The issue is - as described in the article (to which I provided a link) Republican tampering.* see below
leg.state.fl.us
104.047 Absentee ballots and voting; violations.-- ** see below
Look. I originally posted this:
Message 14873086
To: MKTBUZZ who started this subject
From: Ellen
Friday, Nov 24, 2000 8:41 AM ET
Reply # of 86607
Why did Republicans "fix" so many absentee ballots[here I DID inadvertently refer to applications as ballots] in Seminole County? Why were they allowed to do this?
latimes.com
Judge Upholds Democrat's Lawsuit Over Absentee Applications
Courts: Floridian can go forward with
challenge of Seminole County ballots. He contends only
GOP was allowed to add required ID numbers.
perkel.com;
I then posted this:
Which, if you had bothered to see, was a link to a post someone made on another thread. I re-posted here, in case you don't understand that.
Message 14873207
To: U Up U Down who wrote (86255)
From: Ellen
Friday, Nov 24, 2000 9:17 AM ET
Reply # of 86608
Message 14872781
LEGAL BATTLE DEVELOPS OVER DISCARDING ABSENTEE BALLOTS
A judge ordered a hearing on attempts to throw out 15,000 absentee ballots in a republican stronghold.
By Phil Long and Mark Silva Knight Ridder News Service
Miami- A potentially explosive legal battle over the presidential election is developing in Seminole County, where a judge has ordered a hearing in a lawsuit that seeks to
throw out more than 15,000 absentee ballots in one of the GOP's biggest strongholds. Circuit Judge Debra Nelson has scheduled a hearing Monday in the suit, filed last
week by Central Florida attorney Harry Jacobs. Earlier this week she rejected a Republican motion to dismiss this suit.
If the court were to rule for Jacobs, the math would certainly break Al Gore's way. In Seminole County, Bush got 10,006 absentee ballots to gore's 5,209. With recounts
under way in three South Florida counties, Bush leads by just 930 votes. Eliminating Seminole's absentees would give Gore more than a 4,000 vote lead over Bush. (The
democratic absentees applications and votes were apparently valid however, which would give Gore a 9,000 vote lead in Florida.)
At issue is whether Seminole County Elections Supervisor Sandra Goard violated state law by giving two GOP workers what the suit call "unrestricted" and
"unsupervised" access to ballot applications.
Jacobs suit claims that for TWO WEEKS before the election, the two Republican volunteers sat in an office in Goard's department "correcting" several thousand
republican absentee ballot requests that lacked essential information and already had been rejected. Similar provisions were NOT made for democratic and independent
absentee ballot requests, says Jacobs.
"Ms. Goard's misconduct resulted in the counting of thousands of illegal votes by absentee ballots," the suit says. The stakes are high.
..... "This is not an official action of the Gore campaign," said Gerald Richman, a Miami lawyer and former candidate for Congress who represents Jacobs.....
..... The suit is the outcome of a push by both parties to press for the absentee vote. Both parties printed up sent them to voters. Those who wanted to vote absentee filled
in the requests and sent them to the elections office.
But the Republican's preprinted form left off CRITICAL information required by law: the applicant's voter registration number. When the ballot applications came in
without voter ID numbers, they were rejected and placed in storage, the suit says. When Republicans learned of the problem, they persuaded Goard to let them use their
records to add voter ID numbers to the requests, the suit says.
Democrats and others were not made aware of potential problems with any of their ballots. Goard, A Republican, has declined comment.
...A university of Miami law professor said allowing the Republicans to change the forms was akin to "putting a thumb on the scale.
"If the supervisor of elections staff had been going through the requests and adding the information, that would be one thing," Professor Terence Anderson said. "But to
let the Republican come in and do it, WOW, that's tricky."
He added: "This one is a serious lawsuit. I don't know why we didn't hear about it sooner."
You falsely accused me of editing it:
Message 14873375
* The issue is - as described in the article (to which I provided a link) Republicans tampering.
For the third time, here is the link: latimes.com
The whole article:
Tuesday, November 21, 2000 | Print this story
Judge Upholds Democrat's Lawsuit Over Absentee Applications
Courts: Floridian can go forward with challenge of Seminole County ballots. He contends only
GOP was allowed to add required ID numbers.
By MITCHELL LANDSBERG, Times Staff Writer
SANFORD, Fla.--In her many years as an election official in Seminole County, Sandra Goard
never imagined she would be at the center of a dispute that could determine the U.S. presidency.
"Never in my wildest dreams," Goard said Monday after a judge ruled that a Democratic voter
could go forward with a lawsuit challenging the handling of absentee ballots in her predominantly
Republican, central Florida county. "Maybe I should say, never in my wildest nightmares."
While attention has focused on vote-count disputes in three large, heavily Democratic counties,
Seminole--a fast-growing suburban pocket tucked into the lakes and woods north of Orlando--has
begun to shape up as a fourth front in the battle for Florida's 25 electoral votes.
Democrat Harry Jacobs, a personal injury lawyer, has sued Goard, the county election
canvassing board and the Republican Party--charging that the election chief improperly allowed
two GOP operatives to set up shop in her office for 10 days sometime before the Nov. 7 election.
Once there, the Republicans were allowed to fix thousands of improperly filled-out applications for
absentee ballots that had been sent in by GOP voters.
Jacobs has demanded that the court throw out all of the county's 17,000 absentee
ballots--10,006 of which went to Republican George W. Bush. Democrat Al Gore won 5,209 of the
absentee votes. In the improbable math of the 2000 presidential election, Seminole County has
provided yet another way--unlikely, perhaps, but possible--for Gore to erase Bush's 900-plus-vote
lead and win the White House.
Judge Denies GOP Motion to Dismiss Democrat's Suit
In Monday's ruling, county Circuit Judge Debra Nelson, a recent appointee of Republican Gov.
Jeb Bush, denied a GOP motion to dismiss Jacobs' lawsuit and said she would go ahead with a
hearing on the case next Monday.
Underscoring the importance of the dispute, the state Republican Party and the Bush campaign
sent more than half a dozen representatives to the courthouse to pick up copies of Nelson's order
and provide some spin to the news media.
"Al Gore just cannot accept defeat," fumed Seminole County's Republican chairman Jim Stelling,
who believes the GOP will win the case next week.
"I don't think any judge in the land is going to want to throw out 15,000 votes," he said.
Jacobs said he was "delighted" by Monday's ruling and noted a precedent: In 1998, a judge in
Miami threw out all 5,000 absentee ballots in the previous year's mayoral election over charges of
tampering. As a result, Mayor Xavier Suarez had to step down and hand City Hall over to his
opponent Joe Carollo.
Both sides in the Seminole County dispute agree on the central facts of the case. At some point
before the election, Republicans statewide sent out a mailer to voters that included an absentee
ballot application. But there was a problem: The vendor who produced the mailers neglected to
include any reference to voter identification numbers, which are required by Florida law.
After realizing the mistake, the party sent two staffers to Goard's office. With her blessing, they
went through the applications and, using a voter registration database, added the voter
identification numbers to each application.
Ballots then were sent to the voters involved, who had no reason to know that their
applications had been amended.
Goard referred all questions about the case to her attorney, Jim Hattaway, who agreed with
Republican officials that she had done nothing wrong.
"There are very specific statutes that govern what can and can't be done with ballots, and
nothing in those statutes says you can't do this," he said.
Stelling said Goard was just doing her job of encouraging people to vote. In fact, he said, the
whole issue arose because she is such a stickler and demanded the identification numbers.
Stelling said Republicans used the same flawed applications statewide, and he was aware of no
other county challenging them.
Officials with the state Republican Party did not return calls to explain what happened elsewhere
in the state. However, in at least one large jurisdiction--Leon County, which includes
Tallahassee--an election official said local Republicans fixed the applications to include the
identification numbers before sending them to voters.
Democrat Who Filed Suit Cites Unequal Opportunity
Jacobs said he wasn't so much bothered by the fact that the Republicans were allowed to fix the
applications--although he insisted that it violated state law--as he was that Goard didn't extend the
same opportunity to Democrats who made mistakes in their applications.
"If she had given access to others . . . then it would be a little harder to complain," he said. "She
didn't do that, and that's what's so important in this instance. . . . She walked hand in hand with the
Republican Party in Seminole County to get out the vote for the Republicans."
He said he knew of at least one family in which a woman who was a Republican filled out the
application and received her ballot normally, while her husband, a Democrat, hand-wrote an
application and didn't receive his. The man later was able to get a ballot after complaining to
election officials.
Jacobs speculated that "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of other Democratic voters did not
receive the absentee ballots they requested.
"So it's very one-sided, very selective and very well could have affected the outcome of the
race," he said.
** leg.state.fl.us
104.047 Absentee ballots and voting; violations.--
(1) Any person who provides or offers to provide, and any person who accepts, a pecuniary or
other benefit in exchange for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, delivering, or
otherwise physically possessing absentee ballots, except as provided in ss.
101.6105-101.694, is guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s.
775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
(2) Except as provided in s. 101.62 or s. 101.655, any person who requests an absentee
ballot on behalf of an elector is guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in
s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
(3) Any person, other than a notary or other officer entitled to administer oaths or an
absentee ballot coordinator as provided by s. 101.685, who witnesses more than five ballots
in any single election, is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in
s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
(4) Any person who marks or designates a choice on the ballot of another person, except as
provided in s. 101.051, s. 101.655, or s. 101.661, is guilty of a felony of the third degree,
punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
(5) Any person who returns more than two absentee ballots to the supervisors of elections in
violation of s. 101.647 is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in
s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
History.--s. 26, ch. 98-129; s. 34, ch. 99-2.
leg.state.fl.us
104.012 Consideration for registration; interference with registration; soliciting
registrations for compensation; alteration of registration application.--
...
(4) A person who alters the voter registration application of any other person, without the
other person's knowledge and consent, commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as
provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
leg.state.fl.us
104.031 False declaration to secure assistance in preparing ballot.--Any person who
makes a false declaration for assistance in voting, or in the preparation of his or her ballot, in
any election is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s.
775.082 or s. 775.083. |
