Voters double-dip in Ohio, Fla.

More than 27,000 are registered in both states, could cast ballots in either place

Hundreds of voters could easily cast ballots Tuesday in both Ohio and Florida because they are eligible to vote in both states and have received absentee ballots from election officials in Ohio, The Plain Dealer has found.

These people are among more than 27,000 listed as active voters in both Ohio and Florida who could cast ballots in either of the two states, both among the most closely contested in the presidential race.

Despite increased scrutiny of voting procedures following the 2000 election - and a federal reform law aimed at shoring up the patchwork system - virtually nothing prevents transient voters from casting ballots in multiple states, testing a system that relies more on the honesty of individual voters than on any checks and balances.

As many as 400 people voted in Ohio and Florida in the same election over the past four years, records show. In the 2000 presidential election, about 100 Ohio voters also cast ballots in Florida - where the presidential race was decided by just 537 votes.

And though some states exchange voting records as residents move, it is not legally required, state officials say.

This opens a gaping hole in the election system, allowing thousands of voters to alternate between states, voting in Ohio in one election and in Florida the next - a practice frowned on by election officials in both states.

Florida's secretary of state, Glenda Hood, asked the U.S. Justice Department to launch an investigation of double-voting after other newspapers reported similar problems between Florida and other states.

But there is little that election officials can do to stop double-voting from occurring this week, if it hasn't happened already. For example:

More than 300 voters from Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Franklin counties received Ohio absentee ballots for Tuesday's election, though they are also eligible to vote in Florida. Many of these voters requested their Ohio ballots within days or weeks of registering to vote in Florida.

At least a handful of voters from the three counties requested absentee ballots from both states - potentially allowing them to vote twice without even going to a polling place.

Besides double-voters, records also show that thousands of voters have toggled from Ohio to Florida and back again since 2000. For example, 1,400 voters cast ballots in Ohio in 2000 and 2002 after registering in Florida.

"It is a problem," said Sharon Harrington, Lee County, Fla., supervisor. "Those are the ones that really ought to be caught."

Double registrations cross party lines: About 11,000 Republicans and 9,600 Democrats are registered in both states.

Voters registered in both states have not necessarily done anything wrong. When people move, they may not notify their elections boards to cancel their old registration. Federal law also requires election officials to keep idle voters on the books for at least four years, unless they learn that the voters have moved.

But even voters who migrate between multiple homes are supposed to declare a primary residence for voting purposes, said Carlo LoParo, an Ohio Secretary of State spokesman.

Residency rules differ from state to state. An Ohio voter must live in the state for at least 30 days. But in Florida, a voter only has to declare the state his or her primary home to register.

And once a voter has registered - swearing that county is his home - he shouldn't vote elsewhere, said Michael Greenman, a specialist with the Pinellas County, Fla., elections office.

Many states, like Ohio, have just begun to compile statewide registration lists to comply with the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act. Though this allows officials to find double-registrations within the state - voters registered in both Lake and Cuyahoga counties, for example - states rarely coordinate with one another.

Clearly, thousands of voters fall through the cracks. And gaps in the system are most easily exploited by absentee voting - which has become more common, and easier, with every election.

When an absentee ballot is mailed to another state, election workers don't check to see if the voter is registered there, too. So election officials don't know if a voter is registered twice.

For example, 18-year-old Zachary Graney of Bay Village received an Ohio absentee ballot in Coral Gables, Fla., where he registered to vote on Sept. 28. His father, Timothy, said Zachary, a University of Miami student, decided to vote in Florida after the first presidential debate was held on campus, and his son does not plan to return the Ohio ballot.

Michael Paparizos, 67, who lives in Independence and Pasco County, Fla., has also received an absentee ballot. Though he's registered in Florida, he says he has no plans to cast a vote there.

Summit County election officials sent an absentee ballot on Oct. 15 to 56-year-old James Boughton in Orlando. About three weeks earlier, Boughton, also a Democrat, registered in Florida at the same address. He could not be reached for comment.

The relaxed absentee rules also could allow some voters to get ballots mailed to them from two states without ever leaving their homes.

Records indicate that Donald and Maureen Christopher of Dublin have requested absentee ballots in both Ohio and Florida.

Maureen Christopher insists that she didn't make the Florida request, and believes that someone has used her and her husband's names. They moved from Naples, Fla., to Kentucky (where she says she's also registered) before moving to Franklin County less than two years ago.

"I can't believe this is happening," said Christopher, 68. "There's got to be a scam here someplace."

Joye Tilton, 81, said she requested an absentee ballot in Sarasota, Fla., but moved to Westerville before receiving it. She registered to vote in Franklin County on Aug. 18, and she's already cast her absentee ballot there, records show.

As of Thursday, Tilton's Florida absentee ballot had not been returned to the Sarasota County elections supervisor. Tilton said she doesn't know where the ballot is.

"We didn't know we were moving," said Tilton, who now lives in a nursing home near her daughter.

Some experts say the best way to prevent such problems would be to create a national voter registration database - a distinct possibility once all the states compile their own lists.

But others worry that legitimate voters could be disenfranchised and stricken from the rolls based on an error in another state's records.

Computer-assisted reporting editor Thomas Gaumer and news researcher JoEllen Corrigan contributed to this story.

SOURCE: http://www.conservativeaction.org/resources.php3?nameid=votefraud

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)."

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EVERY VOTE COUNT . . . EVEN THE FRAUDULENT ONES!!

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