Anderson criticized for election result delays
By Hector Florin and Jennifer Sorentrue

Palm Beach Post  January 30, 2008

Criticism rained down on Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson for the delays in producing precinct-by-precinct results Tuesday night.

Anderson attributed the delays to a faulty early-voting voter cartridge that prohibited d precinct results from coming in. Reached by phone Wednesday, Anderson said he was at a canvassing board meeting and could not comment.

For two and a half hours Tuesday night, County Commissioner Jeff Koons stood inside the Florida League of Cities' headquarters in Tallahassee, watching CNN coverage of Florida's election with about 35 other county and city officials from across the state.

Precinct results rolled in from other counties ñ except for some on the Panhandle that run on Central Standard Time.

And Palm Beach County.

"There's this white hole over Palm Beach County. Every major urban county in the state is up but us," Koons said Wednesday from Tallahassee, where he's attending a series of Strategic Aggregate Task Force meetings. "It's unacceptable and embarrassing. They were laughing at Palm Beach County again. We took quite a ribbing. I took a lot of grief in Tallahassee."

"We expect better," Koons added. "It's been consistent. Every election has some major screw-up."

State Rep. Susan Bucher, D-West Palm Beach, who is challenging Anderson to become elections supervisor, also watched CNN's coverage on Tuesday night.

"I was just disappointed because this is not a new problem." Bucher said. "I was horrified to watch national news call out Palm Beach County again."

Representatives from the Town of Hypoluxo and Village of Royal Palm Beach spent hours at the elections office in suburban West Palm Beach anticipating results.

They too wondered why precinct-by-precinct results didn't appear until well into the night. Without those results, it was impossible to know how close each candidate was to victory.

"We were sitting there for a long time not knowing what they were showing up there (on county government's Channel 20) because it said zero precincts," said Barbara Ross, Hypoluxo's town clerk since 1979.

County Commissioner Karen Marcus, a member of the canvassing board, stayed at the elections office until midnight, and also expressed frustration over the lack of precinct data.

When asked what, if anything, he would do next, Koons said, "write a check to Susan Bucher."