Bryant Culpepper of Palm Beach

Bryant Culpepper’s Palm Beach Election Battle in 1990: A Precursor to the 2000 Presidential Fiasco

Saturday, 11 Nov 2000
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach (Copyright 2000 by the Sun-Sentinel)
By Brad Hahn

It was about 6 o'clock Thursday.

Ralliers had waved signs, chanted slogans and pounded on windows to protest the election. Jesse Jackson had made his cameo. And the county was set for another ballot recount.

A West Palm Beach cop walked through the crowd with a ballot box and into the Supervisor of Elections Office.

"They found another few hundred more votes for Gore," said a smart guy.

County workers appeared before reporters a few minutes later with the box in tow. It was found at a West Palm Beach polling place and a Nervous Nellie called police to pick it up, they reported.

"If there are ballots in here, I'll be surprised," Assistant County Attorney Leon St. James said.

And in the spirit of Al Capone's vault, he opened the box, reporters grabbed their notebooks and television cameras rolled.

Inside he found voting stickers, polling signs, ballot markers and other odds-and-ends from the Election Day cleanup.

Maybe next time.

Reform revolt

John McGuire says he, too, was cheated in Tuesday's election.

The Reform Party candidate who tried to knock off U.S. Congressman Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, took advantage of all the media types crawling around to protest his race.

He filed a complaint with the elections office, saying his name was left off some ballots.

"We're disenfranchised," said McGuire, having picked up the word of the day.

Elections officials were a little tied up with the presidential thing to deal with his gripe.

But Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore did note that all the candidates in the race were left off of ballots in four machines at one precinct. The problem was resolved by 7:30 a.m., she said.

McGuire still is waiting for the canvassing board to take action.

Someone might want to tell him that he could have the infamous 19,000 over-count ballots and still fall almost 50,000 votes shy of a county majority.

Meet Irv

America, meet Irv Slosberg.

The newest state representative from Boca Raton-area District 89 is loving all the chaos and cameras around town these days -- and is taking every opportunity to be in the center of things.

Look, there's Irv in the back room with the canvassing board, passing out corned beef sandwiches like he did on the campaign trail.

Look, there's Irv at the podium. Look, there's Irv heading off to Riviera Beach to go to church with Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"Excitement follows me," he said. "Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but excitement follows me everywhere I go."

Or is it the other way around?

Do over

A revote?

Sounds far-fetched, or maybe illegal or immoral, to folks who can't see it as a solution to the controversies over Palm Beach County's handling of the presidential vote.

Yet that very thing happened 10 years ago in Palm Beach County -- to settle an insane series of missteps that had many of the earmarks of the county's current controversial presidential count: seesaw results, complaints at the polls, lawsuits, recounts, "dimpled" ballots, and people saying they'd never seen the like.

On Oct. 2, 1990, in the Democratic primary for District 6 county commissioner, environmentalist Rosa "Cissie" Durando defeated firefighter Bryant Culpepper by five votes -- 2,766 to 2,761. The next day, Culpepper was awarded another vote when a ballot was discovered punched halfway.

Then officials discovered that 18 people were denied the chance to vote because they were handed the wrong ballots or assigned to the wrong precinct. Supervisor of Elections Jackie Winchester, and her assistant, Theresa LePore, went door to door to give thosevoters a new chance to vote.

That gave Culpepper 14 extra votes, and the win. Or was it? A recount of three precincts gave a two-vote edge to Durando.

Then came a full recount. The result: a dead tie. To settle the deadlock, the candidates -- no joke -- drew slips of paper out of a brown cardboard box.

Culpepper was declared the winner. Durando sued.

To sort out the mess, Circuit Judge Richard Burk held an emergency hearing. First he declared 14 Culpepper votes illegal, saying they'd been cast after the polls were closed. But he hesitated to proclaim Durando the winner because the proceedings had been so error-ridden.

So he ordered a second election -- the first court-ordered special election in the county's history.

The new voting was held three weeks after the primary. Almost 1,700 more people voted in the rerun than in the original. And Durando won by 431 votes.

Richmond Beats Culpepper for County School Board

Wednesday, 8 Nov 2000
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach, Page 7B (Copyright 2000 by the Sun-Sentinel)
By Scott Travis, Staff Writer

Sandra Richmond survived a tough challenger Tuesday and retained her seat on the Palm Beach County School Board.

Richmond, a 12-year veteran on the board, was holding a strong lead late Tuesday night against Royal Palm Beach firefighter Bryant Culpepper with more than 60 percent of the precincts counted. She said she felt confident about a victory.

"I felt great all day," she said from a victory party at her house Tuesday night. "I had such an outpouring of support that it didn't matter what the numbers said. I realized that what I have been doing for the past 12 years has been noticed in a positive way."

Richmond, a Palm Beach Community College professor from Loxahatchee, was endorsed by associations representing teachers, administrators and business leaders. Richmond presently serves as chairwoman.

Culpepper could not be reached Tuesday night.

This is the first year District 7 has been a single-member district. In the past, everyone in the county voted for all seven School Board members. But this time, only residents in District 7 voted in the race.

The district includes Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee and the Glades.

The district is considered more conservative than the county as a whole, which could have given Culpepper an edge. While the district has 37,000 Democrats to 30,765 Republicans, it supported Republican candidate Tony Masilotti in the 1998 County Commission race. Although the race is nonpartisan, Culpepper is a registered Republican, and Richmond is a Democrat.

"I don't think that this is a terribly conservative area when it comes to education," Richmond said. "They want the very best, not sending us back 30 years, which is basically what my opponent [wanted] to do."

Culpepper has said that he believes education has digressed over the years in the areas of safety and student achievement. He has said that schools used to focus more on teaching values, particularly when prayer was allowed in school.

Culpepper earned the vote of Kim Shelton, 41, a homemaker and mother who lives west of Lake Worth.

"He talks more about morals and values, and I think the school district needs to have him," she said.

But Barbara Boerstler, 48, voted for Richmond. Boerstler lives west of Lake Worth and is a teacher at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton.

"She has a record of being a strong supporter of teachers," she said.

In the first election on Sept. 5, the two ran against Alan Firpo. Firpo, who has been active in the Democratic Party, first endorsed Culpepper because he thought there needed to be a change on the School Board. He later switched his endorsement to Richmond, saying Culpepper 's positions were too conservative. In addition to favoring student prayer, Culpepper also supports teaching creationism and offering vouchers for private schools.

Richmond's top issues included reducing class size and using technology to improve the achievement of low-performing students. She wants the school district to put computers in grocery stores and other locations where students in poor neighborhoods gather.

Culpepper wanted to turn the school Police Department over to the Sheriff's Office because he thought the sheriff had more resources. He also wanted to improve the county's vocational programs, saying they offer antique equipment and don't have the right technology to prepare students for jobs.

District 7 School Board Has Familiar Faces

Thursday, 24 Aug 2000
The Palm Beach Post, Page 1B (Copyright 2000)
By Mary Ellen Flannery Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
mary_ellen_flannery@pbpost.com

School Board Chairwoman Sandra Richmond is seeing familiar faces in her race in the western areas of the county: One opponent ran against her in 1992; the other is a teacher in her district.

Richmond has been a school board member for 12 years. Her opponents have never held countywide office despite four tries between the two men.

She has raised $4,600 in campaign contributions as of Aug. 15, slightly more than her challengers.

Only voters who live within District 7 - which includes the Glades, Wellington and southwest Palm Beach County - can vote for the three candidates. Past elections have been countywide, but voters overwhelmingly approved a switch to single-member districts in March. The term is for two years and pays $33,810 annually.

"I have spent the past 12 years studying every issue before the board," said Richmond, who also is a professor at Palm Beach Community College.

Bryant Culpepper, a former paramedic firefighter in Palm Beach and a strong proponent of vocational education, unsuccessfully ran once for the school board and twice for the county commission. He has served on the Loxahatchee Groves Drainage Board for four years and was elected to the Republican Executive Committee in 1996.

Alan Firpo, a sixth-grade math teacher at Western Pines Middle School in Loxahatchee, lost a bid for the county commission in 1994. He also has served as the assistant principal at Rosenwald Elementary in South Bay.

Both men say they admire Richmond's dedication, but they criticize the way she has served. Firpo says Richmond hasn't been able to put together a unified board. Culpepper says she acted too slowly when it came to firing former Superintendent Joan Kowal.

Richmond gave Kowal a satisfactory evaluation a few months before her termination. But she did vote to fire Kowal in December, after Kowal failed to fix problems in the district's alternative education departments.

Firpo said he would not have fired Kowal at all. She was the right person in the right place, at the wrong time, he said. She had great rapport with teachers, and she would have eventually fixed the problems, he said.

All three candidates say school safety is their main concern. Firpo said he would be quicker to remove disruptive students from the classroom. Culpepper said the district should hand over its police department to the sheriff's office, and use hand-held metal detectors randomly at schools to check for weapons. Firpo and Richmond would prefer to keep the police department under the district's control.

The next two years probably would be Richmond's last as a school board member, she said, and she wants to make sure that interim Schools Superintendent Ben Marlin stays during that time.

Most of the time, the school board finally is working together, and Marlin is accomplishing a great deal, Richmond said.

But Culpepper argues the board needs somebody who, like himself, is interested in construction and spending. Firpo counters he could bring recent classroom experience to the board.

If given the choice between reducing class size by one student and giving teachers a small raise, Richmond and Firpo said they would choose class size. Both also said they don't believe the threat of vouchers or competition from charter schools has done anything to improve public schools. Only Firpo said the superintendent's pay should not be tied directly to student achievement.

Candidate Profiles

Palm Beach County School Board
District 7

Bryant H. Culpepper

Alan Firpo

Sandra S. Richmond

Durando Beats Bryant Culpepper In New Election

The Miami Herald
Wednesday, October 24, 1990, Section: Plm Bch, Page: 1b
Jeffrey Kleinman Herald Staff Writer

The race that wouldn't end finally did Tuesday, with County Commission candidate Rosa "Cissie" Durando beating Bryant Culpepper for the Democratic nomination in District 6.

Durando now faces Republican Ken Foster in the Nov. 6 general election.

"I just can't imagine losing -- two years worth of work," Culpepper said. "My opponent was more successful in getting out her followers than I was. It's hard right now."

Voter turnout was about 25 percent.

Durando, wearing a button on her lapel that said, "I will not surrender," arrived at the elections office to accept congratulations from supporters.

"It was so much closer a couple of weeks ago," she said. "I'm thoroughly happy -- glad that what I started out to do is well on its way now."

Culpepper said he would support Durando in the general election, though the two candidates were as different as could be during the primaries.

Durando, one of the county's foremost environmentalists, preached a slow-growth philosophy. Culpepper, a Town of Palm Beach firefighter, called for a balanced approach.

In recent days, the campaign turned nasty, with Durando lashing out at Culpepper for a mailing that targeted Jewish voters. Culpepper, in turn, called Durando's growth stance "scary" for the local economy.

Nothing the two have said, however, can overshadow the events surrounding the vote count.

A counting controversy never before seen in Palm Beach County set the stage for Tuesday's special election, ordered by a Circuit Court judge who threw out the results of the Oct. 2 runoff. Foster has been waiting for a Democratic opponent since then.

At first, Durando appeared to win the nomination, beating Culpepper by five votes on Election Day. But the next day, elections officials decided to allow 14 voters to cast ballots. They were shut out from the race because a poll worker set out the wrong voting machines.

Supervisor of Elections Jackie Winchester took absentee ballots to the voters' homes 24 hours after the polls closed.

In addition to counting those new votes, elections officials decided to count partially punched ballots -- even those sporting the slightest of dents. That was a decision unprecedented in Florida, state elections officials have said.

As the three-member county elections board went through the ballots in question for three days, Durando and Culpepper traded leads. Culpepper began calling himself "the Ping-Pong politician."

When the counting stopped, the two were dead even -- 2,780 votes apiece.

As allowed by state law, the two candidates then dipped their hands into a box to draw lots. Culpepper picked the winning piece of paper.

But the race wasn't over. And Culpepper knew it.

The next week, Durando sued the elections board, charging that the officials violated state law when they solicited votes after the polls closed at 7 p.m. Oct. 2. Circuit Court Judge Richard Burk agreed and ordered Tuesday's special election, which cost taxpayers about $30,000.

Culpepper Is Winner In Runoff. Luck Determines Commission Race

Bryant Culpepper can thank Lady Luck for his victory over Rosa "Cissie" Durando in a Palm Beach County Commission runoff election marred by a ballot-count controversy that's bound to continue.

A recount Friday by a three-member county elections board ended in a deadlock between Culpepper and Durando. The canvassing board then consulted the state law books. What to do next?

They ordered the two candidates -- who had run exhausting campaigns for the 2,780 votes each received -- to draw lots from a cardboard box. A Palm Beach County judge scribbled "winner" on one slip of yellow paper, "loser" on another.

"Ladies first," Culpepper said. Durando chose her fateful, folded slip. "I don't want to open this," she said. Culpepper took the other one and opened it. "Winner!" he shouted.

Culpepper, who must still face Republican Ken Foster in November, vowed to have the slip framed. Durando left hers crumpled on a table.

Beyond the luck of the draw, the tight race for the Democratic District 6 nomination was clouded by two actions that were unprecedented in Palm Beach County and perhaps statewide:

First, voting officials allowed voters who were mistakenly given the wrong ballot Tuesday to cast the correct ballots 24 hours after the polls closed. And second, officials awarded votes to both candidates based on partially punched ballot cards bearing just the slightest of dents.

State election officials say local canvassing boards such as the one in Palm Beach County have the flexibility to make those decisions.

Bitter that the counting continued past Tuesday's runoff date, Durando said she is consulting a lawyer and may take the matter to court.

"When the polls closed Tuesday, that should have been it," said Durando, who saw the lead flip-flop four times since the initial results were announced Tuesday night.

His frail margin of victory prompted Culpepper to carefully choose his words in discussing his triumph.

"I'm almost hesitant to accept the awards of the win," Culpepper said. "I'm satisfied with the victory. I hope to God it lasts this time."

After Durando eked out an apparent five-vote victory Tuesday, Culpepper lodged a formal protest. The next day, the canvassing committee -- made up of a county judge, the county
commission chairman and the supervisor of elections -- awarded Culpepper another vote based on a partially punched ballot card.

That single decision led to a close examination of each ballot card on which neither Culpepper nor Durando got a punch. When board members detected even the smallest of dimples across either Culpepper's or Durando's number, they recorded the vote.

"I didn't like that at all," Durando said, "from the first dimple to the last."

She's not alone in that sentiment.

A representative for the manufacturer of Palm Beach County's voting equipment said indentations should not be counted. If partially punched cards were meant to be counted, said Don Ussery, the computerized counting equipment would be designed to detect them.

The problem of partially punched cards is a weakness in the system, which Palm Beach County started using in 1976, said Sandy Brill of the state Division of Elections.

"There is no fail-safe system," Brill said. "All have potential problems."

Election supervisors say the problem with the punch-card system is not mechanical. Complications arise when voters fail to poke the ballot hard enough with the pointed instrument supplied at the polls.

"A small percentage of voters don't follow through and hit bottom," said David Leahy, chief of Dade County elections. "They just kind of touch the hole and don't penetrate through the card."

Ussery said if the cards were made any easier to punch, the tiny rectangular chips that voters are supposed to poke out would come loose in routine handling.

The other controversy in the Culpepper-Durando race occurred when Palm Beach County elections officials hand- delivered ballots to voters who were mistakenly shut out of Tuesday's election.

"An unusual decision," said Phyllis Slater, a lawyer with the state Division of Elections. "I'm not aware of this happening before."

Culpepper Ancestry. Bryant is the son of Milton Haynes "Dan" Culpepper, son of Joseph Andrew Baxter Culpepper, son of Elias Daniel Culpepper, son of William Henry Culpepper, son of John and Nancy Gillespie Culpepper.