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State will audit March 7 elections

The county's supervisor of elections requested the audit. She says results were accurate but wants to "reassure the public."

By WILL VAN SANT
Published March 17, 2006

State regulators will audit elections held March 7 in Largo, Pinellas Park and Palm Harbor that were delayed when a computer server froze, stopping the vote count for two hours.

The decision by the Division of Elections comes after Deborah Clark, Pinellas County's supervisor of elections, sent a letter Wednesday asking the state for the review.

"The election results are accurate," Clark wrote. "However, baseless allegations have been made that were designed more to discourage rather than to enlighten voters, and we feel that a state audit is needed to reassure the public."

The move pleases Bob Jackson, who lost the Largo mayor's seat in the election to City Commissioner Pat Gerard, who bested Jackson by 172 votes out of 6,290 cast. He does not dispute the results, but said an audit is warranted.

"It's well overdue," Jackson said. "There's too much uncertainty surrounding the whole thing."

The election snagged because a technician set aside too little hard drive space on the server to handle the vote tabulation. A consultant from Sequoia Voting Systems, Pinellas' voting technology provider, passed along some computer code to the technician while he was fixing the problem.

That caught the eye of the Voting Integrity Alliance of Tampa Bay, a group critical of the touch screen voting technology the county uses. Members, who advocate using paper ballots, questioned whether the use of the code compromised the voting system.

They asked the Division of Elections on Monday for an audit. State officials said they were considering one, but did not decide to move forward until Clark sent her letter.

Pamela Haengel, Voting Integrity's executive director, said she was pleased that Clark requested an audit, but objected to any suggestion that her group's concerns lack merit.

"I resent the attempt to try and smear good citizens who are just trying to determine whether anything went wrong with our elections," Haengel said. "Deborah Clark needs to remember she works for us."

Division of Elections officials said they hoped to complete their audit within the next three weeks.

[Last modified March 17, 2006, 01:55:23]