Scott - sorry it's taken so long to get back to this.
I agree that the reference in 102.166(4) is to the certification by the County Canvassing Board, but the same statute allows that County level certification to be filed at any time prior to the 7 day statewide certification deadline that Ms. Harris was so insistent on enforcing strictly despite the utter disarray that followed the Florida election, disarray that was especially acute in three of the four counties where Gore centered his recount effort - Dade, PBC and Broward. BTW, my recollection is that a fairly large number of counties certified their tallies well after the 72 hour period expired, and the point is that if a county can certify at 11:30 p.m. on Day 7, then it reads the recount statute out of the law if you do not permit the count to take place if it is not completed prior to the 7-day state certification deadline.
The bottom line is that Gore got his request in well ahead of the deadline, although close to the 72 hour point, but why would that increase the "weasel factor" to you? Be honest, those 3 counties were a mess in the immediate aftermath of the election. It was not until 36 hours after the election that all results of the automatic machine recounts were in, showing an even narrower margin, and the scope of undervotes and overvotes was first beginning to be understood (and that it was statistically much higher in Broward, PBC and Dade -- the 3 heaviest Democratic strongholds -- than anywhere else in the state). Gore took 1 whole day after that to formally request the manual recounts (as he had every right to do, and as Bush would undoubtedly have done, as he did in N. Mexico, had it been the other way around). And Gore signaled his intention to do so the day before he actually filed the formal requests. And, as it turned out, he certainly should have done it, because initial indications are that the hand recounting is cutting heavily in Gore's favor (more on that in 3 weeks when the Herald audit is done, assuming Duval County allows the press to inspect its undervotes and overvotes without defending the lawsuit to force that review for the next 4 years). And the law clearly did not contemplate a statewide procedure, it was a county by county process (and many counties clearly did NOT merit a hand recount because the voting tabulation equipment was far more accurate).
The rule of law, which Jim Baker was so fond of referring to, gave Gore the right to request the recount when he did. Gore complied with the law. The 3 counties that were "late" relative to the 7 day deadline were THE most populous counties in the state, where a full manual recount could not have been completed under any circumstances within the deadline. Add to that Katherine Harris' active efforts to slow the canvassing boards down, to tell them (wrongly, as the FSC ultimately found) that they did not have the right to go forward unless they could show there to have been a software glitch (totally unsupported by the statute) and then the active efforts of GOP observors to object to every sixth ballot (including many easily readable ballots) in PBC, and to make every individual ballot inspection a 2-3 minute ordeal, etc., and the whole notion that it was Gore who was acting like a weasel during this process becomes especially difficult for me to stomach.
Let me ask you something honestly. If this election came down to one state, which (1) had Al Gore's brother as its Governor, (2) had a top Gore campaign aide as its top election official, (3) Bush was behind by about 900 votes out of 6 million cast, (4) three heavily GOP counties, the most populous in the state, had old punch ballot voting equipment and statistically higher undervotes (10 times the state average) especially in districts that were heavily Mormon and Pentacostal, (5) Bush requested manual recounts in those counties in a timely fashion, and made the prima facie showing necessary for those recounts to proceed, (6)initial indications showed that he was narrowing the lead as the counts proceeded and would likely pull ahead if they were completed, and (7) the State's top election official (Gore's campaign co-chair) first ordered the counties, incorrectly, to stop the manual recounts on the theory that they had no right to proceed, and then announced that he would strictly enforce a 7 day deadline that is clearly not mandatory, and would not exercise discretion clearly granted to him to accept tallies submitted after the deadline where the canvassing boards were acting reasonably diligently under very difficult circumstances -- all to the end that Gore won the election despite the fact that more people had clearly voted (or intended to vote) for Bush, do you think for one second that Bush supporters would not have been going absolutely insane with rage, accusing the Gore campaign official of treason and calling Gore and his campaign corrupt and trying to steal the election?? Add to that massive voter irregularities (turning away thousands of legal voters who had been wrongfully purged from registration rolls by a GOP-affiliated vendor hired by K. Harris and Jeb Bush, failing to provide handicapped accessible voting machinery in districts with high elderly populations, causing hundreds to be unable to vote, etc.) and perhaps you can start to appreciate why the Florida democrats, and African Americans in particular, are bitter about the way the election turned out in that state, and by the characterization of them as too stupid to vote properly, etc.
I hope you have watched some of the testimony before the Civil Rights Commission. It tells of highly educated, professional people, and elderly people, and blacks, encountering misaligned voting machines, poorly trained and unhelpful election supervsors, an inability to get through to K. Harris' office phone number to get help on clearing up voter registration snafu's, massive improper purging of predominantly black voters from registration rolls, and much much more. I dare say that we may find out about widespread ballot tampering before we are through -- there are some preliminary indications of that as well - I hope that's not true, but at this point, I would not be that surprised. But this is not a matter of people to stupid to vote properly -- rather, it appears to be people who were deliberately disenfranchised. It's enough to make any decent American sick, and the GOP supporters who make light of it are missing by a wide margin the depth of outrage that still justifiably exists over it. If tables were turned, and Bush were on the receiving end of what he and his supporters in Florida have dished out to Gore and his supporters, these conservative message boards would be lighting it up, even more than they did at the height of the 8 year GOP effort to trash Bill Clinton (that still continues even after he has left office).
Well, your turn.
Mark |
