TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

'Historic' Florida Turnout: More Than 7.4 Million Votes

ADVERTISEMENT

By CATHERINE DOLINSKI and JOHN ALLMAN

cdolinski@tampatrib.com jallman@tampatrib.com

Published: November 5, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - "Historic levels" of voter turnout taxed Florida's election system at times on Tuesday but failed to trigger anything resembling the kind of meltdown experienced in 2000.

"It's been somewhat eerily quiet - and that's a good thing," Secretary of State Kurt Browning told reporters at 3 p.m.

At 11 p.m., counties reported that more than 7.4 million - 65.8 percent of registered voters - had cast ballots, and more votes were being tallied. By comparison, 48 percent of Florida voters cast ballots in 2004.

Election officials said Tuesday's relatively smooth process owed greatly to the 4.2 million voters who cast ballots ahead of time.

"We've seen historic levels of voter turnout," Browning said, adding that lines would have been longer - and election results would have come in much later - had advance voting not alleviated the strain.

In Hillsborough County, 146,332 of the county's total 288,574 voters in this election cast ballots early. The final tally was incomplete, as the county was awaiting returns from 134 precincts at 11 p.m.

The heavy turnout translated into a Democratic edge, "and that's traditional, because you're bringing new people into the voting process," said Susan MacManus, political scientist at the University of South Florida.

National exit polls showed that seven of 10 of new voters said they were voting for Barack Obama.

Hillsborough was among the state's 15 counties adjusting not only to high turnout but to new optical-scan voting machines.

Browning said he received fewer reports of machine trouble Tuesday than he did during the primary. However, while election officials tentatively declared success, some voters and election watchdogs complained of problems with machines and other issues that made it difficult or even impossible for some to cast their ballots. And county officials said machine problems delayed some results.

In Hillsborough and other counties, voters complained of ballot scanners jamming. During the morning, several Hillsborough precincts handed voters only one page of the two-page ballot. Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson, who blamed poll worker error, corrected the problem, but it remained unclear how many voters may have cast only partial ballots. And problems persisted at the University of South Florida, where 100 students still waited in line at 10 p.m. to cast their votes.

Johnson told reporters that turnout was underestimated: During a 20-minute period, the on-campus polling center was out of ballots.

But spokesman Mia McCormick and Johnson's chief of staff, Kathy Harris, blamed the problems on the number of address changes USF students requested on Tuesday.

Reporter Adam Emerson and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT