Unused 2000 ballots cleared for destruction (Florida)

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Fri, Jul. 22, 2005

ELECTION
Unused 2000 ballots cleared for destruction

An appeals court ruled all unused ballots from the 2000 presidential election can be destroyed, a blow to those who wanted them saved as public records.

By NANCY COOK LAUER
Tallahassee Democrat

TALLAHASSEE - The famed butterfly ballots and other unused punch-card ballots left over from the contested 2000 election are not public records, and therefore they can be destroyed rather than donated to universities or museums, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
A three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeal denied the petition of Weston attorney Gary M. Farmer Jr., representing two voters who wanted the ballots saved. Nova Southeastern University was one institution that had shown an interest in obtaining them.

''Nothing could be more obvious than that a ballot becomes a public record once it is voted,'' said Chief Judge Charles J. Kahn Jr. in the written ruling. ``For purposes of the public records analysis, however, the unused ballots, en masse, are no different than cases of blank paper held in a government office.''
(snip)

But the ruling was good news for Tony Enos, voting systems manager for the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office. He said the two pallets of unused butterfly ballots take up too much space.

''We would like to get rid of them,'' Enos said. ``We've been storing them for years; we're ready for the destroy.''
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/12192626.htm

[Wabbajack]

1. If people actually want them for some reason

why don't they just sell them to them.

[pf99]

2. I would like to buy one

As a reminder to my children, grandchildren, and great granchildren that the 2000 election was stolen from Al Gore.

People who fail to study history are destin to repeat it.

[Judi Lynn]

3. I had always secretly hoped some organization would someday

count every vote and let us know the actual results.

[pf99]

4. I think that has been done

And if you remember in the movie F 911 the is a clip from CNN legal analyst Jeffry Toobin were he says under almost every senario Gore won Florida.

[meganmonkey]

5. Count every vote? This is a deMOCKracy!

Why would we do that?

:silly:

[AllegroRondo]

6. That has been done.

A group of Florida newspapers, I believe headed by the Miami Herald, researched it and did a complete vote count. They found that if a complete state-wide recount had been done, Gore would have won. Oddly, they also found that if the recount was limited to only the counties Gore had requested, Bush would have won.

The bizarre part - the story was supposed to hit the papers on Sep 11, 2001.

on edit - see Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Lyers..." for more info.

[expatriot]

7. yes, they should ebay them. nt

[Judi Lynn]

8. Thanks for the comments. I think I was so down at the time it didn't

really register. It seemed to me, deep in disappointment, that they had found a way to uphold the slipshod original claims which I didn't feel could be accurate, since some of the ballots which were meant to be recounted never made it through, as in the Miami-Dade disaster, etc. What a nightmare.

[wli]

9. of course they had to destroy them

Otherwise there would be evidence left behind.