If the Bush camp truly believes that most of the Florida absentee ballots are
from overseas military personnel, I am baffled at the call to essentially
ignore these votes by calling the election now.
I can see that, normally, absentee ballots don't tip the balance -- if one
candidate is ahead by 50 million votes and there are 1 million absentee
ballots, results can be projected before they are counted.
But these votes are not irrelevant to the final outcome. With a margin of
somewhere over 300 votes in Florida, the absentee ballots could very well tip
the scales one way or another.
These are people who are living far from home and facing the very real
possibility of being killed in a war to defend our Constitution and our
rights, including our right to vote. Insisting that this very close election
be conceded before their votes even arrive in the US is a slap in the face to
men and women in uniform. If anyone deserves to have their vote counted
before this election is conceded, they do.
Every vote counts. Count every vote.
Patrick Sweeney
