Election 2004: Vote Early and OftenRecess appointment, anyone?
Wednesday, October 27, 2004, 10:12 AM
I was trying to convince a family member that a recess appointment to the Supreme Court is perfectly legal -- and after all, that's how Earl Warren got on the Court -- but he wasn't buying it. Maybe this article will convince him. It describes talk amongst administration officials about doing just that, should Rehnquist not be able to resume his duties after all. All very hush-hush, given the election, of course.
We probably have too many lawyers and judges involved in this mess already. But what we don't have is enough poll workers; we're short by about half a million nationwide. What happens when there aren't enough qualified volunteers?
"As long as they're breathing and they can walk in, we have to take them," says Barbara Jackson, Baltimore's director of elections. "The people we hire for the most part are elderly, undereducated, and frequently unemployed."
Another thing we're short on is absentee ballots arriving in the mail on time in Broward County. "Your ballot is in the mail" now joins the top ten things not to believe from a government official. That's about 58,000 folks who are wondering how they are going to vote. Enough to swing Florida?
At first I thought the absentee ballot story was on a parody site, since the other headlines included Man Accused Of Trying To Run Over Katherine Harris, (yes, *that* Katherine Harris), and right below that, Fishing Trip Unearths Mammoth Tooth, Other Fossils, but on second look it appears to be legit. Maybe they just have weirder news down there in Florida.
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