Last mission to repair the Hubble telescope
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Rays fan guide to the Trop Print |
 Email story |
 Comment |
 Letter to the editor |
The elections office experiences only minor bumps on its speedy road to returns: A few machines jam and voters cast five provisional ballots.
By AMY WIMMER SCHWARB
Published November 4, 2004
INVERNESS - Tuesday's vote count wasn't a race, Citrus Supervisor of Elections Susan Gill likes to point out. It was about getting accurate results, in a reasonable amount of time.
But look at the state Division of Elections Web site, which lists when Florida counties reported their unofficial final results to the state, and you can't help but notice:
Citrus results came in first.
Gill declines to brag, even though she has now presided over two presidential elections in Citrus County, and both times, Citrus was first to file its results with the state Division of Elections.
Those elections included 2000, when problems throughout Florida delayed returns and prompted a recount, and Tuesday's election, which Gill has called "the most-watched election in the history of the planet."
On Wednesday, the day after Gill's employees emerged from beneath the microscope, she reported that her staff was tired, and so was she. For the next 10 days, the county will continue to count as part of the vote total any overseas ballots it receives that were postmarked by Tuesday, so the election still continues at the Supervisor of Elections Office.
Any problems reported in Citrus on Tuesday were relatively minor and predictable. A few Accu-Vote machines jammed, forcing voters to deposit their ballots in an emergency bin supplied for such an occurrence. Though it was feared that poll watchers representing the political parties and candidates might challenge voters on whether they were validly registered, no challenges were reported.
Three precincts had difficulty transmitting results to Gill's office in Inverness, so the poll clerks had to deliver the machines. In one of those precincts, No. 405 at the Citrus County Auditorium, the delay was caused because the room the clerk needed to use to transmit results was locked by building managers at 5 p.m.
The three-member canvassing board - made up of Gill, County Judge Mark Yerman and County Commissioner Jim Fowler - met to consider the five provisional ballots cast in Citrus County, and determined that only two of them were valid. The other three had been cast by someone not registered or not in the right precinct, Gill said.
Elections office employees believed Tuesday night that Wakulla County, with one-sixth the number of voters that Citrus has, had beat them to the punch. But on Wednesday, the Division of Elections records told a different story.
"Lo and behold, as you look down," Gill said, "it looks like we're the first one."
Jenny Nash, a Department of State spokeswoman, said counties aren't required to report their results to the state until noon today. "It's not a requirement," she said of the Tuesday night filing, "just a courtesy."
Citrus County, with 90,780 voters registered, reported its results to the state at 8:06 p.m. Flagler County, with 47,068, was next at 8:25 p.m.
Then came Franklin County (7,620 voters registered) at 8:28 p.m.; and Wakulla (15,396 voters registered) at 8:31 p.m. It took another 45 minutes for a county larger than Citrus to file its returns - Lake County, with 161,269 registered voters, filed at 9:15 p.m. Tuesday.
Other larger counties, and even some small ones, were still struggling to post final results by Wednesday afternoon. Gill said she doesn't plan to remind her fellow supervisors of her first-place finish when she sees them next.
"Throughout the whole state," she said, "we didn't imagine that it would go this well."
Amy Wimmer Schwarb can be reached at 860-7305 or wimmer@sptimes.com
[Last modified November 4, 2004, 00:40:23]
 |
© 2009 · All Rights Reserved · St. Petersburg Times |
