Look what's happening in Ohio with absentee votes...

[LiberalHeart]

I came across this on a Toledo blog this morning. The county is heavily Democratic (in fact, it's an Ohio county that Kerry won in '04). It's also the county that Noe ran on the GOP side. See if you folks can figure out what to do about this prior to the election:

http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/comments.pl/16/3204

[demo dutch]

1. It's one of the reasons I didn't request an absentee. In 04 many people did not receive theirs

and were never able to vote!

[LiberalHeart]

3. What state was that?

I've heard often about people registering and then not being registered, but this is the first I recall seeing around here that absentee ballots didn't arrive.

[demo dutch]

7. Florida... where else! In fact ACLU filed a lawsuit asking Broward

County election officials to extend the absentee ballot deadline until November 12 since thousands of voters did not receive an absentee ballot on time.
http://www.demos.org/page196.cfm

There also were many problems with absentees in Palm Beach county under Supervisor of elections Theresa Lapore in 2000. You know the one that came up with the butterfly ballot!

Both supervisors of elections have since been replaced. But who knows! The new Broward cty supervisor Brenda Snipes was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush. Already problems have arisen in the 2006 early elections
Several voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step. and of course the machines are favoring Republicans
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/15869924.htm

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/sfl-pvotercomplaint02nov02,0,68255.story?coll=sfla-news-election
In Palm beach machines were favoring the DEM candidate for a change

"We must be able to "trust, but verify."

[nashville_brook]

2. Absentee Voting rules changed & Missing Absentee Ballot Requests

from the blog...

Here in Lucas County though there appears to be a very huge issue that no one is talking about. As some of you might know I recently experienced some health problems so on that weekend, I decided to be on the safe side I was going to request an absentee ballot, because I had no idea how I was going to feel. I downloaded the form, filled it out and gave it to my husband who personally delivered it to the South Toledo post office on Byrne Road, he took the envelope inside that was clearly marked, "Absentee Voter Request", and put it inside the mail slot for "In Town" mail. This was mailed on Monday, October 23, 2006.

Time passed and I did not receive my absentee ballot but I knew from watching the local media that the Lucas County Board of Elections was pretty swamped so I waited. Yesterday, was of course November 1st and when the mailman came and I still did not receive my absentee ballot I called the Lucas County BOE to find out how much longer it was going to be. I was informed that they had never received my request for an Absentee Ballot and that I was not the only one who was apparently experiencing this. That huge numbers of people had been calling most of them very irate when they discovered that there was no record of a request for an absentee ballot.

According to the person at the BOE this is not a matter of them not having the staff/time to process these requests - these requests have not been received. It doesn't take over ten days for one piece of mail to get from the South Toledo post office to the Downtown post office then to the BOE. I was not of course irate or mean to the Lucas County BOE worker that I spoke with, unfortunately that is a rare experience for her as she related to me. If they are not receiving the information it's pretty hard to find fault with them.

[jimshoes]

4. Something to keep an eye on

My first attempt to get an absentee ballot never got delivered either. It was a pre addressed post card from the Cuyahoga County Dem party. I filled one out and my wife filled one out and we mailed them on about the 15th of October. A week later we had not recieved anything from the BOE. I called and had them look up and see if they recieved my request. They had not. I then requested an absentee ballot right over the phone which came in a couple of days. I get the feeling that a lot of absentee ballot requests are going to be delivered just in time to miss the deadline on voting absentee. People are going to be listed as an absentee voter who never got a ballot and then won't be able to vote at the poll either.

[nashville_brook]

5. so many ways to suppress a vote, so few to protect it..

[Doctor_J]

6. By 2008 Ohioans will only be allowed to vote GOP

by law.