Gore: Count the votes

As Gore rallies support, Bush readies administration

By DAVID BALLINGRUD and DIANE RADO

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 28, 2000

With Republicans acting as though a George W. Bush presidency is a done deal, and with signs the nation's patience may be wearing thin, Vice President Al Gore on Monday tried to rally support for his battle to win the presidency.

To make what might have been the most important speech of his life, Gore took just 4 1/2 minutes of television prime time. He spoke passionately, if briefly, about the importance of counting every American's vote, despite difficulty or inconvenience.

"This is America," he said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. "When votes are cast, we count them."

Ignoring Republican calls to step aside, and speaking almost exactly 24 hours after Bush claimed victory with a 537-vote lead in Florida, Gore said "ignoring votes means ignoring democracy itself.

"And if we ignore the votes of thousands in Florida in this election, how can you or any American have confidence that your vote will not be ignored in a future election?

"Two hundred years from now, when future Americans study this presidential election . . . let them learn that democracy was ultimately put ahead of partisan politics in resolving a contested election."

Republicans said Gore was needlessly dragging out the contest and complicating the presidential transition.

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Gore's address offered nothing new.

"It was unfortunately not giving Americans the full picture of what took place," Fleischer said.

"We can't continue to hold the process up while he is in denial," said Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla.

While Gore spoke loftily of the judgment of history, and the need to rise above partisan bickering, his lawyers aggressively pressed his formal challenge of the Nov. 7 election in court, filing a complaint with the state Circuit Court in Tallahassee seeking to nullify the vote counts in Palm Beach, Nassau and Miami-Dade counties accepted by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

Lawyers wrestled over schedules for a hearing expected late in the week. Gore attorney Dexter Douglass pressed for speed.

"We've got to move this case," he said. "This case will be determinative in all probability of the election."

Bush watched Gore's address in the Texas Governor's Mansion in Austin. Earlier he spent much of the day working on a transition to the White House.

"We believe it is time to get on with the business of organizing the new administration," said his vice presidential running mate, Dick Cheney, still recovering from a mild heart attack and arterial surgery.

However, a spokesman for President Clinton said a $5.3-million federal fund to help the next president prepare for office can't be released until challenges to the election are resolved.

In the meantime, Jake Siewert said, government agencies will continue to gather all the appropriate information for a smooth transition for either Bush or Gore.

"We'll do everything we can to proceed along a parallel track," Siewert said.

Cheney called it "regrettable" that the government won't yet make taxpayer money available for a Bush transition, and said Bush will raise private money to do the job.

He acknowledged that "the nation is evenly divided" on its choice for president, but warned Gore that delaying or obstructing a Bush transition would work a "penalty" on the next occupant of the White House.

"There's a whale of a lot of work to do," he said. "We've got to get started."

Referring to a Democratic court challenge to Bush's certified victory in make-or-break Florida, Cheney said that Gore and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, "are apparently still unwilling to accept the outcome.

"That is unfortunate in light of the penalty that may have to be paid at some future date if the next administration is not allowed to prepare to take the reins of government."

With an ABC News-Washington Post poll finding that about six in 10 participants think it is time for Gore to concede, the vice president tried to put the brakes on any growing public perception that Bush is the president-elect. Still, he struck a note of acceptance.

"If the people do not in the end choose me, so be it," he said. "The outcome will have been fair, and the people will have spoken. If they choose me, so be it. But whatever the outcome, let the people have their say, and let us listen."

To the Republican charge that the votes have been counted, recounted and hand-counted, Gore said "many thousands of votes haven't been counted at all -- even once."

Congressional Democrats appeared to close ranks Monday, though there was scattered dissent in the rank and file.

"Everybody should just cool their jets and hang on," at least until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on hand counts, said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. "Democracy doesn't just last until people get bored with it."

The court hears arguments Friday.

Democratic congressional leaders Sen. Tom Daschle and Rep. Richard Gephardt traveled together to Florida and, in a televised phone conference with Gore and Lieberman, pledged their support.

"We wanted to say as unequivocally and as strongly as we can that we recognize it is not over," Daschle said.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in Florida as an observer, said he visited the office in Miami-Dade County where uncounted votes were locked up.

"It would be wrong for him not to contest the election with all these ballots under armed guards," Markey said.

The ABC News-Washington Post poll was first measurable sign that Americans may be losing their appetite for the protracted presidential contest.

The survey of 607 adults was taken hastily after Secretary of State Harris certified Bush had won the state's 25 electoral votes and even as Bush was on TV urging Gore not to challenge the Florida tally.

But pollsters, impressed by the patience that Americans have displayed in the past three weeks, said they wanted more data to confirm a shift in the public mood.

"I think people are tired of the election, but not sick-and-tired," said pollster John Zogby, who did not conduct the ABC News survey. "It's still holding their interest, more than the campaign ever did.

"Americans want it settled, but they aren't at the stage yet of saying "Oh-my-God, this is too much,' " Zogby said.

Passing almost unnoticed Monday was Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, quietly signing the paperwork that certified his older brother's presidential victory and set up a Republican slate of electors.

The "certificate of ascertainment" was signed by the younger Bush on Sunday night at the Governor's Mansion and sent Monday by certified mail to the Archivist of the United States.

Bush, who has generally stayed on the sidelines during recounts in Florida the past three weeks, had no comment on Sunday night's decision by Harris to award his brother Florida's 25 electoral votes.

Florida's governor scheduled only office activities Monday, and his spokeswoman said he wants to wait for all the legal activity to be completed before commenting publicly.

- Staff writer Jim Ross contributed to this report, which also includes information from Times wires.

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