Roughly a week and a half into the Florida recount, the issue of counting overseas absentee ballots came front and center, and ended up giving Team Bush a major victory in the court of public opinion.
On Wednesday, November 15, 2000, Al Gore lawyer Mark Herron sent a memo to Democratic recount observers telling them how to challenge late-arriving overseas absentee ballots that did not have a valid postmark on them.
This would have potentially thrown out the votes of hundreds of military members stationed overseas. In a race separated by about 300 votes at the time, these votes could have been decisive in choosing the next president.
By Friday morning, Republican staffers got a hold of the "Herron memo" and quickly passed it up the ranks to
George W. Bush's recount chief, former Secretary of State James Baker.
"We thought this is manna from heaven," Baker recalled to CNN. "How in the world can you put out a memo that the only reading of which is to suppress the votes of our military men and women?"
Baker wasted no time in seizing on the issue.
"We jumped on that with both feet as we should have," Baker explained. "
Here we have our -- these brave young men and women serving us overseas. And the postmark on their ballot is one day late. And you're going to deny him the right to vote? It was a very forceful argument."
Democrats argued that they were simply following the laws.
"The idea that people were going to vote after the election and have those votes count, that's a pretty irregular idea," said Ron Klain, who served as the
Gore campaign's general counsel.
"The Republicans and the clerks in counties, they were actually sticking to the law," Gore Florida Senior Adviser Nick Baldick added in a recent interview with CNN. "The clerks were elected Republicans. They were actually doing the tough thing and saying, 'No, these can't be counted. They're being FedExed in three days after the election.'"
Regardless, Bush surrogates -- including Gulf War hero Norman Schwarzkopf -- went out in force over the weekend decrying the alleged suppression of military ballots.
Roughly a week and a half into the Florida recount, the issue of counting overseas absentee ballots came front and center, and ended up giving Team Bush a major victory in the court of public opinion.
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