Vote Watch 2004
Vote/Election fraud, vote suppression, voting irregularities, voter intimidation in Election 2004

 

Acknowledgements


Home Page Interpreting Pre-Election Polls Anti-Kerry Lies and Fraud
Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV)! Overseas Absentee Voting Other Voting Irregularities
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Here, I use the definition of Swing States by the Swing State Project

Please select your state of interest to proceed. (If there is no link, that means there is no content for that state yet).

FLORIDA

12/14/04_2 [Permalink]
Some reports in Florida of electronic voting machines displaying Bush as the voter's choice when Kerry was selected

Via reader radtimes, here is piece by David Corn:

Regular readers know that I've advised the Bush opposition to be cautious in claiming that the November 2 vote count was rigged in Ohio, Florida or elsewhere--especially when there is no concrete evidence, just supposition. But there are plenty of reasons to fret about the overall integrity of the voting system--particularly when some counties rely on electronic voting machines that produce no auditable paper trail and that are manufactured by Diebold, a company that is run by a GOP fundraiser and that refuses to submit its computer codes for independent scrutiny. I've just finished another short piece on all this for The Nation. (I'll post it when it's out.) But today I received an interesting email from a fellow I do not know, a 62-year-old retired systems programmer living in Palm Beach County. I cannot vouch for him, but I thought his note is worth sharing. It is one of the more intriguing emails out of the 100-plus notes I have received on this subject the past few days. I don't know if he wants his name publicized, so I have deleted it. Here's the email:

Hi. After reading your article--A Stolen Election?--I am inclined to share my experience with you.

I witnessed my wife's attempts to vote for Kerry in precinct 1196, St. Edwards Church, Palm Beach FL 33480. She pushed Kerry at least 3 times, each time a Bush vote displayed. [She] anxiously called me over and I suggested that she not push so hard on the screen, and push DIRECTLY on the X for Kerry and it worked. The summary at [the] end stated a Kerry vote. My machine gave no problems. We voted early, to go answer phones for the PB county Democratic HQ.

During my stint on PB Dems phones, I answered 2 calls from poll watchers, relating to VOTER COMPLAINTS: "I Push the Kerry button, and get a Bush vote." After the first one, I called the Kerry lawyer pool, and their response was "seems to be happening everywhere," "poll workers have a procedure to take offending machine off line, and re-calibrate it." [During] the 2nd call, I relayed the information to "demand a re calibration."

After thinking about this problem (with 40 years of computer programming experience), I thought about how to debug a program, REQUIRING RECALIBRATION enough to make it a STANDARD PROCEDURE. Then the thought came to me that it may not be a BUG, but a "DESIGN FEATURE" as we euphemistically call some in the trade. This was a Sequoia machine, not a (Republican-run) Diebold. If your touch-screen routine was designed to properly execute when pushed lightly in the DESIGNATED SPOT, it would be certifiable. If it was pushed elsewhere or TOO HARD, what would the program do? Perhaps skew to a "preferred candidate"? Based on proximity to the DESIGNATED SPOT. Perhaps this was calculated on a pixel basis, and maybe the size of the finger/footprint. What happens when one pushes farther along the longer "Kerry" name versus the shorter "Bush" name? Is the touch-screen map parametrically hard-coded in pixel ranges, or with a (calculated, possibly volatile) bitmap, which could be modified by a bug in a clock routine? Or some other routine, unrelated to voting such as Windows scheduler, or the touch interrupt?

I would feel better about this:

1) if [Palm Beach County] elections commissioner (chairman Theresa LaPore) had not ruled the no "outsider" can experiment with the machines, hardware, software, procedures, because "they are proprietary," AND that "would void the warranty," and that there "could be no paper trail." I am glad she is gone, but not soon enough.

2) if I heard ANY (documented or anecdotal) Bush voter complain that her/his vote was MYSTERIOUSLY changed to a Kerry vote.

3) if the Sequoia machine was debugged to not require recalibration, and the re-calibration problem was ADEQUATELY explained in the new version report.

We will never know what code was in that machine while my wife was voting Nov. 2nd. And whether that code removed itself.

My feeling is that all Bush needed was to get 1 or 2 or more CHANGED votes from EACH of these machines, allowed by an inattentive voter neglecting to verify the final summary page, due to time/inattention problems, or [who] frustratedly let the vote stand without complaining. Actually I later found out that 175,000 machines were used in the vote, and the Bush margin (3.5 million) would only require a swing of 10 votes per machine to be wiped out or 20 per machine to change an expected Bush loss to win.

This might explain some of the exit poll/verified vote discrepancy, or why Kerry ONLY got 60% of the Palm Beach County vote (and 64% of Broward), while San Francisco gave Kerry 85%.

Regards, Bob

"Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- A. Einstein

I am not trying to bolster the case made by others that Bush won because someone rigged the voting machines. And it's not surprising to me that Kerry did better in San Francisco than Palm Beach. But Bob's note raises important issues about the use of touch-screen machines. Why did some record the wrong vote? Why did they have to be recalibrated? More importantly, who is out there to investigate the operations of these machines and credibly verify their operations? The answers to Bob's questions and suspicions should be easily determined. But voting, in a way, has been outsourced to private companies. The message to the vendors ought to be: no open-source code, no contract. Voting ought to occur in private; vote-counting should be a public act.

 

12/14/04 [Permalink]
Election Protection volunteers report possible undercounting of votes in a Florida county

Via reader LV, this report in the Newport News Times:

The south Lincoln County couple flew to Florida on Oct. 29, and came back November 3. "We were assigned," Betts said, "to precinct 162, which people there called 'Little Haiti.' The demographics," he said, showed more than a thousand people registered as voters. The poll worker who opened the doors in that precinct told Betts the precinct had 1,080 registered voters. According to the information from Election Protection, Betts said, it was closer to 1,300.

The breakdown Betts and Scarborough received from Election Protection showed 818 Black (i.e., mostly Haitian) voters; 172 Hispanics (none, he added, Cuban-Americans), 47 white, and an unidentified 117 "other" category voters. It was a predictably Democratic district.

The polls opened at 7 a.m. and, said Betts, "I shook hands with the first lady in line. She smiled broadly at me. At one point, there were three very elderly ladies, walking with walkers," he recalled, and "I saw they were leaving the polling area without the 'I Voted' sticker polling officials give people after they have voted. So I asked them why they were leaving, and one of the ladies said they had been waiting too long, their knees hurt and they couldn't stand and wait any more. So I went to the poll worker who had opened the doors at 7 and explained what was happening, and could they let these elderly women come in ahead of the younger voters to vote?"

That was done and, Betts said, "one of the other poll workers, with a heavy Creole accident, told me, 'You're a good man, doin' that for them old ladies.'"

Aside from that, Betts said, "There were no incidents, no problems."

The poll worker who had opened the doors in the told Betts at about 4 p.m. there had been "over 800 people who'd voted." And, Betts said carefully, "She explained that starting after 5, until about 7, about another quarter of the voters come in, after work, to vote." That would mean a total of 1,000 or more voters in the precinct.

But when the results came out, Betts continued, the official vote was given as 535 total votes cast.

That didn't fit right, Betts felt. "How did they get down to 535 people voting there?" he asked.

"There is," he continued, "not much you can do about it. There was no paper trail. The only way to verify this would be to check the voter rolls and see the number of people who were checked off" as having come to the polling place and voted.

"And that still would not prove anything," he noted. "The county there could say maybe they didn't vote for president."

Betts had to stay non-partisan, but he explained he was still able to ask people questions even though he could not advocate for any candidate.

"I talked to about half the people voting," he recalls. "I can recall talking to about six or eight people who said they voted for Bush," and many times that number who said they voted for Kerry. "In Haiti," he said, "the country was in chaos around the time of the ouster of Aristide as president there. A lot of the people I talked to were really angry about the ouster of Aristide, and more about the Bush administration's delay, of two or three weeks, before sending in security personnel to restore order."

But it is not the fact that 10 percent (55 voters) were officially recorded as voting for Bush. "Maybe they did," he says. It was the fact that half of the heavily Democratic precinct officially never showed up to vote, even though the leading poll worker told him far more than half had voted even before the after-work rush had begun.

"I don't know any way that precinct could have turned out only 535 votes all together," Betts said. "Not when the poll watcher had said there were 800 voting even before 5 came."

11/20/04 [Permalink]
Black Box Voting (BBV) finds poll tape copies in the garbage, poll tape discrepancies, and hostile officials in Volusia County, Florida; officials say BBV is comparing apples to oranges in reporting a discrepancy and that legally, they don't have to keep the copies (that were found in the trash)

Black Box Voting filed this report:

TUESDAY NOV 16 2004: Volusia County on lockdown

County election records just got put on lockdown

Dueling lawyers, election officials gnashing teeth, Votergate.tv film crew catching it all.

Here's what happened so far:

Friday Black Box Voting investigators Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne popped in to ask for some records. They were rebuffed by an elections official named Denise. Bev Harris called on the cell phone from investigations in downstate Florida, and told Volusia County Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe that Black Box Voting would be in to pick up the Nov. 2 Freedom of Information request, or would file for a hand recount. "No, Bev, please don't do that!" Lowe exclaimed. But this is the way it has to be, folks. Black Box Voting didn't back down.

Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it over with a smile, but Harris noticed that one item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.

Harris asked to see the real ones, and they said for "privacy" reasons they can't make copies of the signed ones. She insisted on at least viewing them (although refusing to give copies of the signatures is not legally defensible, according to Berkeley elections attorney, Lowell Finley). They said the real ones were in the County Elections warehouse. It was quittin' time and an arrangment was made to come back this morning to review them.

Lana Hires, a Volusia County employee who gained some notoriety in an election 2000 Diebold memo, where she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn't have to stand there "looking dumb" when the auditor came in, was particularly unhappy about seeing the Black Box Voting investigators in the office. She vigorously shook her head when Deanie Lowe suggested going to the warehouse.

Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris showed up at the warehouse at 8:15 Tuesday morning, Nov. 16. There was Lana Hires looking especially gruff, yet surprised. She ordered them out. Well, they couldn't see why because there she was, with a couple other people, handling the original poll tapes. You know, the ones with the signatures on them. Harris and Wynne stepped out and Volusia County officials promptly shut the door.

There was a trash bag on the porch outside the door. Harris looked into it and what do you know, but there were poll tapes in there. They came out and glared at Harris and Wynne, who drove away a small bit, and then videotaped the license plates of the two vehicles marked 'City Council' member. Others came out to glare and soon all doors were slammed.

So, Harris and Wynne went and parked behind a bus to see what they would do next. They pulled out some large pylons, which blocked the door. Harris decided to go look at the garbage some more while Wynne videotaped. A man who identified himself as "Pete" came out and Harris immediately wrote a public records request for the contents of the garbage bag, which also contained ballots -- real ones, but not filled out.

A brief tug of war occurred, tearing the garbage bag open. Harris and Wynne then looked through it, as Pete looked on. He was quite friendly.

Black Box Voting collected various poll tapes and other information and asked if they could copy it, for the public records request. "You won't be going anywhere," said Pete. "The deputy is on his way."

Yes, not one but two police cars came up and then two county elections officials, and everyone stood around discussing the merits of the "black bag" public records request.

The police finally let Harris and Wynne go, about the time the Votergate.tv film crew arrived, and everyone trooped off to the elections office. There, the plot thickened.

Black Box Voting began to compare the special printouts given in the FOIA request with the signed polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were missing. By this time, Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson had joined the group at Volusia County. Some polling place tapes didn't match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans.

Hmm. Which was right? The polling tape Volusia gave to Black Box Voting, specially printed on Nov. 15, without signatures, or the ones with signatures, printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures per tape?

Well, then it became even more interesting. A Volusia employee boxed up some items from an office containing Lana Hires' desk, which appeared to contain -- you guessed it -- polling place tapes. The employee took them to the back of the building and disappeared.

Then, Ellen B., a voting integrity advocate from Broward County, Florida, and Susan, from Volusia, decided now would be a good time to go through the trash at the elections office. Lo and behold, they found all kinds of memos and some polling place tapes, fresh from Volusia elections office.

So, Black Box Voting compared these with the Nov. 2 signed ones and the "special' ones from Nov. 15 given, unsigned, finding several of the MISSING poll tapes. There they were: In the garbage.

So, Wynne went to the car and got the polling place tapes she had pulled from the warehouse garbage. My my my. There were not only discrepancies, but a polling place tape that was signed by six officials.

This was a bit disturbing, since the employees there had said that bag was destined for the shredder.

By now, a county lawyer had appeared on the scene, suddenly threatening to charge Black Box Voting extra for the time spent looking at the real stuff Volusia had withheld earlier. Other lawyers appeared, phoned, people had meetings, Lana glowered at everyone, and someone shut the door in the office holding the GEMS server.

Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson then went to get the Diebold "GEMS" central server locked down. He also got the memory cards locked down and secured, much to the dismay of Lana. They were scattered around unsecured in any way before that.

Everyone agreed to convene tomorrow morning, to further audit, discuss the hand count that Black Box Voting will require of Volusia County, and of course, it is time to talk about contesting the election in Volusia.

Via reader radtimes, a report in the Orlando Sentinel on this:

Harris, whose meeting with Volusia officials Tuesday was recorded by videographers working on a documentary called Votergate, wouldn't reveal the names of all the counties her group is focusing on first, though she confirmed she is scheduled to get information from St. Lucie County today.

 

The filmmakers also taped Harris' supporters finding documents from Election Supervisor Deanie Lowe's office in the trash. Lowe said the documents were duplicates of precinct-based reports poll workers printed after the polls closed on Election Day.

 

Lowe said she's not required by law to keep the duplicates and that she has the originals.

 

In Volusia, Harris is citing apparent discrepancies such as precinct-based Election Day results that differ from last week's final tally as reasons to scrutinize the county's ballots and voting equipment.

 

But Lowe said it's not logical to expect those sets of numbers to add up because the final tally includes such categories of ballots as absentee and provisional.

 

"You've got to compare apples to apples if you expect to come up with a bushel of apples," Lowe said. County Judge Steven deLaroche, a member of Volusia's elections canvassing board, said it seems Black Box Voting is on a fishing expedition in the wrong  county. After all, Volusia had to count its ballots twice -- once on Election Day, and then a close judicial race prompted an automatic recount. They checked out.

 

In Tuesday's meeting, Lowe offered to let Black Box Voting inspect ballots from three precincts at no charge if it wanted to compare the paper ballots with the precinct-based reports from optical-scanning machines. 

 

Harris asked to inspect ballots from 50 precincts because those are the ones she suspects have problems, based on her initial review of the paperwork she got this week from Volusia County.

 

But Lowe said Harris couldn't inspect that many for free. The estimated cost, mainly to pay for two county employees and security, won't be known until Harris tells Lowe which specific precincts she wants to inspect.

 

11/16/04 [Permalink]
268 uncounted absentee ballots "discovered" in the office of Pinellas county that Bush "won" by 226 votes - after county formally certified results. This is not new - similar incident in 2000 resulted in County changing final tally in favor of Al Gore. These are not the only incidents that County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark has become infamous for. 

Via edverb at Dailykos, here is a report in the St. Petersburg Times (bold text is my emphasis):

The unmarked brown box sat unnoticed in the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections office until Monday, two weeks after the election, when an employee cleaning a desk stumbled upon it.

Inside were 268 uncounted absentee ballots.

"I think this is a very serious situation," Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said Monday, vowing to fire or discipline any employee found to be negligent.

"I assume all responsibility for everything that happened in that department, but I have to rely on other people," Clark said. "It's not a one-woman show."

The unmarked box wasn't the only problem.

Five days ago, Clark sent the state the county's final results for the Nov. 2 election. But her office had failed to perform a standard check to ensure that all ballots had been accounted for.

Clark assumed her staff had performed the check, but they had not.

Now she will ask the state for permission to change Pinellas' official results. The canvassing board will count the missing ballots Thursday.

Although it is numerically possible, officials say the missing ballots probably won't change any results. Only a few races were decided by less than 268 votes - including the presidential contest.

George W. Bush won the presidential race in Pinellas by just 226 votes. While Bush's margin in Pinellas could change, his statewide victory won't.

A city commission seat in South Pasadena and a referendum in Indian Rocks Beach were also decided by fewer than 268 votes.

"If you found a couple hundred thousand votes in Ohio, that might be exciting," said Paul Bedinghaus, chairman of the Pinellas Republican Party. "I expect that human error will continue to occur as long as human beings are involved."

This is the third time since Clark became election supervisor in 2000 that her office has had problems handling ballots.

In the presidential race in 2000, the office neglected to count 1,400 ballots - and counted more than 900 ballots twice. In 2001, her office misplaced six absentee ballots in a Tarpon Springs city election.

The uncounted absentee ballots this time came from the St. Petersburg election office.

Election workers there put absentee ballots in a box to be delivered to the election service center in Largo, where they would be counted on Election Day.

That afternoon, a staff courier delivered the box from St. Petersburg to Largo.

Clark said her office has a system to track the boxes, but she could not describe it in detail during a phone interview from her home Monday night.

The box arrived at the election office, where it sat in plain sight in the absentee ballot department for 14 days.

Office spokeswoman Lori Hudson said other boxes and papers were piled on top of the box. The ballot box was not marked in any unique way. Clark could not say Monday why the box was not specially marked.

Voters, accustomed to putting punch card ballots in locked metal boxes, had been uneasy when they saw election officials throw absentee ballots in a brown box in the St. Petersburg office, said Democratic lawyer Peter Wallace.

Even before Election Day, missing ballots had caused embarrassment for another election supervisor. Hillsborough Supervisor of Election Buddy Johnson had been criticized in October after his staff lost 245 ballots in the Aug. 31 primary.

Normally, Clark would have detected the missing ballots when her staff checked to ensure that every ballot was accounted for.

Usually, every ballot, whether filed absentee or at a polling place, is registered into a computer system. After the election, workers compare the number recorded in the computer to the number of ballots.

For some reason, the staff did not perform the procedure.

Clark learned about the missing ballots on Monday afternoon. Clark did not return to the office because she said she needed to be with her husband, who is having surgery.

Her staff, though, worked past 5 p.m. She promised a thorough investigation.

"If we determine that this is the result of negligence, then those responsible will be held accountable," Clark said. "I can assure you of that."

As edverb at Dailykos also notes:

A quick Google search of Mrs. Clark comes up with several oddities, and a potential conflict-of-interest -- the county election supervisor's husband was employed by voting machine manufacturer ES&S, who was awarded over $400,000 in sales of their voting equipment to the county.  

While Deborah Clark worked as a top official in the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Office, her husband's employer was awarded more than $400,000 in business with the office.

Now, Clark heads the office, and that company, Elections Systems & Software, is a leading contender to land a lucrative contract -- worth as much as $15-million -- to sell new voting machines to Pinellas County, records show.

Clark said Wednesday evening she sees no conflict of interest, and pointed out that the contracts were handled by her predecessor.

The above article goes on to mention that Clark's deputy is also connected by family ties to the voting machine manufacturer.

To complicate matters, Clark's deputy administrator, Karen Butler, is the sister of Sandra Mortham, Florida's former secretary of state and now a lobbyist for ES&S before the state Legislature. Butler is one of more than a dozen senior staff members helping to evaluate competing systems, but she told the Times that family ties won't matter.

In 2002, many voters were given the wrong ballots, possibly swinging the election for the fire commissioner.  

Pinellas County elections officials said human error was to blame for more than 600 voters getting the wrong ballot in Tuesday's election.

Election workers mislabeled machines that activate the cards Pinellas voters insert into touch-screen voting machines to display their ballots.

The mislabeled activators in five precincts caused 633 voters in unincorporated Lealman, between St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park, to get ballots with referendum questions from those cities rather than the Lealman fire commission race, officials said.

The problem could have affected the outcome of a fire commission race decided by 582 votes, officials said.

"Obviously I feel terrible about it,'' said Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark. "We've already changed our internal procedures to check activators more than once.''

The problem was fixed early in four of the precincts. But it wasn't caught until late in the day at the fifth, where 444 voters got the wrong ballot and had no chance to vote for fire commissioner.

Despite the confusion, officials certified the election.

In the 2000 presidential election, the county was initially called for Bush, until discoveries led to a significant swing -- subtracting 61 erroneous votes for Bush and adding 417 missing votes for Gore -- putting the county in the Gore column.  

Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, will have to redo its count because a poll worker inadvertently failed to run an unknown number of ballots through its computer Wednesday, county Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said. The county retracted its original announcement that Gore had gained 404 votes and Bush dropped by 61 votes in its recount.

 

11/12/04 [Permalink]
In Florida, electronic voting machines subtracted about 70,000 votes from vote totals in Broward County and by about 8400 in Orange county

Via BradBlog, we have this report in the Miami Herald:

Broward County corrected a computer glitch Thursday that had miscounted thousands of absentee votes, instantly turning a slot-machine measure from loser to winner and reinforcing concerns about the accuracy of electronic election returns.

The bug, discovered two years ago but never fixed, began subtracting votes after the absentee tally hit 32,500 -- a ceiling put in place by the software makers.

''Clearly it's a concern about the integrity of the voting system,'' said Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman, a canvassing board member who was overseeing the count. ``This glitch needs to be fixed immediately.''

The problem, which resulted in the shocking discovery of about 70,000 votes for Amendment 4, a measure allowing a referendum on Las Vegas-style slots at parimutuels in Miami-Dade and Broward, came to light just after midnight Wednesday when Broward's canvassing board shut down.

Lieberman, Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes and several lawyers on both sides of the gambling amendment noticed votes suddenly disappearing on Amendment 4.

The problem was quickly traced to software in what is known as the central tabulation machine, a computer that collects data from optical scanners that read the individual mail-in ballots.

Besides reversing the Election Night outcome on a controversial gambling question, the error spurred finger-pointing and provided more ammo for critics of high-tech voting.

Another report from Orange County via Votersunite:

Sometimes the problem is that votes were miscounted. That's what happened, officials say, with precinct-by-precinct results posted on the Orange County elections office Web site showing that Democrat John Kerry beat Republican President Bush by 9,227 votes in Orange.

That was off by 8,400 votes. Officials working for Bill Cowles, the Orange elections supervisor, said the correct totals, available elsewhere on the site, showed that Kerry bested Bush in the county by only 827 votes.

The cause of the error, Orange officials said Thursday, was a software program that could not tabulate more than 32,767 votes in a single precinct. On election night, officials anticipated the problem and adjusted for it, deputy election official Lonn Fluke said Thursday.

But the next day, workers failed to account for the glitch while posting precinct results online. When absentee-ballot totals exceeded the limit in one precinct, the software caused additional votes to be subtracted from Bush's total.

A similar discrepancy affected vote totals posted online for the U.S. Senate race between Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Betty Castor. But neither online counting problem made it into the real totals sent to Tallahassee, election officials insist.

"The election results we certified to the state are correct," Fluke said. The presidential and U.S. Senate absentee results posted online were "garbage."

Neither miscount was enough to influence Bush's or Martinez's Florida victories. But the conflicting data was not removed from the Web site until Thursday.

Similar counting problems were reported in Broward County and in Greensboro, N.C.

 

 

11/2/04_3 [Permalink]
Democratic voters in Florida receive fraudulent calls claiming they need to go to a different polling location

Via Campaign Desk, here is a report in The Daily Commercial:

Voters who received calls over the past few days saying their precincts have been moved should pay no heed, election officials said, and should go to their previously assigned precincts. The calls are part of what appears to be an organized misinformation campaign, officials said.

“It’s criminal,” said Lake County Supervisor of Elections Emogene Stegall. “It’s the most terrible thing. I have never seen anything like this happen here.”

Stegall’s office received calls Monday afternoon from four concerned residents, all receiving the same automated message on their answering machines. The message told the voters their precincts had changed and they should go to a different location, one which Stegall said does not exist.

All of the calls, said Stegall, were made to registered Democrats. The complaints came from all over the county.

While the four complaints came in rapid succession, calls from confused voters were coming in all morning. It wasn’t until a certain number of voters asked questions about a precinct being moved that election officials realized this was an attempt to suppress turnout, Stegall said.

Sumter County Supervisor of Elections Karen Krauss got one similar complaint Monday. A Lindon voter, also a registered Democrat, had someone call her in person and tell her that the Lindon location was closed. The voter called Krauss to check, and Krauss informed her the Lindon location would remain open and that the voter should go there.

“The various groups are out there starting to do things, and it’s really sad,” Krauss said. “We have no way to know how much of this is organized efforts and how much is done by lone rangers.”

The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is now investigating the calls. Stegall said she does not know if this is a local effort or a larger effort organized by a statewide group or an out-of-state organization. Florida is considered a pivotal state in today’s presidential election, and polls all show the race within the margin of error.

Stegall said a change in polling locations would not be made so close to an election. In the event that polling sites are moved, all affected voters are sent a notification by mail. Voters should go to their assigned precinct as shown on their voter identification cards, Stegall said.

Any Lake County voter who does not know where their polling location is may call 343-9734, Stegall said. Sumter voters may call Krauss’s office at 793-0230.

TAPPED has a note as well:

SECOND SOURCE EDITION. Reporting from West Palm Beach for CNN, Gary Tuchman just confirmed what Nick mentioned earlier about a barrage of automated phone calls in Florida last night telling people their polling places had changed, causing large-scale confusion and the phone lines at election supervisors' offices getting jammed with questions throughout this morning.

 

11/2/04_2 [Permalink]
Older News: Non-partisan voter registration drive illegally blocked in Florida and decision reversed after court order

Via PFAW/NAACP, here is a report:

Officials in Miami Beach, Florida, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, blocked a voter registration drive for new citizens, citing crowd control and public safety issues.[i]  In August, John C. Shewairy, Chief of Staff to the District Director of Homeland Security, informed Mi Familia Vota (MFV), a nonpartisan voter registration project run by the Center for Immigrant Democracy in conjunction with People For the American Way Foundation, that they would no longer be allowed to conduct voter registration drives on the sidewalks just outside the Miami Beach Convention Center at the conclusion of naturalization ceremonies. Mi Familia Vota attempted to solve the issue without resorting to litigation, but when Mr. Shewairy refused to respond to their requests and Miami Beach officials denied MFV access to the public sidewalks in front of the convention center in September, the organization went to federal court seeking an injunction. The judge issued an injunction restraining DHS and Miami Beach officials from prohibiting MFV's registration drive.[ii]

[i] Nicole White, “Voter Group May Sign Up New Citizens,” The Miami Herald, 9/17/04

[ii] People for the American Way press release, "Nonpartisan Voter Reg Group Sues Homeland Security, City of Miami Beach over Denial of Access to New Citizens," 9/15/04 & Adalberto Jordan, "Center for Immigrant Democracy vs. John C. Shewairy," CASE NO. 04-22326-CIV -JORDAN, 9/16/04

 

11/2/04_1 [Permalink]
GOP demands that Democratic volunteers in Florida speak to non-English (Creole) speaking Haitian-American early voters in English only, claiming that the volunteers are "threatening" the voters. Democratic volunteers deny this and point out that they were responding to requests of help from the voters (confirmed independently).

Via PFAW/NAACP report a story in the Miami Herald:

Republicans and Democrats are accusing each other of intimidating and harassing Haitian-American voters at early voting polling sites in Miami-Dade County.

In Little Haiti, Democratic activists say Republican observers are demanding that community volunteers speak English when assisting Creole-speaking voters.

Republicans counter that Kerry-Edwards supporters are pressuring voters inside the polling place at the Lemon City Library.

In North Miami, a prominent Haitian-American activist said GOP observers tried to kick her out of the North Miami Library, where fellow Haitian-American voters were soliciting her help with the ballot questions.

Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, said the Democrats were the ones who overstepped the bounds.

''We'd be happy if it was just soliciting,'' said Manuel Iglesias, chairman of the Bush-Cheney legal team in Miami-Dade.

'Voters are being threatened, with activists saying, `We're going to tell the Aristide people that you're voting for Bush.' ''

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was forced from office on Feb. 29, has claimed that he was ''kidnapped'' by the Bush administration. The administration vehemently denies the accusation.

Iglesias said the political activists are allowed inside the polling site because Florida law that bars them from within 50 feet of a poll's entrance on Election Day doesn't apply during early voting.

Seth Kaplan, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade County elections department, said all Miami-Dade poll workers have been told to obey the 50-foot rule. But he acknowledges that problems have popped up with poll watchers who enter the voting areas.

Kerry supporters at the government center on Thursday denied intimidating anyone.

''We got here this morning for a rally in support of the minimum wage amendment, then the Bush-Cheney people showed up. Tell me who's intimidating whom?'' asked Delores Turner, president of the Miami board of ACORN.

Haitian-American activists on both sides of the political aisle say the problem is simple: There are not enough Creole-speaking elections volunteers working the polling sites to assist voters.

Even though ballot questions are in Creole, some cannot understand the questions because they are illiterate in the language. As a result, voters are seeking help from volunteers, some of whom are Democratic activists.

Carline Paul, a former Miami-Dade teacher, said GOP observers tried to boot her out of the North Miami Library after accusing her of soliciting voters. She denied it.

 

10/28/04 [Permalink] UPDATED 11/16/04
Tens of thousands of absentee ballots go missing in Florida - adding to jeopardy that many votes will not get counted; internal postal service e-mail confirms that at least some absentee ballots were mishandled despite earlier denials by Florida officials. Additionally, outrageous absentee ballot delays in Broward County - ballots mailed OUT only on 10/30. Hundreds of voters disenfranchised.

Simply Appalling has this update (via Buzzflash):

Broward County, Florida, has just announced that it is resending some 76,000 absentee ballots. Some 56,000 ballots, asserted by the Elections Office to have been mailed on October 7-8, have not been received.

What happened to 56,000 ballots demands a thorough investigation. It's difficult to imagine such a large mailing "lost" without some criminal activity. But the investigation will have to wait until after the election.

In the meantime, those missing ballots are a real threat to the outcome of the Florida election. For some—home-bound people and travelers—the absentee ballot is a must. But of the total requests, this group does not represent the greater portion.

The majority have requested the ballots as a convenience or as insurance that their vote is counted. So can they just go to the polls and vote?

Not exactly.

[I]f a voter has received an absentee ballot and has not sent it back, they must hand it over to election officials before they can vote on Election Day.

Since you can't return what you haven't received, I made a call to a Florida Supervisor of Election's office to find out what the procedure is for the voter who cannot return his/her absentee ballot. It is this: a poll worker at the precinct must call in to the Elections office to verify that no ballot has been received before the voter may proceed to vote. Even a few thousand such calls would overwhelm any system in the state!

If the Broward Elections office mailed the ballots on or before October 8, as it says, and if the U.S. Postal Service hasn't been able to deliver them by now, I can't be optimistic that this second batch will be delivered on time.

If you are a Florida resident and have requested a ballot that you haven't received, I would urge you to vote before November 2.

Turneresq at Dailykos notes this AP story which says that only some ballots will be re-shipped:

With voters jamming phone lines saying they haven’t received absentee ballots in the mail, elections officials planned to mail out thousands of replacement ballots.

As election workers and the U.S. Postal Service traded the blame Wednesday, Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes moved to solve the problem with less than a week left before the presidential election by sending duplicates to people who had not returned the original ballot.

Attention focused on a batch of 58,000 Broward ballots given to the Postal Service on Oct. 7-8. Though some voters have completed and returned ballots mailed those days, hundreds of others have called to complain their forms have not arrived. It was unclear how many absentee ballots were affected.

“This isn’t a blame game,” Snipes told The Miami Herald. “What we’re concentrating on is getting the ballots to the voter.” She was named to the job by Gov. Jeb Bush after the 2000 elections supervisor quit during the bitter presidential vote recount and her replacement was suspended for bungling.

Snipes estimated she would resend no more than 20,000 ballots, but about 76,000 ballots sent by her office have not been returned. Overnight mail was to be used to send new ballots to voters living outside the county, such as college students.

Via reader radtimes, an update in the Sun-Sentinel:

The same day postal officials publicly denied responsibility for 58,000 missing absentee ballots, an internal e-mail sent by the South Florida District Manager to his employees expressed concern that his staff was not handling ballots within the region properly.

In the memorandum sent on Oct. 26, Butch Parker also told his employees that staff seemed unaware of the procedures that should be taken when handling ballots.

"As of today, we have supervisors and employees that state they have never been made aware of the procedures to be used," Parker wrote to his employees. "We continue to find absentee ballots mixed in with other classes of mail."

The e-mail stated that absentee ballots with improper postage sat idle in postal facilities, instead of being returned to their sender.

Although the ballots soon began trickling into elections officials, countless other voters continued to complain that they had not received the ballots they requested, or that they arrived weeks after requesting them.

Postal officials downplayed the e-mail on Thursday, saying Parker merely meant to stress proper procedure, said Earl C. Artis, Jr., a spokesman for the Postal Service.

"It was an effort to make certain that every manager was checking and double checking mail at their facility to ensure that we had processed and delivered every absentee ballot we had received," he said Thursday.

The same day the e-mail was sent out, Postal Service officials said they were not to blame for the backlog.

Lojo at Dailykos has this additional news (bold text is my emphasis):

Depressing story (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10059493.htm) about problems in Broward in today's Miami Herald.  Broward is a Dem county that just keeps on screwing up (elections). Here's the money quote.  

"The Broward election office took about 2,500 absentee ballots -- some heading to addresses in Ohio, Arkansas and Nevada -- to the post office Saturday afternoon for regular delivery.

''We work miracles around here, but this is really asking a lot,'' said Gerry McKiernan, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman, adding that he did not know exactly how many were going out of town."

Reader radtimes sends in this article:

Odile Dumas' daughter Monique, a student at Howard University in Washington D.C., was so anxious to vote that back in September she requested an absentee ballot from Palm Beach County in Florida. On Friday, just five days before the election, when her ballot still hadn't arrived, she called her mother Odile in a panic. Odile immediately went to the Supervisor of Elections office to get her daughter's ballot and Federal Express it to her. But the lines were too long and she had to get to work. So she returned on Saturday and took her place on line. "My black ancestors were jailed and killed for trying to vote," said Odile. "The least I can do is stand in line so that my daughter can vote." Odile's patience turned to exasperation, however, when the 8-hour wait meant that she had missed the deadline for Federal Express and the wait was all for naught. "My daughter has just lost her right to vote," said Odile. "Is this the democracy we fought for?"

Odile was not alone in her frustration. Also on line was Shelly Marcus, trying to get an absentee ballot that her son Joshua, a student at Emory College, had requested on September 11. "My son is 18 and this was his first opportunity to vote for president. I'm ashamed that once again, Palm Beach can't get it right." Gregory Berman, who waited on line for 8 hours and 40 minutes to get an absentee ballot for his 90-year-old father in a nursing home, was furious. "No one in America should have to wait 8 hours to vote, and certainly not to get an absentee ballot that the county was supposed to send out long ago. What you are witnessing here in Palm Beach County is democracy in crisis-again."

Welcome to Palm Beach County, home in 2000 of the infamous butterfly ballots, "Jews for Buchanan", and hanging chads. The infamous Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore was voted out of office in this past August - but unfortunately her term doesn't end until January. That gives her an opportunity to muck up one more election as her parting salvo. And before election day has even arrived, it looks like she's succeeding.

In both Palm Beach County and neighboring Broward County, run by a Democratic Supervisor, there have been a record number of requests for absentee ballots-mostly from the elderly, disabled, voters living outside the county, and people who don't trust the new paperless voting machines. Both counties have been flooded by complaints from people who never received their ballots. In Broward, when the media reported that 58,000 absentee ballots seemed to have "disappeared," Supervisor Brenda Snipes opened up an emergency center to field calls, brought in volunteers to call all 21,000 out-of-town voters, and overnighted thousands of ballots with prepaid overnight return envelopes. Here in Palm Beach County, Theresa LePore's constituents had no comparable support.

UPDATE 11/16/04

Via Votersunite, here is a report in the Palm Beach Post:

Despite a change to Florida law made after the 2000 election that allows anyone to vote absentee, many of the laws that govern mail-in ballots didn't anticipate how widely they would be used and the challenges large counties would face in case of a crush of absentee requests. Secretary of State Glenda Hood, the state's top elections official, did not respond to several requests for an interview for this story.

State Sen. Ron Klein, D-Delray Beach, has plans to change the system, in anticipation of even heavier future use. He calls the problems that occurred a disaster.

Outgoing Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore calls the massive demand an anomaly and cautions legislators against crafting shoot-from-the-hip remedies. She believes lawmakers could create new problems by tinkering with the laws that were written to solve the problems of the 2000 election, she said.

Klein's complaints begin with voters unable to confirm the status of their request for an absentee ballot. Many of them requested a ballot online but said they couldn't confirm whether their request was processed. When their ballot didn't arrive, they called their elections office, which had no record of their request. In some cases, by the time they realized a ballot wasn't on its way, it was too late.

"There should be a system of verification and receipt no different from when you buy a movie ticket at Muvico," Klein said.

Hundreds of voters — including Klein's son, a student at the University of Michigan — couldn't vote because their early orders for ballots disappeared. Though elections supervisors blamed postal workers for delays getting ballots to voters on time, Klein doesn't.

"Direct mail is done in the billions of parcels each year," the state Senate minority leader said.

 

10/26/04 [Permalink] UPDATED 10/31/04
Florida GOP and the Bush-Cheney campaign continue attempts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida using evolving methods

A GOP "caging List" of voters in a minority rich district was discovered and suspected to be a vote challenge list. Its use for vote challenges exposed as possibly illegal, the GOP claimed they will challenge lots of voters but not specifically the ones on the list.  Their vote challenge plan in Florida (using a 109-year old pre-civil-rights-era state law) mirrors GOP plans in Ohio and is expected to cause massive voting delays or shutdowns on voting day (and attendant discouragement/suppression of voters). Governor Jeb Bush encouraged the vote challenges and downplayed the significance of the GOP plan. The GOP vote challengers/poll watchers are disproportionately in minority rich districts - says something doesn't it?
Additionally, the GOP challenged the votes already cast by numerous people claiming that they are felons (using the repeatedly discredited Florida "felon list") - and not unexpectedly, shortly after they propagated this new list it was shown to have names of people who had already had their voting rights restored. 
The latest news is that the Florida Elections Director issued a detailed ruling stating that challenges cannot be allowed to delay the polls, that those challenged should be given the option of casting a provisional ballot and that a voter's being in the discredited felon list is not sufficient reason to allow a challenge to his or her vote.

Via Dailykos, we have this report by Greg Palast in the BBC:

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.

In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.

The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Private detective

In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.

As Kos notes:

I hadn't realized that the caging memos Palast got his hands on came from the Dead Letter Office over at the parody site GeorgeWBush.org [eRiposte note: The emails/lists are here and here]. It seemed like most of those emails were kind of boring, but Palast found the diamond in the rough. You can go check out the names yourself. 49 of those people live at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville. So apparently, the GOP is targetting some of our servicemembers as well.

UPDATE 10/28/04:

Blogwood notes that the GOP seems to have recognized the illegality of the "caging list" and is claiming that they won't selectively use that for challenges.

We’ve recently heard of GOP plans to pay “volunteers” $100 each to intimidate voters in Ohio, and now we have confirmation that similar tactics will be employed in Florida.
...
They plan to put “Poll Watchers” in certain precincts (I have no doubt that, coincidentally, most precincts staffed with GOP watchers will be in poor and minority neighborhoods.) to challenge certain voters. Now, the way the system works in Florida, just one or two challenges, even if they are without merit, can shut down the entire precinct, as each poorly trained poll worker must weigh in with an opinion as the whether or not the challenged voter should be allowed to cast a ballot.

Working people will not have time to wait in line forever. They will get discouraged, or just have to get back to work, and they will leave the line. Every lost vote is a small victory for the GOP.

Election Protection Volunteer provides on way that you may be able to help.

TBO.com.

The Republican Party said Tuesday that it may equip its Florida poll watchers with lists of voters whose registrations appear fraudulent, then use a little- known section of state law to try blocking them from voting as they arrive at the polls.

Democrats quickly denounced the unprecedented tactic but did not rule out the possibility that they, too, may file eligibility challenges next week.

With both sides amassing armies of lawyers, the prospect of the fight working its way into neighborhood polling stations is frightening county elections supervisors because the arcane procedure is so unwieldy it could shut down entire stations each time it is exercised.
......

(Florida Republican Party adviser Mindy) Tucker Fletcher would not identify which voters the Republicans believe have fraudulently registered to vote, but in comments this week she specifically complained of felons and voters with false addresses on the voting rolls.

The Republicans have compiled a list of voters that likely provided faulty addresses.

Tucker Fletcher said the party conducted widespread mailings to newly registered voters of all parties and created a database of the name and address on mailings that were returned by the post office. She would not say whether that list would be used in any potential challenges at the polls of voting rights.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported Tuesday that it had obtained a portion of that database, which lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville.

Tucker Fletcher said the partial list obtained by the BBC ``is not going to be used in any way to challenge voters.''

Uh, would that denial have anything to do with the fact that the Jacksonville list may well be illegal, since it looks to have been compiled using race as a factor?

(back to the TBO.com article)

Under the state's challenging provision, observers must file an affidavit detailing their cause for suspicion. The voter then is notified and asked to fill out an affidavit of his own.

Browning said, ``At this point, that voter is going to be incredibly, incredibly ticked off.''

Voting in the entire polling place is then suspended as all poll workers present are required to convene to take a vote on whether the voter should be allowed to cast a ballot. Majority rules.

If a majority of poll workers - who have received no more than 20 minutes of training on the procedure - decide the voter should not vote, a provisional ballot is provided to the voter that will be sealed in a secrecy envelope and considered by the county's canvassing board in the days after the election.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho said he had never encountered a challenge in 16 years. Browning said he had encountered a challenge only once in his 24- year career.

Matt Miller, a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign, said, ``All the Republicans are able to talk about are, No. 1, scare voters from the polls and, No. 2, raise questions about the election.''

AAbshier at Dailykos has more (bold text is my emphasis):

From today's Tampa Tribune:    

The Republican Party said Tuesday that it may equip its Florida poll watchers with lists of voters  whose registrations appear fraudulent, then use a little-known section of state law to try blocking them from voting as they arrive at the polls.

With both sides amassing armies of lawyers, the prospect of the fight working its way into neighborhood polling stations is frightening county elections supervisors because the arcane procedure is so unwieldy that it could SHUT DOWN ENTIRE STATIONS EACH TIME IT IS EXERCISED (emphasis mine).

...The sidebar (on the print edition, not the online edition), breaks down the procedure, with my comments in italics:  

1. The observer cites reasons for the challenge in an affadavit.

2. The would-be voter is notifed of the challenge and asked to file a written response.

3. Precinct workers (that is, all those INSIDE the polling station on Election Day) vote on whether the challenge should be upheld or denied.  The article later states that at this time ALL voting in the entire polling place is suspended during this part of the procedure, while the precinct workers convene to consider a challenge!

4. If the poll workers uphold the challenge, the voter is allowed to fill out a provisional ballot to be considered later by the county canvassing board.

The governing statute, Title IX, Chapter 101.111, can be found here.  This is meant to be used in isolated, individual cases only.  Two election supervisors interviewed for the story, both Republicans, stated they had essentially never encountered challenges brought under provisions of this statute.

The Republicans are doing this because there are no provisions for filing challenges before Election Day.  The prospect of having entire precincts shut down to address challenges under this statute is very bad.

The St. Petersburg Times reports (via Buzzflash):

Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday he would have no problem if Republican poll watchers challenge the eligibility of voters before they cast ballots on Election Day, despite growing concern that it could create gridlock and scare away qualified voters.

"I don't think it will cause problems," Bush said. "I do think that people who are not eligible to vote shouldn't and the people who are should."

UPDATE 10/30/04

Norwood at Dailykos adds this new, unsuprising twist:

Now, state GOP officials are making a big stink over what they say are ineligible ex-felons who have already voted or who have registered and plan to vote.  They are threatening to bring in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate what they claim is an emerging case of fraud.
...
Here's the SP Times.

The Florida Republican Party said Thursday that more than 900 felons already have voted illegally or requested absentee ballots, triggering another controversy over the party's aggressive efforts to identify Floridians who might be unqualified to vote.

Using two controversial and flawed state databases, Republicans also said they identified an additional 13,568 felons expected to vote by Election Day, based on their participation in the 2000 or 2002 elections or their recent registration as a new voter.

The list of 921 felons who have already voted includes 65 names from Hillsborough County; 36 from Pinellas County; 11 from Hernando; three from Citrus; and one from Pasco. The party plans to give all its information to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for investigation.

"We believe this is simply the tip of the iceberg and there could be potentially additional felons who have registered," said Mindy Tucker Fletcher, spokesman for the Florida Republican Party.

But within hours of the Republicans' announcement came indications that the GOP list may suffer some of the same problems that caused Secretary of State Glenda Hood to scrap her controversial list of 47,763 suspected felon voters in July.

Reporters for the St. Petersburg Times quickly found two Tampa Bay area individuals on the GOP list who say they have had their voting rights restored.

Records show Neal D. Bolinger, 57, of St. Petersburg had his rights restored in 1974, two years after his conviction for grand larceny, and has been voting ever since.

He used an absentee ballot last week to vote straight Republican.

It's the second time in four years his name has been flagged. He had to convince Pinellas County election officials in 2000 that he was qualified.

"If every four years I come up on the list and have to have myself reinstated, that will become a problem, and I'll have to start shaking some trees," he said.

Tampa resident Jeffrey Arnold, 44, said he received his clemency more than a dozen years ago and has been voting ever since. The exact status of Arnold and others could not be confirmed Thursday by the Times.

Fletcher acknowledges the GOP's list started with flawed data.

Besides the state's controversial felon voting list, it relied on a Florida Parole Commission clemency list, updated through Oct.14, that has proven inaccurate in the past because it does not include many felons whose rights were restored under Gov. Reubin Askew in the 1970s.

"We felt it was important to see if supervisors (of elections) had done their jobs and cleaned their list when some admitted they hadn't," Fletcher said. "We wanted to see if the law was being broken across the state systematically."

But some supervisors countered that the list came from the same database Hood had ordered them not to use.

"Why would they use a list that is determined to have errors?" asked Pinellas supervisor Deborah Clark. "If their real objective is to keep ineligible voters from casting ballots, why didn't they give the list to supervisor of elections right away? No one from the Republican Party has contacted me."

Hillsborough Supervisor Buddy Johnson sounded a similar theme.

"I don't have the same information," he said. "I'm not removing anyone off any voter list until I have ascertained that they are in fact a felon."

Blogwood has an update from the St. Petersburg Times:

Hoping to ease rising concern over voter challenges, state elections officials on Friday released new guidelines for handling such challenges without delaying other voters.

The four-page memo from state Elections Director Dawn Roberts was an attempt to clarify a 109-year-old election law that in recent days has generated widespread anxiety about whether it would be used to deter voters.

The memo emphasizes that voter challenges must be resolved without delaying other voters.

It says that even if a challenge is successful, the voter must be given the option to file a provisional ballot. And it reaffirms that inclusion on a controversial state felon list is not sufficient evidence to sustain a challenge.

The new guidelines are the state's first formal response to concerns that the arcane poll watcher law has the potential to cause problems on Election Day. As recently as Wednesday, Gov. Jeb Bush said he didn't expect poll watcher challenges to be a problem.

"Everybody is more focused on this now days before the election," said Deputy Secretary of State Alia Faraj. "We wanted to make sure that supervisors are clear on the procedures outlined in state law. . . . It requires more than just (a poll watcher) pointing at someone in the precinct. There's a process in place."

Faraj said the memo, sent to county elections officials on Thursday, was written after repeated conversations with local election officials, who reported multiple inquiries from attorneys.

Republican Party officials have said they are considering having their poll watchers challenge felons or other voters they consider ineligible.

On Thursday, the GOP unveiled part of its research: a list of 921 felons that it thinks have already voted early or requested an absentee ballot in violation of state law. The list was culled from flawed state databases.
...
Mindy Tucker Fletcher, spokesman for the Florida Republican Party, called the memo "reasonable and balanced. If there is one thing we learned from 2000, it's that it's important to have the rules laid out beforehand."

Supervisors of elections appeared to welcome the advice as they braced for record numbers of poll watchers. By the end of the day Friday, more than a dozen counties had talked with state elections officials to say they planned to follow Roberts' guidelines.

UPDATE 10/31/04

Robin at Dailykos has this update:

I guess it's naive of me to keep being shocked by this kind of thing, but I really hope I will never read news like this and just shrug it off as par for the course:

From this morning's St. Petersburg Times

In Miami-Dade County, Democrats said, 59 percent of predominantly black precincts have at least one Republican poll watcher, while 24 percent of predominantly white precincts have them. In Leon County, 64 percent of black precincts have at least one Republican poll watcher, compared with 24 percent of majority white precincts. In Alachua, 71 percent of black precincts have a Republican poll watcher assigned, while 24 percent of white precincts do.

 

10/22/04 [Permalink] UPDATED 11/1/04
Low income, minority and elderly Florida voters (a Democratic leaning group) fraudulently asked to give away absentee ballots to strangers pretending to be election officials; others illegally asked to vote "at home" or provide information on parking tickets, debt or arrest records. 

Via Atrios, we have this report in the St. Petersburg Times (bold text is my emphasis):

Pasco elections officials have a warning for the county's absentee voters: Don't give your ballot to a stranger claiming to be from the elections office.

They're not who they say they are.

"The people who are soliciting your ballots in this manner are not elections officials," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning warned Thursday.

The warning came after a phone call from a west Pasco woman. Other Florida counties have gotten similar complaints.

"We've had a bunch of them - 100 at least," said Bob Sweat, elections supervisor for Manatee County. "It's probably going on all over the state of Florida."

The Pasco woman said someone came to her home to collect her absentee ballot earlier this week. She said she was led to believe they were from the elections office. The woman told the strangers she hadn't completed the ballot, but they took it anyway.
...
Browning's office had not yet received the woman's absentee ballot Thursday. Given the circumstances, Browning arranged to send her another.

Other counties have had numerous complaints about similar misrepresentations.

"We've had a few people with those complaints - I'd say less than 10," said Dan Nolan, chief of staff for Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson. Johnson said he routinely advises voters to send their absentee ballots in via mail, or to bring it directly to his office.

In Manatee, there have been numerous complaints, and the Sheriff's Office is investigating.

Manatee Elections Supervisor Sweat said the people collecting the ballots appeared to know exactly who had absentee ballots. It is possible for political parties, candidates and political groups to get lists of voters who request the absentee ballots.

Sweat said it appeared the collections were occurring in neighborhoods full of low-income, minority and elderly residents.
...
In his warning, Browning said, "I need to make it very clear that my office will never show up at your place of residence to collect your absentee ballot."

Here's another report in the St. Petersburg Times, via Election Protection:

When Dolores Cuellar of Orlando opened her door and saw a woman with a clipboard, she didn't hesitate to say which candidate she preferred.

"Not Bush," said Cuellar, 42. "The other one."

The woman told Cuellar she didn't need to bother going to the polls. She would mark Cuellar's vote on a piece of paper right there. And while she was at it, she also would record a vote for Cuellar's 18-year-old daughter.

Cuellar, who had never voted before, said she mistakenly thought she had just voted.

"You never know what can be true or what can't be true," said her daughter, Julie Herrera, who later grew suspicious and called county elections officials.

Across Florida, elections officials say voters are being approached by individuals misrepresenting themselves and offering misleading or inaccurate information about voting.

Voters cannot vote at home and do not have to answer personal questions before casting a ballot, election officials say. Election officials won't show up unannounced at private homes, either.

Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson said he has heard about a group asking voters at the County Center if they have ever been arrested, have outstanding parking tickets or any debt.

People holding clipboards stood outside the County Center last week, offering to direct voters to the 16th-floor election office. They said they were from a voter registration office.<