ACLU files suit to include late absentee ballots in Florida

Thousands did not get their Absentee ballots until Monday & Tuesday -- Missing the Vote Deadline

Absentee ballots mailed by Florida elections supervisors too late for possibly thousands of voters to return them on time should still count, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday. The suit, filed against Secretary of State Glenda Hood and elections supervisors in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, asks that completed absentee ballots mailed in the United States that arrive at county offices before Nov. 12 be counted. State law required those ballots to reach county offices by Tuesday night. The Nov. 12 deadline would be the same standard applied to absentee ballots filed by voters who are out of the country. "These are not people who filed their request for an absentee ballot late," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. "These are people who filed it well in advance of the deadline and some of them just got their absentee ballot (Tuesday) -- effectively preventing them from participating in today's election." Broward County officials dropped off more than 2,500 absentee ballots to a U.S. Postal Service distribution center Saturday afternoon, meaning they could not be delivered to residents -- some of whom said they requested the ballots more than a month ago -- before Monday. [more] and [more]