Pinellas FL finds 268 absentee ballots - oops they did it again

Pinellas ballot box sat ignored in office


November 16, 2004

The unmarked brown box sat unnoticed in the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections office until Monday, two weeks after the election, when an employee cleaning a desk stumbled upon it.

Inside were 268 uncounted absentee ballots.

"I think this is a very serious situation," Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said Monday, vowing to fire or discipline any employee found to be negligent.

<snip>

Five days ago, Clark sent the state the county's final results for the Nov. 2 election. But her office had failed to perform a standard check to ensure that all ballots had been accounted for.

Now she will ask the state for permission to change Pinellas' official results. The canvassing board will count the missing ballots Thursday.

more...

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/16/Tampabay/Pinellas_ballot_box_s.shtml

Heck, I bet they break 3-1 for Gore!

In the presidential race in 2000, the office neglected to count 1,400 ballots - and counted more than 900 ballots twice.

I lived in the area at the time and this was not widely known.

Why is she still in office?

She couldn't describe the procedure for verifying ballot counts? But it's somebody else's fault, because she has to trust others?

Kerry is down by 226 votes. Maybe they'll find a few more boxes. I may live in a red state, but it would be nice if my county was blue at least. Seems like it should have been blue anyway based on all the Kerry signs and stickers I saw in Pinellas before the election.

and I had an odd feeling when I left it there. Why can't they give us tracking numbers for our votes like you can get for priority mail?

Cindy

She should not be allowed to fire people for doing the right thing. Either she takes responsibility for what goes on or she doesn't, no scapegoats.

Cindy