Well, instead of EDITING IT Ellen, why not post the whole story?
Typical liberal...Published Wednesday, November 22, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Judge orders hearing on absentee-ballot suit
GOP handling of applications is challenged
BY PHIL LONG AND MARK SILVA
plong@herald.com
A potentially explosive legal battle over the presidential election is developing in Seminole County, where a judge has ordered a hearing in a lawsuit that seeks to throw out more than 15,000 absentee ballots in one of the GOP's biggest strongholds.
Circuit Judge Debra Nelson has scheduled a hearing for next Monday in the suit, filed last week by Central Florida attorney Harry Jacobs. Earlier this week she rejected a Republican motion to dismiss the suit.
If the court were to rule for Jacobs, the math would certainly break Al Gore's way: In Seminole County, Bush got 10,006 absentee ballots to Gore's 5,209. With recounts under way in three South Florida counties, Bush leads by 930 votes. Eliminating Seminole's absentees would give Gore more than a 4,000-vote lead.
At issue is whether Seminole County Elections Supervisor Sandra Goard violated state law by giving two GOP workers what the suit calls ``unrestricted'' and ``unsupervised'' access to the ballot applications.
Jacobs' lawsuit claims that for two weeks before the election, the two Republican volunteers sat in an office in Goard's department ``correcting'' several thousand absentee-ballot requests that lacked essential information and had already been rejected. Similar provisions were not made for absentee-ballot requests from Democratic and independent voters, Jacobs says.
``Ms. Goard's misconduct . . . resulted in the counting of thousands of illegal votes by absentee ballots,'' the suit says.
The stakes are high. In a Miami mayoral race in 1997, the Third District Court of Appeal found misconduct with the handling of absentee ballots and tossed out all of them, changing the outcome of the election.
Both national Republican and Democratic officials are intensely interested in developments in the case.
``This is not an official action of the Gore campaign,'' said Gerald Richman, a Miami lawyer and former candidate for Congress who represents Jacobs.
But lawyers for the Democrats were en route to Florida on Tuesday from New York and Washington, D.C., to prepare for Monday's hearing, Richman said.
The Bush campaign declined comment, saying it was a state GOP matter. Calls to the Republican Party of Florida were not returned. Executive Director Jamie Wilson said the party never touched ballots -- only the requests. ``Another day, another lawsuit,'' he said. ``This is the Democrats MO now, frivolous lawsuits.''
The suit is the outcome of a push by both parties to press for the absentee vote. Both parties printed up thousands of applications for absentee ballots and sent them to voters. Those who wanted to vote absentee filled in the requests and sent them to the elections office.
But the Republicans' pre-printed form left off critical information required by law: the applicant's voter registration number.
When the ballot applications came in without voter identification numbers, they were rejected and placed in storage, the suit says.
When Republicans learned of the problem, they persuaded Goard to let them use their own records to add the voter ID numbers to the requests, the suit says.
Democrats and others were not made aware of potential problems with any of their ballots. Goard, a Republican, has declined to comment.
SEES NO FOUL
The local prosecutor says he sees no foul.
``Where is the fraud in allowing someone to put the voter ID on an application so the person can vote?'' asked Chris White, chief assistant state attorney for Seminole County. If the allegations were that ballots were stolen or people were somehow prevented from voting, that might be different, White said.
``We're still waiting for someone to make an official complaint,'' White said.
But a University of Miami Law professor said allowing the Republicans to change the forms was akin to ``putting a thumb on the scale.
``If the supervisor of elections' staff had been going through the requests and adding the information, that would be one thing,'' said UM law Professor Terence Anderson. ``But to let the Republicans come in and do it, wow, that's tricky.''
He added: ``This one is a serious lawsuit. I don't know why we didn't hear about it sooner.''
Florida law says that the supervisor may accept a written or phone request from absentee voters if they include their name, address, the last four digits of their Social Security number and their voter registration ID number.
There are two issues, Anderson said: Whether there was noncompliance with state law and whether what happened cast a reasonable doubt that the results reflect the will of the voters.
Another legal expert, Jon Mills, a law professor at the University of Florida, isn't as confident that the case is a slam-dunk for Democrats.
``This one isn't ripe yet . . . we need to see what the facts are before we can place any particular meaning on them,'' Mills said.
COMPLAINT RENEWED
Republicans renewed their complaint that Democrats are seeking to do in the courtroom what they didn't do in the voting booth.
``They are enthralled with the courts. They are making challenge after challenge if they don't get the results they want,'' said U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, an active partisan for the Bush campaign who was in Tallahassee on Tuesday.
``The judge may say that in the future, that discretion would say not to alter the ballot request, but they were using due diligence to identify their voters,'' said Foley, R-West Palm Beach. ``There was no fraud used to `create' a voter. They were using information to say `yes, this the voter.' ''
But Jacobs's attorney, Richman, said the case is unusual because it contains allegations of criminal fraud by the elections supervisor.
``We're definitely concerned about it,'' said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus. ``Obviously anybody of whatever party would be troubled to know that a supervisor of elections let a partisan in to handle the ballot requests. It is somewhat disturbing to the whole electoral process.''
Gore campaign spokesman Doug Hattaway said he couldn't comment because the campaign is not a party to the suit.
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