Posted on 10/23/2004 7:24:02 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Secretary of State Glenda Hood has asked the FBI to investigate reports of the same people voting in two states in the last two major elections, and Florida college students claim they have been tricked into registering as Republicans.
The FBI has told Hood that the Justice Department is reviewing the matter, but the correspondence did not go as far as saying it was under investigation, Alia Faraj, Hood's spokeswoman, said Saturday.
Hood notified the federal Election Assistance Commission and the state's congressional delegation about reports of double voting and duplicate registrations in August. Election offices across the state also have been notified.
Double voting was reported Friday by the Orlando Sentinel by more than 1,600 people in Florida and in Georgia or North Carolina in 2000 and 2002.
The New York Daily News reported in August that up to 1,000 voters may have cast ballots in both Florida and New York City. Hood said election officials had forwarded information to investigators about a voter applying for absentee ballots from both Florida and Michigan.
"Unfortunately there will always be people who try to beat the system," Faraj said. "This isn't about anything more than keeping the integrity of the process pure for the voters and the people who respect this process here in the United States."
Separately, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has formed a statewide task force to review widespread allegations of voter fraud.
Officials say more than 4,200 students may have been improperly registered at the University of Florida, Florida State University, Florida A&M University, the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida and community colleges in Orlando, Tallahassee and Gainesville.
About 3,000 forms have been questioned in Tallahassee, home of Florida State and Florida A&M, and 1,200 in Gainesville, home of the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College.
Some students said their party affiliations were switched without them knowing it, and others said they were tricked into registering Republican when they were asked to sign an assortment of petitions and forms.
At USF, one complaint said a group used applications that were premarked for Republican registrations on the Tampa campus. Another student told campus police that students were asked to sign two petitions, and the Republican box was checked off after the students left.
Some students have attributed the registration work to Mark Jacoby, whose Tampa-area company has been working for the GOP. Jacoby said Tuesday that every person was asked to initial a box indicating a change in party affiliation.
Party affiliations do not affect a voter's ability to cast a ballot in the Nov. 2 presidential election.
FDLE has singled out the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, for filing registration forms after the cutoff date. The group said it has fired and disciplined some workers.
In Florida, each instance of voter fraud can be prosecuted as a felony carrying a possible five-year prison sentence and $5,000 fine.
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Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
It sounds like the courts are slapping the democrats down in most of thier legal challenges. On FOX tonight it was reported that the democrats had filed suit in something like 25 separate cases and had lost 22 of them.
Exactly. This should have all be taken care of before now in light of what this country went through in 2000.
Suspicious - Who's accusing the repubbie's of changing registration?
In other words, are the accusations (against a repub registration effort) valid complaints?
Or democrat distractions and lies?
What would be the benefit of changing someones regisration, other than they couldn't vote in the primaries, which ended months ago?
It seems to me that would work to Demos advantage, by making the Republicans think they had more votes than they really did. Can anyone think of a reason? It certainly wouldn't affect Nov. 2.
Exactly. There is no benefit to it for Republicans, and no Republican would be stupid enough to do this. These people can still vote they way they want on Nov. 2.
My guess is that these are hacks that organized this whole thing--register as Republicans at a Bush-Cheney registration event, later blame their registration as Republicans on Bush-Cheney.
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