BY: ANDREW COLTON | Editor and Publisher
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — Questions about processing “mail in” ballots personally delivered to “ballot vans” across Palm Beach County led to a surprisingly terse email from a spokesperson for Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Wendy Sartory Link Tuesday afternoon. A subsequent phone call yielded a bizarre response.
BocaNewsNow.com, following up on reports that ballots personally delivered Monday to “ballot vans” hadn’t been recorded as of mid-afternoon Tuesday, emailed spokesperson Judy Lamey for an explanation. Her response: “if they (voters) are concerned, please have them call our office at 561-656-6200.” Our email specifically asked how many days voters should wait before being concerned. Her response ignored the question.
We called Judy Lamey after receiving her email to personally ask for an answer which she refused to provide, saying that only Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Link could discuss the issue. Lamey said Link is the “only person” who can speak for the office. Lamey, however, is officially listed as “Media Relations Specialist” for the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office, a title traditionally given to people who interact with the media and are empowered to speak on behalf of an organization. It was unclear why Lamey stated to BocaNewsNow.com that she is not authorized to discuss the matter.
Lamey did state that she would forward our request to Elections Supervisor Wendy Sartory Link who would get back to us “when she can.”
The lack of answers and information raises questions about the effectiveness of the “ballot van” system, a series of vans placed across Palm Beach County to provide confidence that ballots are received without using the U.S. postal service. Why those ballots — more than 24 hours after being received — haven’t been scanned to generate a “received” designation in the county’s online tracking system is unclear.
Each ballot contains a barcode that is scanned during each phase of the sending and receiving process. Those barcodes can be tracked by voters online.
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