Once Again, Florida Ballot Spurs Drumbeat of Complaints

The ballot for the high-profile Democratic gubernatorial primary has confusing instructions that could cause the same problems that marred the 2000 presidential election, Democrats said Saturday.

The ballot instructs voters to “vote for one pair,” meaning a combined entry of governor and lieutenant governor, though none of the candidates has chosen a running mate.

Voters who took the instruction literally would “overvote” and nullify their choice, Democrats said.

Under the names of gubernatorial candidates Daryl Jones, Bill McBride and Janet Reno, the ballot reads “not yet designated” in place of a lieutenant governor candidate.

Party chairman Bob Poe said Saturday he would ask Secretary of State Jim Smith on Monday to change the ballot language. Smith’s office was closed Saturday and phone messages were not returned.

Poe also said the party is considering court action.

“This confusing language poses a serious threat to the integrity of the primary ballot,” Poe said.

Poe said the language needs to be changed quickly because ballots are being mailed to overseas voters now for the Sept. 10 primary. Gov. Jeb Bush is unopposed for the Republican nomination.

New voting systems are designed to catch overvotes and allow voters to correct them. Computerized “touch screen” voting machines in 15 counties do not let people vote twice. And new scanners in 52 counties with paper ballots are aimed at detecting overvotes before voters leave the polls.

The problem would mostly fall on thousands of absentee voters in all 67 counties because there is no mechanism to catch an absentee overvote, Democrats said.

Sarah Jane Bradshaw, assistant director of the office’s elections division, said she wrote the new wording to replace language that was even more confusing.

“I feel very confident that we will be addressing and fine-tuning the rules after the election,” Bradshaw said. The instructions “vote for group” and “vote for one group” are blamed for prompting thousands of Floridians to vote for more than one presidential ticket in November 2000.

About 113,000 Floridians nullified their ballots with overvotes in the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. More than 59,000 of those voters lived in counties where ballots told them to vote for a “group.” Bush won by 537 votes.

“The whole world is watching us. A mistake like this is a total embarrassment for the state,” said Nicole Harburger, campaign spokeswoman for Reno. “This ballot virtually guarantees that people in Florida will be overvoting and that ballots will be lost in the process.”