googlicious

Disclaimer: I’m not a journalist - and this is not a well researched piece of writing. I did not take notes. Names will likely be mispelled or misapplied and the order of events may be jumbled… so, onwards -

The following short quote is from the Sarasota Herald Tribune Nov 13, 2006 (i have been following phil davis’ feckless postings recently, to my dismay - somebody with talent should take this persons job away from him… the beauty of the free market)

By Phil Davis
Associated Press Writer

“The first day of the recount was mostly uneventful, except for one terse exchange between Dent and an observer who raised constant objections to the process.”

This guy wasn’t there-

Hey, is anybody surprised that florida is once again the capital of post electoral dysfunction? The whole state started out as a land scam, and while the faces have changed, the principles are still enshrined in the local state of mind. That said, in the interests of full disclosure, i should point out that i make the basic and innate assumption that everyone who works for a county government such as Sarasota’s is honest, hard working, and a credit to their family. In fact i’m quite sure that on average they have more of these traits than I do.

The recount took place in what is affectionately known among county employees as the Bob building. For Big Old Building. I know this because my friend Ed, who met me for breakfast and came with me, knew this. Actually rather new, it is definitely big. Way out in what i thought until yesterday were the boonies of sarasota, there are massive developments, tens of thousands of people living and working, certainly all built in the five years since i last drove out that road. No wonder i can go out to a club in sarasota these days and not see anybody i know. We walked in about 9:30 after having picked up a few more cohorts off the sidewalk on main street as we were having breakfast. Good thing too, as the public did not show up in any kind of numbers, perhaps 30? I have requested a full list of yesterdays participants which should be ready today. I can’t wait to run it through google and see who turns up… surely this is what real journalists do?

A quite happy and very professional crew greeted us, and in exchange for our name on a list we got a very large hang tag. there were five colors of hangtags- yellow for observers (not sure what you had to do to get one of those, but kathy dent’s lawyer had one on), orange for media, green for recount staff, and blue for officials like Kathy, County commissioner Mercier, etc…. and sort of a teal for “public”. We had the run of the hallways, and a sort of aisle set off by plastic chain that wrapped through part of two rooms to observe from. There were about 50 media people with ten large cameras, and it got a bit crowded. After a few minutes kathy came out and outlined what they were going to do, introduced the Elections Canvassing Board, consisting of three people and herself(?) who were de jure running the show, Paul Mercier, our reasonably well respected county commissioner, and Judge Gaelin, who demonstrated a remarkable and consistent happy mother judge vibe throughout the entire proceedings- which came in very handy as things progressed.

So after Ms Dents rather halting run through, (she hasn’t had much sleep this past week) she took questions from the media, who seemed pretty quiet considering there was a pack of 15 or so with notebooks at the ready. in light of the fact that county voters had just deciseively voted in favor of paper verified voting, something kathy had fought tooth and nail, someone asked how much these these machines could be sold off for to some other (perhaps unsuspecting) county? Hmmmm. She hadn’t thought about that yet. There was a lull, and i piped up, in my best imitation of a well-seasoned reporter asking a question “ Would you like to comment on the joke you made on election day about putting 64,000 votes in for Vern Buchanan?” – Slight narrowing of eyes, pause, “no comment”. But it did kind of break the ice and the questions became much more substantive and Kathy narrowed her eyes a lot. Shortly, she called it quits and the proceedings formally began. There were perhaps eight crews of five in our room, who began processing voting machines. The voting machines were stacked up about chest high in piles sorted by precinct and the crews were lifing individual machines onto tables, opening them up and doing something with the vote cartridges. The commission sat down at their table about fifteen feet from us and began discussing. At this point a woman in a red dress spoke up in a loud and firm voice with a formal protest of the proceedings, on the basis of several points involving security of the devices, lack of documentation of chain of possession, inadequate access by members of the public, etc, etc. Very well spoken – apologetic that she had to object. Quoting specific and recently confirmed Florida law. Ok, now KD is starting to look a little harried. They go into discussion at their table. At some point several of us realize we can’t hear what they are saying from where we are all standing, and orlando tv points out that this is just the sort of thing that gets people into trouble with the sunshine law, and the lady in red, Susan Pynchon, says, in a wonderfully penetrating voice, like your third grade teacher, we really must be able to hear this, and the judge realizes this all is moving just a little too quickly and she and KD get organized with proper microphones and about an hour later a court reporter shows up to fill in the blanks.

All this time the twenty or thirty observers with their yellow tags are sitting or standing along once side of the room while the crews are doing their processing. They seem to be reading paperwork, typing on laptops, looking into the middle distance, some of them obviously more like staffers- I asked the one nearest me, who resembled nothing more than a secret service guy without the earphone, if he was representing somebody, and got a blank stare. I asked him what his name was, another blank stare. Oh well. I resolved to get copies of the sign up sheets.

Once the crews had processed all the machines representing a precinct, they printed out a paper tape totalling all the votes in the precinct and carried it over to a table nearer to us.

Now Susan has brought up another point and brings everything pretty much to a halt while she reads, once to the media, then when that has got everyone’s attention, to pretty much everyone in the room, a statute that specifically allows three members of the public to come within four feet and have a clear view of the process in any vote counting operation, otherwise election officials punishable by etc, etc… specifically she’s talking about these cartridges they are using to accumulate the vote totals in the machines and the register tapes on the table in front of us, as this is all that remains of our votes. KD is way not in favor of this, she’s pointed out three times by now that she has a deadline 3pm wed to hand over the recount, leaving unspoken the obvious alternative, political hara-kiri. But wiser heads prevail, the judge and the county commissioner sit down at their now well wired table and read the statute a few more times and decide that indeed she is correct and since this baby can be cut in half with minimal complaining from either party, decide that three people with “public” tags can indeed come over the line and get up close. I open the chain for Susan and follow her in, the judge looks at me and asks who i’m representing and with no conscious thought i say “the Green Party” and she is so happy about that, she practically beams. “excellent, come on in…”

end of chapter one…