Ladies and Gentlemen, Here is the ballgame, from this morning's St.
Petersburg "Times."  Hank

 
 
 

7,599 overseas votes still out there
By BRYAN GILMER, STEPHEN HEGARTY and ANITA KUMAR

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 15, 2000 


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Even if Al Gore inches ahead of George W. Bush in a hand recount, it is
unlikely he will be able to overcome Bush's expected advantage in uncounted
overseas ballots. 

According to a St. Petersburg Times analysis of absentee voting and a survey
of ballots still uncounted, Bush can expect a boost when at least 1,865 of
those absentee ballots are tallied Friday. 

As of Tuesday, that's how many overseas ballots had been received in the
week since the election, according to a Times survey of each of Florida's 67
county elections offices. 

Assuming they were filled out properly and postmarked by Nov. 7, those
ballots will be counted Friday, the deadline for them to arrive. In the
meantime, they are being kept in vaults and behind double-locked doors. 

In addition to those already locked away for counting on Friday, there are
7,599 overseas ballots that could still arrive in the mail. The Escambia
County elections office got 60 more ballots Tuesday. Bay County got 40 more.
Those are likely to be bad news for the vice president, who already trails
Bush in the Florida popular vote, with manual recounts under way or planned
in several counties. 

In most elections, the overseas ballots are overlooked, especially for
national races in which margins of victory tend to be quite large. But this
year, with Gore and Bush in a near dead heat, and with the nation's top
lawyers arguing over a few hundred votes, the thousands of ballots coming
from Florida's military personnel and civilians overseas could decide the
election. 

"I would think that those who are supporters of Mr. Gore would not count on
that as a source for an electoral edge," said Michael Dawson, chairman of
the political science department of the University of Chicago. 

A few factors work against Gore. First of all, more Republicans than
Democrats requested overseas absentee ballots -- 3,834 to 2,531 -- according
to the Times survey of the 25 counties that kept tallies on the party
affiliation of overseas requestors. Also, the domestic and overseas absentee
ballots that were counted on Election Day were heavily in Bush's favor -- 59
percent to 37 percent by the analysis of 57 counties that were able to break
down the absentee vote. 

Counties that could not provide information this week include some large
counties that favored Gore, such as Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. 

"The political science wisdom has been for years that absentee voters tend
to fit the demographic profile of Republicans instead of Democrats," Dawson
said. 

If that weren't enough, Republicans made a special effort to solicit
absentee and overseas voters this year. 

"I think the Bush campaign has been aware for quite some time, as I assume
the Gore campaign has as well, that the Florida campaign was incredibly
close," Dawson said. 

Indeed, Democrats say they invested more effort this year to encourage
absentee voting overseas. 

They are counting on a big boost from Israel, where thousands of South
Florida voters live and visit, partly because of the popularity of Joseph
Lieberman -- the first Jewish candidate for vice president. More than 80
percent of American voters living in Israel traditionally root for the
Democratic candidate. 

"We're past excited. We're stunned. We've been working so hard for the past
20 years and we feel we've just hit the jackpot," says Bryna Franklin, a
volunteer in the Israel chapter of Democrats Abroad. "The votes coming out
of here could determine the gap between Bush and Gore." 

"We feel pretty good about the numbers and the efforts abroad," said state
Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe. "They were working really hard. They were
fired up." 

But areas for potential Democratic gains from Israel are hard to find among
Florida's counties. 

Gore may look to Broward County, where he took 67 percent of the popular
vote on Nov. 7. That county sent out 1,623 overseas ballots. Some 522
already have been counted. How many more will be counted Friday? 

Broward has at least 37 more ballots stored in a vault, but elections
officials are not keeping a running tally. 

But any gains in Broward could be offset by absentees still to be counted in
Escambia County, where Bush took 63 percent of the vote. That county, with a
large military population, sent 1,802 ballots overseas and 626 have been
counted. Escambia has 195 ballots on hand to count Friday. 

In Duval County, where Bush took 57 percent of the vote, more than half the
ballots sent out have been counted, and 161 ballots are on hand ready to
count. 

"Traditionally, that's going to be a heavily Republican vote," said Bert
Ralston of the Republican Party of Duval County. "Even if you just look at
the absentee trends, Duval's ballots on Friday go to Bush." 

At least two counties have not yet counted any of their overseas absentee
ballots, even those that arrived by Election Day. 

Monroe County in South Florida -- it split almost equally on Election Day
between the two candidates -- has 181. Seminole, a central county that Bush
carried, is holding 164. 

The close vote has military personnel and civilians around the world
watching and hoping their vote arrives in time. 

"I know a lot of us really wanted to vote in this election; it definitely
was important to me," said U.S. Army Capt. John C. Mostellar of St.
Petersburg, now stationed in Kosovo. 

"We're all on pins and needles here, wondering what's going on," Mostellar
said. 

Mostellar, who voted for Bush, mailed off his ballot on Oct. 23. Chances
are, Pinellas County received Mostellar's ballot long ago and counted it
Nov. 7. 

Due to the importance of the overseas ballots, the U.S. Postal Service has
put delivery of ballots on the fast track. All U.S. military mail is routed
through Miami, and the military ballots are specially marked and flown to
their destination in the states. 

"We're seeing to it that the ballots are received by the elections offices
the same day we get it," said Postal Service spokeswoman Enola Rice. "In
some counties, they have more than one pickup. These ballots could decide
who is the next president." 

Since the day after the election, the Postal Service has been keeping track
of the number of military overseas ballots received in Florida. Excluding
Tuesday, 447 ballots from military personnel around the world have arrived. 

Many overseas votes already have been counted. Of the more than 22,000
overseas ballots requested from Florida elections offices, at least 12,590
were received in time to be counted on Election Day. 

Tom Fina, executive director of Democrats Abroad, said he believes the
majority of remaining overseas ballots will be for Gore because he said most
military ballots probably arrived before Election Day. That's because those
in the armed services tend to get their ballots in earlier and because
military mail is faster. 

"We think those numbers (of outstanding absentee ballots) represent
civilians and those civilians are Democrats," Fina said. 

Kenneth Janda, a political science professor at Northwestern University who
studies party politics, said he is not surprised to hear the Gore campaign
insisting that the overseas ballots must be counted before a winner can be
determined -- it's a stalling tactic to buy time for manual recounts of
Election Day returns in heavily Democratic counties, he says. 

" "As long as we have to wait until the oversees ballots come in, why don't
we count these now,' " Janda says Democrats will claim. 

- Times correspondent Flore de Preneuf contributed to this report from
Israel. 


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© Copyright 2000 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mallue, Henry 
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 9:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: More Election Stuff


The 1974 Pinellas County case cited in Rick Coffinberger's Washington Post
article is

Nelson v. Robinson, 301 So.2d 508 (2d DCA Fla. 1974).

The suit was brought by then state Rep. A. S. (Jim) Robinson, who alleged
that his equal protection rights were violated by his ballot position in
1974's Republican primary for his House seat, for which six others, in
addition to Jim, had filed.  I had run against Jim for his House seat in
1968 when I was a student at the Holland Law
Center at the University of Florida.  I got 42% of the vote (he was the
Republican nominee, I was the Democrat nominee),
and, as is well known, there is no second place in an election.  He was
still in office in Spring, 1974, when he took a cruise off the Yucatan while
the Legislature was in Session.  That action, and the St. Petersburg Times'
dismay with it, attracted six other Republicans to challenge Jim in his 1974
primary.  Since there were seven in the race, the Pinellas Supervisor of
Elections had to put four candidates on the first line, and three on the
second line.  Since under Florida law such candidates are listed in
alphabetical order, and Robinson was number six of the seven in that order,
his name had the middle place on the second line.  To this positioning he
objected in his equal protection suit.

The Second District Court of Appeal rejected his claim.  The court held "an
unfavorable position of the ballot (from the candidate's standpoint) which
does not also prevent the exercise of the people's right to a full, free and
open choice, cannot operate as a predicate for an equal protection claim by
the candidate."  301 So.2d at 512.  Thus, it would appear that Vice
President Gore may be on thin ice if this case is used as precedent.

But what about the 19,000 disenfranchised (confused) voters in Palm Beach
County this year?  The Second District court continued in 1974, "The
constitution intended that a voter search for the name of the candidate of
his choice and to express his choice for that candidate without regard to
others on the ballot.  Furthermore, it assumes his ability to read and his
intelligence to indicate his choice with the degree of care commensurate
with the solemnity of the occasion."  301 So.2d at 512.  It appears that a
challenge from any of the 19,000 may not meet with much success, either.
Perhaps that's as it should be.

Kindest Personal Regards to All,
Hank Mallue



-----Original Message-----
From: DANIEL HERRON [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 9:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: More Election Stuff


FYI: From rick Coffinberger at George Mason Univ.

Dan: Some of our ALSB colleagues may find this Washington Post article of
interest.  So far it is the best one I have read on the legal aspects of the
Fla. election dabacle.
Rick

To view the entire article, go to
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57142-2000Nov9.html
<http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57142-2000Nov9.html>

Territory Is Uncharted for Court Action

If they choose to go to court to reverse the apparent result of Florida's
election, Vice President Gore and his supporters would be venturing into
uncharted legal and political territory.