Overseas Absentee Battle Continues

Nov. 21 -- 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.

“Floridians serving in uniform, who may live and work in dangerous locations around the world, should not bedisenfranchised because of circumstances requiring the delivery of their ballots without a postmark,” GOP Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel, said at a news conference today in Florida.

And Republican Rep. Floyd Spence of South Carolina, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, issued a statement today saying his committee is “currently engaged in a thorough review” of how overseas military ballots were handled by county elections commissions.

Republicans have charged since Saturday that Democrats unfairly sought to disqualify as many overseas absentee ballots from the military as possible, thinking the votes in question would favor the GOP presidential nominee, George W. Bush, over his Democratic rival, Al Gore.

In response, Democrats dispatched retiring Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a decorated Vietnam veteran, to Miami and Palm Beach today to act as a campaign surrogate on the issue.

“We should not be playing politics with our military,” said Kerrey at an afternoon press conference, calling for military voters to be held to the same standard as everybody else. “If they have a legal ballot, it should be counted. If it’s not a legal ballot, it should not be counted.”

Kerrey added he was in Florida to counteract “irresponsible things being said by the Bush campaign that the vicepresident was stealing votes, that there’s election fraud, thatsomehow that he’s incompetent to be commander in chief,” adding that such comments were “reckless, they’re irresponsible and they’re wrong.”