More and More bizarre by the minute in FL....
Nov 12, 2000 - 01:05 AM
As if Things in Florida Need to Be Any Stranger ...
By Deborah Hastings
The Associated Press
ap.tbo.com
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - As if things needed to be any stranger, the undecided presidential election slipped into worse chaos at the Palm Beach County Governmental Center, site of the much-awaited hand count.
Besieged election workers were supposed to eyeball tiny holes in hundreds of ballots beginning at 9 a.m. But as the nation looked on, no one was looking at voter cards. Instead, GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush filed a federal lawsuit seeking to halt it.
At issue in this county heavily populated by the elderly are voters who sobbed and signed petitions claiming last Tuesday's newly designed ballots were so indecipherable they voted for the wrong person.
Specifically, they feared they marked Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Democrat Al Gore. At 2 p.m., just as the 82-page lawsuit was faxed to West Palm Beach and handed to election officials, the recount finally began.
No matter the lawsuit, the officials said. No restraining order was issued demanding they stop. On with business.
"All of you can file for injunction, but until we get a court order, it doesn't mean anything," said Palm Beach County Judge Charles Burton, who is named as a defendant because he also is one of the county canvassing commission's three members.
Like everything else on Saturday, the hand-count did not begin smoothly. After hours of being pestered by reporters, local politicians brought out Bob Nichols, a former South Florida television reporter who now speaks for Palm Beach County.
He was swarmed by journalists starving for comment. Balding and tanned, Nichols spent 20 minutes telling reporters that he, to borrow from outgoing President Bill Clinton, could feel their pain.
Meanwhile, journalists peering in a window could see the recount was beginning. The pool reporter chosen to watch on behalf of all print media - whose newspapers inform the public - was barred at the ballot room's guarded door.
This prompted shouting. Nichols was unmoved. If it has started, he said slowly, the pool reporters are in there. "I'm not in there!" yelled print pool reporter Karin Meadows of The Associated Press.
After more shouting, another county official let her in.
Tallying was expected to take as long as 12 hours. Milling about was an invasion of well-dressed lawyers and political party officials who arrived hours earlier, carrying briefcases and mandates to eyeball the eyeballers.
They joined an ever-growing media village populated by reporters from around the world, some of whom had just arrived from overseas and didn't speak English.
The Governmental Center's courtyard looked like an anthill. Frenzied reporter ants flowed from one cluster of suited men to another, shoving microphones into deep huddles.
"Who is that?" the journalists demanded. Colleagues shrugged and kept scribbling.
Often, the speakers were spinners from the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, Bush's campaign staff, Gore's campaign staff, and a loud Reform Party official who repeatedly said, "Evil is done every day."
Some of the suited men who knew what was going on wouldn't give their names. One, a physician from Boca Raton, said he was drafted as a recount observer by the state Republican Party. The morning, he said, consisted of lawyers arguing over the definition of "dimpled."
Dimpled, as in funny marks or indentations, is one reason to reject ballots from the recount.
--- |
