Broward's Precincts that have disappeared since 2002

[nodictators]

The Florida Repub legislature had a vicious redistricting plan that took effect in the 2002 general election. Their aim was to wring out as many Repub seats as possible in the legislature and the US House.

As can be seen from the table below, Broward County has a number of precincts that had registered voters (RV), turnout (T-O) and ballots cast (BC) in the 2002 general election, but had none whatsoever in the 2004 election. None. Five of these disappeared precincts had more than one thousand registered voters. In total, there were more than ten thousand registered voters in these precincts. That's one percent of the Broward County total of slightly more than one million.

What happened? Was it the hurricanes? That's hard to believe. Did the election officials forget about these precincts? Maybe. After all, they couldn't explain why ten of thousands of Broward voters didn't get their requested absentee ballots. Were these registered voters given new precncts? Or, did they vote in disappeared precincts, only to have their votes disappear along with their precinct, just as the absentee ballots disappeared?

Help! Can anyone from Broward or elsewhere in Florida explain this?

Broward’s Disappeared Precincts
Prnct RV BC T-O JebBush McBride
18Z 1,751 525 29.98 211 297
27A 20 4 20.00 2 0
29A 2 1 50.00 1 0
32T 62 38 61.29 20 18
37C 2 1 50.00 1 0
38C 308 98 31.82 37 60
38Z 1,339 586 43.76 256 314
39Z 813 287 35.30 169 115
40Z 1,238 594 47.98 314 270
41M 1,513 690 45.60 136 520
42R 242 58 23.97 14 41
49C 413 98 23.73 34 63
49Z 1,547 595 38.46 283 297
72R 194 46 23.71 9 37
75Z 581 130 22.38 55 71
76Z 82 27 32.93 4 23
97R 47 2 4.26 1 1
Totals 10,154 3,780 37.2% 1,547 2,127

[Debbie13]

1. Wow, that's interesting. I live in Broward County

tell me what I can do to help.

(It seems as crooked as H*ll since Jeb took office. I'm sure many in Florida think so as well. This is one place that should have a march.)

[nodictators]

2. Debbie13, mabye a call to the Broward elections office...

...by a local voter would help us find out.

I discovered this when I was making comparisons with the 2002 and 2004 Broward precinct results.

Maybe they can give us a simple explanation. Or...?

[mopinko]

3. check the polling place?

is there a webpage to find your polling place that is still up? did these precincts have a poling place listed? if they retired(?) the precincts, there would not be a polling place?

[bemis12]

5. They'd just have a different polling place

Good lord. Happens all the time.

[Debbie13]

7. Checked this Broward County Website and some Precincts

are on the list. It would be so cool if you were on to something. I didn't check them all, but at least 3 are on the list and I only checked about 7.

Here's the site
http://www.browardsoe.org/Polling_Place/districtrequest.php3

And the list
http://www.browardsoe.org/polling_place/District_countywide.asp?submit3=Lookup+Polling+Places&urltext=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.browardsoe.org%2Fpolling_place%2FDistrict_countywide.asp

I hope I'm looking at it correctly. So you don't have any tallies for them? How strange, but I have no doubt that Florida's election process is corrupt and Broward is probably right up there and another thing about Broward is the kicked out one incompetent election supervisor and replaced her, but I'm not so sure she's that competent because this year, in my precinct, we didn't get the usual sample ballot.

[bj2110]

4. I have looked deeply into the re-districting of Broward County....

In fact, check out my thread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x74810

I've spoken with a guy at the SoE's office, and here's what he's told me:

In 2002, a massive re-districting plan was created. Arcview shapefiles of the before and after maps are available here:
http://www.flsenate.gov/senateredistricting/freds_data.cfm

However, I've been told that in 2004, the 2002 precincts were "slightly" modified.

Between the 2000 and 2002 plans, some precincts stayed the same, some were combined with others to form new precincts, some were split into more than one precinct, some were shifted altogether. It's a little hard to nail down exactly what occurred without comparing precinct maps. I have not found a 2004 electronic precinct map for Broward anywhere. The SoE's office said that hard copies are available for $15. Mine should be in the mail now.

Hope that helps. Precincts that have seemingly "dissappeared" doesn't necessarily mean that the votes are gone, they're probably just included in a another precinct this time around.

- BJ

[Eloriel]

6. So, doese this account for all the people?

Or what?

[GayGuyinCalifornia]

8. In Democratic areas, many precincts were combined.

That's what happened to mine in Los Angeles. They did it to create confusion.