VOTING IN FLORIDA
February 9, 2001
EXCERPT from On Line News Hour with Jim Lehrer
BETTY ANN BOWSER: In December, Governor Bush
appointed a 21-member, bipartisan task force to figure out
what went wrong when Floridians went to the polls and
how to keep those problems from ever happening again.
The Governor was the lead-off witness at the first hearing.
GOV. JEB BUSH: It seems to me that the main mission
here ought to be to bring clarity, to bring clarity where after
the – in the aftermath of this election there was clearly
confusion. We should bring clarity to the voting methods in
this state. Every voter needs to know, when they go to
vote, that their vote is going to count.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Bush
never gave the task force a
broad sweeping mandate. But
from the beginning, members
said they hoped to make
recommendations in at least
these areas: How to improve
voting machine technology; how to improve voter
education; and how to better count absentee ballots.
………………………..***********************…………………………….
BETTY ANN BOWSER: The task force held 31 hours of
hearings – in four cities. There were 20 invited witnesses
and only 100 members of the public showed up to testify.
There was ONE PUBLIC HEARING in South Florida where most
of the voting problems took place on election day, and it
was held on the suburban campus of a new university,
more than an hour from where the irregularities occurred.
One witness complained about that.
SCOTT HOTCHKISS: First I
want to say – and I am
extremely skeptical. I don’t
believe the Florida legislature
really want the participation of
average working citizens. There
WAS NO ADVERTISEMENT in the
newspaper, the radio, or TV about this meeting. Also the
time frame -- 5 to 7p.m., it’s very difficult for a working
man to go home take care of his family and get cleaned up
and make it to a meeting like this on time.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: More distressing to South
Florida’s election officials was that NONE OF THEM WERE
INVITED TO TESTIFY. David Leahy, election supervisor of
Miami-Dade, the state’s largest county, had to ask to be
heard and was given only three minutes.
DAVID LEAHY: Well, I did
find it odd that you had the task
force meeting in what is ground
zero where we had all these
problems Nov. 7th and that the
supervisor from Palm Beach and
the Supervisor from Miami-Dade County were not invited to make a
presentation to the panel. Four meetings is difficult for all
these issues to be discussed, to get public input, for them –
for the task force members to become more educated in
the electoral process in Florida. So it is a rush job.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Former Secretary of State and
task force co-chair Jim Smith agreed the group needed
more time.
JIM SMITH: Realize we've got a March 1 reporting date.
We only had about I think eight weeks for this task force
to exist and we will have a number of areas that we are
going to recommend need more study, and I'm confident
the legislature is going to do that on a long term basis.
Making recommendations
BETTY ANN BOWSER: After finishing its business, the
task force has indicated it will make four recommendations
to the governor and the legislature: that new voting
machines be leased on a short term basis, until a more
permanent long term technology can be found; that
Floridians get more voter education; that more money be
put into training precinct workers; and create an online
voter registration database.
WOMAN: The purpose of my comment just now is to ask
the task force to please not close the door to touch screen
technology voting in Florida.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: During the four hearings, a lot
of time was spent debating what kind of voting machines
should replace the antiquated punch card system that
caused so many problems. This is the voting machine the
task force indicates it has settled on. It’s called an optical
scan. Voters fill in an oval on a paper ballot – then put the
piece of paper in a machine at the precinct that optically
scans it to count the votes. The machine can be set to
reject a ballot when the voter marks two candidates for the
same office…and can be set to let voters know when they
have not voted for any candidate. "
………………………………………*************………………………………
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Co-Chairman Smith believes
the optical scan system can be leased in time for next
year’s statewide governor’s race and will go far to restore
voter confidence.
JIM SMITH: I think we need to
be careful; we need to make
sure that what we do with
technology...to know that it
works. You know, people are
going to be distrustful I think for
many election cycles. We need
to give our supervisors the opportunity to look at whatever
I think is recommended to ensure the legislature before
they enact something into law that it really is going to work
so that people don't continue to be frustrated.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But not one of the election
supervisors in South Florida, where most of the problems
were, think the optical scan is a good idea.
DAVID LEAHY: Optical scan is also difficult for large
counties to use. We have multiple languages here. We print
every ballot in Spanish, English and some ballots in Creole
-- difficult for optical scan to deal with three languages. My
ballot is so long in this county that in some instances I will
not hand a voter just one paper ballot – maybe front and
back -- but two ballots. And that will confuse some voters."
……………………………..*******************…………………………
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Leahy and other South Florida
election supervisors like the touch screen system; with it,
the voter simply touches the screen to select which
candidate to vote for. It will not allow people to vote for
two candidates for the same office and will tell them when
they have not voted for any candidate.
But the touch screen system is expensive. Just to put it in
Miami Dade alone would cost an estimated 32 million
dollars. And the governor has already indicated there is
only 30 million dollars in his next budget for election reform
statewide.
The task force made no recommendations on
what to do about voting irregularities in predominantly
black precincts...what to do about absentee or provisional
ballots or how to restore voting rights to convicted felons
who have served their time.
…………………………………***************…………………..
BETTY ANN BOWSER: At the hearing in Southern
Florida last week, Senator Daryl Jones made a plea to
tackle those issues.
SEN. DARYL JONES: The
fear that I had in coming on this
task force was that we were
going to deal with only one side
of this issue -- two sides to this
issue as I see it, the people who
went to the polls and voted
whose votes were counted, technology solves that
problem for the most part. The other side of the issue are
the people who went to the polls who were valid
registered voters but who were not permitted to vote; that
is a problem that we have to address. We cannot let this
task force go beyond -- go past this process without
attempting to deal with that side of the issue as well.
Further investigation
BETTY ANN BOWSER: The task force will ask the
legislature to investigate these issues further. In spite of the
hearings, there remains widespread distrust in the
African-American community where thousands of people
have complained they were not allowed to vote or their votes
were later thrown out. After the election, there were angry
demonstrations. The NAACP filed a class action lawsuit
asking a federal judge to order the state and county
election officials to upgrade voting equipment, to improve
voter registration procedures, and better educate precinct
workers.
BISHOP VICTOR T. CURRY: My question to you –
those of you who are listening – number one, you’ve got –
you’ve got Katharine Harris, who is like at the forefront of
this entire debacle of the election; you’ve got Jeb Bush’s
brother benefited from it. Now, they’re calling the shots.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Critics, like Bishop Victor T.
Curry, say Governor Bush is more interested in getting
re-elected than in real election reform. Curry runs a
religious-based radio station in Miami and is pastor of one
of the largest African-American congregations in South
Florida.
BISHOP VICTOR T. CURRY:
All of a sudden now he's real patriotic and he wants every
vote to count? Of course not. I mean they're playing games with
us and right now I'm just not buying that loaf of bread. It has
too much mold on it. And until they allocate the money and
put the system in place, because I guarantee you even if
they allocate the money, they'll tell us that it won't be in
place until after 2002 because they’ve got to get him four
more years.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Governor Bush's press office
turned down our requests for an on-camera interview,
citing his busy schedule and saying he would have no
comment on the task force until its work is done. But one
of the states leading Republicans, Speaker of the House
Tom Feeny, promised the legislature will undertake real
reform and he defended the Governor
REP. TOM FEENY:" I don't think anybody is more
concerned about the integrity of the ballot box in Florida
than Governor Bush. I think he takes it as a personal
responsibility………..".
………………………………….***********…………………………………
Public pressure mounting
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Task force member Jones does
think public pressure will force the legislature to pass
something.
SEN. DARYL JONES: I think that with the eyes of the
world watching you and with people being smart enough to
know the difference between right and wrong that it will be
difficult for this legislature to discuss those issues and come
out with anything but a positive result. I believe that if that
legislature decides to take any other action, that there will
be heck to pay in the upcoming election. And people will
understand who the good guys are and who the bad guys
are.
……………………………..******************…………………………
BETTY ANN BOWSER: The task force will give its
recommendations to the Governor and Florida legislature
on March 1st. From there, the legislature has until the end
of April to hammer out a reform package. The tight
deadline is to give enough time for election supervisors in
Florida's 67 counties to implement the reform package for
the upcoming gubernatorial primary in the fall of 2002.
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Copyright © 2001 MacNeil-Lehrer Productions. |
