Dave Lowry is a retired colonel and a thirty-year Army veteran.
I voted by absentee ballot during the 2000 Presidential election. I had to.
I was stationed at Fort Hood, Tex., and I sent my ballot via UPS to the office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections. The reason I used UPS was that I had been away from home for three weeks of temporary duty in Washington before the election. I barely made it back in time in time to vote and send in my ballot.
Knowing it would be close, I sent my ballot via UPS. I tracked the package the entire way. It was delivered and signed for by someone named “Benson” at 3:09pm on Tuesday, Nov 7, 2000. The legal deadline was 7p.m., so my ballot made it on time.
Seven months later, I got a call from Chris Drew at the New York Times. He told me my name was on a list of thousands of voters whose absentee ballots had not been counted.
My ballot, he informed me, had been stamped by Broward County as received nine days late, on Nov. 16, 2000. I was stunned by this revelation.
For the next four years, I tried to figure out what had happened. I made repeated requests for a copy of my ballot, but the office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections delayed and stonewalled for a year and a half until the statute of limitations had expired.