Tallahassee, FL - Three days after the election and Florida is still too close to call. Long lines and a long ballot lead to slow results. The state is becoming the butt of jokes across the nation.
Florida sparked the ire of the nation for mistakes made in the 2000 presidential election. In 2012, it’s mainly laughs.
“Florida tonight remains too close to call. Where is the good news you say? The election was decided without them,” Jon Stewart.
A day after the election, Jon Stewart took shots at Florida. The jokes continued through Thursday with a re-enactment of seniors ballot counting on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
As of noon, Friday Palm Beach County was still counting provisional ballots. The state has unofficially gone to Obama, with his narrow 60-thousand vote lead.
State law requires all counties to report their election results by Saturday. On November 20th, the state canvassing board will meet to certify the results.
Two members of the board, Governor Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner are taking heat for lines that kept voters in Miami waiting to vote until nearly 2AM.
“We’re going to determine what is the best resolution to eliminating lines,” said Detzner.
I sat down with Detzner Friday. He says their will be changes before Florida votes again.
“We will resolve the issues that need to be addressed and address them with the governor and the legislature,” said Detzner.
The main focus will be early voting sites. State law limited the sites to 300 this election, compared to more than 6-thousand on Election Day.
Angry and embarrassed voters are bombarding Governor Rick Scott with emails. On Scott’s open records site we counted 50 pages of messages regarding the election.
June from Palm Beach writes ”Would you please help me to understand why Florida is, once again, a Presidential voting laughing stock?”
Cathy from Flagler writes “Our state’s inability to count votes is embarrassing. Please lead and correct.”
And finally this email from Don in Escambia says quote “I’ll wait in line for a week to see you thrown out of office.”
