Broward County Update!

(might I add I went to high school with Judge David Krathen's son!)
Republicans lose 11th-hour suit challenging Broward voter rolls

By ERIKA BOLSTAD AND SARA OLKON

ebolstad@herald.com

With less than 12 hours before the polls open, Republicans laid the groundwork for a possible legal challenge to the presidential election with an eleventh-hour lawsuit questioning the accuracy of the voting rolls in Broward County, the most heavily Democratic county in Florida.

In an emergency court hearing that ended at 8:30 tonight, Broward County Circuit Judge David Krathen ruled that the suit was groundless and he didn't want to ``micromanage the election.''

The suit, filed late Monday, argued that inaccuracies in the county's voting rolls will raise the possibility of fraud and double voting.

The party also challenged Broward County's procedures for poll watchers, saying that they keep Republicans from adequately monitoring the polls for people who are registered more than once, or who are ineligible to vote because they are felons.

''We haven't really seen the level of disparity in application of the law, or failure to follow it as we have in Broward County,'' said Hayden Dempsey, a former top aide to Gov. Jeb Bush who is now heading up the Bush-Cheney campaign team of lawyers in Florida. ``In our experience over the last two weeks it appears election laws and procedures have not been implemented on an even basis.''

Republican Party of Florida officials denied that their lawsuit was designed to interrupt voting in heavily Democratic Broward County.

Mindy Tucker Fletcher, senior advisor for the Republican Party of Florida, compared Broward County to Miami-Dade County, where officials there added extra voting machines in Hialeah after Republicans complained.

''Of the calls and affidavits we have taken in, they have been extraordinarily weighted toward Broward County,'' Fletcher said. ``It has been a significant source of frustration.''

Lawyers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign countered that Republicans could have pointed out potential problems with the voter rolls earlier in the elections calendar, and that Bush attorneys are resorting to last-minute legal maneuvering because they fear that the 2 million people who voted early in Florida are largely Democratic voters.

''The Republican Party has concluded that they are going to lose the state of Florida, and they are taking any measure they can to disrupt this election and prevent Floridians, especially in this key Democratic county, from exercising their constitutional right to vote,'' said Steve Zack, Florida general counsel for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

Herald staff writer Gary Fineout contributed to this report.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10073037.htm