Thousands of Broward County votes remain uncounted:
Gore gains on Bush as
recount rolls on
By Michael Griffin
Sentinel Political Editor
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on November 10, 2000
George W. Bush`s precarious lead over Al Gore in
Florida dwindled to 229 votes Thursday as a new
challenge surfaced in Broward County that Democrats
say could boost the vice president`s tally by thousands.
It was another twist in what has become a chaotic
aftermath to Tuesday`s election that showed Bush had
edged Gore in Florida by 1,784 votes -- capturing the
state`s 25 electoral votes and thereby the White House.
A mandatory vote review was ordered, and tensions
rose faster than Bush`s vote tally shrank.
In a day of confusion,
rhetoric and legal
maneuvering:
» An unofficial tally of the
recount showed Bush`s
lead shrinking, with 66
counties reporting and
Seminole County
recounting 137,350
ballots at midnight.
» The vice president`s campaign chairman, Bill Daley,
demanded a hand count of ballots in four counties --
Volusia, Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach --
over "absurd" voting irregularities amounting to "an
injustice unparalleled in our history."
» The number of lawsuits filed over the election rose to
eight -- two in Tallahassee and six in West Palm Beach.
Daley said Gore may weigh in with his own legal action
Monday.
» Republicans threatened to seek recounts in other close
states that went to Gore, including Wisconsin, where the
vice president narrowly beat the Texas governor.
» Protesters took to the streets in Tallahassee and West
Palm Beach, where Gore supporters and Bush
supporters screamed at each other at a rally organized
by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
» Republicans disputed allegations that more than 3,000
West Palm Beach residents accidentally voted for
Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. A Reform Party
state Senate candidate on the ballot received nearly as
many votes as Buchanan, meaning there could be a
concentration of Reform-Party supporters in the heavily
Democratic county.
» Bush supporters accused the Gore campaign of
whipping up the frenzy and distorting the electoral
system. "The presidential election is on hold," said James
A. Baker III, the secretary of state in President Bush`s
administration, who was sent to Florida to oversee the
recount for George W. Bush.
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said the
recount would not be finished for days because of a
Nov. 17 deadline for those filing absentee ballots from
overseas.
Nearly 48 hours after the polls closed, Bush had won 29
states for 246 electoral votes. Gore had won 18 states
plus the District of Columbia for 255. New Mexico and
Oregon were too close to call.
"Nobody ever said that democracy was simple or
efficient, but this is democracy in action," said
Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford, a member of
the state canvassing board, which will certify the
recount.
"If you want simple
elections, you need to go
about 70 miles south to
Cuba," he said.
Democrats and
Republicans fanned out
across Florida to observe
the recount and to express
their views on the voting
results.
"It`s like the campaign
never stopped," a
Democratic campaign
worker said. "It`s like it is
never, ever going to end."
Democrats said the matter could be settled relatively
quickly if Broward County elections officials decide this
morning to order a hand count of at least 6,686 ballots.
The ballots did not register votes for president when
they were run through voting machines.
Broward uses a hole-punch voting system, similar to the
one that caused problems in neighboring Palm Beach
County.
Democrats argued that if the holes punched next to a
candidate`s name were not cut cleanly, a sliver of paper
-- called a chad -- could cover the hole as the ballot
was passed through a counting machine.
"We`re not talking about a voter making a mistake,
we`re talking about a minuscule chip of paper fooling the
machine and disenfranchising a voter," said Mitch
Ceasar, a Broward attorney and former chairman of the
county`s Democratic Party. "This would correct a
machine error. Machines shouldn`t pick the president;
people should."
The Broward canvassing board, consisting of two
Republicans and one Democrat, will meet at 10 a.m.
today. Ceasar said the discrepancy could be resolved
by a hand count, as the hole on the ballot would be
easily observed by the naked eye.
However, Sam Goren, attorney for Broward Elections
Supervisor Jane C. Carroll, said it might not be that
simple, as the ballots in question were mixed in among
the 588,007 cast.
"It would likely require a hand count of all ballots to find
these specific ones," Goren said. "It`s like picking them
out of a huge deck of cards."
If the hand count is approved, it could dramatically help
Gore becausemost voters in Broward are Democrats.
Gore easily defeated Bush there with 61 percent of the
vote.
In heavily Democratic Palm Beach County, 19,120
ballots were thrown out before they were counted
because voters accidentally marked them for more than
one presidential candidate.
At a news conference in Tallahassee, Daley said it was
possible the Gore campaign will join the effort in Palm
Beach County, where "the confusion was massive"
because Buchanan`s name was next to Gore`s on the
ballot.
But Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer argued that Palm
Beach County is a "Pat Buchanan stronghold."
Sherree Lowe, a Reform Party candidate for the state
Senate, received 3,111 votes, nearly as many as
Buchanan`s 3,407 votes.
"That explains the Palm Beach vote," said Fleischer.
Buchanan`s total in Palm Beach dwarfed the votes he
received in each of the 66 other counties, and
Democrats will argue that Lowe`s votes can be
attributed to her local roots and hard campaigning.
"Pat Buchanan never set foot there," a lawyer close to
Gore`s legal team said. "There is a big difference
between a national candidate and a local race."
Buchanan himself agreed.
"I don`t want any votes that I did not receive, and I
don`t want to win any votes by mistake," Buchanan told
NBC`s Today show. "It seems to me that these 3,000
votes people are talking about -- most of those are
probably not my vote, and that may be enough to give
the margin to Mr. Gore."
Daley -- the son of famed Chicago Mayor Richard
Daley, whose political machine was said to have
fraudulently delivered the 1960 election to John F.
Kennedy over Richard M. Nixon -- demanded a hand
recount of the ballots in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade,
Broward and Volusia counties, about 1.78 million votes.
Bush strategist Karl Rove claimed that Cook County in
Illinois uses the same type of ballot as Palm Beach
County, a claim later proven wrong.
"I`m a little amazed that Mr. Daley would be so
concerned about ballots in Florida but not at home in
Cook County," Rove said.
Unlike the Democrats, Nixon did not sue to overturn the
results, Republicans said.
With votes still dribbling in, Gore`s lead in the popular
vote was shrinking to about 200,000 votes out of 100
million. Though it has no bearing on who is the next
president, the total-vote lead gives Gore added
psychological standing in his fight to overturn Florida`s
results.
"The point behind all this is to get the vote right and elect
the leader of the free world," Daley said. "This isn`t
about Al Gore or George W. Bush; it`s about the rights
of voters."
Democratic lawyers said they gathering affidavits from
black voters and were considering a federal Voting
Rights Act lawsuit. "They are frustrated black people
who worked so hard for the right to vote, they died for
the right to vote," said U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek,
D-Miami. The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People also said there had
been efforts to stop blacks from voting in several areas
of the state.
In Pinellas County on Florida`s west coast, election
workers conducted a second recount Thursday after the
first recount produced an increase of more than 400
votes to Gore. Some votes had been overlooked by a
clerk on election night, said Debbie Clark, supervisor of
elections. "The clerk apparently thought some cards had
been counted when they weren`t," Clark said.
Clark said that most people in the elections office are
Republicans who she said are "professionals first and
party people second." Gore won the county by about
15,000 votes.
Wire services were used in compiling this report.
Posted Nov 10 2000 12:50AM
orlandosentinel.com |
