Elections Today
- Pennsylvania
Recent Projections
| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
Overseas Absentee Battle Continues
Nov. 22 -- George W. Bush is asking a Florida state court to mandate the inclusion of thousands of overseas military ballots that were disqualified by Florida elections officials over the weekend.
The lawsuit, which covers 13 predominantly Republican counties in Florida, asks a Leon County judge to declare ballots from armed forces personnel valid, even if the ballots are lacking a postmark. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who earlierruled in the dispute over the deadline for certification of all ofFlorida’s ballots. It was his ruling the Florida Supreme Courtreversed Tuesday night.
Overseas military absentee ballots continue to be a point of controversy in the Florida vote, as Republicans attempt to gain political leverage by claiming Democrats have unfairly excluded ballots from armed forces personnel.
Republicans have charged since the weekend that Democrats unfairly sought to disqualify as many overseas absentee ballots from the military as possible, thinking the votes in question would favor their presidential candidate, Bush. Democrats insist they only attempted to prevent illegal ballots from being counted, with no focus on the military.
Common Ground?
At a noon press conference today in Austin, Texas, Bush called on Democratic rival Al Gore to join him in making sure disqualified military absentee ballots in Florida are counted if they “were signed and received in time [to] count.”
The Gore camp, however, is maintaining that only those legally valid military ballots should be counted.
Standing outside the vice president’s private residence in Washington, Gore campaign chairman William Daley said today the Gore campaign already is “strongly committed to seeing that all the votes are fully and fairly counted within the law, and that of course includes all military ballots that are legally cast as well.”
Gore earlier had offered to meet personally with Bush in an effort to reach common ground on the election turmoil. In his midday statement today, Bush did not directly address Gore’s proposal to meet, but suggested compromise on military ballots might be a point of conciliation.
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