Citrus County ballot counts upheld

A federal judge rejects the appeal of plaintiffs seeking to throw out overseas ballots.

By JIM ROSS

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 11, 2000

A federal judge has ruled that Citrus County elections officers and their counterparts statewide were correct to accept and count overseas absentee ballots that they received between Election Day and Nov. 17.

Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul issued an order Saturday denying requests from two sets of voters. Those voters wanted the court to throw out all ballots received after Nov. 7, a move that would have given Al Gore a net gain of 739 votes over George W. Bush in the presidential contest.

That gain would constitute more than enough for Gore to overcome Bush's current lead in the Florida vote count. In Citrus, Bush picked up 34 of those late-filed votes while Gore took only six.

The plaintiffs were filing an expedited appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, an attorney in the case said.

Early this month, a set of plaintiffs sued Citrus County's elections officers and their counterparts in nine other Florida counties, as well as state elections officials. A few days later, another set of plaintiffs sued the state officials. Neither Gore nor his campaign were party to either suit.

The allegations were identical in nature, so Paul decided to consider both cases together during proceedings last week in Tallahassee.

The plaintiffs argued that Florida officials were wrong to include in their final tallies the results of about 2,400 overseas absentee ballots. The disputed ballots were received after Nov. 7 but on or before Nov. 17.

State law says no ballot received after 7 p.m. on Election Day is valid. Thus, the ballots must be void, the plaintiffs argued.

Elections officers since the mid 1980s have extended the 10-day grace period for overseas voters, many of whom serve in the military. The 10-day rule was created by state and federal officials, and approved by a federal judge, after the U.S. Justice Department sued Florida, alleging that state elections law did not give overseas voters adequate chance to submit their ballots.

The governments' agreement, which is part of a settlement order in the lawsuit, subsequently became part of the state's administrative code, although not the state statutes.

The plaintiffs said statute should trump the administrative rule and the consent decree from which it was born. But in his order, Paul outlined the contentious nature of the 1980s legal battle between Florida and the federal government and noted that the state's executive branch adopted the administrative rule because the Legislature refused to change the law and make it comply with the federal guidelines.

"There simply is no conflict here," Paul wrote. "Giving effect to the (administrative) rule is actually giving effect to the statute, for they are parts of the same whole and, together, represent the end product of a federally ordered mandate."

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

Voters suit now in judge's hands

Overseas ballots now federal case

County election officials head to court

County sued over absentee vote tally

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