Posted on Tue, Oct. 29, 2002

By FRANCES KERRY Reuters

MIAMI - Independent monitors often travel to developing countries to observe elections and now, after two farcical votes in two years, they have come to Miami-Dade to see if the south Florida county can get it right on Nov. 5.

Miami is keen to avoid further snafus in these elections, which in Florida feature a close gubernatorial race between Republican incumbent Jeb Bush, President Bush's younger brother, and Democratic challenger Bill McBride.

After concern from some officials that outside monitors might make the place a laughing stock, Miami-Dade swallowed its pride and invited independent observers from the Washington- based Center for Democracy. It has previously sent monitors to observe polls in places such as El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Poland and Russia.

An assessment team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is also set to arrive, a spokesman said Tuesday. And the U.S. Justice Department is sending observers to Miami and several other Florida counties.

The close scrutiny will accompany furious efforts by Miami-Dade, an urban area of 2.3 million people, to improve.

"There is an impressive effort under way by every department in the county government to ensure a smooth election, one in which the fundamental right to vote will be protected," said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU and a slew of other civil rights organizations have been sharp critics of past snarl-ups.

Miami-Dade was a trouble spot in Florida's vote recount saga after the 2000 presidential election, one of a string of places where election officials peered endlessly at punchcard ballots trying to divine voter intent as the battle between George W. Bush and his Democratic rival Al Gore played out.

The county, which turned out not only to have had trouble counting votes but letting people vote in the first place, again botched voting, along with its neighbor Broward County, in September's Florida primary. The ACLU said in a report last week that blacks were disenfranchised more than other voters.

NEW MACHINES, FRESH PROBLEMS

In the September primary, new voting equipment that had replaced the punchcard system turned out to be far more complicated to operate than anticipated and poll workers were inadequately trained. Dozens of polling stations opened late or operated with some machines down. It took a week to complete vote-counting. McBride beat former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to win the Democratic nomination for governor.

"This is the first time any international group such as ours involved in election monitoring has been invited to monitor a domestic election in the United States," said Allen Weinstein, president of the Center for Democracy,

The group will provide about 20 monitors.

"Miami looked bad in 2000, it looked bad in September, what we want is that if they (elections officials) are unable to perform effectively we want a credible independent observer to say so and to have credibility," said Brad Brown, president of the Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP.

The county has instituted a two-week early voting period so people can vote at their leisure, and has also sent out hundreds of thousands of sample ballots along with a guide to voting. The ballot is in three languages, English, Spanish and Creole, reflecting the fact that nearly 60 percent of residents are of Hispanic origin and another large chunk are Haitian.

Other improvements include increasing poll worker numbers and improving their training, and laying in a huge stock of traditional paper ballots in case the machines go wrong.

Police will have the unusual task of helping organize the elections, including guarding polling equipment that will be installed the night before but cannot be locked up.

Miami-Dade is keen to shake off a reputation for political scandal. A mayoral election was overturned five years ago because of fraud-tainted absentee ballots and votes cast in the name of the dead.

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2002