GOP Gains in First Round Of Recounts
Monday, November 13, 2000
Recounts — both manual and machine — proceeding in some counties
in Florida are favoring George W. Bush so far. But officials with the
Texas governor's campaign maintain their opposition to the process
regardless of who gains from it.
Bush showed a net gain of 97
votes in Polk County after a
weekend re-scan of ballots
there, and squeezed another
21 votes out of Volusia County
with 69 of 172 precincts
recounted by hand there so
far. Hand recounting over the
weekend in Palm Beach
County turned up a net gain of
39 votes for Vice President Al
Gore.
"It doesn't matter whether we
gain or lose votes, our
principle remains the same — that a hand recount without any standards
is unreliable, and as we can see ... often results in chaos," Bush
spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "The best course of action is to allow the
existing two recounts to stand. Anything less would be so subjective that it
would neither be fair nor right."
As of Monday, Bush leads Gore in Florida by 388 votes, with hand
recounts proceeding in two counties and on horizon in two others. A
federal judge Monday morning refused the Bush campaign's request to
halt the manual recount process.
All this, despite word from the Florida Secretary of State that recounts in all
of Florida's 67 counties should be completed by 5 p.m. Tuesday and a
winner certified by Saturday after overseas absentee ballots are rolled into
the totals.
"The law unambiguously states when the process of counting and
recounting the votes cast on Election Day must end," Harris said in a
written statement distributed in Tallahassee. "For this election, that time is
5 p.m. Nov. 14, which is tomorrow."
Under those constraints, Volusia County, home of the Daytona
International Speedway, could be the only one county to finish its work
before the deadline. Some 42 officials there began counting the 184,019
presidential ballots there Sunday and said they expected to be finished
late Monday.
"The count is going faster than we first expected it would. It looks like all
precincts will be counted by tonight, or very early Tuesday morning at the
latest," said county spokesman David Byron.
Just in case, the heavily Democratic county sued for the right to complete
and certify its manual count regardless of the deadline, and to bar the
state from ignoring its results.
Also Monday, Broward County officials said they plan to begin a hand
recount of about 6,000 ballots in three precincts. If major problems are
found, authorities will consider a full hand count of all precincts in the
Democratic stronghold.
And in Miami-Dade County, the state's largest, officials planned to meet
Tuesday to consider the Democrats' request for a hand recount.
Under Florida law, manual recounts are allowed if a candidate meets a
post-election deadline to request them and the local election board
agrees.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report
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