Charges of Cheating Abound
11/8/00 - From Senior Editor Jamie Dettmer in Austin, Texas
GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush’s hope that the Florida recount will be "resolved in a quick way" may be dashed if some advisers to his rival, Al Gore, get their way.
Early reports back to Austin from Bush aides in the Sunshine State who are monitoring the recount warn that the Democrats seem likely to resort to the courts in a bid to stop the election slipping away from the vice president.
"We are geared for a court challenge," says a Bush campaign source. "Our people down there are getting the clear impression that the Democrats are searching madly for anything they can litigate on."
Another Bush aide expressed anxiety about the Democratic Party affiliations of Florida’s state attorney general and federal district attorney.
He said: "We are not worried about the recount procedures — we don’t see how that process can be tampered with. But we anticipate a claim of voter fraud and the Democrats may use anything they can get to try to taint this election. It still could get mean and nasty."
In a statement to journalists this morning the Texas governor said he expected the recount to confirm that he and running mate Dick Cheney did indeed win Florida and its crucial 25 electoral-college votes.
"If that result is confirmed by an automatic recount as we expect it to be, then we have won the election," he said, speaking outside the
governor’s mansion in Austin. "We have to make sure the outcome is finalized as quickly as possible," Bush said, adding that the situation reflects on the "strength of our democracy."
Some prominent Democrats have taken to the airwaves to question the result in Florida, pointing to the discovery by the director of a church preschool of a padlocked ballot box at the church hall this morning that was apparently left behind last night by precinct workers.
In a separate controversy, Palm Beach County, Fla., voters are complaining that their punch-card ballots had the names of presidential candidates on two pages instead of one. The voters say it led to confusion and they may have voted for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan when they had intended to vote for Gore.
While Democrats are raising questions in Florida, some Republican officials say they are disquieted by claims of voter fraud in Michigan, which Gore won, and Arkansas, which voted for Bush.
If Bush takes Florida, the state's electoral votes would push his number to 271 — one more than needed to win the presidency. If Gore wins Florida, he'll have 285 — but if he doesn't win Florida, and even if he takes Oregon, he'll fall short of 270 by three electoral votes.
The Bush campaign has sent to Florida from its headquarters virtually all of the lawyers it had on staff. And dozens of other Republican lawyers from around the country are heading to the Sunshine State, too. The Democrats also are deploying a large number of attorneys.
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