Posted on 10/16/2016 7:41:16 AM PDT by bobsunshine
A U.S. District Court judge issued a rare but fiery order Saturday lambasting the Florida secretary of state's response to a lawsuit filed by the Florida Democratic Party to change rules for vote-by-mail ballots to prevent thousands of them from being tossed.
Judge Mark Walker wrote that Secretary of State Ken Detzner has one week to respond to the Oct. 3 lawsuit that seeks to allow voters who cast mail-in ballots with mismatched signatures to cast an updated ballot before the Nov. 8 election.
Detzner’s lawyer contends the Department of State is not the right agency to be sued and that the case should be dismissed.
“The mischief associated with the Florida Secretary of State’s shenanigans is that, assuming he is right, it doesn’t enable the proper party to be joined, thus disenfranchising thousands,” Walker wrote. “But this isn’t a game; this Court will not allow the Florida Secretary of State — a high-level officer of the State of Florida — to take a knee and deprive Florida citizens of their most precious right.”
In the 2012 general election, 2.38 million mail-in ballots were cast, or 28 percent of the total 8.5 million ballots counted, according to state elections data.
Under state law, mail-in ballots with mismatched signatures and those without any signatures are considered illegal.
But state law allows voters who cast ballots without signatures to recast their votes in time for Election Day.
Ballots that are determined by county supervisor of elections employees to have signatures that do not match signatures on file are balled up and thrown away, without any chance for voters to recast them, Walker said.
“In short, we’re not talking about a mere inconvenience or a minor barrier to voting; we’re talking about taking as many as 23,000 ballots, crumbling them into balls, and throwing them in the trash like dirty tissue, without any opportunity to cure,” he wrote.
Walker also decided to take the case under advisement and canceled a Monday hearing scheduled to determine a ruling. He instead ordered the state Democratic Party to issue a response by Sunday night.
Walker already ruled in favor of another request by the state Democratic Party this week to extend the deadline for voter registration until Oct. 18 due to Hurricane Matthew. Gov. Rick Scott had denied the extension.
The judge found that state law may not provide Scott with the power to move voter registration due to an emergency, but the governor still should have done so in the spirit of voters’ rights, Walker ruled.
The judge should be ignored. The Constitution places original jurisdiction for cases involving States in the Supreme Court.
Since when do Democrat judges get to rig the elections for Democrat voter fraud by over-ruling state election laws? This must be taken to a higher court, ad hopefully this judge will be impeached.
This judge is Straight out admitting that The governor would have to break the law to extend the deadline and then telling the governor that he should have done so. This judge should be disbarred.
On top of that the Ballots with mismatched signatures are Fraud. This judge wants Fruadsters to have the chance to try again. Florida should go after everyone of them with the intent of possible prosecution.
If America can’t get rid of these dirty judges then we are doomed no matter who is in congress or the presidency.
A ballot with a forged or false signature is criminal fraud. They should all be prosecuted for felony fraud and lose their right to vote forever. The Sec. of State is way too lax by just throwing them away. Send them to the prosecutor. Absentee ballots are executed under penalty of prosecution if false. They need to answer the the judge at the hearing with a stack of criminal fraud complaints.
The judge found that state law may not provide Scott with the power to move voter registration due to an emergency, but the governor still should have done so in the spirit of voters’ rights, Walker ruled.
Sounds like “Conspiracy to Commit Vote Fraud” by the Judge. Maybe the Local DA should go to the Grand Jury and Indict his funny ass.
I dont see how the authorities can accurately discern the signatures anyway. My signature is not always identical to the last time I signed. They need fingerprints.
What would your dad say and many other dads now long gone..???
They would say this: Stand up for what you KNOW is right, do not sit idly by and let this election be stolen from us. This is what THEY all fought for, for our right to defend this great nation.
Like Judge Jeannine says...... Put on your BIG BOY Pants and get out to vote for Donald J. Trump, get everyone you know to vote for DJT, put signs out in the yard, put bumper stickers on your cars, make phone calls - LET’S DO THIS. Time is short. Everyone of us needs to do our part AND MORE. That’s what our dads would say.
Who agrees?
Impeach? No.
Death penalty for all Democrat Judges rigging the vote.
Illegal is illegal judge.
I guess that’s a rather strange concept for you huh.
Teddy's gift. Southern States lost the right to run their elections, through the equal rights amendment.
I agree. Lot of people don’t understand that these are not normal times.....they are sealing the country right out from under us.
Voting Rights Amendment Amends the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with respect to the requirement that a federal court retain jurisdiction for an appropriate period to prevent commencement of new devices to deny or abridge the right to vote. Expands the types of violations triggering the authority of a court to retain such jurisdiction to include certain violations of the Act as well as violations of any federal voting rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.
Mail in ballots are an open invitation to fraud, they should be eliminated.
Do lawyers for the Florida SOS know how to file an appeal and seek a stay on this judges overreach until their appeal is heard?
Florida has voter ID laws that have been on the books for decades (at least as early as 1968). The problems in the past, and currently are in South Florida, where Northern Dems have migrated and screwed up the system. In that part of the state, the Dems reign supreme.
The interesting thing is that the ballot has no place for a signature. Instead the outside of the envelop is signed. That in itself creates a high potential for fraud.
Strange, I live in Florida. I have been voting since 1968. Since my signature is on file, from me signing in when I voted last, it is easy to match my signature (if I were to vote absentee).
Unfortunately there are probably thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of “registered Democrats”, who have never voted in person. Many of these are street people, homeless, and uninterested citizens, that are signed up each time there is a voter registration drive (think ACORN and other groups).
Each time a federal election is held, they magically vote absentee (national resources are available to produce the fake absentee ballots).
Many of those who have been registered by third party (”nonpartisan”) collection groups, have never actually voted at all, their “absentee ballots” are created and mailed without their knowledge. How many show up to vote and find they already have voted absentee (not many, but it does happen). There is probably a great number of people who have registered with these groups, never voted, and yet have a registered ballot on file.
The dead do vote for Democrats, even if they were Republican, when alive. This is not to mention the illegals, and green card holders, who vote illegally (motor voter enrollment).
Back in 2012 in Lee County, Florida, the following story was filed:
LEE COUNTY -
A state-wide investigation could impact Florida's primary and general elections. As many as 180,000 ineligible voters were uncovered following an NBC2 investigation into voter fraud.
The number drastically increased since our story first aired on Monday.
You can bet this same kind of thing is still going on. Florida's Supervisors of Elections (S.O.E.) have been cleaning rolls over the last couple of years, but have had to fight Obama’s DOJ at every turn. Unfortunately many of the South Florida Supervisors of Elections are part of the DEM political machine.
Recently one Central Florida voter discovered her party affiliation had been changed from Republican to non affiliated, by a third party voter registration group, and she couldn't vote in the Republican primary. I believe she said she never re-registered.
Every registered voter needs to check with their Supervisor of Election, make sure they are registered correctly, and have not already voted, without their knowledge.
We need to produce red shirts with “Les Deplorables, and show up at voter precincts on election day. It would be wonderful, if after voting those wearing red shirts would gather, and just stand across from the precincts for the remainder of the day. I'm sure this would get the Media's attention until the crowd got too big. They then would try to slant the story.
Actually, I believe that any request from a voter for an absentee ballot, should be done in person, with ID. The one exception should be the military.
The original reason for a request for an absentee ballot was so that a voter who would out of town on election day, would not be disenfranchised. This also covered anyone who was tied up with a vital job, that would not allow them to vote in person.
I believe that a Democrat Operative was caught on film recently saying that there would be no problem tearing up Republican voter registration forms, once collected.
Now the DEMS in Florida are proclaiming that the filming was illegal, and the producer should be arrested.
I also wouldn't put it beyond the Dems to toss ballots without signatures, then scream about ballots being destroyed with unmatched signatures, just to make their issue of unmatched signatures stronger in a Federal Judge's eyes.
Dems always accuse Republicans of doing exactly what they have already done, and are continuing to do, to draw attention away from themselves (look at what is going on in this election).
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