LATEST FROM PALM BEACH.....Ongoing recount cuts Bush lead
By Brian E. Crowley, Palm Beach Post Political Editor
Thursday, November 9, 2000
Florida continued to be the top-rated political show Wednesday as election officials ever so slowly recounted millions of votes and told the nation it will have to wait to learn who will be the 43rd president.
There was some hope that it could all be over today but it might be just wishful thinking.
If the current leader, Texas Gov. George W. Bush does not keep a wide enough gap over Vice President Al Gore to make an undetermined number of overseas absentee ballots irrelevant, the final answer could be days away.
In fact, as recounts from 29 of Florida's 67 county election results filtered to Tallahassee throughout the day and night Wednesday, Bush's razor thin lead of 1,776 votes was reduced to just 782.
Gore effectively picked up 643 votes in Palm Beach County Wednesday night, according to a recount that was completed about 11 p.m. County Judge Charles Burton, a member of the canvassing committee that conducted the recount said Gore's vote grew by 751 votes, from 268,945 Tuesday to 269,696 Wednesday, and Bush's vote by 108, from 152,846 to 152,954.
Part of Gore's increase came from Precinct 29E, which came up empty Tuesday, but showed 368 Gore votes and 23 Bush votes Wednesday. The precinct is near the Fountains community at Jog and Lake Worth roads. The results will be forwarded to the state Division of Elections.
Adding to the drama is the potential for lawsuits. One suit was filed Wednesday by three local Democratic leaders challenging the results in Palm Beach County. There is a strong likelihood of lawsuits in other counties and at the state level, all of which could further delay the outcome.
While Florida's county election supervisors continued recounting nearly 6 million ballots, both Gore and Bush sent teams of lawyers and election experts here to keep an eye on what Florida is doing.
Gore's team, estimated at 50, is being led by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher while another former Secretary of State, James Baker, is on the scene for Bush.
While the Gore campaign insists that a true count of Florida voters will put their man in the White House, Christopher suggested that there may be a limit to how far Gore will take his case, saying he does not see a potential "constitutional crisis."
The epicenter of the election struggle is Palm Beach County where serious questions have been raised about the placement of names on the ballot. Democrats are arguing that some of Gore's voters may have accidentally voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan because of a poorly designed ballot.
Palm Beach County cast an unusually high 3,407 votes for Buchanan. Democrats are saying that number is proof that the ballot was defective.
Late Wednesday, a carload of lawyers for the candidates headed to rural Gadsen County, the state's most Democratic, near Tallahassee, where they inspected more 2,000 ballots that had been rejected by the county's polling machines. For the Democrats, they found gold, some of the ballots were valid and represented a net increase of 153 more votes for Gore.
In Volusia County, officials are looking at series of election mishaps that included a malfunctioning computer disk that cut 16,000 votes from Gore's total causing the vote count to be halted Tuesday night until the problem was fixed. Then on Wednesday afternoon, an elderly poll worker walked into the elections office with a bag of ballots he had forgotten to deliver the night before.
Problems were also being reported in other counties with complaints about missing ballot boxes and lost ballots.
Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, Gore's state campaign chairman, said the state is in "the national spotlight right now and in the world spotlight" and that "the integrity of our state is at stake."
The latest official Florida totals, including absentee ballots received so far, showed Bush with 2,909,260 votes and Gore with 2,907,484 -- a difference of 1,776 in a state with 8.75 million registered voters. Those totals do not include changes from the recount.
With the vote so close, Democrats are convinced that problems at the polls, particularly in Palm Beach County, are enough to swing Florida's 25 crucial electoral votes. NAACP President Kwesi Mfume has asked the Justice Department to investigate Florida's election results and to oversee the recount.
Gore's running mate, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman spent much of Wednesday on the phone with U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Boca Raton gathering information about election problems in South Florida. Lieberman is said to have been one those most strongly urging Gore not to concede until the recount is completed and all possible voter irregularities are resolved.
Florida's Gov. Jeb Bush, taking himself out of three-person state canvassing board, so there "would not be the slightest" question of fairness vowed that if fraud is found, "we will prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law."
Reflecting on what he called a "very long night" Bush said he was having dinner with his brother and the rest of the Bush family in Austin when the word was first received that Gore had won Florida.
"I apologized to my brother that I didn't do what I and other people hoped to do to carry the state for my brother," said Bush. He said he began making phone calls to radio stations in California hoping to pull the state for his brother. But the next thing he knew, the networks were saying his brother had won Florida only to decide early Wednesday that the state was still up for grabs.
"I hope I'll never have to go through another evening like I did," said Bush after returning to Tallahassee. "It was one of the most amazing and intense evenings of my life."
Democrats also were inspired by the fact that Gore was winning the national popular vote, meaning that if Bush goes to the White House he will get there only because of the Electoral College.
"Caution must outweigh expediency," said U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. "Everyone who went to the polls should be able to feel confident that their vote counted. That confidence will be warranted when the legally required recount has been completed and any irregularities have been resolved."
Staff writers Mary Ellen Klas and Joel Engelhardt contributed to this story. |
