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By SYDNEY P. FREEDBERG
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 16, 2000
In Bay County, home of Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida's Panhandle, the canvassing board dismissed a protest charging that GOP voters cast scores of questionable absentee ballots in the presidential race.
The board voted 3-0 not to hear a complaint brought by Cynthia McCauley, a Panama City teacher who voted for Vice President Al Gore.
McCauley and several Democrats had accused Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida's Republican Party of illegally promoting absentee voting for mere convenience without notifying citizens that under the law they must be "unable to attend the polls on Election Day."
Affidavits filed with the canvassing board also said that county elections employees allowed people to drop off "handfuls" of absentee ballots without demanding identification, thus ignoring rules designed to prevent absentee-voter fraud.
More than 11,000 votes -- nearly one out of every five cast in Bay County -- was by absentee ballot. Three of four absentee votes were bunched for George W. Bush.
Spokesmen for Bush and the Republicans denied the charges, and Supervisor of Elections Melanie Williams Boyd said her staff worked hard to verify every absentee ballot.