Consider these two excerpts from Florida's law:
Florida Election Rule 1S-2.013 Absentee Ballots to Overseas Electors.
(7) With respect to the presidential preference primary and the general
election, any absentee ballot cast for a federal office by an overseas
elector which is postmarked or signed and dated no later than the
date of the Federal election shall be counted if received no later
than 10 days from the date of the Federal election as long as such absentee
ballot is otherwise proper. Overseas electors shall be informed by the
supervisors of elections of the provisions of this rule, i.e., the ten
day extension provision for the presidential preference primary and the
general election, and the provision for voting for the second primary.
Florida Election Code Section 101.62 Request for absentee ballots.--
(7)(c) With respect to marked ballots mailed by absent qualified
electors overseas, only those ballots mailed with an APO, FPO, or
foreign postmark shall be considered valid.
Now, consider these guidelines Harris sent to every county after the
election and just prior to the absentee ballot count:
"With regard to the status of overseas absentee ballots, they must
have been executed as of last Tuesday. They must bear a
foreign postmark as provide[d] in Section 101.62(7), and they must
be received by the supervisors of elections by midnight Friday. They
are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday."
Federal law mandates that states accept overseas ballots for up to 10
days after Election Day. This extension allows time for
overseas ballots mailed on Election Day to arrive stateside so they
can be counted. However, what is to stop anyone from
mailing a ballot after Election Day (i.e., voting after an election
– a right know one has)? To avoid this scenario, ballots
without postmarks indicating a mailing date are often not accepted.
At the very least, they have to be signed and dated by election day, but
that is hardly a strong defense against post election day voting.
Florida law has strict standards for what constitutes an acceptable
absentee ballot. One of those requires that they must bear a
postmark. However, Florida’s Secretary of State sent out a memorandum
on Nov. 13 to every county outlining the standards to be followed during
the absentee ballot counting in which she affirmed the need for a postmark
but added that “they do not have to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday.”
Some counties followed this latter guideline and accepted any postmarked
ballot regardless of the date; others ignored it and rejected ballots with
postmarks dated after Nov. 8; still others decided to ignore the Secretary’s
orders and Florida law altogether by accepting ballots without postmarks.
Moreover, Republican and Democratic lawyers pressured canvassing boards
across the state to either throw out or include certain ballots.
As a result, in Democratic leaning counties' absentee ballots were rejected
at a higher rate than in Republican Counties.
The GOP waged a public relations war to make Democrats look bad for
trying to block the counting of illegal absentee
ballots, many of which were sent by members of the military.
The Bush lawyers succedded in getting absentee ballot recounts in about
a dozen heavily Republican counties that added more than 150 Bush votes.
The Bush campaign was eager to defend the people’s right to have their vote counted even if it is technically illegal (i.e., not postmarked) and the result of voter error (i.e., absentee voters who did not follow the explicit instructions found on the ballot) when they know that it benefits them. However, when it comes to ballots that may go against them (like the ones in Broward, Palm Beach, and Dade), they are all too happy to make every legal step imaginable to make sure they never get counted and even suggest that such votes don't deserve to be counted because the voters did not follow the instructions. Certainly, amongst the ballots in those South Florida counties are ones with votes on them cast by W.W.II, Korean War, and Vietnam veterans that have never been counted by the machines. There is no question that these are legal votes cast on Election Day, but the Bush Campaign wants them ignored because of a technicality (i.e., the chad did not fall off completely so machines won’t read them). Of course, the Gore campaign is only obsessed with these voter’s rights because they think it will benefit them. When it comes to voter error and legal technicalities, like the cases concerning absentee ballots, Democrats are all too eager to request for disqualification due to voter error and/or legal technicalities.
Consider this eye-opening account from the Washington Post regarding the absentee ballots:
To view the entire article, go to
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4787-2001Jan30.html
For Bush Camp, Some Momentum From a Memo
A flood of ballots had arrived in the last few days, suggesting that
people were voting even after Election Day had passed. That's why postmarks
were important. While it was true that military units overseas, especially
ships, did not always postmark their mail, there was no way to tell, by
looking at the outer envelope, whether a vote had come from a member of
the
military, or a businessman or a tourist.
Gore's team was so ground down that it did little to resist the next
move by the other side, which Unger, the Bush lawyer, called his "Thanksgiving
stuffing" operation. Unger's team of lawyers pushed the canvassing boards
in strongly military counties to have the absentee ballots counted once
again. He succeeded in 12 counties; most of them heavily Republican, and
half home to huge military bases. Bush picked up 176 net votes in the
stuffing, mainly when boards agreed to ignore missing postmarks or missing
absentee applications, which are required by Florida law.
The all-Republican canvassing board in Duval County, home to several large Navy air bases, initially threw out absentee ballots that were not dated or postmarked. It pained Rick Mullaney, a member of the board and son of a Navy man. And he didn't care much for the Gore lawyers' tactics, which he likened to "watching a criminal defense lawyer try to toss out the confession of a guilty man." But Florida law was the law, and the law said no postmark or date, no vote.
On Nov. 24, the board reconvened. Mullaney quoted Lieberman and asked Gore's lawyers what their position was. "They were in a box," Mullaney said. "Those lawyers were in a difficult position, and their attitude had completely changed."
Duval County counted the vast majority of ballots that had been excluded
because of postmark issues, and almost all went for Bush. So after weeks
of complaining about the unfairness of recounts, the Bush campaign had
succeeded in obtaining one by simply convincing the canvassing boards that
Florida law should be ignored because military personnel had rights protected
by
federal law.
The time would come when the margin between Bush and Gore dipped briefly
to just 154 votes. Without his Thanksgiving stuffing, Bush would have fallen
behind for the first time in the deadlock. Gore would have had a lead of
22 votes; a lead that could have changed the entire public relations dynamic.
Two New York Times articles discussed the absentee counting mess:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/19/politics/19OVER.html?pagewanted=2
Speaking in reference to Harris's instructions, “county officials said
that was a reversal of past practice, in which ballots postmarked after
the election were thrown out, and some complained that when they sought
clarification, Ms. Harris's
office gave them contradictory instructions….. In heavily Republican
counties, county canvassing boards reviewing the ballots on Friday often
decided to include military ballots that had no postmarks. In mostly Democratic
counties, canvassing boards tended to throw out those ballots.”
Republican leaders said Saturday they may file suit to have hundreds of military ballots restored to the count total, arguing that the military voter's intent should prevail over Florida's requirement that the ballots be postmarked before Election Day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/18/politics/18OVER.html
“Election officials in several counties, however, said today that they
had always understood that ballots postmarked after Election Day were invalid,
and that they had rejected such ballots in previous elections…..But in
several other counties, officials took Ms. Harris's directives to mean
that votes could be accepted with no postmark at all, and some
said that they had been advised as much by her office over the phone.”
"We've never done it that way before, so we're a little confused about that, but that's what they've told us," said Stephanie Thomas, assistant supervisor of elections in Clay County.
A Miami Herald article (“Ballot rules devastate military vote” BY PAUL
BRINKLEY-ROGERS AND TYLER BRIDGES
10/20/00) contained this quote:
``My dad was in the military for 22 years,'' said Rick Mullaney, a member
of the all-GOP canvassing board in Duval,
which rejected 42 ballots from GIs that bore no postmarks. ``I'm appreciative
of all the efforts of the military, but
Florida statute is clear. . . We need to do better, but unless
there is a postmark, I don't think we can record the vote.''
Here are some additional excerpts from a November 18, 2000 New York
Times Article entitled
THE OVERSEAS BALLOTS Votes From Abroad Lead to Much Confusion and Inconsistency
Among Counties
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/18/politics/18OVER.html?printpage=yes
Counties applied vastly different standards in deciding whether to throw out ballots. A few county officials openly defied the Florida secretary of state's instructions to accept otherwise-valid ballots from overseas that were postmarked after Election Day. Others freely admitted that they did not understand those instructions. And officials in several counties said they feared that the count was being botched, and that another round of delays and court challenges was likely.
"It seems like everybody's been changing the rules to suit their satisfaction," Fred Galey, the Brevard County supervisor of elections, said dryly. "This certainly has been educational."
There was particular confusion over the rules for postmarks on the ballots, and many county officials complained of contradictory — and possibly incorrect — instructions from Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican and a Bush ally whom Democrats have already accused of bias in her handling of the overall count.
State law says that ballots from other countries must be postmarked. But Ms. Harris issued a statement earlier this week saying that they did not have to be postmarked by Election Day, as long as they were signed and dated by Election Day. In other words, a ballot that was filled out on Election Day but mailed the next day would still be valid.
Election officials in several counties, however, said today that they
had always understood that ballots postmarked after
Election Day were invalid, and that they had rejected such ballots in previous
elections. Democratic officials in several of
those counties said Ms. Harris wanted the maximum number of overseas votes
counted in the belief that they would benefit Mr.
Bush.
Canvassing boards in counties carried by Mr. Gore invalidated ballots
at a far higher rate than those in counties carried by Mr. Bush, in part
because Republican-dominated counties accepted ballots postmarked after
the election or with no postmarks,
while Democratic counties rejected them. Among counties with large
numbers of overseas votes, for instance, Broward, Miami- Dade and Orange,
which voted for Mr. Gore, threw out more than 80 percent of the ballots,
while Escambia, Clay and Okaloosa,
which went for Mr. Bush, threw out about 40 percent.
But in several other counties, officials took Ms. Harris's directives to mean that votes could be accepted with no postmark at all, and some said that they had been advised as much by her office over the phone.
"We've never done it that way before, so we're a little confused about
that, but that's what they've told us," said Stephanie
Thomas, assistant supervisor of elections in Clay County.