Don’t call it ‘Flori-duh’ — Sunshine State breaks 20-year hex on election problems

For once, Florida is not the national laughingstock following a presidential election, breaking a 20-year jinx and track record of Election Day meltdowns.

Despite a few fumbles — a handful of precinct scanner malfunctions, internet going down in one county while transmitting election results, electronic poll books not properly programmed — Florida had one of its smoothest election days in a long time.

So do us a favor and don’t call us Flori-duh, anymore, said Susan MacManus, a longtime political analyst and distinguished retired professor at the University of South Florida, in a recent tweet.

“I’m just glad the onus is off of us for a change,” MacManus added in a phone interview Wednesday.

Like many other Floridians, MacManus lived through the 2000 election fiasco that led to pundits coining the term “Flori-duh!”

During a brief news conference Wednesday to discuss the status of the election results, Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrated the state’s handling of the election, boasting that Florida was somehow able to tally 11 million votes while other states were still counting.

“Rather than us being the Bush v. Gore of 2020, we’re now being looked at as the state that did it right and that other states should emulate,” DeSantis told reporters, giving credit to Secretary of State Laurel Lee and the state’s 67 county supervisors of elections for their hard work. “Perhaps 2020 was finally the year we vanquished the ghost of Bush v. Gore.”

More:New documentary recasts the 2000 presidential vote in Florida as the Elian election

Ballot design flaws, especially “butterfly ballots,” and hanging tabs or “chads” on punch ballots caused massive problems and delays two decades ago.

Tabulating machines missed 61,000 ballots. Al Gore demanded a recount, which in turn led to armies of lawyers descending on Florida. The legal battle over the recount went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 to stop the recount with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens dissenting. The court later ruled 5-4 against sending the case back to Florida to complete the recount.

The court decision ended five weeks of indecision and allowed George W. Bush to become president. Bush won the state by 537 votes out of 6 million cast. 

The Florida Legislature made a number of election reforms in 2001, including:

• Eliminating punch card machines.
• Standardizing voting technology.
• Requiring a uniform ballot design.
• Requiring county supervisors of elections to provide poll worker training.
• Providing standardized polling place procedures.
• Giving counties a mandatory deadline for certifying elections.

After problems with equipment surfaced in Broward and Palm Beach counties during the 2018 midterm elections, both county’s elections supervisors were removed and equipment was replaced.

Also, the 2019 Legislature passed the biggest set of reforms since 2001, MacManus said. Among those reforms was allowing voters time to cure any signature errors on mail-in ballots, she said.

Related:Florida failed to spend $10 million for election security, COVID-19 protection at polls

The author of that reform package, state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, tweeted Tuesday night that Florida was “the shining example of efficiency instead of being the punchline.”

What also helped was that the state adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic by installing drop boxes for people who requested vote-by-mail ballots but who did not trust the post office to deliver them in time, if at all, or who did not want to stand in line during early voting.

The great thing about the drop boxes at the county election offices was that staff was on hand to check the voters’ envelopes and point out any issues, like forgetting to sign the envelope, MacManus said: “They caught a lot of mistakes.”

For example, Hillsborough County added curbside drop-off tents at 26 locations, Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer said. Not only that, but larger counties had in-person early voting open for two full weeks, with more sites than previous elections.

More:See how Florida early voting turnout compares to previous years

“All of this meant that on Election Day, we had a manageable volume of voters to serve and didn’t have lines or issues,” Latimer said. 

Both state and county election officials deserve credit for publicizing the many ways voters can cast their ballots, what the deadlines were, and how to cure things like mismatched signatures, MacManus said. 

It was especially helpful that people could track the status of their mail-in ballots, she added. “I think you are going to see lots more confidence in Florida’s election system” as a result.

Another major improvement: Modernizing and standardizing election equipment over the last two years. Because of cyber hacking attempts and intrusions into county voting systems in Florida and other states, Congress authorized millions in Help America Vote Act grants to make those systems more secure.

More:‘Poked and prodded’: How the Russians nearly hacked the 2016 Florida election

Florida’s 67 counties spent $14.6 million of that HAVA money upgrading their equipment and shoring up deficiencies identified in a review conducted by Secretary of State Laurel Lee on the orders of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Experience with the Presidential Preferential Primary in March and the August primary gave election staff a chance to get familiar with new equipment and work out any issues with them, and alert supervisors for the need to hire additional staff, MacManus said.

Nonetheless, the day didn’t go without isolated glitches throughout the state.

Electronic poll books in several Lake County precincts were improperly programmed, which were reprogrammed by elections department staff. 

A problem occurred in Lee County early in the day with scanners at several polling locations unable to read the ballot page containing constitutional amendments, but the problem was resolved quickly.

Minor scanning issues were reported at precincts in Hillsborough and Duval Counties, which also were quickly addressed, officials said.

More:Inside Florida Politics: How Trump won Florida

“We replaced one scanner out of 329 in use on Election Day,” said Gerri Kramer, director of communications for the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections. “Voting never stopped at any location, and delays were kept to a minimum.”

When such problems occur, the elections office uses an auxiliary bin built into the ballot box. “When a ballot won’t go through the scanner, the voter deposits the ballot in the auxiliary bin and they are scanned at our office,” Kramer said.

David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research in Washington, D.C., said he was impressed with the way Florida has been running its elections.

“Florida does a very good job. The counties are extremely professional and offer voters a variety of ways to vote that have tremendous integrity,” Becker said. “Election Day in Florida was run extremely well under challenging circumstances.”

Next election, instead of being asked if he’s worried about a repeat of 2000, Latimer said, “I’ll be asked if Florida is going to see another election like 2020. And I’ll answer with a resounding ‘Yes!’ ” 

Contact Jeff Schweers at jschweers@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.

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