Record Turnout on Day 1 of Early Voting in Jacksonville, FL Brings Problems

October 22, 2008

By: Dave Wax
First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The Supervisor of Elections says the city saw record turnout on the first day of early voting with 11,970 votes cast. That one day record is more than the 10,000 votes cast during the entire early voting period during the primary election a few weeks back.

But day one did have its share of problems. Elected officials held a news conference Tuesday morning to discuss what happened, and what is being done to correct it.First of all, they wanted to make sure everyone knows the most important thing from yesterday: all votes were counted.

Seven out of the fifteen early voting location experienced technical difficulties with the optical scanning machines that count the ballots once they're filled out.

City Councilwoman Mia Jones and State Representative Audrey Gibson were on hand at the Gateway Mall Supervisor of Elections branch office to tell voters the problems are only minor, and there is no reason for people to lose confidence in the early voting system.

Gibson says she, along with several others, stayed well into the evening watching the count. "Last night, every single vote was counted, they can be confident in that," she said, referring to the more than 11,000 people who voted yesterday.

Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland adds that five other counties in Florida had similar problems.

Holland says that ten new machines are here to replace those that aren't working properly, and will be given a public demonstration prior to being put to use counting real ballots.

Also, representatives from both the ballot printer and the machine maker were on hand as they tried to figure out whether the problem was with the ballot or the machine that reads it.

It turns out the problem was the ballot itself. Essentially, if the ballots don't scan through the $6,500 machine perfectly straight, the machine can't read them. There was a problem on the ballots causing them to skew just a little bit, throwing off the machine.

Holland sums up his policy by saying that no matter how they have to do it, "Every vote's gonna count."

Source: First Coast News