Judge rejects ACLU ballot-count suit

Election officials in two Florida counties will not be required to count absentee ballots returned after the polls closed on Election Day, regardless of what problems caused the ballots to be mailed late to voters, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The American Civil Liberties Union had asked in a lawsuit for an emergency order requiring Miami-Dade and Broward officials to count the late ballots. The uncounted ballots would not change the outcome of the presidential race in Florida, where President Bush defeated Sen. John Kerry by about 375,000 votes. Several thousand absentee ballots were mailed the weekend before the election in the two counties. "Voters have failed to show the defendants arbitrarily or deliberately delayed" sending the absentee ballots, U.S. District Judge Alan Gold wrote. He noted the three voters named in the suit could have requested ballots earlier than "just days before the election." [more]