Florida's - Glenda Hood and Sen Ann Cowin - NEED DIRT

[Laura PourMeADrink]

It struck me that if we are looking for fraud we look to the people who were pushing no-paper trails and other funky things in Florida.

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Last week, Sen. Anna Cowin proposed a plan that proclaimed "a manual recount may not be conducted of undervotes on touch-screen machines," essentially codifying Hood's dangerous belief in touch-screen inerrancy. After seeing a demonstration of the paper-free machines, Cowin was left with "no doubt whatsoever" that the machines will work properly and that printouts will not be necessary.
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During the recent presidential preference primary in Bay County, results showed that with more than 60 percent of precincts reporting, Richard Gephardt was beating John Kerry by two to one. Gephardt had long since pulled out of the race, so it was obvious that the computers had malfunctioned. Yet Hood continues to shut her eyes to the paper-trail problem and tell us that nothing is wrong.
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http://subvatican.com/democrat/recount2004.html



Glenda Hood Wants Tighter Method Of Tracking Absentee Ballots

POSTED: 6:36 am EST January 14, 2005

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Secretary of State Glenda Hood told legislators that the state should develop a better method for tracking absentee ballots, after thousands were re-mailed in Broward and Palm Beach counties days before the November election.

Hood appeared before a joint House and Senate elections committee Thursday and asked legislators to make other minor changes to election laws in the coming year.

The state's top elections official called for changes in voter registration deadlines and wants restrictions on how close campaign volunteers can approach people waiting to vote early.

Hood voiced concern over what happened in Broward, where complaints surfaced over undelivered absentee ballots, and more than 9,000 were re-mailed the Saturday before Election Day. Palm Beach County put more than 5,500 absentee ballots in the mail the same weekend.

Some lawmakers from other counties said their offices were flooded with hundreds of calls from voters who did not get their absentee ballot in time.

"We need to work with the postal service to make sure we can track them," Hood said. She didn't provide specifics.

The absentee ballots and complaints of long lines for early voting were blemishes on what officials have described as an otherwise-smooth election.

Senate Elections Chairman Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, said he doesn't envision any major changes this year.

"It's really working pretty good," he said.

Although there have been suggestions that the state require electronic voting machines to provide a paper receipt that would assure voters their ballots were counted, Posey said he sees no need.

"It's a moot point," he said. "If we could find any evidence of fraud, we'd do something."

An idea floated by election supervisors was an election season lasting at least 11 days with fewer polling places. Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning defended the idea, saying that supervisors would need fewer poll workers and it would cost less to run elections.

Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, a member of the House Ethics and Elections Committee, said she wants to eliminate early voting entirely.

Bogdanoff said early voting makes it even harder for non-incumbents to get elected because they have to spend even more money during the extended voting period.

http://www.wftv.com/news/4081841/detail.html


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In Florida particularly, there's a long history of absentee votes being discarded or manipulated. Hacking the absentee vote can be decidedly low-tech. The Miami Herald won a Pulitzer Prize for showing how fraudulent absentee votes swung a 1997 mayoral election in Miami. In one of the most colorful scams, campaign workers armed with boxes of absentee ballots paid homeless citizens $10 a vote to support their candidate.
In that case, an examination of witness signatures uncovered the fraud. Now, Florida has eliminated the requirement for a witness signature.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdbln/is_200408/ai_n7184103