(a thread from a listserve.... interesting if true.....)

Subject: 1 of every 12 Florida 2000 ballots ABSENTEE! only 1 of 3000 abs in 1996!



<< Where did 585,000 Floridians move to outside the US? >>

Paris?



To a gambling resort on a sovereign Seminole reservation? All the

Miami Cubans who have fled to Cuba? Opium-trading Russell Trust

Skull and Bones pirate ships? Military personnel and their families

who MAY have seen Florida on a map?

One out of every **12** Florida ballots is absentee. In 1996

one of every **3000** Florida ballots was absentee. See

the difference? 1:12 and 1:3000 ?!?!??

Now that's a voter registration drive with government assist.

-bob



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2000/11/08/florida.DTL

Elections supervisors had sent out

585,000 absentee ballots and 416,000

had been returned by late Monday.

Underdetermined is the number of

overseas ballots,

**primarily for military personnel

and their families**,

that have been counted. The state

counted [only!?] about 2,300 overseas

ballots in the 1996 presidential election.

Huh?

2300 absentee voters in 1996

and 585,000 ballots in 2000?

585,000 out of 6,000,000 total votes?!?!?!?

when only 2300 were absentee in 1996?

200 times more absentee voters is absolutely astounding!

Where did 585,000 Floridians move to outside the US?

The rules for absentee ballots have been greatly relaxed in most states in recent years. As a result, many people vote absentee as a matter of convenience.

The Republican Party has taken the lead in using absentee ballots as a way of ensuring high turnouts by its base voters. Since Republicans usually have fewer volunteers on election day for GOTV (get out the vote) activities, this makes a big difference for them.

Democrats have been playing catch up, but in some places have even surprassed the Republicans.

Neither party has been sending massive blocks of voters to France. Jobs to the old "French Indochina," yes. Voters to metropolitan France, no.

What is not apparent from the picture is that the holes

for the punch are at a lower level than the ballot surface.

The holes line up with the arrows when looking directly

down at it but when looking from off axis toward the

bottom, the arrows point slightly above the holes.

If you look from low enough the Gore arrow could point

closer to the Buchanan hole. Short people probably made

the error more often than taller people.