Former Florida Election Worker Charged

[I AM SPARTACUS]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Broward-Voting.html

Filed at 4:02 a.m. ET

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- A former Broward County elections supervisor who oversaw a 2002 primary marked by bad ballots and uncounted votes has been charged with 55 counts of violating election laws.

Miriam Oliphant, already facing a Senate trial for her conduct in office, is accused of not opening polls on time and not keeping them open late enough during the primary. The Florida Elections Commission levied the charges against Oliphant at its Feb. 19 meeting. If found guilty, Oliphant faces a fine of up to $55,000. She has 30 days to respond.
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[yorgatron]

1. wait,don't tell me

is she republican? with a name like oliphant...

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

2. Unfortunately, she's a Democrat

Oliphant, a Democrat, was suspended Nov. 20 without pay by Gov. Jeb Bush, who removed her for "gross carelessness." Bush appointed retired elementary school principal Brenda Snipes to replace Oliphant.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

5. My, Oh, MyOh MYyyyy! What a biiiiiig supriiiise sarge!

Knuck nuck.

[RainDog]

3. What about Katherine Harris?

What about her conduct in purging the voter rolls before the election? What about her failure to ensure accuracy after paying the highest bidder to make sure tens of thousands of Floridians were denied the right to vote?

just wondering.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. It's simple, really

Harris-- Republican co-chair of the Bu$h campaign in Florida and in charge of counting the state's votes, is rewarded for her "efforts" with a Congressional district gerrymandered just for her by the Republican-controlled state government.

Oliphant-- Democrat, so she's going to be prosecuted.

[flpeach]

6. Right along with Martha Stewart . . .

who gave Clinton thousands . . .

She'll be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

[patricia92243]

7. If she didn't get the polls open for Democrats to vote, she SHOULD be...

tar and feathered. This kind of thing is what lost us the election.
The title "Democrat" does not mean you are one!

[RoadRunner]

8. I'm beginning to see a pattern here, and it ain't pretty

We had a similar thing happen in New Mexico. The county clerk (Democrat) was prosecuted and lost his office because he was late in doing some things. Turns out he was flooded by phone calls and walk-ins from Repugs on the day in question, tying up the office with one nonsense request after another. He asked the state election office (Repugs) to help out, they said no. Then they indicted, prosecuted, and removed him from office, appointing a Repug in his place. One of the counts against him was that he was one day late destroying unused absentee ballots.

Easier to get the "right count" if you have Repugs in the right places. I wonder if this is not part of a nation-wide strategy to oust Democratic election officials in close states.

[struggle4progress]

9. I hadn't thought ...

about election officials before. But I thought there might be a pattern of using criminal prosecution, or its threat, against a variety of folks (not always only Democrats) who disrupt *'s program. I'd been thinking of stuff originating with US Attys offices.

[Art_from_Ark]

10. In 1996, Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker (D)

was ousted in Ken Starr's witch hunt based on the trumped up "testimony" of two pathological liars. Guess who replaced him? The lieutenant governor, Mike Huckabee, a repug. If the lieutenant governor had been a Democrat, you can be sure that Starr's goons would not have been interested in going after Tucker.

[notbush]

11. Didn't mister

Tucker end up pleading guilty???

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Tucker pled guilty to get a reduced sentence

because he figured he couldn't beat Starr's goons. The chief witness against Tucker, embezzler David Hale, had his prison sentence commuted by Huckabee:

"Best payback

"Gov. Huckabee in June commuted a prison sentence of embezzler David Hale, the man most responsible for Huckabee having become governor in the first place. Hale had testified against former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker in a 1997 case that resulted in Tucker's resignation of the governorship and Huckabee's ascension. Huckabee denied that the commutation was political payback. He said he was afraid that if Hale were sent to prison he might experience medical problems that the state would have to pay to treat."

http://www.arktimes.com/011228coverstorya.html