How would they know?
They would know based on the approx number of AVB request forms received.
Not every one who requested the absentee ballot will vote but you can bet a majority of them will.
That is exactly the question.
They know how many were posted and just how would they know that 60k or however many are "missing" until the "receive by" date (if such exists - I think most states have a "postmark by" date) comes along.
Or do they have some cosmic way of determining just how many of the absentee ballots requested and sent were actually delivered? This is snail mail, not e-mail after all, and the election committees don't get "receipts" for mail (ballots) delivered! In short, how can they know the ballots are missing before they are missing?
Smacks of a 'Rat "trap" sprung too early to me. I'd have figured they'd wait until election day, when most states actually count the absentee ballots, then claim the "missing votes" were from traditional Dem voting groups and would likely even claim that the traditional conservative military voters have had an epiphany and actually voted for Kerry (this group is comprised I've heard, of large numbers of personnel who have stated they would not "re-up" if Kerry were elected -- yeah, they're going to vote for him).
Again, I think it may well have been a well set "trap" that was prematurely sprung
Found it (my thread was pulled)...I guess I still need to get a handle on
the search function. Sorry for the double post.
This is an outrageous situation. Republicans are more likely to vote absentee, and it's especially important given the incidents in Broward of Democrats harassing Bush supporters at early voting sites.