Appeals Court Denies Gore Appeal to Force a Recount in Miami-Dade:
Seesawing Into the Holiday
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
By John P. Martin
Capping a day of stunning developments in the disputed presidential race, a Florida state appeals court Wednesday night upheld the Miami-Dade election board's decision to drop its manual recount, an attorney for the board said.
Harry Cabluck/AP
Wednesday: Bush turns away from photographers and heads toward a waiting vehicle at the Capitol in Austin, Texas.
The board decided to stop the manual recount earlier Wednesday, saying it could not meet the Florida Supreme Court's Sunday deadline for completing the tally. Democrats, who had petitioned the court to order the board to resume the count, promised an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
Earlier Wednesday, Republican George W. Bush blasted the Florida Supreme Court for permitting selective manual recounts, then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn that decision.
Meanwhile, Democrat Al Gore won a fight for consideration of so-called "dimpled" ballots in the Palm Beach County recount, but suffered a blow when Miami-Dade County abandoned the recount there because officials said they couldn't inspect all 640,000 ballots by the court's 5 p.m. Sunday deadline. Gore's campaign promised to challenge the decision.
The moves highlighted another roller-coaster cycle in the historic race that some hoped had neared a settlement when the state Supreme Court said the recounts should be included in the final returns.
Instead, that Tuesday night ruling prompted a day when legal challenges, twists and political charges unfolded with breakneck speed as the candidates scrambled for the hundreds of votes that could decide the White House.
It also coincided with news that Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, suffered a minor heart attack, his fourth. Doctors said Cheney, 59, would stay at a Washington, D.C., hospital for up to three days.
'The Court Rewrote the Law'
Bush, in his first public comments in days, said Florida's highest court "overreached" its authority. "The court cloaked its ruling in legalistic language. But make no mistake: The court rewrote the law," the Texas governor told reporters at the state capitol in Austin. "It changed the rules and it did so after the election is over."
His appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, filed late Wednesday, argues that the state Supreme Court violated federal law that requires voting rules to be established before an election.
Bush attorney Ted Olson said a second petition to the court would challenge the legitimacy of what he called the "chaotic, seemingly endless, constantly changing and highly subjective" manual recount process that he said violates the constitutional rights of voters whose ballots have not been reviewed. Olson said the campaign asked the court to hear the case before Dec. 12, when states are to choose their Electoral College representatives.
Gore's chief campaign attorney, David Boies, saw no basis for such an appeal. "Regardless of whether you're winning or losing, it's a matter of Florida law," he said Tuesday night.
Bush attorneys have cited the same constitutional argument in a petition to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. That court required both sides to file written briefs by next Tuesday.
Soldiers of Misfortune?
And, on another front, the Bush camp asked a Florida Circuit Court judge to order election officials statewide to reconsider absentee military ballots that were disqualified over questionable postmarks. Republicans contend that as many as 40 percent of the ballots were thrown out, and hope the returns could help Bush pad the 930-vote lead he held after absentee ballots were counted on Saturday.
Colin Braley/Reuters
Wednesday: A Bush supporter outside the Miami-Dade County Government Center following the County Canvassing Board's decision to suspend its hand recount of punch card ballots.
Bush asked Gore to agree to such a review, but Gore's campaign chairman, William Daley, would say only that the campaign wouldn't contest "legally cast" ballots.
Daley's failed challenge of Miami-Dade County election officials to stop their hand recount could prove devastating for Gore. The state's largest county, Miami-Dade was believed to hold the votes necessary for Gore to overtake Bush's lead in Florida.
The unanimous vote by that county's canvassing board to halt their recount came after the three panel members, two independents and one Democrat, first proposed to recount only 10,750 ballots rejected by voting machines. But that move appeared to conflict with state law prohibiting partial recounts; Republicans cried foul and the board ultimately gave up.
"I do not believe we have the ability to conduct a full, accurate recount," explained the board chairman, Larry King, in announcing the halt.
Daley countered that the canvassing board couldn't abdicate its role since it already ruled that a recount was necessary.
"We hope that the counts continue," Daley told reporters in Washington. "That's what the [state] Supreme Court wanted."
Hanging by a Chad
As the battle for the nation's highest office appeared headed to its highest court, new hearings in Broward and Palm Beach counties focused again on those tiny ballot squares, chads, in an effort to clarify once and for all what constitutes a valid vote.
In Palm Beach County, Judge Jorge Labarga stopped short of outlining the standards for accepting a ballot, but gave the election canvassing board the right to consider dimpled or pregnant "chads," the paper squares punched by voters to indicate their choice.
"The canvassing board cannot have in place a policy which provides for a per se exclusion of any ballots," Labarga ruled after Democrats complained that hundreds of Gore ballots had been excluded and asked the judge to clarify the standard. "Each ballot must be considered in light of the totality of the circumstances."
Pete Cosgrove/AP
Tuesday: Attorneys representing Al Gore give a press conference in Tallahassee, Fla., after the Florida Supreme Court recount ruling.
The decision came after the board chairman, Charles Burton, admitted that discerning a voter's intent from the half-punched cards is "impossible" but acknowledged the importance of the issue. "If we are to consider any impression.... We are probably talking about a difference of thousands of votes, either way," he said.
That would potentially be enough to swing the election. The latest unofficial tallies gave Gore 266 new votes in the three heavily Democratic counties — Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach.
The state Supreme Court only tangentially addressed the issue of ballot standards in its ruling, citing a decade-old Illinois court decision. "These voters should not be disfranchised where their intent may be ascertained with reasonable certainty, simply because the chad they punched did not completely dislodge from the ballot," the court noted. But it did not set standards.
In their unanimous decision, the seven justices said Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican, erred when she said she would ignore amended returns submitted more than one week after the election.
"Twenty-five years ago, this Court commented that the will of the people, not a hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions, should be our guiding principle," the court wrote in its decision.
GOP leaders in Florida and Washington decried the ruling and promised a fight.
AP
Tuesday: Al Gore and Joe Lieberman meet reporters in Washington after the Florida Supreme Court recount ruling.
Both Florida Senate President John McKay and new Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney warned that their GOP-controlled legislature might take action in the case, referring to the federal law that allows state legislatures to choose their presidential electors if voters do not by Dec. 12.
In Washington, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called the court's action "intrusive, anti-democratic, and contemptuous of self-government" and said he hoped it would be "vigorously challenged in federal court."
Broward was expected to complete its recount Wednesday, but Palm Beach had continued. Also in Palm Beach, lawyers for Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan watchdog critical of the Clinton-Gore administration, asked Labarga for the right to inspect the ballots for potential forgeries. The judge withheld any decision.
Both candidates were expected to maintain low profiles over the next two days. Gore served Thanksgiving dinners with his family at Washington soup kitchens before retreating to his private residence for the holiday. Bush scheduled Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family in Austin and then planned to return to his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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