Tuesday, March 20, 2007

From the Supervisor of Elections Office

This just in from the Supervisor of Elections office. Come to find out that when they sent out about 50 City of Lake Worth run-off election ballots, they were in empty envelopes - well, everything but the ballot itself. One of my friends, Walter Baker reported this. Here is his account:


I just received our families absentee ballots, 3 separate ballots. Opened mine up to find the return envelope, the secrecy envelope but no ballot sheet at all is enclosed.
I called the Supervisor of Elections office, spoke first
with a worker, no name given, and she blew it off, said it was isolated. I had her on the phone while I opened the other two envelopes, no ballots. I was told no problem, they would re mail the 3 ballots out. I asked to speak with Mr.
Anderson's office about it but was told he was unavailable. I did get a return
call from the supervisor of absentee ballot department, Donna. She said there
was no problem, if you call in, replacement ballots will be sent. We have just a
few mailing days left and we are basically out of time, she could care less. I
suggested a notice in the paper, no way. So I guess there will be disenfranchised voters as an earlier poster said last week, thought it was wrong till now. He is right. Another snafu with the elections board, another glitch
and they don't care.


I vote absentee because of working the polls, I do not work at my
precinct. My wife votes absentee because she works in Boca, not going to take
time off to vote early, and does not drive at all. Same with my daughter and
work. Others vote by absentee because they have to, maybe because they are
disabled, and can't get to the polls, maybe they are out of town, not being able
to get to the polls again, there can be a lot of reasons why you vote absentee,
not just out of convenience of not going to the polls. How about those votes?
50+ votes is a lot in our election turnout in this city, it can cost someone
their chance. I probably will make the trip to Military and Gun Club to vote,
I just don't think this will be corrected in time to not matter in the results.
I am just 1 out of many votes.

My phone has been ringing off the wall. Wes has called from the election
office, he had to go there on another matter, and says there are machines up and
running now, started today at Gun Club and Military, so you can vote early in person. Not sure about anywhere else though. Wes also said they, the election office, had started calling the intended absentee voters to find out if they received one or not. So the Supervisor of Elections office is working on it. Hopefully we can get it all straight in time.

Walter Baker


So, when I was there I bumped into the political writer for the Post. Expect a story on it tomorrow. I took care of voting today. If you want, you can vote there - right in the lobby of the Supervisor of Elections office. I hope you weren't one of the unfortunate that received an empty envelope.

"Political advertisement paid for and approved by Wes Blackman for Commissioner – District #3"