Rep. Allen West Fights On amid Vote-Recount Mayhem
November 19, 2012
The characters in the latest example of South Florida's dysfunctional election system - recall the Bush v. Gore debacle in 2000 - are worthy of a Carl Hiaasen potboiler.
Congressman Allen West, an outspoken tea-party favorite whose district was pushed into largely new territory by redistricting, is claiming that massive voter irregularities are robbing him of his seat.
Democrat Patrick Murphy, who leads West by some 2,000 votes, is trying to stop a full recount of controversial early ballots cast in St. Lucie County. His current victory margin is just large enough to avoid triggering an automatic recall of all precincts and all votes.
Then there is Gertrude Walker, the 32-year-veteran election supervisor of St. Lucie County, who has spent much of the last two weeks explaining why her office completely botched the count. She admitted that her office had acted in "haste" in issuing election results, and that "mistakes were made." Among her mistakes was failing to count 40 of the 94 precincts under her jurisdiction on Election Night - and then counting the other 54 twice. Indeed. On Friday, her office announced it had "discovered" 304 additional early votes left in a box. None had been counted
But Walker wasn't available for comment. She has been hospitalized for unknown reasons.
The news was one reason that Florida's secretary of state has dispatched a team of experts to audit St. Lucie's procedures. The St. Lucie Election Canvassing Board voted to approve a complete recount of all the early ballots. It began the recount on Saturday but stopped it at 8 p.m. because the county building's security system was set to be switched on later that night. Some people complained that the alarms have been switched off in the past to allow county business to continue after hours, but their complaints were ignored. The recount resumed on Sunday morning, but it missed the noon deadline to submit the county's final returns to Florida's secretary of state.
So, on Sunday, the previous results-the ones showing Democrat Murphy ahead-were sent to Florida's secretary of state for certification.
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