Pentagon Reacts to Absentee Ballot Outcry

Amid a continuing GOP outcry over the exclusion of military absentee ballots in Florida, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen ordered the Pentagon Tuesday to investigate the shortcomings of the military postal system.

Cohen instructed the department’s inspector general to look for ways to improve a system that has been held partly responsible for the exclusion of hundreds of military absentee ballots in the presidential race in Florida.

But the study will have no direct bearing on the disputed contest between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Any changes will apply only to future elections, Pentagon officials said, a fact not lost on Bush backers.

“This is a good move for the future,” said Mindy Tucker, a Bush spokeswoman. “But we need something to rectify votes cast in this election.”

More than 1,400 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out by Florida election officials for various reasons, including lack of a postmark, lateness or lack of proper signatures.

Republicans contend it was unfair to exclude military ballots of troops overseas, and urged local officials to include them wherever possible. They have alleged that Democratic lawyers pressed local election officials in Florida to strictly observe technical election rules, with the aim of disqualifying some absentee ballots.

Democrats and some local election officials say they simply wanted to follow established rules that absentee ballots contain dated signatures or postmarks.

The overseas ballots were cast 2 to 1 for Bush.

The Pentagon investigation won’t delve into the highly sensitive issue of whether election boards acted properly. Instead, it will recommend changes to make the system “more efficient, more fair . . . more inclusive, and to make it easier,” said Kenneth H. Bacon, the chief Pentagon spokesman.

“The last thing we want to do is to make it harder for those who are wearing the uniform of the United States of America and serving overseas to cast a ballot,” Cohen wrote in a memo to Donald Mancuso, the acting Pentagon inspector general.

Several members of Congress, including Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Stephen E. Buyer (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, have urged the Pentagon to investigate military ballot procedures, with a focus on postmarking.

The military mail system, which carries 140 million pounds of mail a day, doesn’t require postage. Nevertheless, all mail is supposed to be postmarked.

In practice, however, since the mail often bears no stamp, military postal workers “frequently” don’t bother to apply a postmark, Bacon acknowledged.

In an effort to reduce fraud, the law specifies that absentee ballots can’t be counted unless they have a postmark, or a signature and date.

County canvassing boards in Florida followed those rules when they met Nov. 17 to tally overseas ballots that had been received during the 10-day grace period after election day. Scores of ballots were rejected because they lacked postmarks, outraging Republicans on hand to monitor the process.

Since then, Republicans launched a massive public relations blitz over the rejection of military ballots. They also sued more than a dozen county canvassing boards. Democrats backpedaled, with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman decrying any rejected military ballots and Florida Atty. Gen. Bob Butterworth calling for a reexamination of the castoff votes.

The biggest nudge, some election officials say, came from the Florida Supreme Court. In its ruling last week allowing recounts to go forward in three South Florida counties, the court suggested that canvassing boards should not fall back on “hypertechnical” interpretations of election law, instead allowing the voter a reasonable opportunity to cast a ballot.

Election officials in several counties viewed the court’s ruling as an invitation to take another look at the rejected overseas ballots. Last weekend, several hundred overseas ballots were reexamined. The result: Bush increased his lead over Gore by more than 100 votes.

In Escambia County, site of the Pensacola Naval Air Station, Bush gained 36 votes.

In Duval County, home to two big Navy bases, officials agreed to revisit 81 castoff ballots, but only after Bush lawyers agreed to drop the lawsuit against the county. Ballots previously rejected for lacking a postmark were accepted and Bush gained 20 votes.

Rick Mullaney, general counsel to the county elections board, said it is “highly unlikely” any of the ballots were actually cast after election day, when Bush’s razor-thin lead in Florida was quickly becoming the talk of the world.

“All of it--the Republican lawsuit, Lieberman’s comments, Butterworth’s opinion--contributed to us revisiting these ballots,” Mullaney said. “But the key thing for us was the Supreme Court decision.”

Some counties chose not to take another look, prompting new attention from Republicans. Though the original lawsuit was dropped, Bush has filed new legal actions against canvassing boards in five counties--Hillsborough, Okaloosa, Pasco, Orange and Polk--as well as a federal suit in Pensacola that also names Collier and Walton counties.

June Condron, deputy operations supervisor in Orange County, said the litigation seems to revolve around, at most, 19 votes in her county that lacked postmarks. Nearly half of those, she said, are from civilians overseas.

“In the meantime, we have irate people saying we’re not doing our bit for the military,” Condron said. “All we want to do is have someone tell us what to count. But we feel there’s conflicting law there.”

Republican officials said they simply want equity and to ensure that military voters aren’t disenfranchised.

“These are men and women who cast a valid ballot and it was received before the state deadline,” said Dan Bartlett, a Bush spokesman in Austin, Texas. “All we’ve seen from the Democrats is attempts to keep these votes from being counted.”

Bacon, the Pentagon spokesman, said he did not know whether the shortcomings of the military postal system had been an issue in previous elections. “My suspicion is that this has been an education for the military as it has been for most of the rest of us in the United States.”

Election officials in some Florida counties say they were not unusually strict this year. They have said that a similar share of overseas absentee ballots have been excluded in other recent elections.

Rep. Buyer said postmarking is not the only aspect of the system that tends to exclude military ballots. For example, troops can’t use the generic federal absentee ballot unless they have first applied for their state absentee ballot and failed to receive one.