At 2:20 PM -0500 11/11/00, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Fri, Nov 10, 2000 at 12:47:45PM -0800, Tim May wrote:
I just heard Karen Hughes of the Bush Campaign express concern about the status of absentee ballots being mailed AFTER the outcome of the election was shown to be so close. In particular, after the legal cut-off date.
Here's a link to the Florida law on absentee ballots:
(1) The supervisor of elections shall safely keep in his or her office any envelopes received containing marked ballots of absent electors, and he or she shall, before the canvassing of the election returns, deliver the envelopes to the county canvassing board along with his or her file or list kept regarding said ballots.
(2) All marked absent electors' ballots to be counted must be received by the supervisor by 7 p.m. the day of the election. All ballots received thereafter shall be marked with the time and date of receipt and filed in the supervisor's office. ---
I must be missing something. Sure looks like the deadline was Tuesday, with perhaps an exemption for overseas ballots elsewhere in the law?
There are many, many news reports about November 17th, this coming Friday, being the deadline for all absentee ballots. This from election officials, state legislators, reporters, legal scholars, etc. So, yes, I would say that there must obviously be other language on this. If not, then you could have the journalistic scoop of the century, er, for a few days, until bigger bombshells fall. And this is the same situation, more or less, in other states. Language about ballot envelopes being _postmarked_ on or before Election Day. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.