Posted on 11/07/2002 5:14:39 AM PST by EggsAckley
Posted on Wed, Nov. 06, 2002
Broward vote total off in reporting glitch
By EVAN S. BENN
ebenn@herald.com
Broward County's election didn't end as smoothly as it began: A programming error sliced 34,000 votes from reported races on Tuesday, and 70,000 more were deducted from total turnout.
By late Wednesday, election officials insisted that all the votes were accounted for.
They said that the errors had no effect on the outcome of any races, though voter turnout jumped from 35 percent to 45 percent after it was corrected.
And it raised questions about the vote-counting and reporting process for the county's $17.2 million electronic voting system that could not be explained to the satisfaction of the three-member canvassing board until late Wednesday.
Two things went wrong:
• The English-language results of early voting were tabulated as if they come from one precinct. The total exceeded a preset maximum for a single precinct. Thus the 34,000 early votes were not included in the published totals for each race or in the overall turnout number.
• The absentee ballots and Spanish-language early voting results were recorded in each individual race, but because of an operator error in preparing a report those 70,000 were left out of the overall turnout number.
The missing 104,000 led officials to initially report total turnout of only 34 percent. The official corrected number of votes cast was 443,912, the canvassing board announced late Wednesday. A few provisional ballots will be added to that total by 2 p.m. today, when all votes must be sent to the state.
''The initial reports didn't include everything we tabulated,'' Deputy Supervisor Joe Cotter said.
''It was a minor software thing. Once we realized it, we took the proper steps to fix it,'' he said.
Hours after the close of voting on Tuesday, members of the canvassing board took notice of a discrepancy on printed summaries of the vote totals from each race.
The reports showed more votes in the governor's race than the reported total number of ballots cast.
''That was the red flag,'' said Charles Lindsey, an election monitor from the state Division of Elections.
On Wednesday afternoon, the unreported votes came to light publicly, sparking a barrage of questions. The canvassing board was meeting to review absentee and provisional ballots, when its chairman, Administrative Judge Jay Spechler, asked technicians to explain the missing votes.
A minor uproar ensued.
Ed Pozzuoli, a lawyer representing the state Republican Party, complained that the timing of Wednesday's revelation was curious, given that several observers were there to monitor returns in the tight District 97 race between Sandy Halperin and Nan Rich.
''This causes great suspicion, Judge,'' Pozzuoli told Spechler.
Spechler responded that the discrepancy was caught late Tuesday, and was unrelated to any examination of the District 97 race, in which Rich was reported to be leading by fewer than 100 votes at the close of tallying Tuesday. The final report put her ahead by 542 votes.
''We knew there was a mistake, we just didn't know where it was,'' said Norman Ostrau, a deputy county attorney.
Probably shouldn't shake too hard...all those hanging and pregnant chads, ya know ;)
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