Battleground Florida back in the spotlight as ballots go missing

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2004

WEST PALM BEACH, United States (AFP) — Four years after the "Florida fiasco", the battleground state is back in the spotlight as thousands of absentee ballots went missing and campaigners traded claims of vote rigging.

Fears of renewed electoral chaos mounted in the key battleground state this week as authorities in one of the 67 counties said they were trying to track down some 58,000 missing absentee ballots.

The Broward supervisor of elections said the ballots, about half of those requested, had been sent out but apparently not received by the voters.

Democrats, who claim President George W. Bush stole the controversial 2000 elections and who have deployed 2,700 lawyers to Florida, jumped on the scandal.

"It looks like they're trying to steal the...