November 24, 2000

All military votes must be counted for Florida

The Gore campaign's effort to block counting of military ballots has backfired so badly that prominent Florida Democrats -- who well know the impact of the military vote in their state -- publicly are lambasting the Gore campaign's disgusting tactics.

Just as troublesome, however, is the very real damage done to military-civilian relations in the event the courts allow recounts to continue until Gore gets the result he desires.

Military personnel clearly are dismayed and disgusted -- and rightly so -- that their ballots may not be counted because of hypertechnicalities invoked by the Gore campaign. Gore partisans protested ballots lacking postmarks, even when the ballots were received close enough to Election Day to make it obvious they had been mailed well in advance.

There can be good reasons for a lack of postmark on military mail, as the Pentagon explained to vote-counters in Florida. For example, aboard ship and at many military outposts around the world, postmarks are not used. Sometimes it is not possible to postmark all mail leaving a post because of time constraints; for example, a mail plane might be leaving an aircraft carrier, and the next mail call could be weeks away. In addition, federal law apparently forbids charging postage on military ballots, so many aren't postmarked.

Comments from active-duty military personnel make clear that Gore has bought himself a huge amount of ill-will with his campaign's antics. "Everybody's talking about it," a paratrooper based in Italy told The Washington Post. "We got ripped off."

"I think we're pretty disgusted, for the most part," a signals officer based in Germany told The Post. And an active-duty general expressed "anger and disappointment" in an e-mail.

Senior Southern Democrats need no such reports from abroad to understand the political damage already done. Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth, who co-chaired the Gore campaign in Florida, issued a strongly worded advisory memorandum saying the military votes "should count," even though he has no statutory authority over the vote tally.

Georgia Sen. Zell Miller was blunt: "Any ballot from a man or woman in the military who is serving this country should be counted -- period. I don't care when it's dated, whether it's witnessed or anything else. If it is from someone serving this country and they made the effort to vote, count it and salute when you do it."

The Gore campaign, however, still doesn't seem to get it. During the weekend, Sen. Joe Lieberman danced around the question, saying, "I would give the benefit of the doubt to ballots coming from military personnel, generally." He didn't say, "Count 'em." That's significant, because Lieberman has a habit of sounding semi-tough but acting soft, as he did during the Clinton impeachment.

The only person who can even begin to repair the damage is Gore himself, and if he really believes he'll ultimately prevail in the election he must personally make a clear statement that it is wrong to challenge military ballots. He owes it to America's men and women in uniform to do so without delay -- even if it costs him the election.