State forms task force to combat voter fraud

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Fri, Oct. 22, 2004

State forms task force to combat voter fraud

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that complaints about voter fraud in counties including Broward and Miami-Dade have prompted the agency to start a statewide investigation.

BY GARY FINEOUT
[e-mail]


TALLAHASSEE - With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that it was launching a statewide investigation into widespread allegations of voter fraud.

FDLE officials said Thursday that the investigation was aimed primarily at looking into incidents where voter registration signatures and information were forged, whether party affiliations were changed without consent, and whether false information was used to obtain absentee ballots.

FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell insisted that agents did not plan to prevent people from trying to vote on Nov. 2.

''While we conduct this investigation, we are mindful that our No. 1 priority will be to protect the rights of those individuals that are eligible to vote, and allow them the opportunity to do so,'' Tunnell said in a statement. ``Our agents will do nothing that will impede or hinder that process.''

FDLE came under fire earlier this year because it sent armed agents to interview elderly black voters in the Orlando area as part as an absentee ballot fraud investigation connected with a mayoral race in that city. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, as well as Florida politicians such as Rep. Corrine Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat, have accused the state of trying to intimidate voters.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9982252.htm
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[steve2470]

1. this is great, now we just need to monitor the FDLE also

[cthrumatrix]

2. order for the "fox to watch the hen house"...makes sense to Jebbie