Nick Jimenez

Sunday, December 3, 2000

We can learn from Florida's mistakes

Every public official in the nation in charge of holding elections is looking at Florida and thinking, "Thank God, that didn't happen here."
   "Including me," said Nueces County Clerk Ernest Briones, who has been watching the scrutiny of dimpled ballots, hanging chads, butterfly ballots and over-voted ballots just like everyone else.
   Florida election officials and voters have taken a big black eye as each glitch in voting on Nov. 7 has come under the national spotlight. Why did election officials in certain counties allow party officials to "fix" absentee ballot applications? What were election officials in Palm Beach County thinking when they allowed the butterfly ballot to be used? How could voters walk away and think their choices had been registered if they didn't punch completely through on their ballot?
   But only by the grace of God have we escaped this dilemma before. What the Florida experience has done is reveal on what thin ice the election process is suspended. Humans run elections and humans make mistakes; they are lazy, they skirt the rules and they make assumptions in lieu of knowing the law.
   What should the Florida debacle teach us about improving elections? I think it teaches us that we need to make the election process a high priority, putting the money needed to make it as straightforward and as first-class as we can make it. As the wrangling in Florida has underlined, we shouldn't treat voting on a catch-as-catch-can basis.
   For one, we should raise the pay and the level of training for election judges. The judges are the first lines of defense in maintaining the integrity of the voting process. Election Day judges now receive $6 an hour for the 12 hours of work. That's far too low when salaries are being pushed up by a good economy. That makes the county increasingly dependent on the same group of dedicated but long-serving group of workers to man 122 voting precincts.
   But far more important is raising the level of training of those judges. County-provided briefings on election laws, which are frequently changed by the Legislature, are not mandatory for election workers.
   "Some of them think that if they've gone to one in the last five years, that's good enough. But it's not," Briones said.
   That means many election judges are stumped when a question is presented, or, worse, will use their own discretion. The most common situation, Briones said, is to allow persons other than voters to loiter within the voting area.
   Several years ago, Briones said, an election judge allowed an outside party to stay inside the area where campaigning is prohibited for many hours. In that time, the person made several attempts to influence voters. Many judges know the rules, but allow the rules to be relaxed because of a friendship or a relative, Briones said.
   We could also find a better class of locations in some instances. Briones particularly points to Precinct 67, which uses a former fire station on Louisiana Parkway. On Election Day, the roof was leaking and rainwater poured down while voters cast their ballot for the next president.
   "It's a disgrace to ask people to vote under those conditions," Briones said, vowing to find a new location by the next election.
   But the election law puts a priority on using public spaces first, before election officials rent private space.
   We should make the ballot simpler and less confusing. To that end, we should eliminate all those uncontested races from the ballot. We know the winner and the only thing gained is the stroking of egos of the uncontested candidates who watch their vote totals pile up.
   We should do better by handicapped voters. Blind voters can ask for help, but what does that do to the secret ballot? There are systems that accommodate the handicapped. Shouldn't all votes be held in equally high regard?
   Here's my humble gripe: Bring back the curtains. In the old voting machines, there was a moment of ceremony when the curtain closed behind you. It was just you and your conscience. The new scan ballots are great, but in most instances, with only the privacy of a nook afforded, it feels like I'm filling out a lottery ticket at the Circle K.
   (Nick Jimenez can be reached at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com.)
  
  

 
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