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Fax bears bad news for Gore in BrowardBy SHELBY OPPEL © St. Petersburg Times, published November 14, 2000 FORT LAUDERDALE -- If any Florida county could help Al Gore definitively win the White House, it was supposed to be this one. But Monday night in Broward County, the Democrats lost on their home court. The end came quickly. The recount of a sampling of precincts began at 3:15 p.m. Monday in a downtown warehouse. By 7 p.m., Gore had picked up four votes that the machines hadn't caught. It wasn't much, the Democrats argued, but it was only three precincts. If the votes in all 609 precincts were counted, perhaps ... The fax came at 7:30 p.m. It was an opinion from the Secretary of State's Office, in response to a question from the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. It repeated state law: If a manual recount of a sampling of ballots indicates an error that could affect the election's outcome, all the ballots must be recounted by hand. But it said an "error" means that the tabulation machine has failed to count "properly marked or properly punched" ballots, the opinion said. That the machine failed to count improperly marked ballots is not an error. In the end, that distinction made all the difference to County Judge Robert W. Lee, the Democrat who is chairman of the three-member canvassing board. A net change of only four votes, harvested from ballots that the machines never counted, surely didn't prove that the tabulation machines had failed, the judge said. Republican Supervisor of Elections Jane Carroll already said she wanted to "certify and be done with it." The other Democrat, Broward County Commission Chairwoman Suzanne Gunzburger, favored a countywide recount. "The election results will stand," Lee said.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times election desk From the AP national wire  |
