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Next stop: court
By TIM NICKENS,DAVID ADAMS and ALICIA CALDWELL © St. Petersburg Times, published November 13, 2000 Unless a federal judge stops them this morning, three Florida counties will be hand counting more than a half-million votes for president as George W. Bush and Al Gore continue campaigning for the presidency -- six days after Election Day. In Volusia County, which includes Daytona Beach, several dozen elections workers on Sunday began painstakingly reviewing more than 184,000 votes. They are not expected to finish until Tuesday. In Palm Beach County, an army of county workers will gather this morning to start working out the rules for counting more than 425,000 presidential votes by hand. The county canvassing board voted about 1:45 a.m. Sunday to proceed with a hand count of every vote after completing a sample of four precincts. And in Broward County, elections officials in Fort Lauderdale will begin hand counting votes in a few precincts before deciding whether to proceed. But the spotlight this morning will be on U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in Miami. Middlebrooks will hear the Bush campaign's request for a court order to block the hand recounts. How he rules will determine what happens next in the remarkable election drama that has the world watching Florida. On other fronts: The Volusia canvassing board plans to file a lawsuit today in Tallahassee to prevent the state canvassing board from certifying the state results on Tuesday. Members of the state canvassing board have indicated they will certify the results Tuesday, regardless of whether the hand recounts are completed. The Democratic Party's lawyer also has asked for a delay. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican, asked Sunday to meet with Gore campaign manager William Daley and Gore adviser Warren Christopher today. Democrats also have requested a hand recount in Osceola County, where Gore has a small lead. The Osceola canvassing board will consider that request today. Polk County officials said that a rescan of 92 of 163 precincts resulted in a gain of 104 votes for Bush and seven for Gore. These are votes that had not been recorded in the previous count and recount of ballots. Former Florida Cabinet member Jim Smith, speaking for the state Republican Party, issued an unusual warning about fraudulently casting overseas ballots. Those ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 7 and arrive in county elections offices by Friday. Miami-Dade elections officials still plan to meet Tuesday to discuss the Democrats' request for a hand recount there. "This is a unique situation," Gore campaign manager William Daley said Sunday on CNN. "No question about it." There is agreement on little else. Hours after the Palm Beach canvassing board voted to hand count every vote, the Bush and Gore camps worked the Sunday talk shows to sway public opinion as though there is still a campaign to be won. Both campaigns also are transforming into new organizations to work through the recounts and to raise money for the effort. In an "urgent" e-mail sent Sunday, Bush campaign chairman Don Evans asked for checks of up to $5,000 to pay for the recount effort in Florida. He noted that any contribution would not apply toward the personal federal contribution limits of $25,000. "We thank you for all that you did to help elect Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney," Evans wrote. "We also thank you in advance for your willingness to help us during this important time in the life of your country." On the talk shows, the Bush camp made it clear what they think of the Florida hand recount. "I think it's a black mark on our democracy and on our process," said James Baker, the former secretary of state overseeing the Florida recount for Bush. In a series of television appearances, Baker laid out the Bush campaign's arguments. He said it is unfair to recount ballots by hand in four Democratic counties won by Gore and that there are no uniform standards to follow. "We think the process is unconstitutional," Baker said. "Just the handling of the ballots can change the results." But after several days where Bush tried to portray himself as planning for a transition to the White House as Gore pushed for hand recounts, the Bush campaign found itself on the defensive about being the first to go to court. Baker argued that Bush had no other choice. He noted that the Gore campaign has promised to help a half-dozen voters who already have filed lawsuits contending that they were deprived of their voting rights when their Palm Beach ballots were discounted. Bush would drop the federal lawsuit, Baker said, if Gore would accept the results of the mechanical recount and the tally of overseas ballots -- which must arrive by Friday -- and drop the hand recounts. The Gore camp, which requested the hand recounts, wouldn't bite. "I think it's not very useful to parody what they are trying to do," said Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state monitoring Florida for Gore. "Right now I think it serves our democracy to make sure we get this right. Wouldn't it be tragic if the wrong man is chosen here because we didn't follow Florida law?" Florida's 25 electoral votes will decide the presidency. As it stands today, Gore still leads Bush in the national popular vote. The vice president has won 262 electoral votes from 19 states and the District of Columbia. Bush won 29 states and has 246 electoral votes. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Besides Florida, New Mexico also remains too close to call. But New Mexico has just five electoral votes and would not affect the outcome. Baker and Christopher offered little insight Sunday about how the campaigns will respond if the Florida hand recounts are allowed to continue and the state swings toward Gore. The Texas governor could ask for hand recounts in Florida counties that he won, although he may have missed the deadline to make that request in most counties. Bush also could start requesting recounts in states Gore narrowly won, including Oregon, Wisconsin and Iowa. But both campaigns are increasingly under pressure to bring the election to a conclusion by the end of this week. "We're in, obviously, for a difficult week," said Sen. Robert Toricelli, D-N.J. "By next Friday, the pressure on someone is going to be enormous to accept whatever results Florida has reached." Echoed Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona: "Whatever the voters have decided in the state of Florida (by next Friday), then it's over." The most even-handed statement came from former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn. "Instead of bringing clarity and closure to the presidential contest, turning the decision over to lawyers and the courts will in the long run deepen public doubt about the outcome," Nunn said. "Vice President Gore should make it clear he would concede the victory to Gov. Bush if he loses Florida after the more scrupulous recount and the counting of absentee ballots. . . . Bush should instruct his lawyers to drop their lawsuit and let the state and local Florida officials do their duty under the law." "The two men who would lead America," Nunn ended, "must now act in a manner worthy of the office they seek." The counts and recounts in Florida underscore how vote totals can shift. Bush won the first machine statewide count of Tuesday's votes by 1,784 votes. An unofficial tally of the machine recount shows Bush ahead by just 327 votes out of nearly 6-million cast. But in Palm Beach County, a third mechanical recount of county results gave Gore another 36 votes and Bush three fewer votes. In the hand count of four precincts, Gore picked up 33 votes and Bush received an additional 14 votes. "It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen," said Medea Benjamin, a Green Party observer of the Palm Beach recount effort. "The fate of the most developed country in the world divided into 16 stacks of paper." She was referring to the neat piles of ballots on a table in the Palm Beach County vote-counting offices. A painstaking 12-hour manual count of a sample of 4,695 ballots had just ended late Saturday night. But it would be another two-and-a-half hours before officials were ready with their tallies at 1:45 a.m. Sunday and announced their next move. With television cameras rolling, Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore moved for a countywide manual recount. Gasps from Democratic supporters quickly turned into cheers and loud applause. Republicans groaned. One heckler jeered, "You're supposed to be impartial." Palm Beach County Judge Charles Burton, a Democrat appointed to the bench by Gov. Jeb Bush, was opposed to moving so quickly. He wanted to seek legal advice from Florida's secretary of state. "Quite honestly, this is a situation that's new to everyone," he said. But county Commissioner Carol Roberts, the third member of the board and a Democrat, disagreed saying, "I do not feel we need to hear any more. The law is very clear." Burton, the chairman of the canvassing board, called on Republican observer Mark Wallace. "It's simply wrong, and we vigorously lodge our protest," Wallace said. "We plead with you not to put the county through that." Then came the Democrat, Miami lawyer Ben Kuehne. He rejected claims that it would take too long or be too difficult, "on the basis of the principle that one person, one vote, which governs America, and certainly governs Palm Beach County." Burton reluctantly called for a vote. Roberts and LePore outvoted him in the pre-dawn darkness and approved the Palm Beach countywide recount by hand. In Volusia, reports of a ballot box found in a community center created another distraction. About 80 unused ballots were inside the box, said David Byron, Volusia County spokesman. One ballot had been filled out, though authorities suspect it was marked after the election, Byron said. Agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were checking ballot serial numbers to determine whether the ballot had been cast in the election. The precinct in which the ballot box was found was one of three Democrats designated as being recounted first in the manual recount that started Sunday. County officials planned to have two shifts of 44 county employees and expected the counting to go on through the evening and into Tuesday. In Tallahassee, Smith, a Republican who has served as Florida's attorney general and secretary of state, said news reports indicate people abroad are still being encouraged to cast their ballots. "We want to clear up that that is really not possible," said Smith, who held a news conference Sunday at the request of the Republican Party. He gave an overview of overseas absentee balloting rules, including that overseas ballots cannot be completed after Nov. 7 and must be postmarked by that date to be counted. "It is a felony to perpetrate, attempt or aid any fraud of any vote cast or attempted, such as by back-dating an absentee ballot," Smith warned. "Fair voting counts. Florida's absentee ballot system has been constructed to assure free and fair votes. If people seek to abuse that system, they do a grave disservice to all of us." - Staff writer Diane Rado and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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From the Times election desk From the AP national wire  |
