Orange voters react angrily to request for new signatures (FL)

[Baitball Blogger]

Some voters are showing signs of getting fed up with efforts to question their right to vote in Florida, reacting angrily to 214,000 letters sent by Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles this week to longtime and absentee voters in Orange County.

Cowles is asking them to submit fresh voter signatures so that there will be no confusion when his office checks signatures on absentee ballots this year. In the Republican presidential primary on Jan. 31, Cowles said, his office rejected 119 absentee ballots because the signature on the ballot didn't adequately match the one they had on file.

But voters such as Mattie White, 73, of Orlando, saw the letter as an attack on her legitimacy.

"This is just ridiculous to me. I've been here for 44 years," said White, who said she votes so regularly that election officials in her precinct greet her by name. "They want me to prove to them who I am."

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-06-06/news/os-voter-signature-demand-20120606_1_absentee-ballots-absentee-voters-voter-registration-drives

[robinlynne]

1. and that siganture matching is done by teh Dibeold machine, of course. the one with high, medium and

low settings?

So 119 people's sig maybe did not match. therefore let's disenfranchise 200,000 people. oh yes.

[Ohio Dem]

2. Well, sending 200,000 letters make more sense.

Instead of just sending 119 letters to the folks whose signatures didn't match.

[robinlynne]

5. I think you missed something, or misread the OP.

[Ohio Dem]

6. The only thing I missed was thinking

that my sarcasm would be obvious.

[robinlynne]

7. oooooooooooooh.

[Ohio Dem]

8. Sorry if that came across as snarky.

I didn't mean it to be. When I reread it, though, it was.

[robinlynne]

9. we're good. just feeling stupid....

[HockeyMom]

3. Voted in NY for almost 40 years

Yes, they matched signatures, but they got to know me by sight. They KNEW who I was over decades so the signature was just a formality.

[robinlynne]

4. Unfortunately, vote by mail signatures are not checked at the polls by the people you know. they are

checked at the Registrar's office by computers running software owned by private corporations. ES&S in most cases, who purchased 'Diebold". I think California is at 40% vote by mail now, something like that.