Posted on 04/10/2003 4:56:22 PM PDT by paul in cape
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) More than 1,100 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out Friday as Republicans complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel.
In some counties, half or nearly all of 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.
``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief (GORE/LIEBERMAN)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.
Democrats dismissed the GOP suggestions of a coordinated campaign, noting local election officials made the decisions. "Rushing to a hasty conclusion and making partisan accusations is exactly what we don't need right now,'' Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus 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 are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks.
Republicans circulated a letter dated Friday from Navy Capt. E.M DuCom, deputy director of the military postal service, who said military mail is required to be postmarked. But he added, "There are instances when time constraints do not allow for proper postmarking/cancellation of the mail. The last flight may be departing the ship and the mail has to get on it.''
Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist working for Bush in Florida, said 110 of 113 write-in ballots, mostly from military forces, were invalidated by officials in Miami-Dade County. He said more than half were thrown out because they had no witness or witness address listed but ``the form doesn't indicate that a witness is necessary.''
But the latest battle was over overseas ballots.
``There are more attorneys than there are ballots,'' said Bob Edwards, Chairman of the Republican Executive Committee for Walton County, where five votes were tossed out.
More than three-quarters of Orange County's 147 overseas absentee ballots were rejected by that county's canvassing board. Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said he was shocked by that number but attributes the 117 rejections to voters failing to keep their records current.
However, Republicans handed out an affidavit from the chief postal clerk of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy to counter Democratic challenges to envelopes without postmarks.
``It is not unusual for mail being sent by naval personnel, whether embarked on naval vessels or otherwise, not to have a postmark,'' Edgardo Rodriguez said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sweetliberty.org ...
Neil Boortz mentioned this today on his radio show. Maybe he's lurking and found my posts of the past few days.
Complete Article HERE
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A blast from the past! (think the dims might have learned from their mistakes in rigging that election, for future elections?? </ sarcasm>)
Excellent find. I'm going to keep posting reminders of this off and on up to election day 2004. Hopefully some of our friends on talk radio and the media will pick up on this.
No, not really.
nope
They were thrown out base on challenges by DemocRAT lawyers. Next time, I expect Republicans to anticipate all sorts dirty tricks by DemocRATS and counter them.
Also, next time DemocRATS try to do this, we should post the personal information about them on the web. We should inform the local papers in the hometowns of these "lawyers" who are brought to contest elections the way Saddam brings in foreign jihadists to intimidate his own population. We need to Freep them in their hometowns.
I've posted this before, but I'll do it again. During the Florida election debacle, a caller to a Baltimore talk show introduced himself as a life-long Democrat. He related a story about a friend of his, who was a lawyer. The lawyer called him and said that he had been enlisted to go to Florida to "throw out military absentee ballots". The caller was in tears and said that he would never, ever, vote for a Democrat again.
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