US election postal vote forms go missing in Florida

Broward County officials in Florida are questioning how many of the 58,000 absentee ballots they sent out actually reached voters.

Hundreds of people have called the elections office saying they never received the ballots they had requested.

Democratic officials in Palm Beach County say they’ve heard of similar problems there, and have asked the elections supervisor to take out advertisements telling voters how they can still cast ballots.

Many other states are facing legal challenges over possible voting problems.

In Colorado, two people were charged in Denver with filling out multiple voter-registration forms. Similar investigations were under way in several counties, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office said.

As many as 3,700 people have registered to vote in more than one Colorado county this year, nearly two-thirds of them college-age voters, the Denver Post reported. Election officials said they were working to catch double registrations, but conceded double voting might occur.

A Iowa judge declined to rule immediately in a Republican lawsuit challenging a plan to allow Iowans to cast provisional ballots outside of their home precincts. A Polk County District judge said the suit could go forward after the state issues final election rules today.

The state Supreme Court in Minnesota refused to make local officials reveal the political leanings of election judges, rejecting a Republican request that could have exposed the polling place referees to new scrutiny days before the election.

A Cincinnati federal judge temporarily stopped hearings on Republican challenges of thousands of voter registrations, ruling in favour of Democrats who alleged the challenges were an attempt to keep legitimate votes from being counted. About half the estimated 35,000 challenges were filed in Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold.

Two servicemen serving in Iraq and Kuwait filed a federal lawsuit in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, seeking a 15-day extension for the return of overseas ballots.

They contend the distribution of absentee and overseas ballots was delayed over a legal challenge to independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s nominating petition.