Election snafu has N.O. clerk on defensive

New Orleans Times-Picayune

Reeling from criticism after Saturday's electoral snafu, New Orleans' top elections official Monday said her office did the best it could under the circumstances and instead blamed others for delayed delivery of voting machines to 90 of the city's 442 precincts.

Clerk of Criminal Court Kimberly Williamson Butler put responsibility for the mix-up on Hurricane Ivan, Secretary of State Fox McKeithen and a moving company.

She also suggested that a group of truck drivers who failed to return to work after leaving for a break during the wee hours Saturday may have been bribed by someone trying to sabotage the election. Butler offered no evidence to back up the theory and later downplayed it, but said all angles should be considered.

Remember that one of the "proofs" that pro-BBV forces offer that the machines can't be tampered with is the "stringent" physical security. Here we have 90 machines go on a joy ride for nine hours.

McKeithen and state Attorney General Charles Foti guaranteed as much, announcing at a joint news conference that their probe examining the debacle should be complete by the end of next week.

"We are not going to have this problem in the November elections," McKeithen said. "I can promise you that."

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