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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Voltaire who wrote (18406)	11/21/2000 11:50:46 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

V: Why is Gore Dragging the Country through all of this?...Has he ever Heard of a Graceful Exit <VBG>?....fyi.... ---------------------------------------------------------- Published Tuesday, November 21, 2000, in the Miami Herald Democrats' chances grow more unlikely BY MARK SILVA msilva@herald.com TALLAHASSEE -- Even if Al Gore wins a victory before the Florida Supreme Court and manual vote tallies in South Florida are allowed to continue, it may not matter. Vote totals announced by canvassing boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties, after several days of counting, show scant Gore gains. That has raised questions about whether the hand recount will produce enough votes to push Gore past George W. Bush's current lead of 930 votes. Democrats are pinning their hopes on new totals from Miami-Dade County, which began its count Monday, and on convincing the election canvassing board in Palm Beach to adopt a more liberal interpretation of what should be counted as a vote. ``The vote count is just beginning in Miami-Dade,'' Gore campaign spokesman Doug Hattaway said. ``And in Broward and Palm Beach, there are hundreds and hundreds of ballots that have been set aside to be counted later.'' 'LONG SHOT' But others say the count appears more and more to be a long shot. ``What comes out of this court decision may be moot,'' said Fort Lauderdale pollster Jim Kane, ``because no matter what happens, Gore may not be able to make up that deficit. I think we are getting near the finish line.'' ``It's become a search for a magic number that isn't there,'' Richard Scher, a seasoned political scientist at the University of Florida, said. Privately, Democrats say Gore's hope rests with a broad interpretation of what ballots can be recounted. ``The most important issue for Gore is, will the Supreme Court provide a standard?'' said a prominent Florida Democrat, who has told the candidate the same thing. ``The whole key to the election rests on the ballots that have been set aside'' for possible consideration later. ``If it's just a straight recount and there is no guidance to count a variety of ballots, then it's clear Gore does not have enough.'' By Monday evening: The hand recount in Palm Beach County was practically a zero-sum game. Results from 103 of 531 precincts counted gave Gore a net gain of three votes over Bush. Bush actually gained a dozen votes over Gore in the first batch of 31 precincts counted through Saturday in the heavily Democratic county. Most of those precincts were in more conservative parts of the county. Democrats contend that counters have passed over hundreds of ``dimpled'' ballots that, if counted, would favor Gore. Lawyer Dennis Newman cited 276 dimpled ballots for Gore and 73 for Bush. Democrats are seeking a judge's order to force the county to count these. The canvassing board overseeing the recount says it is following a consistent standard: If a ballot has multiple instances of dimpling, it counts it. If only the presidential vote is dimpled, it doesn't. In Broward, with ballots from 544 of 609 precincts recounted, Gore had gained a net 117 votes over last week's official tallies. County elections officials have decided to revisit ``undervotes'' -- those that appeared to have no vote in the presidential race -- not included in the full manual recount. The hundreds of undervote ballots, including those with dimpled chads, could increase Gore's lead in Broward. In Miami-Dade, Gore had picked up a net 46 votes by early Monday evening, with 67 of 614 precincts counted. Dade officials are counting so-called dimpled ballots as votes, and said both candidates had been awarded votes from dimpled ballots. ``The fact is, under the rules with which the recount has been proceeding, [Gore] has not gotten the kind of numbers they were clearly expecting,'' said Ed Gillespie, a Bush campaign aide watching a recount just starting in Miami. 'A GOOD CHANCE' U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, retorted: ``I don't think anyone can predetermine what the vote will be. . . . This is about getting all the votes counted. Integral to that is getting all the counties to use the standard that allows voters' intent to be considered. Under that scenario, Vice President Gore has a good chance.'' The uncertainty in recounting punch-card ballots on which holes haven't been fully punched has clouded the count. The Gore camp maintains that its numbers will improve if voter intention is given the benefit of the doubt in such cases. ``That's where the votes are,'' Hattaway said. ``I believe there are hundreds and hundreds of votes for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman yet to be counted.'' Privately, Gore partisans acknowledge concern about how the ballots are handled. ``For a while, it looked fine,'' Scher said. ``Maybe there were votes there that were being withheld. But now it's starting to look like this is looking for needles in a haystack. It's not going to happen.'' ``It seems to me if the Florida Supreme Court really wants to contribute to this process, they will look for a graceful way to end this,'' Scher said. ``They can read the numbers.'' ----------------------------------------------------------- Herald staff writer Daniel de Vise and the Associated Press contributed to this report.