Palm Beach County sees success with election process

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — The race for president is still yet to be decided as several states are continuing to count votes on Wednesday.

In Florida, more than 11 million people voted, with the state ultimately going to President Donald Trump.

In Palm Beach County, the vote counting is all done. They even took until 4 a.m. Wednesday to check over and make sure everything had worked right, eliminating confusion and controversy.

On the day after Election Day, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link showed WPTV the boxes holding 772,000 ballots from the polls and the mail.

"Volume here was nothing like we had before," Link said. "The machines performed very well."

There were a few paper jams, but the machines, a new investment for the county, along with easier rules for mail-in ballots, apparently led to a quick vote count, unlike other states.

"Florida Legislature has been very smart in giving us the ability to start counting 22 days in advance, so being able to do that is what allowed us, if we had to stay late, if we had to do weekends, we were doing seven days. So we were able to continue to get it done where other states weren’t able to start until yesterday," Link said.

It made Palm Beach County and the rest of Florida avoid controversy, according to Florida Atlantic University political science professor Kevin Wagner.

"Florida and especially counties that have had problems have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what are these problems and what is causing these problems and how can we address them," Wagner said.

There were still voters who made mistakes like voting for too many candidates, as well as damaged ballots and mismatched signatures. But those errors, the supervisor said, are less than one percent -

"We had a lot to count and we stayed and got it done," Link said.

Link was appointed nearly two years ago by Gov. Ron DeSantis after he removed Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher over the 2018 recount problems.