TLC,
Been checking the Florida sources...?
Apparently the major media haven't, either that or they are simply blatantly ignoring the truth....again!
Published Saturday, November 25, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
Pivotal move led to end of
Dade count
Protesters demanded better access
BY DON FINEFROCK
dfinefrock@herald.com
As Republican protesters
pounded on the locked doors
of the Miami-Dade Elections
Department Wednesday morning
demanding access to the
canvassing board, the members
of the board huddled inside
and made a critical decision.
Faced with an angry mob of
two dozen Republicans and
protests from reporters, the
board agreed to move back to
a public conference room on
the 18th floor at County Hall
where people could watch as
votes were tallied.
The decision seemed
incidental at the time, given
the scope of what the board
was trying to accomplish -- a
manual recount of 10,750
ballots that showed no vote
for president when scanned by
a counting machine.
As events unfolded, however,
the decision would prove
pivotal.
The board returned to the
18th floor three hours later
with a police escort and
promptly voted to abandon any
effort to recount ballots.
Elections Supervisor David
Leahy said the decision to
count votes on the 18th floor
had created an ``unworkable
situation. The board simply
could not complete the job by
the deadline set by the
Florida Supreme Court, he
said.
The board vote was unanimous:
The recount would stop.
Democrats now charge that the
board was intimidated by
Republican activists who
jeered the board and staged
noisy protests inside and
outside County Hall.
`NEAR RIOT'
``It was a near riot
situation, said Chad Clanton,
a spokesman for the
Gore-Lieberman Recount
Committee who was present on
Wednesday.
U.S. Reps. Carrie Meek,
D-Miami, and Peter Deutsch,
D-Pembroke Pines, asked the
Justice Department to
investigate ``what appears to
be a shocking case of
undermining the right to vote
through intimidation and
threats of violence.
They cited published reports,
including stories in The
Herald, that described the
rowdy protests that rocked
County Hall on Wednesday.
But Leahy -- one of three
members of the canvassing
board -- denied Friday that
the protests played any part
in his decision to scrub the
recount.
``The protest was not a
factor in my decision, he
said. ``We simply could not
get it done by the deadline.
Leahy denied a report in The
New York Times that quoted
him as saying the protests
had influenced his vote to
call off the recount.
He said the protest outside
his office had influenced the
board's decision to return to
the 18th floor, but not his
vote to scrap the recount.
``I was concerned that what
we were doing was not being
perceived as a fair and open
process, Leahy told reporters
on Wednesday.
The other two members of the
canvassing board -- County
Judges Lawrence D. King and
Myriam Lehr -- declined on
Friday to speak with The
Herald. Leahy declined to
speculate about their reasons
for voting to halt the
recount.
DOUR POUNDING
But Leahy and others who were
with the board on Wednesday
while it met inside the
Elections Department on the
19th floor at County Hall
said the board was aware of
the protest raging outside
the department.
Republican activists in Miami
to serve as official
observers during the recount
process chanted in the lobby
outside the department and
pounded on the locked doors,
demanding access.
The protest had the desired
effect. Mayco Villafana, the
county's communications
director, asked the board to
move back to the 18th floor.
Without taking a formal vote,
the board agreed.
The protest ``definitely
affected their decision, said
Los Angeles attorney Stephen
Kaufman, one of the
Democratic observers in the
room with the board. ``I
think they realized that it
was creating a perception
problem for them.
Kaufman said it was not clear
then that the recount was in
jeopardy.
But as the morning wore on,
Leahy said he became
convinced the board could not
meet the Sunday deadline for
completing the recount
because the decision to
return to the 18th floor had
created a logistical problem.
TOUGH DEADLINE
To meet the deadline, the
board would have to sort
through thousands of ballots
by hand and decide whether
those ballots had been
punched by a voter.
At the same time, it needed
to watch as those and other
ballots were run through the
counting machines on the 19th
floor -- first to segregate
some of the ballots with no
clear vote, and then again to
tally the results.
Leahy had hoped to proceed
with both jobs at once, but
the board's decision to
return to the 18th floor for
the hand count made that
impossible.
``It was clear we were not
going to make it, Leahy said.
The two judges agreed with
that assessment in public
remarks made Wednesday.
``It is not physically
possible to continue with
this task, Lehr said.
What other pressures weighed
on the two judges was not
known. Both must face county
voters to win reelection, or
move up to the circuit court.
Both judges were reelected this year to six-year
terms.
It is not clear whether the two judges were aware of
the protests being staged outside County Hall. But
board members were keenly aware of the pivotal role
they were playing in an intensely partisan political
drama.
``The Republic is watching us, King said at one
point Wednesday.
King's vote to stop counting may have been
influenced by his reading of Florida law. After the
canvassing board completed a partial recount of
three precincts on Nov. 14, attorneys for the
Democratic Party asked the board to recount only
those ballots that showed no vote for president.
First Assistant County Attorney Murray Greenberg
told the board it had the discretion to grant the
request, but King disagreed. The judge said he
didn't believe state law allowed the board to do
anything less than a full recount.
``The Legislature only gives us one way to do this
and that is a hand count of all the ballots, King
said.
INCONSISTENCY
When the canvassing board voted unanimously on
Wednesday morning to scrap the full recount and
tally only those ballots with no clear vote,
Republican attorney Miguel De Grandy was quick to
point out the inconsistency.
At one point, De Grandy read a transcript of the
judge's earlier remarks.
``I am well aware of what I said, King said.
Asked later if he thought state law allowed for less
than a full recount, King said he would defer to the
county attorney's office on that question. |
