Americans in Ireland have been "glued to the tube" for the Florida recount, as expatriate voters await Friday's deadline for receipt of ballots in that state. To Americans living outside the US, it literally could be their day in the sun.
Representatives of Democrats and Republicans Abroad in Dublin yesterday were united in the belief that it is essential to wait for the result of the absentee ballots in Florida.
"All the votes are not counted yet. It is perfectly legitimate to wait for the absentee ballots," Mr James Young, a property analyst and economist who heads Republicans Abroad Ireland, said. Mr Young's organisation has 27 members in Ireland, two of whom voted in Florida. Four other people, not members of his group, requested absentee ballots for Florida.
"Everyone has a right for their vote to be counted," Ms Liv Gibbons, chairwoman of Democrats Abroad Ireland, said. She criticised Republicans who tried to "speed up a Gore concession" before votes were counted. "No taxation without representation. It's back to the Boston Tea Party," she said.
"We're convinced Gore's going to win on the absentee vote," Ms Gibbons stated. Over the summer her organisation, which has more than 100 members in Ireland, registered about 20 people to vote in Florida. She also wanted to debunk the "myth" that a military overseas vote is Republican, pointing out that today's volunteer army would contain many minority group members, who tend to vote for the Democrats.
Smashing all voter stereotypes is Ms Ann Brennan, from New Ross, Co Wexford, a Republican who voted for Mr Bush in Florida by emergency federal write-in ballot but who was once a John F. Kennedy fan. As a girl of 13 "I actually shook his hand", she said yesterday, recalling Kennedy's visit to Ireland. "I even had a scrapbook of him." Ms Brennan, who lived in the US for 22 years, nine of them in Florida, became a US citizen in 1984 and returned to Ireland in 1998.
"Bush has been shown as leading twice. I think it should be let go at that stage," Ms Brennan said. Interestingly, she is not in favour of waiting until Friday to include the Florida absentee ballots, even though her vote in particular, sent on November 1st, "may count and probably will".
Asked about the value of exit polls by the networks, Mr Young said he did not think they should be abolished, seeing that as censorship. "They ought to get it right," he said. "They'll be a lot more careful next time." Ms Gibbons takes a different view. "CNN actually called it right," she said. "The people who said they voted for Gore in the exit polls thought they had. Their ballots were spoiled because they did not understand the ballot papers."
Mr Young is opposed to the legal challenges mounted over the now famous confusing ballot papers in Palm Beach County, saying: "Taking it to court is unwise." He says similar ballots were used in Illinois, Ohio and Arizona. Republicans and Democrats had agreed to use them.
While the international media made much of the Florida recount's farcical elements, Mr Young said: "In some ways, it is true democracy in action." And the viewing is better than the World Series in baseball. "I wish I was in Florida right now," Ms Brennan said.
There are 170 Florida voters in Ireland, 200 in Britain, and 4,000 in Israel, according to a Channel 4 News estimate at the weekend.