News & Events
Small issues fail to mar day
By CURTIS MORGAN, JENNIFER LEBOVICH AND FRED TASKER
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Wed, Nov. 05, 2008 | Miami Herald
Were there glitches? You betcha.
This was, after all, a presidential election in Florida. But Tuesday's problems largely amounted to these sort of scattered hiccups:
•The only scanner at Coral Ridge Mall in Fort Lauderdale broke and voters had to put ballots in a bin until it was replaced.
•In the David Park Community Center in Hollywood, the first 20 or so voters were handed misprinted ballots listing Amendment 3 twice.
•A poll worker in Sunny Isles Beach was dismissed for being "rude and overzealous.''
•Two precincts in Palm Beach County opened late.
Statewide, voting went so smoothly that Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning called Election Day ''almost eerily quiet,'' despite an unofficial record turnout.
''It's been a great day for Florida,'' he said.
There were no major meltdowns, befuddling ballot designs or partisan legal eagles clashing over voter challenges -- nothing to give the late-night likes of Letterman and Leno a reason to reprise Flori-duh punch lines of Gore-Bush 2000.
''We're thrilled it's been a delightfully uneventful day,'' said Kendall Coffey, a Miami attorney who led a team of 450 poll watchers for the Obama campaign. GOP spokeswoman Erin VanSickle agreed that the Florida vote had gone smoothly.
`NOTHING ... WRONG'
There were lots of long lines, with some voters still waiting after 10 p.m. at South Kendall Community Church and Country Walk Park Recreation Center in Miami-Dade -- the result of heavy turnout, not machine problems.
''There's absolutely nothing going wrong at those sites,'' said Vicki Mallette, a county spokeswoman. "There's only so many privacy booths.''
Still, voter-rights advocates pointed to a widespread pattern of problems, some that contributed to lines at college campuses in Tampa and Orlando and some that potentially could disqualify some ballots.
SCANNER ISSUES
Orange, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough counties led the state with calls to a hot line run by Election Protection, a coalition of nonpartisan watchdogs. The most common complaint: balky or broken scanners.
Browning, the state's top elections official, said machine failures appeared to number only in the ''dozens'' and problems differed from county to county and brand to brand. Some jammed or failed in South Florida. Some in Orange County had problems reading thin-paper ballots. In Leon County, the problems were ballots torn by overaggressive poll workers. In two Sarasota precincts, internal storage bins overflowed, forcing workers to pack ballots in bags.
''This seems to be a widespread issue, but I don't think it's the same issue,'' said Common Cause's Derek Cressman.
Terry Coble, vice president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, called the issues serious, though they affected a small percentage of the eight million or so people expected to vote. ''Even if these incidents are not happening to an entire precinct, it has significant impact on the potential result of an election,'' she said.
`VERY FEW PROBLEMS'
The Miami-Dade call center recorded about 16,000 calls, but most were questions about precinct locations or voting hours. ''There have been very, very few problems,'' said elections supervisor Lester Sola.
In Broward, technicians were dispatched on 58 calls to fix balky machines, including the broken scanners at the Coral Ridge Mall and First Congregational Church in Fort Lauderdale and a voter-ID machine at Holiday Springs Village in Margate.
In Palm Beach County, a clerk doing paperwork and a missing key to a storage room delayed opening two precincts. Three others in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and northern Palm Beach County also had optical scanners break down.
Similar glitches and issues emerged across the state.
At the University of South Florida in Tampa, students waited in line for two to three hours to use three voting booths. That prompted Alex Sink, the state's chief financial officer and an Obama supporter, to call Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson, who agreed to ship more voting booths.
`PEACEFUL SPOT'
The Miami Herald, both parties and watchdog groups also received scattered voter ''intimidation'' allegations. But most poll watchers reported no trouble.
At the Atlantic Baptist Church in Margate, Brenda Bengis, sporting a blue Florida Voting Rights Attorney pin on her lapel, said other than an electronic voting register malfunctioning for a short time, things went well. ''This place has been a very peaceful spot,'' she said.
Miami Herald staff writers Patrick Danner, Diana Moskovitz, David Gelles, Mary Ellen Klas, Yudi Pineiro, Charles Rabin, Manny Garcia, Jay Weaver and Nirvi Shah contributed to this report.