Voter claims lots of legal Iowa Dem voter absentees voided unreasonably

[berniew1]

06 04 29 12/27/0 4, 6:05 AM PST Absentee-ballot related problem; Registration-related problem Johnson County , Iowa Reported via mail to eirhelp: Want a case study of dirty
voter fraud tricks? called me last
night, upset because she got a letter in the mail
yesterday (Nov. 9) saying her absentee ballot was
challenged, and she had until noon on Nov. 4th to reply
or her ballot would be thrown out. She's having her
mail forwarded from IC to DC while she's there, which
explains why it took a week for her to get this letter. So
called the county auditor's office to
complain. Apparently, the auditor's office had received
a couple *thousand* similar calls complaining this
week. Some committee challenged a bunch of absentee
ballots in Johnson county, and really didn't give voters
a chance to respond: the letter regarding the challenge
(sent from Dubuque) was postmarked Nov. 3, and they
required a response by noon Nov. 4. They invalidated
her voter registration, in fact. So not only didn't her
vote for Kerry count, she now has to re-register to vote
in the future. and I voted in the last
congressional election 2 years ago, and she hasn't
changed addresses or anything since then. She checked
to make sure her registration was still valid when we
got our absentee ballots, in fact. I wonder how
widespread this is? If they were able to invalidate
ballots from people who were clearly legitimate voters,
simply by a technicality whereby they challenged the
ballot and didn't give the voter a chance to respond,
how much did this occur nationwide? There is a
serious flaw in the system when the burden of proof is
on the voter. If someone wants to challenge a voter
registration, they should have to prove there is a reason
it should be invalid. It's ludicrous that someone can
challenge a ballot without reason, and require the voter
to jump through hoops to prove that they should be
allowed to vote.

[intheflow]

1. Link?

[GetTheRightVote]

2. I was born in Dubuque & my family still there, please link

I will pass on the information to them, maybe they can check into it too.

:kick:

[CoffeeCat]

3. I live in Iowa too...

It seems fishy that Johnson County would experience these irregularities that favor Bush and hurt Kerry.

Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa, is a liberal hotbed. Iowa City, the largest town in Johnson County, is probably 75 percent liberal.

Gee, what a surprise that many in this area are finding that their votes were unnecessarily disqualified. <heavy sarcasm>

If I'm not mistaken, Bush only won Iowa by a few thousand votes. Thousands of Johnson-County votes could make a big difference for Kerry.

I'm an Iowan, and I'm still reeling about our red-state status. I was blown away by the outcome of the election.

The week leading up to the election--Kerry and Bush were tied in the Iowa polls, with Kerry pulling ahead during the 2 days leading up to the election. Iowa was trending Kerry.

If there are links to the OP's comments, I would love to see them.

I cast an absentee ballot, and I was also an absentee-ballot courier for the Kerry campaign. I'd like to be reassured that my vote did count, and that all of those votes I picked up counted as well!

[ISUGRADIA]

4. I'd need more info but would guess

If she had her mail forwarded to DC by the post office that was probably the problem. It implied that she moved permanently out of state and had no valid Iowa address. If she was challenged for that fact and did not respond the absentee board would have to reject her ballot.