Florida's Not Alone: Several States
Could Recount Presidential Votes
Friday, November 10, 2000
Florida may not be the only state pushed by a tight vote into an election recount. New Mexico's five electoral votes orginally awarded to Al Gore, is now too close to call and goes back in the undecided column. Republicans may ask for recounts in New Mexico, Iowa, Oregon and Wisconsin.
The Gore lead in New Mexico is hanging by the narrowest thread, only a 119-vote lead over George W. Bush. Gore took Iowa and Wisconsin by small margins over George W. Bush and holds a slim lead in Oregon, which hasn't yet declared an official winner.
Election officials in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, are withholding the release of its final tabulation while 355 damaged ballots that could not be tallied by machine are hand counted. Bernalillo is the state's most populous county and includes its largest city, Albuquerque.
Late Friday, election workers found 253 missing ballots in a locked box stored in a warehouse — part of 38,000 early-voting ballots — which had previously caused a discrepancy in the vote tally.
AP Calls Oregon for Gore, Recount not Precluded
The Associated Press called Oregon for Vice President Al Gore, in a narrow victory over George W. Bush for the state's seven electoral votes in a bittersweet victory three days after the election.
With 99 percent of the votes counted as of Friday afternoon, unofficial results gave 698,252 votes to Gore and 692,279 to Bush — a difference of 5,973. The unofficial results showed Green Party candidate Ralph Nader with 74,156 votes.
In Oregon, the first state to conduct an all mail-in election, a recount is required by state law if the margin between the two candidates is less than one-fifth of 1 percent — or about 2,800 votes.
As of Friday afternoon, about 28,500 Oregon votes remained to be counted.
The Bush forces are also considering requesting a recount in Wisconsin, which Bush lost by 6,000 votes. The executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin said the request was being discussed with the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee. A candidate must be the one to request a recount.
At a press conference this afternoon, state GOP leaders said they had videotape footage of activists promising homeless people cigarettes if they agreed to vote for Gore. Rod Hise, the executive director of the state GOP said the party had requested that the Milwaukee District Attorney investigate the alleged "smokes for votes" incidents and other possible election irregularities.
Hise said his office had gotten reports of possible misconduct, ranging from people being given multiple ballots, to people arriving at the polls to find out they had supposedly voted already.
"We're trying to ferret out whether there was widespread fraud," Hise said. "People have the right to vote without that right being usurped by fraud."
The GOP received hundreds of complaints according to Hise, but the state Democratic party has denied any involvement with wrongdoing.
"It is the will of the people of Wisconsin that Al Gore be the next president," said John Kraus, the spokesman for the Gore campaign in Wisconsin. "The people spoke on Tuesday, there's nothing that triggers a recount."
The Bush campaign is also considering asking for a recount in Iowa, where the Texas governor lost by less than 5,000 votes. Iowa law requires a recount request must be sent in writing to each of the state's 99 county auditors by Nov. 16 or 17, depending on the county.
"We're reviewing that right now," said campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, said Gore's victory margin of less than 5,000 votes was significant, and he didn't think the recount would be necessary.
"In absence of some kind of real question about the way ballots have been handled in an area that might tip the scales, I just don't think there's much there," Vilsack said.
With all Iowa precincts counted, Gore led 635,026 to 630,077 — a mere 4,949 votes. County auditors had not yet counted an unknown number of ballots, which must be postmarked by Nov. 6 and received by Monday.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report
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