An error in Palm Beach County absentee ballots makes it a little harder to vote for Supreme Court justices. (Photo by Lance Fisher.)
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Palm Beach County is having yet another voting problem this year. About 60,000 absentee ballots already mailed to voters apparently have errors.
According to The Palm Beach Post:
To the dismay of three Florida Supreme Court justices who have been targeted for defeat by conservative groups, at least 60,000 absentee voters in Palm Beach County may have difficulty finding the judges’ names on the November ballot.
While the error appears to be a far cry from the infamous 2000 butterfly ballot that spurred people to vote for a different presidential candidate than they intended, the effects could be equally severe, said an attorney for the justices who also represented George W. Bush in the county’s 12-year-old election debacle.
Apparently, there is no title for a section on the ballot asking voters to vote on whether to keep Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince in their positions on the Florida Supreme Court.
Palm Beach Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said that the Arizona printing company that created the ballots is to blame.
She also told reporters that titles were only meant to make the lengthy and confusing ballot easier to read. She said she didn’t really need to include the titles.
However, some claim that they will take legal action if Bucher doesn’t set this right.
Bucher said she doesn’t have time to fix the problem either way. Sending a second ballot or a mailer is so far out of the question, considering many people are turning in their ballots soon.
In Palm Beach, 80,000 absentee ballots were requested and 60,000 of those have an error, the Post reports.
Ballots in the state for this election are also historically long because of the 11 wordy constitutional amendments on the ballot.