ORLANDO: The disappearance of nearly 60,000 absentee ballots has infuriated voters.

 

Not again
ballots missing in Broward

 By Jean-Paul Renaud
 South Florida Sun-Sentinel

 October 27, 2004

 FORT LAUDERDALE --  The Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office on Tuesday pointed a finger at the U.S. Postal Service for nearly 60,000 missing absentee ballots, but it acknowledged it has been overwhelmed by calls from frustrated voters.

 While the Postal Service denied responsibility for the missing ballots, Broward County commissioners, anxious to avoid another election debacle, offered to send county employees to help with the phones. Dozens of employees could begin assisting the elections office today to answer telephone calls and to process voters at the 14 early-voting sites.

 "What we are seeing is unprecedented, so if the supervisor of elections needs our help, we will help," County Mayor Ilene Lieberman said. "It's a week to the election, and voting is a basic right in our country."

 Just six days away from the general election, the Supervisor of Elections Office has fielded hundreds of complaints from people who have yet to receive absentee ballots. Many more have been unable to get through to election officials to complain or get their questions answered.

 "I tried for the last week or so to call the elections office, and it's just busy continually," said Paula Zubatkin, 70, whose four-week-old request for an absentee ballot has gone unanswered. "I want to vote."

 Election officials also said they launched an investigation, which found that most of the missing ballots -- 58,000 of them -- were sent on Oct. 7 and Oct. 8. The problem, they say, lies with the Postal Service.

 "That is something beyond our control," Deputy Supervisor of Elections Gisela Salas said. "We really have no idea what's going on. It's just taken an extraordinary amount of time. I would really encourage people to use early voting."

 Postal Service officials say they are not at fault.

 "We have employees that we assign to handle the absentee ballots that come in," said Enola C. Rice, spokeswoman for the Postal Service's South Florida District. "So all the absentee ballots that are received by the Postal Service are processed and delivered immediately."

 She said most local mail is delivered in one day.

 Some voters, such as 68-year-old Myrna Davis, depended on her absentee ballot to vote. The Sunrise resident's husband has an artificial hip. After they waited for weeks for an absentee ballot, they decided to show up at an early voting site. But after a three-hour wait in line, they gave up.

 "The heat was too great," Davis said. "Although there was air conditioning, there were so many people there, I couldn't tolerate it. I feel this is a Third World country."

 As of Tuesday, 126,220 absentee ballots have been requested from Broward County elections officials, and 67,249 people have voted early, Salas said.

 Broward election officials say they are overwhelmed. Their phone lines were never equipped to handle the volume of calls they have experienced, they say, and they blame their limitations on the confined spaces within the county administration building.

 "It's a real, real problem," Salas said.

 County officials say the elections office, which oversees more than 1 million voters, has 158 available phone lines. But throughout the day, voters who call the office are greeted by busy signals or filled voicemails.

 "They're inundated; they're inundated," Salas said. "My phone mail is constantly full. I clear my voice mails twice a day and I have 30 each time."

 In contrast, the Miami-Dade elections office, which manages slightly fewer registered voters, has 400 available lines, according to Seth Kaplan of Miami-Dade elections.

 The possibility of adding more phone lines or staff before Nov. 2, election officials say, is dim. Salas said there would be about 6,000 poll workers on Election Day. Miami-Dade will have 7,000, Kaplan said.

 "I don't know that we could get any more people and more resources," Salas said. "At this point in time, training is coming to a close. Clerks are picking up their supplies on Friday. Everything is wrapping up by now."

Jean-Paul Renaud is a reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.

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