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By Beth Stibal |

UPDATED: Issues with Undelivered Ballots, Scheme to Register Deceased People to Vote Arise

Andrew Gillum
A Florida voter registration application is shown, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020, at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department in Doral, Fla. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis extended the state’s voter registration deadline after heavy traffic crashed the state’s online system and potentially prevented thousands of enrolling to cast ballots in next month’s presidential election. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Just days before the election, there are reports of issues with ballots and voter registrations in parts of South Florida.

First, officials in Miami-Dade County are trying to figure out why nearly four-dozen complete and incomplete ballots went undelivered to their destinations.

The situation took place at U.S. Postal Service distribution center in southwest Miami-Dade County.

State Representative Keonne McGhee says he believes the cause is underfunding and understaffing.

Meanwhile, “The investigation is ongoing and is being closely coordinated with U.S. Postal Service to ensure all delayed mail has been properly handled and delivered,” says Scott Pierce, special agent in charge of the postal service’s inspector general’s office in the South Florida region.

With that in mind, a report from WFOR-TV says State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle wants the Office of the Inspector General to audit all of the postal distribution centers in that county.

Miami-Dade’s assistant supervisor of elections said over the weekend that all of the ballots in question have have been accounted for.

Out of that number, six were delivered to the county Elections Office last Friday, while 24 others have been sent back to the voters.

Election officials said the voters who mailed the other 18 ballots had already voted with another method, by either replacement ballot or at an early voting site.

Further north, in Broward County, there are reports of a scheme that was intended to register nearly 50 people to vote in the election.

According to stories from The South Florida Sun Sentinel and WPEC-TV, the voter registration applications arrived from Columbia, South Carolina, and did not include a return address.

No votes were actually cast under the names included in the applications, a Broward elections spokesman said.