Now There Are Too Many Ballots

The missing ballots have been found. Now elections workers are dealing with a new problem. Too many ballots. That's what they discovered after a search that's lasted more than a week. And now almost three weeks after the election...there's still not a winner in a local judges race.

 We all got a surprise today when we heard that they had found more than 100 additional ballots. But that means they still don't know who has won this palm beach county judges race. And more counting could be on the way.

"We are now longer short ballots. We have more ballots", says Palm Beach County Commissioner and Canvassing Board Member Mary McCarty.

That's not the answer anyone was expecting. Today, election officials, staffers, and canvassing board members thought they would be closer to finding the 35-hundred missing ballots. Turns out they found somewhere between 110 and 249 more than they were looking for. And they say they feel "comfortable" that they finally have all the ballots cast in the election but, "There's no way to ever be %100 certain", says assistant county administrator Brad Merriman.

Elections workers sorted and resorted the ballots by precinct for the last few days. They also checked the ballots against the electronic registers from the precincts. And they still have more reconciling to do. But canvassing board member Mary McCarty says there's an up side.

"I actually think this is a horrifying blessing in disguise because it is giving us a chance to show where the vulnerabilities are in the system to get ready for November", says McCarty.

Friday's news conference about the newly found ballots also had some heated moments. Election's office employees couldn't answer many questions from reporters. An official from Sequoia, the counties supplier of voting equipment defended the machines.

"Our systems worked here. You can not blame the voting system on what's going on. It's easy to blame a machine, 'cause it can't fight back", says Phil Foster of Sequoia Voting Systems.

But McCarty wanted to make sure that come November, there will be changes -- so any problems can be found sooner and solved faster.

"That will not happen again. And we will make sure we have some body that can get that done. Because it obviously hasn't been able to be done until now", says McCarty.

McCarty says we need to do another hand re-count now they think they've found all the ballots. That decision would have to come from a judge and we expect to hear more about that on monday.