Posted on 11/04/2012 10:34:57 AM PST by Evil Slayer
A judge has ordered an early-voting site in central Florida to stay open an additional four hours Sunday, following lawsuits filed by the state Democratic party.
The judge ordered the polling site in Orange County to extend its hours because it was shut down Saturday while authorities investigated a suspicious package.
Bill Cowles, the county’s elections supervisor, said voters who show up Sunday will be asked to use a provisional ballot because the Republican Party of Florida had appealed the decision.
The Florida Democratic Party filed separate lawsuits to get four counties to offer more time for voting before Election Day. The other counties are Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward.
Voters in those counties had to wait as long as six hours Saturday, the last scheduled day of early voting.
Voting in Miami-Dade County didn't conclude until about 1 a.m. Sunday because voters standing in line when the polls closed were allowed to vote.
The judge ruled on the lawsuit late Saturday.
The Orange County site is a library in the city of Winter Park. The suspicious package turned out to be a cooler.
Winter Park police told Fox News a polling official called at 11:45 a.m. after being alerted to a small cooler that appeared to have protruding wires and had been left on the side of the building for hours.
The police then called the county sheriff office’s bomb squad, which destroyed the cooler and a black plastic bag found by a dog team. No explosives were detected, and authorities gave the all clear sign at about 4 p.m.
Police had to evacuate the building and move the voting line down the street and try to keep voters' spots in line.
Sen. Bill Nelson and other Democrats asked Republican Gov. Rick Scott this past week to use his
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
What is it with “judges” and voter fraud? They love that crap.
The Republican-controlled state legislature last year cut the number of days available for early voting from a maximum of 14 days to eight days.
However, Scott and state election officials turned down the requests. Secretary of State Ken Detzner maintained that there was not a true emergency that justified the extension.
The federal lawsuit says counties should offer absentee ballot voting at local election offices if early voting cannot be extended.
Christina White, deputy supervisor with Miami-Dade County, said the county had already planned to accept absentee ballots for four hours at its main office.
Absentee ballot voting differs from early voting in that voters must fill out their ballot, place it in an envelope and then sign it. The ballot envelopes are opened later and then fed into voting machines.
During early voting, voters place their ballots directly into the voting machines.
The lawsuit included requests for TV and radio to tell voters about the extended hours and sworn statements from several voters who said they waited in line for hours and were turned away because voting was suspended at the site. A volunteer with the campaign of President Barack Obama said that the crowd of voters dwindled from 300 to just 40 after voting was halted.
Democrats are attacking the integrity of our voting process on many fronts. When our side tries to fight back we are accused of “voter suppression.”
Proof positive that there are a bunch of stupid voters in Flori-DUH? Seriously - Election day is Tuesday - polls have been open for how long already? People really can't vote in all that time? And maybe a look at why lines were 6 hours long>>>???
It’s amazing how opportunities in ballot box stuffing with provisional ballots come in small packages.
Early voting abets fraud - makes it easier to vote in multiple locations.
It’s very easy to stay on old voter rolls after moving to another district.
If you voted early in Florida the protocol was to have a deputy stand at the end of the line at 7PM, regardless of how long the line was and those folks got to vote even though the process went beyond 7PM.
We had the Obama Mobile cruise through the parking lot where we stood for 3 hours to vote. They dropped off Obama supporters who walked up and down the lines giving all of us the creepy feeling that they were ready to pull out their batons at any given provocation. No one said a thing but if looks could tell a message we were wondering “why are these folks here?”.
It is interesting that the only voters saying they were turned away were Obama supporters!
What part of the US Constitution (or Florida Constitution) says they HAVE to have early voting at all?
I always thought the early voting was a convenience for those who take the initiative to take advantage of it. It’s not like anybody would have been denied their vote, because all they had to do was show up on Tuesday. I see no reason to extend early voting hours.
Most interesting. Based on this action, I see a new head-counting job at the polls being created. If your voters aren’t showing up, go put a suspicious-looking package on the ground.
In a round about way it is the Judges who are committing voter fraud by knowingly enabling it. These judges were carefully selected by Democrats.
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