A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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October 27, 2004Election Lawsuits Update...and a few odds and ends. The Des Moines Register reports a GOP suit to prevent provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct from being counted. The U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals has overturned previous decisions in Michigan and Ohio to allow such ballots (as had the Florida Supreme Court) but as each state's laws differ, the relevance of the appeals court decisions to the Iowa suits is unclear. The Columbus Dispatch reports that Dems are suing to stop the GOP from challenging thousands of new registrations. The state GOP sent a bulk mailing to new registrants, and is challenging all those whose mailers were returned as undeliverable. (Amusingly, the GOP has already been forced to drop several thousand of the challenges for failing to fill out their paperwork on them properly.) The Miami Herald reports that a federal court judge has tossed out a lawsuit seeking to allow defective registrations, saying county and state officials didn't have to process incomplete voter registration applications. The Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that 60,000 absentee ballots have gone, well, absent in Broward County. Authorities are investigating, and blaming the US Postal Service. The Washington Times is reporting that Democrats are pursuing nine lawsuits in Florida, all claiming attempts to illegally discriminate against minority voters. Some of the underlying issues (voting provisional ballots in the wrong precinct, incomplete voter registrations) have already been ruled on by both the Florida Supreme Court and the federal courts. The Smoking Gun reports that a man is under arrest for allegedly trying to run down GOP Congresswoman Katherine Harris with his car. The man claims that he was "exercising my political expression...." A Florida stem cell research advocate and Kerry supporter in Florida is under arrest for stealing almost 80 Bush/Cheney and Mel Martinez signs. She also appears in statewide television commercials urging people to vote against a medical malpractice reform initiative on the ballot. This chart shows the states where Ralph Nader is on the ballot. Nader failed to get ballot placement in the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Remains of New Species of Hobbit-Sized Human Found That last has absolutely nothing at all to do with the elections, I just found it interesting and included it as a reward for those who read this far! Posted by Tully at October 27, 2004 02:22 PMComments
I'm not sure your description of the Ohio incident is accurate, Tully. The first stories about it appeared in the Dispatch Saturday and Sunday -- front page, above the fold stories. My understanding is this. The Republicans sent mail to every newly registered Ohio voter. It wasn't a "state notice", or limited to people who's forms were incomplete. They then, apparently, got 35,000 of them back as "undeliverable". They then filed a court challenge against all 35,000 of them ... but they only filed it last week -- 11 days before the election. By law, the state has until 2 days before the election to hold hearings on all challenges. So they basically have a week to hold hearings for 35,000 people. Which has led to what you're reading about in this story -- people being told they have to appear in court this week ... some of them not being able to make it on such short notice ... the city of Cleveland renting it's convention center out to hold 17,000 hearings on Friday and Saturday. Crazy stuff. There is a certain rumble here that Ohio may be the new Florida this election. Posted by: William Swann at October 27, 2004 02:47 PMYou're absolutely right, William, I screwed up. I was going quick and missed it--the story itself is totally unclear on the point but I've now confirmed what you said via other sources. Frankly I was more interested in the ironic humor of the GOP having to drop a whole bunch of the challenges because they screwed up their own paperwork. I hope the whole mess gets tossed by the court, and I expect it will be. The place to challenge is at the polls, not "in bulk" in the courts on short notice. Off to edit in the correction--the mailings indeed originated with the state GOP and not with the elections boards as I originally stated. Posted by: Tully at October 27, 2004 03:02 PMAh, yes. Here we go. Here's the first story about this (from Saturday's paper). The challenges were apparently filed Friday. The challenges arose from a letter Bennett sent to all voters who registered between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31. The letter, Bennett said, welcomed the new voters "to the process" and invited them to vote Republican. Once someone is challenged, they have to receive a letter by first-class mail no more than three days before a hearing to answer the challenge. So, with 11 days to go, the state was required to send out 35,000 letters, which have to be received 3 days before a hearing, and the person has to show up for the hearing. This is obviously a huge problem in the more populated areas. One of the smaller counties has apparently already handled it, though, with these results. Posted by: William Swann at October 27, 2004 03:13 PMLooks like we were posting at the same time, Tully. Sorry about that! Posted by: William Swann at October 27, 2004 03:14 PMI just wonder who is going to win the homo-floresiensis vote this year. I suspect it will be the candidate who gets the endorsement of Bilbo Baggins. Posted by: Will at October 27, 2004 03:29 PMI'm voting for Peregrin Took. What with Frodo declining the nomination (citing "weariness" from his service in Mordor) I think Took's clearly the better candidate. I think that Grima chap is really just a front for the Deep Delving lobby. And I don't for one minute believe those absurd charges Michael Moore made in that film! Yeah, William, I saw that one while first double-sourcing and it's probably the cause of my error. In that county it actually was returned mailers from the election board that the challenges were based on. I got the two stories a bit mixed in me mind, methinks. I blame Sauron, and that damned palantir. Posted by: Tully at October 27, 2004 03:48 PMYep, you're right. That guy filed his own set of local challenges. Enterprising fellow! Posted by: William Swann at October 27, 2004 04:04 PMI see the court rejected the GOP's case in Ohio. Posted by: Tully at October 28, 2004 01:44 PM |
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