Broward elections supervisor: 6000 absentee ballots missing, not 58,000

[Awsi Dooger]

That from an article in Saturday's Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Minutes earlier I read a Miami Herald article claiming the Broward County number of missing absentee ballots was 10,000-12,000.

Either way, it's obvious the 58,000 was incorrect. Broward sent out 128,000 absentee ballots and 88,000 of them have been mailed back. In contrast, adjacent Dade County reported no problems mailing absentee ballots, but less than half of them have been returned.

However, as indicated in the Sun-Sentinel article, the ACLU has charged in a letter to Snipes that she inadequately equipped the county's 800 precincts to the point many voters with registration problems will be disenfranchised on Tuesday.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-cvoting30oct30,0,2879361.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

"After days of scrambling to address what happened to as many as 58,000 absentee ballots mailed this month, Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes said she thinks fewer than 6,000 did not make it to voters on schedule.

Her staff and volunteers worked into the night Friday to mail 3,000 replacement ballots within the county and send another 3,000 by overnight delivery to residents who are out of the county."
<snip>

"About 200 people contacted outside the area reported not receiving a ballot, while between 1,000 and 2,000 of the calls to a special county hotline were requests for second ballots. The rest of the 6,000 ballots were mailed to people who could not be reached, a move officials said they were taking out of caution.

To ensure out-of-town ballots get back in time to be counted, Snipes enclosed a prepaid Federal Express return envelope. Of the out-of-town ballots, 571 were to Republicans and about 2,600 were to Democrats."

[theHandpuppet]

1. I simply do not understand...

... how Florida continues to make a mockery of our election process. There are third world countries that run more efficient (and honest) elections! Not to mention it appears that Dem and Repuke officials alike are just friggin' INEPT! Is there something in the water down there which destroys brain cells? You would think Floridians would be staging a revolt by now, since Jeb has seen fit to turn Florida into little more than a banana republic and a laughing stock.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. It's the agenda that gets in the way of efficiency.

In Florida, the agenda comes first. All policy will be made to make sure that nothing gets in the way of the agenda. For example, in Florida, there is a law that a government body can only charge 15 cents a page for a copy on a Public Records request. For a taped recording of a city meeting, a citizen can only be charged the actual cost of the tapes. Nothing more. So, it shouldn't be more than a buck fifty per tape for a meeting, maybe less than ten dollars for an entire city meeting.

However, cities across Florida charge more. In Altamonte Springs, the charge was $10.00 a tape a few years ago. So, the price may be more than $40.00 for a long meeting. It may still be that amount. This has the effect of discouraging people from asking for tapes of public meetings and makes it near impossible to keep an eye on your local officals.

Now, the state knows this discrepancy in cost exists. But do you think that this state would have sent a wide spread announcement to the municipalities to make sure that everyone complies with the Florida Statutes? Nope. Because it's to their advantage that every citizen burns out quickly by having the same fight city after city after city.

[graywarrior]

3. Let's face it, JEB does NOT want to fix this problem

None of them do.