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Politics : Electoral College 2000 - Ahead of the Curve -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Vendit™ who wrote (2632)	11/19/2000 8:03:46 AM
From: Vendit™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6710

NOVEMBER 19, 01:41 EST Republicans Upset by Taped Ballots WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Republicans demanded a recount slowdown Saturday in Palm Beach County after punchcard ballots were found with chads — tiny pieces of paper — reaffixed with tape. Jeff Kahrs, a Republican observing the counting in the presidential race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, said he saw between seven and 10 ballots where the chads 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, said three absentee ballots had been found with tape and were not counted. ``There's been a couple with tape on it,'' he said. ``I don't see that as a big issue.'' He suggested voters may have made a mistake and tried to fix it before mailing the ballots. ``Is that widespread 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. After Saturday's counting was complete, Bush had a net gain of 12 votes with 31 of the 531 precincts tallied. The canvassing board said they had actually counted 202 precincts, but they were only releasing vote totals from precincts where no questionable ballots remained. Burton said they hoped to finish the mammoth recount by Thanksgiving Day. Earlier in the day, Burton railed at what he said were a 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.'' Republicans renewed their complaints that ballots were being dropped or mishandled. 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. 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.'' wire.ap.org