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Gap narrows, tensions rise
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 10, 2000 The 2000 presidential election has moved from an excruciatingly close race to an outright disputed one. George W. Bush's unofficial lead over Al Gore in Florida shrank Thursday night to 229 votes out of nearly 6-million cast. Several thousand absentee ballots from overseas, a pool of votes that historically favor Republicans, may be uncounted for up to a week. But while the Bush camp continued to cultivate an aura that the Texas governor is indeed the president-elect, the vice president's campaign bluntly warned that this election is far from decided. The maneuvering over an election held 72 hours ago promises to continue for days: Volusia County officials ordered a hand recount of all 159,277 votes starting Saturday. A Palm Beach County circuit judge issued a temporary injunction to prevent the Palm Beach results from being certified and will hold a hearing Tuesday. The Gore campaign wants all votes to be recounted by hand in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties as well as Volusia. Palm Beach officials will hand count votes in three precincts. Gore's campaign will help prepare court fights in Palm Beach, where they think most of the 19,120 votes that were tossed out because more than one candidate was chosen were votes intended for Gore. The Rev. Jesse Jackson wants a new election to be held in Palm Beach County and promises to lead a protest march there on Monday. Hundreds of Florida A&M University students jammed into the state Capitol in Tallahassee to protest alleged voting irregularities and were still refusing to leave late Thursday night. And the world remained glued to the television as the outcome of the race for president hinged on Florida. "The presidential election is on hold," said James Baker, the former secretary of state sent to Tallahassee by the Bush campaign to monitor the recount. The results of the county-by-county recount of the presidential ballots were followed for hours by cable television networks with detail normally seen only in local races. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 288 points in mid afternoon following comments by Gore campaign manager William Daley about possible hand recounts and voting irregularities, then recovered. Foreign commentators poked fun at America's electoral process, and Americans continued to spar over whether Bush or Gore should move into the White House in January. Gore has 260 Electoral College votes; Bush has 246. Oregon also remains too close to call but has only seven electoral votes. The winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes will go over the 270 electoral votes needed to win. It now appears, though, that declaring that winner could take days. Bush won the initial tally by 1,784 votes. But the margin was so small it triggered an automatic county-by-county recount that has yet to be officially completed. As each county's new results trickled in Thursday, Gore gradually gained ground on Bush. Up 417 votes in Pinellas. Up 105 votes in Orange. Down nine votes in Suwannee. But up 11 in Putnam. By Thursday night Gore had cut Bush's lead to 229 votes with 66 of 67 counties recounted, according to an unofficial tally by the Associated Press. Seminole County had about 20 precincts still to count late Thursday night. The state Division of Elections lagged far behind in its accounting. County officials have until Tuesday to formally report their results to the state. The spotlight shined brightest on Palm Beach County. Democrats contend that a confusing ballot led thousands of Gore supporters to cast ballots for both the vice president and Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan. Elections officials threw out 19,120 ballots that were marked twice, although it was impossible to calculate how many of those were intended to be votes for Gore. "If the two candidates they pushed were Buchanan and Gore, almost certainly those are Al Gore's votes and not mine," Buchanan said on NBC's Today. "I cannot believe someone would vote for Gore and say, "I made a mistake, I should have voted for Buchanan.' " Neither can Gore campaign officials. Daley said the Gore campaign will be helping prepare lawsuits by Palm Beach voters who complain their ballots were discounted because they mistakenly voted for two candidates as they tried to vote for Gore. "Because this disenfranchisement of these Floridians is so much larger than the reported gap between George Bush and Al Gore, legally this requires the full attention of the courts in Florida and concerned citizens all around the country," Daley said in Tallahassee. As the vote-counting continued, the Bush and Gore camps continued to maneuver as though they were campaigning to sway public opinion. In Texas, Bush advisers openly talked of the Texas governor launching a transition to a Bush White House as they tried to portray him as the president-elect. Bush met Thursday with Condoleezza Rice, whom he probably would name as his national security adviser, and Andrew Card, his likely chief of staff. "Do you need to be thinking about governing the country?" asked Bush campaign chairman Don Evans. "Certainly you do. I mean, we know what the results were from election night, and so it's only appropriate that the governor begin to think about governing this country." Bush campaign strategist Karl Rove distributed copies of a Cook County ballot in Illinois that was designed similarly to the disputed one in Palm Beach County. To suggest the issues in Florida are not so unusual, he talked of votes still being counted or possible recounts in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico. "In this country at least, we don't hold elections and hold elections and hold elections until somebody gets the outcome they desire," Rove said. The Gore camp was quick to respond. A day after Gore sounded measured and restrained in his remarks, Daley and other Gore supporters aggressively presented the vice president's case that the election has not been decided. They capitalized on Gore's greatest asset as they argued that he should be the legitimate winner in Florida: a lead over Bush in the national popular vote. The last time a candidate for president won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College and the presidency was 1888. "If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next president of the United States," Daley said. Daley and Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state who is monitoring Florida's recount for Gore, also took issue with some of Baker's remarks. Baker said the presidential election "is on hold" and suggested it would not be in the country's best interest for the uncertainty to drag on. "Let me assure you that the presidency goes on until Jan. 20 in a vigorous way," Christopher said, referring to the date of the inauguration. "And none of our allies are in doubt as to who's in charge of the government." In another symbolic move, Gore left his Tennessee campaign headquarters Thursday and returned to Washington. His campaign is disbanding, and his recount effort will be handled by a new committee that is likely to be based in the nation's capital. It was unclear whether Gore will cancel a family vacation that was supposed to begin this weekend. As the campaigns sparred, dramatic scenes played out in West Palm Beach and Tallahassee. In West Palm Beach, a small morning rally of Gore supporters at the county government complex swelled to more than 2,000 protesters as news spread that Jackson was on his way. They spilled into busy Olive Street, stopping traffic, and jammed into a courthouse courtyard, trampling the building's neatly landscaped perimeter and climbing trees for a better view. They chanted angrily, "Gore got more!" and "Re-vote!" One sign proclaimed: "It's the will of the people, stupid." Jackson arrived to a hero's welcome and jumped into a litany of reported voting problems across Florida. "For a democracy to be credible it must be free and fair," Jackson said. "That's a message we take to Asia, Africa and around the world. But that must apply to America and Florida as well." Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore was not seen all day. When a dozen red roses arrived with her name on the card, a beleaguered staffer placed them on the carpet in front of her closed office door. In Tallahassee, hundreds of Florida A&M University students jammed into the lower floors of the Capitol to demand a meeting with state elections officials. Bush supporters in the Capitol courtyard held up signs such as "Daley -- Go Back to Cook County" -- a reference to the Gore campaign manager's family ties to Chicago. The state elections office, besieged by reporters, posted notices directing reporters to a meeting room in the lower level of the Capitol for recount results. The secretary of state's office has received nearly 7,000 e-mails about the presidential election. Gov. Jeb Bush stayed out of public view and canceled an appearance before a business group in Tampa. He resigned his seat on the state panel that ultimately will certify the state's election results to avoid an appearance of a conflict of interest because of his brother. Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford, a Democrat who campaigned for Bush, replaced the GOP nominee's younger brother on the panel. He appeared at a Thursday evening news conference with the board's two other members, Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Division of Elections Director Clay Roberts. "Nobody ever said that democracy is simple or efficient," Crawford said. "If you want simplicity, go about 70 miles south of Florida and you've got Cuba." - Staff writers David Adams, Shelby Oppel, Julie Hauserman, Craig Pittman, Bill Adair and John Balz contributed to this report.
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From the Times election desk From the AP national wire  |
