Vote early, and often

St. Petersburg (Florida, where else?) Times:

In a classroom in Japan, the middle-schoolers learning English kept asking their American teacher about the election in Florida.



What really happened four years ago? they asked, and was she voting this year?



When Pamela Morse's overseas ballot arrived last week, she wondered if it was a joke.



A letter said Morse would get a second "official" ballot later and told her to mail both.



"I really hate to be paranoid," Morse wrote in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times, "but we who have received these ballots are questioning if this is some sort of trick to discount our votes?" Call it the Nader Effect.



It's the lastest example of election confusion in Florida, where the presidency could hang in the balance.



Around the globe, some 32,000 Floridians living abroad are getting similar absentee ballots in the mail. And they are confused.



"Normally, when you vote, you don't get a second chance," said Bonnie Good, a U.S. citizen living in Canada. "Why am I filling out a preliminary ballot?"



In the past, elections supervisors did not mail ballots in time for overseas voters to send them back. So the Legislature, acting under orders from the federal government, passed a law requiring that overseas ballots go out 45 days before the election.



This year, election supervisors didn't know whether Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader would be on the presidential ballot until the last moment. The Florida Democratic Party tried to keep Nader off the ballot, and the Florida Supreme Court did not rule in Nader's favor until Sept. 17, the day before the deadline.



In counties such as Pinellas, supervisors worked through the night to photocopy ballots with Nader's name on it and send them overseas.



If a voter such as Morse mailed the first ballot, it would count. If she follows instructions and mails the second official ballot, the first ballot will be set aside and the second ballot will be counted.



To Morse, the ballot she received looked like the real thing. It had all the right candidates, including Nader. But a letter with the ballot said another "regular" ballot would be mailed "as soon as the ballots are printed."



Morse didn't get it.



"The ballot I received was printed, so that instruction made no sense," she said.



Actually, the ballot was a photocopy. The second ballot will be printed on thicker paper so that it can be read electronically.



This year, election supervisors didn't know whether Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader would be on the presidential ballot until the last moment. The Florida Democratic Party tried to keep Nader off the ballot, and the Florida Supreme Court did not rule in Nader's favor until Sept. 17, the day before the deadline.



Election supervisors could not estimate the cost of two rounds of ballots. Many said they were just following the law, which requires them to both meet the deadline and send all voters an "official" ballot printed on the right kind of paper.



Most overseas voters understand the process and mail both back, said Pasco Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning.



Supervisors around the state said they hadn't heard many complaints.



Good, the voter in Canada, e-mailed and got a prompt explanation about the two ballots from Clark's office, she said.



Secretary of State Glenda Hood said individual supervisors decided to mail two ballots.



"We told supervisors, "You might want to hold back on mailing out anything,' " Hood said.



Supervisors in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties are sending two ballots.



At least one county election supervisor got the official ballots printed on time.



"We ordered two ballots," said Debra Garrambone, chief deputy supervisor in Seminole County. "Other people waited for the last moment."