Florida!?!?, between voter fraud and idiots, I could care less if the seas rise and swallow it.
(All the signs were there ahead of time... )
(And this is just one example.)
Voters fear ballot glitch in Pompano
By Lisa J. Huriash
Staff Writer
Posted October 26 2002
When Milton Fein, a critic of Pompano Beach city government, opened the sample election ballot mailed to his home this week, he thumbed through pages of state races and county charter amendments. But the city's controversial mayor-at-large referendum wasn't on the ballot, leading Fein to think another election snafu had occurred.
"I was perturbed; I thought political people had the issue intentionally removed," he said.
But individual city referendum questions aren't on the sample ballots. That's because it would have been too costly and difficult to include them, said Joe Cotter, Broward's deputy election supervisor in charge of the Nov. 5 vote.
City questions never have been listed on sample ballots, he said.
Seven cities will vote on charter amendments on Election Day: Deerfield Beach, Weston, Pembroke Pines, Margate, Cooper City, Hallandale Beach and Pompano Beach.
They range from eliminating term limits in Cooper City to changing the length of City Commission terms in Margate.
"Our sample ballots don't include municipal or district issues," Cotter said. "If you look on the first page of our sample ballot, it specifically says this ballot does not include special district or municipal issues. It would have been just too complicated for the number of ballot styles."
Responds Pompano Beach activist M. Ross Shulmister, who forced the mayor-at-large referendum issue onto the ballot: "Too bad. We have no beef with the Supervisor of Elections Office on this issue. But it would be nice if people knew."
The mayor-at-large issue is contentious, which led some people to consider conspiracy theories when they didn't see it on the sample ballot. Voters will decide if they will elect their mayor rather than letting city commissioners name a mayor from their ranks.
A group of black residents unsuccessfully filed for an emergency injunction earlier this month, saying if the choice of mayor was left to the will of the public, a black person wouldn't get the position.
Janice Griffin, an attorney and city activist who is considering running for mayor if the change is approved, said two residents had called her, worried when they didn't see the item on the sample ballot.
"It would have been nice for people to have exactly what they're going to looking at," she said.
"On the other hand you can certainly understand the logistical problems that the supervisor of elections would have trying to generate 30 different versions of the sample ballot. It creates just one more item of confusion for people at the polls who haven't been made aware of it."
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at
lhuriash@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4557