Friday, June 14, 2013

News from Around Miami-Dade County. By Geniusofdespair

Sunny Isles Beach special election for charter changes had a 5% voter turnout. Out of 9,460 registered voters a whopping 479 cast votes.

North Miami had a pretty good voter turnout in their recent election, almost 26%. 7,334 ballots were cast. But, if you add up the votes for both candidates, they add up to 7,285. What happened to the votes of the other 49 people? Six people voted for both but 43 people went to the polls and cast a ballot for neither mayoral candidate?

Homestead Mayor Steven Bateman accused of breaking a lock -- Vandalism. According to Miami New Times: "On May 30, Isis Perez, a prosecutor with the public corruption unit of the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, determined there was no probable cause to arrest Bateman."

Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez's
campaign worker is accused of requesting 20 ballots on line. The campaign worker, Juan Pablo Baggini had his house raided by detectives, according to the Miami Herald. It sounded like the worker was stupid rather than crooked if he has post card requests in his possession. Young people think they can do everything on line. If he had mailed in the absentee ballot request forms I think there wouldn't have been a problem, but I am not sure. This isn't picking up ACTUAL absentee ballots. We are talking about requests for ballots to be mailed to your house. As always, I could be wrong.

Homestead Mayoral Election - I spoke to a friend today about Steven Bateman being under investigation and if Fernandez Rundle makes a move against Bateman, Rick Scott could take him out letting Mark Bell skid into office.  My friend said, Homestead deserves what they get.  That got me thinking, maybe that inbred town does deserve the worst Mayor possible. I am so glad I live far, far away from it. The only bad thing is they are trying to annex a lot of environmental land. Oh, well I have just about given up on Homestead, Sweetwater, Palmetto Bay and County Commission District 8 and District 12.

South Florida Water Management Board Meeting - I went, in traffic, to Key Biscayne. It was well attended (I had a post about it on Monday). No one bought me breakfast. Those Environmentalists are a fickle bunch. They beg you to come to stuff then they don't even feed you. (Miami Herald article on it - the meeting not my lack of eats.)

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

They should have arrested Bateman.

Stella from the Beach said...

Sunny Isles Beach Election: A good argument against incorporation.

Anonymous said...

North Miami election was rigged! When will nvestigations and legal challenges begin? Check out: http://www.votersopinion.com/?p=9893

Geniusofdespair said...

I looked at the voter type numbers it doesn't support that claim. Lucie got out a lot early voters.

Anonymous said...

Genius, those Early and Election Day vote totals are so large that they are suspicious. There is more going on then you think. Lucie's residency is being also questioned too! Stay tuned...

Geniusofdespair said...

Well if you add up the numbers for all the Haitian candidates in the runoff, I am not surprised Lucie won by that margin.

Anonymous said...

The fraud by the Francis Suarez guy was the same scam that Joe Garcia's people got caught doing which is why people mentioned Giancarlo Sopo, the disgraced Joe Garcia communications director, who volunteered on the Suarez campaign. Also Jeff Garcia (no relation), the dismissed Joe Garcia chief of staff, is a close, childhood friend of Francis Suarez, too. So what happened was illegal, was well publicized as a scam and the Joe Garcia's people are connected.

Maria said...

Don't be so quick to absolve Francis Suarez of crooked acts. Remember when he denied signing those fraudulent ballots for his dad in the Miami mayoral race. Did you believe him then?

Suarez's Son Denies Signing Absentee Ballots

Anonymous said...

Genius, jumping to conclusions can sometimes be called the weakness of all blog reporting but I think the facts are well-established that in North Miami a candidate was elected who did not live there, there is a complicit city clerk and a lot of election shenanigans look place. In the 2nd round, Burns got 1000 more votes and Lucie got 2000 more. The AB votes had over 200 disqualified which indicates something strange.

Geniusofdespair said...

I have contacted elections about the 200 absentee ballots to see why they were rejected and whether that was an unusual rejection rate for North Miami. I think I am not the one jumping to conclusions. I am doing what all good bloggers do, research.

Anonymous said...

Genius, I have a copy of the official AB vote totals and they show the following AB reject statistics:


In the 2012 Primary Election (August):
95,147 ABs were cast and 2,822 of them were rejected (307 because "Signature does not match"; 11 because "Voter Deceased")
AB Rejection Rate = 2.97%


In the 2012 General Election (November):
247,061 ABs were cast and 3,199 of them were rejected (371 because "Signature does not match"; 23 because "Signed by other than voter"; 3 because "Voter Deceased")
AB Rejection Rate = 1.29%


In the 2013 North Miami Regular (May):
2,039 ABs were cast and 202 of them were rejected (18 because "Signature does not match")
AB Rejection Rate = 9.91%


In the 2013 North Miami Run-off (June):
2,306 ABs were cast and 245 of them were rejected (180 because "Signature does not match"; 6 because "Signed by other than voter")
AB Rejection Rate = 10.62%


Aren't these numbers just a little curious to you when compared to the regular election from the month before??


Read more here - High ballot rejection rates should worry Florida voters (October 28, 2012)
http://electionsmith.wordpress.com/category/absentee-vote/


Here's an important part of this article I want you to see:


"In the Aug. 14 primary election, more than 786,000 voters cast absentee ballots. Over 14,500 of them—nearly 2 percent—were deemed invalid by local canvassing boards. Nearly 3,000 more Floridians were required to cast provisional ballots in the August primary, and canvassing boards found reason to reject nearly 1 out of 4 of them. Keep in mind, this was for a primary election in which “super voters” — the state’s most highly engaged voters — made up the vast majority of the voter pool.

One might think that the rejection rates of absentee and provisional ballots are fairly constant across the state’s 67 counties. But by sifting through the voter history files maintained by the state Division of Elections, we found that the rate of rejected absentee and provisional ballots was not equally distributed along racial/ethnic, age, or party registration groupings in the August primary.

As the accompanying graphic reveals, Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian Americans were considerably more likely to cast absentee ballots rejected by canvassing boards than the statewide average. Hispanics, and to a lesser degree African-Americans, were also disproportionately more likely to have canvassing boards reject their provisional ballots."


Is that convincing enough?

Geniusofdespair said...

Maybe Haitians have a higher rejection rate than either African Americans and/or Hispanics. I have asked elections your question. Will get back to you...

I would expect North Miami's rejection rate to be higher than that of the entire county...but I don't know yet if that is abnormal. I wish you had checked NORTH MIAMI in other election years.

L said...

Aren't there higher rates of illiteracy among minorities? Isn't a lack of education the most likely explanation to explain why people can't follow directions? Is there an elections department breakdown on the AB rejection rate based on literacy and education level in addition to minority status?

Anonymous said...

What's up with all the out-of-town companies donating to metrosexual Francis Suarez's campaign? What do they want in return?

Anonymous said...

Haitians are much more cultured and educated then the Black community. Haitians do not consider themselves "Black" but Caribbean with much stronger Africa ties.

Genius, you're asking the wrong questions because you haven't looked at all the facts yet.

I looked at all the elections going back into last year and here's what I got regarding the discrepant AB rejection rates specifically among registered North Miami voters. The history clearly shows that something happened that deviated heavily against the norm. Remember, President Obama was on the ballot in November 2012.

Notice, the AB rejection for signature mismatch hovers around 10% in both the North Miami regular and run-off. Clearly, this is something special we are looking at. From a political science point of view, I can also tell you that the success of the Tondreau campaign's GOTV was exceptional (which is clear from the Votersopinion.com blog).


Miami-Dade County Special Election(Mar/15/2011)
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 871
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 15
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 1.72%


Miami-Dade County Special Election(May/24/2011)
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 1,057
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 35
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 3.31%


Miami-Dade County Special Run-Off(Jun/28/2011)
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 1,187
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 27
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 2.27%


Pres Preference Primary 2012(Jan/31/2012)
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 868
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 19
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 2.19%


2012 Primary Election(Aug/14/2012)
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 1,607
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 66
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 4.11%


2012 General Election(Nov/06/2012)
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 3,980
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 63
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 1.58%


North Miami Regular(May/14/2013)*
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 2,039
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 202
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 9.91%
Number rejected from signature mismatch** 18
Mismatch Rate 8.91%


North Miami Run-Off(June/4/2013)*
Number of Absentee Ballots Cast 2,306
Number of Absentee Ballots Rejected 245
Absentee Ballot Rejection Rate 10.62%
Number rejected from signature mismatch** 186
Mismatch Rate 75.92%


Notes:

*I do not have the data for just the 2011 North Miami results (where there was also a run-off).

**I only have the breakdown of the AB rejection numbers for the North Miami regular and run-off.

Anonymous said...

Francis Suarez aka Baby X has absentee ballot fraud in his genes. No doubt he'll win this November with dead people, too.

Geniusofdespair said...

North Miami election:
So What is your point? Which candidate are you accusing of manipulating the election? Or are you accusing the election department? Where or with who do you think the fault lies....

Anonymous said...

Genius, I can speculate with good reason that the City Clerk who endorsed and swore in the now mayor was involved in a scheme with the former mayor to have hundreds (probably upwards of a 1000) of ABs picked up from low propensity voters. The numbers also suggest an organized attempt to commit voter fraud that employed a kitchen sink strategy that created many more votes than needed (a desperate ploy). The County Election dept probably didn't do anything because the City Clerk runs the election. Its also possible that Mayor Tondreau had nothing to do with it and was simply the beneficiary of the fraud. Now, the voter turnout for the in-person ballots are suspicious, too. I suspect 500+ people were paid $20 each and driven to the polling station. The combination of the tactics may have added 1000-1500 voters in net gain and then the rest of the numbers are accounted as people showing up to vote for Tondreau because she is Haitian. However, it is the AB turnout and the rejects that are the strongest evidence of an organized move to steal the election.

Geniusofdespair said...

The Election Department does the absentee ballots and the canvassing board rejects for signatures.

I guarantee that people were paid to vote with either lunch, cash or some other perk. Will people every come forward? No.

Were people herded in buses to vote? Yes. Do I think there is fraud in Absentee votes? Yes.

But if there is such a large rejection on signatures, you might ask elections to call some of the parties to see if they submitted absentee ballots. They know who was rejected. They want to ferret out fraud. Or call Fernandez Rundle, she is on her soapbox...see today's Herald opinion page. You need to get your suspicions to the right people. Elections are dirty business and we have to clean them up but you need to do it within elections. I find them very responsive.

Kyle said...

Did an anon really write "Haitians are much more cultured and educated than the Black community?" Are you kidding me? Most don't even get an elementary school education in Haiti. Drive around Little Haiti or North Miami and tell me about the high culture you see.