Posted on 11/08/2002 6:35:36 AM PST by EnquiringMind
WEST PALM BEACH -- As many as two dozen Palm Beach County voters could face criminal charges for attempting to vote twice in Tuesday's statewide election.
Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore said Thursday she would ask the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office next week to consider filing charges. Elections officials still are compiling information on the balloting.
The voters had sent in absentee ballots, then voted provisional ballots at the polls Tuesday, claiming they had not voted earlier, LePore said. "They sign an oath on the provisional ballot, swearing they have not yet cast a vote," LePore said. "And they aren't all old people either."
LePore has said she might also refer Palm Beach Post reporter Lou Salome's name to the State Attorney's Office for possible criminal charges regarding attempted double-voting, a third-degree felony that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Salome did not sign or fill out a provisional ballot. Instead, he signed a voter roll list to get a card for electronic voting after he already had voted absentee to verify the county's procedures for stopping someone from voting twice. He notified precinct officials of the flaw in the system and returned the card without attempting to vote on the touch-screen machine.
The double-voting involving provisional ballots was discovered when the county's three-member canvassing board compared the provisional ballots with the absentee ballots. The provisional ballots of the double-voters were not counted.
Provisional voting was created by the legislature last year as part of an election reform package. A voter who has been issued an absentee ballot is allowed to vote provisionally if he claims he hasn't returned the absentee and doesn't surrender the unvoted absentee to precinct officials. Elections officials later check absentee ballot returns to verify the claim.
Just before the noon deadline for certifying votes to the state, the canvassing board finished reviewing several thousand questionable absentee ballots, about 1,200 provisional ballots and write-in votes on both absentee and provisional ballots.
The board -- comprising Palm Beach County Judge Barry Cohen, County Commission Chairman Warren Newell and LePore -- spent more than 20 hours beginning Tuesday, reviewing the ballots.
LePore said several thousand absentees were rejected, mostly because they lacked either the voter's signature, a witness' signature or the witness' address. But 53,321 absentees were accepted, the most ever for a county election.
About 150 provisional ballots were rejected, many because they were cast in the wrong precinct or were from unregistered voters; 1,010 were accepted.
"We tried to do everything we could to make sure a vote counts," she said. One absentee ballot was mailed from Connecticut, apparently witnessed by a postal clerk there who stamped the address section with a postmark. The canvassing board called the Connecticut post office to verify the postal worker worked there.
The Republican Party filed a formal protest after about a dozen absentees were accepted without a witness' address. The voter and witness in those cases apparently were husband and wife, and Cohen and Newell voted to accept the printed address on the ballot as the witness's address. LePore dissented. The protest will be meaningless unless a candidate officially protests the results or files suit. Officials have until Nov. 16 to correct mistakes, complete any recounts and file final results. No recounts were called for in area races.
I will go further and say that not only were they democrats, but they also have a place up north for the summer and voted absentee up there too!
Given that the party of those trying to vote twice was not mentioned, it's a safe bet they were RATS.
Otherwise, the headline would have beeen, "Dirty Rotten Evil Bush Republican Voters Accused of Double-Voting Attempt"
What's this 'could' crap? Did they intentionally violate the law, or did they not? If so, fry'em, regardless of political party affiliation. First we get the Dem's out of office, then we put'em in jail.
you cross match that one and I'll bet there were way more than merely twenty.
Regards,
Salome did not sign or fill out a provisional ballot. Instead, he signed a voter roll list to get a card for electronic voting after he already had voted absentee to verify the county's procedures for stopping someone from voting twice. He notified precinct officials of the flaw in the system and returned the card without attempting to vote on the touch-screen machine.
So HERE'S the real story --- the person the election officials really want to get tough on is -- get this! -- the person who was not committing 'fraud' but rather DEMONSTRATING, in investigative journalistic fashion, and then REPORTING, how easy it is to commit fraud undetected.
So the REPORTER is the person they want to punish. Seems to me, IMHO, that he could bring an action against the election officials under a whistle-blower statute.
Meanwhile, later in the story it is dutifully reported that we had "unprecedented" numbers of absentee ballots. So -- connecting the dots -- not only is the abilty for fraud provable, but the inference is THAT IS WAS BEING COMMITTED ON A LARGE SCALE.
so they attack the messenger instead of the problem.
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