Broward: 1,000′s of ballots missing
Local10.com - Vote 2004 - Local 10 Uncovers Big Ballot Mystery
Local 10 has received many phone calls from viewers in Broward County who say they have not received the absentee ballots –- and the news from the elections office doesn't sound good.
Local 10 has learned that many as many as 58,000 ballots that were supposed to mailed out on Oct. 7 and 8 could be missing.
The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office is saying only that the situation is "unusual," and they are looking into it.
Gisela Salas, Broward Deputy Elections Supervisor, said, "I hate to say 'missing' at this time because that has not yet be substantiated. Some ballots are starting to arrive. But there is an extraordinary delay."
An elections office representative told Local 10 that the office has investigated with the U.S. Post Office what might have happened to the ballots, but so far, no one has been able to figure it out.
"It is unusual. It's a puzzle on the part of our office and the postal service," Salas said. "Our office did make the delivery and the post office assures us they were processed. What happened is in question."
The postal service told Local 10 late Tuesday that they don't have 58,000 ballots floating around. They did say that they have several employees assigned to deal only with ballots and they are being delivered in one to two days -- once they get them.
How Will You Vote?
As far as the voters go that haven't received their ballots, the elections office is now suggesting that they take the opportunity to vote early.
Since many who request absentee ballots cannot physically vote in their county, there are likely to be some angry voters.
Repugs target black Jax
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.
Election supervisor Ion Sancho believes some voters are being intimidated
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."
Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.
Mass challenges
They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.
Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."
"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."
Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.
Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher
A Republican spokeswoman did not deny that voters would be challenged at polling stations
In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.
Get Up with MorningWood
UPDATE - The results are in, and the winner is None of the above with black ink. Thanks for voting!
HELP ME VOTE: Call 813 239 - WOOD or leave a comment. (The polls have closed!)
Get Up with MorningWood, on 70,000 Watt Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org. 4 to 6 am (eastern) every Tuesday!
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Marathon
Marathon was a big success. THANK YOU for your continuing support of MorningWood and WMNF!
Blogging on the radio
Help Me Vote!
I’ll be filling out my Hillsborough County Absentee Ballot right on the air this morning. I have yet to decide if I should follow the instructions on the ballot itself and use only a number 2 pencil, or pay attention to the insert that mentions nothing about a pencil, but happily suggests that a pen will do just fine.
Also, there are a few races in which I’ve yet to make a choice. Help me vote by calling in (813 239 - WOOD) or leaving a comment on this post (Scroll to the end of the post to leave a comment. When asked for an email address, make one up if you don’t feel like leaving your real one.)
At the end of the show, I’ll tally up the votes and pencil (or pen) in a vote for the candidate that you pick for me, using the method that you prefer. Really.
Of course, there’s a catch: to simplify matters immensely, I’m only including the Hillsborough County Commission race between the Zel Miller Democrat /moral crusader Bob Buckhorn and the equally stomach turning pro-development Repug and former Killer Bee Brian Blair.
Honestly, I can’t bring myself to vote for Bob, but voting for Brian could conceivably be even worse. I wish we had a real choice in this race, but we don’t. So it’s up to you: Bob Buckhorn, Brian Blair, or None of the Above?
As well as the choice for County Commission, please vote for your favored method for filling in the absentee ballot: Number 2 Pencil, Blue Ink, or Black Ink.
The “winner” will be announced just before 6:00, and I will mail my absentee ballot this morning after my show. It should be in Buddy Johnson’s office by tomorrow, and lost behind a file cabinet before lunch.
In other news...
Halloween is almost here. I’ll play some themed songs for the occasion, and I’ll shamelessly use those cuts to segue into a “Wolf” theme that will persist throughout the morning. Oh, and I’ll play some entirely unrelated stuff just ‘cause I feel like it. Or maybe there’s some logic to my choices. Check the playlists (below) and decide for yourself.
Why wolves? Well, they’re scary, except when they look like harmless puppies on an overly dramatic and unintentionally funny campaign ad... (to view the video, click on the image from the “Latest Video” and then pick the “Wolves” video. Sorry - no direct link.)
And in the spirit of fairness and balance, a few words from the wolves:
We are not Terrorists!
George W. Bush incorrectly labelled my wolfpack
as a terrorist threat. We are NOT terrorists. We do
not associate with terrorists (unless you count that
pesky wolverine) and FRANKLY, we don't even like
terrorists!We are a peaceful pack of wolves. All we want in life is:
Live in tree-filled forests.
Drink clean water from our rivers and streams.
Breathe fresh and clean air.
We were tricked by George W. Bush
Anyway, wolves will be featured prominently throughout MorningWood today.
New Underwrithing?
Well, as those of you who pledged during marathon already know, we’ve gotta pay the bills ‘round here, and during marathon, MorningWood picked up a new underwriter, but I think there may have been a mistake - perhaps this outfit thinks that WMNF is one of those Christian right non-commercial stations, ‘cause the demographic they seem to be aiming for in this underwrithing announcement might be just a little bit more conservative than most MorningWood listeners. But maybe I’m being hasty. Here: decide for yourself - will this group be satisfied by MorningWood? (Warning - Links in this paragraph NOT work friendly!)
Goodies:
Well, one, anyway. Hymn Against Empire, the MP3 I plan to have played right after the 5:00 NPR headlines, the poem put to the music of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Actually, the link is to the author’s sight. Go and grab the MP3 or video or whatever you want. (Link via skippy the bush kangaroo)
Playlists
Each week, I bring my planned songs in on CD. I usually end up playing most or all of them in the planned order. But sometimes things go askew. Sorry - no guarantees or refunds.
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
BlogWood Blogged
 |
I’ve been Freeway Blogged - sometime during the wee hours, some unknown persons hung a sign on the Blogwood Headquarters Building, part of an overnight signing action, in solidarity with freewayblogger.com, that hit I-275 and other major commuter routes into downtown Tampa.
BlogWood Headquarters is located on a major downtown artery, thus making it the perfect location for actions such as this one. Still, despite the logic of the choice, I am honored to have been chosen, or at least to occupy a building that was chosen, for this little bit of free speechifying.
(Note - the Kerry sign was hung by authorized BlogWood volunteers and has been up for a few weeks. The Freeway Blogging sign mysteriously appeared and was discovered just this morning.)
BlogWood Ballot
Here, at last, are the official BlogWood endorsements for President and everything else. Clicking this link will open a pdf file with a sample Hillsborough County Ballot that you can print and take to the polls. (Includes amendments. For a more detailed, amendment only endorsemtent cheat sheet, click here.)
Note - several races have no endorsement.
Hillsborough County Sample Ballot with Endorsements
Vote soon!
Orlando freezes over
The Orlando Sentinel may be even more conservative than the Tampa Tribune, so this endorsement was surprising, to say the least. Expect more jeers and whining form “conservatives” who aren’t intellectually honest enough to admit that there man is a failure as a conservative and a failure as a leader.
Four years ago, the Orlando Sentinel endorsed Republican George W. Bush for president based on our trust in him to unite America. We expected him to forge bipartisan solutions to problems while keeping this nation secure and fiscally sound.
This president has utterly failed to fulfill our expectations. We turn now to his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, with the belief that he is more likely to meet the hopes we once held for Mr. Bush.
Our choice was not dictated by partisanship. Already this election season, the Sentinel has endorsed Republican Mel Martinez for the U.S. Senate and four U.S. House Republicans. In 2002, we backed Republican Gov. Jeb Bush for re-election, repeating our endorsement of four years earlier. Indeed, it has been 40 years since the Sentinel endorsed a Democrat -- Lyndon Johnson -- for president.
But we cannot forget what we wrote in endorsing Mr. Bush in 2000: "The nation needs a leader who can bring people together, who can stand firm on principle but knows the art of compromise." Four years later, Mr. Bush presides over a bitterly divided Congress and nation. The unity following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- the president's finest hour -- is a memory now. Mr. Bush's inflexibility has deepened the divide.
Four years ago, we expressed confidence that Mr. Bush would replace the Clinton-Gore approach of frequent military intervention for one of selective involvement "using strict tests to evaluate U.S. national interests." To the president's credit, the war in Afghanistan met those tests. But today, U.S. forces also are fighting and dying in a war of choice in Iraq -- one that was launched to disarm a dictator who did not have weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea have worsened.
Before the Iraq war, Mr. Bush brushed aside dissenting views -- some within his own government -- about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities. And because the president failed to round up more international support, more than 80 percent of the coalition forces in Iraq are American troops, and the United States is spending $1 billion a week on the conflict.
Four years ago, we also called on Mr. Bush to pay down the nation's multitrillion-dollar debt before cutting taxes or increasing spending. Yet since then, he has pushed through massive tax cuts, and the national debt has risen from $5.8 trillion to $7.4 trillion. Discretionary spending -- not including defense and homeland security -- has risen 16 percent over three years. The president has not vetoed a single spending bill.
Mr. Bush has been unwilling to reconsider any of his tax cuts, even as the rationale for them -- a huge budget surplus -- has vanished, and the country has gone to war. Other presidents have raised taxes to pay for wars; Mr. Bush is borrowing the money, leaving the bill for future generations.
Four years ago, we called it a "disgrace" that 43 million Americans lacked health insurance. That number has risen under Mr. Bush to 45 million. Yet the plan he now touts on the campaign trail would reduce the ranks of the uninsured by less than 20 percent, and he has not offered a way to pay for it.
Mr. Bush has been a disappointment in other crucial areas. He has weakened environmental protections, pushed an energy policy that would perpetuate America's oil dependence and given up on free-market agricultural reforms that could jump-start trade talks.
Indeed, Mr. Bush has abandoned the core values we thought we shared with him -- keeping the nation strong while ensuring that its government is limited, accountable and fiscally responsible.
We trust Mr. Kerry not to make the mistakes Mr. Bush has.
Mr. Kerry's two decades of experience in the U.S. Senate have given him a solid grounding in both foreign and domestic policy. There is no disputing his liberal record representing Massachusetts, but we believe he has moved to the middle. In this campaign, he has put forth a moderate platform with fiscal discipline at its core.
Despite his differences with Mr. Bush over the wisdom of the war, Mr. Kerry recognizes the imperative of securing and stabilizing Iraq. He would intensify efforts to enlist more foreign help, and speed up training of Iraqi forces and reconstruction in the country.
Mr. Kerry would bolster national security by adding 40,000 troops to the overstretched U.S. military, and doubling its special forces. He would accelerate the program that secures nuclear material in the former Soviet Union before it can fall into the hands of terrorists.
Mr. Kerry would enhance homeland security by doing more to protect ports and other vulnerable facilities. Unlike Mr. Bush, he understands that government accountability and civil liberties must not be needlessly compromised in the name of the war on terrorism.
Mr. Kerry's health plan would extend coverage to 27 million Americans, more than three times as many as Mr. Bush's plan. Contrary to what the president has been saying on the campaign trail, Mr. Kerry's plan would be voluntary, and include private-sector options for coverage.
Also to Mr. Kerry's credit, he has pledged to strengthen environmental protections. His energy plan would do far more to promote conservation and alternative fuels.
Mr. Kerry proposes to pay for all of his plans, primarily by repealing tax cuts for Americans earning more than $200,000. He has not called for tax increases on middle-income Americans.
Mr. Kerry has committed himself to reinstating pay-as-you-go rules that helped turn deficits into surpluses during the 1990s. Such rules would force him to scale back his plans if he can't pay for them.
In sum, we believe Mr. Kerry would be a more bipartisan and effective leader than Mr. Bush. In the Nov. 2 general election, the Sentinel endorses John Kerry for president of the United States.
GOP hates democracy
Most people would consider thousands of newly registered voters coming to the polls to be a sign of a healthy democracy at work. The GOP calls it “fraud.”
Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.
Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.
Election officials in other swing states, from Arizona to Wisconsin and Florida, say they are bracing for similar efforts by Republicans to challenge new voters at polling places, reflecting months of disputes over voting procedures and the anticipation of an election as close as the one in 2000.
Ohio election officials said they had never seen so large a drive to prepare for Election Day challenges. They said they were scrambling yesterday to be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.
Ohio Democrats were struggling to match the Republicans' move, which had been rumored for weeks. Both parties had until 4 p.m. to register people they had recruited to monitor the election. Republicans said they had enlisted 3,600 by the deadline, many in heavily Democratic urban neighborhoods of Cleveland, Dayton and other cities. Each recruit was to be paid $100.
The Democrats, who tend to benefit more than Republicans from large turnouts, said they had registered more than 2,000 recruits to try to protect legitimate voters rather than weed out ineligible ones.
Republican officials said they had no intention of disrupting voting but were concerned about the possibility of fraud involving thousands of newly registered Democrats.
"The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters - I call them ringers - have created these problems," said James P. Trakas, a Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County.
......"Our concern is Republicans will be challenging in large numbers for the purpose of slowing down voting, because challenging takes a long time,'' said David Sullivan, the voter protection coordinator for the national Democratic Party in Ohio. "And creating long lines causes our people to leave without voting.''
......
The preparations for widespread challenging this year have alarmed some election officials.
"This creates chaos and confusion in the polling site," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, an international association of election officials. But, he said, "most courts say it's permissible by state law and therefore can't be denied."
......The parties are also preparing to battle over voter qualifications in Florida, where they had until last Tuesday to register challengers. In Fort Myers, Republicans named 100 watchers for the county's 171 precincts, up from 60 in 2000. But Democrats registered 300 watchers in the county, a sixfold increase.
Stupid Repug Tricks
Pasco: Election chief warns of absentee scam
Pasco elections officials have a warning for the county's absentee voters: Don't give your ballot to a stranger claiming to be from the elections office.
They're not who they say they are.
"The people who are soliciting your ballots in this manner are not elections officials," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning warned Thursday.
The warning came after a phone call from a west Pasco woman. Other Florida counties have gotten similar complaints.
"We've had a bunch of them - 100 at least," said Bob Sweat, elections supervisor for Manatee County. "It's probably going on all over the state of Florida."
MacKenna calls for Buddy’s resignation
In a press conference today, Rob MacKenna, the Democratic candidate for Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections (SOE), responded to new “lost vote” revelations by calling for Jeb! appointee Buddy Johnson to resign.
It’s too bad that as the challenger in this election, Rob’s call for Buddy’s resignation will be seen as little more than a campaign stunt, because Buddy really needs to go. Judging by his performance since being appointed last year, Buddy is either a complete partisan hack, or he lacks the skills to run an election. OK - to be fair, I guess it doesn’t have to be either/or - it’s very possible that Buddy is an incompetent partisan hack.
The latest revelations from the SOE’s office have to do with the 245 “lost” votes from the primary election. Buddy has been downplaying the significance of this error, and is quick to blame human error for causing the computer to eat all those votes.
Today, published reports revealed that Buddy’s office was aware of the missing votes immediately following the election, but they did not notify Buddy, and Buddy did not notify the Secretary of State until well after the deadline for certifying the counts.
Responding to Rob MacKenna’s call for his resignation Buddy said today that this situation arose form the “most improbable of circumstances... end of story.”
MacKenna says that serious questions need to be asked, and he feels that Buddy’s excuses are “incredulous.”
Buddy blames Dan Nolan, his lame duck chief of staff, and a man whom Buddy was praising effusively in a published story just last week.
Nolan said Wednesday he would leave his $85,000-a-year position "as soon as the job is done here," which he defined as the date the general election vote is tabulated. He said he has no job offer on the table but expects to parlay his experience as a motivational speaker into something in the area of executive training and development.
Johnson offered only praise for Nolan and said he would seek a replacement by looking to other qualified military officers with experience at MacDill Air Force Base.
The same article struggles to find praiseworthy examples of Nolan’s job performance. It seems that his bigggest accomplishment was calling in a repair man.
In July, just a few weeks before the primary, elections officials discovered that the tabulation software refused to read ballots. No one could figure out why.
"I'm getting to the very nervous stage," Nolan wrote in an e-mail to an executive at Sequoia Voting Systems, manufacturer of the county's $13-million touch screen voting machines. "We don't seem to be getting anywhere."
Nolan demanded that Sequoia dispatch a technical troubleshooter. A $75-an-hour technician arrived a short time later and fixed the problem.
Pretty impressive, eh? He can use email and everything!
None of this bodes well for the ongoing election. Early voting has commenced, and serious questions remain as to whether Buddy is ready to handle the crush of voters, including thousands of newly registered first timers, that is inevitable on November 2.
Vote for Rob MacKenna for Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.
Running for election, supervisor hides missing ballots
Tampa’s election chief Buddy Johnson seems more concerned with his own election than with performing his job. Appointed by Jeb! to serve out the term of Pam Iorio, Tampa’s new mayor, Buddy has repeatedly dropped the ball this election year.
The latest revelation stems from the primary election incident in which Buddy lost 245 votes from a single precinct, disenfranchising those unlucky voters.
That’s bad enough, but it now turns out that his office was well aware of the problem and covered it up, allowing incorrect vote totals to be certified by the state, thus nullifying any remedy.
Then, taking a cue from the handbook of W, Buddy waited until a Friday afternoon to notify the press of the problem. Oh, and he lied to the County Commission.
One Hillsborough County Commissioner calls these actions “malfeasance.” “Criminal” might be a better word. “Incompetence” is too kind.
On Sept. 3, one day after the Hillsborough County Canvassing Board met and certified the results of the primary election, Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson's staff made a startling discovery.
Their records seemed to show that 245 voters had cast ballots the elections office couldn't find.
Those 245 votes were significant. They had the potential to change the outcome of at least one race: In the Republican primary for the District 47 seat in the Florida House of Representatives, Bill Bunkley had lost to Kevin Ambler by just 130 votes.
Yet Johnson's staff told no one outside the elections office about the 245 vote discrepancy, according to an internal report obtained by the St. Petersburg Times that details the investigation into the lost votes.
Hillsborough elections officials notified neither the county attorney's office, the canvassing board, the state division of elections nor any primary candidates that 245 votes were unaccounted for. In fact, while the investigation into the missing votes dragged on for 13 days, the elections staff did not even tell Johnson about it.
Johnson, who was appointed elections chief last year when Pam Iorio quit to run for Tampa mayor, was not told of the discrepancy until Sept. 16, according to the internal report.
By then, the 10-day period for a candidate to challenge the result of the election had expired. That statutory clock began ticking after the canvassing board certified the election results as official. The challenge period ran out Sept. 13, three days before Johnson was even made aware of the problem.
"That's awful," Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Frank said when told about the handling of the missing votes. "It's malfeasance.
......"It's really serious," Frank said. "And Buddy is responsible for what goes on."
Thursday, Johnson agreed he should have known about the problem. A three-term GOP legislator who is himself up for election against Democrat and computer programmer Rob MacKenna, Johnson said he had "a most unpleasant conversation" with his staff when he was finally told of the vote discrepancy.
"Do I wish my staff would have made me aware? In hindsight, yes," Johnson, 52, told the Times. "If I had known earlier, I would have acted sooner. ... I'm not clairvoyant."
......Johnson's chief of staff, Dan Nolan, oversaw the investigation.
Nolan, 50, is a former Army colonel with U.S. Central Command who joined the elections staff shortly after Johnson was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush. He said Thursday that initially he was convinced that the 245-vote discrepancy was an administrative paperwork error that would be quickly resolved. In retrospect, he should have treated the problem with "a greater sense of urgency" and informed Johnson and others about it, Nolan said.
"I screwed this up," said Nolan, who signed on with Johnson for a limited tour of duty and expects to leave some time after the general election. "The responsibility is mine. There is no excuse."
According to his internal report, Nolan began his inquiry Sept. 3 when absentee manager Sharon Smith notified him that the office showed 26,935 certificates signed by early and absentee voters, but just 26,690 early and absentee votes cast - a difference of 245.
......Johnson first learned of the situation from Nolan on Sept. 16. That same day, Johnson composed and forwarded a letter to Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who oversees the state's Division of Elections.
Johnson wrote that the 245 votes were lost because of "human error by a veteran election staffer in setup and implementation" of an early voting machine. He also said it did not appear the votes could be counted in Hillsborough's final election results because they had been found after certification.
He was right. For purposes of official results, the votes made by 245 voters who went to the West Gate Library were wiped out.
Johnson waited 24 hours before notifying the media. In an e-mail to news outlets at about 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 17, Johnson said he was "extremely disappointed that this error has occurred." He emphasized that the lost votes did not change the outcome of any election and promised additional management safeguards.
Johnson provided no background about when his staff had begun looking into the discrepancy, and made no mention of being kept in the dark himself for 13 days while his staff hunted down the missing votes.
Three weeks after notifying the state of the lost votes, the County Commission called Johnson to account for the oversight that excluded the votes of 245 residents. Commissioner Kathy Castor, whose district includes the West Gate Library early voting site, asked Johnson to appear and provide assurances the episode would never be repeated.
Johnson gave those assurances and boasted of his office's handling of the problem.
"I'm proud of my staff," he told the commission on Oct. 6, according to a transcript. "I'm proud of myself in the immediate release of the information, and we did release all of this information immediately.
"This happened a month ago, and we have not withheld, we have not done anything to disguise this, this issue in the least. I'm very proud of that transparency."
Told Thursday of the office's internal report, Castor said, "That's different from the statements (Johnson) made at the County Commission."
Castor said it helped explain "the overwhelming resistance" she encountered in getting Johnson to provide a full accounting of the lost votes to commissioners.
"He sure did not want to appear before us," she said. "He practically begged not to come."