot. Schwartzkopf, a Republican who voted about 8 a.m., said she was able to maneuver through the electronic screens to vote for Jennings before she left. "But people that don't review their ballot carefully wouldn't catch it."Kathy Dent, supervisor of elections for Sarasota County, did not return calls seeking comment. Calls to the Buchanan campaign were not returned.Dent reported that some lawyers had questioned the ballot, said Florida Secretary of State spokesman Sterling Ivey. But Dent said the Buchanan-Jennings race might have been hard to find because it appeared at the bottom of a ballot page, Ivey said.On complaints that votes for Jennings did not register, Ivey said it was possible but that no reports had been confirmed.The integrity of the voting process was the subject of a ballot question in Sarasota, where voters were asked to decide whether to require county voting systems provide voter-verified paper ballots. Overall, most voters reported no trouble.In Hillsborough, Johnson had the smooth outcome he hoped for after months of scrutiny over how he handled a county mayor initiative and September primary election.During the primary, poll workers from seven precincts failed to retrieve all cartridges. One worker left behind a cartridge containing 59 votes, delaying the posting of results until nearly 1:38 a.m.In 2004, Hillsborough's touch-screen voting system had problems, delaying posted totals until 5 a.m. Johnson said then that 245 votes were not counted, citing human error.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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