Touch-screen voting and a rare opponent make this a different campaign for longtime Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning.For both the political novice and six-term incumbent in Pasco's elections supervisor race, the 2004 election will be a new experience.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
Published October 18, 2004
This is Patrick Bergy's first campaign for public office. The New Port Richey resident has never been politically active. For years, he wasn't even a regular voter. But Florida's infamous showing in the 2000 presidential election, and the reforms that followed, prompted him to jump into the political ring.
Kurt Browning has been involved in plenty of elections. He has been Pasco's elections supervisor for 24 years. But this election will be a first for him, and not just because he has opposition for the first time in a dozen years. More significantly, this is Pasco's first presidential election with touch-screen voting machines, and Browning's reputation for fast and accurate returns is on the line.
Historically, elections supervisor races have drawn little attention. And many of the elements in this race - where a popular incumbent is challenged by an unknown calling for change - suggest that it, too, could easily be overlooked.
But in the wake of the 2000 presidential election, the job of counting votes has never generated so much attention.
The two candidates could hardly be more different in what they bring to the job. Bergy, 38, and Browning, 46, also have real differences of opinion about how Pasco's votes should be counted.
Browning's campaign slogan is, "Experience you can trust."
After six terms as Pasco's elections supervisor, Browning clearly is running on his track record. Even the 2000 election, which tarnished the reputations of some Florida elections supervisors and put others in a mind to retire, only enhanced Browning's reputation for getting election results out fast and without incident.
In 2001, Gov. Jeb Bush appointed Browning to a statewide Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards & Technology. Browning testified in hearings regarding the suspension of the Broward County elections supervisor.
Browning started working in the Pasco elections office while he was still in high school. He first was elected to the top elections post at age 22, and now he is one of the deans of Florida elections officials.
Bergy, with no experience running elections, is relying on his experience with computers. He is a computer network administrator and largely self-taught in terms of computer expertise.
Bergy has to concede Browning's overwhelming experience advantage, but he questions whether the experience will help, as the technology of vote counting is changing.
"Kurt Browning has 24 years of punch-card voting experience," Bergy said. The job, Bergy said, has changed.
Much of the campaign rhetoric is focused on the ATM-like touch-screen voting machines. Florida did away with the punch-card machines after the 2000 presidential election made hanging chad a household term. Pasco was one of 15 Florida counties to opt for touch-screen machines. Pasco spent more than $4-million on the machines.
Browning is confident the machines will work as advertised, as they did during the 2002 election and during this year's primary. He says they will eliminate the "voter intent" questions that plagued the 2000 election.
Bergy disagrees, and that's one of the main reasons he got into the race.
The challenger says Pasco should have opted for paper optical-scan ballots, as a majority of Florida counties did. (The larger counties opted for touch-screen, so a greater number of voters will actually use touch-screen.)
The touch-screen machines, Bergy claims, are largely untested. Though Bergy has little organized support and is short on campaign funds, the issues he raises are the same ones generating heat and headlines across the state, as various groups have sued the secretary of state over the voting procedures.
The race is generating more than its share of sparks.
Bergy has relentlessly focused on the issue of putting the supervisor of elections office outside of partisan politics. He is running with no party affiliation, a decision that hindered his prospects for organized support, but gave him a lively theme. Bergy warns that so long as an elections chief belongs to a party, if anything goes wrong with the election one party will regard him with distrust.
Browning is a Republican, having switched parties in 2002. He dismisses Bergy's allegations and insists that his political affiliation has never affected the way he runs his office. Though several Democrats were angry with Browning's party switch, his lists of campaign supporters and contributors include both Democrats and Republicans.
