Ballot Recount: Many Things to Many People

When the call came from Tallahassee for every county in Florida to recount presidential ballots the day after last week’s historic vote, Baker County elections supervisor John Barton and his local canvassing board took the easy way out.

They simply checked the electronic memory of their computers, running the numbers again to see if they matched the results from the day before. Not a single ballot was re-scanned or inspected.

Nor did it have to be.

In Florida, it turns out, a recount doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.

The state election guidelines covering the first-round statewide recount are so vaguely written that counties varied widely in the processes they used to recount ballots. A Times examination of last week’s recount revealed that at least 16 of Florida’s 67 counties failed to recount every ballot cast in the election. Some counties simply checked their computer vote tallies. Others just electronically re-scanned their absentee ballots. Some examined ballots in only a portion of their precincts.

“There are a lot of gray areas,” said DeSoto County elections supervisor Ronald Turner, where every ballot was run through the tabulating machines again. “It doesn’t really say in the statutes just how you can do it.”

Florida law dictates that each canvassing board “examine the counters on the machines or the tabulation of the ballots cast” and “determine whether the returns correctly reflect the votes cast.” It is silent as to whether individual ballots need to be examined.

State election officials and the Florida secretary of state did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.

Baker’s Remarks Put in Question

The differing methods sanctioned by Florida officials appeared to undercut arguments by James A. Baker III, a lawyer for Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s campaign, that last week’s computer recount was more efficient and standardized than the manual recounts sought by lawyers for Democrat Vice President Al Gore.

Consider what happened in Calhoun and Citrus counties, both small counties that use ballots similar to lottery ticket forms. Voters color in circles and the ballots are then run through a tabulator, which spits out any ballot that has no vote or more than one vote.

When Calhoun, which is about 50 miles from Tallahassee, conducted its recount, the canvassing board merely reran the computer tapes for each tabulator. “We ran our tapes on our precinct counters. That was about all we could do,” said county elections supervisor Martin Sewall. The recount found no mistakes.

But in Citrus County on Florida’s west coast, elections operation manager Maureen Baird found a way to reprogram the computers and scan every ballot again. The result after 14 1/2 hours: two more votes for Gore. “That is how a true recount should be done, by counting every single ballot,” Baird said. “Trust me. What I’m saying is true.”

Most of the 16 counties that failed to actually recount ballots are in sparsely populated parts of North Florida, but they also include the metropolitan areas of Orlando and Jacksonville. Eleven of the 16 counties went for Bush.

Florida’s election officials blame the different definitions of recounts here on the variety of voting systems used by the counties. Most of the counties that chose to only check their computer memories use a newer, more sophisticated kind of balloting--similar to the forms used by students when they take their standardized college entrance exams--than the punch cards used in Palm Beach County.

Bay County in Florida’s Panhandle uses the more advanced system. Elections supervisor Melanie Boyd said that if her system had been used in Palm Beach County, the folks who voted for two candidates would have learned of their mistake at the polls.

“With our system, the voter gets the opportunity to correct a mistake if they choose to,” she said. In fact, she noted, 86% of the people who accidentally voted for two candidates threw out their ballots at the polls and voted again. Bay’s canvassing board checked its computer memory to satisfy the recount.

So did nearby Walton County. “We did not do a manual recount. We pulled the memory card and ran the tapes again,” said elections supervisor Melissa Beasley, who said she would feed the ballots back into the machines only with a court order. “We’re thoroughly convinced that our equipment is some of the best.”

Use of Memory Tapes Is Defended

Okaloosa County elections supervisor Patricia Hollarn defended using the memory tapes to do a recount. “There were no irregularities reported to me at any time during the election or since,” she said, adding that Bush so overwhelmingly carried the Panhandle county that a recount really shouldn’t have been necessary.

Polk County in central Florida initially just checked its computer tapes. But when the numbers didn’t add up, the canvassing board decided to run the ballots through the machines again, face side up.

“My definition of recount means recounting,” said County Judge Anne Kaylor, chairwoman of the canvassing board there.

Polk County knows all too well the benefits of actually recounting ballots. Commissioner Marlene Young won her seat by 18 votes after a court-ordered recount four years ago.

How, she asks, can a recount be a recount if a canvassing board “never touched the ballots?”

In Manatee County, south of Tampa, election officials felt the same way. They fed all their presidential ballots through machines again. “We took the long way,” said Nancy Bignell, assistant to the elections supervisor. She said the county could have read the memory cards, but “we felt if we did it this way we would be sure.”

The canvassing board in Putnam County near Gainesville set up nine machines and ran each ballot through them. Elections supervisor Don Hersey said the board knew it had a choice on how to conduct the recount, but decided to check every ballot. “They felt like, with a race of this magnitude and closeness, we would go back and do it,” he said. As a result, Bush gained eight votes and Gore got 11 more.

The Times’ survey of 63 of the 67 counties found that most that changed their vote totals found those mistakes by running individual ballots through machines.

In Clay County, for instance, the board checked its memory cards from the precincts and found no deviations. But they re-scanned their absentee ballots, one by one. And from that, Bush lost nine votes and Gore gained two.

In Dixie County, Gore got one more vote and Bush lost one when the ballots were re-scanned. “We ran our ballots back through the counter, just like we did on election night,” said Mae Beville, supervisor of elections. “They told us to do a recount, to count them again.”

Nearly 27,000 voters in Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, had their votes discarded because they either picked too many candidates or none. Assistant supervisor of elections Susan Tucker Johnson said the county uses a punch card system. Bush picked up 16 votes and Gore gained 184 when Duval recounted its ballots.

“You punch out a dot that represents your candidate. If the dot’s not punched out completely, they open and close at will,” Johnson said. “The count may be a little different if we did a third recount.”

No State Is Perfect, Election Official Says

Carol Flourney, assistant to the elections supervisor in Madison County, east of Tallahassee, warned that every state would discover imperfections in its voting systems if it had to do a recount like Florida.

“Like I said, you’re going to see a variance in those other states that think that Florida is so terrible,” she said. “If they do a recount, they are going to have the same problems we do. They’re going to have a variance when they finally tally because nothing is perfect.”

The counties that actually recounted their ballots got more than just new numbers. Franklin County elections supervisor Doris Gibbs said she found out that some voters picked every single candidate on the ballot.

And voters in her small Panhandle county also selected Barney Fife, Andy Griffith and Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura for president. “Jesse Ventura got several votes,” she said.

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Times researchers Edith Stanley and Lianne Hart contributed to this story.

Still Counting

A summary of the counting underway in Florida. Its still uncertain whether the state will recognize the hand recounts.

PALM BEACH COUNTY Canvassing board will begin a hand recount today of all of the countys ballots.

BROWARD COUNTY Canvassing board said it may still hold a recount, depending on what the state Supreme Court rules.

OVERSEAS BALLOTS

State requires overseas absentee ballots to arrive by Friday and will certify them Saturday.