GOP: County improperly 'interpreted' ballots

By JULIE HAUSERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 16, 2000

QUINCY -- Gadsden County is a long way from Palm Beach, both in lifestyle and geography. But in the frenetic toss-up of the presidential elections, both could turn out to be pivotal.

Republicans are asserting that the Gadsden elections canvassing board improperly gave Vice President Al Gore a gain of 153 votes -- which amounts to half the point spread between the two presidential candidates.

Gadsden County voters marked paper ballots, using pencils to fill in bubbles. According to the federal lawsuit the Republicans filed Saturday in Miami, the canvassing board did more than recount -- they took a second look at more than 2,000 ballots that were rejected on election night, and later included some of them in the county's certified total.

They "interpreted" which candidate voters intended based on some choices "not being fully erased" or where "one bubble was darker and more completely filled in," according to two sworn witness affidavits filed in the Republicans' lawsuit.

They also certified ballots where no candidate was properly selected, but an asterisk or star appeared near one of the names, as well as ballots where no candidate was selected but "had markings that indicated the voter's intent," according to the affidavits.

Bush attorney Ken Sukhia said the campaign hasn't yet decided to take additional legal action, but the circumstances indicate that this rural county -- the only Florida county with a majority of African-Americans and the most consistently Democratic in the state -- could host the newest legal tussle in the presidential race.

On election night, voting machines rejected 2,124 ballots because of stray pencil marks, asterisks, or because voters had filled in more than one candidate.

The canvassing board decided to expand its recount by reviewing the rejected ballots the day after the election and "interpreting" what the voters wanted. When they were done, Gore had 170 new votes and Bush had 17, giving Gore a net gain of 153 votes. The county's certified totals showed Gore winning with 9,735 votes to Bush's 4,767.

Now, Republicans are crying foul.

"They arbitrarily decided to analyze the overvoted ballots," said Heath Thompson, a spokesman for the Bush campaign. "They did it without proper notice and without a proper mandate. They netted 153 Gore votes out of thin air -- that is a problem. I think they netted those votes because of the actions of this board, which did not have proper authority."

Bob Giolito, a lawyer for the Gore campaign, said the Gadsden County canvassing board acted properly.

Questions started to come up the day after the election. State Attorney Willie Meggs had a conversation with one of his assistant state attorneys in Gadsden that, Meggs said, indicated "what went on was kind of bizarre."

Meggs, a Democrat, asked the assistant state attorney, John Leace, to file a sworn affidavit with Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Meggs delivered it himself.

In the affidavit, Leace says he met with one of the canvassing board members, Republican Judge Richard Hood, who told him: "The ballots had not simply been recounted. A number of the ballots were not properly completed, and these ballots were examined by board members and "interpreted' by the board members."

Hood could not be reached for comment.

"No one had requested a manual recount," said Bush attorney Sukhia, a former U.S. attorney. "It was not authorized by the statute."

On Wednesday, Quincy's normally sleepy supervisor of elections office was crowded with men in tailored suits, chattering on cellular phones -- representatives of the Bush and Gore campaigns.

Lawyers from both camps had asked to review some of the disputed ballots, but abruptly decided not to Wednesday afternoon as the legal wars intensified elsewhere.

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