Behind the scenes at the polling place in Florida

Of: Wolfgang Hansson

Published: Oct 27, 2020 at 11:48 a.m.

BROWARD, FLORIDA. The head of the Election Commission is a Republican and is appointed by a Republican Governor. But he rejects President Trump’s claims that postal ballots increase the risk of cheating.

– The one who says he speaks in the glass.

Peter Antonacci is not a friend of intermediate milk. Here are direct drives and defined insights that apply when we sit in the polls room coffee room to get a lesson in how you can ensure that elections in at least Florida are fair.

Different states have different electoral systems and he doesn’t want to comment on each other. But Florida is definitely one of the biggest wave states. It is rare that the winner here does not become the president of the country.

Antonacci is the executive director of the electoral process in Broward County, Florida’s second-largest electoral district after Miami-Dade. It was here that it all went wrong in the 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George W Bush.

An unfortunate combination of circumstances brought the result into question and all votes had to be recalculated by hand. A legal battle raged for three weeks before the Supreme Court confirmed Bush’s victory by the original margin of 537 votes across Florida.

Slightly reclined in his chair and with his light blue shirt sleeves rolled up, he guarantees that something similar will not be repeated in this year’s presidential elections.

– Since then, there have been dramatic changes. The electoral system is now governed centrally for the entire state without the possibility of local interpretations in the electoral district.

The voting machines have been replaced. There is a central database where all voters in the state are registered and it is updated every two years. Anyone who wants to can vote by mail without giving any special reason. But they have to ask for a postal ballot.

Can’t be hacked

But, I wonder, is there no way to cheat with mail ballots?

The election manager leans forward with a defined facial expression and responds with a single word.

– Not.

Then he asks us to follow him to the heart of the business. Open locked doors with an access card attached to a device on your waistband.

The place is gigantic. We pass rows of voting machines that the day before the elections will be taken to the different polling stations. We enter the room where the ultra-fast calculators are arranged in several rows.

Antonacci points to a large black “box” in one corner of the room.

– That is the server where all the results are stored. It is not connected to the Internet and cannot be hacked.

In the next room, about 20 people are sitting and opening envelopes with votes by mail. The ballots are in A4 format and have several pages. The presidential election is at the top of the ballot, but there are many more choices for voters to decide. Therefore, it takes a while for those who want to vote on Election Day and stand at the polls.

In the next room, another group of people is sitting and checking the signatures of the sent mail ballots.

Unique data code

– Our machines can verify more than 99 percent of the signatures, but the rest are examined by hand. If a vote is rejected due to a signature mismatch, we will notify the voter by email or phone so they have an opportunity to correct the error. The same if the signature is missing.

In the United States, everyone must register before elections to vote. When you register, the signature is saved for later verification. This is because the United States does not have a national population registration system like Sweden, where the electoral roll can be automatically updated at all times.

In the next room, a machine sorts the votes received by mail. Each envelope has a unique data code on the back and each ballot is electronically photographed. Registration takes place both when the ballot is sent and when it arrives. The voter can then go to an application and see that the election officials have received and counted their ballot.

– Here in Florida, we count all mail-in votes as soon as they arrive. It is incomprehensible that not all states do. Then the result would already be completely clear on election day.

The result so far is on the black server.

– But I can’t tell you what the position is like because then they have to shoot me.

Antonacci laughs out loud to indicate that the last one was a joke.

Suspicious voters

This does not prevent many voters from being suspicious. They would like to come in person and submit their vote by mail. What they can do at Broward headquarters. Car after car drive to a manned station at the entrance, where an election official receives and records the ballot.

Maureen White, a black woman in an SUV, just left her voice.

– I don’t want to wait until election day, he explains. Then there are usually such long queues. At the same time, I want to leave my vote in person to be sure that it will actually be counted.

This year he thinks it is very important.

“We must take out the liar and the deceiver who are sitting in the White House,” he said in an annoyed voice. The last four years have been painful. Especially for us blacks.

Not that I think Biden can perform miracles. But he doesn’t even want to take Trump’s name on his lips.

– We have to get it out. It is not good for anyone. It doesn’t matter if the person who comes in your place is white, black or pink. Only he disappears.

This year, 50 percent more voters than usual have applied to vote in Florida. Antonucci doesn’t see a problem with that.

Extremely even

– Anyone who says that voting by mail is not as safe as voting on the spot does not know what they are talking about.

At the same time, he believes that it is good that the outcome of an election can be questioned.

– In a democracy, there must be an appeal mechanism. There are always people who try to “steal” an option if they can.

In Florida, a recalculation is automatically performed if the difference between the two presidential candidates is one-half percent or less.

In Florida, it is always extremely even.

– Things can go wrong on election night, but nothing that cannot be fixed, says Antonacci.

Published: Oct 27, 2020 at 11:48 a.m.

READ ON