Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2008/01/31 - 11:00am.
The Justice Department has announced a consent agreement with the State of Tennessee that will extend the absentee voting deadline to Feb. 15h.
Presumably, this means that Tennessee's election results cannot be certified until then, even though the ballots would not likely affect the outcome.
State press release with more details here, Department of Justice press release here.
UPDATE: We are advised by Knox Co. Elections Administrator Greg Mackay in comments that state law requires certification by the second Monday after the election, which would be Feb. 18th. So the extension might delay certification, but not beyond the deadline.
Feb 5th at about 9PM probably. Officially, the 18th I guess.
So all the results, local and national, will not be disclosed until the absentee ballots are back? We will be in suspended animation, or suspended anticipation, or something.
No, I'm saying they will disclose what they have after the close of polls on Tuesday. They will count whatever absentee ballots they have then, too, and there will be "unofiicial" results, which is pretty much how it always works. They will just have to hold open the official final total until the 15th, and after that it's just the state rubber stamp making it official that won't come until the 18th. At least that's how I think it will work. Hopefully Greg will stop by and explain.
Could there be some problem with calling the election before getting the absentees, which could result in some people just not sending them back? Like the problem the country had with networks predicting results with exit polls and affecting voter behavior in the other time zones.
Do the absentee voters have to have them postmarked by the fifteenth? Seems like if there's ever been an election where we want to do things exactly right, this is it.
TCA 2-8-101
"no later than the second Monday after the election"
So that would be the 18th, which is after the deadline, so no problem?
So when would we know who won?
Feb 5th at about 9PM probably. Officially, the 18th I guess.
Feb 5th at about 9PM probably. Officially, the 18th I guess.
So all the results, local and national, will not be disclosed until the absentee ballots are back? We will be in suspended animation, or suspended anticipation, or something.
No, I'm saying they will disclose what they have after the close of polls on Tuesday. They will count whatever absentee ballots they have then, too, and there will be "unofiicial" results, which is pretty much how it always works. They will just have to hold open the official final total until the 15th, and after that it's just the state rubber stamp making it official that won't come until the 18th. At least that's how I think it will work. Hopefully Greg will stop by and explain.
I hope it works that way.
Could there be some problem with calling the election before getting the absentees, which could result in some people just not sending them back? Like the problem the country had with networks predicting results with exit polls and affecting voter behavior in the other time zones.
Do the absentee voters have to have them postmarked by the fifteenth? Seems like if there's ever been an election where we want to do things exactly right, this is it.
I suppose they would know how many absentee ballots are still out, so they would be able to tell if they could affect any races mathematically.
Yeah, that's the idea. With early voting, there are fewer absentee ballots than there used to be.
Pam Strickland
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut
Correct
Postmarked election day. We have to get them by the 15th.
Thanks. I just don't want a rerun of Groundhog Day on a local level.
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