-Caveat Lector-
Nation:
New York Times says Florida accepted flawed overseas ballots
Nando's Election 2000 coverage
The Associated Press
(July 14, 2001 8:17 p.m. EDT) - A New York Times investigation into
overseas ballots that helped George W. Bush win the state of Florida and
with it, the presidency, found that Florida election officials, facing
intense GOP pressure to accept military votes, counted hundreds of overseas
absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws.
The Times published the results of its investigation in Sunday editions.
The newspaper's six-month examination of the 2,490 overseas ballots
accepted after Election Day found 680 questionable votes.
But while that number is greater than Bush's 537-vote victory in Florida,
the paper concluded that Bush still would likely have defeated Al Gore even
if those flawed ballots had been discarded.
Gary King, a Harvard expert on voting patterns and statistical models,
concluded that Bush's winning margin would most likely have been reduced to
245 votes if the overseas votes had been thrown out. There was only a
slight chance that discarding the questionable ballots would have made Gore
the winner.
It was impossible to simply count the questionable votes because the
ballots themselves are separated from the envelopes containing voter
information.
The paper found no evidence of fraud by either party, though it did
interview voters who admitted they had cast illegal ballots after Election
Day. It found no support for suspicions that the Bush campaign had
organized an effort to solicit late votes.
After the uncertain results of Nov. 7, both Gore and Bush began
high-pressure postelection campaigns to eke out a victory. The importance
of overseas ballots - and particularly military votes -
quickly became apparent.
The paper documented a successful effort by Republicans to count the
maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Bush, particularly
those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to
disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Gore.
Counties carried by Gore accepted two in 10 ballots that had no evidence
they were mailed on or before Election Day. Counties carried by Bush
accepted six in 10 of such ballots. Bush counties were four times as likely
as Gore counties to count ballots lacking witness signatures and addresses.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the Times: "This election was
decided by the voters of Florida a long time ago. And the nation, the
president and all but the most partisan Americans have moved on."
Officials with the Gore campaign did not immediately respond to calls from
the Associated Press.
Of the 680 flawed ballots, the paper found: 344 ballots with no evidence
they were cast on or before Election Day; 183 ballots with United States
postmarks rather than overseas postmarks; 96 ballots lacking the required
signature or address of a witness; 169 ballots from voters who were not
registered, who failed to sign the envelope or who had not requested a
ballot as required by federal law; five ballots received after the Nov. 17
deadline; and 19 voters who cast two ballots, both of which counted.
The total number of flaws exceeds the number of questionable overseas
ballots because many of the envelopes had multiple defects.
Although Bush held a fluctuating lead throughout the 36 days of recounts
and court fights after Nov. 7, the Florida Department of State's Web site
shows that if none of the overseas absentee ballots were counted after
Election Day, Gore would have won Florida by 202 votes, and retained
Democratic control of the White House.
Benjamin L. Ginsberg, national counsel to the Bush campaign, recalled those
days as being "as hardball a game as any of us had ever been involved in."
Judge Anne Kaylor, chairwoman of the Polk County canvassing board, said the
combination of Republican pressure and court rulings caused her board to
count some ballots that would probably have been considered illegal in past
years.
"I think the rules were bent," said Kaylor, a Democrat. "Technically, they
were not supposed to be accepted. Any canvassing board that says they
weren't under pressure is being less than candid."
Ginsberg said, "We didn't ask anybody to do anything that wasn't in the law
as it existed on Election Day."
While both the Postal Service and the Pentagon worked hard to ensure the
timely delivery of absentee ballots to Florida, the Bush campaign soon
began to pressure the Pentagon, the paper said.
Ginsberg faxed a letter to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, the only
Republican in the Clinton cabinet, on Nov. 11 urging that ballots be
collected immediately.
In the end, the vast majority of the ballots - 97 percent - arrived before
the Nov. 17 deadline. In previous elections, according to records and
interviews, as many as a third arrived after the 10-day window had closed.
The Times also found a substantial number of people who knowingly cast
their ballots after Election Day. Of the 91 voters interviewed whose
ballots had either missing or late postmarks, 30 acknowledged marking
ballots late. Only four were counted.
While the Bush campaign loudly criticized a Gore supporter's memo that laid
out a strategy to challenge overseas ballots, the Bush team had its own
such strategy, the Times reported.
A Bush campaign memo laid out a two-pronged strategy - telling Bush lawyers
how to challenge "illegal" civilian votes that they assumed would be for
Gore and also how to defend equally defective military ballots, the Times
said.
Ginsberg acknowledged that they had fought for military ballots while
opposing ballots from civilians. Others involved in the campaign denied it.
While the election was finally decided when the U.S. Supreme Court refused
to allow a statewide manual recount because of potential equal rights
violations, the court never considered unequal treatment of overseas
absentee votes.
Gore campaign aides argued they should include overseas votes in their
legal challenge, but Gore rejected the idea, Democratic lawyer Joe Sandler
told the Times.
Copyright © 2001 Nando Media
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