Town-Crier Online
http://www.thecrier.com/opinions.htm

Fransetta: Theresa LePore Drops The Ball

A day after the Palm Beach County Commission took the state to task for hampering the implementation of new voting technology, [Supervisor of Elections] Theresa LePore has added fuel to the fire with her half-hearted attempts to teach Palm Beach County voters how to use the new touch-screen machines.

I've been hounding her office for months. Making sure that the large senior population in Palm Beach County is comfortable using these machines is a tremendous priority for us, and we've offered our assistance in every way possible, but the elections office has been less than cooperative. They keep telling us that they're doing demonstrations all over the county, but they won't give us a calendar. They tell us that they'll come to events we schedule, but they won't tell us how to schedule them.

Early this month, LePore held an organizational meeting of "Everybody Votes," a non-partisan coalition of activists recruited to help LePore identify and staff demonstration sites. It's fine to have a meeting, but what good does it do when there's no follow-up? The Florida Alliance for Retired Americans is supposed to be a member of this coalition, but today, we found out about a demonstration in Wellington two hours before it was scheduled! This is unacceptable! All we want is to teach seniors how to use these machines before the September primary, but Supervisor LePore seems intent to build on failure.

The way things are going, I see Palm Beach County headed for another electoral disaster courtesy of Theresa LePore.

Tony Fransetta, President Florida Alliance For Retired Americans

Editor's Note: Mr. Fransetta is a Wellington resident.