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Republicans are rejecting the rule on military ballots that helped Bush win
I have been volunteering on voter protection efforts for a long time. I was headed to Florida when Bush v. Gore came down. I remember very well that a large part of the new votes that came in for bush were military ballots that were counted late. trump wants to eliminate or restrict the ability of our military and overseas voters from being counted.
Opinion | Republicans are rejecting the rule on military ballots that helped Bush win; In the tense days after the 2000 recount, the GOP called for as many military ballots to be counted as possible.
— CVJ (@enuffsaysv.bsky.social) 2026-03-24T19:21:16.480Z
MS NOW: apple.news/Ay1VmwWNnTM-...
‼ï¸this is getting progressively uglier as cheeto gets nervous
https://www.ms.now/opinion/late-arriving-military-ballots-project-47-newsletter
In the tense days after the 2000 recount, the GOP campaign called for as many military ballots to be counted as possible.....
One major bloc of voters who would be affected by such a radical shift is the 1.3 million Americans on active duty in the military, especially the hundreds of thousands of service members stationed overseas and in war zones.
It was precisely those late-arriving military ballots that helped put George W. Bush over the top in the tense days after the 2000 election. A GOP push to accept absentee ballots from overseas — and the military voters among them — ended up producing a net gain of 739 votes for Bush in Florida, enough to secure the crucial state he needed to win the presidency.
But the Bush campaign wasn’t a passive beneficiary of this outcome. In the days after the election, it lodged preemptive legal complaints to prevent military ballots from being tossed and argued that the Gore campaign was seeking to disenfranchise the troops for even considering challenging some of the ballots. Republicans went county by county in Florida to ensure the ballots were counted.
The RNC position today contradicts every aspect of that effort.
In Watson v. Republican National Committee, lawyers for the national party are arguing that since federal statutes dating back more than a century refer to a uniform national Election Day, ballots can’t be counted if they arrive even one day later. “Election Day means Election Day,” said multiple Republican officials supporting the effort to reject late-arriving mail ballots.
One major bloc of voters who would be affected by such a radical shift is the 1.3 million Americans on active duty in the military, especially the hundreds of thousands of service members stationed overseas and in war zones.
It was precisely those late-arriving military ballots that helped put George W. Bush over the top in the tense days after the 2000 election. A GOP push to accept absentee ballots from overseas — and the military voters among them — ended up producing a net gain of 739 votes for Bush in Florida, enough to secure the crucial state he needed to win the presidency.
But the Bush campaign wasn’t a passive beneficiary of this outcome. In the days after the election, it lodged preemptive legal complaints to prevent military ballots from being tossed and argued that the Gore campaign was seeking to disenfranchise the troops for even considering challenging some of the ballots. Republicans went county by county in Florida to ensure the ballots were counted.
The RNC position today contradicts every aspect of that effort.
In Watson v. Republican National Committee, lawyers for the national party are arguing that since federal statutes dating back more than a century refer to a uniform national Election Day, ballots can’t be counted if they arrive even one day later. “Election Day means Election Day,” said multiple Republican officials supporting the effort to reject late-arriving mail ballots.
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