Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

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Odd, I have it on good authority that Bush stole the election
in Florida. Kerry said so.......

Voter fraud from Navy Times

By Dave Lowry
October 18, 2004

No more absentee ballots for this officer

In the 2000 federal election, I voted by stateside absentee ballot, sending my ballot by United Parcel Service from Texas to Florida. It was delivered on time; I know this because UPS recorded document receipt by the Office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections at 3:09 p.m. on Election Day, almost four hours before the 7 p.m. deadline.

For the next seven months, I felt proud of myself for taking part in the election process. I was sure my vote had been counted, because I had proof it was delivered on time.

Then a reporter from the New York Times called. He had a list of thousands of Florida voters whose absentee ballots had not been counted — and my name was on the list. The Office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections stamped my ballot as being received nine days after the election.

What happened? I believe Broward County officials fraudulently set aside many absentee ballots, most sent by regular mail. Why? Because there is no tracking system on regular mail. Voters who used regular mail had no way to prove when it was delivered. The mistake they made was throwing mine in with the others.

Fraud was committed. And I proved it.

On Aug. 18, after more than three years trying to get my vote counted, the Florida Elections Commission validated my claim. They agreed that my vote was received on time and had not been counted. But the two-year statute of limitations had expired. So certain elections officials will not be charged with fraud — a first-degree misdemeanor — for failing to count my vote.

However, on Sept. 2, the Florida Elections Commission sent a written request to the Broward County Supervisor of Elections to open my ballot and count my vote.

The lesson: If you want greater assurance of your absentee ballot being counted, don’t send it by regular mail. Send it certified, return receipt requested. Use any delivery service that has a tracking system.

If enough absentee ballot voters do this, it will send a strong message. Elections officials will be dissuaded from playing political hanky-panky with your vote. But if you really want to make sure your vote is counted, you may want to vote in person at your designated polling place, even if you have to take leave and travel to do it.

Ludicrous advice? Perhaps. But I believe that most absentee ballots are never counted. They usually come into play only when an election is so close that the absentee ballots could change the outcome — that is, when the number of valid absentee ballots received is greater than the margin of victory.

Only once in my 26-year military career have I lived close enough to my polling place to vote in person. I am still stunned by the revelation that the one time I voted in person was probably the only time my vote was ever counted. I will never again vote by absentee ballot. On Nov. 2, I will take a day of leave and travel to my polling place.

We need to implement a nationwide electronic voting system that allows troops to walk into any polling place across the United States and cast their ballot. And service members based overseas should be able to vote over the Internet.

We have the technology to implement nationwide electronic voting. But defense officials recently postponed plans to further test a new electronic voting system developed by Accenture eDemocracy Services.

The electronic voting project was successfully tested in four counties during the 2000 election, but was sidelined in March 2004 because of security concerns. The expanded pilot program, dubbed Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, was intended to be used in 50 counties across the nation during the 2004 election, but again was postponed because of concerns about the “legitimacy of votes cast over the Internet.”

Billions of dollars’ worth of financial transactions take place over the Internet every day. The accuracy of those transactions is nearing perfection. The error rate is so small it is negligible. More important, the errors are correctable.

Some hackers may try to interfere with electronic voting, but my bet is, they’ll prefer to spend their time on something that has potential monetary gain. If you believe hackers could interfere with electronic voting to the extent that it completely invalidates the entire election process, then you’ve been watching too many late-night reruns of “Mission Impossible.”

As a group, active-duty military personnel are among the most disenfranchised voters in the nation — and that’s a disgrace. Our democracy must do a better job of ensuring all votes are counted — especially the votes of service members, who pledge their lives to preserve the rights and freedoms of all Americans.

The writer is an active-duty colonel serving at the U.S. Army Reserve Command at Fort McPherson, Ga. E-mail him at [e-mail].

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense or the U.S. government.

http://www.navytimes.com/print.php?f=0-NAVYPAPER-390740.php