Absentee Ballots

Several absentee ballots in Compton that should have been returned to City Hall after they were found to be undeliverable instead ended up in bins slated for recycling outside a post office. Officials said allegations of voter fraud appeared to be unfounded. A candidate in Compton's municipal election complained of potential fraud Tuesday after discovering bins containing what appeared to be hundreds of absentee ballots behind the post office on Santa Fe Avenue. City Manager Harold Duffey said he and other city officials, as well as members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, went to the post office after hearing the allegation and found a crowd there, including several candidates running in the city's April 16 primary election.

Several absentee ballots in Compton that should have been returned to City Hall after they were found to be undeliverable instead ended up in bins slated for recycling outside a post office. Officials said allegations of voter fraud appeared to be unfounded. A candidate in Compton's municipal election complained of potential fraud Tuesday after discovering bins containing what appeared to be hundreds of absentee ballots behind the post office on Santa Fe Avenue. City Manager Harold Duffey said he and other city officials, as well as members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, went to the post office after hearing the allegation and found a crowd there, including several candidates running in the city's April 16 primary election.

The registrar-recorder's office will be open over the next two weekends to help people who want to cast absentee ballots for the Nov. 3 election. The office will be open from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The office is in Room 3002, 12400 Imperial Highway, Norwalk. Absentee ballot applications must be received by the Registrar's Office by Tuesday.

Mitt Romney's top campaign official in Florida conceded Thursday that President Obama will win the state, acknowledging a vote count that was moving inexorably against the Republicans. Several Florida counties are still counting ballots, but most of what remains are in areas of south Florida that Obama carried by significant margins. When all those ballots are tallied, they likely will add to the president's edge in the state, which was 55,832 votes as of Thursday afternoon, a lead of about 0.7%.

Los Angeles County residents unable to go to the polls Tuesday can obtain absentee ballots Monday from the registrar-recorder's office, 5557 Ferguson Drive in Commerce. The office will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Registrar-Recorder Charles Weissburd said these absentee ballots can be turned in at the registrar-recorder's office or at any authorized polling place until 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Hundreds of San Fernando Valley residents have not received their official sample ballots for the March 7 primary election because the Los Angeles County Registrar has until Feb. 28 to mail them out, said county registrar spokeswoman Marcia Ventura. "We're still mailing them out," Ventura said. "Feb. 28 is the normal state-designated election deadline. It hasn't changed for years."

"Surge in Absentee Voting May Delay Results of California Elections" (Nov. 6) reported that the count of the absentee ballots may not be completed until Dec. 5. Why don't we have a system so that the absentee ballots could be counted by computers? In fact, why don't we have a system where all votes are computerized? It would cut down on voter fraud. If someone tried to vote twice, the computer would recognize it immediately. If someone had not registered or tried to vote for those people in the cemetery, the computer could instantly check the voter registration files.

President Obama has won reelection. The Republican Party faces a reckoning about its identity. In Florida, however, the election goes on. The state whose dysfunctional voting methods traumatized the nation 12 years ago is still up in the air. The state was supposed to have been a major presidential battleground, but the morning after election day, it was still a question mark. Instead of butterfly ballots and hanging chads, the problem appears to have been caused by a long ballot, high turnout and some mechanical failures.

TAMPA, Fla. -- On Wednesday morning, after another election meltdown in Miami, the result of the presidential race in Florida was still uncertain. By dawn, all precincts in the state had finished reporting, and the totals gave an edge of more than 46,000 votes for President Obama -- about a half-percent. But a number of counties had not yet counted their absentee ballots. In Miami-Dade, election workers still had to count 20,000 absentees. In Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, there were about 9,000 absentees yet to be counted.

MIAMI - Not so long ago, in the days of the hanging chad and the butterfly ballot, a nation was held hostage by one state's electoral dysfunction. On Wednesday, America once again woke up the morning after election day to reports of voters in South Florida standing in line at midnight, tens of thousands of absentee ballots still unopened and uncounted, and no way of knowing who won the state's 29 electoral votes. Unlike Bush vs. Gore in 2000, at least the whole election isn't hanging in the balance, but the question is the same: Just what is it about Florida and elections, anyway?

NEWARK, N.J. - Officials in New Jersey's third-largest county say they will not be able to process the majority of more than 3,000 faxed or emailed ballot applications by the end of election day. That means some Garden State voters displaced by super storm Sandy - hundreds in Essex County alone - may not be able to vote by the time polls close Tuesday evening, unless the state extends deadlines. Eight election officials have been processing the faxed and emailed applications, said Christopher Durkin, the Essex County clerk.

TAMPA, Fla. -- About 12,000 phones in Pinellas County started ringing on election day, offering a reassuring automated message for those who picked up: Voters still had until Wednesday to turn in their absentee ballots. By then, of course, the election would be over and the votes wouldn't count. In the past, such calls have been political dirty trick, but these calls came straight from the Pinellas County Elections Department. An automated dialer started making calls around 8 a.m. Tuesday -- by mistake using an outdated message, said Nancy Whitlock, the department's communications director.

TAMPA, Fla. -- In Florida's Interstate 4 corridor, the vote-rich band that often sways elections in this important swing state, voters were lining up on Monday to pick up absentee ballots. With all the wrangling over access to the polls this year, some said they weren't taking any chances. “It made you all the more determined to go out and do your voting,” said Lee Stephens of Tampa, an Obama supporter standing in a quick-moving line at the Hillsborough County supervisor of elections office.

WASHINGTON - It wouldn't be a close election without a fight over voting in Florida. Saturday was scheduled to be the final day of early voting in the nation's biggest swing state, where most polls have shown the race extraordinarily close. In  many places, particularly in south Florida, where Democrats typically get their largest majorities, lines at polling places stretched for hours, with voters in some places waiting past midnight. Worried that significant numbers of their voters might have been deterred by the wait, the Florida Democratic Party went to court in the wee hours of Sunday morning seeking an emergency order for polling places to remain open today.