Vote counting won't end in Hillsborough until this afternoon

TAMPA -- The counting of Hillsborough County's votes shut down about 3:30 a.m. today with about 6,000 absentee votes and thousands in early votes still outstanding.

The office will resume the count at noon today and probably won't be finished until three to four hours later.

In addition to those batches of uncounted votes, County Judge James Dominguez said two polling sites reported failures in getting their votes recorded into the scanning machine. They included precincts 651, 626 and 305. The ballots exist, but they haven't been uploaded yet so that they can be tabulated with the rest of the county totals, said Dominguez, who sits on the county canvassing board.

There's also an untold number of provisional ballots to be counted by the canvassing board late Thursday afternoon.

It's been a slog counting Hillsborough's totals. As of 3:15 a.m., only 377 precincts of 384 precincts were counted, plus an additional 100,000 early votes.

For most of the night, employees with the elections office dodged questions from reporters, and the supervisor, Buddy Johnson, couldn't be reached. It wasn't until 11:25 p.m. Tuesday that Johnson arrived at the elections office to give a brief, mostly positive, statement about how well voting had gone.

Even though another canvassing board member, Rose Ferlita, had by then blamed the vendor of the vote machines for the delays, Johnson said he was looking forward to continuing a partnership with Premier. He downplayed the delays as minor.

But by 3 a.m., Johnson said the "gloves were off" and he was blaming the vendor. He said he spent more than two hours on a conference call with officials with the vendor, Premier Elections Solutions.

"They weren't speaking the truth about what they promised," Johnson said. "I wish I had told you that at first and was less nice, but we haven't had much help from the vendor for the second time in a row."

Unlike the primary, when Premier officials accepted blame for another glitch, this time the company hesitated to fall on its sword. Elections officials said at about 9:30 p.m. that Premier officials were preparing a statement about the delays, but such a statement never came. Johnson later sounded upset that no statement was released by the company.

"I asked their people for the statement," Johnson told a room full of reporters about 2:30 a.m. "It was supposed to be done at 9:30, but have you seen it?"

Johnson said he fully expected the company to push back and cast some blame with his own staff. He said their was a disagreement about the capacity of the early voting machines. The delay was caused because the size of the data was too large to be counted. About 147,000 votes had difficulty getting counted by 26 early vote machines. By the time the office shut down, half of the machines had been uploaded, Johnson said, but it's unclear how many votes remain untallied.

Judge Dominguez said the decision was made to stop counting votes because it was so late.

"The staff is getting tired," Dominguez said. "At this point, accuracy to me is more important."

These delays came as Democrats watched their nominee for Supervisor of Elections, Phyllis Busansky, lag behind Johnson by about 4,000 votes.

"We saw many problems at the polls," said Pat Kemp, vice chair of the Hillsborough County Democratic Party. "I came here tonight, at 3 a.m., because I'm concerned about what we're seeing."

By nearly 4 a.m. today, Johnson remained in the office after almost everyone had left. He said he just got off the phone with the president of Premier and didn't have time to think about his race.

"(The Premier) president told me that he wanted to keep our business," Johnson said. "I was honest with the guy. I told him he had a lot of ground to make up."

Times staff writer

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Comments

This is absolutely outrageous. Whether misfeasance or malfeasance... A vote recount is needed, no matter what the results are reported to be. Of course with Buddy's unique form of management there's no telling where all the ballots are, and perhaps where even all the freaking vote machines are, but this sorry situation in Hillsborough needs to be very carefully audited.

[Alex]

How, how, how is it possible that this stooge is still winning? come on Phyllis, make up the gap!

[Martha Bingham]

If Buddy Johnson wins this race... there should be a loud voice asking for his recall. We simply can not have four more years of an inadequate supervisor of elections.

[Susan S]

How does Buddy explain the phone problems at the precincts? Poll workers spent hours trying to get through to the SOE's office to verify voter information. As a poll watcher, I saw people leave in disgust without voting because of the delays.

Buddy also took it upon himself to change the rules about campaigning outside precincts. The law specifically states that no materials can be handed out 100' from the polling entrance. Buddy decided he had the authority to change the statute to be 100' from the building perimeter.

Buddy Johnson is a disgrace to the citizens of Hillsborough County. Let's hope Phyllis can pull this off when/if the votes are ever counted.

[ST]

It is amazing to me to see people complain, you voted for him. He makes over $126,000 a year to do a poor job for the county. He is never in the office, he was deposed and stated that he didn't understand what his office does. I guess you want to give anyone a job. Please educate yourself on local elections, this is where your money is spent!

[Scott]

You all are getting what you deserve. Keep voting in the morons and moronic activities you will get. I feel no sympathy for any of you. Glad I live in Pinellas for now.

[WTH]

I can't hold back...

Buddy Johnson is an embarrassment to the citizens of Hillsborough County and the State of Florida. After using his position to campaign at the expense of county funds and when asked last night on TV if Hillsborough had any voting glitches, he deliberately lied until the reporter told him what the problems were. Voters that voted for Buddy Johnson should ask for a RECALL of their vote. Or better yet ask Buddy Johnson to resign.

We need to get a competent manager in this post before the next humiliating circumstance. Readers need to know who Buddy Johnson really is and what he actually does or does not do in this post.

[Kat]

This is horrible!!! What is going on? This didn't happen anywhere else in the state. Media: do your job and find out what really is going on there.