As early votes are counted, provisional ballots pile up
TAMPA -- As employees with the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office continued to count early votes, the number of provisional ballots was estimated to be 3,700.
The third member of the county's canvassing board, Judge James Dominguez, arrived about 3:30 p.m. and said the number of ballots was "way more than anticipated."
They won't be counted until 4 p.m. Friday, Dominguez said. He said he was pleased with the progress of the count and said he had no opinion about getting Gov. Charlie Crist involved in looking at problems.
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The reason there are so many provisionals is that the poll workers couldn't get through to the Supervisor's office to verify that voters who didn't show up in the books were legitimately registered to vote. Many newly registered voters were mysteriously omitted from the voter rolls. The phone lines were so inadequate that voters were trying to use their own phones to call the main SOE line instead of the call center (with more success).
Posted by: Susan S | November 06, 2008 at 04:15 PM