Votes From the Dead to Count in Election

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=548&ncid=696&e=3&u=/ap/20041031/ap_on_el_ge/dead_voters


<snip>

RALEIGH, N.C. - In what would be her last conscious act, 90-year-old Trixie Porter gripped a pen in her weak, trembling hand, checked the candidates of her choice and scrawled a squiggled signature on her absentee ballot.

Within an hour, the petite woman who had been suffering from heart problems lay back in her hospital bed, closed her eyes and never woke up. Her ballot arrived at her local elections board two days later, Oct. 5 — the day she died.


"We commented that day that it probably won't count," said daughter Cheryl McConnell. "But she went to her grave not knowing any different. It counted with her."


An untold number of ballots like Porter's will indeed be counted because of the haphazard and cumbersome process of enforcing laws in many states to weed out the absentee votes of those who die by Election Day.

[zanana]

1. She was alive when she voted...

It should count.

[Sinnerman]

6. Absolutely should count

Totally ligitament May she rest in peace.

[Joy Anne]

7. Believe it or not,

I've heard two stories of people who voted absentee because of health problems and then, happy to know they'd helped to elect Kerry, died peacefully.

[BayCityProgressive]

2. this just sounds like

an open invitation to fraud. Why would a dead persons vote count?

[leQ]

3. i agree... suppose you went to the poll on tuesday, voted, then

stepped out into the street and got hit by a car and died.

should your vote be pulled and rejected?

dead people don't vote.
but voters die.

[trotsky]

8. Um, because they cast a valid vote before they died?

How is this an open invitation to fraud?

[Gregorian]

4. It's a scam! Everyone knows- most dead people are Republicans.

You know, if my last conscious act is voting, I'll be really pissed.
:)

[niyad]

5. does being brain-dead (like all repukes) count?

[skeeterintexas]

9. My 17 yo voted!

My daughter turned 18 on Oct. 28. We researched our state's requirements for registering (17 + 10 mos. to register & before Oct. 2) and she registered. She got her VR card in the mail and early voted on Oct. 25 when whe was only 17! Yea for her!

[nodehopper]

10. if you are alive in October and paid your taxes in April

why shouldn't it count?

[Zorra]

11. The dead?

[tanyev]

12. The dead are rising from their graves

and they're voting Republican! Lisa Simpson, in one of my favorite episodes.

[debatepro]

13. Time to change my will

Never will i vote for a republican so if something says i did - its fraud.

[LizW]

14. This came up in my home town

This summer, the mayoral race was won by one vote. It just so happened that a Mr. Harris, who was a prominent citizen who EVERYONE knew, had voted by absentee ballot, then died before election day. There was a day or so when everyone wondered if the loser would challenge Mr. Harris' absentee ballot, and it was the hot topic of conversation at the drug store soda fountain. :) However, he decided not to, but did challenge the election on other grounds, and it's still tied up in the courts now.

[et in Arcadia ego...]

15. There's a new horror flick in the works on this subject:

"NIGHT OF THE VOTING DEAD"

:hi:

[ISUGRADIA]

16. In Iowa if you die before election day

the vote does not count if discovered.