TAMPA — Hillsborough elections officials knew about missing ballots that could swing a close Temple Terrace race a month earlier than previously disclosed.
The discovery came during the week of Dec. 12, when a temporary worker found 440 ballots from two precincts in a ballot box stored in a warehouse, according to a memo obtained Monday by the St. Petersburg Times.
Although a top deputy for then-Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson was told about the find, nothing was said publicly until mid January.
That's when the incoming supervisor of elections, Phyllis Busansky, told a roomful of reporters about the missing votes. The total was enough to alter the outcome of a narrow race for Temple Terrace City Council. Yet as she made the announcement Jan. 16, Busansky didn't know the ballots had actually been discovered a month earlier.
"My theory is the staff was afraid to say anything until Buddy left," Busansky said Monday.
This latest disclosure is yet another reminder of the disarray in Johnson's office, which is now being audited to determine how millions in taxpayer money was spent on equipment, poll worker training and voter education.
The memo that disclosed the December discovery of the ballotsoutlines a series of missteps that led to a monthlong delay in the public learning about the mishap.
Written by a warehouse supervisor named Vickie Pfenning, the memo states that a part-time employee found the ballots at the bottom of a ballot box — a week before Johnson's office asked county commissioners for $2.3 million to shore up a deficit.
Pfenning said she alerted David Parks, a top deputy of Johnson's, of the find. She said he told her to place the ballots with other ballots that already had been counted.
That was regular protocol at the time, but Busansky said it was flawed from the start.
"It was a sloppy procedure that was being used," she said. "We have changed the procedure in the last few days."
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The problems started on Election Day with technical glitches in two optical scan voting machines at the Temple Terrace Presbyterian Church. One of the scanners shut down at 5:57 p.m. A second scanner started rejecting ballots minutes later.
This might have contributed to the confusion over the storage of some ballots. It's still not clear why one of these boxes, with 440 votes inside, wasn't found until December.
This box was just one of "several" where ballots were found inside, said Craig Latimer, Busansky's chief of staff . That means some clerks failed to empty out the boxes completely.
In most of those cases, Latimer said, it was okay to place those ballots with others that had been removed because the scanning machines had already counted them.
The problem with the Temple Terrace ballots is that the scanning machines had stopped working. So these ballots had not been counted, Latimer said. Parks erred when he instructed Pfenning to place the ballots with the others because he wrongly assumed they had been counted.
Dave Penoyer lost a bid for the Temple Terrace City Council to Mary Jane Neale by 84 votes. Because the uncounted ballots were discovered after the election results were certified, the votes can't be counted unless someone sues. Penoyer said he plans to do just that, but he's now concerned that these ballots have been mixed up with the ones already counted.
Latimer said that is not the case. He said Pfenning told him these ballots weren't mingled with the others. He would not allow Pfenning or other employees named in her memo to be interviewed.
It's unclear why Pfenning or Parks didn't realize that these ballots were the ones that another top official for Johnson, Chuck Smith, knew were missing from the Temple Terrace precincts. Pfenning's memo states that Smith told her he was looking for the missing ballots before the results were certified Nov. 16.
"Apparently, she didn't put it together," Latimer said. "It's not her job to put it together. She works in the warehouse and is not involved in the election process."
Latimer said he didn't know if Pfenning had told Parks enough information for him make the connection, either. He said he doesn't suspect Parks intentionally tried to hide the ballots.
Busansky did suggest she's not satisfied with her current staff.
"Right now, we're seriously looking at staffing in our warehouse," she said. "It needs to be changed. We're also talking to Mr. Parks about his future here."
Michael Van Sickler can be reached at (813) 226-3402 or mvansickler@sptimes.com.
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