A rare factual question about the Florida vote count. None of the news sources I’m checking give me clarity on this issue.
Right now, the count stands at +930 votes for Bush. There are some 4700 Bush votes on absentee ballots in Seminole County that are being challenged.
Are those 4700 included in the count that has Bush 930 up, meaning that if the challenge is upheld, Gore goes up 3770? Or are those currently considered uncounted, meaning that if the challenge is upheld, Bush is still up 930, and if the challenge is struck down, Bush is up 5630?
cmkeller:This Reuters story states that 15,000 absentee votes are being challenged in Seminole. Bush won the absentees 10,006 to 5,209 and they have been tallied, so if the votes are tossed thats +4,800 for Gore.
I wouldn’t put too much hope in this challenge resulting in the absentee ballots being tossed out. The Florida Supreme Court has established the measure for overturning ballot results in the case Beckstrom v. Volusia County Canvassing Board, a 1998 opinion issued in a sherriff’s election. In that case, the court identified that, in order to overturn the result of an election, the trial court must determine that (in the absence of fraud) there was both a “substantial noncompliance” with the election laws and reasonable doubt that the certified election result expressed the will of the voters. Under that standard, even if the marking of the ballots is considered a violation of election laws, it would be hard to establish that it frustrated the will of the voters. Obviously, those voters intended to vote for whichever candidate was marked. You will note that, in Beckstrom, the court refused to set aside the absentee ballots in question because there was no evidence that the illegal method used to register the otherwise undercounted ballots resulted in a miscount of the actual votes.
I think that Florida’s elections law is likely to see some significant decisional input for the future, though. And anyone who thinks “only in Florida” can think again; it happens everywhere.
In this vein, there are also a large stack of oversees ballots (mostly from the military) that were not counted because they did not carry proper postmark dates. In many counties, the majority of the oversees ballots were thrown out for this reason. This is most likely due to the soldiers being on ships or some other place where proper postal equipment wasn’t available. Florida’s Sect’t of State has recently ordered that these be counted if the the ballot was signed and dated before November 7th. This could increase Bush’s count even more.
With all of the allegations of improprieties surrounding the hand recounts (ie Bush ballots being counted for Gore, people eating chads, etc) don’t be surprised if hand recounts are eliminated after this election. Whether that would be good or bad, I don’t know.
Actually, it was the Attorney General who gave that order after pressure from Republicans. It was making the Democrates look bad so they gave in on that issue even though the law clearly supports them on it.