Orange County Canvassing Board Meeting
Orientation and Public Test for the November 4, 2008 General Election
October 15, 2008
7:00 a.m.
Present were County Judge Mike Murphy, Chair; County Judge Stephen Jewett; Orange County Commissioner Linda Stewart; Asst. Orange County Attorney Ed Chew; Asst. County Attorney Linda Brehmer-Lanosa; Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles; Recording Secretary Margaret Dunn; Recording Secretary Monica Ijeoma; Sr. Deputy SOE Information Systems Lonn Fluke; Derek Brett, SOE staff, members of the public and the media.
The meeting was called to order at 7:17 a.m. Introductions were made.
The Board then reviewed the legal advertisement published in the Orlando Sentinel on October 9, 2008.
The Canvassing Board reviewed the minutes from the last meeting. Steve Jewett moved to accept and Linda Stewart seconded the motion.
The meeting began with Bill Cowles explaining Woody Rodriguez’s absence and that Linda Brehmer-Lanosa will be filling in during his absence. Mr. Cowles went on to say that 109,003 absentees had been mailed out and approximately 17,000 were returned to the office. He explained that at this time applications are priority because of the October 6, 2008 book closing deadline.
The first order of business was review of the updated version of the ‘Absentee Ballot Criteria’. Steve Jewett moved that the recommended additions be adopted as part of the Criteria. Linda Stewart seconded the motion.
The next order of business was to review Rule 1S-2.027 Standards for Determining Voter’s Choice on a Ballot (This rule replaced rule 1S-2.027 Clear Indication of Voter’s Choice on a Ballot) and the examples. The Board agreed to allow SOE staff to duplicate any ballots based on the rule. The Canvassing Board will then review duplicated ballots before they are run through the tabulators.
The Board briefly discussed Provisional Ballots. The SOE staff will continue to process Provisional Ballots according to the adopted criteria and the Board will only deal with questionable and rejected ballots.
The Board went on to discuss the write-ins and military ballots with regard to the 10-day rule.
The Chairman of the Board, Mike Murphy asked Margaret Dunn to explain (for the benefit of those who were not present during the Primary Election) the manual audit of the equipment and the procedure, which was adopted by the Board, to choose the race and precinct (s) for the audit.
The next order of business was the Public Test. Bill Cowles explained the procedures for the public test, why certain precincts were chosen to test all ballots, why the number of precincts was chosen and the different types of equipment to be tested.
The Canvass Board chose 15 random precincts 101,105, 135, 206, 209, 226, 310, 404, 421, 455, 509, 526, 609, 624, 630, and one Early Voting Site for which the DS200s were to be tested.
They also chose the following precincts to the Ivotronic Touchscreen: 121,207 216 308 435 437 450 510 516 and one early voting site (630) to test the ivotronic.
The SOE employees conducting the public test were Tom Dougherty, Luis Torres and Lonn Fluke.
Luis gave a brief discussion of how the DS200 operates.
No problems were encountered during Public Test. The Board signed off on the results.
Before adjourning, the Board decided to meet at 8:00 a.m. to begin canvassing absentees on Monday November 3, 2008.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:20 a.m.
Orange Co. Canvassing Board October 15, 2008 General Election Public Test