Posted on 03/19/2004 1:26:46 PM PST by The South Texan
41 ballot requests were dead on arrival Web Posted: 03/18/2004 12:26 AM CST
Ihosvani Rodriguez San Antonio Express-News
Angelita Aguero was among an estimated 4,000 Bexar County voters who asked for a mail-in ballot in last week's primary election, Bexar County election records show.
The problem is, Aguero has been dead since August 2003.
And she isn't the only one who appears to have wanted to vote from beyond.
A computer at the Bexar County election office recently flagged the names of 41 deceased people who somehow sent applications to vote by mail.
The applications are being forwarded to the Bexar County district attorney, officials confirmed Wednesday.
But officials there said they aren't optimistic about finding a culprit.
"It happens in nearly every election, and it's just near impossible to investigate," said Cliff Herberg, chief of the district attorney's white-collar division.
No ballots were sent to the deceased, and there is no indication any dead person managed to receive a ballot, election officials said.
"That's the important thing to stress here," Bexar County Elections Administrator Cliff Borofsky said. "No ballots were sent out to deceased individuals. No dead person voted."
But they tried.
According to election officials, the 41 applications were mailed to Borofsky's office in the weeks leading to the primary elections.
All but four came from voters with addresses in Bexar County's Precinct 1, where incumbent Commissioner Robert Tejeda is heading for an April 13 runoff against Sergio "Chico" Rodriguez.
The applications had different handwriting styles and were mailed from different parts of the county, making it difficult to track their origins, investigators said Wednesday.
Tejeda did not return messages seeking comment. Rodriguez said his campaign didn't have anything to do with the applications.
"You hear rumors about it all the time, but I never thought it actually happens," Rodriguez said. "The only thing I could say is that I am only trying to get votes from people who are alive."
According to Borofsky, election staffers run each application for a mail-in ballot through a database. The computer cross-references them with updated lists of deceased residents provided by city and state officials, he said.
In the meantime, Aguero's neighbor Esperanza Cuesta laughed at the notion that the deceased widow would try to vote.
"That's just spooky," she said, looking over at Aguero's overgrown and newspaper-strewn yard.
And these guys would be R's or D's? I base my suspicions on the fact that the intrepid reporter neglected to include this information, but I would not want to leap to conclusions ....
One question, though: why is it that Democrats rise from the dead and Republicans don't? :D
SNIP
The applications had different handwriting styles and were mailed from different parts of the county, making it difficult to track their origins, investigators said Wednesday.
HINT: Take those hard to trace handwriting samples over to the Rat party HQ and you'll probably get a few hits.
No ballots were sent out to deceased individuals. No dead person voted."
But they tried.
No, actually a party operative tried to vote for the dead people. I thought this only happened in places like Chicago and San Francisco. The US really needs to police its elections. I wonder what kinds of things, post Florida Dade County, the democrats are trying to figure out for November of this year?
This is precisely why the friggin dems have been running their mouths about computer viting. The DBs in the computer servers will catch crap like this. Thank God for modern technology...the dems are afraid of it....except for Al Gore, who, of course, created the internet.
Incumbent Bexar County Precinct 1 Commissioner Robert Tejeda will be headed for a runoff to determine the Democratic Primary winner
That's because when RATs die, they are given one of two choices - go back and vote or go to Hell.
When Republicans die, they are also given two choices - go back and vote or go to Heaven.
There are no DB's in computer voting. Voting is secret. There is no way for a computer voting system to know who voted. Dead voters have to be caught in the registration process or when they apply for absentee ballots.
Duh!
I assume that the folks who applied really wanted their absentee ballot bad enough to put a return address on the application?????
Duh!
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