DAY 13: America Held Hostage
Palm Beach recount: Judge asks counters and
observers to be nicer
By KARIN MEADOWS, Associated Press
Web-posted: 12:38 p.m. Nov. 19, 2000
The judge supervising the recount in Palm Beach County pleaded
Sunday with counters and observers to be nice to one another,
after a fracas broke out when a counter accidentally put a ballot
in the wrong stack.
"You would have thought she'd killed 14 people," said County
Judge Charles Burton, a Democrat and chair of the canvassing
board.
Tensions have been running high in the counting room since
the manual recount began Thursday evening. Observers have
repeatedly complained about the mishandling of ballots, saying
counters have improperly touched them, put yellow stickers on
them, even chipped fingernail polish with one.
After Saturday's counting was complete, Bush had a net gain
of 12 votes with 31 of the 531 precincts tallied. The canvassing
board said they had actually counted 202 precincts, but they
were only releasing vote totals from precincts where no
questionable ballots remained.
The counting began again Sunday at 7:45 a.m. with an
admonition from Burton to be more civil about pointing out
questions or improper handling.
"The counter shouldn't argue with the observer, turn around
and say "What are you blind?" Point it out in a nice way, a
non-accusatory way," Burton said.
Burton said they hoped to finish the recount of the 462,350
by Thanksgiving Day but warned that would not happen if the
objections continued at the current rate.
He also said people in the counting room should not be so
concerned about stray chads. Republicans have been collecting
them. Burton recalled an incident late Saturday when an
observer saw a misplaced chad.
"I'm telling you the observer went crazy. There's a chad on
the floor Help!"' Burton said, laughing.
"Some of them are going to fall off, and that's fine. I think
they were selling packets of 20 on e-Bay," he said.
Early Sunday, the Emergency Operations Center where the
counting was taking place was evacuated after security officials
found a suspicious briefcase. A bomb-sniffing dog was called in
around 12:15 a.m., but nothing was found.
It turn out the briefcase in the counting room belonged to a
court reporter who didn't hear an announcement seeking the
owner of the bag, said Palm Beach County Sheriff's Lt. Patrick
Kenny. On Sunday, security officials began checking everyone's
bag at the door.
On Saturday, GOP attorney Mark Wallace called on the board
to take more time reviewing the ballots after a few ballots were
found with the tiny chads reaffixed with tape. On Sunday,
Burton advised counters to take a little more time.
"The pace needs to be slowed down and it needs to be done
in a much more thoughtful way," Wallace said.
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