Judge Rejects ACLU Ballot-Count Suit (Florida)

AP ^ | 11/9

[ambrose]

Posted on Tue, Nov. 09, 2004

Judge Rejects ACLU Ballot-Count Suit

CATHERINE WILSON

Associated Press

MIAMI - Election officials in two Florida counties will not be required to count absentee ballots returned after the polls closed on Election Day, regardless of what problems caused the ballots to be mailed late to voters, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union had asked in a lawsuit for an emergency order requiring Miami-Dade and Broward officials to count the late ballots.

The uncounted ballots would not change the outcome of the presidential race in Florida, where President Bush defeated Sen. John Kerry by about 375,000 votes.

Several thousand absentee ballots were mailed the weekend before the election in the two counties.

"Voters have failed to show the defendants arbitrarily or deliberately delayed" sending the absentee ballots, U.S. District Judge Alan Gold wrote. He noted the three voters named in the suit could have requested ballots earlier than "just days before the election."

Attorneys for election officials in the two counties praised the ruling.

Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida ACLU, said: "We're disappointed when anybody's right to vote is denied, whether or not the vote has any impact on the election whatsoever. Basically, the county supervisors have gotten away with some negligence here."

[Ptarmigan]

A setback for the ACLU.

[SandRat]

Good!

Should read: Judge sticks it to the

[NonValueAdded]

Looks like the ACLU made a poor choice in plaintiffs, probably using people requesting ballots late specifically for purposes of the suit (but that's a guess). It will be interesting to read the opinion to see if they mentioned "Early Voting" as another option open to last-minute absentee requestors. The suit would have made much more sense if the plaintiffs chosen had filed their ballot requests prior to the start of EV (2 weeks prior to election). I also note that each party provided free courier service to deliver ballots. I wonder if anyone filed suit because they failed to affix sufficient postage on their ballot?

Sounds like the court upheld personal responsibility in getting your ballot in on time. How refreshing!

[Mike4Freedom]

A setback for the ACLU.

No, a setback for you and all of us. If a government clerk can deny anyone a vote by being negligent in doing his duty, then anyone can be denied anytime. They should be required to count the vote on principle because next time it might change the outcome and we do not want a bad precedent set and this is a bad precedent.

[digger48]

If voting is important to you, you don't wait til the last minute. Absentee has been made too easy. Voting should not be an effortless task.

[Mike4Freedom]

Voting should not be an effortless task.

A lot of folks, myself included, found a way to vote advance or absentee, what ever their state allowed, to get themselves a paper ballot.

Why would they do that? Because they wanted to be more sure that their vote would count. Electronic machines with no paper trail are useless. They might as well be random number generators. I have no idea who won the election since there was no verifiable trail to provide evidence of the vote.