I do know that Republicans tend to use Absentee ballots more than Democrats but it doesn't explain all the lopsided elections that are won on absentee ballots in non-partisan races. Lets look at the numbers on a few partisan elections to try to understand the Absentee ballot phenomena. I need all the sleuths out there to speculate on the Absentee ballot advantage in the comment section.
Congressional Election:
David Rivera election day had 29,885 votes. Absentee he had 21,797 and early voting he had 11,6353 total of 63,364.
Joe Garcia (DEM) election day had 31,218 votes. Absentee he had 11,788 and early voting he had 11,753 total of 54,800. Ethically challenged Rivera won the election solely on absentees with almost twice as many.
Governor's Race in Miami-Dade County:
Rick Scott got 93,626 on election day, Absentee he had 73,474, and early voting he had 37,739. Total votes 204,918.
Alex Sink (DEM) got 165,412 on election day, Absentee ballots she had 52,729 and early voting she had 56,290. Total votes 274,638.
Attorney General Race in Miami Dade County:
Pam Bondi got 96,678 on election day, Absentee she got 71,330 and early voting she got 36,699. Total votes 204,792.
Dan Gelber (DEM) got 148,064 on election day, Absentee he got 49,449 and early voting he got 53,473. Total votes 251,170.
Commissioner of Agriculture in Miami Dade County:
Adam Putnam got 96,614 on election day, Absentee he got 72,623 and early voting he got 38,281. Total votes 207,599.
Scott Maddox (DEM) 138,412 on election day, Absentee he got 43,574 and early voting he got 48,632. Total votes 230,795.
State Representative:
Gustavo Barreiro got 5,656 on election day, Absentee he got 4,725 and early voting he got 2,333. Total votes 12,714.
Luis Garcia (DEM) got 7,077 on election day, Absentee he got 3,412 and early voting he got 2,725. Total votes 13,221.
U.S. Senator in Miami Dade County:
Marco Rubio got 102,456 on election day, Absentee he got 78,223 and early voting he got 39,539.
Meek/Crist got 159,658 on election day, Absentee they got 52,011 and early voting they got 55,874.
In all cases the Republican won the Absentee vote no matter if they won or lost the election. Why do Republicans have such an Absentee voter advantage? I want to hear from you! To me, there is something wrong with this picture. Especially I find it odd that in non-partisan local elections several candidates reported to me they were polling high and then lost ONLY because of the absentee votes. (There were a few ADA votes on most races I did not note).
42 comments:
I would really like to know what goes on with Absentee Ballots. I don't think that Republicans have this much of an advantage to swing elections this much. How do they get people to send them in and the Democrats can't? What is their secret?
I could be something as simple as senior citizens and soldiers overseas vote absentee ballot a lot and they vote Republican a lot.
Generally, new candidates and the people they hire to help them are ignorant of the fact that many elections are won or lost in the absentee ballot races. In most cases, they do not have a specific absentee ballot campaign. They usually have a plan for election day, and some may have early voting plans, but only those who are well-seasoned understand the importance of absentee ballot campaigns. Another thing, absentee ballot voters vote very early, most before early voting begins. A last minute effort, spending all your money in the last week, or completing your closing arguments in the last few weeks, will miss them, as they will make their decisions well ahead of your effort. So the Republicans beat the Democrats because of a targeted absentee ballot strategy.
Polling should catch absentee voters too.
All those people with dementia...they are voting absentee.
Even if the polling catches them, if you don't have an action plan, people on the ground making it happen, and a marketing strategy designed for them, you won't win the absentee ballot election.
Exactly what do people on the ground do? That is what I want to know. How do pubs get that ballot in the mail?
Come on this is an easy conclusion. Everyone knows that Republicans are cheaters and Democrats have our best interest at heart. So, it can only be the powerful and influential Republicans like George Soros and Warren Buffett that are using their amassed fortunes to pay off county election personnel to rig the absentee ballots in favor of Republicans, so other rich and oh yes, don't forget the cliche, white guys get elected.
If this crazy theory does not fit, than I will go back to my default "reasoning" and blame the Zionists! (Paging Helen Thomas)
There is nothing "wrong" with one party having a better absentee program than another party. The GOP puts a lot of money into identifying these voters and contacting them repeatedly to ensure they vote by mail, at early voting locations, or at the polls on election day. GOP voters are more likely to be homeowners with permanent addresses rather than renters with a series of temporary addresses. Dems outsource much of their absentee and early voting efforts to their allied organizations, which misses all those voters who aren't union members, teachers, or objects of community organizers. The GOP just has a better plan.
I want to know what Republicans on the ground do? People don't respond to calls anymore. Do they go to houses and bribe, take or fill in ballots? What is the drill? How does receiving a ballot translate to returning a ballot. Are pubs just more civic minded?
The Republicans are masters at the ground work. Foot Soldiers (they call them) and "helping" elderly fill out their absentee ballots. After these "assistants" leave nursing homes, Adult Day Cares, Assistance Living Facilities and homes of elderly, some don't close envelopes properly which gives them time to make "adjustments" to absentee ballots. These "adjustments" will be based on calls they place to candidates asking them for a certain amount of $$ in exchange for votes. They will then mail those ballots to the Supervisor of Elections and noone will ever know this happened. Ah, yes Democracy at its best.
The answer's pretty simple, I think.
They have their act together. They use a long-standing, coordinated, locally-run effort that has deep ties in specific communities.
By focusing so much of their get-out-the-vote effort early on in the process (and throughout), they're able to pick up extra votes at the beginning and concentrate on keeping their numbers competitive during the final two weeks.
The Democratic Party doesn't have that kind of program (and likely not the ties that could quickly build it either, or they might have done so already).
I don't know the Republican side of things, but that's the way I see it based on knowing the local Democratic end and participating in their "coordinated campaigns."
A competitive and replicable absentee program would take multiple election cycles to develop and I'm not sure the Democratic party, locally or nationally, has been able to cultivate the environment needed to do that successfully in South Florida.
I've heard stories like the one above many times, but without seeing it firsthand, that would be nearly impossible to prove.
Absentee ballot voting will soon exceed the volume of both early and election day voting. For busy professional people, time is money. Why waste an hour or more going to a polling place, and God forbid, standing in a long line, when you can do it at home in your pjs, plus your vote gets counted before all others? For the on-line community it is easy. Go to the elections site, download an absentee ballot request form, and fill it out and mail it in. And bingo, you get your absentee ballot. People on the ground work the precincts to get as many people as possible to get this done. Candidates can get lists of people requesting these ballots, and send campaign literature and make phone calls specifically to them. It is a completely seperate campaign from the regular campaign as everyday is election day. Since the last Presidential election when long lines were the norm, it has grown in popularity. Candidates who fail to recognize the growing importance of it, always lose.
Many candidates have a fantasized view of the election. With all of the attention, in their minds they are a "big person", have big egos, and fail to understand that they are nothing unless they win, and that elections are quantified events. Given that dynamic, the mechanics of the election must be geared to yield these kinds of results. Questions for the absentee ballot team on the ground are: How many people did we get to request absentee ballots today? Of these people, how many said they would vote for our person? How many people mailed their form back to elections today? How many of them voted for our person? Chances are, if you don't have a daily printout of this kind of data, there is a good chance you will lose the absentee ballot campaign.
It's simple. Republicans spent millions on a massive absentee voter mail campaign.
I live in a "split" household. I am a registered Republican, the other a Democrat. In the three weeks leading up to Election Day, I received FOUR mailings from the Scott campaign/Republican Party of Florida with a well-designed absentee ballot application postcard that was already completed with all of my information laser-jetted into the form (name, address, voter ID #). All I needed to do was sign the application and drop it in the mail.
How many absentee mailings did the Democrat in my household receive? Answer: 0
The Republicans also sent multiple absentee mailings to overseas voters, snowbirds and military personnel.
As a result, the Republicans continued to "bank" huge numbers of their voters accumulating what turned out to be an insurmountable advantage going into election day.
All the talk of "stealing" votes at nursing homes or elsewhere is nonsense.
The Republicans run a sophisticated, well-financed absentee ballot campaign that targets a huge universe of voters.
That, combined with the national wave of enthusiasm for GOP candidates this year, is the only explanation for these treands.
As a former Republican Candidate, The reason they win absentee is because they hire a few women that dedicate themselves to gathering the absentee ballots from certain sections of the county. This
includes the senior citizen centers. If you pay one of these ladies $5,000 to $10,000 they will get you 2500,5000,10000,or more AB's. This is how its done here in town. This is something that I've never had enough money to do.
These comments, as I suspected, would become more interesting than my post.
I think Kirk, the senior center/retirement home absentee ballots are mostly a Hispanic initiative, and this might be occurring without other groups knowing about it. Look at the post below yours....
True, there may be anecdotal reports of a ground effort here in Miami-Dade County to scour the nursing homes/senior centers for extra votes, but three women (even with a devoted team of volunteers) can't rack up these kinds of numbers with a one-on-one effort.
Additionally, these same absentee trends can be seen in all 67 counties.
It is the very costly, sophisticated absentee mail effort (combined with a phone campaign to "chase" these absentee voter applicants to ensure they return their completed ballots) that is largely responsible for the disparity between the GOP and the Dems.
Maybe these vote brokers can influence the smaller elections that could win with 200 to 300 additional votes.
Maybe because Miami dade County has a better financed repub machine, ciompare AB results with Broward whse Repub Party is not as well financed.
Also Demos have their own well oiled machines in other states, this is not a partisan issue and turning it into one leads to a decrease in credibility. It is an institutional issue.
ANOn no one "Lady" has even 2500 at most 300-400 county wide the rest is part of their pitch.
It's because people in the service vote Republican. Any one who serves in our military knows you can't trust Democrats.
The Republicans have a well-oiled machine of absentee ballot brokers and managers of senior activity centers and senior public housing. These brokers get paid to work the absentees. The way it works is you pay anywhere from $1000-$2000 per month to these folks and they ensure you a number of ballots. It's not just one or two little old ladies doing the work, they have a method, and they can do it because they have multiple candidates per election. They send out paid workers to the senior homes to wait for the ballots when they're delivered by the post office. Some of the crooked senior activity center and housing managers ensure that only their candidates get in to see the seniors, and even threaten the seniors to give them the ballot unmarked with the envelope signed only on the left of the flap - so the signature does not go over the seal and they can get them open and then can "broker" the votes. The seniors know better than to question these people because they will be thrown out of the senior public - yes PUBLIC, paid by all of us taxpayers - housing or out of the activity center. Then, the even more crooked ones, re-sell the unmarked signed absentee ballots to the highest bidder, making money off of the candidates who paid them the monthly fee and off the opponent who buys them at a premium, sometimes up to $100 per ballot.
The authorities can verify this by opening an investigation and looking at the ballot envelopes, and they will see a statistically disproportionate number of ballot envelopes signed left of the flap.
This is why Republicans always win with absentee ballots.
The military vote is insignificant. In several state house races there were only 100-200 military absentee ballots.
The Joe Garcia campaign had a very strong absentee ballot campaign with several mailings, door to door and phone bank follow up, but you can't compete with the Republican absentee ballot machine, not until its dismantled and we send the lot of them to jail.
The other factors are gerrymandering that happened after the 2000 census, resulting in higher Republican percentages in the districts and packing high turnout Cuban American Republican seniors into these districts. Also Democrats like to commit suicide every 2-4 years by sitting home because their candidate is "not liberal enough" or did not send out more flyers than the Republican. Helloooooooo!
This is disgusting. It weakens our democracy and it needs to stop.
The "Republican Candidate" (Anon post) got it right!
The entire voting system is one of many aspects of our government that is corrupt.
If you can walk and drive, go to the doctor's, supermarktet, Mall, dinner, etc., on your own, then you can drive yourself to the polling place.
If you are healthy and employed, the voting polls are open 7AM to 7PM and you have weekends now for early voting. Most jobs should allow time for people to go and vote. Therefore, you go to the polls.
Early voting should be limited only to one weekend prior to election day.
Absentee ballots should follow a similar procedure as was followed in collecting petitions to recall the county mayor and 5 commissioners.
There needs to be FEDERAL laws regulating absentee ballots - limited to the very elderly who have limited mobility or do not drive, anyone who is ill, disabled, or those in the military.
A medical certificate must accompany the ballot if you are an elderly person, are ill or disabled. A military certificate if you are stationed out of the area where you vote.
Anyone caught collecting absentee ballots should receive a hefty fine and community service hours.
This should fix most of the fraud and corruption surrounding absentee ballots.
I HAD TO REMOVE A WORD FROM THIS COMMENT...DON'T IMPLICATE PEOPLE BY NAME...
ANONYMOUS SAID:
I don't know how many Cubans read this blog, but just so you'll know, Genius: The GOP spends a great deal of cash BUYING these absentee ballots. They buy them from people -- BLANK'S sister -- who manage and control the old folks "comedores" --that's the free dining rooms that feed the Cuban seniors. They also buy them for people who control the nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and the many PRIVATE nursing homes [that house maybe 6 or 8 seniors each] located in family homes. They start very early to spread the cash, and this is the way they do it! You mean to tell me, Genius, you didn't know this? And how about those "mental group therapy clinics" where you find hundreds of Cuban seniors being treated for a mental illnes that they don't really have, and where they go because the establishment ownership gives them part of the Medicare prceeds in cash. Im surprised, Genius, that you don't know that where there's a Cuban senior, there is an absentee ballot for sale! And yes, I happen to be Cuban!
I'm Cuban too and yes here its mostly Cubans because they are a majority, in Texas where their ain't that manny God Damn Cubans its called Granny Farming maybe its the God Damn Mexicans. Happens in Jersey, Alabama, etc etc etc
To Milly voting is a State issue and should remain that way the last time the Feds got anything right was..... well you get the picture.
As per anon and your omitting the politician who's sister runs a few senior centers, everyone knows who that is and I can't say there's something rotten in Rotterdam but where there is smoke...
OKAY If all this is going one why can't we get ONE f--king senior to come forward and say I didn't mail my ballot someone took it and mailed it for me.
They have to have relatives. Doesn't a relative ask them how they voted?
I WANT SOMEONE TO PRODUCE A SENIOR. I WILL PAY YOU $100 TO DO THE RESEARCH OF FINDING ONE SENIOR FOR ME who has experienced what many are describing in the comments.
Aw, c'mon, Genius! How many seniors can we get to come forward and state that their ballots have been "negotiated" by the many procurers who do? I can give you more than 50 names, right now, but I won't. For what? This is something of an election protocol that has been going on in Miami Dade County for, at least, the past 30 years, and if you don't know it... where the hell have you been living? Just look at it, you deleted the name of the politician who's sister had engaged in this type of practice for years, and a bunch of people knew who I was referring to!!! It's like the little story about the Pino posse. It's been going on forever, but not everyone knows it. LOL
You know something, Genius? You are almost reminding me of "the Sunday local political commentator on Channel 10." I once made a comment, in his presence, about the former mayor's liaison with the former television executive, and I thought, I would have to call 911 for him. I was afraid this idiot was going into cardiac arrest, and I had to ask him the same question I asked you: Where the hell have you been living, Mr. P? What's with you, anglos? Don't you know anything about what goes on in the REAL CUBAN WORLD?
First I don't need to get in hot water with someone who is NOT a public figure. SECOND I want to STOP what is going on. I am not just trying to find out about it. I wrote about it so maybe I could break it open. If you have a few people bring them forward so we can stop it --just don't brag you know about it. Great you are a Cuban that knows about illegal voting in the Cuban world of Miami. Well be the Cuban that stopped it and then I would respect you. I don't care about the sister unless I have someone to implicate the sister.
Oh, I forgot to mention you are a putz.
G.O.D. Chilax vote fraud has been going on since voting was invented, besides even if someone came forward and said so and so took my ballot and voted for me...without any witness no prosecutor would take it too trail and who made the rules that no witnesses or notary necesary?
The State Legislature.
So there's where you got to go to straighten this thing out...Good luck getting anywhere with that bunch.Not even G.O.D.can get through to them.
You have to have faith...bring me some old people who will admit they gave up their ballots and I will work on it with a coalition of others...
So looking at the comments it is clear that the Republicans recognized long ago the importance of this method of voting and have a comprehensive systematic technically-oriented absentee ballot campaign along with special teams in certain communities like the Cuban seniors. While Democrats barely understand the critical importance of this method of voting, and when they do, have a fumbly jumbly, hit or miss approach that may or may not yield results needed.
The comments also say there is a whole lotta cheatin' going on.
The Solution is simple ONLY people who are physical Invalids (mental inavlid can drive themselves to the polls) or who can prove (by bringing back a native) they will be traveling during early voting and on election day, should be allowed to recieve an absentee ballot.
The rest of us must get off our duffs and go to the polling stations (and later complain about how the machines are rigged).
As I said earlier vote fraud has been around since the first vote was cast in a cave, and it will be here as long as folks insist on electing the folks that are going to fleece them.
Genius you don't need anyone to bring you their abueal and have her fess up, just get of your duff on the day the bulk of absentee ballots arrive during the next election and hang out at one of the senior housing projects it will blow your mind.
My duff is parked in front of the computer receiving REPORTS from all of you hanging out in the senior centers because I don't know what to look for and apparently my readers do.
It is beyond me why we are looking around this issue as voters and not demanding an investigation. Isn't this voter tampering and isn't it fraud?
I guess you have to assume that this is BIG business, both to the organizers and the candidates who encourage it.
What senior centers and housing complexes are involved? I would like to know.
Doesn't any one you know have a senior friend that was hit on? Ask around, G.o.D. needs sources.
It is bad enough we live in the wackiest voting state in the nation, without being on top of the list as the most likely city to be defrauded in for your vote.
This goes to a gray area of politics that make politics seem dirty.
You need to take this to the State Attorney Office and request a Gran Jury investigation of the absentee ballot industry in South Florida.
As in the Medicare fraud, mortgage fraud, insurance fraud, we lead the nation in absentee ballot fraud.
Perhaps we should invite former President Jimmy Carter and a group of international observers to monitor our elections.
I Have spoken to JC at SA office re this the answer was that as a prosecutor with no witnesses or notary its very hard to prove anything (maybe you can record someone filling out a ballot with hidden camera).
The legislature has to do something, though I remember KFR convening a Grand Jury on Childrens Trust why not convene one on this issue that really needs to be addressed. Maybe this way she can put pressure on legislature.
The truth of the matter, Genius, is that you hit a very sore spot with Miami voters, both Anglo and Hispanic. We both hate the continuing scandal of absentee ballot fraud. Just look at the comments! This is the kind of exchange that is worth having because it brings forward disclosure and, eventually, this could turn into prosecution. And, please, don't shy away from information that people like me want to render to you; it so happens that I am better informed than most -- on certain people, and of certain circles -- because I've been an insider, in this community, since the early 1960's! Don't be like the local commentator, who runs away from exposing anything because he's become an opportunist. It's sad. but true!
if you want to name names, do it in email. You can't point fingers at private people on my blog without proof. I do not shy away from names, I just don't need headaches.
Post a Comment