As of late afternoon

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As of late afternoon on Friday only about a half-dozen Florida counties had reported their overseas absentee ballot totals. But the results weren’t pretty. So far the numbers are running 31 to 10 in favor of George W. Bush. Yikes! If that sort of percentage holds up Bush could move another thousand votes ahead of Gore.

Consider this, though. Fox News reported on Wednesday that the US Postal Service was expediting delivery of military absentee ballots. But only military ballots. That doesn’t seem fair. What if you’re a Floridian hanging out in Tel Aviv? What about your vote?

The question, though, is this: Did the Bush folks lean on the USPS and get them to move those ballots along? And if so, why are the postal folks such push-overs?

Why does Talking Points think the Bush folks may have gotten in touch with the people at the US Postal Service? He has learned, on good authority, that the Bush campaign sent a letter to the Defense Department asking them to help insure that all military absentee ballots got to Florida in a timely fashion. Don’t get me wrong: nothing untoward was implied or requested. But the folks at the DOD rightly responded that there are already procedures in place for this sort of thing.

Maybe the postal service didn’t respond in quite the same way.

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