Report: Invalid Florida ballots at all time low in 2004 election

[ryban]

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The banishment of chads helped lead to the lowest level of invalid ballots ever measured in a presidential or gubernatorial election in Florida, said a report released Tuesday.

Floridians cast about 1.5 million more votes in the 2004 presidential election than they did in the disputed 2000 contest, yet the combined number of overvotes and undervotes fell by about 83 percent from 179,855 to 31,453, according to the report prepared by the Department of State.

George W. Bush carried the state by nearly 381,000 votes.

Overvotes are ballots on which more than one candidate is selected; undervotes are ballots on which no candidate is selected. In 2000, 2.9 percent of all ballots cast were invalid because of overvotes and undervotes, a figure that dropped to 0.78 percent in the 2002 gubernatorial election and 0.41 percent last November.

<snip>

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/apnews/stories/020105/D8802IBO0.shtml

[imenja]

1. elections officials also refused to give voters provisional ballots

in violation of state and federal law. Not letting people vote is a sure way to diminish invalid ballots.

[TomClash]

3. We didn't want provisional ballots

It was likely they would not be counted, i.e., if the voter cast the ballot at the wrong polling site. We wanted voters to vote at the right site. Provisional ballots are bullshit.

[imenja]

6. bullshit

a provisional ballot is better than no ballot--which was the result. The law required they be distributed upon request, and the Theresa Lapore refused to comply, regardless of the precinct the voter was in.

I agree provisional ballots should be more widely accepted beyond precinct boundaries, but in the meantime, elections officials need to be made to comply to existing law. If adopting an all or nothing attitude contributes to disenfranchisement of even one voter, your position is immoral.

Incidental, the Kerry campaign didn't care about these voters civil rights either, as I discovered when I tried to get them and local party officials to pursue claims. For them, the only thing that mattered was whether Kerry won the election and his political prospects in 2008. I care about voting rights, not just particular candidate or broad reform measures, which I also support. Each and every voter's rights are of paramount importance.

[TomClash]

9. Piss off

I spent a lot of time, energy and money in Broward helping to make sure our people voted and those votes counted. In one of my precincts they were effectively disenfranchising voters by forcing them to cast provo ballots instead of going a few blocks away to where they were actually supposed to vote. I stopped that, so take your accusations of immorality elsewhere.

The Kerry campaign spent a lot of time and effort getting out the vote. He lost by 380,000 votes. I don't think provo ballots would have come clsoe to making the difference.

[tkmorris]

11. Hold on there Tom

If you were able to get some people in Broward directed to their proper precinct in order to vote normally, well that's commendable. However there were a large number of people in Broward where you were, Palm Beach where I was, and in counties all over the state who were not permitted to vote for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with being simply a few blocks away from their proper precinct. Those people had no option available to enable them to cast their vote EXCEPT for provisionals, which in many cases were withheld from them. These are people whose names were deleted from the voter rolls entirely for the most part, in addition to other minor difficulties.

I think those people would have been better off receiving provisional ballots than the alternative they did get, which was nothing.

Thanks for helping Broward out though, volunteers are always in short supply and underappreciated.

[TomClash]

15. I understand that

But our job was to convince the poll workers to allow everyone to cast regular ballots by whatever legal means necessary. Everyone should have been allowed to cast provisional ballots under HAVA. My point was that we all knew before the election that they weren't going to count those votes.

The real problem is that the election system is horrible. There should be motor voter and you should be able to register on election day, like in Minnesota. Anything less is undemocratic.

You don't have to thank me - I was privileged to help.

[ZR2]

16. Florida does have motor voter registration.

As for being able to register on election day, I'm not too in favor of that. I would prefer having some kind of background check to verify voter eligibility before just handing them a ballot.

[imenja]

12. that is exactly my point

Obviously voters should cast be encouraged to cast votes in their own precinct if at all possible. Why you think an appropriate solution is abolishing provisional ballots and depriving even more citizens of the right to vote, I cannot understand. This only helps Republicans, because the effect is to suppress the vote. Why did campaign volunteers and staffers not direct those voters to the right polling places? One thing I tried to convince the campaign to do was to provide maps and addresses of precincts and polling places. They refused to do so. I downloaded locations and maps myself, drawing in precinct lines the best I could, and tried to direct voters in the precincts I coordinated to their polling places. Of course, it didn't help that I didn't get the materials until 12 midnight on Nov. 2, and the walk sheets only at 10:00 a.m. That is exactly the sort of thing that must be better organized in the future (on top of several other things I won't get into now).

The measure of importance is not whether Kerry won or not. There were other candidates on the ballot, and Castor's loss was much more narrow. Most importantly, the key issue is that every voter has a constitutional right to vote. That is far more important than any particular candidate's victory. You have just confirmed my impression that voter rights meant little to the campaign. Winning was the extent of it. I find that position shameful and short-sighted.

To adopt a short term view that considers only votes for Kerry undermines future Democratic victories. As long as elections officials are able to get away with denying voters constitutional rights without repercussions, they will repeat their actions in future elections and undermine the possibility of Democratic victories. The party dropped the ball on this one, to it's own detriment.

A somewhat separate question: Why do you think Broward had among the lowest turnout (in terms of percentage of voters) in Florida? Is it all the fault of the supervisor of elections, or did the campaign have problems there that can be corrected in the future?

[w4rma]

2. And fraud increased. (nt)

[0rganism]

4. Calling bullshit valid doesn't change the smell

With ballotless voting (and that's what black box voting really is) there's no way to determine voter intent. We can certainly discern the programmers' intent, but that's another matter entirely.

[lovuian]

5. Electronic Voting was cheating at its worst!!! Staticians say

Florida was stolen!!!

[VegasWolf]

7. Most efficient fraud in history! n/t

[Al-CIAda]

8. Fla- “fixing” elections and 9/11 -Daniel Hopsicker

Rudi Dekkers “fixing” elections, 9/11 -Daniel Hopsicker
Rudi Dekkers has been regularly entering the U.S. illegally through the Bahamas,
January 31,2005 -Venice, FL. 
by Daniel Hopsicker

Rudi Dekkers has been regularly entering the U.S. illegally through the Bahamas, the MadCowMorningNews has learned.

 In an effort to evade U.S. Customs scrutiny, the infamous Dutch national running  the Venice FL. flight school which both terrorist pilots who crashed into the World Trade Center  used as “cover” is slipping into the U.S. from the Bahamas after exchanging clothes with one of the pilots on the charter flight which flew to pick him up.

Then, wearing the charter pilot’s uniform, multiple sources  confirm, Dekkers walks through U.S. Customs.

“Rudi looked like the co-pilot when they landed in the U.S.,” stated one source. “His bags were carried through Customs by a female who appeared to be the co-pilot, Christina Hewitt, who flew in with pilot Marcus Huber to pick him up, and who then posed as the customer for the charter flight when they went through Customs.”

Huber is a Swiss national; Hewitt is reportedly from Louisiana, and found employment at the Naples Airport with Dekkers several years ago “cleaning out the planes, which is quite obviously a job you wouldn’t want just anyone doing.”
 
Well-Deserved Beads of Sweat

Despite his reputation as an international operator, Dekkers was anything but a cool customer. “He had beads of sweat popping out on his forehead,” a pilot who picked him up in Nassau laughingly related to a friend.

“He looked so guilty that we were all afraid we were going to get caught.”
 
Where does Dekkers Get His "Juice?"

During research for “Welcome to TerrorLand” we had discovered a letter about Rex Gasteiger in correspondence files on Dekkers obtained from the Naples Airport, complaining that he (Gasteiger) was "A former employee soliciting to offer private flight instruction without authority and in violation of FAA rules."

Numerous indications point to a massive covert operation involving ‘spooks’ and Saudis in Florida as being responsible for the terrorists’ intrigues in south Florida during the run-up to the 9.11 attack as well as the “fixing” of the last two presidential elections.

We were looking for the answer to a seemingly simple question: How does Rudi Dekkers continue to avoid prosecution?

Where does he get his "juice?"
Con't-
http://www.madcowprod.com/index.html

--------

Audio: Interviews with Daniel Hopsicker about 2004 Electoral Fraud
Audio: Interviews with Daniel Hopsicker about 2004 Electoral Fraud
Archives for Dave Emory
Tuesdays 6pm - 7pm on WFMU 91.1 fm 90.1 fm
Archives are in RealAudio format unless otherwise indicated
* January 18, 2005: FTR #494: "Another Interview with Daniel Hopsicker about Electoral Fraud" | Listen
* January 11, 2005: FTR #493 Interview w/Daniel Hopsicker about Electoral Fraud | Listen
* December 7, 2004: FTR #487: An Interview with Daniel Hopsicker about the
2004 Electoral Coup AND FTR #488: Funny Money, Covert Operations and Electoral Fraud. | Listen
*November 16, 2004: FTR #484: Interview with Daniel Hopsicker #3 | Listen
*November 9, 2004: FTR #483: Second Interview with Daniel Hopsicker | Listen
* November 2, 2004: FTR #482 An interview with Daniel Hopsicker | Listen
-------------
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/DX

[candice]

10. 58,000 absentee ballots went missing in Broward County

...Democratic stronghold. What happened there. And with blackbox voting, who can guess who actually won? There isn't a paper trail.

[kcass1954]

13. The actual amount was around 6,000...

It was originally reported that 58,000 ballots were missing. Of course, there was a retraction printed in the local paper, probably on page 6, in the lower right hand corner in fine print, but very little mention of a correction on local TV news. I don't remember seeing a correction on any national news source. There was some confusion about the mailing. They were supposed to have been left on the loading dock at the main P.O. in Ft. Lauderdale; no one there remembers seeing them. The type of postal permit held by the SOE's office does not require that the mailing be verified when dropped off. So it was a he said-he said situation.

Sorry, I can't find a link for this. I live in Broward County, and my husband works for the P.O. (another branch).

[imenja]

14. I don't think anyone believes the post office lost them

except maybe the supervisor of elections. The more likely explanations are that the SOE never sent them or someone stole them.