Problems Crop Up in Fla. Early Voting

Jill Barton - AP - October 18, 2004

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - With memories of 2000 and the state's bitter fight over ballots still fresh, Floridians began casting votes Monday and within an hour problems cropped up.

In Palm Beach County, the center of the madness during the recount four years ago, a Democratic state legislator said she wasn't given a complete absentee ballot when she asked to opt for paper instead of the electronic touch-screen machines. Several voting sites in Broward County had problems with laptops connected to elections headquarters. And a brief computer system crash in Orange County paralyzing voting in Orlando and its immediate suburbs.

[...] State Rep. Shelley Vana said the paper absentee ballot she was given at a Palm Beach County site was missing one of its two pages, including the proposed amendments to the state constitution. She said election workers were indifferent when she pointed out the oversight.

"There was absolutely no concern on the part of the folks at the Supervisor of Elections Office that this page was missing. This is not a good start. If there are incomplete ballots out there, I can't imagine I would be the only one getting it," she said.

County elections supervisor Theresa LePore did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

[...] Protesters gathered outside the Duval County election supervisor's office Monday because the county, the state's most populous, had only one voting site. A city attorney said it said it was too late to open new sites, even though the city council had committed more money to the idea.

Broward County had 14 voting sites but several of them had trouble linking polling station laptop computers with the supervisor's office, said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood. The computers are used to confirm voter eligibility. Workers used paper lists and called the supervisor's office in Fort Lauderdale to verify eligibility, Nash said.

Broward elections officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

[...] Even as voters turned out, lawyers were going to court in Fort Lauderdale to argue a lawsuit over the lack of paper backup on the state's electronic machines.

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Florida Department of State: http://election.dos.state.fl.us