He definitely made a difference in the mayor's race. He got lots more citizens interested and involved, if only for a few hours.

Most importantly, he showed us how a participatory democracy can also be a profitable one, for voters and candidates alike.

A patriotic soul won't let death cost him a vote

February 8, 1998

This week, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Thomas S. Wilson Jr. will begin hearing evidence of widespread vote fraud in the absentee ballots cast in Miami's November general election. One of those disputed ballots bore the signature of a man named Manuel Yip, who submitted the following sworn deposition:

Q: Please state your occupation, Mr. Yip.

A: Well, you could say I'm retired. Seriously retired.

Q: And where do you live?

A: Bad choice of words.

Q: All right, where do you reside?

A: Right here on Second Avenue.

Q: In a house or an apartment?

A: Very funny. It's a graveyard, as any dolt can plainly see.

Q: So you are legally—

A: Dead, that's correct. I'm deader than a doornail. Expired, expunged, departed, checked out, eighty-sixed, sleeping the big sleep, whatever. And I suppose you got a problem with that?

Q: Yet you voted in the city elections on Nov. 4.

A: You betcha I voted, and nobody had to pay me, either. It's my proud duty as a late citizen of this great democracy. Ever since I passed away, I've become much more involved in local politics.

Q: Why is that?

A: Well, for one thing, I've had a lot more free time to study up on the candidates.

Q: And you've voted in how many other elections?

A: Before or after I died?

Q: After.

A: A total of four times.

Q: And always by absentee ballot?

A: No, smart guy, I just hop out of my coffin and hitchhike down to the polls. What're you, a comedian? Of course I vote by absentee ballot. I'm frigging deceased, remember?

Q: Mr. Yip, there's no need to lose your temper.

A: What, you think dead folks don't keep up with the current events? I see the headlines, pal. Newspapers blow through here all the time. My understanding is, anybody can vote in Miami. It's like the Publishers Clearing House—all you gotta do is fill out a form and send it in, no questions asked.

Heck, you don't need to live in your district. You don't even need to live in the city. Me? It just so happens I live in the hereafter.

Q: You've made your point, Mr. Yip.

A: Why shouldn't my vote count the same as the ones from Goulds and Hialeah Gardens? Heck, at least this cemetery is inside the Miami city limits.

Q: Mr.Yip, did anyone representing a candidate encourage you to cast a ballot?

A: I didn't need any encouragement. The corruption scandals, the budget disaster—how could I just lie here in heavenly repose and let the city go down the tubes?

Q: And you feel that, as a nonliving person, you're still entitled to vote.

A: Absolutely. Just because we don't pay taxes anymore doesn't mean we don't have an interest in good government. I mean, look around this place—would it kill 'em to cut the grass? Maybe spritz a little 409 on these grungy old tombstones?

Q: Just out of curiosity, do you know of any other dead persons who voted in Miami?

A: Boy, could I make a joke right now.

Q: Oh, we've heard them all, Mr. Yip. Please answer the question—were there other dead voters or not?

A: Let's just say the election results speak for themselves.

Q: And it's your intention to vote again in the future?

A: Every chance I get. Hey, what can they do to me? I'm already—

Q: Dead. Yes, we know.

Clean election? This is a job for Jimmy Carter

March 5, 1998

The good news is: A judge has ordered a new election to decide who will be mayor of Miami.

The bad news is: The election will again be held in Miami.

So how do you prevent it from being stolen like the last one? That's the predicament facing local officials.

Convicted felons, out-of-towners and even a corpse voted last November. Other citizens cheerfully sold their ballots for $10 apiece. Sleazy history could repeat itself in May unless the voting is more closely supervised.

Believe it or not, there is a "supervisor of elections" office in Miami-Dade—and the staff was hard on the job last fall. The problem was, the law saying who gets to vote was so easily subverted, and the fraud so widespread, that authorities were caught unprepared.

This time ought to be different. One intriguing idea, suggested by my son, is to have Jimmy Carter come down and monitor the new Miami elections, as he did in Nicaragua, Haiti and Panama (where he debunked Gen. Manuel Noriega's farcical victory).

True, the Miami of today is more politically backward than all those places, so Carter would face a steeper challenge. For security the former president would need several crack divisions of U.N. troops encircling the polls just to keep out all the bogus voters.

Carter's past willingness to serve as an elections watchdog stems from his own dismaying experience with voter fraud. In his book Turning Point, Carter describes how his first run for the Georgia Senate was nearly upended by flagrant ballot-stuffing and—you guessed it—a mysterious turnout of dead voters.

Surely the former president would sympathize with all those honest Miamians victimized by last fall's electoral larceny.

Yet when I phoned his office in Atlanta, Carter's assistants seemed doubtful he'd be able to fit the Miami crisis into his busy schedule. In their voices one could also detect wariness about sending him into such a messy quagmire.

That's understandable. Carter is well familiar with South Florida's reputation for tolerating skulduggery and graft. After Hurricane Andrew struck, I told him that while entire subdivisions of expensive homes in South Dade blew to pieces, most of his low-cost Habitat for Humanity houses didn't lose so much as a shingle in the storm.

"Well," Carter said with a wry smile, "we use nails in ours."

He was on an airplane Wednesday when I tried to reach him to ask if he'd fly to Miami for the elections. His spokeswoman, Carrie Harmon, was diplomatic but cautious.

"To date, the Carter Center has only monitored elections outside the United States—Africa, Latin America. We've never monitored a U.S. election," she said.

I asked what it usually takes to get the former president involved.

"Normally when we're dealing with developing countries, we have to be invited by all parties—the current government and the major opposition parties," she explained. "That's the only way it works, if everybody agrees to it."

But what about developing cities? Suppose Xavier Suarez and Joe Carollo, the front-runners for Miami mayor, extended a joint invitation—then would Carter consider monitoring a U.S. election?

There was a good-natured pause on the line, and perhaps the trace of a chuckle. "Well, we've never done it before," Harmon said, "but we wouldn't absolutely rule it out. Definitely not."

Now it's up to the candidates: Pick up the phone, guys. Call Jimmy now. If Noriega could do it, you can, too.