By Chris Vlasto and David Ruppe

Nov. 15 — Several days after presidential votes were tallied in what has become the hotbed of Florida’s post-election confusion, police in Palm Beach County confiscated a ballot-box mechanism from the car of a well-known local Democrat. The mechanism, called a “Votamatic,” did not contain any ballots. It’s a device used on some types of ballot boxes to punch votes through ballot cards, which are then tallied by computers. According to a police report filed at the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office and obtained by ABCNEWS, Irving Slosberg, 53, pulled the mechanism from his car and handed it over to police on Nov. 11 after denying to a county government employee that he had it. When told of the incident, Palm Beach County’s supervisor of elections, Theresa Lefore, declined to press charges, according to the report. “She noted that this incident did occur during the hand count of the presidential election and Lefore stated she did not wish to pursue further this matter at this time due to extenuating circumstances,” it said. No further action was taken.

County Official Contacts Authorities Slosberg, a 53-year-old resident of nearby Boca Raton who owns a handbag company, recently won a seat in the state Legislature amid allegations he tried to buy his election. The unidentified officer who filed the report had been working a special elections detail when he was contacted by Denise Cote, director of public affairs for Palm Beach County. Cote said she believed Slosberg had an official Palm Beach County ballot box, according to the police report. Cote told the officer she first wanted to speak with Slosberg alone to convince him to give the machinery back, but she asked the officer to stand by. Ten minutes later, Cote returned to the officer and said Slosberg had become confrontational and denied having the mechanism. “I asked Mr. Slosberg to return it to me, and he said no, he intended to use it,” Cote told ABCNEWS.com. She said Slosberg did not say how he wanted to use it and he declined to say how he had obtained it. “I was told by the county’s attorney’s office that it must have been taken from a voting booth, because there was no other way that he could have obtained it,” Cote said. When the officer asked Slosberg whether he had the item, Slosberg led the officer to his car and handed over the Votamatic, according to the police report. ABCNEWS tried to contact Slosberg, but he was not available for comment.

Elected After a Recount Slosberg won his new seat during a heated and extremely close election. Just days before a Democratic runoff, which he won, his opponent, incumbent Curt Levine, filed a state ethics complaint, accusing Slosberg of trying to buy the election by giving away thousands of handbags and paying retirees phony consulting fees. Slosberg’s defeat of Levine practically guaranteed him a term that reportedly pays nearly $27,000 a year for representing the Boca Raton district. On Nov. 7, he defeated a lesser-known write-in candidate, Robert A. Sloan III, in the general election. In the primary election, Slosberg had barely squeaked past Levine. He reportedly had 50.5 percent of the votes to Levine’s 49.5 percent. Slosberg was declared the winner after a recount of the votes.

‘It Disappeared’ A Palm Beach Post political columnist wrote Monday that Slosberg had been “schlepping” the mechanism around the county government center “like a traveling election equipment salesman.” “He was happy to provide a demonstration of the county’s ballot problems for anyone with a TV camera last week,” wrote columnist George Bennett. But Slosberg was no longer toting the visual aid Saturday night, after Mary McCarty, a Palm Beach County commissioner, demanded to know how he got his hands on a piece of official county voting machinery, Bennett wrote. “It disappeared,” Slosberg said Sunday when asked about the Votamatic.

Aww C'mon...We need a hand recount of Palm Beach ballots to make it FAIR!...Give me a bag...I wanna puke!

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), November 16, 2000

Answers

was the cop a repub.=stooge??

ever heard of planting evidence???

its gonna get nasty wasty.

you know POWER can corrupt.

in the meantime learn too speak chinese!

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), November 16, 2000.

If you're alleging fraud in Palm Beach county, Ain't Gonna Happen, and you won't accept hand recounts then Palm Peach county may need to vote over again to make sure Bush gets all the votes you think he deserves.

-- (think@bout.it), November 16, 2000.

Violators of election laws should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The importance of fair elections to our system of government is too important for such violations to be treated lightly.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

Make that "... The importance of fair elections to our system of government is too great for such violations to be treated lightly."

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

Was it one of these dirty trick machines?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

'Nita....ROFL!

-- Peg (pegmcleod@mediaone.net), November 16, 2000.

How many blank ballots did this politician punch out at home and then sneak back into the votes being recounted? I have often wondered why in some counties, the recount always produces more total votes. It would seem that a valid recount would deduct an equal number of votes from one side as the number added to the other side or the increase is a result of counting spoiled ballots.

On second thought, this guy may have been paid off by the Democrats to have the machine in his car, get caught, and be charged with vote fraud so that they can say see Mrs. Secretary of State, there was vote fraud and the recount is needed and ignore that the fraud occurred DURING THE RECOUNT. That plan did not work though as the culprit was not charged witn a crime. Is this not a crime in Palm Beach County? The stench is overpowering. And then the honorable Florida Supreme Court rules that the recount can continue. At least it did not rule that these votes must be counted. Are there any steps in place to prevent the counting of ballots brought in from outside and the ballots previously considered to be "spoiled" and replaced by duplicate ballots? I have not seen any news reports that discussed these issues.

-- Ed Norton (Ed@notstupid.amazed), November 16, 2000.

Ed,

>I have often wondered why in some counties, the recount always produces more total votes.

A very proper and normal reason is that the counting machines may fail to count some ballots which are nevertheless valid. Even a second count by the machines may produce a higher total because a machine might count more reliably when ballots are run through continuously rather than the slower, sporadic operation as voters origianlly inserted their ballots into the machine.

>It would seem that a valid recount would deduct an equal number of votes from one side as the number added to the other side

What if there were a tiny error in alignment of the ballot printing, or machine alignment, that resulted in one candidate's votes not being counted by machine 0.1% more often than another candidate's votes were skipped?

>or the increase is a result of counting spoiled ballots.

... or ballots seen to be valid when inspected manually, but which were not counted by the machine.

>The stench is overpowering.

Be careful to distinguish between imaginary stench created by politicians with no evidence and real stench of actual fraud ...

>Are there any steps in place to prevent the counting of ballots brought in from outside and the ballots previously considered to be "spoiled" and replaced by duplicate ballots? I have not seen any news reports that discussed these issues.

I've seen more than one news report with pictures of police custody of, and election officials' sealing of, ballot boxes.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 17, 2000.