[RRE]Democrats.com Launches Affadavit Campaign in Palm Beach County Democrats.com Launches Affadavit Campaign in Palm Beach County

By Phil Agre

[From what I'm been hearing they should be collecting affadavits from people throughout the state. In fact the Florida Times-Union Web site http://www.jacksonville.com/ says the following:

      NOTE: Anyone who registered to vote with the Department of Motor
      Vehicles, but were unable to vote Tuesday, please call Times-Union
      reporter Veronica Chapin at (904) 359-4161.

I've reformatted the enclosed message to 70 columns.]

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Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 22:25:54 -0500
From: David Lytel
Reply-To: florida-recount-group@egroups.com
Subject: Democrats.com Launches Affadavit Campaign in Palm Beach County

For Immediate Release: November 8, 2000
For more information: Bob Fertik, bob@democrats.com 212-396-3457
Web site: http://democrats.com/florida

Democrats.com Launches Affadavit Campaign in Palm Beach County

In response to reports of widespread voter confusion in Florida's Palm Beach County, Democrats.com has launched a campaign to collect affadavits from Palm Beach voters.

Democrats.com is an independent news and community Web site for America's 100 million Democrats. The campaign is called the "Florida Margin of Victory Campaign", and is located at: http://democrats.com/florida

According to Democrats.com co-founder Bob Fertik, "the accuracy of the vote count in Florida has been cast into grave doubt by an unusual situation in Palm Beach County. Because of a poorly designed - and possibly illegal - ballot, many Palm Beach voters were misled when they voted for President. As a result, some voters who intended to vote for Al Gore accidentally marked their ballots for Pat Buchanan instead."

Fertik cited the local voting results reported today, which gave Buchanan 3,407 votes in Palm Beach County. "Even though Palm Beach is smaller than neighboring Broward and Dade counties, Pat Buchanan received five times more votes in Palm Beach than in Broward (789) or Dade (561). Buchanan's total in Palm Beach was nearly 20% of his statewide total, although Palm Beach is only 7% of the state. With a statewide Bush lead of approximately 1,800 votes, the votes cast for Pat Buchanan by mistake could represent the margin of victory", Fertik said.

Many Palm Beach voters have come forward to complain about the confusing ballot. To assist these voters, Democrats.com has created a web page with the affadavit required under Florida law to report voting problems. The affadavit, which is addressed to the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, claims that the returns from that voter's precinct are erroneous. It reads:

"I hereby protest the canvass of such returns by the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, and request that said returns be investigated, examined, checked, and corrected by said Canvassing Board. The basis for this protest is that the selections appearing on the November 7, 2000 Presidential Election ballot were confusing and, as a result, I believe that I mistakenly cast my vote for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore."

The web page instructs voters to print the form, fill in the blanks, and fax the signed form to a special fax number. Democrats.com will deliver the affadavits to an attorney who will review the affadavits and possibly prepare a complaint to be filed with the local courts.

"The voters of Palm Beach were deprived of their basic constitutional right to cast a meaningful vote for President of the United States", said Fertik. "Since this confusion could determine the outcome of the closest Presidential race in 40 years, we believe the voters of Palm Beach County should be given another opportunity to choose the President they really want", he concluded.

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