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58,000 Florida ballots MISSSING

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I

Incognito

Troll
WHAT THE FUCK

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6346293/

MIAMI - U.S Postal Service investigators Wednesday were trying to find thousands of absentee ballots which should have been delivered to voters in one of Florida’s most populous counties, officials said.

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The issue evoked memories of the polling problems that bedeviled the Florida election in 2000 and which the state has been trying to address before next Tuesday’s presidential election, which is again expected to be a very tight race.

Broward deputy supervisor of elections Gisela Salas said 60,000 absentee ballots, accounting for just over 5 percent of the electorate in the county north of Miami, were sent out between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8 to voters who would not be in town on election day.

While some had begun to be delivered, her office had been inundated with calls from anxious voters who still had not received their ballots.

“It’s really inexplicable at this point in time and the matter is under investigation by law enforcement,” Salas told Reuters.

“It was basically our first major drop of the absentee ballots,” Salas said. She said postal service officials had assured Broward elections supervisor Brenda Snipes that the ballots had moved out of the post office to which they had been taken by the elections office.

U.S. Postal Service Inspector Del Alvarez, whose federal agency is independent from the U.S. Postal Service, said it had yet to be determined if the ballots reached the post office.



“It’s highly unlikely that 58,000 pieces of mail just disappeared,” he said. “We’re looking for it, we’re trying to find it if in fact it was ever delivered to the postal service.”

In 2000 the race in Florida, on which the national presidential contest ultimately depended, was so close it prompted five weeks of lawsuits and recounts.

The U.S. Supreme Court eventually halted the recounts, handing President Bush a 537-vote victory in Florida and the White House, and infuriating Democrats who insist their candidate Al Gore won the popular vote in the state.

The punch card ballots that were at the heart of the disputed 2000 election have been replaced by touchscreen voting machines in 15 of Florida’s 67 counties, and just over half the state electorate will use them. The other counties will use optical scanning machines to read paper ballots.

But poll watchers still fear another legal maelstrom if the race in Florida, or any other critical swing state, is close and there are suspicions that some voters were denied a ballot.

Salas said the missing absentee ballot forms did not yet represent a major election problem because people had the option of voting early before next Tuesday, when Bush is being challenged by Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

Poll workers will be able to cross-check through lap top computers hooked up to a central database whether voters had already sent in absentee ballots. On election day itself, those who requested absentee ballots will only be able to vote in person if they bring the blank absentee forms with them.

“A lot of people are very concerned because they think that just because they requested an absentee ballot, now they’re stuck in a limbo situation where they don’t have their ballot and they can’t vote,” Salas said.

“So most definitely we want to get the message out that yes they can go to an early voting site and cast their ballot and that’s what we would encourage them to do,” she said.
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M

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
Shock and awe.


Wait no it's not. They might as well have reported that the sun rose this morning. Maybe we really do need international help with our elections as we seriously do seem to be less capable than some third world countries (like Canada! [/Bush]) when it comes to this shit.
 
D

Diablos

Member
Who knows, but this is pathetic. Beyond pathetic. Nobody wants to go through this bullshit again. It's 2004, almost 2005 - yet we still rely on old-fashioned voting methods in this country. Something needs to change.
 
M

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
Diablos said:
You have got to be kidding me.

Are they democratic or republican? That's the question to ask.
Click to expand...
Broward County? I think that's a stong Dem county, if I'm not mistaken.
 
B

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
Ridiculous. Whether Democratic or Republic ballots (had these been cast already), Florida is an absolute laughingstock.
 
B

BigJonsson

Member
Diablos said:
Who knows, but this is pathetic. Beyond pathetic. Nobody wants to go through this bullshit again. It's 2004, almost 2005 - yet we still rely on old-fashioned voting methods in this country. Something needs to change.
Click to expand...


Yet in Canada we use the old ways of voting and have no problems

Just mark an X in a circle beside the candidates name and stick it in a box, is it that fucking hard?
 
O

Outdoor Miner

Member
Ok, it's obvious we're going to have reform the way our entire country votes. This is unacceptable. There needs to be a national standard, or this is going to take place every election.

Voting day comes and goes, and we're going to be without any clear winner until lawsuits have been cleared. Ridiculous.
 
R

Ripclawe

Banned
Diablos said:
You have got to be kidding me.

Are they democratic or republican? That's the question to ask.
Click to expand...

If its in the tricounty area of palm beach, broward or Miami Dade, its going to be majority democrats, which is strange since broward is major democratic area, you would think this sort of stuff wouldn't happen. But if there is stupidity to be done, it would be in the tri area.
 
D

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Sal Paradise Jr said:
Ok, it's obvious we're going to have reform the way our entire country votes. This is unacceptable. There needs to be a national standard, or this is going to take place every election.

Voting day comes and goes, and we're going to be without any clear winner until lawsuits have been cleared. Ridiculous.
Click to expand...


lirpa_07.jpg
 
M

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
Ripclawe said:
If its in the tricounty area of palm beach, broward or Miami Dade, its going to be majority democrats, which is strange since broward is major democratic area, you would think this sort of stuff wouldn't happen. But if there is stupidity to be done, it would be in the tri area.
Click to expand...
It is Broward County.
 
D

Diablos

Member
Ripclawe said:
If its in the tricounty area of palm beach, broward or Miami Dade, its going to be majority democrats, which is strange since broward is major democratic area. But if there is stupidity to be done, it would be in the tri area.
Click to expand...

The people that run our country are sick, you guys know this was planned. Nearly 60,000 ballots just don't disappear like that. Something is up. Even if HALF of those were democratic votes, that's enough to throw the election in Bush's favor. It's so close... every vote counts... I can't believe they are getting away with this. They can investigate all they want, this ends next week. It'll be too late.
 
F

Fresh Prince

Banned
BigJonsson said:
Yet in Canada we use the old ways of voting and have no problems

Just mark an X in a circle beside the candidates name and stick it in a box, is it that fucking hard?
Click to expand...
Or 1-4 in order of preferance for you local member.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Really, you need to do something with your voting system, it is royally fucked up. Why you do have to register yourself as a voter? And what's up with all that chaos filling the ballots? It is simply nuts, please, somebody explain it to me.

BTW, how does the canadian system works?
 
B

BigJonsson

Member
Well, when I turned 18 I was automatically added to the voter list
Then once an election comes around just go to your poll, check in and fill out the ballot and give it back...

I also was a poll scrutineer in the last federal election, just got to watch them count the votes

That's basically it
 
R

Ripclawe

Banned
Funky Papa said:
Really, you need to do something with your voting system, it is royally fucked up. Why you do have to register yourself as a voter? And what's up with all that chaos filling the ballots? It is simply nuts, please, somebody explain it to me.

BTW, how does the canadian system works?
Click to expand...

It's not hard, you sign up , you get your voter card and vote at your designated location or you get an absentee ballot, fill it in and mail it.

speaking of Florida.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041026/NEWS/41026017

Florida election officials will not be required to process incomplete voter registration forms for the presidential election, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King said the three prospective voters for whom the lawsuit was filed did not have the legal standing to pursue the case, which was backed by the AFL-CIO. But he gave the union group a chance to file a new version of the lawsuit next month with people who meet the standard.

That leaves the AFL-CIO and the Advancement Project, a social action group, on the losing side of an attempt to force election officials to accept applications from people who failed to check a citizenship box on registration forms in time for the Nov. 2 election.

Sheila Thomas, an attorney with the Washington-based Advancement Project, said the plaintiffs were considering an appeal. The group argued that the rejections had a disparate effect on minorities. Nearly 45 percent of the challenged forms in one county, Duval, came from blacks.

"Our goal is still to see if we can get relief for our clients before Election Day," she said.

The decision is the latest from courts across the state that rejected attempts to broaden voter rights on touch-screen recounts, provisional ballots and early voting.

"Once again, federal and state laws are very clear on which sections of the voter registration forms have to be filled out to deem that application complete," said Alia Faraj, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda Hood.
Click to expand...
 
F

Fresh Prince

Banned
Ripclawe said:
It's not hard, you sign up , you get your voter card and vote at your designated location or you get an absentee ballot, fill it in and mail it.
Click to expand...

It's just the devices that you use to vote on are fucked.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I don't know man, it sounds too extrange to me. We are automaticaly registered as voters once we reach the legal age (registration last forever), and then we just have to choose our voting ticket and vote with it. There is no need to fill nothing since there is a different ticket for every candidate/party, just pick the one you like and use it. It is really simple but it works flawlessly.
 
S

SteveMeister

Hang out with Steve.
You have to register with your proper voting precint whenever you move, because even Presidential elections also include candidates for the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as local offices and issues. Last year for example I moved a little over a mile from my previous house, and am now in a different voting district with a different Representative.
 
D

Dracos

Member
I sent off for my Louisiana absentee ballot weeks ago, and haven't received my ballot yet. My girlfriend got one, but not me. :(
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
While I agree with people here who say we need to improve our voting system... I don't see what sort of advancement would prevent a shitload of mail going missing any more than now.
 
V

VistraNorrez

Member
I see no reason to change the voting system. The US has never had any problems like this until the 2000 elections. The problem relies with the scumbags in power. Not with the system
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
You have to register with your proper voting precint whenever you move, because even Presidential elections also include candidates for the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as local offices and issues. Last year for example I moved a little over a mile from my previous house, and am now in a different voting district with a different Representative.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that happens too over here, but since the government knows where do you live they send you a card with your voting college every election so you don't have to register. If you don't receive your card in time because your address is wrong (which is very rare) you can go to the office and change your personal data with enough time.

Really, it strikes me how complex is the whole process over there. The simplier = the better (IMHO)
 
F

Fresh Prince

Banned
LinesInTheSand said:
Actually it has more to do with stupid people.
Click to expand...
The new computer based voting systems are apparently confusing and offer no 'paper trail'- so you do not know who you voted for in the end.

Don't worry we will have partisan poll-watchers ready to harass anyone who doesn't look right.
Click to expand...
:lol
 
T

Triumph

Banned
My faith in the democratic process here and abroad has never been stronger. Freedom is on the March!

bush-george-w-2.jpg


I'm George W. Bush, and I approve this message.
 
S

SA-X

Member
Well at least the entire election isn't reliant on who wins Florida this time. If Kerry takes Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania he can still lose Florida and win the election.
 
M

Maxwell House

Member
What a strange coincidence that the largest and most democratic county in Florida all of a sudden has 58,000 ballots go missing. Surely Jeb Bush has nothing to do with this, right? :(

Do the Republicans have to steal this election again? I am getting infuriated. They better find those missing ballots!!!
 
I

Ill Saint

Member
I'm not a US native, so excuse me if i'm wrong somewhere, but to me it seems that the US electoral system is designed to make voting as much of a pain in the ass as possible. What's up with these electoral colleges and voter registrations, ballot shippings etc? And isn't voting taking place on a Tuesday? What's up with that?

Can a system be any more convoluted?
 
Escape Goat

Escape Goat

Member
Ill Saint said:
I'm not a US native, so excuse me if i'm wrong somewhere, but to me it seems that the US electoral system is designed to make voting as much of a pain in the ass as possible. What's up with these electoral colleges and voter registrations, ballot shippings etc? And isn't voting taking place on a Tuesday? What's up with that?

Can a system be any more convoluted?
Click to expand...


Florida just needs to be bombed at the panhandle and let it drift off and crash into Cuba. Its a mess down there. Out of 50 states, one has had serious flubs in the last two elections. US has more people to account for so I'd imagine France or Germany would have just as many issues if they had a comparable population.
 
Phoenix

Phoenix

Member
While that's bad - its nowhere near the disaster that people are making it out to be. These aren't CAST ballots. THAT would be a huge problem.
 
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