MIAMI, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- The American Civil Liberties Union and Florida Legal Services filed a lawsuit seeking a delay on counting late absentee ballots in Florida.
The suit was filed Tuesday on behalf of three voters who said they ran into "foul-ups and delays" by Broward and Miami-Dade elections officials in mailing absentee ballots.
The suit filed in U.S. District Court said the supervisors failed to give voters enough time to mail in absentee ballots. It seeks to extend the deadline from Tuesday until Nov. 12, the same deadline for the receipt of overseas absentee ballots.
Thousands of voters in south Florida have complained they didn't get their absentee ballots and a new batch was mailed over the weekend.
In any event, absentee ballots were not expected to be counted by Wednesday morning and it could be until Thursday before the job is finished. Republicans have been viewed historically as making more use of absentee ballots than Democrats.
President Bush has been declared the winner over Democratic challenger John Kerry but by a margin of less than 400,000 votes. Estimates of the number of absentee ballots range over 1 million.
