Stone's role in Miami-Dade recount disputed

The New Yorker's latest issue features a profile of longtime Republican operative Roger Stone, who claims to have masterminded the near-riot that helped to shut down the vote recount in Miami-Dade in 2000. This blogger watched HBO's newly released movie Recount about the contested election with Stone a couple of weeks ago and wrote this.

But the New Yorker profile includes a voice of dissent who says Stone has exaggerated his role in commandeering the crowd from a nearby trailer with a walkie talkie.

"I was the guy in charge of the trailer, and I coordinated the Brooks Brothers riot," Brad Blakeman, a lobbyist and political consultant who worked for Bush in Miami, told The New Yorker. "Roger did not have a role that I know of. His wife may have been on the radio, but I never saw or heard from him.” Scoffing at Blakeman’s account, Stone asserts that he was in the trailer; he said that he had never heard of Blakeman. (Rule: "Lay low, play dumb, keep moving.")

The New Yorker profile is here.

Recount redux? Military ballots come under fire again

In the chaotic 2000 presidential election, overseas ballots returning to Florida became one of the flash points during the contentious recount that resulted in George W. Bush narrowly winning the presidency. The campaigns of Bush and Al Gore battled over whether to accept overseas ballots received after Election Day that lacked a postmark to show when the ballot was cast.

Eight years later, the Okaloosa County elections supervisor has embarked on an ambitious pilot project to let those stationed overseas to vote electronically. But the project has come under fire from those who say it is unsafe and violates the new law that requires a paper ballot. More here.

Florida elections chief on 2008: "Failure is not an option"

In a spirited address on Wednesday morning to Florida's election supervisors, Secretary of State Kurt Browning strongly warned them that the entire world will be watching the state again this presidential election year and they need to be ready for the state's switch from touchscreen machines to ones that use paper ballots. 17 out of 67 counties, including Miami-Dade and Broward, are switching to new voting systems this fall.

"There is no going back,'' said Browning. "The time for what ifs and looking back are over."

Before talking Browning showed them a clip from the film Apollo 13, which documented NASA's effort to bring back a nearly-doomed mission to the Moon. The clip includes the oft-quoted slogan associated with the film: "Failure is not an option."

Browning repeated the slogan at least four times during a 25-minute address and stressed that if anything goes wrong it will bring back reminders of the chaotic 2000 presidential election and the recount process that lasted 36 days.

"The reality is, this is Florida and this is a presidential election year,'' said Browning. "The world is literally watching everything you do."

Browning told supervisors that he was "sick and tired" of Florida being attacked and that he knew supervisors were tired of the "constant struggle" to prove "pundits" and "late night talk show hosts" wrong. But he added "this is an election that will either make or break Florida" and that all supervisors needed to look at Aug. 11 - the start of early voting for the August primary - as "launch day."

"We are T minus 81 days and counting,'' he said.

In 2000 recount, GOP heeded Stone's rule #1: Attack, attack, attack

"Call Roger Stone.''

With those three words, a political juggernaut was set in motion that helped quash a vote recount, and ultimately, change American history.

The directive came from former Secretary of State James Baker, campaign strategist for George W. Bush, and it's captured in the new HBO movie "Recount."

Who better to screen the movie with than the man on the other end of the phone, the Republican operative who got his start in politics with the most famous dirty trickster of them all, Richard Nixon?

Read the column about Roger & Me here.

I laughed, I cried at FL premiere of 'Recount'

HBO's movie depicting the 2000 presidential election meltdown had its Florida premiere last night in Jacksonville, where much of the filming was done. Among the real-live participants from South Florida who attended the premiere: Democratic attorneys Mitchell Berger, Lenny Samuels and Larry Smith and former Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore.

Here's Berger's review:  "I thought it was very well done. From my vantage point, they left one very important sequencing --Vice President Gore's statement offering a statewide recount on Nov. 15 on CNN and Bush's rejection of that statement...The concept of how choices for the Gore team were very limited was very well portrayed, as was the manipulation of election laws by the Secretary of State of Florida and the desire of the Bush team to litigate to prevent votes from being counted."

If you click here and go to the 7th photo, the actor portraying Berger is sitting on the right. Any Florida Republicans out there who saw the movie? Please post your comments below.

Tax cap and redistricting supporters get their say

Here's something to jazz up the summer in Tallahassee: Public hearings and meetings regarding three pending constitutional amendments that could show up on the 2010 ballot.

State economists are holding financial impact statement conferences on both the 1.35 property tax amendment, as well as two amendments dealing with Congressional and legislative redistricting, in order to develop wording for a financial impact statement should any of the three amendments make the ballot.

Both amendments require a lot more signatures in order to make the ballot. Supporters of the amendment that would cap property taxes at 1.35 percent of the value of the property has collected more than 103,000 signatures, while supporters of the redistricting initiative have gathered about 65,000 signatures. It takes more than 600,000 signatures in order to qualify for the ballot.

Ghosts of Bush v. Gore loom before state high court

The ghosts of the 2000 election were on full display Wednesday morning before the state Supreme Court.

Coming just months before another highly contested presidential election, Florida's high court on Wednesday morning found itself returning to familiar territory: Does Florida have, and require, a uniform set of election laws for the entire state and each county.

(For those who may have forgotten, the state Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount of the 2000 presidential election between George Bush and Al Gore, only to have that recount shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said that there was an "unequal evaluation of ballots"  by county.)

The case before the court on Wednesday: A Sarasota County charter change that required the use of paper ballots and the auditing of machines before election results are finalized. Voters in that county approved the change in 2006, months before the Florida Legislature mandated that counties switch to paper ballots in time for the 2008 election.

The state has argued that what did Sarasota County did was unconstitutional and interferes with the counting of ballots. An appeals court has sided with the state. But proponents say that local voters in a "home rule" county have a right to impose extra standards.

Several times during the oral arguments the justices referred to the 2000 electon that Bush won by 537 votes and the fact that lawmakers revamped the state's election laws in the wake of the chaotic contest that lasted for weeks.

Justice Charles Wells wondered aloud whether or not the Sarasota County charter change would lead to increased legal challenges to election results and the "thrusting" of the judicial branch into every election.

But Justice Harry Anstead pressed Pete Antonacci, the attorney representing Secretary of State Kurt Browning, on why no one wants Sarasota County to be able to check voting machines before the results are finalized. "There seems to be a policy of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil,'' said Anstead.

And several justices questioned why the Legislature allowed counties to pick different types of voting machines if in fact lawmakers wanted to ensure uniformity across the state.

Constitutional commissioners plan May 9 reunion

Just in time for one of the most wrenching election-year debates over Florida's fiscal future, members of the three modern-day constitutional commissions will meet on Friday for a day-long reunion.

Dexter Douglass, chairman of the 1998 Constitution Revision Commission, will preside at the reunion of Floridas three recent Constitution commissions -- 1968, 1978, 1998 -- on May 9 in the Florida Senate Chamber, beginning at 10 a.m.

The 1968 commission rewrote the state's Constitution of 1885 under the leadership of the late Chesterfield Smith. Two surviving members of that commission are expected to attend the reunion: former Gov. Reubin Askew and Robert M. Ervin, former president of the Florida Bar who appointed four members of the group.

Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, chairman of the 1978 Commission and a member of the 1998 commission and this year's Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, will recall the role the commissions played.

And Douglass will review the work of the 1998 commission.

Elections bill, minus recount, heads to governor

The Florida House on Friday morning stripped off an amendment initially proposed by Rep. Julio Robaina and then sent the elections bill, SB 866, to the governor.

If signed by the governor, it means that candidates for Agriculture Commissioner can now accept up to $500 from those involved in some of the industries regulated by the department. It also tweaks Florida's "no match" law and removes the use of buyer's club cards and employee worker IDs from one of the lists of approved photo ID for the polls.

Robaina's amendment - which was put on the bill near midnight earlier this week - would have lowered the penalties for someone who fails to put a disclamer on campaign ads that are paid by individuals. Robaina said he put the amendment on at the urging of citizens groups, including those pushing 1.35 percent property tax proposal.

Also missing from the bill: Secretary of State Kurt Browning's proposal to require a hand count of all ballots in a manual recount as opposed to just overvotes and undervotes. The recount proposal was opposed by elections supervisors from many large counties.

Elections bill could be in trouble because of Robaina

The Florida House unanimously approved an elections bill on Wednesday that eliminates two types of photo ID acceptable at the polls - and lifts a $100 cap on some campaign contributions to candidates for Agriculture Commissioner.

But it was Rep. Julio Robaina's move at midnight on Tuesday - where he amended the bill to lessen the penalties for those who fail to put a disclaimer on some campaign ads - that could scuttle the entire legislation.

Sen. Lee Constantine, the chairman of the Senate Ethics and Elections committee, said on Wednesday that the Senate would not take the amendment on SB 866 and send the bill back to the House. He also said there was nothing in the measure that was desperately needed for the 2008 presidential election.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning wanted lawmakers to change the state's manual recount law in the elections bill, but he agreed to stop pushing for the change after elections supervisors from urban counties such as Miami-Dade raised concerns about it. Browning wanted to require a hand count of all ballots in all close elections. Current Florida law says that manual recounts will only be done of "overvotes" and "undervotes" and not all ballots cast in elections.

The bill now includes the ag commissioner provision, the change in photo ID law, and some tweaking of Florida's controversial "no match" provision that is the subject of a lawsuit.

Short truce in voting registration lawsuit

The showdown between the League of Women Voters and Secretary of State Kurt Browning will be on hold until this summer.

Both sides filed a statement in federal court in Miami on Wednesday that states that Browning has promised to not enforce a new voter registration law until at least July because the department is drawing up a rule. Because of that attorneys for the League say there is no need to ask for a federal injunction against the law, which imposes penalties on third-party groups that fail to turn in voter registration applications within 10 days after someone fills out the form.

Jennifer Krell Davis, a spokeswoman for Browning, said the agreement is not that big a deal because the Department of State did not intend to start enforcing the law anyway until it had passed a rule.This does not, however, deal with the underlying lawsuit in which the League wants the voter registration law declared unconstitutional.

New voting rights lawsuit filed against Florida

The League of Women Voters of Florida, along with the Florida AFL-CIO and the Florida chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have filed a new voting rights lawsuit against the state's voter registration law that imposes fines on groups that seek to register voters if the applications aren't turned in within a certain period of time.

This is the second time the group has gone to court over the fines, which was pushed by Republican legislators. The League decided last week to halt its registration efforts in Florida because of the fines.

"This law makes it extremely risky for our volunteers and for our organization to conduct voter registration drives in Florida,'' said Dianne Wheatley-Gilotti, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida said in a statement. "The escalating fines make voter registration drives prohibitively expensive, even for individuals who just want to help once a month. The threat of paying costly fines will chill registration efforts and keep eligible voters from the voter rolls."

Jennifer Krell Davis, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Kurt Browning, defended the state law, saying that it was important to make sure that voter registration applications are turned in to local supervisors as quickly as possible so that the voter is added to the rolls.

"We do feel protecting people and their right to vote by making sure that the voter registration form is turned in a timely manner is the right thing to do,'' said Davis.

Aronberg revisits effort to close "write-in loophole"

Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, tried again to increase rules for write-in candidates by pushing an amendment to require those candidates to list their party affiliation when they run -- an effort to crack down on candidates that run as write-ins to close primaries.

"If you're going to allow someone to manipulate the process, it has to be someone from the other party," Aronberg said.

The amendment, which failed on a tie vote Wednesday, would have been attached to a larger elections bill moving through the Legislature. Aronberg used a similar tactic last year to pass a provision that requires write-in candidates to live in their districts.

Both provisions target people who use write-in candidacies to close primaries, like the 2006 write-in candidate who prevented Democrats and Independents from voting in a heated Republican primary between Sen. Alex Villalobos, of Miami, and former Miami-Dade School Board member Frank Bolaños.

Court strikes down petition law used against Hometown Democracy

In a rebuff to the Florida Legislature, and its allies at the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the First District Court of Appeal has sided with Hometown Democracy. The court on Wednesday ruled that the law that created the process that allows the revocation of petition signatures is unconstitutional and that rules used by the state to implement the process are also not allowed.

The ruling raises fresh questions about the decision to deny Hometown Democracy a place on the ballot since thousands of the signatures gathered by the group were in fact revoked. The opinion states that the law "are unconstitutional because they do not ensure ballot integrity. They do not serve to confirm compliance with constitutionally-specified requirements for submission of proposed amendments through the initiative process...Instead they serve to burden the initiative process with requirements that are not prescribed in the constitution." Read ruling here.Download hometown_democracy.pdf

Should Florida count all the ballots this time around?

Nearly eight years after the chaotic 2000 presidential election, the state's top elections official wants to make sure all ballots are counted by hand the next time there's a close contest.

George W. Bush captured the presidency by a 537-vote margin, but only after the U.S. Supreme Court halted a recount of ballots in Florida that had been ordered by the state's highest court. In the wake of that contested election, as much of the state moved to touch-screen voting, the state changed its recount rules.

But now that Florida is switching over to paper ballots, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said there should be a manual recount of every vote in a close race.

''You want to make sure those ballots say either you won or lost the contest,'' said Browning, a former elections supervisor from Pasco County. ``It's the next logical step. If you have given voters the ability to cast ballots in all 67 counties on paper, then you need to have some ability to recount those ballots. People have got to have confidence in their system.''

The Republican-controlled state House has included the recount change in an elections bill approved by a House panel Friday. But the Senate has not gone along so far, citing the concerns of local elections supervisors, who say they fear manual recounts could lead to a repeat of 2000, when counties were unable to finish recounts by state deadlines. More here.

'Bomb' scare hits Tallahassee

A group of anti-war activists calling themselves TrueMajority are driving across Florida in a big yellow car pulling a fake bomb with an effigy of President Bush riding it.

Their goal: Gather petitions to give to U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, urging him to support a resolution against a U.S.-led war in Iran.   

It's a hard sight to miss, but we couldn't help but take a closer look when we heard someone blaring the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" outside our windows here in Tallahassee (TrueMajority changed the lyrics so the chorus was a Bush impersonator singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran...").

Aaron Rubin, the group's apparent leader (or maybe just the driver?), showed me the fiberglass fake bomb setup. I snapped a few pictures.

Satisfied with the press, Rubin soon drove off our parking lot. Next stop: Jacksonville.

Atwater blames Lynn for voting bill amendment

A clearly irritated Sen. Jeff Atwater was surprised to see on Tuesday afternoon that he had proposed an amendment to an elections bill that would have required all those registering to vote for the first time to show either a birth certificate, a naturalization certificate or proof of U.S. citizenship.

"I had never seen that amendment,'' the North Palm Beach Republican said after the Senate Ethics and Elections committee meeting.

Atwater said that Sen. Evelyn Lynn had prepared the amendment and submitted in his name without his knowledge. Lynn, an Ormond Beach Republican, does not sit on the Ethics and Elections committee. When he found about the amendment, Atwater had it withdrawn.

Class size amendment narrowly fails, but it's not dead yet

The Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission narrowly defeated a proposed constitutional amendment that would have asked voters to freeze the state's class size reduction efforts at the way they are today. But thanks to former Senate President Jim Scott, who voted no, the proposal will be reconsidered at the next meeting of the commission.

Bobby Martinez, the lawyer and member of the State Board of Education who sponsored the amendment, argued that the proposal would give school districts more flexibility to deal with the impact of the class size amendment that was passed by voters in 2002. The measure would say that class size would be measured at schoolwide averages, as it is today, instead of going to a classroom average, which is what is required by 2010. Individual classes could be up to five more students above the current hard cap in the constitution.

"This doesn't roll back the clock,'' said Martinez. "What it seeks to do is maintain those gains (already made)."

Rep. Dan Gelber, a non-voting member of the commission, argued that the proposal would "emasculate" the amendment and that it would fail to win a 60 percent approval from the voters come this fall. Former Senate President John McKay was among the no votes, saying the commission didn't need to ask the voters again. McKay argued that voters would be so upset with the proposal that they may vote other TBRC amendments down as well.

"It would be a mistake to go to the voters and ask 'Would you double dog dare what you meant,?" said McKay.

Jim Davis: "This proposal goes well beyond a ban on same-sex marriage"

Former Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, sounds off today on the proposed same-sex marriage ban in today's Miami Herald.

"In reality, this proposal goes well beyond a ban on same-sex marriage," writes the honorary co-chair of the ban opposition group, Florida Red and Blue. "The amendment asks voters to add new language to the state Constitution that would declare any relationship that is 'treated as marriage or the substanial equivalent thereof' to be 'not valid or recognized.'

"By creating only one type of recognized relationship, Amendment 2 could take away existing rights and benefits from many Floridians, gay or straight," said Davis, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006. "If it passes, unmarried Floridians in committed relationship - especially seniors who may remain unmarried by choice -- could lose their ability to share healthcare coverage...."

Read more here

Lawsuit to seat Florida's Democratic delegates gets March 17th hearing date

As pressure mounts over what to do with Florida's Democratic delegates - a Tampa attorney announced Thursday afternoon that a lawsuit he filed to reinstate Florida's delegate voting rights at the Democratic National Convention will be heard before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on March 17th.

Attorney Michael Steinberg filed the lawsuit on behalf of Tampa resident Victor DiMaio, a political consultant and registered Democrat. The lawsuit was filed in August 2007, but ruled against in a Tampa district court. Steinberg argues that the DNC's decision to remove Florida's delegates violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

"This was not fair to the average ordinary citizen who didn't have a say ," Steinberg said at a press conference in front of the Old Capitol building in Tallahassee.

The appeal hearing was initially scheduled for April, with four other cases scheduled on the same date, but a couple of weeks ago Steinberg said he received notification that the hearing would be moved up to March,and would be the only case on the docket to allow for more time.

DiMaio says the purpose of the lawsuit is not to favor either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, noting that the lawsuit was initially filed when there were more contenders in the race. He added that he would also file a lawsuit of the Florida Democratic Party decided to fund another primary election in the state.

"I'm sure the New England Patriots would like another do-over in the Superbowl," DiMaio said. "It's done, its over with."

Steinberg and DiMaio said they are willing to take their case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Smash up those voting machines

Secretary of State Kurt Browning announced Thursday that the state has inked a deal to have a Tampa recycling company to pick up and haul away thousands of touchscreen voting machines. First up will be machines made by Sequoia and in use in such counties as Palm Beach and Indian River. These machines will be "de-manufactured" or smashed up and sold for parts.

The company, Creative Recycling, will also eventually pick up ES&S machines used in other counties such as Miami-Dade and Broward. The company will attempt first to remarket the machines to other jurisdictions in the U.S. and the world.

Any proceeds that result from the remarket and "de-manufacture" of the voting machines will go first to the counties that still owe money for the ATM-styled machines that were installed in the wake of the 2000 presidential election.

Gov. Charlie Crist made the push last year to get rid of most touchscreen machines and replace them with optical scan machines that rely on a paper ballot.

Former Feeney aide to head elections office

Secretary of State Kurt Browning said that he has hired Donald Palmer, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, to be the next director of the state elections division. Palmer was also once an aide to Congressman Tom Feeney and worked for the U.S. Navy in the judge advocate general's corps.

Browning said that Palmer was the best qualified of the eight applicants for the post, noting his role in enforcement of federal election laws. Browning downplayed any concerns about partisanship, pointing out that Palmer only worked for the Central Florida Republican in 2005. Feeney has earned a reputation as a brass-knuckles campaigner and when he was House Speaker advocated having the Legislature designate electors for George W. Bush during the 2000 recount.

"It was a very, very short time he was with Congressman Feeney,'' said Browning. "He is very non-partisan, he is very fair."

Palmer is replacing Sarah Jane Bradshaw, who has been the acting division director since last fall when Amy Tuck abruptly resigned last November.

Same-sex marriage ban on 2008 ballot

According to information posted Friday night by the Secretary of State's office, the amendment that ask voters to permanently ban same sex marriage reached the 2008 ballot, while the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment fell short.

The final tally for the Florida Marriage Protection Act was 649,346, but the real squeaker was that the amendment only reached needed thresholds in 15 of the state's 25 Congressional districts. In order to reach the ballot an amendment must be signed by a certain amount of electors in half of the Congressional districts.

The group organized to fight the amendment said it is ready to fight Florida4Marriage.org, the group that gathered the signatures for the ballot. "We are not surprised to learn the amendment will come before voters this year. From the beginning, Florida Red and Blue has been preparing to tell the truth about this amendment and the damage it will do to Floridians,'' said Jon Kislak, chairman of Florida Red and Blue.

Those pushing the ban on same sex marriage thought they had gathered enough signatures to make the ballot back in December, but a glitch in the system used to verify signatures resulted in Florida4Marriage.org falling short in January. John Stemberger of Florida4Marriage.org earlier this week predicted his group would succeed as long as election supervisors counted and verified all the petitions that they had received.

Group says it plans to sue state over voter registration

Project Vote and Demos have sent a letter on behalf of the Florida branch of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, to Secretary of State Kurt Browning giving him a 90 days notice before the organization files a lawsuit over voter registration practices in Florida.

ACORN maintains that the Department of Children and Families and the Department of Health are not in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act, saying that the numbers show that the two agencies are not offering voter registration applications to people applying for public assistance. A survey by Project Vote in Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Orange Counties in November showed that several state agency offices did not maintain voter registration forms and interviews with clients indicated they were not offered voter registration applications.

The group says it looks forward to meeting with Browning to discuss these problems and await his "remedy" that he will carry out. Here's a copy of the letter: Download acorn_letter.pdf

A statement from Browning's office said the state "looks forward" to demonstrating compliance with federal law and there are "multiple checks" to ensure public assistance agencies are providing applications to clients. The statement said just because the number of applications from public agencies has dropped does not mean the state is not following the law.

Voting glitches in Miami-Dade?

Secretary of State Kurt Browning said Tuesday night that it appears that some voters in Miami-Dade County had their party affiliation changed by mistake, a move that may have led to confusion when those voters then showed up on Election Day and wanted to vote in a particular primary.

Browning said there was a "form design" problem that led some voters to check a box and change their party when they didn't mean to do that. But he said that Miami-Dade apparently allowed some people to switch back on Election Day after evidence mounted that the mistake may have prompted by the faulty form.

"They said in cases where there records indicated that the voter should not have had their party changed, they went back in and changed that and satisfied the voter today,'' said Browning. When asked if that were legal, Browning said reporters needed to ask Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Lester Sola.

But Browning added that the county made the changes "because they felt locally that there was enough evidence that the party should have not been changed initially. The supervisor has the latitude under the code ot make those changes."

Recount anyone? Browning wants rules changed

Secretary of State Kurt Browning, while saying that so far voting has gone relatively smoothly except for some problems in Palm Beach County, said Tuesday morning that he favors changing recount rules in time for the fall election.

Browning said that once Florida switches over to paper ballot systems that then the recount rules should be then changed that during a manual recount that all ballots are counted. Right now if the margin falls under one half of one percent it triggers a machine recount. If that recount shows that the margin is under one quarter of one percent then there is a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes only. (Which is of course useless with electronic machines since the manual recount would be the same.)

Browning said that if there's a manual recount the law should allow for all votes to be recounted.

"I feel very strongly that we need to be able to do something with those paper ballots in the event we have close contests,'' said Browning. "That way it provides finality to the race.''

Feds sign off on voting law changes

The U.S. Department of Justice today sent a letter to top election officials in Florida telling them that several changes made to Florida election law last year have been cleared by federal authorities. DOJ, however, did not make a final determination on how Florida handles the "no match" provision because that is the subject of a pending federal lawsuit.

What this means is that in the future voters cannot use buyer's club cards, like ones from Sam's Club, as voter identification at the polls. It also means that voters will have two days, not three days, in which to prove they are eligible voters if they vote by provisional ballot. And DOJ has also signed off on new fines for third-party voter registration groups, although that issue is still being litigated as well.

But even with the changes now being approved by the feds, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said everything will remain the same for the Jan. 29th primary and that election supervisors will be told not to enforce the new law. "We are keeping current law in place,'' said Browning.

Hometown Democracy still needs 110,000 signatures

With slightly more than two weeks before the final deadline, Florida Hometown Democracy needs 109,479 additional signatures to make the 2008 ballot, according to information posted on Monday by the Division of Elections.

It takes more than 611,000 signatures for a citizen-initiative to make the ballot and Hometown Democracy has been the target of a revocation campaign where nearly 5,000 registered voters have changed their mind about letting the amendment on the ballot. Business groups such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce helped push through the law that authorized revocations in 2006.

A glitch in the state's computer system prompted state officials last week to ask counties around the state to go back and recount petition signatures. The totals posted online Monday reflect activity as of Jan. 10.

Gay marriage ban may not make ballot after all

With a Feb. 1 deadline looming, the organizers behind a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage may have declared victory too soon. It turns out that the recounting of petition signatures ordered next week has left Florida4Marriage.Org short by nearly 22,000 signatures.

The problem? Miami-Dade apparently double-counted some 27,000 paper copies of petitions that were received before January 2006, according to Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kurt Browning.

Elections chief puts break on amendment reports

Secretary of State Kurt Browning announced Wednesday that he is putting the brakes on the information his office will report about the number of voter signatures that have been collected for six ballot initiatives.

Petition groups, such as those seeking the Marriage Protection Act, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Florida, or Hometown Democracy, which seeks to require development proposals to get local voter approval, have until Feb. 1 to submit their signatures to local supervisors of elections to get on the November ballot. They must have 611,009 signatures to make it to the ballot and petition groups often rely on the office state numbers to determine whether they’ve reached their target.

But Browning said he has no obligation to report the numbers on his web site and, because the state recently switched from paper faxes to a computerized system, there have been problems. He said inaccurate data has come from some counties – particularly Volusia and Lee – and he has asked counties to return to sending him paper. He said he will post an update on the number of verified signatures for each group on Monday, Jan. 11, and won’t post again until after Feb. 1.

"I want to do the right thing and I want to make sure, before my signature goes on anything, we have a high level of confidence in certifying ballot placement for initiative signatures," Browning told reporters in a conference call.

After receiving the signed petitions, supervisors of elections have 30 days to verify them and report them to the state. Because a Chamber of Commerce-backed group is gathering signatures from voters to revoke their signed petitions for Hometown Democracy, some supervisors speculated that proponents of the amendment might withhold the petitions until the last minute and then dump them all at once on county elecitons officials to thwart opponents.

But Browning has advised election officials to treat all petitions “on a first come, first-served basis,’’ said Sterling Ivey, spokesman for Browning. And, by withholding the reporting data, he hopes to prevent elections officials from watching which petitions meet the target number in order to shift attention to other petitions.

The change affects only those six initiatives whose ballot language has been approved by the Florida Supreme Court.

The ghosts in the (voting) machines

The New York Times magazine takes a look at America's voting systems, including the machines in Sarasota County which have touched off a congressional investigation into why 18,000 ballots registered no vote in the November 2006 congressional race.

The story notes that Miami's Kendall Coffey, an attorney for the losing candidate, Democrat Christine Jennings, blames malfunctioning machines, suggesting that the votes were lost due to a "nonrecurring software bug" — a quirk that...only crops up some of the time, propelled by voter actions that the (state) audits did not replicate, like a voter’s accidentally touching the screen in two places at once."

It notes that the machine manufacturer and Sarasota County officials "correctly point out that Jennings has no proof that a bug exists." Jennings, however, the story says, "correctly points out that her opponents have no proof a bug doesn’t exist.

"This is the ultimate political legacy of touch-screen voting machines and the privatization of voting machinery generally," the Times writes. "When invisible, secretive software runs an election, it allows for endless mistrust and muttered accusations of conspiracy. The inscrutability of the software — combined with touch-screen machines’ well-documented history of weird behavior — allows critics to level almost any accusation against the machines and have it sound plausible."

“It’s just like the Kennedy assassination,” a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist says in the story.  "There’s no matter of evidence that will stop people from spinning yarns.”

Read more here.

Surprise! Judge rejects Florida's request

U.S. Judge Stephan Mickle late Wednesday turned down Florida's request for a stay in the ongoing legal battle over the state's voter registration law, a decision that in effect keeps intact the injunction that the judge slapped last week against the state. Micke's injunction blocks the state from enforcing the "no match" law that requires information on a voter registration application to match information found in state or federal databases in order for a voter to be eligible to vote.

Mickle rejected arguments from state lawyers that the change in election laws so close to the Jan. 29th presidential primary would create voter confusion and chaos. Mickle said that the state had not presented enough evidence to show that a stay of his previous injunction order was "warranted" and he argued that election supervisors can still verify the identity of voters without the match. Read order here: Download order_denying_motion_to_stay.pdf

Last week Secretary of State Kurt Browning announced that the state would add roughly 14,000 voters to the state voting rolls even though the voters were initially deemed ineligible to vote because they did not meet the matching requirements.

(UPDATE: Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit - including former Florida Supreme Court Justice Rosemary Barkett -- have also turned down Florida's request to stay Mickle's injunction. But the appeals court did grant a motion to expedite the case, requiring all legal briefs to be filed by Jan. 14.)

Dems launch new offensive in absentee ballot wars

Absentee ballots have made the difference between Republicans and Democrats for years in Florida and now Democrats say they're going to take a shot at competing.

State Democrats will kick off Wednesday their "Create Change 08'' campaign to recruit Democrats to sign up as "permanent absentee voters'' who can vote online or by mail in every election through 2010.

Republicans "have reached a ceiling as far as how many guaranteed early voters they've got,'' said state Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski. But for Democrats, who have not, "the sky's the limit.''

The party is targeting 150,000 of its most hard-core members and building from there, Bubriski said.

"The old way of doing field campaigns was: bombard your voters until Election Day,'' he said. But by targeting voters who vote early, îîwe're going to be able to focus our efforts."

The approach has worked successfully to elect Democrats to local and legislative seats in Orange and Polk counties, he said. In a special election for House District 49 in Orlando in April, the Democratic candidate won among absentee voters and won the race 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent.

The party push to vote early will replace the absent effort of Democratic presidential candidates in Florida, who have pledged not to campaign here, Bubriski said. He wouldn't comment on how much the Democratic Party will commit to the effort.

"It's expensive but it's effective,'' he said. "We're willing to make this early investment.'' Read full story here.

More on database mystery: only 27 came from Duluth

After ordering his staff to come into the office Saturday to investigate allegations that the state's voter database may be flawed, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said Saturday their complete review found no evidence that mistakes have been inserted into the database. They found no Florida voters whose current address is listed as Duluth, Georgia, and only 27 voters in Leon County who list their previous address as Duluth.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho told a journalists forum Saturday that his elections staff had found that the state database had listed 3749 Club Drive in Duluth, Georgia, as the prior address for 16,646 voters in Tallahassee. The address is a new apartment complex in the Atlanta suburb. One of those whose name appears as having lived at that address is the mother of Janet Olin, the assistant supervisor of elections for Leon County, who lives in Tallahassee and, Sancho said: "has never set a foot in Duluth, Georgia."

Neither Sancho nor Browning could offer an explanation for the bizarre address coincidence appearing in the Leon County database and not the state's list. Both use information from the same vendor, VR Solutions. "It's one more thing to investigate,'' Sancho said.

Browning said he wasn't sure whether the 27 voters in the state database list the same apartment complex as Sancho's. "It is possible that 27 people moved from Duluth, Georgia, to Tallahassee and registered in the last year? Yes,'' he said.

Browning: 'Florida is not going down the crapper'

Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning supplied a swift response to allegations from Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho Saturday that Florida's voter registration database may be rife with errors. Speaking at the same conference on elections issues as Sancho, Browning said he called in his elections staff to investigate Sancho's charges and conduct an immediate query.

"I've called them in. They're running a query on the FERS as we speak,'' Browning said. He was one of two keynote speakers at the forum for journalists sponsored by the Pew Center on the States and Electionline.org.

Sancho earlier Saturday said that in Leon County there are 16,646 people whose preliminary address is listed in the state database as Duluth, Georgia. He warned that the database errors will lead to "mass confusion and chaos" as voters go to the polls during the Jan. 29 presidential primary.

Browning said that they had found in a preliminary review of the database "of over 10 million folks, we have found less than 1,000 with a Duluth address.''

Browning then shifted the onus back to Sancho. He said that over 60 percent of the data in the voter registration system comes from the Department of Highway Safety, people are asked if they want to register to vote when they get their drivers licenses.

"If there's data entry errors, it's either happening in highway safety or at the local county level.'' Browning said. "We're very aware of garbage in, garbage out.''

He admitted that there are 14,000 people, among the 1.5 million people who applied to register to vote in Florida in the last year, whose names don't match either with the drivers license, social security numbers or other database searches done by the state.

But, he said, that's a missing match on only .94 percent of all applications. "It's important to note that just because we don't make a match on drivers license and social security numbers, it doesn't stop there,'' Browning said. "We send it down to local counties to do further investigation. That's the responsibility of local supervisors."

"I want folks to understand Florida is not going down the crapper,'' he said as the noon keynote speaker at the conference. "And you can quote me on that...This secretary, unlike other secretaries, likes to call it as he sees it.''

Elections supervisor predicts 'mass confusion' during November election

Florida's move to a state-controlled elections database will lead to "mass confusion and chaos'' during the Nov. 4 presidential election, warned Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho Saturday at a journalists conference on elections issues, sponsored by the Pew Center on the States and Electionline.org.

In Leon County alone, there are 16,646 people whose address is listed in the state database in Duluth, Georgia. One of those is the mother of Janet Olin, the assistant supervisor of elections for Leon County, who lives in Tallahassee and, Sancho said: "has never set a foot in Duluth, Georgia.''

Since the federal Help America Vote Act required the state to take over the voter registration database in January 2006, the state has hired 22 data entry clerks to replace hundreds of people in Florida's 67 counties who were doing the same job, Sancho said. "The more errors you put in each element of your database, you are guaranteeing you're getting bad data out.''

Sancho said preliminary data shows that at least 14,000 voters, 10 percent of all those who have attempted to register to vote in the last year, could go to the polls and find they're name's not there, he said. Their registration is "in limbo...It's going to have the effect on Election Day of mass confusion and chaos.'

He said he doesn't know what is causing it, but "it's troubling that incorrect information is being attached to voters records because we don't know what other information is being attached.''

State gives response to feds over voter law

The Department of State on Nov. 19 mailed a lengthy response to the U.S. Department of Justice defending changes to Florida's voter registration law that have come under fire by groups who say it unfairly prevents minorities from registering to vote.

The main letter sent by the state does not attempt to defend the changes enacted by the GOP-controlled Legislature but instead details the information handed over to federal authorities, including data on voter registration activities in the counties that come under federal jurisdiction in Florida: Hillsborough, Monroe, Collier, Hardee and Hendry. Read letter here:Download letter_to_doj.pdf

Hometown Democracy loses round in court

Leon County Circuit Court Judge Charles Francis has ruled this morning that newly-enacted procedures that allow a voter to revoke his or her signature from an amendment petition is constitutional, a blow to the supporters of Hometown Democracy. Here's a copy of the ruling: Download hometown_ruling.pdf

Legislators this past year enacted a change in state law that allows groups to go out and ask people to "revoke" their signature from a petition within 150 days. The change, which was pushed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, was aimed primarily at Florida Hometown Democracy, which is collecting signatures to get an amendment on the 2008 ballot that would require local votes on changes to local comprehensive plans. The group, which has collected nearly 386,000 signatures, challenged the law change this past summer.

The ruling also said there is no reason to challenge the Department of State's interpretation that opponents of Hometown Democracy could ask voters to revoke signatures even if they were signed 150 days before the Aug. 1 date that the law took effect. "Any action authorized by an elector is prospective,'' ruled Francis.

Chavez-vote machine link is broken

Sequoia Voting Systems, which provides vote machines in four Florida counties (including butterfly-ballot central, Palm Beach), recently announced it was being bought by a group of U.S. investors, thereby severing its relationship with Smartmatic Corp.

Smartmatic came under fire from U.S. politicians for having "ties" to Hugo Chavez's government in Venezuela. U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., outlines the history in this recent press release here. Sequoia's press statement was a little less cloak-and-dagger and is here.

The other Florida counties with Sequoia machines: Hillsborough, Indian River and Pinellas.

On Politics and Age

Is old enough to vote also old enough to run?

Not for Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez, who suggested Monday that state government should do away with term limits and introduce age limits.

"You [should] have to be at least 40 to run," said Martinez, 50, during a debate over whether the commission should accept term limits. "They spend so much time just trying to get into positions where they can influence, they forget they also represent the people down here."

Try telling that to House Speaker Marco Rubio, now 36, who was 29 when he was first elected to the Legislature in 2000.

"I may only be 36, but after the year we had, I feel 37," Rubio quipped in an email passed along by his spokeswoman.

His counterpart across the aisle, Minority Leader Dan Gelber, was 39 when he was elected in 2000… but turned 40 before he was sworn in.

"Forty's a little old," Gelber said of age rule. "I assume it was in jest - it couldn't have been a serious suggestion."

RubioIndeed, Martinez later said he was "half-joking" and not making a real proposal. He certainly wasn't attacking Rubio, he said, but thinks some lawmakers end up in Tallahassee before they're ready.

"When you get somebody who's 20-something who gets elected and hasn't been in the world..." he said. "There's a saying in Spanish that, loosely translated, means the devil knows more because he's old than because he's the devil."

The federal government does have age limits - 25 to serve in the House, 30 for the Senate and 35 for the presidency - but state and local races are only limited to registered voters, who can be as young as 18. Legislators are limited to eight years in office.

"Their heart is in the right place, but we don't give it enough time for the heart to be enough to do us any good," said Martinez, who has opened a re-election campaign for 2008 and is also mulling a run for county mayor.

What the feds want from Florida

Florida's new voting law has come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Justice, which has asked Attorney General Bill McCollum and the Department of State asks for a long list of detailed information in order to determine whether or not changes made in the law will unfairly discriminate against minority voters.

What the feds want: Documents detailing the legislative committee meetings that led to the changes involving identification requirements and fines against third-party voter registration efforts. (This should largely involve the Senate, since the House bill did not include all the other stuff that wound up in the final bill.)

The feds also want to know how many registered voters who were added to the rolls in Hillsborough, Collier, Monroe, Hendry and Hardee by third-party groups and how many registered at either drivers license or election offices. The feds want to know what procedures have been put in place to tell a voter when their application doesn't match state records or social security numbers. The feds want to know the justification for giving voters two days instead of three days to verify their identity on a provisional ballot.

The feds also want an electronic list of every voter in the five counties covered by the Voting Rights Act  as well as the names of those who have a drivers license or state-issued ID. Lastly, the feds want to know what steps have been taken to inform residents in the five counties that starting Jan. 1 poll workers will no longer accept two forms of identification __ buyers club cards and employee badges.

Florida voter law comes under federal scrutiny

The sweeping new elections law that authorized optical-scan machines has come under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice, which sent a Oct. 29 letter to the Florida Division of Elections requesting more information on whether some aspects of the law _ including changes to third-party voter registration efforts and ID requirements for registration _ could prove harmful to minorities.

Because of past voting discrimination in a handful of Florida counties, the state must obtain "preclearance" of any changes in voting laws.

The changes made by Florida lawmakers this past spring have been criticized by a handful of voting rights groups, including the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. There is currently a federal lawsuit pending against one of the changes.

Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Department of State, said Florida will continue to move ahead with the changes in law as it gathers information to demonstrate to federal authorities that the changes are not discriminatory.

Justin Levitt with the Brennan Center praised the Department of Justice for asking for more information: "It's the state's burden to prove any change in the law doesn't have any retrogressive effect. The request for more information means that the standard wasn't met with the evidence submitted. It's a very good sign that the Department of Justice is looking very closely at the evidence."

From strippers to big ballots to Kool-Aid

The opponents of the so-called Hometown Democracy Initiative, the so-called Floridians for Smarter Growth (the Chamber of Commerce, etc.), have set up voting booths at the press center to show what a local ballot could look like if the initiative is approved to require local voter approval of local growth plan changes.

The ballot in Tallahassee, opponents say, could be 15 pages and 94 items long. Opponents say the Orange City ballot would be 47 pages and 471 items long.

The most interesting stunt in the fight: The appearance of apparent strippers in support of Hometown Democracy at a recent Tampa event where strip club owner Joe Redner was speaking in favor of the issue.

Hometown Democracy organizers bashed the latest anti-initiative stunt, saying Floridians for Smarter Growth is engaging in "circus-like" antics by emailing out a poster and offering the news media free food.

"Eat the free food but please don't drink the Kool-Iad," said Hometown Democracy organizer Lesley Blackner.

State elections official steps down

Amy Tuck, the head of the state Division of Elections under Secretary of State Kurt Browning, is quitting her job as of Nov. 16.

Dawn Roberts, chief of staff for Browning, informed election supervisors in an e-mail that "I regret to inform you that Amy Tuck has tendered her resignation effective November 16, 2007.  In the interim, Secretary Browning has asked Sarah Jane Bradshaw to serve as Interim Director for the Division
of Elections until a new Director is appointed.  I know you will join us in wishing Amy all the best."

Tuck ran into some controversy earlier this year after signing off on a legal opinion in August that said that political committees could not spend money on issue-oriented polls. That opinion, which came under fire from business groups, was rescinded a month later by a different opinion from the Division of Elections that concluded that political committees could spend money on issue-oriented polls.

Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Browning, said that Tuck had resigned to "pursue other interests in the private sector" but said he did not know what she planned to do. Bradshaw is a long-time elections veteran who prior to working for the Division of Elections was the staff director of the Senate Ethics and Elections committee.

Insiders: HBO can't resist "overdoing" recount saga

Seven years after the election drama that put George W. Bush in the White House, HBO is shooting the movie Recount in the town where the behind-the-scenes decisions were made and where the decision-makers are expecting as much Hollywood spin as political fact from it all.

''They won't be able to resist overdoing it because of Katherine Harris and because the way it usually happens is not the way it usually looks in the movies,'' said J.M. ''Mac'' Stipanovich, a top advisor to the former secretary of state during the recount.

A good example of the Hollywood-ization: Actress Laura Dern, playing Harris, appeared in pancake makeup and what appeared to be an over-stuffed bra while riding a horse, in a replay of Harris' famed rodeo appearance when she ran for Congress -- two years after the recount.

Story here.

State elections chief: No cheap deals for touchscreens

Secretary of State Kurt Browning on Tuesday gave lawmakers an update on switching Florida's voting system from touchscreen machines to optical scan machines in time for the 2008 elections. Browning told them as counties get rid of the old machines that he has set up some guidelines for how the 28,000 machines will be disposed.

Browning said he won't sell them cheaply, saying he recently rebuffed an offer from Sequoia Voting Systems to buy back their current touchscreen machines for $1 per machine. "I laughed them out of my office,'' he said.

But Browning also said that the state will not sell the machines to individuals and instead will only sell them to legitimate manufacturers who want to resell them or recycle part of the parts. He said that's because the machines will continued to be used in some capacity in both Florida and other parts of the nation. Florida will continue to let disabled voters use touchscreen machines until 2012.

"The machines will be disposed of in a secure manner,'' he said.

He also said that the state will try to sell the machines from the counties _ including Broward and Miami-Dade _ that still owe money for the touchscreen machines they previously purchased. Six counties still owe approximately $33 million for their touchscreen machines. Florida is spending $28 million to buy new optical scan machines.

Punishment for questions of Kerry: Taser gun

The Skull and Bones conspiracy lives!

Just thank University of Florida police, a longwinded John Kerry and UF student Andrew Meyer, 21 and of Weston. At a town forum, he asked the Democrat about why he conceded the 2004 presidential election so soon in light of voting irregularities and whether Kerry was a Bonesman.

Meyer soon learned a rule of journalism. Though a pol can talk for two hours, you can't even "take two minutes," as Meyer asked, or even ask more than one question sometimes.

How dare he try! Tase him!

Meyer wasn't just taken down by officers, cuffed and shocked, he was arrested on charges of disrupting a school event and violently resisting arrest. See for yourself if the charges are appropriate in the video linked to the full story here.

Incidentally, Kerry, who tried to get the matter resolved peacefully, never answered the question, according to the video clip

NAACP and others file federal lawsuit against voter registration law

The Florida branch of the NAACP as well as the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition have filed a lawsuit in federal court that challenges Florida's current voter registration law that requires that someone cannot be registered to vote unless their name is also matched with either their driver's license number or social security number.

The groups contend that similar practices in other states have been struck down by federal courts, largely because databases have matching errors. They said the practice could especially disenfranchise Latino voters because their use of maternal and paternal surnames could generate different names in different databases.

"Unless the state of Florida rescinds its no-match, no-vote policies, thousands of Haitian-American voters and other ethnic language minorities in the state stand to be disenfranchised in the upcoming presidential election in 2008, as they were in 2000. The trauma of the 2000 presidential election is still vivid in the collective memory, and must not be repeated,'' said Jean-Robert Lafortune of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition.

Feds urged to reject Florida voter law

The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, the same group that raised questions about Florida's efforts to purge felons from the voting rolls, today said that it has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to reject recent voter registration law changes.

The organization is asking the federal government to reject the 2007 law, which softened a 2005 law that imposed fines on third party groups who register voters if they do not turn in registration forms within a certain time period. Lawmakers changed the 2005 law because the federal courts ruled it unconstitutional.

Any changes to Florida voting rights law must receive "pre-clearance" from the federal government because five counties remain subject to federal scrutiny because of past discrimination complaints. The Brennan Center argues that DOJ should reject the new law because they contend it will adversely impact the registration of black and Hispanic voters. (See release in comments.)

Go here to read the letter to DOJ: Download brennan_center.pdf

Elections chief wants political parties to pay up

In scouring his already-thin budget for places to cut, Secretary of State Kurt Browning has hit on an idea to make the well-oiled political parties give the state $300,000 they receive yearly from candidate qualifying fees.

"Our governor suggested we be creative, think outside the box. That's exactly what we're doing," Browning said, in response to a reporter's question over whether the Legislature, which often does the bidding of the parties, will go along.

Browning said he hit on the idea to raise more money without raising fees so that he could offset cuts to cultural programs that his office also oversees.

"For those of us who live here, for those of us who plan on coming here, there needs to be a quality of life. And you're not going to find that quality of life if we keep cutting libraries, we keep cutting cultural arts, we keep cutting historical preservation," he said.

Poll: Dem voters displeased with DNC's vote rules, think it hurts Hillary

A new InsiderAdvantage poll of 500 Florida Democratic voters shows that 53 percent disapprove of the Democratic National Committee's plans to award no delegates to a nominee who wins Florida's Jan. 29 primary because its early date violates DNC rules. Those who approve: 34 percent.

Also, 34 percent say the loss of the delegates would hurt Hillary Clinton the most, 20 percent say Barack Obama and 13 percent say John Edwards.

Another tidbit: When asked if what party ticket they plan to vote on, 22 percent said they would consider voting Republican. Though the voters weren't told whether they would have to switch parties to do that, pollster Matt Towery said the numbers are valid in this regard: It shows Democratic voters are less inclined to be Democratic voters.

"The Democrats are probably going to carry Florida," Towery said. "But what doesn't make sense to people is that the DNC, in trying to enforce these rules, is toying with one of the three critical states they have to win. If Hillary Clinton is the nominee and Rudy Giuliani doesn't make it on the Republican side, she carries New York, she carries California and that makes Florida a determining state. Why would you alienate any Democrat in this state?''

Election chiefs' peeved over Rather's touchscreen report

The much-maligned touchscreen-voting machines look like they're going to be maligned again at 8 p.m. EST tonight on HDNet's "Dan Rather Reports." The touting of the show by Susan Pynchon, of Florida Fair Elections Coalition, riled some elections chiefs, according to some emails.

Said Pat Hollarn of Okaloosa County said activists need to "get a life" and noted that Rather "lost his job" over his "false reporting" concerning President George W. Bush's military record.

Lee County's Sharon Harrington sees the "media" is just trying to, again, "undermine the democrat process."

Said Pynchon in response: "I am frankly shocked at your hostiility and your ignorance."

The emails are here: Download Harrington.msg and here Download Pynchon.msg

For more on the show, HDNet's website is here.