Undervotes reported in Palm Beach County, Florida

By GottaLaff

Voters in Florida wait to cast their ballots Tuesday morning, despite problems at some polling stations.

I just voted. There was hardly anybody there, but that's typical for our area. It's a well-run polling place, and since I voted "absentee", all I had to do was hand them my envelope and walk out.

However, not everyone has it as easy as I do:

Florida's Palm Beach County is reporting problems at a couple of polling stations: so-called "undervotes," where machines reject ballots because voters are not filling out the second page of the ballot, a spokesman for the county Board of Elections confirmed. The page contains proposed amendments to the Florida Constitution.

The spokesman said these undervotes are legal. The scanner spits the ballot back and reminds the voter to vote on the second page, the spokesman said, adding that the voter then has the choice of voting or registering the undervote.

He said in some cases people simply forget to fill out the second page, but most voters seem to be intentionally skipping that part of the ballot.

The town of Palm Beach is also reporting minor sporadic voter machine failures, the spokesman said. A handful of machines had to be replaced.

One polling station in the county opened one hour late because of a problem with their precinct voting list.

As I left my polling place, I thought I heard someone say, "It's jamming again." Uh-oh.