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Associated PressLeon County turns over 1,500 voter registration forms that appear to be fraudulent.
TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating 1,500 voter registration forms received by the Leon County elections office that apparently were altered to register local students as Republicans.
County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho said it was suspicious enough that the registration forms were all photocopies, but the new voters were also between the ages of 18 and 24, a group that often registers with no party affiliation.
"When we saw that all of these individuals were registered as Republicans, a buzzer went off," Sancho said.
Most were students at Florida A&M University, Florida State University or Tallahassee Community College. The office began calling the applicants, contacting a couple of dozen before deciding to turn the voter forms over to the FDLE.
"Once it became clear that their information did not jibe with the information on the application forms, that's when we decided to act," Sancho said. "The overwhelming majority of them had not selected the Republican Party as the party they wanted to be registered in."
The Leon County case is one of several being looked at around the state. In some cases, there are reports of bogus addresses, forms coming in with false information and registered voters who are being re-registered without their knowledge.
In St. Petersburg, former Mayor Charles Schuh received a letter saying he was ineligible to vote in the Aug. 31 primary because his registration application wasn't received on time. He later learned that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now had turned in a registration form with his correct name, address and phone number, but the wrong date of birth, final four digits of his Social Security number and gender.
He was allowed to vote after showing elections officials his voter registration card and telling them the incorrect registration application wasn't submitted by him.
State Attorney Bernie McCabe said that while ACORN is willing to help investigators, the problem appears to be caused by paid workers falsifying forms in order to make quotas.
In Leon County, the alleged fraud could have meant the 1,500 applicants wouldn't be allowed to vote. Sancho, however, said he is placing the people on the voting rolls with no party affiliation.
"They will be eligible to vote in November," Sancho said. "We are not going to allow lawbreakers to profit by their actions."
Both major political parties criticized the alleged fraud.
"It's absolutely despicable, but not surprising," said Florida Democratic Party chairman Scott Maddox. "After the year 2000, we should do whatever we can to make sure we have a fair electoral process. Obviously we still have attempts to try to defraud the system."
In 2000, George Bush defeated Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes in a hotly disputed election. During the five-week recount that kept the world waiting to see who would be president, there were allegations that people were wrongly taken off voter rolls or turned away at the polls.
Republican Party spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher placed the blame for some of this year's registration problems on the many independent groups signing up new voters.
"It's unfortunate when you have all these groups from outside the state coming in here ... and they are motivated not by what's best for Florida, but by making money for themselves," she said.