So which takes precedence? Gore has met the deadline for requesting the manual recounts, and the local boards (save for the one meeting about it tomorrow) have agreed. So wouldn’t this preempt the Nov. 14 deadline? If not, then the whole concept of manual recounts is clearly a joke, since they would almost never be returned before the deadline. In effect, Florida “allows” manual recounts but makes it impossible to complete them in a reasonable amount of time.
Judging by the fact that at least one of the county boards is preparing to sue the state for an extension of the deadline, I assume I’m not misunderstanding this. Or am I? Any help?
There was time for a manual recount. But the longer a candidate waits to ask for one, the less time there is to do one.
Florida’s law set the deadline. It is not something special for this election. A deadline is needed to keep the losing candidate from stalling to keep the winner out of office.
Keep in mind that Florida’s count is complete; it was over when the first re-count was done. Florida just needs to wait for the absentee ballot deadline to declare a winner.
The manual recount is a Gore protest of the offical count. The counties are allowing it, but they are not required to. They could have turned him down.
Also, they don’t have to manually count all of them. If they run short of time, just machine count the rest. So there is still time to change the results.
``For this election, that time is 5 p.m. Nov. 14, which is tomorrow.’’
So does that mean that all the absentee ballots will be ignored after 5 pm tues., or do people who aren’t living in florida get an extra dose of voting rights ?
Florida residents who are out of state have the same rights as those living in state, including the right to vote up to election day. They are not required to vote early; they get the same amount of time as other residents.
Since their ballots are not in the states possesion after they vote, the state allows 10 days for the ballot to get there. Like the deadline for counties to count ballots, there is a deadline for getting those ballots turned in. Any ballot turned in after the 10 days does not count.
actually, I think ** Squink ** has pointed to the issue:
If the stated deadline for certification of the election is BEFORE the date that overseas absetee ballots are to be in, that disenfranchizes those voters. It seems to me that the law about the deadline was enacted with the believe that the overseas ballots would never be the coup de grace as it were.
Since in THIS election a mere few hundred votes one way or the other will make the difference, I believe the state has the obligation to not certify the election until AT THE SOONEST, the date the absentee ballots would be in.
Absentee ballots must be in by Friday, Nov. 17. Any that arrive after that do not count. I’m not sure what you mean by “an extra dose of voting rights”. All absentee ballots must be post-marked by Nov. 7, so they didn’t get any extra time (although I suppose you could have mailed one from Hawaii or some earlier timezone to get the postmark, and yet already have heard the election results).
It’s important to note that other states require that all absentee ballots arrive on or before the day of the election. In particular, that is the rule in California and I believe Oregon and Washington.
If the USPS didn’t get my ballot over to the County Registrar/Recorder’s Office by November 7, I was out of luck.
“It’s important to note that other states require that all absentee ballots arrive on or before the day of the election.”
Florida may be unique because of its large contingent of military “residents.” Members of the military, a peripatetic bunch, have some choice in where they call “home.” Florida is (or used to be) attractive because of tax laws. Consequently a significant portion of Florida’s residents aren’t there-- they’re temporarily assigned elsewhere.
In other states, the majority of absentee ballots might be for people who were travelling on business. living elsewhere for college, having scheduled surgery the day of the election, what have you. But in Florida, I am given to understand, there are a lot of military personnel represented in the absentee voter “population.” Overseas ballots, in particular, may take the full ten days.
I wish I had numbers and recent information on this.
BobT is incorrect about the state of Washington, indeed, according to reports on the news services, Washington state has until just before Thanksgiving to certify results because the ballots only had to be postmarked by election day.
The OP raises a question of statutory interpretation. On the one hand, we have a satute that specifically says the counties must certify to the state their counts by 5pm 11/14. This does not include the absentee ballots for which extra time to arrive is provided for by law. The state canvassing board then has until Friday to certify the overall results, including the absentee ballots. According to the reports regarding the law in question, failure to certify a county’s result to the state results in disqualification of the county’s results. I’d not take that for gospel until one has actually read the statute in question.
On the other hand, we have a statute that allows for manual recounts, requested as late as 72 hours after the election (or perhaps the reporting of the elections results, not sure again what the statute actually says). Presumably, the ability of a county with almost 500,000 ballots would have a tough time accomplishing a manual recount by the date of certification.
Which provision the court will follow is not certain. It is, of course, the gist of Volusia and Palm Beach counties’ lawsuit (joined by the Gore campaign) against the Secretary of State that her refusal to grant an extension is an abuse of her discretion; to succede, presumably someone will have to establish that she HAS discretion…
Sorry about the goof about the law in Washington. Since ballots are still coming in that must be the delay in finalizing the result. I did see on the Secretary of State’s website in WA that Gorton has taken a 13,000 vote lead over Cantwell.
“Returns must be filed by 5 p.m. on the 7th day following the first primary and general election and by 3 p.m. on the 3rd day following the second primary. If the returns are not received by the department by the time specified, such returns may be ignored and the results on file at that time may be certified by the department.”
Considering those "may"s in there, it looks like the State could look the other way on this, if they wanted to.