In February, the City of Orlando placed an order through Magnolia Press for 133,600 ballots for the April 3rd municipal election – nearly 2,500 more ballots than there are registered voters in Orlando. The decision to purchase that many ballots was made by the Office of City Clerk Alana Brenner, a political appointee of Mayor Buddy Dyer. Based on these numbers, the City of Orlando purchased enough ballots for 102% turnout for one of the lowest turnout elections in the history of the City Beautiful. The total order for ballots alone reached $40,748, with Orlando taxpayers picking up the tab.
City officials are currently unable to provide information on how many blank and non-completed ballots remain, stating “no records responsive to your request” when asked through Florida’s Sunshine laws.
Dyer and other officials were hit on the campaign trail for moving the election date and wasting tax payer dollars for an unneeded stand alone municipal election. As if turnout was not bad enough, now residents have to wonder why did our city purchase so many ballots and not spend a few thousand dollars on additional early vote locations and polling opportunities, so voters could use these ballots?
However, after a public records request was made, the City Clerk’s office has since provided a “refunded” credit memo from Magnolia Press, issued May 10, 2012 – five weeks after the Election and coincidentally the same time as the public records request was made – in the amount of $793 for “ballots.”
This is a developing story, more to come…
