Thread: Dead People Voting Throughout Florida

http://www.wftv.com/news/17848541/detai ... 12008&ts=H
Thursday, October 30, 2008 – updated: 3:41 pm EDT October 30, 2008

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. -- Thousands of dead Floridians are registered to vote and some in Central Florida had ballots cast in their names long after their deaths.

"That is scary," said Jim Branch.

Branch's mother Marjorie died in 2004 but someone voted for her in 2006. Branch had tried to get his mother removed from the voter rolls.

"It was much easier for me calling Social Security and taking her off not getting any more checks here, than it was that (voter registration)," he sid.

County records show James Santiago voted in the 2006 general election. He too, was dead. His wife, Joann, sees this as an open invitation for voter fraud.

"I think it leaves it open to sign his name, during an election, especially an important one like this year," said Joann.

Channel Nine discovered 1,636 registered voters in Central Florida are dead.

"This is what makes Supervisors of Elections lose sleep at night," said Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall.

McFall said it used to be easy to clear out voter rolls.

"We had two people who did nothing but cut obituary notices out of the papers," she said. "That's how we found out someone died."

But 2002's Help America Vote act, which made it easier to register to vote, also made it more difficult to remove voters from the rolls. But Orange County Election Supervisor Bill Cowles doesn't worry.

"I think the mechanisms are in place. There's enough checks and balances in place," he said.

However, 90 days before the election, voter rolls can't be changed and if the state doesn't tell elections offices a voter has died, that voter can be on the rolls for years.

"The minute I said he was deceased, they should've made note, they should've done whatever they had to do, the people sitting behind that table, they should have done something," said Joann Santiago

Elections supervisors say they are pushing the state to allow them to accept death certificates from families as reasonable evidence to remove dead voters from the rolls.

That last sentence is just amazing. If a death certificate is not enough proof of a death not sure what is.

Armies of lawyers head to Fla. polls
By Steve Bousquet and Alex Leary, Times staff writers

Published Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:48 PM

FORT LAUDERDALE — Eight years after Florida's election debacle, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have mobilized thousands of lawyers to monitor polling places across the state in search of irregularities.

Both sides insist their goal is not litigation — only to safeguard voters' rights. But, as in the 2004 presidential race, the army of lawyers has put both sides on the defense, girding for possible challenges of voters at the polls.

Florida's liberal voter challenge law allows any voter to challenge another person's right to vote, forcing that voter to cast a provisional ballot on Election Day.

The first sign of trouble: The Florida Democratic Party asserted in a lawsuit Thursday that Republicans are plotting a broad vote challenge effort based on a direct-mail piece sent to older Democratic voters that sought to confirm voters' party affiliations. Among the evidence the Democrats cite is an unsuccessful petition a Republican sheriff candidate filed in rural Glades County last week challenging 300 voters.

Republicans say no such "caging" effort is under way. The Republican National Committee called the lawsuit a "baseless" attempt to generate publicity days before the election.

The new charge comes as both sides deploy volunteer lawyers to early voting sites. Only lawyers registered to vote in that county and approved as poll watchers can stand inside the polls. Other lawyers can work the line outside, talking to voters about their rights.

"I want to make sure we don't have a questionable outcome like they had here in 2000," said Steven Weiss, an Oakland, Calif., lawyer working an early voting site in Fort Lauderdale Thursday.

Democrats claim to have recruited 5,000 lawyers, all but about 1,000 of whom are Floridians.

Republicans declined to state their numbers. The Florida McCain legal team is led by Hayden Dempsey, a legal adviser to Gov. Jeb Bush and statewide chairman of Lawyers for Bush-Cheney '04.

"We'll have enough lawyers to protect ourselves," said Ed Pozzuoli, the South Florida coordinator of Lawyers for McCain and a veteran of the 2000 Florida recount.

Pozzuoli criticized the Democrats' legal approach as overkill. "I think it borders on voter intimidation if they are outside working the voting lines," Pozzuoli said. "It really is a recipe for mischief."

Not true, said the leader of the Obama campaign's voter protection effort in Florida. He is David Sullivan, who works for Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and who served for 10 years as legal counsel to that state's elections division.

Sullivan said lawyers are there to be sure the law is followed. He cited cases of poll workers who incorrectly believed a voter's address on a driver's license has to match one in the voter file. (It doesn't.)

Some participants say having so many lawyers increases the likelihood of election litigation.

"It's hard to have that many lawyers in such close proximity to each other without having problems. But you never know," said Democratic lawyer Mark Herron.

The avalanche of attorneys concerns Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who recently told Republican Gov. Charlie Crist about "both campaigns, flying in, busing in, trucking in attorneys" to Florida.

That brought a quick reply from Crist, himself a lawyer: "The (attorney) general and I will not take offense to those attorney comments."

Democrats reject the notion of "lawyering up" as a prelude to filing lawsuits. But a national fundraising pitch Thursday by Democratic strategist Paul Begala, seeking donations in close Senate races, raised fears of voter intimidation by Republicans.

"We have a team of experienced lawyers and trained poll watchers ready to jump at any sign of trouble," Begala wrote.

Times researcher Emily Rieman contributed to this report. Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.

Election observers

The Justice. Department announced Thursday that it will dispatch 800 observers to 23 states, including Florida, to monitor the election. Duval, Hillsborough and Seminole counties were named in a news release as the Florida counties where observers will be sent.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politic...icle883412.ece

Originally Posted by lindiloo

That last sentence is just amazing. If a death certificate is not enough proof of a death not sure what is.

Yes, but knowing how government at at all levels works, this is probably what we might expect to see:

"In the event of a voter death, in order to be removed from our record of eligible voters, the Deceased must report, in person, to their local County Elections Board............"

Don't think it could happen? LOL.......I wouldn't be so quick to say it couldn't

Originally Posted by lindiloo

That last sentence is just amazing. If a death certificate is not enough proof of a death not sure what is.

But that would make it harder for those "hard-working" illegal aliens to use those IDs. We can't have that now, can we?