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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John who wrote (80814)	11/18/2000 9:17:31 AM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 769667

Well said John, I agree completely. We should keep alive the events of this past two weeks, for a long long time. Article... TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) _ The tallying of overseas absentee ballots added to George W. Bush"s lead in Florida, as expected. But a surprising number of ballots were thrown out, raising cries of foul play from the Bush campaign. "We are distressed at what appears to be a statewide effort on behalf of Al Gore to discredit the votes of military servicemen and women," Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said Friday night, after more than 1,400 overseas ballots had been rejected. Overall, some 2,200 overseas ballots were accepted and counted. While Republicans complained of a coordinated effort by Democrats aimed against ballots from military personnel, the Gore campaign decried GOP "misinformation and conspiracy theories" and said the Republicans had their own army out for the county-by-county battle. "It was local, elected Florida elections officials who decided whether or not to accept these ballots," Gore spokeswoman Jenny Backus said. "It"s also somewhat disingenuous for the Republican Party to talk about some kind of Democratic conspiracy when both sides had observers out in the field." With all but one county reporting, Bush had picked up 1,375 overseas votes compared with Gore"s 748. That expanded Bush"s lead to 927 votes in the overall vote, which includes totals already certified by the state plus the overseas ballots. Counties had until noon Saturday to report their results to Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who is blocked by the Florida Supreme Court from certifying the state results. The Supreme Court meets Monday to hear arguments about ongoing hand recounts in South Florida. In some counties, half or nearly all the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn"t have postmarks. Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. In Hillsborough County, 74 of the 135 overseas ballots were rejected after Democrats raised concerns about postmark or signature problems. Alachua County rejected half of the 56 overseas ballots received. St. Lucie rejected 13 of 14 and Lake County, all five. "The party of the man who wants to be the next commander in chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding," charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County, where 107 ballots were rejected. Thomas Spencer, a Miami attorney for Bush, said the GOP legal team would weigh whether to sue this weekend. "One of the problems with those ballots is it is so difficult under Florida and federal law that you almost have to be a rocket scientist to comply," he said. Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter focused on protesting military ballots, which were assumed to heavily favor Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. Herron said he was retained by the DNC on election night. "I"m not the only one that did this," he added. "Everybody got the opportunity to argue their case in front of the canvassing boards." Asked about the high number of ballots thrown out, Herron replied: "I don"t know what the numbers would be. It was our position in a neutral way, these were standards everywhere." The overseas ballot count, usually barely noticed publicly after an election, was closely monitored by advocates for Bush and Gore. latimes.com