13. Absentee Ballots

Absentee Votes Worry Officials as Nov. 2 Nears (New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/politics/campaign/13vote.html?ei=5090&en=c3408f7f9b07b78b&ex=1252728000&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=

As both major political parties intensify their efforts to promote absentee balloting as a way to lock up votes in the presidential race, election officials say they are struggling to cope with coercive tactics and fraudulent vote-gathering involving absentee ballots that have undermined local races across the country.

Some of those officials say they are worried that the brashness of the schemes and the extent to which critical swing states have allowed party operatives to involve themselves in absentee voting - from handling ballot applications to helping voters fill out their ballots - could taint the general election in November.

An Election Spoiled Rotten (Greg Palast)

http://www.tompaine.com/print/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php

It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled." Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the trashing of the election.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted. He's also losing big time in Colorado and Ohio; and he's way down in Florida, though the votes won't be totaled until Tuesday night.

Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling—ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes—John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes.

Absentee isn't a guarantee (St. Petersburg Times Online)

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/08/news_pf/Tampabay/Absentee_isn_t_a_guar.shtml

Victoria Mraz had never voted with an absentee ballot before the March Democratic presidential primary. She's not sure she'll ever do it again. Her ballot was rejected because it wasn't properly witnessed, a problem she says she discovered only because she called Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning to make sure he got it. Now she's wary of absentee ballots.

"I don't trust them," said Mraz, 77, of San Antonio. "I just don't trust them." Thousands of voters across Florida had similar problems. Florida legislators have since removed the witness requirement, which was responsible for most absentee ballot problems, but other potential pitfalls remain. Requests for absentee ballots are on the rise across Florida this election year. Both major political parties are pushing them, and critics of touch screen machines have suggested absentee ballots as an alternative.

"If you are not comfortable with technology, you can vote by mail, you can create a paper trail," said Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho. "I think they are presenting to the voters the only wise option." Others disagree. Those who think absentee ballots will guarantee their votes are counted could be as disappointed as Mraz, election experts say. "I think it's really bad advice," said Dan Tokaji, a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law and an expert on election systems. "There's a much greater chance that their votes won't be counted."

Still, prodded by a task force appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to recommend changes in the wake of problems with the 2000 Florida election, legislators have made it far easier to use absentee ballots.