| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
US Close To Civil War Or Martial Law? Lawyers Ready For Fight Over Provisional Ballots Could Wreck Union
As President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney spent election eve rushing from one swing state to another, their campaigns were already preparing for a complicated — and possibly long — battle over Tuesday’s vote.
On Monday, Obama scheduled visits to three states, and Romney four. But the Republican also planned to continue campaigning into Election Day, visiting the key states of Pennsylvania and Ohio one last time.Even before Tuesday’s voting began, the two sides were already skirmishing over how the balloting was being administered. readmorehere
Nearly 200 people banged on the locked doors of the Miami-Dade Elections Department in Doral, Fla., on Sunday afternoon, clamoring for it to reopen andshouting, “Let us vote!” The state’s GOP-controlled legislature cut the number of days for early voting this year—from 14 to eight—and prohibited early voting from taking place on Sundays. Miami-Dade officials had decided to open the office for a few hours on Sunday anyway in response to long lines all week—unbeknownst to Miami’s Republican mayor, Carlos Gimenez, according to the Miami Herald. After Gimenez found out, theHerald reports, the precinct closed. That’s what prompted the protest. An hour later, Gimenez allowed the precinct to reopen. “I’m upset at this change, but at the end, when you have 200, 300 voters out there ready to go, you really can’t disenfranchise them,” Gimenez told the newspaper, adding: “I’m certainly embarrassed.”
By that time, the Florida Democratic Party had alreadyfiled a lawsuit (PDF) against state and local election officials, arguing that the voting period in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties should be extended because long lines at precincts earlier in the week had caused many people to give up on casting ballots.
And so began this election year’s legal bonanza. READMOREHERE
