Posted on 8/4/2002, 12:05:29 AM by knak
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The ballot for the high-profile Democratic gubernatorial primary has confusing instructions that could cause the same problems that marked the 2000 presidential election, Democrats said Saturday.
The ballot instructs voters to "Vote for One Pair," meaning a combined entry of governor and lieutenant governor, though none of the candidates has chosen a running mate.
Voters who took the instruction literally would "overvote" and nullify their choice, Democrats said.
Under the names of gubernatorial candidates Daryl Jones, Bill McBride and Janet Reno, the ballot reads "Not Yet Designated" in place of a lieutenant governor candidate.
Party chairman Bob Poe said Saturday he would ask Secretary of State Jim Smith on Monday to change the ballot language. Smith's office was closed Saturday and phone messages were not returned.
Poe also said the party is considering court action.
"This confusing language poses a serious threat to the integrity of the primary ballot," Poe said.
Poe said the language needs to be changed quickly because ballots are being mailed to overseas voters now for the Sept. 10 primary. Gov. Jeb Bush is unopposed for the Republican nomination.
New voting systems put in place after the 2000 presidential race catch overvotes and allow voters to correct them. Computerized "touch screen" voting machines in 15 counties make it impossible to vote twice. And new scanners in 52 counties with paper ballots detect "overvotes" before voters leave the polls.
The impact would mostly fall on thousands of absentee voters in all 67 counties because there is no mechanism that would catch an overvote, Democrats said.
Sarah Jane Bradshaw, assistant director of the office's elections division, said she wrote the new wording to replace language that was even more confusing.
"I feel very confident that we will be addressing and fine-tuning the rules after the election," Bradshaw told the St. Petersburg Times. "Election law is an ongoing process."
The instructions "Vote for Group" and "Vote for One Group" is blamed for prompting thousands of Floridians to vote for more than one presidential ticket in November 2000.
About 113,000 Floridians nullified their ballots with overvotes in the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. More than 59,000 of those voters lived in counties where ballots told them to vote for a "group." Bush won by 537 votes.
"The whole world is watching us. A mistake like this is a total embarrassment for the state," said Nicole Harburger, campaign spokeswoman for Reno. "This ballot virtually guarantees that people in Florida will be overvoting and that ballots will be lost in the process."
"It's just incredible that they're screwing up another one," McBride campaign spokesman Alan Stonecipher said.
Yeah, right!
what's so hard to figure out about that?
If so, Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton
should both be single again. They
definitely married over their heads.
NewsMax.com WiresMIAMI - An activist group and an individual voter sued Florida and Monroe County elections officials in federal court Wednesday. They claim that sections of the Florida Election Reform Act of 2001, such as advice to study the issues and bring ID, are somehow "racially discriminatory" and violate federal law.
Thursday, Aug. 16, 2001
At issue in Major vs. Sawyer is a provision of the Florida law requiring the posting of a list of voter responsibilities at all polling places. This list includes requirements that voters:
The Right to Be Ignorant
The federal Voting Rights Act prohibits any requirement that voters be able to show they can read, write, understand or interpret any matter or show any knowledge of any subject.
Randall Marshall, legal director for ACLU Foundation of Florida, said he did not believe the voter responsibilities lists had been posted in any elections held since the law was passed this year. Nonetheless, he said the provisions troubled him.
"Election officials in a particular precinct haven't had that much training, and when they see this list they may believe that it's their duty to determine whether someone has adequately studied the issues," Marshall said. "We're certainly not complaining about the voters' bill of rights. That's appropriate, but the voters' responsibilities list places a burden on voters that is more properly with the elections supervisors."
The lawsuit also seeks to delay implementation of a felon purging process and provisional ballot system until they have been reviewed and approved by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Voting Without ID
The provisional ballots are designed to allow people to vote who have appeared at the wrong precinct. It also objects to the requirement that voters present picture identification, even though Florida law allows those without ID to sign an affidavit.
These provisions are believed to have a greater effect on black and Hispanic voters, who are more likely to move frequently and be poor than whites, according to recent census data.
"I know elderly people here who have never driven a car in their entire lives," Florida Voters League member Norma Jean Sawyer said. "They don't have photo ID. You tell them ID is required and give them no options, and they will not vote."
"Provisional ballots are a great idea, but if there's one thing that we all learned from the Nov. 20 elections, it's that the right to vote is meaningless unless that vote is counted," Marshall said.
He said that under the new law, people who show up at the wrong precinct will be given a provisional ballot. "The way the law is written, if someone votes in the wrong precinct on a provisional ballot, the vote will not be counted," he said. "The way this was drafted, it almost ensures some votes will not be counted."
Rights Without Responsibilities
"There were a lot of good things that came out of the legislature in terms of voters' rights, but the voters' responsibility is a throwback to the days of literacy tests," Marshall said. "The purpose of the lawsuit is to remove impediments from exercising the right to vote."
Neither Marshall nor Sawyer addressed issues of voter fraud - a major problem in the 2000 elections - and how illegal votes disenfranchise legitimate voters.
Key West resident Charles Major, the individual plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed with a group that calls itself Florida Equal Voting Rights Project, said he wanted what he referred to as more progress in voting changes to allow more voters to cast ballots.
"This suit sends a clear message that electoral reform must move us forward, not take us back," Major said. "We are in 2001, heading into 2002. We should not be going backward to a time before there were any civil rights laws."
The Florida Election Reform Act was passed in the wake of the November 2000 presidential election after some voters claimed they could not tell who they had voted for on punch-card ballots in Democrat-run Palm Beach County, and many illegitimate votes were disqualified. In some areas, minority voters claimed they had been turned away at the polls.
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Monroe County Elections Supervisor Harry Sawyer Jr. are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Harris spokesman David Host said only one of the three provisions at issue was part of Harris' original reform legislation, the Associated Press reported.
"Nevertheless, as chief elections officer, she will vigorously carry out her duty to defend all of these provisions," Host said.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
Let's face it. They're already Liberals, which means they understand less than 10% of what's going on around them.
If it isn't spinning, they won't know what it is.
Keep the NEA in power and the whole country will be like them.
Let me put on my tin-foil hat for a moment. I think this is planned to some extent. As I recall from the Floriduh election mess the ballot are approved by the parties prior to an election. Knowing this why would the ballots be confusing unless they want to imply that the Republican are up to no good.
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