Palm Beach board faces questions

Legal delays and the Thanksgiving holiday are among the answers to "What happened?''

By ADAM C. SMITH

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 28, 2000

WEST PALM BEACH -- Rumpled and red-eyed, Palm Beach County Judge Charles Burton faced the media throngs Sunday night soon after finishing a tortuous presidential hand count that had consumed his life for more than two weeks.

"When are you going to run for Senate?" a spectator in the back of the crowd shouted at Burton.

"What about president," another fan yelled.

Burton just flashed the bemused, good-natured smile that has charmed so many reporters and party observers in recent days. With humor and a vote tallying style that has variously angered Democrats and Republicans alike, the once obscure misdemeanor judge emerged as something of a hero in Palm Beach's presidential election mess.

And yet his popularity belies a simple fact: He and his fellow canvassing board members failed.

Their extra-cautious approach to the manual count and their decision to take Thanksgiving off wound up allowing Secretary of State Katherine Harris to reject their recount because they barely missed Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline. It wouldn't have been enough to change the results of Florida's election, but it meant hundreds of Palm Beach votes weren't counted in the presidential election.

Over 10 days, the three-person board and small armies of counters and party observers managed to finish recounting all but roughly 800 of more than 462,000 presidential votes cast. Al Gore had picked up around 180 votes.

But because the recount wasn't finished by 5 p.m., Harris threw out even the results completed on time, certifying only Palm Beach's original machine recount.

Missing the deadline by just two hours made Harris' decision all the more frustrating to the exhausted board members and volunteers struggling to finish the job. It also showed how easily Palm Beach's canvassing board could have met the deadline.

Broward County's canvassing board chose to spend much of Thanksgiving counting ballots; Palm Beach took the day off. One mystified British reporter put it bluntly to Burton on Sunday night: "You chose pumpkin pie and turkey over a national election?"

It was at least the fourth time Burton had faced that question Sunday and each time his answer became progressively meeker.

"We needed a day off," he said softly, noting the dozens of exhausted security personnel, elections officials and support staff involved in the recount. "I really believed we could make it."

On Monday, members of the all-Democrat canvassing board mostly stayed out of sight. Burton could not be reached, and Carol Roberts, a county commissioner who at one point said she would go to jail to ensure votes were properly counted, took off for a long-planned trip to Burma.

Theresa LePore, the supervisor of elections whose unusual ballot design prompted hundreds of complaints from Gore supporters saying they mistakenly voting for Pat Buchanan, maintained the mode of very public seclusion she has had since Election Day. In her office, nearly a dozen television cameras followed her every time she stepped into sight, but she never said a word.

In West Palm Beach, voters and party representatives mostly viewed the canvassing board as blameless for the missed deadline and attacked Harris for refusing to be reasonable.

"If Katherine Harris didn't want to give them a two-hour extension, she should have at least accepted the votes that were counted," said Delray Beach Democrat Sarena Morello, who is suing Palm Beach County over the confusing ballot. "Every American deserves to take Thanksgiving off, and those people on the canvassing board worked their hearts out."

Plenty of factors besides the Thanksgiving break played into the missed deadline. While canvassing boards in Volusia and Broward Counties got started on their counts, Palm Beach's board, dominated by Burton, kept delaying to await legal opinions. Even after a local judge said they could go forward, they waited.

Officials underestimated the number of questionable ballots to be reviewed by the board by several thousand. Board members also repeatedly complained about having to review ballots that Republicans had flagged as questionable, when they were clear votes for Gore. Democrats ate up time with a court challenge that forced Burton to testify Wednesday.

Outside the emergency operations center Sunday night after 36 hours of counting, Burton avoided second guessing.

"I don't feel our efforts were wasted," he said.

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