Panel makes Obama’s Fla. victory official

By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer


TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The state Elections Canvassing Commission made President-elect Barack Obama's victory in Florida official right on schedule Monday, just 13 days after a nearly glitch-free election.

That's in sharp contrast to the 2000 election, when Florida's infamous recount dragged on for 35 days. The U.S. Supreme Court then called it to a halt, giving Florida and the presidency to Republican George W. Bush by just 537 votes. Obama, a Democrat, won Florida by more than 236,000 votes - 51 percent to 48.2 percent - over Republican Sen. John McCain.

Florida officials hope this year's election will help exorcise the ghosts of 2000.

"Compared to prior elections in Florida, this one was a piece of cake," said Gov. Charlie Crist. "To have an election go as smoothly as it did, I couldn't be happier."

The results became official just before 9 a.m. with the signatures of Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson. Crist participated by telephone but added his signature several hours later after returning to Tallahassee.

"It's a done deal, but we want the governor's signature on this since it is the general election," said Secretary of State Kurt Browning.

No one was more relieved than Browning that the election came off with only minor hitches.

"We don't use 2000 as the benchmark," he said. "2008's going to be the benchmark. ... It does help that it wasn't close."

Browning said he was confident that even if the election had been close, Florida would have avoided past problems. The 2000 presidential election featured badly designed ballots and punch card voting machines with their pregnant and hanging chads.

New touch screen machines were the focus of a problem two years ago in Sarasota County, where 18,000 ballots showed no votes in a close congressional race. A hand recount was impossible because there were no paper ballots.

This year, punch card and touch screens were outlawed in favor of optical scan machines.

The biggest problem came during early voting. Recent legislation limited it to eight hours on weekdays and eight hours total on weekends. That contributed to long lines at early voting sites. A week before Election Day, Crist issued an executive order that extended voting to 12 hours on weekdays and 12 hours total for the final weekend.

Many voters, though, still had to wait in long lines. Browning said he expects the Legislature to consider changing the law to allow more early voting time and sites.

Thousands of voters avoided the crush at polling places and early voting sites by casting absentee ballots, but Browning was dismayed because many of those votes couldn't be counted because the outside envelopes weren't signed.

He said his agency and local elections officials need to do a better job in the future of making certain absentee voters know they must sign the envelopes.

Another problem is that some voters failed to update signatures, including name changes, on file at county election offices. Voters were turned away if their signatures didn't match those on file.