This election proves mostly smooth sailing

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Florida made a strong case Tuesday that its reign as the nation's voting backwater may be over.

The state pulled off a major election with long lines and scattered glitches, but no disasters.

In the biggest and most problem-prone counties -- Broward and Miami-Dade -- polling places opened on time and closed without major problems, although hundreds of Broward voters remained in line well past the 7 p.m. scheduled closing. As of late Tuesday, votes were being tallied with little question about the accuracy of the count.

Even watchdog groups primed to root out problems found little to complain about. There were none of the paralyzing glitches that delayed results in the Sept. 10 primary and the 2000 presidential election.

"This is the way it's supposed to be. Boring," Secretary of State Jim Smith said Tuesday morning as he left Broward County and headed to Tallahassee for a night of monitoring results.

"We learned how to do it right," Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas proclaimed. "We're not going to be the butt of jokes tonight. We're going to be celebrated."

With the state's longest ballot and its largest concentration of voters, Broward County officials felt optimistic from the beginning of the day. County employees who had spent the past six weeks mounting a vigorous program to improve on the Sept. 10 primary hooted and hugged at 7:05 a.m. when a large map of the county went totally green, signifying that all 776 polling places had opened on time.

The scene, resembling a campaign victory party, unfolded in a vast room filled with sleek Dell computers, large screens and conference tables. It was the same room county officials used in November 2000 to recount punch card ballots and collect chad.

Officials in both South Florida counties were determined not to repeat the debacle of Sept. 10, when late-opening polls caused thousands of voters to walk away in frustration. Counting problems caused results to be delayed for days.

The performance made a mockery of Florida's claims that its newfangled voting system was a model for the nation. Broward and Miami-Dade drew the ire of Smith, Gov. Jeb Bush and election officials around the state who felt they were unfairly tainted by South Florida's failings.

Both counties deployed thousands of public employees and trained them to set up, operate and troubleshoot their new touch screen machines. They were used in addition to the regular volunteer poll workers who staff elections.

The counties also installed voting machines the night before the election to avoid late-opening polls. They organized their efforts with a military-style precision that took care of every Election Day task except the actual counting of votes. That much was left to local election supervisors, who were accused of mishandling the previous two elections.

Each county spent an estimated $1-million to $1.5-million on an election upgrade that some believe will be permanent.

"Money is not going to be an issue," Penelas said. "We could not afford the negative publicity ... and we couldn't afford to disenfranchise people. Whatever the cost is, we have to get it right."

Poll workers Tuesday seemed more organized than on Sept. 10, said Jason Winder, 42, a mortgage banker from the Broward suburb of Weston who was relieved to see the changes.

"It's annoying to have the national spotlight on us, making us look like a bunch of yahoos," he said. "It's not who we are. It's not what we're about."

Forn Anderson, 54, a native of Venezuela who recently became a U.S. citizen, was voting for the first time Tuesday at a precinct near Miami's Little Havana.

"I feel so good voting," she said. "I expected all kinds of problems. But this was easy. I (thought) it was going to be complicated. It wasn't."

Early-morning lines quickly disappeared after polls opened in Liberty City, one of Miami-Dade's largest African-American neighborhoods, where voting difficulties were reported in September.

"Everything is wonderful," said Mattie Cuyler, 69, who waited hours to vote two months ago.

Even former Attorney General Janet Reno had a better experience this time. Initially turned away from her late-opening precinct in September, the former gubernatorial candidate moved quickly through a line Tuesday with 40 other people.

"It was smooth," Reno said. "They were prepared for me this time."

Officials in both counties were nagged by isolated glitches, including a calibration problem on some touch screen machines that caused incorrect votes to register. The problem occurred when the pressure from a finger touch bled over into the voting area for an adjacent column.

For example, a handful of voters reportedly chose Bill McBride for governor but their vote registered for Jeb Bush . However, the problem was corrected on the voters' review screen.

Elsewhere, computer problems briefly knocked out ballot scanners at three Central Florida precincts, but election officials said the problems were fixed quickly and caused no delays.

In Winter Park, doors opened 20 minutes late at one polling place, voters reported trouble feeding the paper ballots through optical scanning machines and English-speaking voters said they were handed Spanish-language ballots.

Palm Beach County became notorious in the 2000 election for its butterfly ballot, but had no problems in September with its new touch screens. The same held true Tuesday.

"It's been very smooth. Incredibly smooth. Frighteningly smooth," said Joan Joseph, McBride's coordinator in Palm Beach County.

"We assembled an army of attorneys to answer calls. We have runners, we have pushers, we have flushers," she said. "We have the whole deal and we really haven't had to use any of them."

-- Times staff writers David Adams, Julie Hauserman and Wes Allison contributed to this report, which used information from the Associated Press.