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Politics

Roads, not computers, slowed down vote count

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published March 15, 2007

For as fast as you would expect a $14-million computer system to count votes, the results of Tuesday's Pinellas County election seemed to trickle out quite slowly.

The last votes Tuesday were not processed until nearly 10 p.m., three hours after the polls closed in a local election with a sparse 16 percent turnout.

In Broward County, which also held elections Tuesday, the final tallies were in before 9 p.m. And in Tampa's recent municipal election, the last results were ready by 9:30 p.m.

In Pinellas, the difference was the roads, not the voting machines.

Pinellas' vote system still requires poll workers to drive the electronic information from each precinct to a Supervisor of Elections Office in Largo.

So even though the polls close at 7 p.m., the electronic ballots must still be ferried from St. Pete Beach, Tarpon Springs and everywhere else to a midcounty processing center.

"It seems to be a little antiquated," said Pinellas County Commissioner Bob Stewart, who was following the Penny for Pinellas results from his home Macintosh.

Nancy Whitlock, a spokesman for Pinellas elections supervisor Deborah Clark, said an Internet connection was not considered when the county purchased its voting system in 2001.

Moreover, with the state considering whether to change voting systems again, elections officials are reluctant to spend money on new technology that may have to be tossed out anyway.

And until then, Whitlock said, three hours is pretty good.

[Last modified March 15, 2007, 06:08:22]