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The Absurdity Of Re-Electing Buddy Johnson

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 6, 2008

Sometimes we get the government we deserve.

Case in point: Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson, who couldn't count all the votes Tuesday night, even with his own re-election bid hanging in the balance.

You have to wonder if the 198,249 citizens who voted for Johnson to manage their most sacred right - the right to vote - might want a do-over after witnessing his office's breakdown during this historic election.

Yet Johnson is likely on his way to another term. He held about a 4,000-vote lead over challenger Phyllis Busansky on Tuesday night. Final results are not expected until today, after elections workers manually count 80,000 votes.

Votes from three precincts - and tens of thousands of early ballots - went uncounted Tuesday because of a software glitch. For this, Johnson blamed the manufacturer.

Elsewhere, voters at several precincts didn't receive the second page of their ballots, denying them their constitutional rights and unfairly harming down-ballot candidates and issues. For this, Johnson blamed his volunteers. "Apparently a couple of clerks slept through their training," he was quoted as saying.

At the University of South Florida, students stood in hours-long lines because his office was woefully unprepared for the turnout. For this, Johnson blamed USF, even though the university bears no responsibility for carrying out an election.

And at two polling places - the American Legion Post on Sheldon Road and the Westchase Swim and Tennis Center - poll workers couldn't get through to the supervisor's office to verify voters' registrations. For this, well, Johnson wouldn't answer questions, but you can bet he'd say it wasn't his fault.

Hillsborough had more voter complaints than any county in the state, according to the Election Protection Coalition's Web site.

And remember, Hillsborough was considered one of the 25 most important counties in the presidential election. There was no wiggle room for error.

Johnson's management of this election was a debacle and his behavior bizarre. Rather than owning up to the problems, he called it "the most beautiful day in elections in Hillsborough County I have seen."

And late Tuesday night, when his office melted down, he was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, his staff offered little information to the public or the candidates.

Hillsborough wasn't the only county facing problems with the new high-speed optical scanners made by Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold Election Systems. Sarasota also had problems, so the company does bear some responsibility.

Premier is no stranger to voting controversy. Its Diebold machines came under scrutiny for reliability and security in the 2004 presidential election and again in the 2006 congressional race between Vern Buchanan and Christine Jennings in Sarasota. Nevertheless, Johnson recommended that Hillsborough County accept Premier's $6 million bid, even though it wasn't the lowest.

In the August primary, when the system was first used, vote tabulation also broke down, delaying the posting of early-voting results - even though only about 10 percent of Hillsborough's 650,000 voters cast ballots.

In advance of the general election, a curious elections supervisor would have tested the systems, more than once, and would have known whether off-site machines could phone in their tallies, whether sufficient phone lines were available for poll workers and whether he had enough staff in place to handle the university students who showed up to vote.

Johnson, however, is an incurious supervisor. He simply trusts things to work as they should.

His confidence is unwarranted. But don't expect Johnson to accept responsibility for his debacle.

Unfortunately, voters who returned him to office don't have the luxury of blaming someone else.

And so we are left to wonder, did my vote count?

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