More wierd election stuff from Florida... washingtonpost.com Election Chaos in Florida - Yet Again Gov. Bush Orders Polls to Stay Open Two Hours Longer By Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 10, 2002; 8:35 PM MIAMI, Sept. 10 – Election Day came to Florida, with all its promise of change. But what happened today in this state that has become synonymous with electoral chaos had a familiar ring. There were profoundly confused voters, allegations about malfunctioning voting machines, rampant conspiracy theories, candidates threatening lawsuits and a general sense of outrage that stretched from the swanky, high-rise condominiums of Miami Beach to the hard-scrabble neighborhoods of Jacksonville. The trouble began early as dozens of polling places – most of them concentrated in Miami and its suburbs – opened late, turning away voters who arrived at 7 a.m. to cast their ballots before going to work. Former Attorney General Janet Reno, locked in a tight Democratic gubernatorial primary, was one of them. She had to wait more than 20 minutes, with a pack of reporters and television cameras trailing her, for the polling place in her hometown of Kendall to open. By midday, the depth of the problem was so severe that Reno prepared to seek a court ruling to extend voting hours. Gov. Jeb Bush (R) complied before the courts could get involved, issuing a rare executive order to keep the polls open two hours past their usual 7 p.m. closing time. But the move did little to change the mood. "It was ridiculous," said Alina Cauce, 43, a business analyst who was told she could not vote because of computer problems at her polling place, Miami Beach City Hall. "After everything we've gone through with this whole election process in Florida, you'd think they would get these things to function. I end up defending Florida a lot, but it's gotten to the point where, oh my gosh, what can I say?" Cauce wondered whether the problems at her precinct, which has a high concentration of gay voters, were somehow designed to influence the outcome of the vote today on a proposed repeal of a Dade County law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination in employment and housing. Elsewhere, voters in predominantly black areas affected by computer problems speculated that they might be the victims of an attempt to disenfranchise minorities. "We have some precincts giving out Republican ballots [to Democrats] in the heart of the black community . . . it makes me feel like this is intentional," said Rep. Corinne Brown as she toured precincts in her Jecksonville district. "I'm enraged." In Miami, Marie Love-Jackson had planned to take her 18-year-old daughter, Deshawn Colquitt, to vote for the first time. They arrived at 8:30 a.m. and found about 100 people standing in line at Carol City Senior High School, in a predominantly black area of north Miami. The poll workers told her to go home, said Love-Jackson, 42, an unemployed Carol City resident. She returned three hours later in a driving rainstorm that added more complications to an already confounding day. "It's a lot of Republican bull to keep Bush in," said Love-Jackson, who speculated that somehow the unopposed GOP governor was trying to determine who he would face in the November general election. It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. Florida counties have spent more than $100 million to improve voting systems since the embarrassing debacle of the 2000 presidential elections. Touch-screen computers were installed in Broward and Dade counties, the time of the hanging chads on paper ballots was gone. But a whole new vocabulary for election fiascoes replaced the chads. Today, people talked of PEBs, the square, hand-sized devices used to turn on the new voting machines, known as the iVotronic. In Broward, many poll workers did not show up. Both Dade and Broward experienced problems with machines that were not warmed up in time for the opening of voting at 7 a.m. There were also allegations about botched communication with voters. Some people were sent two voter registration cards with conflicting information, others got as many as three cards, said Elliot Mincberg, general counsel of People for the American Way, a civil liberties group that sent teams of workers to monitor polling places. Critics say there were clear warning signs. Lori Parrish, chairwoman of the Broward County Board of Commissioner, said she found out the night before the election that the PEBs needed for more than 50 polling places and voter logs used as backups for computer systems had not been picked up by poll workers. She called everyone – the attorney general, the election board – but couldn't get anyone. Finally, she says, she reached Secretary of State Jim Smith at home at 10:30 p.m. She asked for a state of emergency to be declared, she says, but he turned her down. "We warned them," Parrish said. "Maybe they could have sent the National Guard in." David Host, a spokesman for Smith, said calling out the National Guard would not have been feasible. "The idea that there is any kind of conspiracy is beyond absurd," he said. "These are county issues." Parrish estimates that as many as 75 polling places in Broward experienced problems. While most of those were resolved in the morning, at least one precinct, at a condominium complex, was not opened until after 1 p.m. In Dade County, People for the American Way polling monitors estimate as many as 50 polling places were affected. "It seems that no matter how many assurances we get of safeguards and improvements, voting in Dade County is a lot like going to a casino," said Rep. Carrie Meek. "You hope it will work out, but you know it's beyond your control." Even extending the hours may not have solved all the problems. Poll monitors for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said that some computers were programmed to automatically shut off at 7 p.m. "This is like the keystone cops," said task force executive director Lorri Jean, who last night called on the Justice Department to investigate allegations of election irregularities.
People are speculating that this was all set up by Jeb Bush. I'm not the guy's biggest fan, but please people. Save the conspiracy theories for your personal webpages....and fight the future.
Jeb had nothing to do with this. People in various counties either had personal problems come up or just simply didn't do their job. Janet Reno petitioned Bush to keep the polls open in just 4 counties longer (these, by the way, are 4 of her strongest counties); instead, Bush went the fair way and extended the entire deadline. I don't much care for Jeb - but this certainly isn't his fault.
Excellent point. The elections are handled at the COUNTY level in Florida. This is just a pre-emptive warning to any liberal voting conspiracy theorists not to blame any voting problems, past or present, on Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris.
If you've been around elections, you'd know this happens in all of them with or without computers. They all have screw-ups and craziness. They all end up with lawsuits and problems. All over the place. The difference is that Florida was the lightning rod in 2000 because of the pivotal nature of the vote counting. But, chances are pretty good that this happened in all the states whoever they carried. Truth is that elections are screwy. They are set up inefficiently and run by volunteers who are often poorly trained and without much help. The main problem is that it is often the very poorest areas that suffer the greatest problems because they struggle to afford new equipement, find volunteers willing to occupy the polling place and find people who can work with those less educated who will be voting there. It also doesn't help that those polling places are largely ignored because the turnout isn't always particularly high. Unfortunately, the people in these communities are often minorities, the elderly and the disabled. So, as a result and like everywhere else in the system, they are ignored. Just like their school infrastructure is failing while the public schools in the upper class neighborhoods are thriving, the polling places take a beating in impoverished areas while the one's in nicer areas do well. It is the nature of elections and until they are completely and utterly overhauled and reformed on a national scale, the problem will continue. With all the technology out there, it is incredible that we cannot come up with a voting system that is accurate and reliable. Maybe they could just program the whole thing in Cobal and run it on a Commodore 64. That would be a big improvement.
i still think gore should have won. Bush has been to violent and is not keeping the peace, even the board doesn't want to go to war. Busg is a hot head and needs to calm down. And do what clinton did. lit up a sweet and smoke with the leaders of other countries and let them spend a night with monica.....really though our other presidents have kept peace. Remebr the 1st month of his preidency he bombed a country. Not good.
Put the bong down. A recent poll showed that 65% of the American people support action against Iraq. There are great differences on what approvals Bush should get prior to action. You claim Bush is too violent...well if there's another attack in the US you'll accuse him of not being proactive. If I were gonna catch political flack either way I'd rather catch the flack knowing I did EVERYTHING I could to ensure there is NEVER another attack like there was on 9-11-2001.
