'Circus' crowd watches count begin in Volusia

By ALICIA CALDWELL

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 12, 2000

DELAND -- Nothing is simple when lawyers, armed deputies and political operatives are involved.

The massive effort to hand count Volusia County's 184,018 ballots was delayed Saturday, and might not begin until today.

Blame it on an elaborately bureaucratic process in which ballot bags are treated like gold ingots, the county administrative building is locked up like Fort Knox and lawyers representing each political party have to be on hand for an action as simple as opening a door.

Volusia's elections canvassing board had not, by Saturday afternoon, finished scanning the ballots for write-in candidates, a precursor to the manual recount of presidential votes cast in Tuesday's election.

"It's a very meticulous process," said David Byron, Volusia County spokesman.

Even as Republicans asked a federal court for an injunction to stop the manual recount Saturday, Volusia elections authorities made plans to keep counting. Officials in this largely rural county had mobilized 250 employees for the recount, which was expected to take several days.

There still was a chill in the air Saturday morning as the counters, public employees who typically shuffle papers in the property appraiser's office or the parks department, straggled into the county administrative building.

The place was a mad house.

Dozens of local Republicans and Democrats had been drafted by their parties to observe the recount. Schools of blue-suited lawyers cut through the throngs. Satellite television trucks lined the streets. The county even pitched two tents on the grass out front, ostensibly for the media.

"It's kind of a three-ring circus," said Larry Zuckerman of DeLand, who watched the scene.

At one point the crowd got so unruly that deputies were called out to separate the opposing camps.

It was a fitting scene for the vote-counting drama.

There have been concerns about malfunctioning computers, a poll worker who forgot to bring a bag of votes to the election office and an accusation that someone left the elections office shortly after the vote tally carrying two bags of votes. Actually, it was a satchel in which she carried her calendar, and a bag of clothes she had worn earlier in the day.

"When they brought her back, they emptied her things, including her underwear, on the driveway," Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe said. "She was humiliated."

As county workers scanned the ballots Friday looking for write-in votes that could have been overlooked, a half-dozen armed Volusia County deputies watched over them. That's in addition to four Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers.

Al Gore campaign representatives said the recount was needed to insure the election's integrity.

"Our objective in all of this is to simply make sure the will of the people of Florida is carried out and their choice as to who they want as president is respected," said Liz Lubow of the campaign.

Ken Lisaius, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Republicans were concerned by the possibility of human error in a manual count.

"I think there's a sense that Florida already voted," he said. "A manual recount is not as accurate as an electronic count."

Volusia officials, who favor conducting the manual recount, are taking their role seriously.

"We're doing it correctly," said Patricia Northey, a member of the county canvassing board. "And when we are finished, we will have a vote that everyone can believe in."

By Saturday afternoon, the net gain of the frenetic activity: one vote for Bush and four for Gore.

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