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Absentee Ballots Go Missing in Florida
RonnyJ writes "The BBC is reporting that 58,000 ballot papers have gone missing in Broward County, Florida. A police investigation has 'not uncovered any sign of criminal wrongdoing', however, the US postal service has said it is highly unlikely for 58,000 pieces of mail to just disappear. In 2000, Broward County gave Al Gore his biggest margin among Florida counties, winning 67% of the votes there."
Is that the finger pointing begins before the facts have even been established. It's not clear whether this is an innocent mistake, but already voices are raised and accusations are being levelled. This may be nice for news corporations, but this is meant to be a calm and adult, and above all, very important process that should be treated with more seriousness. Perhaps dirty tricks are involved in the missing ballots. More likely they are not.
The serious point is that it debases the whole debate: look at the explosives question for example. A serious error may have been made, in the inadequate securing of high explosives placed under seal by the IAEE. Kerry immediately accuses Bush of failure to correctly secure them. But the information isn't at all clear cut, the explosives may in fact have already been moved, there are conflicting reports. From the initial hasty accusations, you have Bush aides furiously spinning a defense based on lies, then suddenly Kerry aides furiously spinning a defense of their candidates position. Somewhere in all the kerfluffle, the truth is lost, people become apathetic, and an important issue is trivialised, made "old news" and drops off the radar.
The fact is, candidates nowadays are so eager not to miss an opportunity to win a few points that the "news hysteria" near to election reaches fever pitch.
America needs a publicly funded TV and Newspaper source dedicated to impartiality like we have the Guardian and the BBC. The Guardian recently had an outreach program to get UK readers to help educate voters about how the world percieves America, to give them some perspective that is missing from their weekly digest. Unfortunately the campaign was DDOS and filibustered out of existence by republicans spinning a "foreign interference" false call to arms, but while it was ongoing I felt it did useful work and contributed myself. I hope I get an answer!
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
I don't care if the votes are mostly for Democrats or Republicans - no partisans on either side should ever be able to get away with this sort of thing (assuming the votes were intentionally 'misplaced').
I plan to vote for Badnarik this year, mainly because I live in Georgia, a state Bush is pretty much guaranteed to win. If it looked close, I'd be voting for Bush. If there were no Libertarian candidate on the ballot here, I'd vote for Bush. Given that it's a certainty that either Bush or Kerry will win the Presidency, I'd rather have Bush - though the choice between the two of them is akin to the choice between having a root canal without anesthesia and having my toenails pulled out with pliers. Even though one could say I'm rooting for Bush, I want him to win fair and square, not through cheating.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
From the article: "Some 60,000 absentee ballots were despatched by authorities in Broward County, north of Miami, this month. However, only 2,000 of them have been delivered."
Delivered, not returned. Note the HUGE FREAKING DIFFERENCE. Why do you lie? What's in it for you? Especially such an obvious and easy to see through lie, since everyone can see in the FIRST PARAGRAPH that what you posted is blatantly untrue?
digitect>>There is no way the post office is going to loose 58,000 pieces of individually mailed letters, all which happen to be ballots.
Yeah, which means someone else probably did it. Now, lets see... who has a vested interest in and history of suppressing votes in florida... rrr.... reee.... repuh.... republi.... republicaaa... (note: the completion of this word is left as an excersize to anyone with at least one functioning brain cell).
digitect>> This is yet another case of Slashdot maliciously pumping false headlines and summaries to generate controversy (and thereby, hits) again.
Dude, you changed the wording of the story, then you attack slashdot for reporting something false. I think that digitect is clearly trolling.
digitect>>Would everybody please stop reading "Politics:" topics so we can get back to Nerd stuff please?
Oh, yeah, I'm going to turn my back on politics on the eve of debatably the most important election ever, because you don't like the light reality casts on a certain state or party. Don't like the truth? Try honesty. It's better than booze or church, and it's 100% compatible with reality!
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
The days when Jefferson's opponents accused him of planning to undermine every form of morality?
The days when Lincoln was accused of having sired bastards?
The days when, who was it, Adams?, was accused of procuring women for the Russian Tsar?
The days when fist fights were breaking out on the floor of Congress?
The days when candidates were being accused of insanity? Senility? Stupidity?
American elections have always been nasty.
Clear, Dark Skies
That it's the Democrats who control Broward county, and all its absentee ballots - so when you look around for who to blame, "Darth Rove" isn't an option.
Clear, Dark Skies
... i would be happy to give the benefit of the doubt - if it wasn't for that 2000 election BS
But this is hardly anything new. If you've been paying attention in previous US elections, you'll have noticed many cases like this. Thus, in the 2000 election here in Boston, there was a news story of the discovery of 20,000 "missing" ballots in one precinct. Similar stories pop up all over. The attitude of the people running the election is basically "Oops; sorry about that." It's hard to avoid the impression of "Well, we were caught, so we'll have to count that batch."
The obvious question is "How many others are never discovered?" Hard to tell. But when I read about blocks of thousands of ballots that were somehow "misplaced", it's hard to avoid the obvious suspicion. Is it really true that only 50% or 60% of the people actually vote? Or are 30% to 40% of the ballots "lost" and never counted?
In Florida, they seem to be openly thumbing their noses at the voters by having so many ballots disappear. It's like they don't even need to pretend any more. They know that the worst that can happen is that they'll have to "discover" and count a few of the votes. But nobody will ever be punished for such things.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Can't handle that division stuff to well, can you? 5.8 ballots per pound is more correct. that's about 2.75 ounces per ballot, for those who can handle the math. About three times as heavy as a First Class Stamp will move through the system. When you consider the size of a ballot, plus the envelope for returning it, plus the envelope for delivering it, I don't find that too out to lunch.
I haven't dismissed anything. I have merely looked at the evidence. Of which there is very little. Let's see:
1) ~58,000 ballots are not accounted for.
2) USPS Inspectorate says they couldn't be lost by accident. Note that he doesn't really know, but he thinks it couldn't happen that way. Given that a few years ago the USPS found an 18-wheeler parked under a bridge up north packed with mail that hadn't been delivered for 18 years, I wonder.
3) The Election Commissioner doesn't know anything about it. Or claims not to. I have no reason to doubt her, but we must consider the possibility. NOTE: New Orleans had a local election just after Ivan passed by. The Election Commissioner (she's not called that, but that's what she does) totally screwed the election up - didn't deliver voting machines on time, things like that. She blamed the storm, even though the election held the same day six miles away had no problems. So I have recent experience of the effects of a less thancompetent Elections Commissioner on an election.
That's about it, really. Police say no evidence of wrongdoing. Noone has come forward to admit to anything, even incompetence. No leads reported. No political Parties implicated. Nada, zilch, zip.
You, on the other hand, seem to believe that this must, by definition, be a Republican plot. As you believe that everything that happens is a Republican plot. Your evidence that this is so, if you please. And evidence is what I want to see, not suggestions that this could only be a Republican plot because the County is 2/3 Dem. It's just as likely (given that it is a plot) that the voters being disnfranchised were the 1/3 Republicans in the County, pending some actual information.
Interestingly, it would be pretty easy to get the information. The Election Commissioner has to have a list of people who have requested Absentee Ballots, and a list of those to whom Absentee Ballots were sent (otherwise, how could she know that 58,000 were missing, and 2000 were sent?). Cross-check the lists against Party affiliations, and look for patterns, and voila, you suddenly have an "indication of criminal wrongdoing", if say, the Republican ballots were sent, and the Democrat ballots were not sent. Or vice versa.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I'm not against electronic voting because it is electronic, I am against it because there is no paper trail. But there is no paper trail for paper voting either! Seriously: Do you get a receipt? Do you get a cryptographic hash of your vote? Or the ID number for your ballot? Can you call the election commission on the following day and verify that ballot 12345 was received and has hash 0A57F2? If not -- then you can be sure of nothing.
Without this type of validation, a ballot can be lost and nobody knows. Electronic voting gives us the possibility of implementing truly modern methods for eliminating this problem. Granted, it could be done on paper too -- but nobody wants to reform the paper system.
Here Here let's not bother questioning what were fed by politicians etc. and we should all stop looking at independent news and believe only those who show partisanship to our favourite party.
shame on whoever posted this story for highlighting a possible election problem it's not as if it's important.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Here is the deal:
Four years ago, every American learned that there are problems with how votes are tallied in the United States.
We have had four years to come up with a replacement.
In four years, the powers-that-be *have not come up with an acceptable replacement*.
*That* is the problem - there are huge problems remaining with the voting system in America (in addition to the huge problems that have been put into place with some of the replacement system put into place since 2000).
Both Democrats and Republicans have begun planning for the legal battle that will ensue after the November election. What they will not tell you is that not only is it their fault (meaning both parties) that there are still problems, but that they have a vested interest in making sure the problems are not fixed.
It seems that the two parties would rather the election be decided in the courts after the election than by the actual voters.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Someone else said the Republican party is more "salvagable" then the Democrats, and if only they'd get rid of the neocons...
My response... Ain't gonna happen, at least not until the neocons start losing elections for the Republicans, and make it HURT.
So I still say, the combination of a President Kerry and a Republican Congress is more conservative than Bush with that same Congress.
I'll also add that if you want to reform the Republican party, and get the neocons (and their religious throat-shoving) out, start at the Top. In this respect, a vote for Kerry is better for the traditional Republican party.
I was raised Republican. I am currently Independent, with Contrarian leanings. My brother holds that the current Republican party has deserted the Republican virtues we were raised with.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
No, I didn't. It seemed an unnecessary complication, at the time. Since you brought it up...
You forget confirmation by the Senate. Kerry won't be able to put in a left-wing wingnut, because the Senate won't let him. So far the large minority of Democrats in the Senate has kept the farthest right justices out of the system, too. The wild-card here is the "Nuke Option" as reported in Slashdot, a while back.
Then we have to take up the very term, "legislate from the bench." Strange how when the justices agree with you, they're being "strict constructionists" or "preserving the intent of the framers of the Constitution," but when they disagree with you, they're "legislating from the bench." IMHO, "conservative justices" are "legislating from the bench" as much as "liberal justices" are. They're just legislating in different directions.
It cuts both ways.
I have a different view. We have 3 Conservatives, 3 Liberals, and 3 Swing voters. IMHO, the only real interest and insight comes from the latter 3. I can read why a Liberal or Conservative made a given decision and learn something, but the real insight comes from the Swing justices.
Again, a Bush Presidency with our Congress will likely produce more Conservative justices, and they will "legislate from the bench," just as surely as more Liberal justices would. It'd just be different legislation.
A Kerry Presidency with our Congress is more likely to produce Swing justices, because Kerry won't nominate a hardline Conservative, and the Senate won't confirm a Liberal.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Sorry, my bad. I was inferring your position. (I'm not particularly pro-Kerry, I'm anti-Bush. You can see my positions elsewhere on this thread, I try to answer.)
My opinion on terrorism goes like this...
Pretend terrorists are a hornet's nest. (particularly poisonous, even lethally poisonous hornets)
Bush is out there yelling, "I'll protect you!" and in one hand he sprays a can of insecticide at the hornets flying around. With the other hand, he's got a stick and is poking at the nest stirring the hornets up.
Last time I had a hornet's nest, (this past Summer) I got up early, put a net over the bush the nest was in, and then began spraying the nest, directly. Some hornets got out of the nest quickly, but then got caught in the net. I had several more seconds of good, effective spraying before they started finding their way toward the edge of the net, and I figured it would be safer to get away.
The nest was killed off.
Lesson:
The current adminstration has said, "We don't do subtle," and that certainly describes their actions.
Sometimes subtle is called for.
One other point...
Bush has been calling for international assistance, but in the past he has so offended the people he's now asking for help, that none has been forthcoming. He would have to eat excessive amounts of humble pie, more than *any* President should have to, in order to get help.
The bar would be lower for Kerry, or any significant regime change, to get international assistance.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.