Election 2004

3.9-million votes, 63 challenges

Talk of thousands of contested votes in the presidential election was all wrong. The dreaded vote war never came.

By DAVID KARP
Published December 24, 2004

Before the election, headlines warned about impending gridlock:

Thousands of voters would be challenged at the polls by an army of Republican and Democratic lawyers.

But on Election Day, it didn't happen.

Indeed, officials for Florida's election supervisors say they have records of only 63 challenges in the state.

That's out of about 3.9-million votes cast for president.

Miami-Dade and Broward, two of the largest Democratic counties, saw the most challenges. But there weren't many. Miami-Dade had 25 challenges, and Broward had 16. Hillsborough had nine challenges, and Pinellas had six.

Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties had none.

State law allows a party observer to challenge the right of a voter to cast a ballot at the polls. The law hasn't been used much before, but Bush and Kerry camps stationed hundreds of lawyers in precincts across Florida in anticipation of a flood of challenges.

Every challenger must fill out a standard written oath stating his or her identity and the reasons for challenging a voter. Then poll workers at the precinct vote whether the challenge should be upheld. If so, a voter would be allowed to cast a provisional ballot that would later be reviewed by elections officials.

The St. Petersburg Times filed public records requests in all 67 counties for the oath forms. The challenges focused on people not being registered in the proper precinct, not being registered at all or for being convicted felons. It could not be determined how many of the challenged voters did not have their votes counted.

As it turned out, 57 of 67 counties in Florida had no voters challenges. That includes counties like Duval and Orange, which are home to the big cities of Jacksonville and Orlando.

In Duval, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported before the election that Republicans had amassed addresses of black voters in order to challenge them at the polls. It didn't happen. Republican Party strategists said they had planned for challenges, but decided against it at the last minute.

"Elections are very fluid situations," said GOP spokesman Joseph Agostini. "Because of our strong organization, we were able to change direction on many different levels as the situation warranted."

Originally, Republicans said they were worried about widespread voter fraud. But as Election Day dawned, they said their concerns lessened.

"Things were retooled and redirected in the heat of battle," Agostini said.

The decision was made in the last 72 hours of the campaign, just as Democratic lawyers were gearing up for legal battles at hundreds of precincts.

[Last modified December 24, 2004, 06:23:05]