Glitches Mar Debut Of New Voting System In Hillsborough

Hillsborough County's foray into optical scan voting collided with technical issues with the new equipment Tuesday night, resulting in long delays for candidates and voters eagerly awaiting results.

Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson said the problem didn't stem from elections workers, but with the new Premier Election Solutions voting system's equipment.

"This is simply the posting of results," Johnson said. "This has nothing to do with tabulation." The votes, he said, were "safe and secure."

Posting of results began shortly after 9 p.m., well behind surrounding counties. By about 9:15 p.m., the elections office had posted the results of about half the county's 383 precincts, but uploading of the results then slowed again.

By 10:15 p.m., less than 90 percent of results had been posted.

Johnson has a lot riding on the success of Tuesday's primary election. He faces former County Commissioner Phyllis Busansky in his November re-election bid.

Busansky showed up at elections headquarters about 9:30 p.m.

"It's appalling," Busansky said. "He has one job to do - to get those numbers to the candidates and the voters. Unbelievable."

Issues started arising shortly after 7 p.m. The elections office posted the results of absentee ballots, but then stalled in posting early voting results.

Johnson repeatedly reassured reporters and elections observers the ballots were all in and all counted. He said the absentee results would be pulled from the screen to allow for the posting of precinct results, followed by early voting and absentee results.

As the night progressed, Johnson's frustration mounted. He shouted "Can I have your attention, please" at two people talking in the room. He repeatedly stormed out of the room, refusing at times to answer reporters' questions.

Hillsborough's optical scan voting equipment first debuted during a Plant City municipal election earlier this year, and again during early voting this month. But Tuesday was the first true countywide test of the new technology.

Lack of a paper trail and a dispute over a congressional race in Sarasota prompted the state Legislature last year to do away with touch-screen machines. The new law requires any county using touch-screens to have switched to optical scanners by July 1.

The conversion to touch-screens cost Hillsborough about $6 million, with funding coming from the state and the county. The old touch-screen machines were mostly recycled.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Johnson addressed reporters again, saying he wanted to compliment his staff for working around the problem.

"Absolutely no issue with the tabulation of votes," Johnson said. "It's just a matter of getting them to the screen for you."

He said the system had been tested according to state law. The problem wasn't discovered during those tests.

Robert Pickett, a salesman for Premier, said "it was a database issue we just had to resolve." He described the problem as a communications issue between the high-speed scanner and the posting software.

Johnson repeatedly tried to downplay the significance of the problem.

"The elections business is not perfect," Johnson said. "A delay is not a mistake. A delay is a delay."

He also criticized Busansky for trying to politicize the issue.

"It's the last office in the United States of America that should be politicized," Johnson said. "There were virtually no issues today."

Jennifer Davis, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Elections, said problems arose with a specific version of the Premier software and high-definition scanners. The problems appeared limited to Sarasota and Hillsborough counties, she said.

Premier Election Solutions makes the optical screen voting system the county switched to this year. Premier was formerly called Diebold Election Systems. Based in Texas, Diebold has been under scrutiny for perceived security flaws elsewhere.

Earlier in the day, problems seemed to focus on a few paper jams as they were fed into the optical scanners.