Did Florida election officials accidentally trash uncounted ballots?

[kpete]

Did Florida election officials accidentally trash uncounted ballots?
David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday September 11, 2008

More than 3,000 ballots that went missing after a local primary election in Florida could have been inadvertently thrown out on election night, and there are calls for state officials to step in and take over elections operations in the chronically plagued Palm Beach County before November.

"Are the 3,478 missing ballots in a landfill? were they inadvertently thrown out by election officials who thought they were trash?" local anchor Tim Malloy asked in a Wednesday night broadcast. "NewsChannel 5 has exclusively learned that is the leading theory on officials' minds."

Malloy reports that officials at a Boynton Beach precinct may have placed bundles of uncounted ballots into nondescript black plastic trash bags before having them transported to the Palm Beach County Board of Elections. Ballots are supposed to be placed into zippered bags like those used for bank deposits and transported to the board offices in duffle bags, but precinct officials apparently ran out of the duffle bags.

"A reliable law enforcement source tells us it is believed the garbage bag was thrown out. mistaken for trash on a very busy night," Malloy reports. "It would adequately explain, our source says, the mystifying disappearance of thousands of ballots."

The ballots disappeared between the county's Aug. 26 primary and a recount the following weekend.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flprecount0905pnsep05,0,4647658.story

more at:
http://www.wptv.com/content/breakingnews/story.aspx?content_id=71e2d137-1c23-4be3-aa89-cdef86f326b4
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Were_missing_Florida_ballots_thrown_out_0911.html

[PDJane]

1. Accidentally?

there was nothing accidental about it.

[elehhhhna]

7. lol, what you said!

[Owl]

2. Cripes, we're a 4th-rate country when it comes to elections!

[Lebam in LA]

3. Sure it was accidental

Had to be an accident. God knows these people are above anything so despicable:sarcasm:

[FLyellowdog]

4. OMG

These are Floridiots...what else would you expect? I'm so proud....NOT!

[stillcool]

5. Florida should give it up...

maybe have a lottery drawing to choose a candidate.

[Speciesamused]

6. I work the polls here in Fl. I see what goes on. "Accidents"

I know I am going to get gruff from this statement. But the voting system in this
country has been broken for 8 years now. Hello. Was anything done to fix it? No! we just
mossey right along with the same broken system arguing about who we are voting for, when you do not
even know if it counts or is being stolen. Peace
www.nationalpopularvote.com
"

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. Wasn't this an episode on Carter Country?

http://www.tv.com/carter-country/ballots-for-burnside/episode/831541/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;1

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. O-M-G! Finally. After all of that searching. But I have a question

why the he]] did they put the ballots in trash bags?

What did the ballots come in?

What about procedures on handling the ballots.

I don't think I will be able to watch television on election night,
I've been too traumatized, and Florida isn't going to make it any better.

Agh!!

[Wilms]

10. Or were they in trash bags???

The comments section of the WPTV story suggests the trash bag story is not accurate.

Comments

PrdNamVet - 9/11/2008

Seems channel 5 news doesn't like to listen to it's viewers. We told you that the garbage bags didn't sound right and it was a problem with the boxes.... The Supervisor of Elections office did not insure that proper training was given on how to handle the ballots and this is what caused the problem.


PrdNamVet - 9/11/2008

I do not understand why the ballots were removed from the supplied boxes, which were sealed at the precincts, and then delivered to the collection sites by the precinct clerk and another poll worker. The videos from the newscasts show the boxes stacked up at the election office, so where does these blag garbage bags come into play? Doesn't make sense to me and I worked at the polls on election day and also brought the ballots to the collection point. There was mass confusion from the workers and officers at the collection site, maybe this is where the ballots were lost.


Harold1 - 9/11/2008

Your story does not seem possible. The voting in each precinct was very light.My precinct with 2000 voters only had 140 voting at the poll. I spoke to other poll watchers,and they reported the same light turnout. According to your story about 30 bags had to be thrown out.Maybe something is wrong with the machines. Maybe if other counties has close contests and had to have a recount there would also be errors between the ballots and the machines Harold

http://www.wptv.com/content/breakingnews/story.aspx?content_id=71e2d137-1c23-4be3-aa89-cdef86f326b4&p=Comments

[garybeck]

11. Why is no one suggesting another obvious possibility?????

The MACHINE could have counted extra votes and there are no missing ballots.

It doesn't have to be fraud, it could be a bug in the software.

[Wilms]

12. True.

And another idea is that 2500 ballots were scanned twice. :shrug:


However, this just in...

In Palm Beach County it goes from missing ballots to too many ballots

By Mark Hollis | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

September 12, 2008

It's no longer a missing ballots problem in Palm Beach County. Now there are too many ballots.

After a cumbersome resorting and recounting of ballots from the Aug. 26 election, investigators produced two new troubling findings Friday.

First, auditors have discovered electronic evidence that 110 ballots from voters at a Delray Beach precinct weren't included in election night results. Those votes also weren't included in totals from a recount.

Second, auditors verified that there are 139 more paper ballots on hand at elections offices than the number of ballots reported cast on election night. The combination of the findings means there could be 249 more ballots than were counted on election night - though that estimate could change before an audit is finalized this weekend.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0912missingballots,0,3917707.story

And this interesting report from a month before this election...

Voting machine manufacturer to assist in Palm Beach County elections

By PAUL QUINLAN

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

WEST PALM BEACH — The manufacturer of Palm Beach County's new optical-scan voting machines will have technical staff on hand in the Aug. 26 primary and Nov. 4 general election to help prevent a repeat of the county's electoral mishaps.

Vice President Phil Foster of Sequoia Voting Systems said in a memo to the county that he will be on hand to assist in technical matters and field questions from the media. So will at least three specialists trained in the tabulation software, precinct voting machines and the absentee ballot scanner.

One additional expert will be present to assist on Aug. 26, Foster wrote to county Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson.

The in-person support is required under the county's contract with Sequoia, company spokeswoman Michelle Shafer said.

Sequoia had a similar support staff on hand June 24 during a special election that marked the county's first run with the optical-scan machines. Still, nearly 700 votes went undiscovered until the day after the election. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/local_news/content/local_news/epaper/2008/07/29/0729sequoia.html

[garybeck]

13. I'm not sure I buy the story that they found the missing ballots in the first place

they had been searching for nearly two weeks. the police and fire department had searched hundreds of precincts. then they just mysteriously show up, and they say there were right there all the time? Doesn't pass the sniff test to me.

[Wilms]

14. After the dog ate it, it threw it up?

:shrug:

The other thing unclear to me is if the other contests were in fact impacted. I have to wonder if they're staging a lot of this to suggest the damage is limited.

[garybeck]

16. I think it's all damage control at this point

integrity of the election is not the main concern anymore. gotta save face first.

[Sancho]

15. This might be an accident, but it happened in Clearwater already!

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/tampa-fl/T753A9G7PGGCGHC8B

What is the DNC going to do about the continuing election manipulation!