Posted on 10/30/2004 7:32:15 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
HARRISBURG - The state will count absentee ballots of Pennsylvanians living abroad and serving in the military overseas that arrive up to eight days after Tuesday's election under a compromise brokered yesterday by a federal judge.
Yet the agreement might not be the final word on a contentious battle pitting Republican leaders and conservative talk-show hosts against Democratic Gov. Rendell, who had until yesterday opposed the extension.
Hours after a federal judge approved the settlement, GOP leaders filed a separate motion in state court to push back the deadline even further.
Still, parents of the two Army enlisted men serving in the Middle East who had petitioned the federal court for more time said they were pleased with the compromise, although it was unlikely it would allow their sons' votes to return home.
"I've accepted that fact, but I hope what we did will help others have their votes counted," said Susan Schramm, the mother of Matthew J. Schramm of Schwenksville, Montgomery County, who is serving in Kuwait. "We owe it to the rest of them. They have offered up their lives for us."
Robert J. Reitz, the father of Steven J. Reitz of Venango County, who is stationed in Iraq and who received his ballot Thursday, said, "We've done some good for our troops overseas."
Before the agreement, overseas ballots had to be received by yesterday to be counted for all state offices and by Election Day for the presidential election.
Pennsylvania's 67 counties have sent about 26,700 absentee ballots overseas, but it is unclear how many were mailed to military personnel, who tend to vote Republican.
Until yesterday, Rendell opposed moving the deadline, arguing that it would confuse voters and put undue burden on already overburdened county election boards. He had said he would support an extension if given evidence that military voters had not received their ballots on time.
Yesterday, he acknowledged that the situation with Reitz was just such proof.
"We all stood up for that soldier's rights," the governor said.
Attorneys for the Rendell administration and for the two soldiers hashed out the agreement during three hours of closed-door talks with U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane.
Although mired in the subtleties of arcane election law, the question of whether to extend the deadline came down to timing: How far back could the state push it and still certify election results by the Dec. 7 cutoff date?
Counties had delayed sending absentee ballots overseas because of uncertainty over whether the courts would allow Ralph Nader to be a presidential candidate. Nonetheless, Rendell officials have said that all but two counties - rural Huntingdon and Venango - met a Sept. 20 deadline for those mailings.
But many soldiers serving abroad have yet to receive ballots because of wartime postage delays, GOP officials have argued.
Under the agreement, overseas ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 2 will be counted as long as they reach their county election bureaus by 5 p.m. Nov. 10.
Rendell's stance softened as the day progressed.
In the early morning, he had offered to extend the deadline until Nov. 5, then, hours later, he offered Nov. 9, before eventually giving up one more day.
By settling on Nov. 10, the state leaves itself enough time to count the ballots and factor them into a new law triggering a recount in statewide races closer than half of one percentage point, said Mark Aronchick, a Philadelphia election-law expert hired by the Rendell administration.
Yesterday's accord pertains only to votes cast for presidential candidates. The two sides have agreed to file an emergency request with Commonwealth Court to extend the deadline until Nov. 10 for state offices as well.
The settlement to the case comes nine days after Kane rejected a request by the U.S. Justice Department to extend the deadline by two weeks.
Kane ruled at that time that federal lawyers failed to prove their case, in part because they never presented evidence that a single overseas voter would be harmed.
Yesterday, she lauded the parents of the two soldiers for their persistence to "ensure that your young people are not disenfranchised."
Attorneys for the father of an Army soldier from Altoona and Alan Novak, chairman of the Republican State Committee, filed a separate motion in Commonwealth Court late yesterday seeking a 30-day extension.
For more than a week, Rendell has come under intense pressure from GOP officials who have accused him of trying to suppress the military vote.
His main phone line has been swamped by more than 1,000 calls, prompted by conservative talk-show hosts who have urged listeners to complain. The volume has forced the administration to route calls to a recorded message explaining the governor's position on the issue, said Kate Philips, Rendell's press secretary.
The Republican Party was exploiting the issue "big time... to try and create the impression that Democrats don't care about the military," Rendell said in one of two conference calls with reporters yesterday.
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Contact staff writer Mario F. Cattabiani at 717-787-5990 or mcattabiani@phillynews.com. Inquirer staff writers Nathan Gorenstein and John Sullivan contributed to this article.
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