"Do absentee ballots "have to be counted" in states where the vote margin was not close?
I seem to remember from the 2000 election that military and absentee ballots are normally just thrown out -- unless the margin of victory in the regularly cast ballots for that particular state was under 1% or so.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see all valid absentee ballots counted, no matter what. But my understanding was that that's not the way it's done."
All absentee ballots MUST be counted. They are as valid as any other type of vote. In fact, on the West Coast, the entire state of OR votes absentee by mail, and more than 30% of CA and WA voters also vote by absentee ballot. In CA, absentee ballots that are received before election day are counted and included with the election night totals. The absentee ballots that are received on the day of the election (or dropped off at the polls) are counted after election day. The total post-election night absentee ballots in CA is over two million of which 1,065,000 have already been counted (as of last night). This is the major reason why Pres. Bush's lead in narrowing in the national vote count. Kerry is taking a slight majority of the recently counted CA absentee ballots (51.5%).
Even if it was the case in the past, no longer will votes "just be discounted". The democrat (gay) party demanded every single vote be counted. Therefore from now on every legally cast vote shall be counted.
....and the totals will keep stacking up for GWBush.
Be careful what you ask for lesson there.
Thanks for that info. But I still wonder if it varies from state to state. My memory may be wrong, but I thought Florida, for one, did not bother counting absentee ballots if their counting could not change the outcome of the election.