Election machines sit idly by in Indian River? What a brilliant idea!

October 19, 2008

By Russ Lemmon
TC Palm

• Why would Supervisor of Elections Kay Clem spend more than $350,000 on technology designed to streamline the voter check-in process and not use it on Election Day?

She purchased 104 Electronic Voter Identification units from 2005 to 2007, yet only a handful of them have ever been used. They are used at the three early voting sites, but that's it.The elections office had three opportunities to use the system in 2008 — on Jan. 29, Aug. 26 and Nov. 4 — but Clem played it safe and decided to hold off on using it.

Which is fine. Better safe than sorry, as they say.

But why order so many units in the first place?

That's the rub. One play-it-safe option: Ease into it by ordering just one unit per precinct (or 54).

Taxpayers have a $351,910 investment in these units, and most of them are sitting in the warehouse.

From a fiscal accountability standpoint, that's tough to justify.

Meanwhile, we're paying $50 to $100 per unit annually (depending on when it was purchased) as part of a maintenance contract with Tallahassee-based VR Systems.

The meter is running.

The units won't be rolled out in 2009, either, as the county's only scheduled election is in Indian River Shores.

So, we're looking at 2010 before taxpayers are able to fully appreciate their investment — which, when you factor in the maintenance contract, will be approaching $400,000 by then.

• A round of applause, please, for the officials from the county and its five municipalities who hammered out an interlocal agreement — which, as originally pitched, is the alternative to charter government. While some challenging hurdles remain, a big one has been cleared.

• Between Colman Stewart's personal baggage and Kay Clem's accountability issues, I'm tempted to vote "present" in the supervisor of elections race.

• I'm not wearing a white lab coat, but I believe I have discovered a "Pavlov's dogs"-type situation involving Sebastian politics.

During the past six months, I have criticized City Councilman Al Paternoster four times — and after each mention, a Sebastian resident with the last name of Spinelli (three times Jim, once Carole) has criticized me in a letter to the editor.

• You know a city council is dysfunctional when someone seeking office uses the word "Courtesy" as one of the three hallmarks of his candidacy.

Sebastian's Richard Gillmor also has the more commonly used "Honesty" and "Integrity" on his business card-size advertisement.

• Our house in Ohio has been on the market for more than two years. Conventional wisdom says we should continue lowering the price, but we're thinking about being a couple of real estate "mavericks" and raising the price.

Why? It's only three miles from "Joe the Plumber's" house.

Source: TC Palm