Video by Howard Melamed
By: Sharon Aron Baron
Like a a scene from the opening of Al Capone’s vault by Giraldo Rivera back in 1986, this story has the same ending. Fortunately it wasn’t broadcast on live TV.
The vault, I mean ballot box, was found sealed and empty according to Attorney Michael Ahearn who said that a member of the canvassing board has confirmed this.
Ballot box
The ballot box was discovered by members of the Coral Springs/Parkland Democratic Club when they arrived to set up for a party on Thursday evening and found the machine from Precinct E027, which appeared to be locked. Club member Laurie Plotnick said they were in shock, and called the Supervisor of Election office to the Cypress Hammock Park meeting room at 1300 Coral Springs Drive.
“I’m sure this would have been noticed if the data wasn’t reported,” said Andrew Ladanowski, data Analyst and IT consultant at AddinSolutions. “All this stuff gets report electronically. If there were absentee ballots, those were probably surrendered from voters in order to vote at the polls as they cannot accept absentee ballots,” said Ladanowski.
Ahearn, whose client Claudia Robinson is in a recount with Judge Ian Richards, was relieved that this doesn’t affect her lead. He added that the Supervisor of Elections routinely picks up equipment several days after an election.
The seat for Coral Springs seat four also faces a manual recount between Lou Cimaglia and Howard Melamed. An official recount will be held for the seat 4 race on Monday.
This story was updated periodically from original.
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