As if things weren’t complicated enough, here comes the dirt. Registered voters who have been somehow unregistered. Democrats who suddenly find they’ve been reregistered as Republicans.
Dirty tricks are a staple of campaigns, but election officials say this year’s could achieve new highs in numbers and new lows in scope, especially in battleground states such as Florida and Ohio, where special-interest groups have poured in to influence the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry.
The problem in Leon County: Students at Florida State and Florida A&M universities, some of whom signed petitions to legalize marijuana or impose stiffer penalties for child molesters, had their party registration switched to Republican and their addresses changed.
Officials say students at the University of Florida in Alachua County have made similar complaints and that about 4,000 potential voters have been affected. Local papers traced some of the problems to a group hired by the Florida Republican Party, which has denounced the shenanigans. Switching party affiliations does not affect the ability to vote, but changing addresses does, because when voters shows up at their polling places they won’t be registered there.
The college scam has also made an appearance in Pennsylvania, along with a separate scam last week, where election officials received a flurry of phone calls about fliers handed out at a mall and mailed to homes. The flier, distributed on official-looking stationery with a county letterhead, told voters that “due to immense voter turnout expected on Tuesday,” the election had been extended. Republicans should vote Tuesday, Nov. 2, it said – and Democrats Wednesday. A criminal investigation has been launched.
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