Somehow it would fit right in with all the hurricanes and the overwhelming uproar surrounding our next election.
Expect chaos on Election Day, Nov. 2.
Go vote early if you'd like to avoid the storm. Not the hurricane, the storm that is likely to be generated by hordes of poll watchers and would-be voters who think they are registered to vote but aren't. Several groups have collected voter registration forms from thousands of Floridians. But some of them turned in incomplete cards, turned them in after the Oct. 4 deadline or didn't turn them in at all.
That means we probably have a lot of people who think they can vote, but will be turned away because county officials have no record of them.
Picture this: thousands of people who think they are eligible to vote showing up on Election Day and being turned away. Toss in hundreds more who drop in at dozens of precincts demanding to cast provisional ballots.
Can't blame them if they are angry but it's not the fault of the poll workers and elections officials, who will take the blame.
Some elections officials are beginning to think this is chaos by design - a deliberate attempt to disrupt an election and make it easier to raise questions about the outcome.
On Wednesday, the Tallahassee office of Secretary of State Glenda Hood received a box of about 400 voter registration forms. The box was postmarked Oct. 5, a day after the deadline.
State workers are sorting the forms to send to the counties that have to register the voters, but it's likely none of them will be registered in time to vote on Nov. 2.
Alia Faraj, the governor's press secretary who is on loan to Hood until the election, knows registration problems up close and personal. When she became a U.S. citizen in Jacksonville last month she signed up with a League of Women Voters group that promised to get her registration filed in Tallahassee.
When Faraj checked on it a few weeks later, she discovered the registration card never made it to Tallahassee, so she went to the courthouse in person to sign up.
Add to this chaos the people who failed to check the little box saying they are citizens. They did sign a statement attesting to their citizenship, but state elections officials say failing to check the box is fatal.
Some elections officials have decided to ignore the state and register those who signed the oath. Orange County Elections Supervisor Bill Cowles says he decided to disagree with the state and will register these people until some court tells him not to.
That's one of the few signs of intelligence we've seen in this entire process.
Cowles will get his chance to hear from a court. The Democrats filed a federal lawsuit over the issue on Thursday.
Lawsuits are cropping up in state and federal court over a number of issues. The last time we saw this many fully employed lawyers was during the presidential recount in 2000.
Some days it's hard keeping track of the various court hearings. We need a scorecard.
On Friday one horde of lawyers, half with Democratic credentials and half with GOP credentials, gathered in a federal courtroom arguing over provisional ballots. The Democrats want voters to be able to walk into any precinct in their home county and vote a provisional ballot.
The court ruled against the Democrats, eliminating at least once source of chaos from our plate.
"This could have easily been used as an effort to disrupt the election," said Pasco County Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning. "It would totally dismantle the traditional polling place."
Across town other lawyers for the two parties squared off in Circuit Court over the state's refusal to allow the Democrats to replace a candidate in the race against U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw of Fort Lauderdale.
Judge Janet Ferris ruled against Hood, directing her to allow another name to be put on the ballot. Democrats want to resurrect U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, who lost a bid for the U.S. Senate to Betty Castor in the primary election.
There is more to come. More lawsuits, more rulings, more appeals.
