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Home My WebLink About03-14-2001 Canvassing Board Minutes MINUTES OF THE CITY OF OCOEE CANVASSING BOARD MEETING HELD MARCH 14, 2001 CALL TO ORDER Mayor Vandergrift called the Canvassing Board to order at 12:08 p.m. in the Commission Chambers Conference Room. The roll was called and a quorum declared present. PRESENT: Mayor Vandergrift, Commissioner Anderson, and Commissioner Parker. Also present were City Attorney Rosenthal, City Clerk Grafton, Deputy City Clerk Green and Deputy City Clerk Whitford. Also attending were Commissioner/Candidate Howell, Commissioner Johnson, Candidate Martha Lopez-Anderson, Denise Lenko, Treasurer for Candidate Henderson, Boxing Club Coordinator Tony Cristelli, and Recreation Supervisor Vickie Prettyman. ABSENT: None. ELECTION FOR COMMISSIONER, DISTRICT 1 AND MAYOR Attorney Rosenthal announced that City Clerk Grafton would open the sealed absentee ballots. Ms. Grafton then explained she had picked up the ballots that morning and, after verifying the signatures, the Supervisor of Elections had separated them by district. City Clerk Grafton then read into the record the absentee ballot information shown below: . District I - 32 ballots . District 2 - 118 ballots . District 3 - 57 ballots . District 4 - 51 ballots . In addition to these, the Supervisor of Elections recommended the rejection of 6 ballots due to failure to comply with state law requirements. 1 no signature, 2 had no witnesses, and 3 no witness addresses. After the ballots recommended for rejection were reviewed by each person at the table, Commissioner Parker. seconded by Commissioner Anderson. moved to reiect the 6 absentee ballots as recommended by the Supervisor of Elections. Motion carried 2-0 with Mayor Vandergrift abstaining. Commissioner Anderson, seconded by Commissioner Parker, moved to accept for counting all the remaining absentee ballots as recommended by the Supervisor of Elections. Motion carried 2-0 with Mayor Vandergrift abstaining. Ocoee Canvassing Board March 14,2001 The absentee ballots for District #1 were then opened and counted with the results added to the ballot totals from the tabulator machines received election evening. They are as follows. Commission District 1 #1 #2 #3 #4 Absentees Total Henderson 194 N/A N/A N/A 6 200 Howell 328 N/A N/A N/A 16 344 West 135 N/A N/A N/A 10 145 Total 657 N/A N/A N/A 32 689 Ms. Grafton explained that according to the City Charter a candidate must receive 50% of the votes cast plus one in order to be declared a winner. In order to have won, Mr. Howell would have had to have 344.5 plus one or 345.5 votes. Ms. Grafton stated since he did not there would need to be a run-off between Mr. Howell and Mr. Henderson. Attorney Rosenthal suggested since the balance of the absentee ballots were for the Mayoral election only they be sorted into stacks by candidate and then count stacks. The balance of the absentee ballots were then opened by district and sorted by candidate in stacks of25. Each stack was verified twice. For the Mayoral race the Absentee ballots were as follows. District # I District #2 District #3 District #4 Vandergrift 16 38 37 19 Lopez-Anderson 12 63 13 24 Sills 4 17 6 8 Cox 0 0 I 0 Totals 32 118 57 51 2 Ocoee Canvassing Board March 14,2001 The totals of absentee ballots were confirmed bv City Clerk. Jean Grafton The totals were then added to the totals of the hand cast ballots from the tabulator machine tapes. Those totals are as follows Mayoral Race #1 #2 #3 #4 Absentees Total Cox 4 2 7 4 1 18 Lopez-Anderson 99 134 44 140 112 529 Sills 206 228 130 92 35 691 Vandergrift 354 518 260 531 110 1773 Total 663 882 441 767 258 3011 City Clerk. Jean Grafton. then read aloud the total ballots cast for each candidate. Commissioner Parker. seconded by Commissioner Anderson. moved to certify the results and declare S. Scott Vandergrift elected as Mayor and to declare that there is a run-off for Commission District #1 between Bill Henderson and Danny Howell. Motion carried 2-0 with Mayor Vandergrift abstaining. Ms. Grafton announced Rusty Johnson had run unopposed and would serve as City Commissioner District #3 for another term, and beginning with this year the term would be 3 years. Ms. Grafton also announced the Runoff election between Mr. Henderson and Mr. Howell for District #1 Commissioner would be held on April 10, 2001 at the Jim Beech Recreation Center. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 1 :20 p.m. and the results were sent immediately to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections. Upon receipt of the results, Mrs. June Condron advised Mrs. Grafton that, because Mr. Howell had missed winning his race by less than one-half of one percent, a hand recount of the ballots was required. She added that because the tapes from that race showed 2 undervotes in the Mayor's race and 8 undervotes in the Commission race there was a possibility someone had written in a vote the machine did not count that the Board would be required to consider, as Florida is a "voter intent" state. 3 Ocoee Canvassing Board March 14,2001 All who were present at the noon meeting were notified immediately of the need to reconvene the Board and a meeting time of 4:30 was agreed upon. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Vandergrift called the Canvassing Board back to order at 4:40 p.m. in the Commission Chambers Conference Room. The roll was called and a quorum declared present. PRESENT: Mayor Vandergrift, Commissioner Anderson, and Commissioner Parker. Also present were Assistant City Attorney Cookson, City Clerk Grafton, Deputy City Clerk Green and Deputy City Clerk Whitford. Also attending were Commissioner/Candidate Howell, Denise Lenko, Treasurer for Candidate Henderson, Jerry Henderson, brother of Candidate Henderson, Customer Service Supervisor Cathy Sills, Susan Clary, Reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, and John Raoux, photographer Orlando Sentinel. Commissioner Johnson arrived at 5: 14 p. m. ABSENT: None. RECOUNT ELECTION FOR COMMISSIONER, DISTRICT 1 City Clerk Jean Grafton read into the record the results from the tabulators used in the election as follows: Tabulator 1 Jim Beech Recreation Center Polling Place . Precincts 1106 and 4106 1432 ballots counted 0 not counted total ballots cast 1432 District 1 Mayor District 1 City Commission Jeffery Cox Martha Lopez-Anderson Jim Sills S. Scott Vandergrift 4 99 206 354 Bill Henderson Danny Howell T. Milton West 194 328 135 Overvotes 0 Undervotes 2 Overvotes 0 Undervotes 8 District 4 Mayor Jeffery Cox 4 Martha Lopez-Anderson 140 Jim Sills 92 S. Scott Vandergrift 531 Overvotes 0 Undervotes 0 4 Ocoee Canvassing Board March 14,2001 Tabulator 2 Ocoee Community Center Polling Place . Precinct 2106 882 ballots counted 0 not counted total ballots cast 882 District 2 Mayor Jeffery Cox Martha Lopez-Anderson Jim Sills S. Scott Vandergrift 2 134 228 518 Overvotes 0 Undervotes 0 Tabulator 3 Ocoee Community Center Polling Place . Precinct 3106 441 ballots counted 0 not counted total ballots cast 441 District 3 Mayor Jeffery Cox Martha Lopez-Anderson Jim Sills S. Scott Vandergrift 7 44 130 260 Overvotes 0 Undervotes 0 These figures were consistent with the printout read into the record at the March 14, 2001, morning Canvassing Board Meeting and were also verified by the tabulator tapes in the sealed envelopes held by the Mayor and Commissioner Anderson. Attorney Cookson explained to the Canvassing Board their responsibilities in counting the undervotes. He also explained that a voter is allowed to vote for Mayor only or Commissioner only, they need not vote for both. After Districts 1 and 4 ballots were separated from each other and the 10 undervotes were set aside for each Canvassing Board member to review, the ballots were then separated by candidate. Upon examination the undervotes were determined to be votes cast by voters who intended to vote only for either the Mayor race or the Commission race and not both. Each of the candidate's ballots were then counted and the results were announced as follows by City Clerk Grafton. 5 Ocoee Canvassing Board March 14,2001 Bill Henderson 194 Danny Howell 328 T. Milton West 13 5 The Canvassing Board determined that, as the hand-count results did not differ from the original count, a run-off election would still be needed between Mr. Henderson and Mr. Howell for the District # 1 Commission seat. Commissioner Anderson. seconded by Commissioner Parker. moved to certify the results of the hand re-count as presented. Motion carried 2- 0 with Mayor Vandergrift abstaining. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 5 :40 p.m. Attest: APPROVED City of Ocoee ~/~.'\ '- c.~ ~ ,cJ../ ( " S.- Scott Vandergrift, Mayor 6