McCain Camp has filed a lawsuit alleging that the state didn't mail absentee ballots in due time, and now many absentee ballots are arriving late, after the deadline. McCain wants these ballots to count.

A judge has just ruled that the ballots must be preserved, meaning they can not be thrown away until the case has been heard on it's merits at which time a decision will be made on what to do with them. The case is set to be heard on November 10th, and if the race in VA is close, and is a deciding factor ... we may not have a president for quite a while.

McCain camp should have no reason to want those ballots to count. Seems fishy.

Wait, what? I know a whole ton of people who voted absentee and they all got their ballots forever ago.

Quite the contrary. Most of these ballots in question via this lawsuit are to ballots mailed to military personnel, which tend to favor McCain.

This doesn't include ALL absentee ballots, just some.

Isn't there an issue regarding thousands of US troops overseas who didn't receive their ballots in time?

I heard it from Elisabeth, so it must be true.

Yeah, the majority of the ballots in question were sent to military personnel.

I can't find a link to anything about this, do you have one Eagle?

Of course this had to happen in VA of all places.

Associated Press saying McCain is suing. Of course he did this yesterday.

lol. What a tool.

Last election there were 3.2 million votes cast in VA(see Wikipedia for details). Let's assume that same number this year even though it will be much more. VA has 12,391 troops abroad in 2004. Using that number, that's 0.4% of the possible voters that are overseas for 2004. It's most likely the same % amount this time. Thus, the race would have to be extremely close in VA for those votes to make a difference. Nonetheless if they voted and it was the states fault, they should be counted.

I think all votes should count, particularly from military personnel. I'm hoping that VA is not the deciding state, and I doubt it will be, so this need not hold anything up.

did absentee ballots have to arrive at the polling places the 3rd or be postmarked by the 3rd? I sent mine last Thursday and the government office called saying they hadn't received mine.