Article...More Fla. Ballots Said Disqualified...
By Ron Word
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, Nov. 11, 2000; 1:06 p.m. EST
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. –– About 26,000 ballots with more than one presidential candidate or no candidate marked were disqualified in Duval County and never counted, election officials said Saturday.
washingtonpost.com
Duval County is as solidly Republican as Palm Beach County is Democratic. Texas Gov. George W. Bush carried Duval County by more than 44,000 votes. Officials said there was no way to know how the nullified ballots affected the race between Bush and Vice President Al Gore.
In Tuesday's vote, 21,942 ballots were nullified when voters punched their ballots for two candidates for president. An additional 4,967 did not vote for president or did not punch the ballot hard enough for their vote to be registered, said Susan Tucker Johnson, a spokeswoman for Duval County Supervisor of Elections John Stafford.
The disqualified ballots represent about 9 percent of the 291,626 cast Tuesday.
The ballot Duval County used was of a different design than the disputed "butterfly" ballot used in Palm Beach County. In Duval County, 10 presidential candidates and one write-in candidate were listed on two pages. At the bottom of the first page, in larger, bolder type, voters were instructed to turn the page for more choices in the presidential race.
Voters, Johnson said, probably picked one candidate on the first page and then voted for another presidential candidate on the second page.
Mike Langton, chairman of the northeast Florida Gore campaign, reacted angrily to news of the 26,000 nullified votes. He said he had learned of them too late to ask for a manual recount, which under Florida law must be requested within 72 hours of the election.
He said Stafford had told him only 200 to 300 votes were nullified. Johnson said Langton had misunderstood what Stafford had said.
"I sure as hell would have requested a manual recount if I had known 27,000 votes were nullified," Langton said. "We were harmed because we didn't find out in time to ask for a recount."
"He (Stafford) was either incompetent or he was purposely misleading," Langton said.
"I don't know what is going on, but it rises to the level of hanky-panky," Langton said.
Langton said he had notified the state and national Gore campaigns of the situation.
Mike Hightower, who represents the Bush campaign in northeast Florida, said earlier the problems were voter error and not mistakes on the part of election officials.
He did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. |
