Nearly a week after the presidential election was settled, a determined group of statisticians, accountants and journalists gathered around a dining room-size table in a downtown warehouse Monday to inspect disputed Broward County ballots. Florida's public records law allows anyone to inspect ballots after an election, so several organizations are seeking to verify the results posted by the Broward County Canvassing Board after a hand recount from the Nov. 7 presidential election. The count will resume Tuesday, then will be suspended until January because of a lack of staffing at the Supervisor of Elections Office.
State law allows government agencies to ask for compensation for the inspection of public records.
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group based in Washington, was the first organization to file a formal public records request with the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch's chairman and general counsel, clashed with staff members early in the day after James Cherof, an attorney for the supervisor's office, declined to immediately provide printed standards used by the canvassing board during the hand count. That's the process that's going on. It shouldn't be keeping from the American people how they did the counts. Members of the media who crowded into the room included those documenting the event as well as eight media representatives who signed up to count votes.