Gee, did it ever occur to you that I didn’t see your post when I wrote my own? Of course it’s not OK. Pardon me for my ignorance, but who is this governor - he obviously is not the governor of Florida. Which is where all eyes are focused right now.
Michigan. He’s got egg on his face big time since he “promised” the state to Bush way back before the primaries. Well, the primaries went to McCain here. Engler complained then that it was the dems fault for “cross voting in the primaries” (they didn’t seem to mind it when suddenly the dems had Geoffry Fieger of Dr. Kevorkian fame, to run against Engler for gov, but I digress). and now, you see, the state went to Gore, and it’s not Engler’s fault, either, it’s the blacks, hispanics and unions… sigh.
Once again from this site Florida State ElectionStatuets
(The emphasis is mine)
(2) Upon receipt of the ballot the elector shall mark the ballot, place it in the secrecy envelope, sign the return mailing envelope supplied with the ballot, and comply with the instructions provided with the ballot. The elector shall mail, deliver, or have delivered the marked ballot so that it reaches the supervisor of elections no later than 7 p.m. on the day of the election. The ballot must be returned in the return mailing envelope.
We have argued the legality of these elections, but ironically it seems that one side says “that’s not fair!!” and then procedes to do the exact same thing.
If you want to know how many ballots were tossed (and it is considerable) here are the stats (from this site: AP wire service)
County Accepted Rejected
Alachua 28 28
Baker 1 2
Bay 59 29
Bradford 2 1
Brevard 73 31
Broward 92 304
Calhoun 1 0
Charlott 4 5
Citrus 44 9
Clay 192 20
Collier 23 43
Columbia 6 1
Dade 103 102
DeSoto 1 3
Dixie 1 0
Duval 478 64
Escambia 154 112
Flagler 5 2
Franklin 1 1
Gadsden 4 1
Gilchris 0 0
Glades 0 0
Gulf 4 0
Hamilton 2 0
Hardee 3 3
Hendry 0 0
Hernando 17 2
Highland 3 1
Hilsboro 62 74
Holmes 1 0
Indianrv 5 3
Jackson 3 0
Jeffrson 0 0
Lafayete 0 0
Lake 0 5
Lee 23 37
Leon 30 19
Levy 6 0
Liberty 0 0
Madison 1 0
Manatee 94 37
Marion 15 15
Martin 3 2
Monroe 8 0
Nassau 6 2
Okaloosa 135 48
Okeechob 1 1
Orange 30 117
Osceola 28 8
Palmbech 36 16
Pasco 19 28
Pinellas 52 23
Polk 22 22
Putnam 16 5
St Johns 25 27
St Lucie 1 13
Sntarosa 45 21
Sarasota 35 25
Seminole 169 60
Sumter 0 0
Suwannee 4 1
Taylor 2 0
Union 0 0
Volusia 22 42
Wakulla 0 0
Walton 5 5
Washngtn 1 0
Totals 2206 1420
Now here’s the kicker: Those ballots are tossed without ever having been opened. What if it were a bunch of Gore supporters overseas who knew there guy was losing, so they sent in late ballot? Just because they’re in the military, does NOT mean they’re Bush supported (my SO is a Marine and he’s not).
I need a cite for this:
I have not seen this anywhere and if it is a law it’s idiotic.
I vote by absentee ballot, it’s not hard, and the same claim can be said of them as has been said of the elderly voters who say they didn’t punch the right hole: if you’re too stupid to read the direction, you’re too stupid to vote. (rediculous eh?)
(And apparently I’m too stupid to get the chart to work, so read at you own risk.)
Noooooooo the Governor of that fair state would be the BROTHER of the candiate(who BTW cried on election night because he’d promised his state to Bush)! What IS your point?
Uh, we are getting our “points” crossed here.
Give me a cite that shows that Jeb Bush told Republican operatives to “keep their lips sealed” when they saw a Gore vote, or something simular, during this hand-count process. But, oh, that’s right. Jeb recused himself. I don’t recall hearing much of anything about Jeb’s part in this recount business. Have you?
Bio-brat
What are you talking about?
I think you are having trouble telling the difference between an absentee ballot, and an overseas ballot. So throw out everything you think you know about deadlines and simplicity unless you voted from oversea. I have no idea if the oversea ballot is the same as a regular absentee ballot, but I do know it did not have the same deadline.
Everyone around here knows that they had until Friday (last night) at midnight to get the oversea ballots in.
About the Federal postmark law thing:
When I find a cite for the law, I will post it. I saw it discussed on TV. It wasn’t just a Republican hack talking about it either, they had the opposing sides on and they were discussng the conflict between the laws. I’m sure the link will be floating around soon enough.
Mind explaining why YOU think this law is idiotic? Or is your declaration justification enough? It seems to me that if you are filling out your overseas ballot from a foxhole or ship in the middle of the sea, then yes, it makes sense for us to make some minor allowances about the postmark.
And anyway…
The only person in this thread who suggested we accept the oversea ballots was RTFirefly. (I think anyway)
I watched, “The Capital Gang” tonight, and all five participants (three Republican, two Democrat) felt that reasonable accomodations on postmarks should have been made for fighting men overseas. And in fact, that’s almost always the case.
Once again…for Freedom2 from the same link as posted above…so much for brevity (and once again, the emphasis is mine)
101.6103 Mail ballot election procedure.–
(1) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (6), the supervisor of elections shall mail all official ballots with a secrecy envelope, a return mailing envelope, and instructions sufficient to describe the voting process to each elector entitled to vote in the election not sooner than the 20th day before the election and not later than the 10th day before the date of the election. All such ballots shall be mailed by first-class mail. Ballots shall be addressed to each elector at the address appearing in the registration records and placed in an envelope which is prominently marked “Do Not Forward.”
(2) Upon receipt of the ballot the elector shall mark the ballot, place it in the secrecy envelope, sign the return mailing envelope supplied with the ballot, and comply with the instructions provided with the ballot. The elector shall mail, deliver, or have delivered the marked ballot so that it reaches the supervisor of elections no later than 7 p.m. on the day of the election. The ballot must be returned in the return mailing envelope.
(3) The return mailing envelope shall contain a statement in substantially the following form:
VOTER’S CERTIFICATE
I, (Print Name) , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I am a qualified voter in this election and that I have not and will not vote more than one ballot in this election.
I understand that failure to sign this certificate and give my residence address will invalidate my ballot.
(Signature)
(Residence Address)
(4) If the ballot is destroyed, spoiled, lost, or not received by the elector, the elector may obtain a replacement ballot from the supervisor of elections as provided in this subsection. An elector seeking a replacement ballot shall sign a sworn statement that the ballot was destroyed, spoiled, lost, or not received and present such statement to the supervisor of elections prior to 7 p.m. on the day of the election. The supervisor of elections shall keep a record of each replacement ballot provided under this subsection.
(5) A ballot shall be counted only if:
(a) It is returned in the return mailing envelope;
(b) The elector’s signature has been verified as provided in this subsection; and
© It is received by the supervisor of elections not later than 7 p.m. on the day of the election.
The supervisor of elections shall verify the signature of each elector on the return mailing envelope with the signature on the elector’s registration records. Such verification may commence at any time prior to the canvass of votes. The supervisor of elections shall safely keep the ballot unopened in his or her office until the county canvassing board canvasses the vote. If the supervisor of elections determines that an elector to whom a replacement ballot has been issued under subsection (4) has voted more than once, the canvassing board shall determine which ballot, if any, is to be counted.
(6) With respect to absent electors overseas entitled to vote in the election, the supervisor of elections shall mail an official ballot with a secrecy envelope, a return mailing envelope, and instructions sufficient to describe the voting process to each such elector on a date sufficient to allow such elector time to vote in the election and to have his or her marked ballot reach the supervisor by 7 p.m. on the day of the election.
Furthermore Florida Statue had specific rules for overseas servicemen…
(7)(a) For the purposes of this section, “absent qualified elector overseas” means:
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Members of the Armed Forces while in the active service who are permanent residents of the state and are temporarily residing outside the territorial limits of the United States and the District of Columbia;
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Members of the Merchant Marine of the United States who are permanent residents of the state and are temporarily residing outside the territorial limits of the United States and the District of Columbia; and
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Other citizens of the United States who are permanent residents of the state and are temporarily residing outside the territorial limits of the United States and the District of Columbia,
who are qualified and registered as provided by law.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, there shall appear on the ballots sent to absent qualified electors overseas, in addition to the names of the candidates for each office, the political party affiliation of each candidate for each office, other than a nonpartisan office.
© With respect to marked ballots mailed by absent qualified electors overseas, only those ballots mailed with an APO, FPO, or foreign postmark shall be considered valid.
As far as I can tell the ten day acceptance limit was arbitrary. I’m guessing the reason ten days was chosen was to allow servicemen enough time to mail by the 7th and have their votes counted. In addition, the law seems a little foggy as to when they were actully to have been in. As you can see from the above, they were to be received by the 7th and despite reading the most of statutes I can’t find where it says that they are to be postmarked on that date.
Why do I think the law is idiotic? For exactly the reason I stated. If I’m in the service, haven’t mailed in my absentee ballot (yes indeed it is EXACTLY the same as an absentee ballot) and I see that my vote can perhaps influence the election, can I vote in March and still have it count? THAT is why I think it’s idiotic.
No for why I think The GOP screams “THAT’S NOT FAIR!!” and then does the exact thing the Dems are doing. Not too long ago we were having this EXACT SAME ARGUMENT about the timetable set up for the certification of votes.
All of these rules are written down, look them up!
You mean, like the rule that all votes shall be certified by last Tuesday?
The reason that military ballots get some special dispensation is because it can be impossible for some military people to meet the letter of the law. So we either cut them a bit of slack or disenfranchise them.
One example I heard tonight is that sometimes on an aircraft carrier a person will be allowed to get his vote in on the last aircraft or ship leaving with mail before 7pm on election day. Depending on duty shedules, it may be impossible to get an actual postmark on that ballot. But everyone knows that every piece of mail on that helicopter was posted before the deadline - the flight plan of the aircraft shows that it left before then. So those votes are typically counted. This time, they aren’t. Since it’s flatly impossible that the ballot was sent later than the deadline, to disqualify that ballot because it lacks a postmark is indeed a ‘technicality’, since the postmark rule is only there to prevent late ballots.
As I said, all five panelists on ‘The Capital Gang’ agreed strongly that those votes should be counted. Including Mark Shields and Alan Hunt, who are pretty liberal Democrats.
Gore was on the high road there for a while, but he managed to find a shortcut back into the muck with Bush.
That’s exactly what I mean. We had a whole bunch of folks in here screaming that the letter of the law was to be followed, but now it seems, that they aren’t too happy about that.
Feel free to check and see if I was one of those people who said that the counts should not be certified. I have always maintained that this should follow the law of FL. The difference here though, is that it seems that there was enough discretion in one of the statutes to allow Harris to let the hand count go forward (and the FL Supreme Court unanimously agreed), but this law is unequovical. In fact, to me (if I’m wrong please correct me) it seems that military personal, and all of the overseas voters have been, in essence, given 10 extra days to vote. How does that happen?
Personally I don’t really give two hoots what the “Capital Gang” folks thought. Did they read the law? Did they even mention it?
I agree that there is a law saying that if the overseas ballots are not postmarked, they aren’t to be counted.
Would you not agree, however, that unlike virtually all of the other ballot-squabbling going on in Florida, this does not involve anything that THE VOTERS may have done improperly? The fault here, if there is any, appears to fall with either the U.S. Military or the U.S. (or some other) Postal Service.
Does that not seem more to you like, say, a voting machine malfunction? Something outside of the voter’s control affecting his ability to cast his correctly filled out ballot? (Don’t cite the law back to me. I KNOW what the law says. Answer the question from your personal perspective as I’ve asked it in this paragraph.)
That these thousands of ballots will likely not be counted really sickens me. Anyone who equates this with the contortions being made over improper votes BY VOTERS is missing the boat.
This Florida resident sums up my feelings nicely on the issue of the military absentee ballots:
“It is a very sad day in our country when the men and women of the armed forces are serving abroad and facing danger on a daily basis … yet because of some technicality out of their control, they are denied the right to vote for the president of the United States who will be their commander in chief.” - Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf
If there is a way to determine when these ballots left our ships, overseas military bases, etc., I for one would like to see them counted, whoever they may be for.
Nothing should be more sacred than allowing American citizens who voluntarily put their lives on the line daily to defend American democracy having a right to participate in that democracy through voting and having their votes count. And, unlike all of the other disputed ballots in Florida, they did nothing wrong. They voted correctly.
I hope you all watched FoxNews today, with all the accounts of questionable things going on in these hand-counts, particularly in Palm Beach County, made by people inside the rooms. (Some of the stories can be found at http://www.foxnews.com Though, unfortunately, not the best one, from a GOP counter who found numerous Bush votes in a Gore pile he happened to double-check at the last second - ballots that were about to be added to Gore’s final vote count. The Bush pile, coincidentally, had no such errors.)
How anyone can think this is a good process working toward a better conclusion baffles me.
I’m beginning to understand why election law is so specific about deadlines. They must have foreseen what a circus and opportunity for misdeeds it can become.
Milossarian
It does indeed. In fact, if it were up to me, I’d count the damn things. My point is, where does it stop? If ballots postmarked by the 7th come in next Tues, do we count them, as it’s not the voter fault that the mail was late? What about next Thurs, is that too late? What about any ballot that wasn’t cast BEFORE the election but was sent after, and not postmarked?
They should have stuck with the law that the ballots had to be RECEIVED by election day, although I’m sure there would still be bitching.
BTW the story about the piles of Bush votes in Gore pile was on the AP wesite (wire.ap.org) too, but either I can’t find it, or they’ve pulled it.
My position on the overseas military ballots:
-
Yes, it does seem clear that the law requires postmarks.
-
Yes, it does seem that maybe in some (and I still haven’t seen evidence that it happens with any frequency) instances that a military letter might not get a postmark.
-
Yes, it’s a shame that those in our countrys service might in essense, not have their votes counted
BUT (as has been mentioned ad infinitum by others in objection to the PBC ballots and issues)
all of this information was known before the election. This is NOT the first election in Florida history where the military voted from overseas. Nor, apparently, the first time SOME might not have had postmarks.
If it was known before, the folks in Florida had the opportunity and responsability to fix the situation before the election. They failed to do so. they should do so now for the next election, but, as has been oft quoted before “ya can’t change the rules in the middle of the election”.
Nobody realized that 18,000 votes in PBC wouldn’t be counted because of a poorly designed ballot for the population it served either. Learn from it and move on.
You put the Gore votes in,
You put the Bush votes out,
You tear a little chad and you do another count
You do the Palm Beach Hokey
And you turn the vote around
That’s what it’s all about!
HAHAHAHA!!!
I thought that was funny. I’m sure the other half of the board won’t though.
Bio-Brat
Ok. I’m going to go find links. The Florida law allowed the oversea ballots to come in by Friday. This is not some arbitrary deadline picked by Harris. I don’t think there is ANYONE around here but you who thinks this is not the law. (Of course, I could be wrong:))
The Federal law about the military ballots makes perfect sense. You phrase it as if the military has until March to get their votes in. This is the way those of us who support our military look at it:
The Absentee ballots do not go out until right before the election. Because our military is spread all over the world and ocean, it takes longer for them to get their ballots. IOW…as you sit in a warm dorm room and have the US mail get you your ballot in 2-3 days, the ballot going to the guy on the front has a much different route to hurdle. Sure, you will get your ballot, have plenty of time to think about it, and then mail it back. The guy on the front might not even GET his vote until the day right before the vote. Then it is going to take a week or so for the vote to get back.
If you are going to set-up a system where you get the absentee ballots into the hands of the service men earlier enough for them to get it back, then I would agree with you. The real problem here is not just getting the ballots back from them, but getting the ballots TO them in time for them to vote.
Bio-Brat
Ok. A little progress here. There is a court case somewhere in the past that changed Florida law and extended the date for the ballots to get in. I am looking for the case, but that might take a little while.
I absolutely agree ** Freedom**. But since this is not the first election we’ve ever had where overseas service personnel have wanted to vote, my point is that it should have already been on the books. Period. the truth probably is that in past elections, those votes were never counted either. (or do you have some reason to believe the laws weren’t enforced before).
The problem is THIS time, this election it’s so close that every vote is looked at.
The number of reported irregularities is frightening (or should be, to everybody), how we took our voting rights for granted. I don’t think ANYONE really thought that if they’d take the time to go and vote that the vote would be cast aside (as thousands were). Like I’ve said, I voted with punch cards for years and NEVER looked to see if the hole was completely through. didn’t even know the word chad. (:rolleyes: ). Things like setting up a police blockade in front of a polling site in a minority neighborhood, down to this where nobody thought to mention a potential problem with military ballots until the day they were to be in and counted. (where were all these folks last week when all eyes were on the overseas ballots, anyhow?)
(hi Freedom. up early, I see)
I see this differently. (surprise surprise!!!)
It IS on the books. Federal law provides for military ballots not having a postmark. Florida provides until last Friday night for the ballots to get in.
I agree that never before did the democrats hire a law firm in every county of the state to go in and challenge each and every absentee ballot on endless technicalites.
But even with that…I say throw the ballots out. This does such a great job of exposing the hypocrisy of Gore that it is worth it. Right now Republican congressmen are going to war memeorials all over Florida and reading off the names of the current military men who were denied the right to vote by Gore.
I would think this would piss off the average veteran democrat as much as the Republicans. Even with this direct insult against America’s military, Gore has lost. It is time for Florida to certify.
Screw Gore. I don’t even want him to concede. I want him screaming and fighting while he tries to climb on the podium Jan. 20 while Bush is being inaguarated. Then I want to watch as they drag him away and put him in a loony bin for the rest of his life.
(can you tell I don’t like Gore?:))
I should have claimed I lived in California. That way I could look like an early riser.
I’m in NJ, so the times on the post are an hour behind REAL time:)
Here is the Federal Law:
Link
From what I have read, Free of postage means that it does not get a postmark. I’m not a lawyer, but this is the text they are citing. I would suggest that the way these ballots have been handled all over the country, and in Florida, for the last 2 elections would provide a nice precedent for how they should have been handled intitially.
If there are any lawyers present, I would love to see your interpretation of this as well.