OVER 1,400 MILITARY BALLOTS REJECTED

“It is a very sad day in our country when the men and women of the armed forces who are serving abroad and facing danger on a daily basis ... yet because of some technicality out of their control they are denied the right to vote for the president of the United States who will be their commander in chief,” retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, a Bush supporter, said in a statement distributed by the campaign.

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 foreign ballots.

From the MSNBC webpage:

Overseas tally boosts Bush’s lead

100s of ballots disqualified
by county election officials

MSNBC NEWS SERVICES

http://www.msnbc.com/news/491409.asp

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Nov. 18 — Republican George W. Bush led Democrat Al Gore in Florida by 930 votes after county election officials turned in foreign ballots Saturday. But a new controversy was brewing: After more than 1,400 foreign absentee votes were thrown out, Republicans accused Democrats of mounting a coordinated challenge of ballots from military personnel.

Thomas Spencer, a Miami attorney for Bush, said the GOP legal team would weigh whether to sue this weekend.

WITH ALL 67 COUNTIES reporting their international results, Bush picked up 1,380 votes and Gore got 750 votes, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Saturday.

Republicans accused the Gore campaign of behaving unpatriotically by challenging foreign ballots, many of which came from members of the armed services.

“It is a very sad day in our country when the men and women of the armed forces who are serving abroad and facing danger on a daily basis ... yet because of some technicality out of their control they are denied the right to vote for the president of the United States who will be their commander in chief,” retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, a Bush supporter, said in a statement distributed by the campaign.

But the Gore campaign said it was local, elected Florida elections officials who decided whether or not to accept these ballots.

“It’s also somewhat disingenuous for the Republican Party to talk about some kind of Democratic conspiracy when both sides had observers out in the field,” said Gore spokesman Jenny Backus.

According to MSNBC, 2,206 absentee ballots were accepted while 1,420 were rejected because they lacked proper postmarks, signatures or envelopes.

In Jackson County, the last county to tally its foreign ballots, about a dozen local officials, party advocates, and interested voters gathered Saturday morning at the elections supervisor’s office in Marianna, a rural town about 60 miles west of Tallahassee.

Unlike the scene in many counties where party advocates argued ballot by ballot for hours, no one debated the validity of Jackson’s three ballots. The canvassing board took five minutes to open the ballots, check them for the proper postmarks and signatures, and approve them. The result: Gore two, Bush one.

“There’s nothing to argue. Just follow the law,” said Sylvia Stephens, Jackson’s elections supervisor.

Counties had until noon Saturday to report their results to Harris, who is blocked by the Florida Supreme Court from certifying the state results. The Supreme Court meets Monday to hear arguments about ongoing hand recounts in three South Florida counties.

HUNDREDS REJECTED

In some counties, half or nearly all the foreign ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn’t have postmarks.

Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 international ballots. In Hillsborough County, 74 of the 135 ballots were rejected after Democrats raised concerns about postmark or signature problems. Alachua County rejected half of the 56 ballots it received. St. Lucie rejected 13 of 14 and Lake County, all five.

“The party of the man who wants to be the next commander in chief 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.

Thomas Spencer, a Miami attorney for Bush, said the GOP legal team would weigh whether to sue this weekend. “One of the problems with those ballots is it is so difficult under Florida and federal law that you almost have to be a rocket scientist to comply,” he 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 foreign ballots.

Such protests had to be filed before the ballot was taken out of the envelope. The letter focused on protesting military ballots.

Herron said he was retained by the DNC on election night.

“I’m not the only one that did this,” he added. “Everybody got the opportunity to argue their case in front of the canvassing boards.”

Asked about the high number of ballots thrown out, Herron replied: “I don’t know what the numbers would be. It was our position in a neutral way, these were standards everywhere.”

EXTRAORDINARY SECURITY MEASURES

With so much at stake, election supervisors took extraordinary security measures, locking the ballots in strongboxes and safes. Duval County in northeast Florida posted armed policemen outside the room where its unopened ballots were locked overnight.

“It’s too crazy not to do that,” Duval election spokeswoman Susan Tucker Johnson told The Wall Street Journal.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.