Last week, Republican Governor Charlie Crist and Democratic U.S. Rep.
Robert Wexler joined together to urge the Legislature to require all
voting machines in Florida to have a paper trail by 2008.
This was a groundbreaking step, and we applaud the Governor and
Congressman for working together across party lines to deal with this
problem. But there are still some major problems to deal with from the
last election.
In 2006, Florida voters were not guaranteed a paper trail, and we've
already seen huge problems. Most notably in the Congressional District
#13 election, 18,000 electronically-cast votes went missing in
Sarasota County. Now, unfortunately, I have some new, disturbing
information, and I need you to take action.
It has come to my attention that the office of the Secretary of State
appears to have no record of the votes cast by almost half a million
Floridians.
Yes, half a million. According to the Secretary of State's official
statewide voter file, the votes of 494,928 Floridians have
disappeared. Though these votes seem to have been counted in November,
now they are gone.
The state doesn't even have a record of the vote cast by Governor
Crist's own father. Is YOUR vote missing too?
Our dynamic online communications team has put together a website
where you can enter your information to determine whether or not your
vote is missing.
Please visit: www.fladems.com/missingvotes today. If your vote is
missing, you need to know about it. The website will direct you on how
you can help increase awareness about this problem.
While this new information is alarming, it's unfortunately not
surprising for the many of us who lived through the 2000 election. I
support the Crist-Wexler proposal, and I have hope that the Governor's
newly appointed Secretary of State, Kurt Browning, will move quickly
to implement the necessary changes. We're long over due for an
election process in which we can all have faith.
Please forward this message to your friends and family in Florida so
they can take action, too.
Thank you,
Congresswoman Karen Thurman
Chair, Florida Democratic Party
www.fladems.com/missingvotes