High-court showdown in Florida; validity of recounts at stake
Monday, November 20, 2000
by James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers
<<TALLAHASSEE. Fla. - Republicans and Democrats raged yesterday over the fairness of ballot-by-ballot recounts while attorneys submitted arguments to the biggest players so far in the presidential election drama: the Florida Supreme Court.
At a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST) today, the justices will hear arguments on whether hand recounts should be used to decide whether George W. Bush or Al Gore should be the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes - and the presidency.
When they will rule is anybody's guess.
In their filing with the Supreme Court, Bush's lawyers said Florida law obligated the secretary of state to certify the results of the election Saturday, when the counting of final absentee ballots from overseas gave Bush a 930-vote lead.
"In these heated circumstances, when so much is at stake for the state and nation, it is essential for this court and all public officials to be faithful to the rule of law," the Republican legal team said.
But lawyers representing Gore responded that large counties inevitably face a tough time beating a seven-day deadline to certify election results.
And they blamed the secretary of state, Republican Katherine Harris, for the late start of the recounts, calling her subsequent push to block the tallies "the very definition of capriciousness."
To exclude the hand tallies, the Gore lawyers said, "would make a mockery" of state law and exclude thousands of voters from being counted "not by virtue of their own action or inaction," but because of balky canvassing boards dealing with "an arguably unlawful timetable" set by Harris.
Harris' attorneys also filed papers, saying state law gives counties seven days to submit Election Day votes and 10 days to count overseas ballots - period.
"The state of affairs initiated and being pursued by others has rendered the entire voting process just short of anarchy," said the secretary of state's legal brief.
Some Democrats, meanwhile, warned Gore to be ready to concede the presidential election if the high court rules against him.
As the post-election fight ended its 12th day, Gore gained little ground from partially completed recounts in two big Democratic counties and remained far short of erasing the unofficial 930-vote edge Bush holds in Florida.
Democratic moderates Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia cautioned the Gore camp about continuing to litigate the election if the top Florida court rules against him after today's hearing.
"I would like to see that be the final decision," Breaux said on "Fox News Sunday." "It's called the Supreme Court for a reason."
Nunn, on CBS' "Face the Nation," added, "In the final analysis, the candidates have to step up to the plate, I think, and basically be the clients that decide the case rather than the lawyers."
Gore's running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, appeared on several television talk shows yesterday and declined to say whether the Gore camp would concede if the court ruled against them.
"That's not for me to say now," he said on ABC. "That's a decision to be made by the vice president and I, with others, together, including people in Florida who may have their own separate desire to go on."
The recounts came under even greater scrutiny yesterday, when the Broward County Canvassing Board, in a reversal significant for the Gore campaign, voted unanimously to change its standards for hand counting votes.
Last week the board firmly decided that only chads - the paper scraps that fall out when a ballot is punched - detached from two sides of the ballot could be considered votes. Now, any undervote, including ones marked by no more than dimples, will be reviewed, Broward County Attorney Ed Dion said yesterday.
"We felt our previous standard was too restrictive and therefore unlawful," Dion said. "So now the board will consider every undervote on a case-by-case basis to determine the voter's intent."
Republicans said the decision was outrageous.
"It's like changing the rules in the middle of the game. It's unfair," said Ray Sullivan, a spokesman for the Bush campaign.
Miami-Dade County, meanwhile, began sorting more than 650,000 ballots yesterday and was expected to identify more than 10,000 that would require special manual scrutiny.
The process, which was separating those with clean punch holes from ballots in question, was intended to reduce the amount of time needed for the full hand recount that begins today.
Also yesterday, Bush spokesmen complained about the handling of absentee ballots, particularly ballots from military personnel stationed overseas.
Gore's supporters "changed the rules so that they could manufacture additional Gore votes," complained Montana's Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. "It's wrong, it's flawed, and it is a process that is simply and honestly not worthy of our democracy."
Several county canvassing boards did throw out absentee ballots that did not contain postmarks, witness signatures or witness addresses - all of which are required by state law.
In many cases, the ballots were rejected by joint agreement of Democratic and Republican election officials.
About 40 percent - 1,420 - of the more than 3,500 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out. It isn't known how many of those were from military personnel. According to The New York Times, heavily Republican counties often decided to include military ballots that had no postmarks. In mostly Democratic counties, canvassing boards tended to throw out those ballots.
That difference helped explain why counties carried by Bush ruled 29 percent of the overseas ballots invalid, while counties carried by Gore disqualified 60 percent, The New York Times said.
Lieberman, recognizing the potentially explosive notion of soldiers being disenfranchised, said on NBC yesterday that "I would give the benefit of the doubt to ballots coming in from military personnel.
"I'd urge them to go back and take another look," he said of election officials. >>
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Information from the Dallas Morning News and the Los Angeles Times is included in this report. |
