Nader ALERT: 'Advance' Florida ballots to go out WITH Nader

[npincus]

Martin and St. Lucie Counties (15,800 ballot collective requests so far) in Florida WILL send "advance" absentee ballots with Nader's name included, irregardless of what the Florida Supreme Court decides today, and DISCOUNT those Nader votes later if the court rules Nader OFF the ballot. So, any potential Kerry votes in the Nader pile will go in the trash. So, if Nader gets just 2% of the vote, that would be 316 disenfranchised voters in these 2 counties alone.

Will the rest of Florida follow suit? What a crock of shit.

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,1651,TCP_16736_3187927,00.html (article below to save you the pain of site registration)



Absentee ballots to go out amid Nader candidacy dispute
By Jim Turner staff writer
September 17, 2004

Treasure Coast supervisors of elections, working to catch up with absentee requests that flooded the offices while closed for Hurricane Frances, are awaiting a state ruling on Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader being on the ballot before mailing out overseas ballots.

"Hopefully, all will be settled by Saturday," said Debbie Dent, Martin County deputy supervisor of elections.

Florida Supreme Court justices stepped in Wednesday and ordered state elections chief Glenda Hood to stop any presidential ballots from being mailed until they rule on Nader's candidacy.

After days of legal battling, which caused Nader's name to ping-pong on and off Florida's presidential ballot, justices called a halt to further action until a hearing today.

Regardless of any action taken by the court, Martin and St. Lucie counties will send out advance forms of the absentee ballot Saturday, 45 days before the election as required by state law.

Donna Daloisio, systems administrator for the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections Office, said those overseas would receive two ballots, the advance form and the final version a few weeks later. Those voters could use either ballot.

Dent said if Nader's name is allowed this weekend, yet later removed, the county would simply discount any votes made on the advance ballots for Nader.

The first bulk mailing of absentee ballots will go out around Oct. 1 for the Nov. 2 general election.

Martin County already has received about 7,000 requests for absentee ballots, about 100 of them from overseas. It should easily surpass the record-setting 12,483 that were cast in the 2002 general election, Dent said.

St. Lucie County has received nearly 8,800 absentee ballot requests.

"It's probably a little higher than what we had for 2000, but not astronomical by any means," Daloisio said. "I think some people may want to stay away because of the hurricane and are asking for them."

In addition to absentee balloting, early voting for the general election begins Oct. 18 throughout the state.

The Sun-Sentinel contributed to this report.

[cthrumatrix]

1. this is DEFYING a court order NOT TO.... people should be jailed

[kevinhnc]

2. This is utter disenfranchisement

These people should be jailed for disenfranchising even one person that marks for Nader....

Idiots.

[yellowcanine]

3. The judge said they can't do that - can anyone say "contempt"?

If they do that they have just disenfranchised the Nader voters - oh that's right , Scalia claims the constitution doesn't guarantee anyone the right to have their vote counted anyway. So it is ok then.