The available evidence, as you put it, is not leaving Katherine Harris or the state of Florida smelling of roses:
Harris rejects voting blame
ANDREA ROBINSON
arobinson@herald.com
TALLAHASSEE -- An angered U.S. Civil Rights Commission scolded Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris on Friday for ``abandoning'' elections supervisors, after she denied responsibility for the problem-plagued Nov. 7 election.
Harris was the second state official to appear before the commission and reject blame for Florida's balloting woes. On Thursday, Gov. Jeb Bush testified that the secretary of state and elections director, not the governor, were responsible for carrying out elections.
``I feel as if I'm on this merry-go-round called denial,'' commissioner Victoria Wilson told Harris. ``Supervisors were desperate for your help, and you abandoned them. They wanted money, they wanted guidance. Voters ended up having to pay the price.''
The Civil Rights Commission wrapped up two days of hearings in Tallahassee Friday in its probe of allegations that thousands of voters were disenfranchised on Nov. 7. Commissioners will hold hearings in Miami on Feb. 16.
During 90 minutes of testimony, they questioned Harris about her relationship with the 67 county elections supervisors and how the state handles training, voter education and fraud complaints. They also asked about her role in the manual recount of ballots in the presidential election.
Harris said her duties included oversight of seven different divisions, including elections. She said implementation of the state election code and daily operations fell to the elections director, Clay Roberts. Local control of elections, she said, fell to county elections supervisors.
``I don't have expertise in the management of these activities,'' said Harris, who described her role as ministerial. ``The way I've chosen to administer our office . . . I've chosen [to delegate].''
Harris deferred most questions Friday to Roberts.
Under the state constitution and laws, Harris said, her office was responsible for the qualification of candidates for state and federal offices and for district elections involving more than one county, for campaign finance reports, and for keeping a central voter file.
`VERY GOOD JOB'
She added that given staff and budget cutbacks, the division did a ``very good job'' prior to the election in giving technical help to the counties.
Afterward, Roberts testified that his division spent about $7,000 last year on public service announcements and billboards encouraging citizens to vote, and several hundred thousand dollars more were spent on a voter fraud hot line.
He said his office supplied posters outlining voting procedures to each of the counties to put at polling places, but the bulk of voter education duties were left to the counties.
``We do not participate in that, because different counties have different voting systems,'' Roberts said.
Earlier Friday several county elections supervisors testified that Harris' office had not given help they requested to educate voters and help paying to mail sample ballots in some cash-strapped counties.
Three current and one former supervisor said they stopped making requests because they knew they would be turned down.
Leon County Supervisor Ion Sancho said a request made by Harris for $100,000 to be used for voter education was deleted from the 2000 budget by Gov. Jeb Bush.
``There was failure in voter technology and failure in training the voters in technology, and a failure in administration,'' Sancho said.
``The state doesn't spend money telling folks how to vote,'' he said. ``This is a state that spends $35 million to tell people how to play Lotto.''
Linda Howell, elections supervisor from Madison County, also testified that she got a letter from the state -- in error -- saying that she was a convicted felon. ``You get that on your record and how do you get it off?'' she said.
During a break, commission chairwoman Mary Frances Berry said: ``Testimony leads me to believe that voting in Florida is like [getting to] a goodie in a box. If you aren't persistent, you can't vote. If you don't file a complaint, no action is taken.
``A lot of public officials do not think of how they can ease the way for voters.''
MANY COMPLAINTS
The panel also heard from Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who said his office had received some 2,500 complaints from Florida voters after the election, most of them from Palm Beach County, regarding the butterfly ballot that was used. Other complaints concerned an unauthorized traffic checkpoint near a voting precinct in Leon County and voters who were refused second ballots.
Butterworth said he would submit legislation to bar traffic stops on election day. |
