Bush, Cheney Left Off Mo. County Ballots

Yahoo/AP ^ | 10/6/04 | AP

[Reynolds]

VAN BUREN, Mo. - Officials in one Missouri county are reprinting absentee ballots for the Nov. 2 general election after discovering that President Bush (news - web sites) and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) were left off.

The ballots were mailed beginning Sept. 21, and Carter County Clerk Becky Gibbs said several voters noticed the oversight.

"We are rectifying it," she said. "There was no intent to leave them off."

Fewer than 500 of the erroneous ballots were sent out, and some have already been returned.

Replacement ballots will be sent to everyone who requested an absentee ballot along with a letter explaining the error.

Terri Durdaller, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State, said that if absentee voters who previously returned a ballot send a new one, it will replace the previous one. If they don't return a new ballot, their first one will be counted.

"The key is just to make sure everybody does get the changed ballot," Durdaller said.

Ballots that other voters will use Nov. 2 have not been printed yet.

Gibbs said the cost to print replacement absentee ballots should be minimal.

[Reynolds]

This is MESSED UP! They can't COUNT the bogus ballots that come in that didn't even OFFER Bush/Cheney as a choice! Those "answered" ballots should go in the TRASH and on the new CORRECT ones count or none at all. This is awful.

[steveegg]

Bravo Sierra.

[tioga]

More democratic foul play????

[joyce11111]

OMG...............this is going to be ONE huge fraudulent mess over the whole country.

[NRA2BFree]

It's bad alright, but thankfully they caught it before election day. Can you imagine how bad that would have been? I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. There's going to be more voter fraud than we realize.

[kingu]

This is MESSED UP!

If it was Kerry missing from the ballots, people would be storming the election office, banners would hang from New York overhangs, etc.

If these ballots are the margin of difference in a Bush loss, it'd be an interesting court case. Otherwise; huh. Call it a case of 'oops.'

[rockabyebaby]

I smell a (demo)RAT!

[Dusty Rose]

How can they have left off the President and Vice President of the United States!

[mabelkitty]

The key is to make everyone in the office hand deliver the correct ballot and collect the wrong one!!!

[rockabyebaby]

kerry would have edwards SUE the b*st*rds!

[rockabyebaby]

because they're idiots!

[VadeRetro]

The ballots were mailed beginning Sept. 21, and Carter County Clerk Becky Gibbs said several voters noticed the oversight. "We are rectifying it," she said. "There was no intent to leave them off."

Could easily happen of course. Some people are SO forgetful!

[dawn53]

The ballots were mailed beginning Sept. 21, and Carter County Clerk Becky Gibbs said several voters noticed the oversight.

Several voters...LOL! You mean to tell me that only "several" voters noticed that the President was missing from the ballot!

[atomicpossum]

Disenfranchisement!

[the_Watchman]

This is the second case of printed ballots which interfered with the ability to vote for Bush/Cheney. I guess it's not newsworthy unless there is an attempt to spoil a Kerry/Edwards vote.

BTW: Why is 'Cheney' NOT in the FR dictionary. That's as odd as 'internet' missing from the Microsoft Office dictionary.

[mystery-ak]

They left the Repub candidates of the ticket...and they missed THAT!!!...yeah, right!

[bitt]

"LICK MY SHOE, COMMONER, I STEPPED IN A BIG PILE...YOU do KNOW WHO I AM, DON'T YOU?"

[Tweaker]

Pray harder joyce, pray harder.

[RGSpincich]

And Lehrer "didn't mean to" say over 10,000 have died in Iraq...

[wrathof59]

If we can't insure that one party won't sabotage a national election, then we are further along to a third world country than I had originally thought.

The Darn Republicans won't say squat. I thought they were tougher, just more girlie-men.