Florida prosecutors asked to probe possible voter fraud

BRENDAN FARRINGTON

Associated Press  07 October 2004

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Duval County elections officials asked state prosecutors Thursday to investigate possible voter fraud involving 25 registration forms that appear to have bogus addresses, including some that match a public park, a parking lot and a Jacksonville utilities building.

Two of the forms were filled out by individuals at the elections office and 23 were submitted by people who registered voters independently. Officials didn't immediately know who turned in the independent registrations, said Erin Moody, a spokeswoman for the county elections office.

The disclosure is the latest wrinkle to surface as the state tries to avoid problems reminiscent of the 2000 presidential race, when President Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes in a disputed election that involved accusations votes weren't properly counted and people were wrongly removed from election rolls.

Duval county had already registered the voters before someone election officials declined to identify tipped them off about the suspicious information. All but three of the individuals registered as Democrats. Two chose no party and one checked Republican.

The Associated Press checked each address and found only one that matched an occupied house. Most of the addresses didn't exist. Residents at the occupied house said they moved in this week and did not know the person registered at the address.

The elections office reviews registrations to make sure forms are properly filled out and that there is no questionable information. Moody said the 25 forms were turned over to the state attorney's office in Jacksonville. Calls to the office after hours Thursday were not answered.

With more than 500,000 registered voters in Duval, it would be impossible to verify each address, Moody said. Elections officials don't check if a specific address is legitimate but they verify through county records that it falls within the range of numbers assigned to the listed street.

Several counties have discovered problems with absentee ballots turned in by several independent groups this election season. Thousands are missing information, meaning thousands could find out Nov. 2 that they are unable to vote.

"There are many problems across the state, it's almost daily now that were hearing examples of things that are being brought to supervisors' attention," said Alia Faraj, spokeswoman for the Department of State, which overseas elections in Florida.

As well as incomplete forms, Faraj said county election supervisors have received boxes of registrations after the Oct. 4 deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 2 election. While the people will be registered, they will have to wait until the following election to actually vote.

Independent groups have registered hundreds of thousands of Florida voters this election ahead of a presidential election expected to be a tight contest between Bush and Democrat John Kerry.

"While many of these group are well intentioned and we appreciate their efforts to register voters, there are some groups out there that are not being responsible and not ensuring that voters will be able to participate in the process," Faraj said.

Some of the groups said they did their best to weed out problems ahead of time. The Florida Consumer Action Network turned in 86,672 registration forms and said checks were made to make sure all were complete, accurately filled out and turned in before the deadline.

"We're not trying to pad our numbers with fraudulent claims," said Philip Compton, who is directing the group's Florida voter drive. "Sending in incomplete registrations or erroneous registrations would not achieve our goal in any way."

That doesn't mean FCAN hasn't found problems. One of its Orange County workers was fired after the organization discovered she was apparently copying names and addresses from telephone directories. The organization turned in about 1,400 registration forms Monday. It asked the county to review 10 submitted by the fired woman and asked the county to determine whether they were legitimate.

The Orange County elections office told The Associated Press on Monday that the group had planned to turn in 2,000 incomplete voter registration forms. Nora Patchnik of FCAN said that was a misunderstanding from a telephone call in which she mentioned the 10 questionable forms.

This year, in addition to registration problems, there have been disputes over the lack of a paper trail on touchscreen voting machines and a faulty list that was being used to purge felons from voter rolls. The felon list was eventually scrapped by the Department of State.

The Advancement Project, a Washington group working with several organizations conducting voter registration drives, including some in Duval County, accused the state of overstating problems with work being done by independent groups, particularly given other problems with the voting system.

"I don't think one bad apple should spoil the hard work of the thousands of people who are registering people to vote," said Sabrina Williams, a spokeswoman for the organization