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By LUCY MORGAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 15, 2000
TALLAHASSEE -- A recount depends on how you define recount.
The Florida recount has apparently been defined in 67 different ways by the 67 different election supervisors, many of whom did not actually recount the ballots cast by voters on this year's controversial Election Day.
Some elections supervisors, including those in Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, actually fed the ballots back into machines and did a ballot by ballot recount.
Others, including those in Orange, Alachua and Brevard counties, reviewed the computer tapes of the overall count and compared them with documents produced at each precinct.
State elections officials say each county is allowed to determine how to conduct a recount.
The 27 counties that use punch card ballots generally run the ballots back through machines. The 38 counties that use optical scanners review the totals produced at each precinct and compare them with the figures in the main office and then recount ballots in precincts where questions are raised. Two counties count by hand.
"They let each county decide what a recount is," said Kurt Browning, elections supervisor in Pasco County.
And so it is that each county elections supervisor interprets a state law that deals with recounts.
Browning, a supervisor who has been involved with developing changes in the election laws for years, said he thinks the recount involves running the individual ballots back through machines.
"The stuff dealing with recounts is wide open," Browning said. "The closest we got to providing uniformity with canvassing boards was a few years back. Canvassing boards are pretty powerful with relatively few guidelines from the state."
In April 1999 the state apparently did attempt to put out guidelines for a recount. In a letter to Manatee County Elections Supervisor Robert Sweat, Secretary of State Katherine Harris' office said each ballot must be reprocessed.
But that letter was apparently never sent to other elections officials around the state. And on Tuesday state elections officials declined to discuss it.
"The statute is pretty clear, and I'm not going to talk about that," said Clay Roberts, director of the State Division of Elections.
Brevard County Elections Supervisor Fred D. Galey says he "revisited the numbers" in all but one precinct that was run back through machines and recounted.
"This is what Florida law requires," Galey said.
In Orange County, Elections Supervisor Bill Cowles said he recounted all of the absentee ballots and compared the memory packs from computers with printouts made in polling places. They did recount the ballots in two precincts because of questions about the totals.
"That has been the practice of the Orange County canvassing board," Cowles said.
Orange is one of the 38 counties that uses optical scanners, machines that read the ballots as each one is cast. When a voter marks two candidates in a single race, the scanner spits the ballot back out, giving the voter a chance to get a new ballot and vote again.
Alachua County Elections Supervisor Beverly Hill said she too reviewed the computer tapes and did not recount the ballots.
"I think it was adequate," Hill said.
All of the elections supervisors contacted by the St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday said they have never been given directions by the state for recounts and were unaware of the 1999 letter sent to Manatee County.
- Times staff writers Shelby Oppel and Thomas C. Tobin contributed to this report.