It has often been said to me that Republicans use absentee ballots more so that is why Republican candidates will almost always get more absentee ballots, even in non-partisan races because we all know the candidate has a party. Is it a myth that landslide absentees for one candidate are due to party politics? Well, I decided to test this theory by looking at Republican against Republican primary races and I still found oddities. You would expect near the same percentage in the 3 ways to vote, early, absentee and election day. It ain't so. Absentees change the game whereas early voting and election day do hold to similar percentages as you and I would predict. In close elections, lopsided absentees are a game changer. For example, Commissioner Lynda Bell lost election day and in early voting. She won with absentees and took the election.
Julio Robaina without Absentees: 6,010.
Miguel Diaz de la Portilla without Absentees: 6,348.
338 votes separated them.
With absentees the advantage jumps to 2,218 for Miguel.
Look at Carlos Manrique's absentee ballot numbers compared to Amador.
without absentees:
Amador without absentees 943
Manrique without 661
Amador leads Manrique by 282.
with Manriques 993 absentees, to Amador's 645, Manriques takes the lead by 65 votes.
Look at Rosado's absentee numbers of 1,229, twice as many as his votes on election day.
He got 1/3 the votes of Bileca on election day, yet he had almost as many absentee ballots as Bileca.
Note: Japour got about 1/2 the votes of Barreiro early and election day. Barreiro got more than 3 times more votes than Japour Absentees.
Barreiro 1761 election day and early.
Japour 837 election day and early.
924 votes separate them.
Add in the absentees and 2,368 votes separate them.
Not scientific by any means, but you can get my drift. Obviously some of these candidates are using the absentee ballot brokers. I just don't think the percentages should be so different in the three methods of voting. If you gain such an advantage with absentees, maybe we should do away with election day and early voting and have everyone vote absentee that way we can all cheat equally. No fair to have elections stolen by manipulators.
19 comments:
The get out the vote efforts if honest would affect all 3 ways to vote. The fact that absentees can change the results, as in the district 8 county commission race, leads me to believe that there is fraud involved. We should do away with absentees not the other way around.
This scam needs to be stopped across the state. Paying for votes stolen or compromised from elderly, handicapped, and mentally challenged is disgusting. The people responsible for this should be prosecuted.
The state legislature made this practice easy, and it needs to be stopped.
Great reporting.
Breaking down each category by percentage would communicate your point more clearly-unfortunately for you it also invalidates it.
De La Portilla:
Election day
52.3%
Absentee
56.5%
Early Voting
45.6%
Clearly you see here that the difference between ED and ABs is not all the great at all.
In fact, early voting is much more disproportionate. You would say there was fraud there too?
If you want to persist with your line of thinking, here is another consideration to account even that miniscule difference: demographics.
The demographics of Absentee voters is different than that of ED and EV. Absentee voters are DISPROPORTIONATELY older. So if older voters as a group have a tendency towards one candidate or the other, the absentee numbers will yield on a comparative basis, different results.
No, it doesn't mean what you said.
Julio would get the same old people in his absentees so he should have the same percentages.
Julio was close in early and election day with Miguel. in absentee his gap widened tremendously.
On another GOP note, does anyone know what happened with the Rivera investigation or did it disappear like other GOP politicians stuff they want to hide or not get prosecuted for?
Jose:
It might sound like less with percentages but numbers themselves don't lie.
Go and analyze every race here. Absentees change elections. How do you explain Manrique. I have a friend in this particular race that was offered absentees for money.
Jose
You took one candidate out of a number of different elections to make an invalid point.
The fact is there are many paid political operatives who use illegal means to get large numbers of absentee ballots for specific candidates. Unfortunately it is mostly older voters through gatekeepers at retirement homes, public housing, and nursing homes, that collect and sell ballots to the political operatives hired by candidates.
Don't get me wrong. I too am timid about the rising use of Ab's. The potential for abuse (even if technically legal in most cases) is irresistible and results gross distortion of our political system. Nevertheless, I feel that if they are promoted more widely and used properly, they can be the key to wider voter participation. Therein, I believe, lies are a much greater problem.
Clearly changes must be made, but I think it is useful to play devils advocate before going over board.
Jose makes your point GoD. Where Miguel was most "popular" was with the nursing home elders.
Republican on Republican Crime! What has the world come too? G.o.D. help us....
Jose's argument is that almost the same number of people voted on ed as they did via ab. The ab machine does not affect ed voters. A 2000 vote difference is significant when ed difference is 500 and ev is 100.
EOM--glad you did this little study in absentee voting.
I've been around electoral politics for decades and there is no myth in the success of Republican absentee voting machines. Republicans have generally invested more time in developing the machines in the lunch and public housing centers.
Most of the folks working the business are women. They make friends with the residents and the social workers all over the county. When elections come up they are available to the highest bidder.
If Democrats want to do better with absentee voters, they need to plan over the long haul too.
The saddest thing about electoral politics today, in my opinion, is that ELECTION DAY is no longer SPECIAL because early voting and absentee voting practically decide every election.
I think absentee voting must be monitored. VOTERS--especially seniors must understand that they do not have to give their ballot to anyone for it to be counted.
They should vote and put their stamp on it and mail it. That's not standard operating procedure in ALF's nor public housing centers all over the county, state or country. Why isn't it?
Sign me, Simply BLUE
This absentee ballot is a threat to our democracy. It appears this started in Miami-Dade County and is ground zero for this absentee voting behavior.
Mrs. Bells' Chief of Staff is responsible for her winning District 8. He needs jail and a bundle of snicker bars. Extra money to visit the prison canteen would certainly, work.
Question her chief of staff under the hot light until he confesses. Hanging a whopper burger in front of him will help with the confession.
Thank you Geniusofdespair. I am sure there is more to report on these liar,lazy and crooked politicians that work hand-in-hand with staff to take our land, tax dollar and vote.
Keep the information coming to us I am sure more voters are understanding this absentee voting along with the abuse.
Here's what happens in the streets and back rooms: the local Republican machine will have a "favorite" in these races and that's where the AB effort gets the push. For example, when David Rivera's team was cultivating AB's don't think for a second they were only pushing his race. Deal making will bring others along for the ride.
To the AB ground zero Miami poster - Chicago still rules in voter fraud overall & Union strongholds! Miami is number one in almost every other type of white collar fraud though!
Absentee ballots were created for citizens who would be away from their homes on Election Day. They were mostly used by the military and citizens had to sign a paper that they would legitimately be away from home before an AB would be provided.
Citizens living abroad went to embassies and consulates to cast their vote which continues today.
As a young woman working on elections, and a staunch Democrat at the time, those of us working on elections would request an AB since, in effect, we would be working away from our home base, anywhere in the state on Election Day. Still, the majority of voters went to the polls to vote.
Everybody was engaged in the voting process and, although times have changed, children tagging along to the polls with parents grew up honoring the vote.
In very recent years it all changed and, as is usual, there is always someone to take a good thing and make it bad. The AB was discovered by those who would exploit the vote and voters no matter what for their own self-serving purposes and the AB was born for anybody who requested it. It became easy, we didn’t have to swear we would be away from home and the rest is history.
Early voting which only recently came into vogue, is another way for exploitation. When it was changed from two weeks or longer to one week or less, everybody cried foul but, in fact, poll workers will tell you that during the first week of early voting, very few people went to the polls, in fact, there were days when only a few would show up. Voters waited generally until the last week or even the last day to vote at early voting. Besides, early voting is very costly, hiring a range of poll workers which sit idly during the first week of early voting. What has happened is that in our effort to coax lazy people to the polls, we end up with a group who don't even know who they are voting for or what they stand for. We have cheapened our election process into becoming something other than the importance of exercising our right to vote. Simply put , those who benefit from early voting are the candidates who pay to get voters to the polls by the bus loads, usually seniors and minorities, promising them all sorts of goodies which, in fact, cannot be delivered.
What we now have is a dysfunctional voting process which has diluted our vote where it only takes the promise of a free meal to buy a vote, whether by absentee or early voting. It has become an embarrassment both at home and abroad where what was once a near-perfect system has become bastardized into nothing more than a haphazard system of packed mailboxes of junk mail from candidates which most of us toss and incessant robo calls which serve no other purpose than to disturb the quality of our lives at election time. Our election process begs for reform or we will see the percentages of voters become a ten percent effort in futility.
Well said last anon.
What hope is there for improvement? What would be the solution in your eyes?
don't think for a moment that the only problems with the electoral process here in Miami occurs in absentee voting. I have heard of people being paid $75 to vote for someone early and I have seen people inside polling locations asking people to vote for their friends.
If we want the process to be better we better get more engaged and get more of OUR people working on the inside of the process.
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