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Politics : Why is Gore Trying to Steal the Presidency? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MasonS who wrote (1117)	11/18/2000 9:46:24 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 3887

This should help their case: Republicans Upset by Taped Ballots By KARIN MEADOWS, Associated Press Writer WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Republicans demanded a recount slowdown Saturday in Palm Beach County after ballots were found with chads - or tiny pieces of paper - that were reaffixed with pieces of tape. Jeff Kahrs, a Republican observing the counting, said he saw at least three ballots where the chads in the column for George W. Bush had been taped. ``The pieces of Scotch tape had been carefully cut with scissors and were meant to cover a precise amount of space on the ballot,'' he said. ``Obviously the ballots have been tampered.'' ``It was clear to me that the Bush hole had been voted and that a chad had been put back over the hole with Scotch tape,'' said Republican observer Elise Kenderian. County Judge Charles Burton, a Democrat and chairman of the canvassing board, downplayed the three absentee ballots that had been found with tape. All were ruled overvotes and not counted. ``I really do not want to get into this,'' he told reporters. He suggested a voter may have made a mistake and tried to fix it before mailing the ballot. ``Is that ballot fraud? Absolutely not,'' he said. GOP attorney Mark Wallace called on the board to take more time reviewing the ballots. ``The pace needs to be slowed down and it needs to be done in a much more thoughtful way,'' he said. Bush had a net gain of four votes with four of the 531 precincts counted by Friday in Palm Beach. The canvassing board had not released any new figures by Saturday afternoon after counting nearly 90 precincts. Earlier in the day, Burton railed at the multitude of objections being made by partisan observers. Ballots that are called questionable must be reviewed by the three-member canvassing panel - a time-consuming procedure. About 1,800 of the first 16,000 ballots were called into question. ``We're sitting here wasting our time going through all these objectionables,'' Burton said. ``We will all be here until Christmas if this continues. I'm not going to play games anymore.'' Palm Beach County has been at the center of the election dispute with critics saying the design of its punch ballot was confusing - with names on the left and right and holes in-between. Some 19,000 ballots were never counted because voters chose more than one presidential candidate. Outside the Emergency Operations Center where the votes were being counted, the curious milled about in crowds of politicians, reporters and television crews. The county allowed some members of the public to watch the methodical hand count of 462,350 ballots from behind a glass wall. Many were impressed with the process. Jan Smiley, 50, said she couldn't stand watching the election recount on television. So she and her husband, Jack, drove more than 200 miles from their home in Oviedo to see it for themselves. ``It seems to me it would be a flawless system compared to the machines,'' said Smiley, a Republican who voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. ``I think every county should have a hand recount.'' Paul Ritter drove from Okeechobee hoping to buy ballot confusion T-shirts as Christmas gifts for family and friends. He and his two children wound up with something else: A close-up view of a history lesson that's yet to make it to school books. ``It was kind of neat. I was very impressed,'' said Ritter, 43. dailynews.yahoo.com