It's starting already....

Member

I'm unsure as to which way Broward is swayed. As screwed up as this system down here is, who knows if it's even accurate?

To add to this, guess what I just found in the mailbox today! Our applications to register to RECEIVE an absentee ballot!! Come on, people! The election is next Tuesday! Is that scary or what?

Apparently, the Board of Elections had added more people to it's staff -

Broward early voting hours extended until 8 p.m. tonight and Friday

BY AMY SHERMAN

asherman@herald.com

Broward County has extended early voting hours until 8 p.m. tonight and Friday night at all 14 early voting locations, to better accommodate the large number of people who have shown up to cast a ballot.

The locations had been slated to close at 6 p.m. Officials are hoping the extra four hours of voting this week will reduce the lines on Election Day, Nov. 2.

In addition, the county has opened its emergency operations center to handle voters' questions about absentee ballots.

The county had planned on opening the center on Election Day as it has done in previous elections, but due to voters' complaints about missing ballots and difficulty reaching elections officials, the county implemented a new plan last night, said EOC spokesman Carl Fowler.

There are 50 county workers staffing the EOC, which can be reached at 954-831-4000. Normally 20 people answer phones at that number, which is typically a county government information center when the EOC is not operational.

The center will take calls from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Friday. No weekend hours are planned.

By 3:15 p.m. today, the center had received about 3,300 calls. That's about double the normal volume. Many of the callers are asking questions about how they can get an absentee ballot or the status of previous requests to get ballots.

''This was done in response to the volume of calls that have been received and to try to help get ballots out to people,'' Fowler said.

The supervisor of elections announced Wednesday that they will mail 75,000 absentee ballots to voters who requested them but have not received them.

Controversial film maker Michael Moore is expected to speak about the missing ballots at the supervisor of elections office in Fort Lauderdale at 7 p.m.

Master of Prissface

The only reason I'd even half believe this is a legitimate issue is that I know how crappy your mail system is down there. But I'm still not convinced this isn't simply more hjinks. I suppose we'll find out a few months after the election though.

Member

Excelent

Problems like this are only going to discourage people from coming to the polls in the futures

Anyone who votes, should have confidence that their vote is going to be counted accurately and fairly

Master of Prissface

Member

Excelent

Member

The problem here isn't that Michael Moore, or Bruce Springsteen, or even Bushie Curt Schilling is making a stink about something, the problem is that, even after 2000, there is a problem at all. For a few months states and localities got all concerned with voting problems, purge lists, and hanging chads. A few places bought touch screen machines (ignoring their inherent lack of accountability, a fact that was buried until so recently that it's 'too late do do anything about') and then everybody forgot about it until three weeks before the election.

Well I think the influx of new voters and the numbers voting this election will be huge, maybe the biggest % since 1964, and the systems in place are just not going to be up to handling it.

It will make good RR fodder, though Wink

Member

Gone Fishin

There is two problems as I see it. Yes, one is the hanging chads, the purge lists and touch screens or whatever the problematic case might be. But the one I want to focus on that Michael Moore and whatever other millionaire hollywood darling wants to get some publicity off the problems of some voting districts inadequate procedures, then why don't they actually DO something about it.

I don't have any qualms with free speech or questioning authority, but what I'd like to see is that people like Michael Moore that have a support base of people, money and attention, put those resources to work for a solution instead of living life behind a bullhorn pointing out the inadequacies in the world. Heck, you, I or any old Joe can look at world and find things wrong it, whether it's voting, environment or world policy. But it's the real LEADERS of this planet that actually DO something.

Michael Moore has made his point. Is he now just going to fade back into the woodwork until the next road bump comes along? Is that his only purpose in life, to yell and point fingers? Come on, we all live in neighborhoods and communities where we know things only get done when people put their noses to the grindstone and DO something. Shouting and protesting have never installed a new voting machine. Nor has it ever registered a new citizen to vote. No, it's the people that actually get the budget approved and buy the machines that are doing something. It's the people in the office of voter registration that do their jobs accurately that get something done. It's not Michael Moore et al and their bootstomping camera entourage that DO anything. So that's what I'm trying to get across is that people with means and the public eye have the responsibility for doing more than flapping their gums, it's time that they walk the talk and fix the problem instead of just griping about it.

Member

Update on the missing ballots.......

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - Fears that thousands of absentee election ballots had gone astray in a hotly contested Florida county appear to have been allayed on Thursday when officials said a far small number were missing.

"The extent of the problem is not going to be as great as it appeared," Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes told a news conference, easing concerns of a resurgence of the kind of problems that dogged the 2000 election.

Officials in Broward said this week that nearly 60,000 absentee ballots mailed on Oct. 7 and 8 had not reached voters' homes.

But Snipes said that in fact of 128,000 absentee ballots mailed to voters who will not be able to vote in person next Tuesday, 72,000 had been filled in and sent back and the rest were coming in at a rate of 10,000 a day.

She said that instead of having to send out as many as 58,000 replacement ballots, the county would probably only have to resend 10,000 to 15,000.

"I think it was more of a delay than that the ballots were lost," Snipes said.

With the memories of the 2000 race and all signs pointing to a neck-and-neck race in many states this year, Democrats and Republicans have prepared teams of lawyers to fight their causes should there be disputes.

Reports that nearly 60,000 ballots were missing, representing more than 5 percent of the county's electorate -- alarmed voters, democracy activists and officials.

U.S. Postal Service investigators began hunting for the ballots, while insisting 58,000 pieces of mail do not simply go missing, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also launched a speedy investigation.

Snipes said the election authorities, inundated with phone calls from anxious voters who had not received their ballots, had contacted the Postal Service investigators "in an abundance of caution." She added that the Florida police had reported back that "no criminal activity was determined."

The Broward County elections office set up a hotline on Thursday for voters who wanted their absentee ballots to be mailed again, and had received 267 calls so far, she said.

The county is also calling out-of-state voters to see whether they had received their voting forms and would courier any replacement ballots needed.

In 2000 the race in Florida, on which the national contest ultimately depended, was so close it prompted five weeks of lawsuits, recounts and accusations of foul play.

President Bush (news - web sites) eventually won Florida's electoral votes and the White House when the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) halted the ballot recounts, angering Democrats who believe Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) won the state's popular vote.

Broward County has Florida's second highest number of registered voters, behind only neighboring Miami-Dade County, and is one of the state's most heavily Democratic counties.

Member

Member

10,000 is still a LOT of ballots. That number could certainly decide an election.

It's starting already....

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