Bush Orders Voting Extended in Florida

ByABC News
September 10, 2002, 1:45 PM

Sept. 10 -- Gov. Jeb Bush ordered election supervisors across Florida to keep polling sites open two extra hours Tuesday night to allow voters turned away this morning by a glut of hitches in several counties the chance to cast ballots.

Gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno (D) had filed an emergency request with Secretary of State Jim Smith claiming that thousands of voters who showed up at their polling sites this morning were unable to enter, either because the poll location hadn't opened, or because new machines were on the fritz. She then threatened to send her lawyers to court.

Smith, a Republican, agreed with Reno, and urged Bush to sign the emergency executive order.

The governor, who may face Reno in November's general election, affixed his signature just after 2 p.m. ET.

Polls closed at 9 p.m. ET, instead of 7 p.m throughout most of the state.

Voting on Florida's panhandle, which extends into the Central Time Zone, didn't end until 10 ET.

And full results were delayed by a hand recount in populous Orange County in central Florida. A type of optical scan ballot tore when being fed into the machine, so election supervisors manually examined each one beginning at 9 p.m.

Though Democratic and Republican Party officials, as well as state election administrators, were confident that the election was proceeding as smoothly as possible, at least a dozen counties reported glitches, ranging from broken machines to bewildered poll workers and confused voters.

"This is going to take a few tries," said a top state election official. "We're doing about as good as we thought we'd do."

Forty-one of 67 counties, or about 50 percent of voters, were casting ballots on unfamiliar equipment.

Across the state, several hundred trained poll workers failed to show up, and dozens who did were often unsure how to fix broken machines.

Most mechanical problems involved new touch screen machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software, Inc.

Mike Lymas, ES&S's COO, told ABCNEWS that human error and the sheer number of electronic voting booths in use contributed to the "teething problems," especially in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where election supervisors had predicted shortages of qualified poll workers as early as last week.