Florida Absentee Vote Privacy Law

[bj2110]

Anyone know about a Florida law or statute that prohibits the release of absentee votes by precinct? I was told this today by someone at the Broward County SoE office in response to my request for a breakdown of the absentee results by precinct. I know that this data is possible, but the published data treats absentee votes as their own precincts, grouping large numbers of precincts (or maybe some other grouping method) as one. In many cases, absentee & early votes (which are both technically treated as "absentee" by the SoE office) constitute upwards of 30% or 40% of the total. This is a huge portion of the data set to not have when comparing precinct results from past elections. Add this to the fact that almost all precincts have gone through "re-districting" in Florida, and you have what amounts to an almost impossible task to accurately compare 2000 results with 2004 results at the lowest level possible, the precinct. It almost seems deliberate and makes me reach for the tin-foil hat. I keep thinking of theory of padding the absentee vote to win this election. Seems like we can't get to the smallest data sets to actually perform some analysis on this theory.

Back to the original question, anyone ever heard of this law? I'll give the guy at the SoE seom credit, though. He was very helpful and I honestly believe he understands the problem with not being able to do any sort of election analysis because of this. He told me to call back next week after he spoke with the actual SoE and got in touch with the IT guy, who is on vacation this week. So, he was kinda helpful.

Thoughts?

[neohippie]

1. If you want to talk to a helpful SOE in FL

Talk to Ian Sancho of Leon County, I am sure that you will find his office the most DU friendly in the state. I used to live there and know him, and he is a fine human being.

[bj2110]

4. Thanks. I'm planning on trying a few more tomorrow and next week,

I'll be sure Leon is one of them.

[floridadem30]

2. Good Post

[floridadem30]

3. Let me know when you find out, I voted by absentee

[Patsy Stone]

5. I'd love to know the answer -- Voted Early in Downtown Miami

Still not sure my vote wasn't erased.

[floridadem30]

6. Welcome to DU

[shraby]

7. That would be a good place to pad seeing as how

something like 58,000 absentee ballots disappeared apparently AFTER they were mailed out. Someone got them.

[bj2110]

8. I agree. Most difficult to authentically verify, too.

As someone else here on DU pointed out, we're so concerned with the voting machines & glitches & recounts, that we're missing the real method that was used to steal this election, i.e. voter suppression (think precinct machine allocations first) and fraudulent absentee votes. What recount would catch these? What makes us so sure that Rove & Co. wouldn't be at as far ahead of the audit so as to make sure it was difficult to audit?

[Patsy Stone]

9. That was Broward.

However, Miami-Dade was close to 50/50 and it scared me. I did GOTV and the precincts in my little blue corner of FL were packed. Just feels fishy.


Here's a list of the penfding lawsuits in a handy drop down menu.
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/election2004/cases.html

[bj2110]

10. kick