Voters in Miami Lakes changed the way that council members are elected, choosing to choose them citywide instead of by district.
Or did they?
The problem with sending absentee ballots to everyone, whether they request it or not, is that you could end up sending ABs to ghosts.
At least one was, in the case of at a Miami Lakes voter who got an AB in the mail for this week’s charter change referendum that was approved last week — despite the fact that the woman has been dead for three years. We are lucky that voter’s daughter is Ada Morales, wife of former Hialeah Councilman Alex Morales, two people who are very aware of absentee ballot fraud from their own political experience in the City of Retrogress. They were apparently not motivated enough by their desire to pass or kill the amendment — not enough to fake her vote.
But how many other people, maybe motivated by the issue or by this or that political pusher (read: Mayor Michael “Muscles” Pizzi) just filled out their dead loved one’s ballot and mailed it in? We don’t know.
Much more prevalent than dead voters are voters who simply moved away and forgot to tell the elections supervisor. How many voters who now live in Aventura or Pembroke Pines got ballots in Miami Lakes? We don’t know. We know there was at least one, because it was reported in the media: One guy who hasn’t lived in the Lakes for years.
That actually happens more often than dead people voting: Voters move from their family homes but forget to re-register to vote and ballots arrive at their old residence. In the case we know about, the voter was a stranger for the current residents. But. more often, the person moves out leaving relatives behind. And how many highly motivated mothers or fathers or sisters voted on their loved ones’ behalf? We don’t know.
The Miami-Dade Elections Department relies on two forms of notification to remove deceased voters from the rolls, said spokeswoman Christina White: The voter’s family via death certificate and the State Division of Elections. “If a deceased voter was sent a ballot, it would be because we did not receive notification of their death – as was the case in the Herald/el Nuevo Herald report,” White said.
“The voter has since been removed,” she then added. “Congratulations,” I was almost tempted to respond.
According to White, every single active and inactive voter registered in Miami Lakes was sent a “mail ballot” to the address on record. She said it is “inherent in this type of election,” where all the voting is done absentee. Shiver. “A request does not have to be made for this ballot.”
Shiver, again. And, also again, I cannot imagine that politicians will not soon be demanding that “this type of election” be held all the time. “Think of the increased participation,” they’ll say, enthusiastically.
Now, some ballots come back undeliverable, White explained. If the voter registered a forwarding address with the Post Office, the ballot comes back to the county. Know how many they got back from as “undeliverable” from the post office? A whopping 528 — more than twice the deciding number of votes.
“Or if say, the new owner sent it back to us with a note, we would proceed with the address confirmation process,” White said, adding that none were returned by a current resident with a message that the voter had moved.
So the “process” — which appears to operate on the honor system in a region where honor is scarce — leaves a lot to be desired.
Consider that this was a special election where less than 250 votes made a difference for the win with 55 percent of the voters casting a yes nod, and for which the mayor — whose intentions and motivations seem less than honorable –especially when the election is exclusively by AB.
We just don’t know much.
Miami Lakes change passes via AB — but who voted? added by Ladra on
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