Is Florida Ready For Election Day?
October 14th, 2008 by flanewsFlorida’s Secretary of State was drilled by members of the state cabinet today about what he’s doing to ensure a smooth election. As Whitney Ray tells us, cabinet members offered Secretary Kurt Browning more staff and asked him to call for a voter fraud investigation.
The possibility of 30,000 ineligible voters casting ballots on Election Day caused a stir among members of the Florida Cabinet. Attorney General Bill McCollum asked Secretary of State Kurt Browning to order an investigation into voter fraud.
“We don’t want a single person to be voting who is ineligible, a convicted felon, an illegal immigrant, someone who is not eligible, because that waters down my vote,” said McCollum.
Voter fraud is only one of the concerns. State Cabinet members fear newly registered voters may not be able to cast traditional ballots, long lines at polling sights could keep voters waiting for hours, and election officials may not be prepared to handle a possible record turnout.
Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink offered Secretary Browning a helping hand.
“Do we need to consider permitting some of our state employees to go and provide some extra staffing in those counties that you deem may be potentially to have issues on voting day. We just don’t need to have disruption this time,” said Sink.
Secretary Browning says he’s confident things will go smoothly in Florida.
“We’ve been working very closely with supervisors of elections. They know what the mission is. My department knows what the mission is, and we have done everything that we possible can in a very loose environment to assure success on Election Day,” said Browning.
Guaranteeing success in state with a history of election mishaps may be easier said than done.
Efforts to purge ineligible voters from the rolls before Election Day are unlikely to succeed, but anyone who is ineligible to vote and does, could be guilty of a crime.
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