Johnson loses Hillsborough elections supervisor seat

TAMPA -- Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson conceded his re-election race tonight, after a day of counting early vote results showed a commanding lead by his challenger, Phyllis Busansky.

"You may not have seen the last of Buddy Johnson," he said. "I'm proud of my staff. I'm proud of the voters. Congratulations to Phyllis Busansky."

“I’m absolutely thrilled," Busansky said from her home Thursday night. "I ran on restoring confidence in this office and that’s what we’ve done.” When asked what she planned to do her first day in office, she said, "I have no idea. Until two minutes ago I wasn’t at all sure I was going to win.”

It was unclear at 6 p.m. how many more votes remained to be counted.

In other results, Democrat Kevin Beckner won his race against incumbent Republican County Commissioner Brian Blair by a sizable margin, according to the tally released Thursday evening.

Other races followed the trends established Tuesday night before vote counting was stopped because of computer problems. School Board member Carol Kurdell was beating challenger Stephen Gorham 52 percent to 47 percent. One race for Soil and Water Conservation District remained very close and appeared headed for a recount.

Vote counting resumed at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, with elections workers manually feeding paper ballots into dozens of scanners so the results could eventually be uploaded to computers for counting. Those results failed to upload on election night after problems with the new optical scan voting system by Premier Election Solutions.

All three members of the Hillsborough canvassing board said they expect some legal action against Premier Election Solutions, the vendor that sold the county its computerized vote-counting system.

"What's wrong with the system? Somebody will have to be held accountable,'' said Judge James Dominguez, a board member. "I'm sorry it took so long, but I felt that no matter how long it took, the numbers would be accurate.''

County Commissioner and canvassing board member Kevin White said of Johnson's consession, "I saw a very proud man who was dealing with the agony of defeat. He was conceding as graciously as he could, with the culmination of losing and the mishaps.''

White said he was glad the process was over. Election employees have been worked to the brink of exhaustion, and "now they have the anxiety of a new administration.''

Commissioner Rose Ferlita, the third canvassing board member, said of Johnson, "it's unfortunate he didn't elaborate more. If there were things he would have done differently, he should have said what they were.''

Michael Van Sickler, Times Staff Writer

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Comments

[Faith]

Can we have PhyLESS investigated as well? She is no better, I hear she is already being investigated, LOL

[David]

Ms Busansky is a disgrace, she is such a fraud, she laughs at the voters behind their backs, thinks they are all idiots, they must be, she is right, they voted for her

[Kris]

Kevin: Come out of the closet already!!

[Hal]

Kevin is about to be in his own scandal

Put that man in jail!

Well, Kris, where have you been? Kevin is out of the closet. He never made a secret of the fact he is gay. And Hillsborough County still elected him with a HUGE margin. This is starting to resotre my faith in my county!

do tell Hal...

[Michael]

I'm so proud of the voters in this area this election!!
And those who want to hate at the winners; goodbye dinosaurs!

[jocko]

Pat if her doors are closed how do you know what is going on behind them? Oh tell us

[jocko]

Pat if her doors are closed how do you know what is going on behind them? Oh tell us

[Hammer]

All I can say about this entire situation is;

Ummmm... DUH!

[scotti]

wow, what can I say? our community has been watching one mistake, mishap and screw-up after another, election after election....and finally we have a fresh start, and hopefully the Supervisor's office won't make headline news again for a long, long time. Change, its a good thing!

[Pat]

I was behind the doors, you idiot

[Mandi]

All Phyliss' henchmen are writing in to defend her, or they are all the same person.....her! Hilarious

[Phyliss Truth-O Meter]

I am overheating from all her lies

[Watch out]

Watch out, the nasty, attacking "Friends of Phyliss" are out for blood, nobody dare criticize Busansky the Terrible

[Kevin's Child Lover]

When is Kevin going to send me to college like he promised?

[Child Porn]

Kevin's fav mag

[Investigate the Phyll]

Let's fire up the investigation on this loony chic

[Lollypop Kid]

Kevin is more like the last Governor of NJ than anyone knows

[Kevin's Kiddo]

can we take more photos?

[Dr_Dug]

Next.... the CEO's of Wallstreet.....kick em' out!! All of Them..

[Phyliss Secret Payout]

Voters are idiots, I can put over anything on them, tee hee

You people are disturbed...

[Pat]

we need to kick out the lazy, welfare taking losers like Dug