Vote counting resumes in Hillsborough County

A final tally of votes in Hillsborough County may not be finished until sometime tomorrow, says canvassing board member Judge James Dominguez. Technical difficulties stopped the counting of votes early this morning with tens of thousands of ballots cast during early voting still not tabulated.

About 12:30 p.m. today, the vote counting began again. Dominguez said the task will start with counting about 6,000 absentee ballots cast Tuesday.

After that, votes cast at two polling sites -- New Mount Zion Baptist Church and Temple Terrace Presbyterian Church, where scanning machines failed -- will be recounted.

Finally, elections officials will try to retrieve about 46,000 early votes that couldn't be tallied on Election Day because of technical difficulties with a system purchased from Premier Election Solutions. Dominguez said officials with Premier are trying to figure out how to debug the system.

"If we can't get the votes out of the machines, all of the ballots will have to be rerun," he said. Dominguez predicted the count would last until Wednesday.

Janet Zink, Times Staff Writer

*

Comments

[Duh]

Remember Buddy Johnson, everyone. Remember who is in charge of this. Remember who is the reason for this enormous failure.

[Grace]

O, come on. Hire extra help.

[JKR]

I wish the election for supervisor of elections were held a week after the general election. I hope all those people that voted for Johnson are happy now. There was PLENTY of evidence already of what a horrible supervisor he is. This is no surprise.

[Kee]

Not counting African American Votes in Hillsborough County- Criminal

Neglecting to count Early voters and Absentee votes- Culpable

Buddy going to jail to secure GOP jobs- PRICELESS!

[Greg]

JKR, you are absolutely right. I had heard that some of his campaign signs actually exceeded the size limitations for campaign signs--as Supv of Elections, he should know the rules. That alone was enough for me to vote against him. What a joke.

The day we turned Democracy over to computers is the day Democracy died.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are officially f##ked as a nation.

[SF]

Buddy Johnson spending Federal voter education money for face and name recognition for his campaign is ethically questionable. Running for an office that he has proven incompetent to manage is ridiculous. Can't we find him something else to do at taxpayer expense that is less embarrassing for our county?

[Chris]

Who voted to retain this guy? Buddy Johnson can't count votes and we're likely keeping the guy in office? To supervise elections? When he doesn't even show up at the elections headquarters, while his people are struggling to get votes counted? When Hillsborough county is one of the last counties in Florida to certify results?

And the fact that the guy is responsible for counting votes for his opponent in a tight race should be carefully reviewed.

[Ellen]

Do you mean to tell me that 46,000 early voters in Hillsborough County have not had their votes tallied? Where are the Federal Monitors who were watching Election Day procedures? St. Pete Times reported last Saturday that Hillsborough would be one of 29 counties nationwide to have monitors watching the vote. I can see why. What will it take to remove Buddy Johnson??

Obama da Man!

[Ed]

Buddy obviously fell asleep during the Pinellas County “How to steal it and get away with it” class for unethical Republican SOE’s. While Hillsborough was reporting 0% and Pasco only 27% - Pinellas had it all wrapped up and declaring all republican winners within an hour.

Well-organized kayos, or arrogant corruption perfected? I’ll vote for the latter…

[AS]

How do you spell relief? RECALL!

[Don]

Who is monitoring Buddy Johnson's counting of the votes to remove him from office. Does anyone believe he won't "find" some ballots marked for him in the trunk of someone's car?

[Agy]

Who is watching him? He can steal this election. He has the keys to the office with the ballots.

[Bryan]

I find it interesting that of all the counties in Florida that use this system, Hillsborough is the only one wiht problems. Maybe if Buddy Johnson had gotten his butt to work instead of sitting in the Columbia restaurant in Ybor City until 9pm on election night (I saw him there), some of these problems could have been avoided.

signs -- signs everywhere there are signs and Buddy Johnson signs in the City of Tampa are illegal...