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Hernando Today

City Tables Hand-Off Of Candidate Filing Duties

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By TONY MARRERO Hernando Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 7, 2009

BROOKSVILLE - A hesitant city council decided late Monday to put off a decision on handing over candidate filing duties to the county elections supervisor.

The council voted unanimously at its regular meeting to table the issue. In the meantime, the council agreed to meet with Elections Supervisor Annie Williams to talk about concerns council members have about an error made by precinct workers last November.

Williams' office said at the time that only 50 voters had come into Precinct 5 before the error was caught and because the precinct pulls from the county it's likely not all 50 voters lived in the city.

The agreement up for debate Monday wouldn't have changed the current agreement that has Williams handling the elections process. Rather, city council candidates would file in the county office, instead of the city clerk as they do now.

But council member David Pugh Jr. indicated his confidence in Williams' office has been shaken after dozens of city voters got the wrong ballot in the November election. Pugh was up for reelection and eventually won by a large margin.

Pugh said he didn't want to vote to give Williams more responsibility until "quite honestly we feel better about something like this not happening again."
Vice Mayor Lara Bradburn, who first proposed the idea last year to save the city staff time, money and to eliminate any perception of bias on the part of city staff, agreed the mistake "was inexcusable" but could be avoided if the county elections office improves training.
Bradburn said the city needs to take more responsibility to ensure poll workers are trained correctly. She agreed to table the matter to see if the city can negotiate with Williams to have representatives on hand during elections to make sure the process goes smoothly.

"It doesn't mean the system's broken, it just means we found a weak spot and need to fix it," Bradburn said.

Williams was out of the office Tuesday and unavailable for comment. Liz Townsend, community relations coordinator for the elections office, reiterated that poll workers "were trained correctly" but that can't prevent mistakes in every case.

In other action, the council approved changes to the city's personnel manual including a new policy that gives victims of domestic violence a three-day leave.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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