Broward Election's Office Gets Back 6,600 Undeliverable Ballots

Associated Press ^ | Oct 29, 2003 | AP staff

[jpthomas]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - More than 6,600 ballots in next week's mail-in elections in four Broward County cities have been returned to the elections office because they were sent to people who no longer lived at addresses listed in county voter rolls.

Election Supervisor Miriam Oliphant's office late last week finished sending out 100,000 ballots for Nov. 4 mail-in elections by voters in Southwest Ranches, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach and two neighborhoods near Cooper City. About 2,500 residents have voted.

Beside the undelivered ballots, another problem appeared Tuesday when several residents of Pompano Beach and Deerfield Beach reported receiving the ballot packet with no ballot inside.

"This is not a good beginning," said County Mayor Diana Wasserman-Rubin, a member of the canvassing board that must tabulate the results. "The cities are going to be horrified."

Oliphant could not be reached for comment, but has said the ballot problems are overblown.

"The good thing about a mail-in election is it helps you clean up the voter rolls," she has said.

The ballot issues come as Oliphant faces a Nov. 10 deadline to come with a plan to correct problems in the elections office cited in last week's report by Secretary of State Glenda Hood. If Oliphant fails to meet that deadline, Gov. Jeb Bush would consider replacing her.

The problems first came up last week, when dozens of Southwest Ranches residents reported receiving extra ballots for people who had moved or died.

County officials suspect the errors are the result of Oliphant's failure to clean up the voter registration roll every other year as required under state law. They believe thousands of people who have moved, have died or are in prison pack the county's list of 1 million voters, the state's largest.

[jpthomas]

Miriam Oliphant's incompetence strikes back once again against the voters of Broward who elected her to the office of Supervisor of Elections.

[farmfriend]

Every time it gets bad in California, Florida comes and does us one better.

[Budge]

PING!

[38special]

Isn't it obvious that the so-called returned ballots were originally sent to a bogus registered voter who prolly accounted for a fraudulent ballot in 2000?

[RKV]

Perhaps they should forward these to the cemetaries and prisons where the inhabitants are now?

[YaYa123]

Miriam Oliphant's incompetence was just fine and dandy as long as Democrats were winning Broward. Black, pretty, totally incompetent, she was perfect, the best Elections Supervisor money could buy...until SHAZAM...Al Gore lost Florida. Now, thanks to that, Oliphant's malfeasance is exposed, just keeps getting worse and worse, more and more embarrassing for Democrats.

But this dame won't be shamed into resigning, she won't quit. The democrats can't seem to force her out, republicans either. She's got em by the balls because she's black. What's really funny...every article I've ever read about Miriam Oliphant contains this sentence: "Miriam Oliphant could not be reached for comment".

[RicocheT]

Race, party, gender aside, no community can afford to tolerate an election error rate of the magnitude that Miriam Oliphant's incompetence has caused.

She and her cronies should be removed and a bipartisan, honest commission should administer the elections for the next two years. Then a competent election commissioner should be elected and watched thereafter on performance.

[YaYa123]

Go here for some endless background on the efforts to get rid of the lovely Ms Oliphant. It's incredible!!! A white man, or a republican of any race and gender would have been canned and jailed years ago!!

http://www.click10.com/news/2425073/detail.html

[Recovering_Democrat]

Pictured below is Mount Corruption in Idaho...yes, it is a real mountain. Perhaps Broward County could adopt this mountain, as it so accurately describes the state of Elections in that part of the country.