I live in Southern Palm Beach County. I live in a state infamous for election problems. Anyone remember her? We still do.
Guess what, it's already starting:
Palm Beach County has an absentee ballot problem...
The good news: the problem has been identified and at least election officials know now (several weeks in advance of the election) that at least 60,000 ballots will have to be hand counted:
A printing error on some 60,000 absentee ballots sent to Palm Beach County voters this month could affect the outcome of every race that will be decided Nov. 6, including the hotly contested presidential election, Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said today.
Initially, it appeared the mistake would only cause confusion in the merit retention elections of three Florida Supreme Court justices. However, Bucher said, the error will make it impossible for tabulating machines to count votes on about half of the flawed ballots.
“It won’t be able to read them,” she said. “It will just kick them out.”
To assure all votes are counted, she has asked county officials to provide extra workers to help manually sort the ballots that have already begun streaming into her office. An Arizona company, Runbeck Election Services, which admitted it made the mistake, will pick up the tab.
She has asked for a supervisor, 20 “quality control” workers and an undetermined number of people who will serve on two-member teams. The teams will duplicate the ballots so the machines can read them. By law, they can begin opening ballots 15 days before the Nov. 6 election.
From Arizona's Secretary of State re
Runbeck. There's not much info and the articles of incorporation link wouldn't load for me. I wanted to see who their parent/affiliated companies is/are (so I could dig a little deeper into the company and its officers).
There's more to the article, but that gives you the gist of the problem.
The problem has already caught the attention of Barry Richard, Tallahassee attorney (who was lead counsel for Bush's team during the 2000 election debacle). His expressed concern is that the problem could affect the Florida Supreme Court Judge merit retention race, and he's already said he may file a lawsuit today, because:
The committee he chairs for Pariente (one of 3 FL Supremes he represents) today began a phone campaign to alert voters that unlike other races there is no header above the ones for the justices. He and others are worried voters will either be confused or unable to locate the place on the ballot where they can decide whether to keep the three jurists on the bench for another six years. Unlike other years, when the so-called merit retention elections drew little interest, the three face stiff opposition from conservative groups and the Republican Party of Florida.
And so it begins. What could
possibly go wrong?
I love my state...
UPDATE: 1:02 pm - h/t to user distraught regarding voting absentee in Florida.