FL Paper 1/3: MOST PROVISIONAL VOTES REJECTED

[EMunster]

Posted on Mon, Jan. 03, 2005

Most provisional votes rejected

Majority weren't registered in county they voted in

By Nancy Cook Lauer

DEMOCRAT CAPITOL BUREAU CHIEF

Counting the ballots

They're better odds than Lotto. Still, if you were one of 27,451 Florida voters forced to cast a provisional ballot in the 2004 election, chances are your vote didn't count.

Two-thirds of all provisional ballots submitted in the general election were rejected, according to a Tallahassee Democrat analysis of reports provided by the state's 67 county supervisors of elections. Most ballots were thrown out because the voter was not registered in that county.

More than 11 percent of the ballots were tossed aside because the voter was in the wrong precinct.

Another 7.2 percent were cast out because the voter had been purged from the voting rolls, because either the voter hadn't voted lately or was deemed a felon. Most counties did not separate those two categories, but for the 20 counties that did, purged felons accounted for 4 percent and inactive voters accounted for 7.3 percent.

State law requires county supervisors to purge voters from the rolls if they haven't voted in the last two federal elections...


more:
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/10551972.htm

[purduejake]

1. I don't believe that many were not counted for legit reasons.

[Carolab]

2. Then again, how would YOU know? n/t

[bluestateguy]

3. Wrong county I can understand, but wrong precinct?

Whenever that day comes that the Democrats someday take over the Justice Department the new Attorney General should announce that all elections in Florida will be run by the federal government for the next four years.

Until then Florida will remain a banana republic.

[TomClash]

6. In my precinct

many people were switched to another precinct just before this election but had been voting at this precinct for years. The election workers called the county board of elections for guidance but got a busy signal and simply made those voters fill out provisional ballots. When I got wind of this, I started carding voters from 2 p.m. until the polls closed to make sure they were in the right precinct before they entered the polling place. Most were Dem votes.

[flpoljunkie]

10. Disqualifying voters to vote in the wrong precinct is voter suppression-

especially in a federal election. In any number of cases, voters put their ballots through the wrong machine, through NO fault of their own, and these were thrown out too! The use of provisional ballots was abused purposefully and under HAVA; This must be fixed and federal standards set into law.

Welcome to America, the "democracy" determined to keep our votes from counting--particularly if you are black, Democratic, or both! This can no longer be acceptable or we will never be rid of these Rethuglicans!

[KaliTracy]

7. That was the "rule" in Ohio, too -- even though people stood for

hours in line -- if they got to a table that was "precinct A" and they were supposed to vote in "precinct C" -- they had to get back in the "Precinct C" line and wait for even more time (sometimes another 2 hours)... see this video... http://460design.net/ohio/

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Ah yes the attitude of NOT counting votes is

pervasive...

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. A big problem at least in Alachua County

were all the students that never got their absentee ballots. They had no choice but to go the local DOE and try to vote there. They were told it was not the local DOE's fault that they didn't get their ballots, that they were not responsible for the Post Office. They were then told they could caste a provisional ballot even thought it wouldn't count. They even filled out affidavits to state what happened and that this was a vote for whatever county they came from, but that it didn't matter, their votes would still not be counted.

Nice trick.

Places like Broward and Miami Dade didn't get the absentee ballots out in a timely manner. Then the Post Office didn't deliver them and 1000's of voters were disenfranchised.

Of course college students were probably going to vote DEM anyway, so the GOP wasn't interested in making sure their votes counted.

[KaliTracy]

8. Didn't Florida "LOSE" a huge number of Absentee ballots

supposedly "in the mail"?

Makes you wonder if they will suddenly start appearing in people's mailboxes in a few years....

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Yep, they sure did

the SOE's blamed it on the Post Office. Nothing they could do about. It was not their fault, bla, bla, bla. Besides, my SOE told me absentee voting was a privilege not a right.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3960679.stm

Tens of thousands of postal ballots have gone missing in the state of Florida, sparking fresh fears of irregularities in the US poll campaign.

Authorities are investigating the apparent loss of 58,000 absentee forms in Broward County while officials have said replacements are being sent out.

Controversy over the vote in Florida in 2000 delayed the national result.

With five days until the poll, the presidential candidates are focusing their campaigns in crucial states.