> I, for one, will never believe another word spoken by Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, and their gang of thugs. <
Whose gang of thugs...?
abcnews.go.com
Nov. 24 — Suspicious of Miami-Dade election officials’
sudden decision to stop the manual vote recount,
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman
and six congressmen today accused Republicans of
orchestrating a demonstration to intimidate the county
elections board.
Until Wednesday, the heavily Democratic Miami-Dade was
one of the three Florida counties conducting recounts in the
still-unresolved presidential election. On that day, in an apparent
exercise of spontaneous public outrage, pro-George W. Bush
demonstrators surged through the county office building in
Miami-Dade County, demanding an end to the hand recount
there.
The shouting demonstrators accused
Democratic election officials of taking the
count behind closed doors and apparently
contributed to one election supervisor’s vote
to end the hand recount.
“If what I’d envisioned worked out and
there were no objections, we’d be up there
now counting,” election supervisor David
Leahy said.
But that demonstration, ABCNEWS has
learned, was neither spontaneous, nor local.
It was an organized Republican Party protest, run by 75 party
supporters out of a motor home headquarters in Miami. Today,
six Democratic congressmen suggested the Bush campaign was
behind the allegedly orchestrated protest and sent a letter to the
Justice Department urging it “to investigate what may be an
egregious effort to undermine” the right of voters in Miami-Dade
County.
“According to many published reports, unruly and violent
protestors managed to create a climate of fear and intimidation,
with the intent of preventing the canvassing board from
completing its difficult task,” the letter said. “The actions …
included punching and kicking individuals, pounding on doors,
screaming threats and other intimidating acts.”
The letter was signed by Reps. Peter Deutsch and Carrie Meek,
both of Florida, Sheila Jackson Lee and Eddie Bernice Johnson,
both of Texas, William Jefferson of Louisiana and Eleanor Holmes
Norton of Washington, D.C.
Democratic Process or Intimidation?
In a statement this afternoon, Lieberman called the
demonstrations a “disservice to our democracy” and called on
protesters to stop their bully tactics.
“These demonstrations were clearly designed to intimidate and
to prevent a simple count of votes from going forward,” said
Lieberman, speaking to reporters outside the vice president’s
residence in Washington. “This is a time to honor the rule of law,
not surrender to the rule of the mob. We need a fair count of the
ballots in question and that must include freedom from
intimidation.”
But representatives of the Bush campaign suggested that
Lieberman’s complaints were disingenuous, noting that
Democrats did not complain when the Rev. Jesse Jackson
organized protests in Palm Beach County last week.
“Where was Joe Lieberman when Jesse Jackson organized
Democratic protests in Palm Beach County to protest on behalf of
Al Gore?” asked Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer. “Why
didn’t he publicly disclaim those protests? Today’s remarks are
the latest example of Al Gore saying one thing, while doing
another.” Now the Republican demonstrators and their motor
home are in Broward County, where a manual recount is still
ongoing.
“There are paid political operatives from out of state who have
come down to South Florida” and helped stop the recount in
Miami, said Congressman Deutsch. “I think we need to
immediately have a federal investigation of this attempt to stop a
fair and accurate count.”
But Republican Party lawyer Theodore Olson told ABCNEWS’
Good Morning America he thought the protests were part of the
democratic process.
“If citizens of the United States are voluntarily objecting to the
process where the rules change, and where Democratic officials
take these ballots behind closed doors where they can’t be
observers, I think American citizens are entitled to do that sort of
thing,” Olson said.
Motor Home Heads North
The motor home showed up at 8 a.m. today near the Broward
County courthouse. They came in honking and shouting, and
about 100 people poured out of it and other vehicles to start a
demonstration. Some were recognized by reporters as the same
people from the “spontaneous” Miami demonstration.
A smaller group of about 40 Republican protesters is marching
outside the recount in Palm Beach County, but they don’t seem
to be from the Miami motor home.
In Miami, they said they were there to help the media.
“We provide a service for you, for our surrogates who you
want to speak to,” one operative said when approached by
ABCNEWS.
But they also got directly involved in leading demonstrations,
and were even willing to dress up in seasonal outfits to provide
so-called protester color for local news reports.
The Republican demonstrators said they were from all over the
country, including Washington, D.C., and New York.
With security much heavier in Broward than Miami-Dade, the
protesters are staying put outside the building. From their
position, the protesters would have to pass several layers of
police protection, take two elevators and walk several hundred
feet inside the building to get to the recount site. Protester-free,
the recount is continuing quietly in a room in the north wing of
the courthouse.
Democrats seem to be laying low at the Broward protests,
though they’ve been flying their own supporters in by the
dozens daily. They’re relying on local sheriffs to keep order,
Democrats said.
Deutsch said Democrats were “using the rule of law in the
United States of America to try and correct” what he described as
“the efforts of the out-of-state paid political mob.”
ABCNEWS’ Steve Osunsami, Bill Redeker and ABCNEWS.com’s
Sascha Segan and Bryan Robinson contributed to this story. |
