`GHOST' VOTES HARD TO DETECT

MercuryNews.com | 11/01/2004: "In what would be her last conscious act, 90-year-old Trixie Porter gripped a pen in her weak, trembling hand, checked the candidates of her choice and scrawled a squiggled signature on her absentee ballot. Within an hour, the petite woman who had been suffering from heart problems lay back in her hospital bed, closed her eyes and never woke up. Her ballot arrived at her local elections board two days later, Oct. 5 -- the day she died. With millions of voters taking advantage of new, in-person early voting in at least 30 states this year, it is even more certain that such ``ghost'' votes will be counted because, in most cases, those ballots are impossible to retrieve. Besides, it could be days or weeks after the election before local officials get word someone has died.

Considering that an average of 455 voting-age people die in Florida every day, and that the 2000 presidential election was decided by a mere 537 votes, dead votes that slip through the cracks could become a meaningful bloc. So if a person in Florida casts an early ballot, then is run over by a truck right outside the polling place, there is no way to rescind the vote. But the vote of a Florida soldier who mails an absentee ballot from Iraq, then is killed in action, will not -- or should not -- be counted. Several states -- including California, Texas, Tennessee and the presidential battlegrounds of Ohio and West Virginia -- specifically allow absentee votes from those who die before the election. This patchwork of state laws also means two identical sets of circumstances can lead to different results."