Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004
ELECTION 2004 | BROWARD VOTING ROLLS
Republican election suit rejected
A Republican lawsuit questioning Broward's voting rolls Monday was unsuccessful -- for now.
By ERIKA BOLSTAD AND SARA OLKON
ebolstad@herald.com
Republicans laid the groundwork for a possible legal challenge to the presidential election with an unsuccessful, 11th-hour lawsuit Monday questioning the accuracy of the voting rolls in Broward County, the most heavily Democratic county in Florida. In an emergency court hearing that ended at 8:30 p.m. Monday, Broward County Circuit Judge David Krathen quickly ruled Monday night that the suit was groundless and he didn't want to ``micromanage the election.''
The emergency hearing, in a packed Broward County courtroom, harkened back to the litigious atmosphere that swirled around the 2000 Florida election. Lawyers for Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes and the Kerry-Edwards campaign argued that Snipes was already doing what the Republican Party of Florida wanted.
''This was a desperate measure,'' said Charles Lichtman, a lawyer for the Kerry campaign. ``It's a way for them to disrupt the process.''
The suit claimed that inaccuracies in Broward's voting rolls will raise the possibility of fraud and double voting today, when an estimated 500,000 Broward voters are expected to cast ballots.
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