They were trouble in voting machines and clutter in storage rooms. And now, part of history.
By Associated Press
Published May 8, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - Florida's chad will hang around.
Six-million-plus ballots cast in Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election have been ordered transported from county seats to the state archives in Tallahassee and kept there for their historical value.
Secretary of State Glenda Hood sent a letter this week to 67 election supervisors around the state directing them not to destroy the ballots, which are to be transferred later this summer.
State officials have estimated that the ballots and related election records take up about 5,000 cubic feet - enough to fill more than 450 four-drawer file cabinets, or a 25- by 25-foot room from floor to 8-foot ceiling.
But at least one county won't be sending any ballots to Tallahassee - they've already been destroyed.
"Our ballots are gone," said Mark Andersen, election supervisor in Bay County in the Panhandle. He said he thought he had the okay from state officials to get rid of them after 22 months, as the law would normally allow.
"I'm kind of sick about it," Andersen said. "But I feel I did exactly what the law told me to do."
All supervisors normally would have destroyed the ballots by now, because they take up so much space. But the Department of State, which oversees elections, extended the normal 22-month preservation deadline until July 1 to give lawmakers time to decide what to do about the famous ballots. But for such a big election, legislators seemed to have forgotten it. The matter never came up during the regular session that ended Friday.
In the letter, Hood said she made the decision after consulting with archives staffers and others. She couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
Florida's 2000 presidential race was so close that recounts were required before George W. Bush, 36 days after the voting, was declared the winner over Al Gore in Florida by 537 votes, giving him the electoral votes he needed to carry the nation.
The recounts exposed what supervisors of elections have long known: Many votes go uncounted.
It looked like Florida couldn't vote correctly. The worst foulups involved outdated punch card ballots with chad that voters were supposed to punch out, but didn't, leaving them hanging, dimpled or pregnant, and leading to now-famous scenes of canvassers peering through magnifying glasses to try and determine the intent of each voter. The Legislature has since outlawed punch card ballots, and most of the state's counties have gone to more advanced touch screen technology.
There were also Palm Beach County's infamous butterfly ballots, printed in large type that spread the names of the 10 presidential candidates over two facing pages. Many voters said they found the ballot confusing, and some Gore supporters said they inadvertently voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan.
Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to stop a statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, giving Bush the election.
The president's brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, said last week that some of the ballots should be preserved for historical purposes. Theresa LePore, the Palm Beach County elections supervisor responsible for the butterfly ballot and president of the statewide association of elections supervisors, said supervisors needed the space taken by the ballots. She said the ballots could never be counted again reliably and questioned their value, other than as a historical curiosity.
"The more they're handled the more likely the chads are to come out of them," LePore said. "As they get older, the corners of the chads tend to loosen. If they're handled again, then more chads are falling out, so you're never going to get the same count as you got before."
Broward County attorney Gary M. Farmer Jr., who sued to prevent destruction of the ballots in some counties, said the documents should be preserved in part because they might play a role in future election reforms.
"These documents could one day again become important data or evidence with regard to the consideration of having the best, reliable voting system that we can have," Farmer said.
The ballots were an important part of Tallahassee lawyer Barry Richard's life for 36 days. He represented George W. Bush through most of the recount case.
"The story that never goes away," Richard said Wednesday. "They'll bring 'em to Tallahassee, stick 'em somewhere in a storage place and 70 years, 100 years from now, somebody will say, "What are these boxes for?' And nobody will probably look at them between now and then. They're not much to look at."
Department of State spokeswoman Jenny Nash said space for the ballots is available at the R.A. Gray Building, which houses the state archives.
