Apparently, 46,000 snowbirds are registered to vote in both Florida and New York. There is no cross-checking of registrations, so quite a few people could be double-registered. This means they can physically vote in one state and vote absentee in another, and no one is the wiser.
From the New York Daily News:
Officials in both states acknowledge that voting in multiple states is something of a perfect crime, one officials don't have the means to catch.
"I can't imagine how the supervisors would have access to that information," said Jenny Nash, spokeswoman for the Florida secretary of state. "As far as I know, cross-state registry has not been discussed."
The News' investigation also found:
- Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68% are Democrats, 12% are Republicans and 16% didn't claim a party.
- Nearly 1,700 of those registered in both states requested that absentee ballots be mailed to their home in the other state, where they are also registered. But that doesn't raise red flags with officials in either place.
Efforts to prevent people from registering and voting in more than one state rely mostly on the honor system.
If you live close to a state you *used* to live it, it seems fairly straightforward to vote in two places.
I've mostly been looking at black box voting fraud, and this hadn't even occcured to me.
Posted by nicole at August 22, 2004 05:34 PM