Florida vote finally given to Obama while officials try to learn what took so long

The state of Florida seems doomed to be plagued by election drama. The rather anti-climactic results of Florida’s presidential voting were finally released on Saturday, showing the Obama very narrowly defeated Romney 50% – 49.1%. The difference was one of about 74,000 votes. However, unlike in 2000, the narrow margin of victory seemed to be the least of the election officials’ woes. The situation seems to have been created by a record level of voter turnout, 8.4 million people or 70% of the registered voters, and inadequate management. Resources were not appropriated well, as some precincts were practically empty while others were overwhelmed. In some places voters waited up to 7 hours to cast their ballots. In Miami-Dade, the final votes were actually cast in the wee hours of Wednesday morning; two hours after Obama had been declared the winner. There was also a large wave of last minute voters, which slowed the counting process as officials attempted to juggle processing the new votes and counting up the total. A long string of possible explanations for the situation have been formulated. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner has attributed the long waiting periods to a particularly long ballot which included 11 proposed constitutional amendments. Florida Democrats however are blaming the struggle to cope with high and uneven voter turnout on Florida’s Republican-led Legislature and Governor Scott’s decision to shorten early voting from 14 days prior to Election Day to 8. On the other hand, under pressure from Democrats the decision had been made to allow voters to cast absentee ballots in person which arguably created the long lines. In Florida early voting can only be held, by law, at libraries, election offices and city halls. Consequently each county had a limited number of locations they could use for early voting, so voters became discouraged when they saw the long lines and decided to wait until Election Day to cast their vote. The theories abound, but pretty much everyone agrees something needs to change before the next general election. “We could have done better,” said Secretary Detzner, “we will do better.”