FL: Wrongly Marked Ballots Rejected

The Miami-Dade canvassing board, which scrutinizes questionable absentee, overseas and provisional ballots, spent a grueling week of 10-hour-plus days to complete most of its work.

Thursday afternoon, with most of it done, the canvassing board chairwoman, County Judge Shelley Kravitz, and a member, Commissioner Katy Sorenson, said they had learned one thing: Many voters do not follow directions, which forced them to throw out hundreds of ballots. The total number is unknown.

Among the most common ballot-rejecting offenses: failure to sign the absentee ballot or a signature that did not resemble the one on file at the elections department.

The two canvassing members -- the third is Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan who breaks deadlocks -- sat in the canvassing room on the second floor of the elections department stamping ''reject'' or ''accept'' on ballots, as a legion of observers watched.

The task was Herculean for just two people, Sorenson said. ``I think state law on the rules of the canvassing board has to be addressed and changed.''

Sorenson cringed at rejecting any ballot. ``I just hated to throw them out after people took the time to send them in, but so many didn't follow directions.''

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