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Palm Beach County counters to work all night
Saturday, 25 November 2000 17:13 (ET)
Palm Beach County
counters to work all nightBy TOM HOPKINS WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov. 21 (UPI) -- The three-member canvassing board in Palm Beach County said Saturday they will work all night in an attempt to meet Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline for certifying the county's presidential ballot recount. "We want to get it done," said County Judge Charles Burton, the chairman of the canvassing board. "Never say never, we're going to keep plugging away. I think we can do it." The Broward County Board is expected to finish Saturday night, despite continuing disputes and controversy.
At one point Saturday, Republican Attorney William Scherer was told by Broward Board Chairman Robert W. Lee that he would no longer be welcome as an observer because of repeated disagreements. On Wednesday he had been asked to leave, but he became silent and was allowed to remain.
Govs. Frank Keating of Oklahoma and Marc Racicot of Montana immediately jumped to Scherer's defense. Keating called the process "supremely unfair," and Racicot complained about the process.
"It's just unbelievable to me that here we are picking a president of the United States and we can't even offer some insight into what we think is a reasonable approach to this issue," Racicot said.
"I think that's a sad, sad day for America." Texas Gov. George W. Bush has an official statewide lead of 930 votes, but going into the day Gore had gained 369 votes in Broward County and six inMiami-Dade County, which counted only three precincts before canceling the recount. Bush had picked up eight in Palm Beach County and 52 in an abbreviated recount in Nassau County in northeast Florida. That gave Bush a 657-vote edge, with about 900 ballots to be counted inBroward County and 8,000 in Palm Beach County.
An analysis of the numbers by The Miami Herald suggested that Gore was unlikely to overtake Bush.
The newspaper said figures projected from earlier stages in the recount show that Gore will make a net gain of 500 votes in Broward County and fewer than 340 in Palm Beach, 90 votes short of the gains he needs. Palm Beach County board members had said they were working at 165 ballots an hour Friday, but a county spokes woman said they had doubled the pace Saturday. Republican demonstrators returned for the second day outside, despite heavy rain through out the area. Another GOP protest was scheduled for mid-afternoon in West Palm Beach but it drew only about 200 people. It was organized by Gay Gaines, a major GOP activist who lives in Palm Beach. She e-mailed GOP friends nearby to rally outside the Emergency Operations Center where the count is being held.
In Broward County there were about 30 Democratic demonstrators and hundreds of Republicans. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., who was in Fort Lauderdale, said the workers and canvassers have a difficult task. "It's an impossible task. They're trying to do a good job, but the difficulty is that each one of them has different standards that they' retrying to follow," Hutchinson said.
But former Democratic Maine Sen. John Mitchell supported the hand counts. "I believe the over riding objective of all concerned should be a full, fair and accurate count of the vote because in our democratic society the will of the be people is, and ought to be, in the words of the state supreme court, the paramount consideration. |
