Florida officials will begin counting the notorious overseas absentee ballots late tonight, a process expected to give Texas Gov. George W. Bush the lead for Florida's hotly contested electorate votes.
Bush now leads Vice President Al Gore by 300 votes in Florida. But the absentee ballots, which had to be postmarked by Nov. 7, are expected to be mostly from Republican voters.
According to Florida election officials and reporters, "The guesses range from a Bush margin of victory of 55 to 65 percent" in the absentee ballots, said Larry J. Sabato, government and foreign affairs professor.
To gather these numbers, officials are looking at both the number of absentee ballots that have been received as well as the counties that are receiving them, Sabato said.
The highest number of absentee ballots are coming into counties that are Bush strongholds, which may prove detrimental to Gore's bid for Florida's electoral votes.
Not only are the ballot numbers going against Gore's favor, but past elections have proven that Republicans will gain most absentee ballots.
Studies have shown "that the last three elections gave the advantage to the Republicans," said Scott Keeter, director of the Center for Public Policy at George Mason University.
In 1988 George Bush garnered 1,000 more overseas absentee votes in Florida. Both the 1992 and 1996 elections also followed suit, with Bush gaining 500 more absentee votes in 1992 and Republican candidate Bob Dole winning 300 more votes in 1996, Keeter said.
"If you are a Democrat you might look at it optimistically that the margin has been declining," he said.
But Democratic activists are not conceding the contest for the overseas ballots so easily. They are expecting 45,000 absentee ballots to come in from Americans living in Israel and territories controlled by Palestinian authorities. These areas are expected to be mostly Democratic voters.
Some political analysts agree the absentee ballots will not guarantee a Bush presidency.
"If Bush only wins by a 60 to 40 percent margin in the absentee votes, then the recount could still be decisive" in deciding the presidency, said Robert Holsworth, professor and chair of the department of international and public affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.
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