McCain Camp Sues Virginia Over Military BallotsHere’s a possible last-minute effort by the McCain camp to throw a wrench into the vote counting in a key swing state.
The Associated Press reports:
John McCain’s campaign sued Virginia’s electoral board today, hours before the election, seeking to force the state to count late-arriving overseas military ballots.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to order the State Board of Elections to count any overseas absentee ballots sent by November 4 and received by local election officials as late as November 14.
McCain claims the rights of military voters are protected by the federal Uniform and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Rights Act of 1986.
The campaign’s complaint says that Virginia military voters posted overseas who support the Republican nominee will be denied their right to vote unless the court grants the order.
The report adds that no hearing was scheduled by this afternoon.
Under normal procedures, military ballots would likely only be counted if their number exceeded the total margin of victory of one candidate, meaning they could affect the result. So the suit may be designed to ensure that Virginia can’t be officially called for Obama early in the evening, which could depress Republican turnout in other parts of the country.
Late Update: Rick Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, tells TPMmuckraker that the suit is likely an effort to ensure that military ballots that arrived after election day — which will likely favor McCain — will be counted. That was an issue during the Florida recount of 2000, in which the courts ultimately ruled that such ballots could be counted. (Hasen cautioned that he hadn’t yet had a chance to look closely at the suit.)
And on his blog, he asks a good question: “Why did this suit have to wait until the eve of the election?”
