DoYouEverWonder
09-21-2008, 06:04 PM
September 21, 2008
Just when Palm Beach County officials thought they were within minutes of putting a three-week-long nightmare of a razor-thin judicial race behind them, yet another ballot-counting problem surfaced today.
The county elections canvassing board adjourned until 3 p.m. Monday to give staff time to figure out why, at the last moment, ballot counts didn't add up. They are to ask officials from Sequoia Voting Systems, which sold the county that $5.5 million optical scan system, to help them sort out the problem.
"Our obligation here is to make sure we have an accurate count," said County Court Judge Peter Evans, chairman of the three-member canvassing board. "At this point we think it's just better to step back and get these questions answered."
The board declined to detail the problem. Assistant County Administrator Bob Merriman, who has been overseeing the unprecedented second recount of the judicial race, declined comment.
County Commissioner Mary McCarty, who serves on the canvassing board, said apparently there are 159 more ballots being reflected in the totals than there were on Saturday when a machine count was completed.
"They're trying to rectify that," she said.
At the conclusion of the machine recount, challenger William Abramson was beating incumbent Circuit Judge Richard Wennet by 115 votes. But, that total didn't include the roughly 12,400 ballots that couldn't be read by tabulating machines.
Those ballots were reviewed by teams of people who completed their work shortly after noon. Candidates said they were told unofficially that the gap had dropped to about 50 votes. Once those who were manually recounting the ballots had completed their work, officials expected to be able to announce a winner.
Instead, the last in series of glitches was discovered.
Attorney Gerald Richman, who represents Wennet, said it will shore up his argument that the results of the race be thrown out and the election to be decided on Nov. 4.
"This is typical of the problems and mandates that we have a new election," he said. "How can you have confidence in this equipment?"
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/09/21/0921recount.html
Just when Palm Beach County officials thought they were within minutes of putting a three-week-long nightmare of a razor-thin judicial race behind them, yet another ballot-counting problem surfaced today.
The county elections canvassing board adjourned until 3 p.m. Monday to give staff time to figure out why, at the last moment, ballot counts didn't add up. They are to ask officials from Sequoia Voting Systems, which sold the county that $5.5 million optical scan system, to help them sort out the problem.
"Our obligation here is to make sure we have an accurate count," said County Court Judge Peter Evans, chairman of the three-member canvassing board. "At this point we think it's just better to step back and get these questions answered."
The board declined to detail the problem. Assistant County Administrator Bob Merriman, who has been overseeing the unprecedented second recount of the judicial race, declined comment.
County Commissioner Mary McCarty, who serves on the canvassing board, said apparently there are 159 more ballots being reflected in the totals than there were on Saturday when a machine count was completed.
"They're trying to rectify that," she said.
At the conclusion of the machine recount, challenger William Abramson was beating incumbent Circuit Judge Richard Wennet by 115 votes. But, that total didn't include the roughly 12,400 ballots that couldn't be read by tabulating machines.
Those ballots were reviewed by teams of people who completed their work shortly after noon. Candidates said they were told unofficially that the gap had dropped to about 50 votes. Once those who were manually recounting the ballots had completed their work, officials expected to be able to announce a winner.
Instead, the last in series of glitches was discovered.
Attorney Gerald Richman, who represents Wennet, said it will shore up his argument that the results of the race be thrown out and the election to be decided on Nov. 4.
"This is typical of the problems and mandates that we have a new election," he said. "How can you have confidence in this equipment?"
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/09/21/0921recount.html