Absentee-ballot fraud made easy in Miami-Dade. Thanks GOP

Psst!

Wanna commit absentee-ballot fraud?

Well, all you need is a computer, a telephone and a dummy address. Armed with that, there’s a good chance you can request and vote another person’s absentee ballot.

It’s a felony. It’s not a guaranteed method to cast a fraudulent vote that counts. And it’s unlikely it could happen in big enough numbers to change an election.

But chances are you won’t get caught because it can be done anonymously.

You can thank the Republican-led Legislature for all that.

Republicans in Florida dominate absentee balloting, which they’ve made easy. They have little incentive to limit it, even though nonpartisan groups like the 2006 U.S. Elections Assistance Commission noted that “absentee balloting is subject to the greatest proportion of fraudulent acts, followed by vote buying and voter registration fraud.”

Since and before that report, Republicans in the Legislature and governor’s office have instead scaled back anti-fraud reforms instituted after an absentee-ballot scandal in the 1997 Miami mayor’s race.

Meantime, they passed a 2011 law limiting voter-registration drives and early-voting hours.

Democrats are early voters in the same way that Republicans are absentee-ballot voters — especially in Miami-Dade’s Cuban-American community, where mail-in voting is highly popular.

So Republicans are cool to the idea of more absentee-ballot regulations even in the wake of Wednesday’s arrest of Hialeah ballot broker Deisy Cabrera.

"We should be careful not to over-react and potentially stigmatize the vote-by-mail process or make the process more difficult by creating obstacles to voting by mail,” U.S. Rep. David Rivera, a Republican from Miami, said in a statement, echoing his comments on Spanish-language radio.

"This would only result in suppressing the vote of Cuban-Americans, many of whom prefer or require voting by mail, and disenfranchising this critical Republican constituency to the benefit of the Democratic Party and its candidates," he said.

Yup. Suddenly Republicans like Rivera sound like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Democrats grousing about the HB 1355 election law passed in 2011.

Asked about the new law and absentee voter-fraud Friday, Gov. Rick Scott spoke in generalities and said his Secretary of State would be “reviewing it.”

Column here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/05/2934181/absentee-ballot-fraud-made-easy.html#storylink=cpy

 

Comments

[Nascar Dad]

So Marc, your welfare lovin, unemployed, uneducated liberal friends can go to the polls without an ID, and that's OK with you. That can change an election. But allow the other side to cheat just a little, you admit it won't change the election, and that's noteworthy. Lose the suit, it looks silly on you.

[whasup]

Well, Marc ...

In the context of potential voter fraud and supposed "vote suppression", into which you cast voting policies ...

Comparing absentee ballots to early voting is a little silly given that each voter has only one absentee ballot to cast, but there are many days one can vote early.

Either way, even with a fake I.D. (lots of underage drinkers have them) on an early voting day, whether the vote gets counted is all about whether the signature on the ballot or the voter roll at the poll matches the signature on file.

But with the decline of cursive writing, maybe some enterprising press person ought to check into how many voter signatures on file are printed rather than written as signatures. Printed "signatures" are easier to fake ... on the ballots or at the polls.

[Johnny Hothead]

Wow, Nascar Dad (you do realize it's supposed to be NASCAR, right?). It's the republican lead legislature has curtailed early voting, forced groups like League of Women Voters to turn in all voter registrations within 48 hours, but has done noting to hold down absentee voter fraud, which is easiest to commit as can be seen by the article.....How does that Kool-Aid taste?

[Nascar Dad is a Moron]

Nascar Dad, you're huffing too much exhaust or you're so angered by your borderline racism that you didn't read what was in front of you. The column doesn't say early-voting or other cheating is ok. But it does say that there's MORE cheating likely from absentee ballot fraud than with the other types of fraud. That means the other types of fraud have even less of a chance to cost an election.

Nice try.

Well, actually not.

Pretty pathetic.

[Marie]

Excuse me! Isnt Katherine Fernandez Rundle a DEMOCRAT???? Isnt she hiring boleteras???? Marc Caputo YOU are a fraud.