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Many Find Fault With Tuesday's Election

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 2, 2008

Polling Problems Persist

Regarding "Polls Face Only Minor Snags, Mostly Voter Confusion" (Nation/World, Jan. 30):

Your article says election officials reported only minor complaints about voting problems Tuesday. I am an experienced poll worker, and our precinct had enormous difficulty even getting through to the election office when trying to address a concern.

Our clerk often had to redial more than 20 times before finally reaching a person. Perhaps the election board can issue this "minor report of snags" because their system was set up so that calls from the trenches never got through.

The election board also now requires its poll workers to stay until all results have arrived at headquarters. This means you have to remain at the polling place, which is totally dismantled and back to its normal function, until you get a phone call releasing you. This serves no purpose because we are not in a position to correct anything or address any concerns at that hour and in that circumstance with no election materials remaining onsite.

Due to the size of our precinct, we spent two hours alone, just manually counting all the signatures and reconciling it to the actual vote count.

We were at the polls from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Combined with the time we spend for training, the money we receive is deplorable - possibly not even minimum wage.

The size of our precinct, 701, is continually growing. We had over 1,900 voters turn out Tuesday. This is more than 25 percent the size of a neighboring precinct's total number of registered voters.

I already know of one veteran poll worker who has said "enough" and did not return. Will the election board do anything to keep its dedicated and competent workers on board? Or will they continue to simply not even answer their phones for us?

PHYLLIS DeFONZO

Lithia

Feeling Shut Out

I moved to Florida four months ago. On Tuesday I tried to vote in the primary. I am a registered independent and found out I couldn't vote in the primary because I wasn't registered in either the Democrat or Republican Party. So much for democracy in this country!

STEVEN C. ATKINSON

Spring Hill

Tuesday Was Party Time

In response to Boyd Mellor's letter "For Party Members Only" (Jan. 30):

In the first place, independent voters cannot vote for party candidates in a primary election. They can, however, vote for amendments.

Most independent voters are listed as independent because they actually pay attention to issues instead of party line. They can review the platforms of all the presidential candidates and make a decision on merit rather than blindly following a party line. Which part of "independent" does this man not understand?

CAROL CURRY

Tampa

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