Suit Alleges Vote Fraud in Martin County, Fla.

Incensed that Republican officials in eastern Florida allowed GOP operatives to take flawed absentee ballot forms home and correct them, a Democratic voter filed yet another lawsuit Friday, this one seeking to toss out 6,000 votes cast for Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The lawsuit alleges that Martin County Supervisor of Elections Peggy S. Robbins gave “Republican Party personnel unfettered and unsupervised access” to the application forms. The documents, though they had already been declared invalid, were fixed so likely Republican voters could cast absentee ballots.

Democrats did not receive the same opportunity to correct absentee request forms with mistakes on them. Florida law says that only a voter, an immediate family member or a guardian can fill out an absentee ballot application.

Democrats contend that the arrangement between Robbins, an elected Republican, and GOP representatives constitutes election fraud.

Republicans concede the forms were corrected but said the actions do not constitute election fraud--the only standard under which votes can be thrown out.

“There are no allegations in the complaint that the ballots were fraudulently cast or fraudulently counted,” said Ron Labasky, a Tallahassee attorney representing Martin County election officials.

Because it is impossible to filter the disputed ballots from the rest of the pile, Democrats have asked Circuit Judge Terry Lewis in Tallahassee to throw out all 9,773 absentee ballots cast in Martin County, a conservative area north of West Palm Beach.

Nearly 6,300 of those votes were cast for the GOP’s Bush, while 3,479 were cast for his Democratic rival, Vice President Al Gore. If the suit is successful--and a Democratic attorney acknowledged Friday that it is an “uphill fight”--the move would mean a net gain of 2,815 votes for Gore, more than enough to make up Bush’s slim lead in Florida.

The suit is similar to one filed in Seminole County. There, the supervisor of elections, an elected Republican, admitted that she allowed two GOP representatives to use a back room of her office to correct flawed absentee ballot applications.

Gerald F. Richman, an attorney for the Democratic voter who brought the Seminole County case, said Friday night he has confirmed that Republican representatives corrected 2,132 absentee ballot forms. Once they were corrected, the ballots were sent to the voters, 1,936 of whom sent back actual votes. An estimated 95% of them voted for Bush, Richman said.

“The whole thing smells,” he said.

Weeks before the Nov. 7 election, both parties sent thousands of postcards to Florida voters likely to back their candidate. The cards were supposed to require only the voter’s signature before an absentee ballot would be sent to their home. But a contractor hired by the GOP botched the cards and printed the voter’s birthday in a spot reserved for voter identification numbers.

That made the cards invalid, by state law. Republicans realized their mistake in both counties and were allowed to correct it so the absentee votes would be counted.

More than 550 Democrats who received different postcards also sent in flawed absentee ballot applications in Seminole County. The application forms were missing at least one of the pieces of information required by state law before an actual ballot could be sent to the voter, such as the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number or the voter identification number.

“[The Democrats’ ballot forms] were missing one of the magic pieces of information too. But they were never rescued,” said Kent Spriggs, a Tallahassee attorney who is representing the Democratic voter challenging the presidential election in Seminole County.

Democrats point out that altering an absentee ballot application is a third-degree felony in Florida.

“When a public official allows partisans to remove public records from her office, alter them and resubmit them, I believe that is fraud,” said Ed Stafman, the Tallahassee attorney representing the Martin County voter who filed the lawsuit.