Monday, June 18, 2012

How Mitt Romney Will Steal Florida

Votes will be added for him:

"Florida machines may add ‘phantom’ votes" June 04, 2012

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Almost half of Florida’s voters will have their ballots counted this November by machines that can malfunction in as little as two hours and start adding votes.

A New York study found that the precinct-based vote-counter added votes in some races on a ballot, which can invalidate some or all of the votes.

Election Systems & Software’s DS200 scanner will count votes in some of the most populous counties in Florida, including Miami-Dade, Broward, and Orange.

State elections officials stand behind the scanner, which they say has been thoroughly tested. Even so, the manufacturer issued a nationwide bulletin warning that the scanner needs to be carefully cleaned to avoid adding “phantom’’ votes.

The addition of extra votes can generate overvoting - instances where two or more candidates are chosen on a ballot in the same race. If a voter doesn’t correct the ballot, his or her vote in that race is thrown out.

In 2008, overvoting rates were so high in Florida counties using the scanner that an estimated 11,000 people lost their vote for president, an analysis by the nonprofit watchdog group Florida Fair Elections Coalition concluded.

Miami-Dade County precincts with large numbers of minority and non-English-speaking voters were especially hit hard....   

And presumably, we are told, Democrats.

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Votes will be taken away from Obama:

"Fla. sued over plans for review of voters" June 13, 2012|Globe Staff, Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department sued Florida on Tuesday, alleging the state conducted a “systematic program to purge voters’’ from registration rolls in violation of federal election law....

Aaaah, the old Jeb Bush trick!

“We have done all that we can in trying to reason with people in Florida,’’ Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday in Washington. “We are now prepared to go to court.’’

Governor Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican who signed the registration law and ordered the purge, has defended both as a means of fighting voter fraud. Florida Democrats have assailed both as an effort to give presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney an advantage over President Obama in a swing state four months before the election....

On Monday, Florida sued the Department of Homeland Security over access to a database to verify the citizenship of residents as the state seeks to purge noncitizens from its voter rolls.

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