I can go on line and almost always find your signature. Maybe you signed a mortgage document or a deed. Maybe you signed a permit to put a roof on your house or to install a screen enclosure. Signatures are no big deal, only social security numbers are protected. So why won't elections let me look at signatures in their database? What is the big secret? In fact, not only will they not let me look at signatures, they won't let you have a copy of your OWN signature from their database. They make you go down to Doral to view your own information. They told me I needed a court order to view the database signatures. WHY??? How am I, or any other newsman, going to determine whether or not the Elections Department is doing a good job of comparing signatures on absentee ballot envelopes if I am not allowed to view what they are comparing?Every stone must be upturned with absentee ballots because they have become a breeding ground of fraud. There cannot be fair elections with the current state of absentee ballot review. Here is the definition of a public record in Florida law:
This law states that "all documents ... regardless of the physical form, characteristics, or means of transmission, made or received pursuant to law or ... in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency" is a public record. The Florida Supreme Court has interpreted this definition to encompass all materials made or received by an agency in connection with official business which are used to perpetuate, communicate or formalize knowledge.
The Elections Department routinely releases your age, your name, your address, your phone number how many times you vote, your party, etc. to candidates and their consultants and whomever else who will pay the price, but the signatures are off limits. I don't want a copy the signatures, I just want to compare them to the absentee ballot envelopes to make sure everything is kosher. Elections will let you see the signatures on the envelopes (you can't touch them) but they won't let you compare them to their database so what is the point? It sucks.
Lawyers...what do you think, should I need a court order? Also what do you think of elections not sending YOUR OWN information to you if you request it, requiring that you go down to their location? One reader was told she voted absentee (she didn't) and asked for a copy of the envelope. She was told she had to go down to elections to see the envelope. I had another reader tell me that he went down to elections because they sent him a letter that said his absentee ballot didn't match his signature. He wanted to see what they were talking about and asked to see his own signature in the database but they wouldn't show it to him. All this security is in order to protect you from yourself, yet Elections will let sleazy campaigns collect absentee ballot request forms and submit them for voters. These forms have signatures on them so the campaigns have a sample signature to copy from if they are up to no good and get a hold of your ballot.
12 comments:
The problem is the win at any cost mentality of the campaigns. Many consultants have become thugs.
That is why the elections department has to be even more careful with the absentee ballot path from their office to the voter and back again. They should call voters when they suspect fraud.
Florida law provides:
97.0585 Public records exemption; information regarding voters and voter registration; confidentiality.
....(2)The signature of a voter registration applicant or a voter is exempt from the copying requirements of s. 119.07(1) and s. 24(a), Art. I of the State Constitution.
I am not trying to COPY - I want to view only.
Don't you think the campaigns are copying voter information from the absentee ballot request forms? They should not be able to collect these requests under that law anonymous cited above.
Election law needs an overhaul. Apparently the campaigns have found the loop-holes and are exploiting them, hurting the community.
We elect people to do the right thing but during the election most are already turned to the dark side to raise money, before they ever begin to serve. No wonder so many are caught in wrongdoing. They become accustomed to skirting the laws.
You are onto something. Yes, go down to Elections and find one, two, three signatures that vary from the database. I would say that this is the job of an investigative newspaper, but that bar has been substantially lowered.
Do you really think a staff member at the Elections Department is checking absentee ballots for matching signatures? They are so lazy and incompetent, I seriously doubt it.
My son at Gainesville requested and absentee ballot and did not receive it until Election day. A little late for him to cast a ballot at all.
First it was the machines now its the Absentee ballots there seems to always be an issue with our elections.
Don't they still require a witness to swear that you are who you are?
No they took that safeguard off. In fact, that is how they caught the fraud in the Suarez/Hernandez absentee voting in the City of Miami. They should put the witness requirement back on.
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