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FORT MYERS, Fla.- Election explanation! The Florida Secretary of State visits Lee County to investigate the problems at the polls that caused some of you to wait nearly 7 hours to vote.

Some waited in unbearable lines and others waited in the rain to cast a ballot on Nov. 6th.

"Can you promise voters this won't happen again?" I asked Lee County Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington.

"I can never predict, never predicted this would happen in the first place. I can't promise, but we are going to do anything possible to make sure this doesn't happen again," said Harrington.

Harrington faced criticism over the voting debacle. You might remember the tearful apology she made the day after the November election.

Now Florida Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, met with Harrington on Tuesday to find out what went wrong not just in Lee County, but 4 other counties as well.

"Was there one problem you're seeing from county to county?" I asked.

"One problem is the length of the ballot."

Both county officials and Detzner say a 4 page ballot, lack of equipment and new early voting laws which shortened the number of days for early voting were all factors in polling problems. So what is being done to make sure this doesn't happen again?

"This was the first time we used new precincts since redistricting. We'll go back and maybe take a look at some of those," said Harrington.

Changes like adding more precincts, more equipment or more early voting sites might be a possibility.

The Secretary of State says he was not here to point fingers yet Harrington takes the blame.

 

"I take full responsibility for Lee County, but it really was something we shared by alot of folks," said Harrington.

Detzner says he wasn't there to call for resignations, but he will take his findings back to the State Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections. Harrington said she will testify before the committee about the polling issues sometime in January.