No more ballots found without pot question

Broward elections workers checking mail-in ballots from Oakland Park found none without the statewide medical marijuana question that had been missing from at least two ballots.

But an early voter at the Fort Lauderdale Regional Library/Art Serv said her ballot was missing Amendment 2.

The Broward Supervisor of Elections Office said there was no evidence of an incorrect ballot. The pages were stuck together because of humidity in the machine, said spokeswoman Tonya Edwards.

“There was an issue with the humidity so it printed twice on one side instead of on the other,” Edwards said. “On one page it was blank and on the other page was the actual amendments.”

Debbi Ballard, 57, of Fort Lauderdale, said she filled out her ballot and realized the amendment wasn’t there. “I checked once, twice, three times,” she said.

“This is an irregularity and needs to be addressed,” Ballard said. She said she pointed out the error to voting staff and received a new ballot.

Ballard said she was not satisfied with the “pages stuck to- gether” theory and has lost confidence in Broward’s Supervisor of Elections Office. “That doesn’t explain it,” she said. “Because the layouts were completely different.”

Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said there wasn’t an amendment issue. “It’s a moisture issue,” she said. “So I can understand why the voter,

you know, became concerned or upset, because there’s been so much about it out there in the air. It’s a moisture issue, it’s a moisture issue.”

Last week, two voters in Oakland Park reported that the amendment had been left off their mail-in ballots.

As the campaign manager and deputy campaign manager for the amendment watched, about three dozen Broward elections workers unsealed every mail-in ballot they had from Oakland Park on Monday morning.

After more than half an hour of opening ballots, they found nothing wrong — a big relief for the Amendment 2 backers and the elections office.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Snipes said. “It could be that these were test ballots, but we have confirmed two that do not have Amendment 2 on them.”

Snipes said that voters who are missing the amendment, all of whom should be in Oakland Park, will get new ballots. Edwards said later that Snipes was aware of the early voter’s issue.

Ben Pollara, the campaign manager for Amendment 2, called a news conference outside Snipes’ office in Lauderhill on Monday. Snipes said she was unaware the conference had been scheduled.

“I only work here,” she joked.

Inside the office, elections workers opened all the Oakland Park ballots they had, and none was set aside for missing any information. Although they targeted the Oakland Park area on Monday, the workers were scheduled to start opening ballots as the canvassing board met. The results will not be reported until polls close on Election Day, Nov. 8.

There are still many Oakland Park ballots that have not been mailed in yet. The exact number is unknown, but countywide, only about a third of voters who requested a mail-in ballot have returned them.

“Given the fact that this problem does not seem to be widespread ... we feel pretty good about it,” Pollara said after observing the elections workers.

On Tuesday, a Broward circuit court judge will hold a hearing regarding a lawsuit filed over the ballot problem.

When the Sun Sentinel first reported on the issue of ballots missing the amendment last week, the Amendment 2 campaign went into overdrive, sending about 150,000 robocalls to Broward County voters to ask whether they had the amendment.

Deputy campaign manager Raymer Maguire said they received about 7,000 responses, many of them saying they were missing the amendment, but that “the vast majority were mistaken, or just hadn’t received their ballots yet.”

Both the Amendment 2 campaign and the Broward elections office said they expect a handful of erroneous ballots to come trickling in.

Amendment 2 would legalize medical marijuana in Florida for people with debilitating conditions, including cancer and multiple sclerosis.

It is widely expected to garner the 60 percent of the vote needed to pass. Polls have shown support between 65 and 75 percent.

Unlike in 2014, when a similar amendment failed to pass by just 2 percent of the vote, the pro-medical marijuana campaign has enough cash to run an advertising campaign and compete with the money being sent to Florida to fight against the amendment.

The pro campaign raised more than half a million dollars between Oct. 8 and Oct. 14, the most recent period for which campaign finance records are available. Coral Gables-based progressive megadonor Barbara Stiefel was responsible for $375,000 of that amount. That brings to $775,000 the total amount Stiefel has donated since the failure of the 2014 amendment.

Earlier, the campaign received a $1 million donation from New Approach PAC, a committee bankrolling various attempts to legalize recreational or medical marijuana.

On the other side, the main organization trying to stop Amendment 2, Drug Free Florida, did not report receiving any money in the most recent reporting period. Earlier, it received $1 million from Las Vegasbased conservative megadonor Sheldon Adelson. But Adelson donated $5.5 million toward defeating the 2014 amendment, and he has spread his money thinner this year, with nine states offering medical marijuana or legalization ballot measures.