Children’s Services Council ballot measure placement causing some confusion
LAUDERHILL, FL – The position on the ballot of the measure asking voters whether or not to reauthorize the Children’s Services Council of Broward County (CSC) has some concerned that it is causing confusion. In a recent blog, Sun Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo asked: “Will the Broward Children’s Services Council get lost in the shuffle of Election 2014? I mean that literally, because a funky ballot design makes it easy to overlook the first County Question, which asks voters to reauthorize the tax-funded Broward Children’s Services Council.”
Mayo and others have expressed concern that the measure, “is hard to find, and easily skipped, plopped beneath the third proposed state constitutional amendment on the lower corner of the back page of the first ballot sheet.”
Because the First and Second State Constitutional amendments have their own column, while the third shares the column with the CSC related County Issue, voters who have already received absentee ballots have contacted the CSC as well as the Supervisor of Elections office complaining that they were confused and invalidated their ballot by making unintended selections because of its design.
CSC President/CEO Cindy Arenberg Seltzer has contacted Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes’ office to ask that poll workers be instructed to highlight the potential problem to voters as they go to the polls. Seltzer would like voters to be told “to read the second page carefully, and note there are two separate questions in the third column.”
For more information on this issue, please visit the CSC web-site at www.cscbroward.org, where the potential source of confusion is illustrated on a sample ballot.
The Children’s Services Council of Broward County is an independent taxing authority which was established by a public referendum on September 5, 2000, which, through Public Act, Chapter 2000-461 of the laws of Florida, authorized the Council to levy up to 0.5 mills of property taxes. The role of the Council is to provide the leadership, advocacy and resources necessary to enhance children’s lives and empower them to become responsible, productive adults through collaborative planning and funding of a continuum of quality care.
Follow us on Twitter at @CSCBroward and on Facebook. For more information about the Children’s Services Council of Broward County, please call (954) 377-1000 or visit www.cscbroward.org.
