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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Roger A. Babb who wrote (8304)	12/3/2000 9:55:58 PM
From: Northern Marlin	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 10042

Here are the facts of the Seminole County case, as reported in the Washington Post, November 30: The Seminole lawsuit stems from reforms enacted by the GOP-controlled legislature in 1998 to counter absentee ballot fraud in the Miami mayoral race the year before. To prevent a recurrence, the legislature said that only a voter, an immediate family member or legal guardian could request an absentee ballot, and that the request must include explicit details such as a voter ID number. In Seminole County, the Democrats included voter ID numbers on absentee ballot requests they printed up and sent to their supporters, but a software glitch omitted that information from 80 percent of the forms the GOP mailed. The suit accuses Seminole's Republican supervisor of elections, Sandra S. Goard, of "corrupting" the electoral process by allowing GOP workers to sit in her office for about 10 days in October so they could "alter" Republican application forms for absentee ballots that Goard had rejected. Once the applications were revised, Goard accepted them and sent the ballots. In a deposition last week, Goard said she had rejected ballot requests that did not contain voter ID numbers as required by Florida law, but then approved a telephoned GOP plea to let Republican workers add those numbers to Republican applications. Goard said her office sorted out the Republican rejects so they could be revised, but left rejected Democratic and independent applications sitting in a discard box. Goard acknowledged getting a complaint from Seminole Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe, who called around Oct. 30. She said she couldn't remember what she told him. Poe has told reporters she told him to "go fly a kite." Plaintiff Harry Jacobs, a flamboyant personal injury lawyer known for his television advertising, said in an affidavit that he overheard one of Goard's employees talking about how Republican absentee materials had been modified while he was observing a Nov. 8 recount in the office. He said Goard and the two other members of Seminole's canvassing board refused to investigate his allegations. Bush lawyers say that Florida law clearly permits anyone to assist a voter in filling out an absentee ballot application. For what it's worth, here's my perception of the political situation in Florida, and of Gore's plight: Message 14930071 Phil