Voter intimidation begins early in Florida

October 22, 2004

The City of Jacksonville and Duval County are geographically one and the same, and in land area are the largest city and county in Florida. They're the fourth largest in population with 779,000 people.

So when early voting began this past Monday, as mandated by Florida law, you might have expected a number of voting sites to be open for such a large jurisdiction. But you would have been disappointed. Duval County opened one site — the Supervisor of Elections office in downtown Jacksonville. By contrast, Miami-Dade opened 20.

Supervisor of Elections resigns

To get things off to a really good start, the Supervisor of Elections resigned "for health reasons" effective the 18th, the first day of voting. John Stafford, the Supervisor, had suffered a severe heart attack back in March, so no one could doubt his claim of poor health. We're free to doubt, however, any claim of good judgment.

[...] Videotaping the voters

It was wonderfully convenient to have only one polling site. It made it so much easier to set up an intimidation campaign.

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