CNN -- Florida Election Official quits amid criticism

[merh]

Election official quits amid criticism

Friday, April 1, 2005 Posted: 10:07 AM EST (1507 GMT)

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- The elections chief of a key South Florida county has resigned amid revelations of voting problems in six elections.

Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan resigned Thursday. Her chief deputy, Lester Sola, will take over temporarily.

The veteran Chicago election official came on board in Miami in June 2003 to fix problems from the 2000 presidential election.

The county was heavily criticized after 28,000 mostly punchcard ballots went uncounted. President Bush won the state -- and thus the presidency -- by 537 votes.

County Manager George Burgess said he questioned Kaplan about a special election on slot machines in which there were a high number of ballots with no recorded votes -- known as undervotes.

(snip)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/01/voting.problems.ap/index.html

[Wilms]

1. A number of interesting posts about this story are on LBN.

Do have a look.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1359361

[merh]

2. Thank you for the link - it looks like people are interested in other

things today (this week)! :hi:

[berniew1]

16. what is the excuse given for the lost records?

Kaplan, whose office lost the records of the entire 2002 primary and general elections, and may have tried to cover it up the way it did the previously-reported data corruption problems? As the NYT reported in June (reprint via the Tampa Trib):

There were big problems with the 2002 primary; it looked as if the problems might have swung the election and determined the Dem choice for Gov. And there were also problems and glitches with the general elections. It would sound like someone wanted the evidence covered up.
How did they explain the disappearance?

ps
anyone know Kaplan's party affiliation? I assume she's Dem.
Dade is pretty even between Dems and Repubs, some Repub areas, some heavily Dem I think they have more Repub legislators and Congressmen than dems

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. I wonder how long this will stay on-line - Her bio . .

.
.
.

Constance Andrew Kaplan, Supervisor of Elections

As Supervisor of Elections, Constance Andrew Kaplan brings more than 30 years experience as a full-time election administrator to Miami-Dade County. Kaplan served as Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, the third largest election jurisdiction in the United States until accepting the position with Miami- Dade. She is recognized for her expertise in the field of election administration and is a frequent speaker at conferences and Workshops.

Her accomplishments while at the Chicago Board include extensive outreach and pollworker recruitment programs, innovative training programs and materials, Election Day crisis management development, and liaison to international delegations on fact finding and study tours in the United States.

Kaplan has extensive experience as an international election consultant and has worked in South Africa, China, Albania, Russia, Indonesia, Zambia, Mexico, and Kosovo. She has developed a good working knowledge of the electoral systems used in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and has provided practical solutions to many problems that election officials encounter.



http://www.miamidade.gov/info/bio/elections.asp">

And voting irregularities in Florida no less

In the country claiming to be the leaders in democracy ?

Naahh

Must be an April Fools thing,

right?

thot so ..

[Bill Bored]

4. I don't know if she's good or bad, but this is a good scam:

Mis-configure the DREs or Op Scans, and then blame the discrepancies on the BOE official and get rid of her! Then install your own puppet.

[merh]

5. Ya think!

These guys are so good at their scams.

[Bill Bored]

6. I'm sure I just have an overactive imagination.

Like the people who thought some guys might crash airplanes into buildings.

Let's see, Jeb campaigned AGAINST the slot machines, there were a lot of undervotes in the election and what do you know...the measure was defeated, right? Then this lady resigns saying the undervotes were not enough to change the outcome, but that they were the result of a software problem.

So the question is how hard is it configure the voting machines to generate lots of undervotes on a Yes/No ballot question? And especially if this is the only question on the ballot. (Was it?)

[Wilms]

7. This calls for a full

[merh]

8. If only we could get a full

:shrug:

[Wilms]

12. Good one, Merh!

;)

[merh]

15. Thanks Wilms!

Had to borrow your prop, but it worked! :hi:

[merh]

9. Apparently our imagination hasn't been as active as it should.

They stole 2000, 2002 and 2004! They have so many schemes and scams, it is very hard to keep up with them all, let alone prevent them. :freak:

[berniew1]

10. Major problems in Miami-Dade 2004 election, see summary

http://www.flcv.com/dadeo.html

but not as much as in Broward County, the worst in Florida
http://www.flcv.com/browardo.html

or Palm Beach
http://www.flcv.com/palmbeao.html


for estimate of votes swung by fraud and manipulation in Florida see
http://www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html

[Peace Patriot]

13. And there's this...UC Berkeley study, phantom votes for Bush in FLA...

Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting—in Florida's 3 biggest Democratic counties (Miami-Dade, Brower and Palm Beach); calls for investigation:
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu
Report issued 11/18/04, by Dr. Michael Haut, & U.C. Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team; Haut is a nationally-known expert on statistical methods and member of the National Academy of Sciences and the U.C. Berkeley Survey Research Center

"UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count
Statistical Analysis - the Sole Method for Tracking E-Voting - Shows Irregularities May Have Awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or More Excess Votes to Bush in Florida
Research Team Calls for Investigation"
Press release: http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1118-14.htm

[berniew1]

14. comments on assumptions and details in this study requested

getting it ready for Nashville
http://www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html

[Senator]

11. The "camel's nose" perhaps???

I'm not predicting anything, but the election thieves have sure been "reacting" to something lately (Blackwell testilying, Baker-Bot deployed, phony group accusing the losing side of stealing).

The thing about this is that it makes "stolen elections" a reality. And beyond that, a problem. Yes, something only becomes a "problem" in this former democracy when it starts to eat into the profits, but so be it.

Now, if some of the greed-is-good crowd should connect another dot or two -- and realize that a lost slot machine racket is chicken feed compared to international billions they could be reaping if the rest of the world could be convinced that they had the trustworthy American People back in the loop -- we might see this snowball starting downhill.

I don't hold out any realistic hope for that.

But I did get an email from the DNC the other day that DID NOT ask for money, rather it asked people to actually DO SOMETHING. So I suppose anything is possible.

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