Absentee Florida ballot sent with precious stamp.

[drm604]

This is kind of freaky. It's a little to old to post in LBN.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061110/us_nm/life_stamp_dc

By Tom Brown
Fri Nov 10, 4:17 PM ET



MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida voter may have unwittingly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars by using an extremely rare stamp to mail an absentee ballot in Tuesday's congressional election, a government official said on Friday.

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The 1918 Inverted Jenny stamp, which takes its name from an image of a biplane accidentally printed upside-down, turned up on Tuesday night in Fort Lauderdale, where election officials were inspecting ballots from parts of south Florida, Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom told Reuters.

<snip>

Rodstrom said he did not examine the envelope's postmark, but it had no return address and the ballot was disqualified because it gave no clue as to the identity of the voter.

<snip.

A block of four of the stamps sold for almost $3 million last year, however, and Rodstrom said the one that turned up Tuesday night could fetch about $500,000 for Broward County at auction.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Uh the name is on the address of the envelope, give it back

[drm604]

5. Read my post.

There was no return address and the ballot was disqualified because the sender's identity could not be determined.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. You are right. missed that part. Wonder why they did it?

[drm604]

10. I couldn't post the whole article

due to DU's 4 paragraph limit. But they speculated that it may have been somebody with Alzheimer's. I wonder if they could make a public announcement looking for the person, then check any claimants' fingerprints against any left on the ballot or envelope.

[lpbk2713]

12. And if they really wanted to go to a lot of trouble....

they could check the DNA on the sealing glue of the stamp and the envelope.


It might cost a thousand bucks but they could demand to be reimbursed after they found the owner or deduct it from from the proceeds of an auction if no owner was found.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Having told what the stamp was, odds are no dice :^(

[petronius]

2. What a bizarre story!

I find it incredibly hard to believe that the guy who spotted it didn't examine the postmark - that would be an automatic reaction for probably 99% of people, especially those with any interest in stamps.

The speculation about an elderly voter (possible with Alzheimer's) is probably right on target, unless of course this is some sort of elaborate setup (perhaps some sort of elaborate 'Nine Queens'-like scam)...

[Disturbed]

3. If he had pocketed that stamp

would anyone have know about it? If he had not been a stamp collector that envelope would have ended up in the trash. I saw this story on TV. It is an interesting occurance.

[MagickMuffin]

4. KO, mentioned this last night

and that there wasn't a return address on the envelope. However, I think the honorable thing to do would be to have a public service announcement to try and find the rightful owner. I'm sure they could find out who did such a foolish thing and that they would love to have it back. Probably a senior citizen who could use the money.

Such a shame they paid a high price for their vote and then to top it off the vote wasn't even counted.

But now it looks as though they are going to auction it off and give the proceeds to Broward County.:grr:

[drm604]

6. Find the rightful owner.

But how would that work? Anyone could show up and claim to be the owner, but how could they prove it?

[petronius]

13. One possibility is, if this person just happened to pull out four

very old stamps, a look in their stationery drawer would probably reveal some other equally old documents - this person's house could be a treasure trove - so if they find an elderly person with dementia, a strong instinct to participate in the civic process, and a house full of antiques and old stamps, there's a pretty good chance that's the anonymous voter...

[ticapnews]

7. It's mine!

and you can't prove otherwise! :)

[DawgHouse]

8. It's mine.

I'll see YOU in court! }(

[drm604]

11. Are your fingerprints on the envelope? n/t

[ticapnews]

14. Of course not!

I always dust the fingerprints off my mail before I send it!
Doesn't everyone? :)