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Counting Continues; Several Races In Limbo

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By KEITH MORELLI

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: November 6, 2008

TAMPA - More than a dozen Hillsborough County elections office workers hunkered down in a glass-walled room in Brandon on Wednesday afternoon and started counting what could add up to about 70,000 ballots that have yet to be tabulated.

They started with 6,000 absentee ballots that came in on Election Day, and it took most of the afternoon to count all of them. By late afternoon, workers began counting the ballots from two precincts that didn't flow through the optical scanning machines. They numbered about 4,000.

Still on tap for today: About 60,000 votes cast during the two weeks of early voting. Counting could be done by the end of the day, but no one is making any promises.

"Time frames are fluid," said County Judge James Dominguez, who leads the canvassing board, which is overseeing the process.

Still undecided, pending the final count, were several relatively close races, including the countywide District 6 County Commission race between incumbent Brian Blair and challenger Kevin Beckner, and a school board race between incumbent Carol Kurdell and challenger Stephen Gorham.

And, closest of all, the race between Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson and challenger Phyllis Busansky.

Late Wednesday, Beckner's lead over Blair was almost 20,000 votes, and Kurdell held a lead over Gorham of about 15,000 votes. Johnson was ahead of Busansky by about 5,000 votes.

Busansky said she is worried about having her opponent supervising a close ballot count that includes his own contest.

"It does concern me that a candidate is overseeing this race," she said.

Pat Kemp, vice chairwoman of the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee, was at the count on Wednesday afternoon. She said more could have been done to fix any problems that arose Tuesday.

"I think there were many things that could have been anticipated to make this run more smoothly," she said. She said precincts should have had laptops to verify voters' registrations rather than having already overworked poll workers calling the main office at every turn.

"There could have been better planning," she said, "better execution."

Everyone in the elections office had hoped the count would have concluded Tuesday night, as in most Florida counties, Dominguez said.

"It destroyed them" when the system failed, he said of the elections workers.

Dominguez said even though the counting will continue for another day, every vote cast will be counted.

"It is just a question of when they will get counted," the judge said.

Provisional ballots were to be counted tonight and overseas absentee ballots next week.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at 259-7760.

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