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Election hinkiness.

  
  

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alas
11:16 / 26.10.04
The NYTimes reported two days ago that Republicans are getting poll watchers set up to challenge voters' registration in Ohio. (Unfortunately, it's the Times, so you have to register and that link probably won't work in a few days because it will be archived and cost $). I'm now set up to work as a democratic poll watcher in Ohio. The thing is, there is a burden of proof on the Republicans to have grounds for challenging voters' rights to be there, and the voter without an ID can still fill out a proxy form, but I'm very afraid that the delays etc. this may cause may be a huge problem--especially for the poorer, less established people who are the new voters we're working on encouraging to vote.
 
 
alas
11:20 / 26.10.04
Oops, "proxy" is the wrong word. You have the right to a provisional ballot if you don't have an identification card on you.
 
 
sleazenation
11:49 / 26.10.04
ovisional ballot exactly? - is it a pile of votes that are likely to be placed under massive scrutiny should the rersult be contested?
 
 
Chiropteran
18:54 / 27.10.04
Well, here we go. *sigh*

Postal Experts Hunt for Missing Ballots in Florida

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. Postal Service investigators on Wednesday were trying to find thousands of absentee ballots that should have been delivered to voters in one of Florida's most populous counties, officials said.

~L
 
 
subcultureofone
13:25 / 28.10.04

West Boynton man allegedly threatens to kill girlfriend for backing Kerry

By Akilah Johnson
Staff Writer
Posted October 28 2004

WEST BOYNTON -- When an 18-year-old couldn't convince his girlfriend that George W. Bush was the right choice for president, he became enraged, put a screwdriver to her throat and threatened to kill her, sheriff's officials said.

"You won't live to see the next election," Steven Soper told Stacey Silveira on Tuesday night as the two fought inside his gray, two-story home west of Boynton Beach, according to a police report.

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Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge William Bollinger ordered Wednesday that Soper be held without bond in the Palm Beach County Jail pending a mental health assessment.

His next court date is Friday.

According to Silveira, Tuesday night was not the first time the two had discussed politics, but it was the first time Soper became aware she supported John Kerry for president. Before that, she was undecided and considered voting for Bush to appease Soper, she said.

Their on-again, off-again relationship had been volatile, but nothing like Tuesday, she said.

On Tuesday, Soper stormed off after Silveira's brother mentioned the family, including Silveira, supported Kerry, family members said.

Soper called and ended the relationship, so Silveira drove to his house in the 7500 block of Oakboro Drive to return his belongings. That's where things turned violent.

He dragged Silveira into the house kicking and screaming, a police report said. Neighbor Lisa Belout was watching television, heard the commotion and called 911.

Inside, Soper threw Silveira to the floor, spit in her face and bit her cheek, she said, pointing to the brown bruise on the left side of her face.

"He went and got a knife and put the knife in my hand and said, `Kill me because if you vote for Kerry I'm going to die anyway,'" she said while standing outside her home, which has a Kerry/Edwards campaign sign in the yard.

Deputies found an enraged Soper with a screwdriver to Silveira's throat, a police report said. He was ordered to put the tool down but refused, so they used Taser stun guns to subdue him, officials said.

"He shoved a Marine [video] tape in my face and said that's what I was going to be ruining for him if I went for Kerry," Silveira said Wednesday, having just returned from filing a restraining order against him.

Soper enlisted in the Marine Corps on Saturday and was to begin basic training in January.

"He's got a brother in Iraq. My entire family comes from the military, and he would very much like to go do his service," said Diane Carmada, his mother.

Soper faces charges of aggravated battery, false imprisonment and resisting arrest without violence.

Soper likely will be discharged from the Marines, Marine spokesman Sgt. David Salazar said.
 
 
ibis the being
15:37 / 28.10.04
58,000 absentee ballots go missing in Florida.

Out of 60,000 absentee ballots sent out in Broward County this month, only 2,000 have been delivered. No one has any idea what happened to them, and the US postal service points out that it's "highly unlikely" that 58,000 pieces of mail just disappeared.

Broward County is predominately black and also voted Gore by the largest margin in Fla in 2000.

"It looks like they're trying to steal the vote again," said Diane Glasser, vice-chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party.

Really, really scary.
 
 
ibis the being
15:43 / 28.10.04
Oh, sorry to duplicate your link Lepid. Sad to say, with all the shady business going on in this election, I didn't realize it was the same story at first.
 
 
w1rebaby
22:32 / 31.10.04
I don't *think* anyone else posted this, but I just came across this site via a link from MediaMatters: eRiposte Vote Watch 2004. It says its remit is "Vote/Election fraud, vote suppression, voting irregularities, voter intimidation in Election 2004" and it has an awful lot of examples already, broken down by state. It's fairly clearly a pro-Democrat site but it's well-sourced. (If I come across any Republican versions I'll post them.)
 
 
FinderWolf
14:08 / 01.11.04
holy shit!

US JOURNALIST PUNCHED, ARRESTED BY OFFICER OUTSIDE FLORIDA VOTING OFFICE

39 minutes ago U.S. National - AFP
Yahoo News

MIAMI (AFP) - A sheriff's deputy tackled, punched and arrested a US journalist for taking pictures of people waiting in line to cast early ballots in West Palm Beach, local media reported.

A sheriff's spokesman said later the deputy was enforcing a new county rule prohibiting reporters from interviewing or photographing voters lined up outside the polls, the Palm Beach Post said.

The deputy Sunday tried to grab the camera of James Henry, a freelance journalist who has written for The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Henry, 54, ran across the pavement but was tackled by the deputy, who pinned him to the ground, punched him in the back and handcuffed him, according to the daily.

He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Teresa LePore did not comment on the incident or the new rule, which had not been previously announced. LePore gained notoriety as the creator of the infamous butterfly ballot that confused thousands of voters in the chaotic and controversial 2000 election.

Her counterpart from Leon County, Ion Sancho, expressed outrage at the attempt to restrict reporters and photographers outside polling places, saying it was a constitutional right, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Le Pore's office had not announced the new rule before the incident.

Election monitors say sheriff's deputies themselves broke the law on Sunday by standing right outside polling offices while early voting was going on.

"We are considering filing a lawsuit," said Reggie Mitchell, a civil rights lawyer with the non-partisan Election Protection group that has deployed thousands of electoral monitors to Florida.

He said the law prohibits police from standing in the immediate vicinity of polling stations unless they are voting or called in to handle a disturbance.

Mitchell said deputies challenged Election Protection volunteers who were legally 15 meters (50 feet) away from the voting place.

Close to 20 percent of the 10 million voters in Florida already voted ahead of Tuesday's elections, either by absentee ballot or in early voting that started on October 18.
 
 
grant
16:36 / 01.11.04
PBSO has a rep around here for, well, being like that.

On the other side of the law, a man just tried to kill Katherine Harris with his car. She was the FL Sec'y of State involved in the recount mess in 2000, and is now running for re-election to the House of Representatives.
 
 
charrellz
17:01 / 01.11.04
Looks like Florida isn't the only state with some problems. I just received this e-mail through the votenader.org mailing list:

Here's an important heads up ...

Yesterday a friend voted early at a polling location in Austin. She voted straight Democratic. When she did the final check, lo and behold every vote was for the Democratic candidates except that it showed she had voted for Bush/Cheney for president/vice pres.

She immediately got a poll official. On her vote, it was corrected.

She called the Travis County Democratic headquarters. They took all her information, and told her that she wasn't the first to report a similar incident and that they are looking into it. So check before you leave the polling booth, and if anything is wrong, get it corrected immediately. Report any irregularities to your local Democratic headquarters. Make sure you pass this along to your friends ... hopefully this is all over the airwaves by tomorrow ...

The Texas voting fraud is for real. I called the Austin office (Dem. Nat. Comm.) 512-637-1737 and they said that it has been happening a lot. They don't know why but the machines seem more "sensitive" this year and that every voter MUST check their summary as the presidential choice often rolls over to the republican choice if you vote straight democrat.


I'm not certain about Austin, but most of Texas uses the Diebold machines, if you were curious.
 
 
grant
17:32 / 01.11.04
Bogus NAACP letters in South Carolina tell black voters they'll be arrested at the polls if they have unpaid parking tickets or haven't paid child support.
 
 
grant
20:39 / 01.11.04
I heard this word of mouth just now, but can source it to at least UPI, here (mentioned only because UPI is owned by Rev. Moon, thus a suspect source).

Anyway, a bunch of absentee ballots for Palm Beach County (and from "um, they're around here _somewhere_" Broward County) only got mailed out to voters on Saturday. The returned ballots have to be postmarked before the election day to be valid. So post offices are staying open until 9 tonight for folks to get their ballots mailed in -- not much help for the genuine absentee voters, but what can you do, eh?
And if your Saturday mailout didn't arrive today, you're out of the picture.

Ah, I see now Yahoo has the story, too.
 
 
grant
16:46 / 02.11.04
Welcome to South Dakota, where Republican campaign workers have been forbidden from following Indian voters and taking down their license plate numbers.

Senator Tom Daschle is counting on Native American votes to squeak past his opponent.
 
 
FinderWolf
16:52 / 02.11.04
Scattered voting disruptions & problems around the country, as reported by Yahoo.
 
 
FinderWolf
16:56 / 02.11.04
If you use those really old big machines with the red levers where you flick the switches and such, should you also "check" your vote? How would you check it? I've never checked my vote to make sure the machine did what I told it to... is this the Diebold machine I'm talking about? Does that machine punch out holes in cards?
 
 
Sekhmet
17:35 / 02.11.04
Chuckster, don't tell me that. I voted in Austin on Friday, and I kind of skimmed the final screen... crap... (*begins hyperventilating*)

Also, my bro-in-law who works at the Texas Capitol for a state rep says they've been getting calls all morning about machine screw-ups all over the state. He says apparently electronic voting is total crap and there's no telling what the results will be.

Sadness!
 
 
grant
17:48 / 02.11.04
Wolf, I don't think there's a simple way to check a punch-card ballot, because it's all mechanical and in front of you when you pull the lever. The Diebold machines are electronic touch-screens, like fancy ATMs or large laptops.
 
 
charrellz
21:08 / 02.11.04
I'm not sure fancy is the right word. An ATM uses methods a little more secure than Microsoft Access.
 
 
grant
13:45 / 03.11.04
A friend of mine is a precinct worker here in Florida.

He wrote this just now:

Electioneering
Worked the polls again yesterday, and ended up pissed about that as well. Seems predictions were right, and a fair number of voters who thought they had been registered, had in fact not been, or at least not put in the datbase. We were given specific directions that if a voters eligibility could not be determined, that we were NOT to issue a provisional ballot without authorization. Well that worked fine, in theory. The reality was that for the 8 voters who came in who's registration could not be determined, I was only able to get ahold of the SOE ONE, that's right ONE time. That was inspite of repeated attempts each time. I would spend 10-15 minutes for each voter trying to get through, untill they decided to leave in frustration.
 
 
grant
13:54 / 03.11.04
Part two (tech trouble on my end preventing me from large posts, you lucky dogs):
The thing that REALLY disturbs me, and disturbs at least one person whom I spoke to who answered the phones, and had to issue a number of provisional ballots to voters, was that almost ALL of them (and in my case ALL) were African American Democrats. I smell an ACLU lawsuit. And I hope they win, because this was a pretty transparent attempt to keep black voters out of the system, plain and simple.

I also spoke to a woman whos son tried to vote, and was turned away by the precinct because he was issued an absentee ballot. the rule states that his AB could be voided if he chose, and he would be allowed to vote normally. Yet some poll workers wer turning away people whos ballots were sent out as late as SATURDAY. How the hell are you supposed to get a ballot back in by TUESDAY?????????? This was either gross incompetence by the SOE, or a planned manipulation.
 
 
grant
13:54 / 03.11.04
Part three:


Yes, I said planned. While I lacked the time to do a precise count, I did notice another trend. We were given an update sheet of all activities from sunday, till monday. Who was mailed ballots, and who's were returned. This was done so if a person who came in was mailed a ballot and tried to vote, we could void the AB, or if the AB was returned already, inform them that their vote was already sent in. The disturbing trend here? you got it, Republicants overwhelmingly had sent their votes in, and were received, while the democrats on the list were noted as "mailed". I'm sure a large number of people think their vote was mailed in time who will not be counted.
 
 
subcultureofone
17:27 / 03.11.04
this is the kind of thing i was talking about regarding the refrain 'florida didn't have any problems this time'. there have been problems. in gainesville, one woman was told she could not have her child with her when she voted. another man had his vote challenged because he is blind. several students went to the wrong precinct- voting locations for some precincts are only two or three blocks apart and some were located in the same building. most of these buildings are churches. there are states which do not allow churches as polling places but florida is not one of them. in the months before the election, i was sent four different voter registration cards because they kept changing my voting location, so it was difficult to keep track. also, the sample ballots were printed incorrectly, though they did send out a postcard informing us of the misprint and listing the corrections.
 
 
subcultureofone
15:38 / 17.11.04
votes trashed?

volusia county election records on 'lockdown'. polling tapes found in trash.

"Some polling place tapes didn't match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans."

http://www.blackboxvoting.org

full story toward bottom of page
 
 
grant
19:07 / 17.11.04
CommonCause.org is asking for voter experience stories. They're especially interested in people from Ohio, but anyone can hit this page and put down in writing whatever hinkiness they experienced.
 
  

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