This may have been overlooked today so I thought I'd go ahead and post it. Count All the Friggin' Votes!
Where's TP anyway? -g-
ELECTION 2000, Day 33
Judge orders
Florida's
military votes
counted
Ruling: 'All federal
write-in ballots
rejected for the above
stated
reasons are declared
valid'
By Jon E. Dougherty
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
In a victory for Republican
George W. Bush, a U.S. district
judge yesterday ordered all
Florida counties to reexamine
discarded military absentee
ballots and to count them in
final vote totals if they were
properly signed and dated.
The Bush campaign had sued five
Florida counties for discarding
the ballots initially because
they did not have a postmark
when they arrived.
However, U.S. District Judge
Lacey Collier, in a 28-page
ruling issued Friday, ordered
the canvassing boards in those
counties to accept some
absentee ballots that were
previously rejected by local
elections officials.
According to unofficial
tallies, 1,547 overseas
absentee ballots -- about 40
percent of the total Florida
received -- were thrown out by
county elections workers,
mostly because they lacked
either a date or a signature,
or in some cases because they
were not filed by registered
voters.
According to the order, Collier
said the ballots should not
have been discarded simply
because they had no postmark.
Furthermore, he ruled that
federal write-in ballots must
be accepted, even if there was
no formal request for a
write-in ballot.
"It is truly an unfortunate
circumstance when a citizen of
the United States is denied the
fundamental right to vote,
whether residing in one of the
several states or residing
overseas," Collier wrote in his
ruling. "It is even more
unfortunate when a vote cast by
a member of the armed forces
serving abroad is rejected for
no legitimate or compelling
reason."
"It is unfortunate that Florida
will accept an overseas
absentee ballot with an
unsworn, handwritten date, yet
questions the oath, under
penalty of perjury, of many of
its service men and women,"
Collier said.
Ed Fleming, an attorney for the
GOP, said he now expects
rejected absentee ballots from
all 67 Florida counties to be
shipped to the capital of
Tallahassee to be counted. .....more |
