Voters Received Wrong Absentee Ballot

The Hernando County elections office has mailed new absentee ballots to 86 voters in the Spring Hill Fire Rescue district because they did not receive the correct ballot during the first mailing, Elections Supervisor Annie Williams confirmed Wednesday.

Voters in three areas did not receive the proper ballots showing the Spring Hill Fire Rescue District board races and the referendum on the fire district's independence from the county.

Williams blamed faulty maps in two of the instances and a "clerical error" in the third.

"We're on top of it all," Williams said.

Shirley Anderson, the Republican seeking to unseat the Democrat Williams, pounced on the error.

Anderson said she was "relieved" it was only 86 voters involved. "But I still think this shakes people's faith in our elections office," she said.

It's the third chance Anderson has had to jump on the incumbent. Williams also drew criticism for using first-class postage to mail some 60,000 sample ballots ahead of the Jan. 29 primary. Then, in July, more than 430 absentee ballots were mailed to Hernando County Republicans with the names of candidates in a county commission primary race in the wrong order.

Williams bristles at the criticism, defending her staff and contending Anderson "doesn't know anything about my job."

"But it's part of my job to get beat up," she said.

New absentee ballots were mailed to the voters with a note explaining that this "new absentee ballot replaces the absentee ballot you were originally mailed." The note explains the second ballot would be counted even if voters already returned the original one.

The note does not explain why the new ballot needed to be mailed.

Williams did that Wednesday, inviting reporters to her Brooksville office to show them the maps she says are to blame for two of the three areas involved in the mix-up.

In one instance, a map received from the county planning department in 2003 mislabeled a portion of Barclay Road as Anderson Snow Road, so 39 voters in Precinct 38 who live on Barclay did not receive the proper ballots, Williams said. All of the voters live in the Suncoast Villas apartment complex just south of State Road 50.

On another map, a portion of Day Street in Precinct 46 was mislabeled as Pembrooke Avenue. That caused nine voters on Day Street, which is in the Spring Hill Fire district, to get the wrong ballot, Anderson said.

In the third case, 38 voters in a portion of Windward Village development on U.S. 19 did not receive the correct ballot. That was a clerical oversight, Williams said.

Since the ballots were already printed, the error cost roughly $100 for the postage to mail the new ballots, Williams said.

The faulty map could possibly have caused problems in 2004 and 2006, but there were no Spring Hill Fire races with opposition during those elections.

A third candidate, Brooksville business Gus Guadagnino, is running for the post without party affiliation.