Osceola County

Dirty Tricks

043728

11/02/04, 3:25 PM PST

Other polling place problem

Osceola County, Florida

Voters received recorded message from blocked phone number telling voter polling place closed, which was not true.

EP Hearing report, Julio Diaz, We got a call saying to vote on a different day than Nov 2. My neighbors got calls saying their precinct was closed and they should vote in a different location- which was wrong.

Polling place problems

053210	11/05/04, 8:06 AM PST	Machine problem	Celebration, Osceola County, Florida	Caller states that some ballots were being run thru optical scanner, while others were not, heard poll worker state that they're not scanning all the ballots because that would slow down the line. This didn't make sense to caller; if that's the case, why scan any of the ballots?
032662	11/02/04, 7:20 AM PST	Other	Supervisor of elections office downtown Kissimee, Kissimmee, Osceola County, Florida	Voter filled out optical scan voting paper - however the optical machine was broken - voter was told by election official to put his ballot in the side of the machine for later counting - voter is concerned whether his vote has been or will be counted

Voter Suppression

046097	11/02/04, 3:47 PM PST	Other, Improper Purges	Florosa Baptist Church, Mary Ester, Osceola County, Florida		Out right refusal to allow her to vote. Was told she could not vote because she did not vote last year. Had a registration card with the address on it.
049745	11/02/04, 6:06 PM PST	Other	Parklane Middle School 857 Florida Parkway, Kissimee, Osceola County, Florida	Person affected signed up with the Elections Office to be an elections inspector, She did not vote early or use an absentee ballot. Her supervisor at the polling site where she's working told her she could not take a break to vote at her own polling site (which was 5 minutes away from her work site).
051063	11/03/04, 8:54 AM PST	Absentee-ballot related problem	Kissimmee, Osceola County, Florida	Called to get absentee ballot. Called repeatedly was hung up on and told they were too busy. Did not receive absentee ballot.

Voter Intimidation

058235

11/17/04, 12:02 PM PST

Other polling place problem

Celebration Heritage Hall, Celebration, Osceola County, Florida

When caller voted, she was approached in line by someone less than 50 feet away from polls. They gave out lists telling everyone who to vote for and what to vote for each amendment. Standing at the entrance to the polls was Osceola County Sheriff. She felt it was a tool to guide people in their votes. (intimidating). She felt rules should be enforced for everyone. [P]

Report of anomalies by voter in Osceola County at Election Protection Hearing in Orlando

Julio Diaz, Osceola County , Peter Lucli ran for County Commission in 2000. At the end of the day he was over 2000 votes ahead. But the next day it was announced that they had found some absentee ballots and almost all were for his opponent so his opponent won.

The same thing happened this year in Osceola County. But this time about 70% of the absentee ballots were obtained and returned in the last 3 days of the election.

Also there were long lines in minority precinct.

"Here are some more details regarding the recount being performed in Osceola County for Commission Seat 5. Between the original counts and recounts performed on Thursday & Friday there is a discrepancy of almost 2000 votes. These occurred mostly in the absentee ballots and the early voting. There is an issue of misplaced and overlooked ballots in several machines. A memory card in a machine located in the elections office used for early voting failed and votes may have been lost.

Today there are performing a manual recount again due to the efforts of a democratic viewer. Even without a good explanation of the large difference in ballots cast, the mostly republican canvassing committee were ready to bail out and certify the results."

What is being reported that I do find HIGHTLY odd is this:
Votes CAST
President 71,240
Sheriff 78,584
Election sup 77,352
District 5 Comm 75,421
District 1 Comm 75,244

For President it says 100% pct . For the rest, 98/99 . Commmissioners are voted county wide. All 5 races are county wide

Another oddity. My own pct is about 4,500 reg voters. about 50% Dem, 25% Rep, 25% "other." It's an extremely high growth area. Lots of NYers have moved here. Lots of PR Hispanics here. Very democratic leaning. Hour long lines, etc.. With that kind of pct make up, one would think Kerry would have came away with a ton more votes then Bush. He got about 167 more votes. ????

My data isn't firm because we haven't been able to get more different data from the SOE yet. As my friend noted, they are still crunching the numbers at the SOE. My guess is that they are trying to wait until it's to late.

Also, from the local paper:
"Among the ballots counted Thursday afternoon were those rejected by scanning machines in various precincts, provisional ballots cast when a voter’s registration was questioned and three groups of early ballots that had been placed in emergency compartments of ballot storage boxes and then overlooked."

"Osceola County Supervisor of Elections Donna Bryant said that the three groups of overlooked early ballots were found Thursday morning but she insisted the integrity of the voting system had not been compromised. The number of overlooked and provisional ballots was not available."
http://www.oscnewsgazette.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=9518

What isn't covered AT ALL in the newspaper is what my friend reported. That votes were lost during early voting at the SOE office.

This is a weekly paper, so I dont' expect anything until next week. Our "big" paper, the Orlando Sentinal isn't covering this issue at all. It is covering how the Republicans won Osceola. I don't recall hearing anyone reporting this "gotv" effort by the republicans on election day. Also, they are saying they figured out how many votes they would need ahead of time, etc..
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/elections/orl-locmgop07110704nov07,1,4470392.story?coll=orl-home-promo&ctrack=1&cset=true

Osecola stands out as one of 4 counties wuth 60%+ Bush vote growth

Oddities in Osceola vote

The first is that Osceola county's turnout and Presidential votes are exactly the same. Osceola had 0 nonvotes. I thought perhaps that Osceola was a smaller county, as that could be a possible explanation for not even one person not casting a vote for President on their ballot, but it's not. Osceola county, in which 82,204 ballots were cast, accounted for 1.08% of Florida's total turnout. This is not a small number - the average (median) county in Florida accounted for only 0.55% of Florida's total turnout.
Osceola was the sole county whose turnout figures were updated on November 8 that still had a turnout that was lower than the number of votes it reported cast for President. On that update, 82,178 votes were cast and 81,917 voters were reported to have turned out. 261 more votes were cast than voters were reported to have turned out. Osceola used Diebold Accuvote machines for its elections.