Another obvious stolen election in Florida

[philb]

Christine Jennings who was far ahead on all polls found on election day that her votes disappeared into electronic machines


Sarasota County District 13 has a big voting scandal brewing.
Voting machines county wide did not show Dem Christine Jennings on electronic voting machine screens at all, or when voters selected Jennings, the page dissappeared. This was apparently occuring even 10 days ago, during early voting!

At least 100's of people tried but COULD NOT vote for Dem, Jennings.

Repub. opponent Vern Buchanan right wing repub, (he got George AND Laura Bush and Cheney to attend rallies to support himin Sarasota!) is claiming victory with only 356 more votes than Jennings. In fact, he was declared winner, before it transpired that 56,000 votes and the Early Voting results had not even been counted yet....

It is apparent that possibly 1000;s of votes for Jennings are gone forever.

This is well supported by many people I know, and has been reported, if poorly, in the paper -Sarasota herald tribune, and on local radio stations.

Can you investigate this problem further please?

This is a key race, as Buchanan is a real right wing extremist, fought a horrible dirty fight in the primary, and is under investigation for shady financial dealings/bogus bankruptcy claims locally. He is the area's (huge) largest Ford car dealer, former head of the Fl Chamber of commerce, and has an iffy bussiness reputation. A lot of money went into this campaign. And of course it is the infamous Dsit 13, Katherine Harris' former seat.
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Apparently the voting pattern in Sarasota County, FL is very unusual - an unusually high undervote rate that may have wrongly altered a race in FL.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Douglas W. Jones <[e-mail]>
Date: Nov 8, 2006 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: FL problems continue - Katherine Harris legacy of voting fraud continues in her district
To: [e-mail]

> This is from a friend of mine in Sarasota where the race to replace
> Katherine Harris has taken a turn towards the weird.
>
>> Sarasota County District 13 has a big voting scandal brewing.
>>
>> Our supervisor of elections Kathy Dent is not recognising any
>> problem on the voting. She is calling it "Undervoting" and shrugging
>> it off.

A reporter just called, he said that Dent's office sent out an E-mail
to all precinct election officials asking them to remind people not
to forget to vote in the District 13 race. This implies that she was
aware of a problem -- or at least aware of a significant underevote.

Doug Jones
[e-mail]

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[McKenzie]

1. pssst...Perky...voting scam...seems you were wrong on that one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2655387

[philb]

2. Election supervisor says lots of people just unconcerned about Congress races- don't bother to vote

In FL, Electronic Voting Shortfall Raises Eyebrows
By Paul Kiel - November 8, 2006, 11:03 AM
A recount battle is brewing, fittingly, in Katherine Harris' old seat, where a voting shortfall on buggy electronic voting machines is calling the election results into doubt.
From The Herald Tribune:
Republican Vern Buchanan was clinging to a 368-vote edge over Democrat Christine Jennings for the 13th Congressional District early this morning.
Although Buchanan declared victory just before 1 a.m., the razor-thin margin kept Jennings from conceding defeat and will generate an automatic recount....
The results were loaded with controversy as nearly 13 percent of all ballots cast in Sarasota didn’t include a choice for Congress. That difference, and scattered reports of difficulty finding the race on Sarasota’s touchscreen ballots, raised concerns about under votes in the race.
Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent couldn’t explain why 8,000 to 10,000 fewer people voted in the congressional race than in other high-profile races for governor, attorney general or U.S. Senate. But she said nothing mechanical went wrong with the county’s $4.7 million touchscreen voting machine system....
Throughout the day voters complained that touchscreen voting machines were not registering votes for Jennings properly. Jennings campaign held a midday press conference to warn the problem was widespread....
Already Democrats were calling in lawyers from the Democratic National Committee to weigh in on the potential voting issues....
In Sarasota County, with all but one precinct reporting, 87,797 people voted for Bill Nelson, Katherine Harris or another candidate for U.S. Senate. In the governor race between Charlie Crist and Jim Davis, 87,678 county resident voted.
Only 76,549 voted for Jennings or Buchanan. In comparison, about 3,000 more people voted in the Sarasota Public Hospital Board election.
But a similar undervote was not recorded in other counties that voted in the District 13 race.

[philb]

3. Dem Cong. candidate with Media endorsements & poll lead sees something go awry

Fla. Candidate Battles the Anti-GOP Tide
House Hopeful in Heavily Republican District Tries to Rally Disenchanted Voter Base
By Michael Grunwald / Washington Post
BRADENTON, Fla., Nov. 4 -- Vern Buchanan is the Republican congressional candidate in this heavily Republican district, hoping to succeed a onetime GOP icon, Rep. Katharine Harris. The self-made businessman has given his campaign $5.5 million, the third-largest cash dump in the history of House races. He has campaigned with President Bush, first lady Laura Bush, Gov. Jeb Bush and Vice President Cheney; today's guest was former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
But he's still in trouble.
Buchanan's own polls show him slightly behind Christine Jennings, a fiscally conservative Democrat who was once Buchanan's banker, and Jennings's polls show him 11 points behind
September 18, 2006
Jennings Beating Buchanan?
An internal poll for Democratic Congressional District 13 candidate Christine Jennings, suggests the tough GOP primary to succeed Katherine Harris took a real toll on Republican Vern Buchanan. The 9/8-12 Hamilton Beattie poll of 500 likely voters in the heavily Republican district shows Jennings leading 46 percent to 38 percent (48 percent to 30 among independents). From the pollster's memo:

The Cook Political Report is a non-partisan,
online analysis of electoral politics (note that he was very accurate)

November 6, 2006
• Going into Election Day, we see a 20-35 seat gain for Democrats in the House, a four to six seat gain for Democrats in the Senate and a six to eight seat gain for Democrats in the governor's races.
All Monday there was considerable talk that the national picture had suddenly changed and that there was a significant tightening in the election. This was based in part on two national polls that showed the generic congressional ballot test having tightened to four (Pew) and six (ABC/Wash Post) points.
Seven national polls have been conducted since Wednesday, November 1. They give Democrats an average lead of 11.6 percentage points, larger than any party has had going into an Election Day in memory. Even if you knock five points off of it, it's 6.6 percentage points, bigger than the advantage that Republicans had going into 1994.
Furthermore, there is no evidence of a trend in the generic ballot test. In chronological order of interviewing (using the midpoint of field dates), the margins were: 15 points (Time 11/1-3), 6 points (ABC/Wash Post), 4 points (Pew), 7 points (Gallup), 16 points (Newsweek), 20 points (CNN) and 13 points (Fox).

• HOUSE RATINGS CHANGES:
AZ-01 Renzi Lean Republican to Toss Up
FL-13 Open Lean Democratic to Toss Up (Jennings/Buchanan)
ID-01 Open Lean Republican to Toss Up
IN-07 Carson Solid Democratic to Likely Democratic

[Sancho]

5. We've seen this before in Pinellas...

In the Martinez/Castor race 4 years ago, we saw votes that wouldn't record or candidates didn't show up on the screen. I'm sure that there are races that are being targeted by the technicians. Sequoia charged Pinellas over $100,000 for technical help in the primary, and there is no bill for this last Tuesday yet, but there were little computer geeks at several polls.

I suspect that they pick certain races and precincts for undervotes, flipped votes, and whatever trick will get them over the edge. The election supervisors are in on it or aware of it. I've called and written Deborah Clark in Pinellas, but now she has a "spokesperson" and a bunch of premade responses.

In Pinellas, some poll workers were demanding an ID with a photo AND a signature (there is no literacy test) to intimidate Hispanic and minority voters. I was early in line and challenged them about it, but I'm sure it didn't do any good after I left.

Around here Jennings was ahead in the polls in every way you could think of...I'm not convinced that Billarakis and other races weren't manipulated also. Why would Kathy Castor, Bill Heller, Sink, and Charlie Justice (all D) win so big and the same people NOT vote for Jennings? It makes no sense. Some races are manipulated, and some are not is the only explanation. You called it - when the Bushes visit you know whose race will get the hack.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

11. Has this ever been a pattern in prior Congressional races?

Sarasota does not strike me as a place where voters would not care about a Congressional race.

[KayLaw]

4. What about the exit polls?

What did they indicate?

[philb]

8. Does anyone know who was doing exit polls?

Were the Media doing exit polls this time?
I think they may have decided not to do them because the exit polls in 2004 showed Kerry won
and that was ackward for them. Created lots of controversy.

Probably their main funding sources would not want exit polls this time.

[BeFree]

13. Fl 13 Pre-election Polls

Earliest Poll had D=49 R=47
Latest Poll D=49 R=47
Expected D=51.4 R=48.6

[KayLaw]

16. Thanks!

This is important information. So people wanted Jennings.

[philb]

6. Voting glitch prompts warning from Supervisor in Congress race

The race was not properly labeled on some machines either.

Here's one account:
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=6726

Voting glitch prompts warning
By TODD RUGER

[e-mail]

SARASOTA COUNTY Poll workers are to remind every voter to look out for the 13th Congressional District race on the electronic ballot after at least four people complained that their initial votes for Democrat Christine Jennings weren't recorded.

Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent gave the order by e-mail, calling it "critical." She told the Herald-Tribune she believes a very small number of the 24,000 early voters overlooked the 13th Congressional District race because it "is sandwiched in between the Senate and the governor's race."

Dent said her office will review ballot design on the county's touchscreen voting machines to see if the problem can be avoided in the future, but added that more voters correctly fill out touchscreen ballots than paper ballots.

The county uses a paperless touchscreen voting system, and a number of high-profile glitches around the state and nation have added to some voters' inherent distrust of touchscreen voting.

[Stevepol]

7. Glad to provide #5 K&R.

[jarnocan]

9. Should fight these cases now! because at least now

we have a chance to have a better nation wide system and standards by 08. I hope people don't decide it doesn't matter so much now.

[lpbk2713]

10. Buchanan is proof that negative campaign ads work

Virtually all of his TV ads were negative and slinging mud at Jennings.

Jennings, to her credit, refused to reciprocate.

[mhatrw]

12. Election fraud works.

"Negative campaigning works" and "last minute Bush campaign appearances work" are simply the narrative "explanations" for election fraud.

[lpbk2713]

14. Collectively I would suppose the whole array of misdeeds could be

categorized under the heading of

Electile Dysfunction

.

[philb]

15. Sarasota Herald Tribune followup on Jennings district 13 hack

Dist. 13 voting analysis shows broad problem

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061109/NEWS/611090343

SARASOTA COUNTY -- A review of voting results shows that in almost every precinct a high percentage of voters didn't cast ballots.
• Dent explains why election results were delayed
• Race so close 2 recounts may be required by law
• Buchanan sets Washington plans
• Elections supervisor in eye of the storm
• House could end up in the 13th District
• Attorneys swarm in for vote recount
• Sarasota voters report touch-screen woes

TODAY'S UPDATES:
• Jennings to speak to media 2:31pm