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Nearly 8 Million Cast Votes In Florida

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI and JOHN ALLMAN and JOHN ALLMAN

cdolinski@tampatrib.com jallman@tampatrib.com 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 said at 3 p.m.

At 12:50 a.m., counties reported that more than 7.9 million, or 70.3 percent of registered voters, had cast ballots; more votes were still being tallied. By comparison, 74 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, noting that lines would have been longer - and election results would have come in much later - without advance voting.

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, who rated the election a 9 out of 10, said he received fewer reports of machine trouble Tuesday than during the primary. Some voters complained of problems with machines and other issues that made it difficult or even impossible for some to cast their ballots.

In Hillsborough and other counties, voters complained of ballot scanners jamming. A few Hillsborough precincts also 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 partial ballots.

Problems also persisted at the University of South Florida, where 100 students still waited in line at 10 p.m. to cast votes. Johnson told reporters that turnout was underestimated: During a 20-minute period, the polling center was out of ballots.

Election officials blamed the problems on a high number of address changes by student voters.

County officials said elections results from Hillsborough were also late because of data transmission problems at some precincts.

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

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