WEST
PALM BEACH, US, October 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Four years after the “Florida fiasco”, tens of thousands of
absentee ballots have gone missing in the battleground state, with
Democratic Party officials accusing the Republican-dominated state
government of dirty tricks.
Of
the 60,000 absentee ballots mailed by authorities in Broward County,
north of Miami, only 2,000 have been delivered, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Democrats,
who have deployed 2,700 lawyers to Florida, jumped on the scandal.
“It
looks like they're trying to steal the vote again,” said Diane
Glasser, vice-chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, told AFP.
Democratic
Party legislators have called on the electoral authorities to publish
newspaper ads telling people of other options for voting.
BBC's
Justin Webb in Washington said the missing ballots have fanned the
suspicious atmosphere in Florida, with Democrats already backing nine
separate law suits in the state.
If
the outcome is close and decides the result in the presidential race
-- and both of those eventualities are perfectly possible -- it seems
virtually certain that protracted legal battles will follow, noted the
BBC correspondent.
Florida
was the center of controversies which delayed the result in 2000, with
incumbent George W. Bush eventually declared the winner in the state
by 537 votes.
Broward
gave then Democratic presidential hopeful Al Gore his biggest margin
among Florida counties, with 67% of the vote.
Florida
is the richest haul among the battleground states expected to decide
the November 2 presidential election, with 27 electoral college votes
out of the 270 needed to win.
Queuing
Early Voters
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Residents of Dade County work electronic voting machines at a local voting station in Miami
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Meanwhile,
electoral authorities are overwhelmed by the sheer number of people
taking advantage of early voting that started October 18 and is meant
to ease the pressure on November 2.
In
Palm Beach county, the focus of much of the five-week recount
controversy in the last presidential, voters wait as long as three
hours to cast their ballots.
Sid
Dinerstein, the county's Republican party leader, said the long lines
are a problem.
He
told AFP he himself had planned to vote early but turned back when he
realized he would have to wait for hours.
However,
other voters were more than willing to wait just to have their voices
heard.
“We
need to get Bush out. I don't mind if I stay here all night,” said
Juliette Saintelien, earning herself smiles and nods from other Kerry
supporters.
More
Accusations
Democrats
claim Florida authorities failed to plan properly for the election and
did not send enough machines or poll workers.
They
largely blame the governor -– Bush’s brother -- and Secretary of
State Glenda Hood, both Republicans.
“Every
single decision they make favors the Republican party,” said Carol
Ann Loehndorf, Democratic party chairwoman for Palm Beach county,
adding a low turnout would favor Republicans.
Democrats
have more registered voters in Florida than their rivals, but
Republicans tend to have a better turnout.
Touring
voting offices in Palm Beach county this week, Hood shrugged off such
criticism.
“I'm
very impressed with the organization and people's attitudes, that
they're willing to stand in line for four hours to vote,” said Hood,
who oversees the state elections office.
Several
hundred thousand people have already cast their votes across the
state, taking about 10 minutes each to fill out the ballots, which
include a slew of amendments, judicial and legislative races.
Inside
the West Palm Beach voting office, voters sat behind 14 voting
machines, using their fingers to mark their choices.
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Voters wait in line in West Palm Beach to cast their ballots
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The
touch-screen machines replace the infamous punch-card system blamed
for much of the problems that delayed the outcome of the 2000 election
by five weeks before the US Supreme Court ended recounts.
Democrats
believe the new machines could be a source of renewed electoral chaos
since their failure to leave a paper trail would make a manual recount
impossible.
A
judge this week rejected a lawsuit demanding that printers be attached
to the voting machines, which are used in 15 counties. The other 52
Florida counties use optical scan machines.
Another
federal judge dismissed a demand for inclusion on the voter rolls of
about 10,000 people whose registration forms were rejected because
they were not properly filled out.
One
Thursday, October 21, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights
and Elections - Political Action Committee (AMT- PAC), an umbrella of
major US Muslim groups, gave a “qualified
endorsement” to Kerry, accusing the Bush
administration of having been largely “insensitive to the civil
liberties and human rights” of Muslims since the 9/11 attacks.
