Thursday, September 05, 2002

Rep. Carrie Meek stopped from voting in Florida.



Rep. Meek's problems at the polls reminiscent of election 2000 woes

BY ANDREA ROBINSON
arobinson@herald.com

U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek stopped by a Miami library branch Tuesday to cast her absentee ballot for next week's primary -- only to get turned away because a county computer couldn't verify the 10-year congresswoman was an eligible voter.

Then poll workers failed to follow procedures spelled out in a new Miami-Dade training manual, which instructs them to contact the main elections office in the case of a computer glitch, such as the one that occurred at the Model City Branch Library, 2211 NW 54th St.

''I thought the problems of the 2000 election were behind us. Apparently, they're not,'' Meek, D-Miami, said Tuesday. ``They did not have a [working] computer and the staff was not properly trained.''