Posted on 10/07/2004 10:57:01 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Duval County elections officials asked state prosecutors Thursday to investigate possible voter fraud involving 25 registration forms that appear to have bogus addresses, including some that match a public park, a parking lot and a Jacksonville utilities building.
Two of the forms were filled out by individuals at the elections office and 23 were submitted by people who registered voters independently. Officials didn't immediately know who turned in the independent registrations, said Erin Moody, a spokeswoman for the county elections office.
The disclosure is the latest wrinkle to surface as the state tries to avoid problems reminiscent of the 2000 presidential race, when President Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes in a disputed election that involved accusations votes weren't properly counted and people were wrongly removed from election rolls.
Duval county had already registered the voters before someone election officials declined to identify tipped them off about the suspicious information. All but three of the individuals registered as Democrats. Two chose no party and one checked Republican.
The Associated Press checked each address and found only one that matched an occupied house. Most of the addresses didn't exist. Residents at the occupied house said they moved in this week and did not know the person registered at the address.
The elections office reviews registrations to make sure forms are properly filled out and that there is no questionable information. Moody said the 25 forms were turned over to the state attorney's office in Jacksonville.
Reached late Thursday, State Attorney Harry Shorstein indicated he hadn't yet seen the forms.
With more than 500,000 registered voters in Duval, it would be impossible to verify each address, Moody said. Elections officials don't check if a specific address is legitimate but they verify through county records that it falls within the range of numbers assigned to the listed street.
Several counties have discovered problems with voter registration forms turned in by several independent groups this election season. Thousands are missing information, meaning thousands could find out Nov. 2 that they are unable to vote.
"There are many problems across the state, it's almost daily now that were hearing examples of things that are being brought to supervisors' attention," said Alia Faraj, spokeswoman for the Department of State, which oversees elections in Florida.
As well as incomplete forms, Faraj said county election supervisors have received boxes of registrations after the Oct. 4 deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 2 election. While the people will be registered, they will have to wait until the following election to actually vote.
Independent groups have registered hundreds of thousands of Florida voters this election ahead of a presidential election expected to be a tight contest between Bush and Democrat John Kerry.
"While many of these group are well intentioned and we appreciate their efforts to register voters, there are some groups out there that are not being responsible and not ensuring that voters will be able to participate in the process," Faraj said.
Some of the groups said they did their best to weed out problems ahead of time. The Florida Consumer Action Network turned in 86,672 registration forms and said checks were made to make sure all were complete, accurately filled out and turned in before the deadline.
"We're not trying to pad our numbers with fraudulent claims," said Philip Compton, who is directing the group's Florida voter drive. "Sending in incomplete registrations or erroneous registrations would not achieve our goal in any way."
That doesn't mean FCAN hasn't found problems. One of its Orange County workers was fired after the organization discovered she was apparently copying names and addresses from telephone directories. The organization turned in about 1,400 registration forms Monday. It asked the county to review 10 submitted by the fired woman and asked the county to determine whether they were legitimate.
The Orange County elections office told The Associated Press on Monday that the group had planned to turn in 2,000 incomplete voter registration forms. Nora Patchnik of FCAN said that was a misunderstanding from a telephone call in which she mentioned the 10 questionable forms.
This year, in addition to registration problems, there have been disputes over the lack of a paper trail on touchscreen voting machines and a faulty list that was being used to purge felons from voter rolls. The felon list was eventually scrapped by the Department of State.
The Advancement Project, a Washington group working with several organizations conducting voter registration drives, including some in Duval County, accused the state of overstating problems with work being done by independent groups, particularly given other problems with the voting system.
"I don't think one bad apple should spoil the hard work of the thousands of people who are registering people to vote," said Sabrina Williams, a spokeswoman for the organization.
Dems?
Ya think?
Vote fraud is not illegal.
If it were, people would be arrested for doing it.
They have to be asked? They should be told.
Sorry! Got all the Floriduh prosecutors wrapped up in chasing down Rush Limbaugh's doctors! Can't release any conclusions until after November 3rd! Ta-ta!
(/sarcasm)
I'll never understand this voter fraud. I have my voter registration card with MY name on it that matches MY driver's license which has MY photo on it. Why is this process so difficult? I've been voting since 1968 (wished I could have voted for Barry AU-H2O in 1964).
The government should distribute Public service information on the means, whys and where's to register. After that it's up to the individuals to go register.
Ping
The only way is to use a system of using picture id to vote. What other way is there to avoid fraud?
When I turned 18, I registered to vote.
No one told me to, asked me to or came round my house to remind me.
I knew at 18 I was finally eligible, so I did.
[Unfortunately I registered Dem. Being "sensible" does not automatically guarantee that you actually *have* any sense]...;))
That's a perfect way to avoid voter fraud, which is exactly why the Dems will never allow such a thing to happen.
I hope this election and the massive fraud associated with it leads to a more secure election system.
Please Pass Emergency Anti-Vote Fraud Measure Immediately!
Vote fraud threatens the very core of our republic, and it directly threatens our sovereignty
Please send the following message to your Congressmen and Senators:
Please pass, on an expedited basis, emergency legislation to require voters to show ID at all polling places on Election Day.
Vote fraud threatens the very core of our republic, and it directly threatens our sovereignty. There is a significant amount of evidence emerging that evinces a wide-spread plot to engage in massive voter fraud. Thus, Congress must take immediate action to counter this potential menace.
Congress has the express power to dictate the time, place, and manner in which federal elections are held. The congressional power to make or alter time, place, or manner of federal elections extends to the regulation of voter registration. Federal regulation of the electoral processes, including the regulation of federal voter registration, is also consistent with the Tenth Amendment and permissible; although states do have broad discretion to enact and implement registration procedures, states may not transgress the Constitution. It follows that state voter registration and Election Day statutes that are inconsistent with federal voter registration and Election Day mandates are preempted.
As per the Federal Court in Byrd v. Brice, the government may require a voter to furnish proof of identity at the polling place on Election Day. Such a measure would go a long way in protecting citizens’ federal voting rights from fraudulent practices.
Please set to work immediately on enacting emergency legislation to require a valid ID at the polling places on Election Day.
http://capwiz.com/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=6486121&content_dir=ua_congressorg&mailid=custom
How Democrats Steal Elections - Top 10 Methods of Liberal Vote Fraud
1. Over-Voting. In Democrat strongholds like St. Louis, Philadelphia and Detroit, some precincts had 100% of their registered voters voting, with 99% of the ballots going to Gore. Clearly, multiple voting resulted in extra tallies for Gore in the 2000 election. (New York Post, 12/09/00).
2. Dead Voters. This classic Democratic method of vote fraud goes all the way back to 1960 in Chicago and Dallas. The 2000 election was no exception. In Miami-Dade County, for example, some of the 144 ineligible votes (those which officials actually admitted to) were cast by dead people, including a Haitian-American who's been deceased since 1977 (Miami-Herald, 12/24/00).
3. Mystery Voters. These "voters" cast votes anyway but are not even registered to vote. In heavily Democratic Broward County, for example, more than 400 ballots were cast by non-registered voters. (Miami-Herald 1/09/01)
4. Military ballots. Many of these votes were disqualified for the most mundane and trivial reasons. At least 1,527 valid military ballots were discarded in Florida by Democratic vote counters (Drudge Report, 11/19/00).
5. Criminals. Felons are a natural Democratic voter and they're protected on voter rolls across the country. In Florida at least 445 ex-convicts - including rapists and murderers -- voted illegally on November 7th. Nearly all of them were registered Democrats. (Miami-Herald 12/01/00)
6. Illegal aliens. These voters have long been a core liberal constituency, especially in California. In Orange County in 1996, Rep. Bob Dornan had his congressional seat stolen from him when thousands of illegal aliens voted for Loretta Sanchez (Christian Science Monitor, 9/2/97).
7. Vote-buying. Purchasing votes has long been a traditional scheme by Democrats, and not just with money. In the 2000 election in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Democratic workers initiate a "smokes-for-votes" campaign in which they paid dozens of homeless men with cigarettes if they cast ballots for Al Gore (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 11/14/00).
8. Phantom Voters. These voters don't really exist, but their ballots do. In the 1996 Lousiana Senate race, GOP candidate Woody Jenkins had the election stolen from him when he discovered that 7,454 actual votes were cast but had no paper trail to authenticate them (Behind the Headlines, F.R. Duplantier, 4/27/97).
9. Dimpled chads. Those infamous punch-cards were a ballot bonanza for Al Gore. Democratic poll workers in Palm Beach, Dade and Broward counties tampered and manipulated thousands of ineligible ballots and counted them for Gore, even though no clear vote could be discerned. (NewsMax.com 11/27, 12/22, 11/18, 11/19/00).
10. Absentee ballots. Normally it's assumed that Republicans benefit from absentee ballots. But in the case of Miami's 1997 mayoral election, hundreds of absentee ballots were made for sale or sent out to non-Miami residents. Fraud was so extensive in the race that the final results were overturned in court (FL Dept. of Law Enforcement Report, 1/5/98)."
SOURCE: http://www.conservativeaction.org/resources.php3?nameid=votefraud
Links on freerepublic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=electionfraud
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=votefraud
WE MUST FIGHT VOTE FRAUD!
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