Seminole , Martin Counties' Cases May Tip Scales
By Nicholas Kulish
12/04/2000
The Wall Street Journal
Page A16
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- While national attention is fixed on a net difference of a few hundred
presidential votes in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, trials starting here this week over
the handling of absentee ballots in two other counties could result in a net gain of several
thousand votes for Vice President Al Gore.
Circuit Court Judges Terry P. Lewis and Nikki Ann Clark will hear nearly identical cases
Wednesday in which Democrats want thousands of absentee ballots thrown out in
Republican-leaning Martin and Seminole counties, respectively. The plaintiffs are local voters
who insist they are acting on their own, not at the bidding of the Gore campaign. If they prevail
in what is considered an uphill legal struggle, Mr. Gore could net more than 7,600 votes --
giving him a wide margin of victory in this disputed election compared with recent razor-thin
counts favoring Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
While confident that the disputed absentee ballots were handled properly, Republicans
nevertheless are taking the cases seriously. Lawyers say it is easier to have a court throw out
contested ballots than it is to have them recounted and tallied, as is being requested in the
Miami-Dade and Palm Beach county cases.
To that end, Bush lawyers on Saturday asked a third judge, Leon County Circuit Judge N.
Sanders Sauls, to intervene and declare the Seminole County election results "legal and
proper." Judge Sauls is presiding over the high-profile recount disputes in Miami-Dade and
Palm Beach counties.
As with the better-known Seminole County case, the Martin County challenge, filed here
Friday, was brought by a local Democrat who complained that GOP workers filled in missing
voter-identification numbers on absentee -ballot applications after they had been turned in to
elections officials. In this instance, however, Republicans were allowed to physically remove the
applications from the elections office and return them later after filling in the missing sections; in
Seminole the work was done in the elections office.
Judge Lewis insisted the Martin County case should be handled quickly, saying "the sooner the
better." Lawyers involved in both cases will shuttle back and forth between the two hearings,
which will be heard in the same courthouse here.
What actually transpired doesn't appear to be in contention, said Ken W. Wright, an attorney
for the Florida GOP working on both cases. "I think this case is going to present an opportunity
for a court to make a determination of whether these facts give rise to a conduct that was such
to warrant throwing out all of the absentee ballots."
Lawyers for the various parties spent the weekend taking depositions and preparing for more
hearings today and tomorrow. "I think it can be resolved fairly quickly," said Richard Siwica,
attorney for the plaintiff in the Seminole case. Judge Clark "could issue a preliminary ruling
immediately, a day or so after the hearing," said Mr. Siwica.
Gore supporters hope to see all the absentee ballots -- almost 25,000 -- in either or both of
the counties discarded. More of a privilege than a right, absentee ballots are easier to throw
out, thanks to stricter statutes meant to combat fraud in mail-in voting. In these
Republican-leaning counties, dumping the absentee ballots would result in a net gain for Mr.
Gore of 2,815 votes in Martin and 4,797 in Seminole .
The statute "gives the court very broad authority to solve the problem," said Mr. Siwica.
But as seen time and again in recent weeks, preliminary legal victories would only pave the way
for appeals, where Democrats could face significant hurdles. "The Florida court has had a
number of cases" in which "the uniform approach has been that we don't exclude votes on the
basis of technicalities," said University of Florida law professor Joseph W. Little.
Republicans aren't perfectly confident, however, that the case will go their way. "I'm not
sleeping easy and I don't think anyone should sleep easy when issues of this magnitude are in a
court," said Mr. Wright. |
