... it appeared that the Broward canvassing board's standard of what constituted a vote was inconsistent.
The manual recounts have no integrity already.
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Published Wednesday, December 20, 2000, in the Miami Herald
After holiday break, ballot review may take 3 weeks
BY BETH REINHARD
breinhard@herald.com
As a review of Broward County ballots crept along on its second day Tuesday, Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley blasted the process, saying it would ``cast a pall over the presidency.''
The Herald and its parent company Knight Ridder plan to scrutinize tens of thousands of disputed ballots throughout the state. Several other news organizations and Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group, also are reviewing ballots.
Foley said, ``Mr. Bush is the president-elect. Mr. Gore has conceded. It is not time to start speculating on what voters might have meant.''
Herald Executive Editor Martin Baron said the newspaper will not try to determine voter intent.
``All we are doing is laying out the facts,'' he said. ``These facts will be laid out to readers and the American public, and people can come to their own conclusion about what constitutes a real vote.''
The review promises to move slowly. After Tuesday, elections officials will not begin checking again until Jan. 3. Officials said because of inadequate staffing over the holidays, they could not accommodate the requests to review the ballots again until then.
After two days, a total of 872 ballots were reviewed. With about 6,600 ballots to be examined, the tabulation could take about three weeks. The review includes all the ballots that were contested and decided by the canvassing board.
The Herald hired the national accounting firm of BDO Seidman to look at ballots in all of Florida's 67 counties. Representatives of the firm are recording a description of each ballot, noting characteristics such as dimples, pinpricks and hanging chads.
``I think the procedure we've adopted is as accurate, impartial and objective as anyone could create,'' Baron said.
In reviewing ballots Tuesday, it appeared that the Broward canvassing board's standard of what constituted a vote was inconsistent.
The news organizations examined several absentee ballots in the late afternoon that were not counted as votes even though they featured the same type of dimpled and barely pressed chads that the canvassing board declared as official votes for Gore or Bush on other ballots.
Several of the ballots seemed to show voter intent, even though the machine recorded no vote for president. One person from a Pompano Beach precinct scrawled ``Geo. Bush'' in blue ink on his or her ballot. Another voter wrote, ``I pick Geo. Bush by mistake. I vote for Al Gore.'' Several people who made two marks for president scrawled `X's' or `No' over the mistaken candidate. In all of those cases, no presidential vote was recorded by canvassing board.
The Herald's project does not seek to determine voter intent.
The Broward ballots were viewed at the Voting Equipment Center in Fort Lauderdale by The Herald, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Sun-Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, The Associated Press, The Chicago Tribune, Republican Party officials, two Fort Lauderdale voters and Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group.
U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Pembroke Pines, a Gore supporter who observed the review in Broward, praised The Herald and other news organizations for their work.
``The truth is the truth,'' Deutsch said. ``For the good of the country I hope the review shows that George W. Bush wins, but if he doesn't, Americans have a right to know that.''
But Foley and an attorney for the Florida Republican Party, Mark Wallace, said only cleanly punched ballots should count as votes. They stood next to posterboard-sized copies of the forms used by The Herald and other newspapers to categorize ballots.
``In order for a vote to count, it must be fully accentuated,'' Foley said. ``No hanging chads, no dimples, no pimples.''
Democratic lawyers said, however, that the U.S. Supreme Court never said that incompletely punched ballots should not be counted. Instead, the court ruled that the lack of a uniform standard for evaluating ballots was unconstitutional. |
