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Official Wants To Move Ballots From 2000 Election

AP file photo (2000)

Election workers continue to hand count ballots in West Palm Beach, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2000.

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The Associated Press

Published: June 2, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Florida's secretary of state says it doesn't make sense to continue taking up state archive space with ballots from the 2000 presidential election.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning tells The Miami Herald he'd like to free up space in the archive that holds the ballots - more than 4,000 cubic feet of them. Browning said he wants to seriously consider moving them out sometime after the 2008 elections.

"What purpose do they serve?" said Browning, who as Secretary of State oversees the Division of Elections. "I have a hard time giving away valuable space for more than 5,000 boxes."

Browning said "political reasons" keep him from doing anything with the ballots now, adding it wouldn't look good if a "Republican secretary of state is doing away with ballots that elected a Republican president."

Browning, who was appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2006, said the ballots could never be used to recreate another recount. Browning says the ballots have been handled so many times that any loose chads may have fallen out. He said it's only a matter of time before the paper used to make the ballots begins to deteriorate.

Though election ballots are normally destroyed after 22 months, state officials decided they should hold onto the more than 6 million votes cast in the historic election between Al Gore and George W. Bush that Bush ultimately won by just 537 votes.

In May 2003, the state gathered up boxes of ballots from 65 of Florida's 67 counties and put them in the state archives in Tallahassee. Ballots from two other counties had already been destroyed.

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