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Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004

Theresa LePore, the inventor of the butterfly ballot that was scrutinized during the presidential recount, lost her re-election bid to remain Palm Beach County's elections supervisor.

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  With all 692 precincts reporting, challenger Arthur Anderson had 91,134 votes, or 52 percent, and LePore had 85,601 votes, or 48 percent.

LePore refused to meet with reporters early Wednesday, but as the polls closed Tuesday she said she was too busy overseeing the counting of ballots to think about her own race.

"I just want to win so I can continue doing the job I love," LePore said.

Despite the loss, LePore will remain in office until Jan. 3 and will oversee the November election in the county.

LePore's spokesman Marty Rogol said a "media blitz" by Anderson's supporters over the last week, including appearances by some out-of-state Democrat heavyweights, was partly responsible for her showing.

LePore, 49, has worked in the elections office for more than three decades, and in the top job since 1996. A Democrat when she ran unopposed in the 2000 election, she was angered by statements party leaders made during the recount and had since declared herself independent.

She became the focus of national attention in 2000 after some Palm Beach County voters said the butterfly ballot, which listed the names of presidential candidates on opposing pages, led them to mistakenly select conservative third-party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Democrat Al Gore. The design provided fodder for political cartoonists and late-night comedians. Gore lost the election in Florida to President Bush by 537 votes.

Still reeling from that narrow defeat, Democrats rallied behind Anderson, a professor and former county school board member. Florida Congressman Robert Wexler, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Gore's running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, all stumped for Anderson.

Speaking of a "continuous erosion" in confidence in the voting process, Anderson said he ran against LePore to protect "the right to have our votes count," and had urged adding printers to voting machines to ensure a paper trail in case of a recount. LePore has said she thinks printers are unnecessary.

Despite all the trouble in 2000, LePore's supporters pointed to more recent history. In 2002, LePore ran a smooth election on new touch-screen voting machines while her counterparts in Broward and Miami-Dade counties made Florida the punchline of national jokes again because of voting problems in the gubernatorial election.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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