The counting of ballots in a contested judgeship race has taken a comical turn.
It’s no longer a missing ballots problem in Palm Beach County. Now there are too many ballots.
After a cumbersome resorting and recounting of ballots from the Aug. 26 election, investigators produced two new troubling findings Friday.
First, auditors have discovered electronic evidence that 110 ballots from voters at a Delray Beach precinct weren’t included in election night results. Those votes also weren’t included in totals from a recount.
Second, auditors verified that there are 139 more paper ballots on hand at elections offices than the number of ballots reported cast on election night. The combination of the findings means there could be 249 more ballots than were counted on election night – though that estimate could change before an audit is finalized this weekend.
Vote dispute in judicial race appears headed to court as recount stalls “We are no longer short ballots, we have more ballots,” said County Commissioner Mary McCarty, a member of the county’s elections canvassing board.
Brad Merriman, an assistant county administrator leading the investigation, said he never expected the results to turn out this way. He also said the frenzy of election night activity may be partly to blame.
Welcome to the county that couldn’t count straight.
Brad Merriman went on to say some error has to be expected. I agree, no one or no thing is perfect. Here we’re talking over two weeks since the election and ballots are still being found. Just how much error should Palm Beach County citizens tolerate?
No question about it, Arthur Anderson should immediately resign. I know Anderson will be out of office in a few months, but not before the November general election. There has to be a living human being able to run the elections office on a temporary basis. The last thing Florida or this country needs is another circus like happened in 2000. Who’s to say Florida won’t be decided by a handful of votes again.
