Palm Beach County races the clock
Vote counters continue all-nighter; Gore gains in Broward
MSNBC
Nov. 26 — In Florida’s Palm Beach County, weary
election workers continued their all-nighter
Sunday morning, trying to finish the state’s last
hand recount by the court-imposed deadline of
Sunday afternoon. Late Saturday, heavily
Democratic Broward County completed its manual
recount, giving Al Gore a net gain that cut George
W. Bush’s lead in the state by more than half.
Watch statements by key figures and
the latest NBC and MSNBC reports
from Florida.
WEARY PALM BEACH County election officials
punctuated their scrutiny of thousands of disputed presidential
ballots with occasional dustups, as they strained to meet a
Sunday recount deadline.
“We’re moving along,” Judge Charles Burton, the board
chairman, said Saturday night. “We’re trying.”
Frustrated supporters of Al Gore, who asked for the
count in the first place, said they will contest the outcome
regardless of what it is. By early Sunday, the three county
board members, all Democrats, had examined more than
4,900 of some 9,500 ballots in dispute because voting
machines could not clearly read a presidential choice.
The board members worked all night Saturday and said
they were prepared to work all day Sunday to meet the
deadline, but it appeared unlikely that they were going to
finish in time.
Late
Saturday, it
was
estimated the
recount
would take
beyond 10
p.m. Sunday
to finish —
without
allowing time
for sleep or
breaks. That
would be
five hours
too late.
If it fails
to complete the hand count by 5 p.m. ET Sunday, the
board will send partial results to the state, but the state
canvassing board hadn’t decided whether to accept partial
totals.
“We’re going to have to make a determination on it,”
said Ben McKay, a spokesman for Florida Secretary of
State Katherine Harris.
McKay also said Saturday that a final certification
could be delayed for a few hours.
“There could be an injunction. ... The Legislature could
take it over,” he said. “It could be delayed an hour. It could
be delayed 10 hours. ... There are a lot of reasons it may
not happen.”
FRAYED NERVES
Nearly three weeks after Election Day, the three Palm
Beach county board members were getting edgy. As their
grueling examination ground on through the night under the
watchful eyes of Democratic and Republican observers,
Burton sparred with a GOP lawyer as board member Carol
Roberts insisted, “We need to go on with what we’re
doing.”
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Burton later scolded the lead Republican observer,
Mark Wallace, for arguing with Roberts while New York
Gov. George Pataki sat in and observed the ballot review
process for a few minutes on the GOP side.
“We’ve got a long night,” Burton told Wallace. “If you
can’t shut up, we’ll find somebody else.”
The election officials lost a precious hour of work,
roughly between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., as Republican attorneys
challenged the order in which county precincts were being
selected for ballot examination and Democrats disputed the
accusations of unfairness.
GORE PULLS AHEAD IN BROWARD
Election officials in Broward County finished their
tedious recount, which began Nov. 15, at 11:49 p.m.
Saturday night.
For the past three days, the Broward County
canvassing board had sat in a small courtroom, surrounded
by partisan observers and media as they squinted at 2,422
questionable cardboard ballots on which the voter’s
presidential selection was not completely punched through.
“We’re thrilled this is over with,” said Judge Robert W.
Lee, a Democrat and the board chairman. “It was an
interesting process — it was a grueling process.” To the
end, it was also a process marked by long hours and short
tempers.
November 25, 2000
In Broward County, there
was a disagreement during
the vote counting. NBC’s
Jim Cummins reports.
Just before a noon recess for lunch on Saturday, the
head of Broward County’s three-member canvassing
board, Democrat Robert Lee, told a Republican observing
the county’s recount that he should stop voicing objections
inside the room.
The observer, party attorney William Scherer,
responded by accusing the board of cavalierly dismissing
legitimate Republican concerns and of “trolling for votes” for
Gore.
“Mr. Scherer is not welcome back in this room” after
the recess, said Lee, who asked marshals to clear the room.
“He can watch the proceedings from outside.”
He did.
Unlike in neighboring Palm Beach and Miami-Dade
counties, neither party had announced plans to contest the
recount results in Broward.
RESULTS WILL DECIDE LITTLE
Florida expects to
certify a winner in the
presidential election late
Sunday, but the dramatic
declaration — if it
happens — won’t move
America that much
closer to knowing
whether George W.
Bush or Al Gore will be
the next president. Both
campaigns plan a variety
of legal challenges, with
the U.S. Supreme Court
preparing to step in
Friday.
Legal proceedings
were advancing on three
separate tracks that could push a resolution to the disputed
Florida election into December. Bush’s lawyers filed five
lawsuits over the weekend. Gore’s lawyers said they would
contest the results in at least three counties. And the nation’s
highest court waited in the wings in Washington.
LAWYERS WORK OVERTIME
Whatever result Palm Beach County reports, Gore’s
lawyers planned to contest it Monday, claiming election
officials were disqualifying too many votes for Gore because
their standard for counting “dimpled” or perforated ballots
was too strict.
Gore’s lawyers also collected sworn affidavits by
voters who said they were befuddled by the design of Palm
Beach’s “butterfly” ballot, were denied help or were given
wrong instructions by poll workers that could have led to
dimpled ballots.
November 25, 2000
Sunday’s vote certification
deadline restarts the clock
for the next wave of legal
challenges. NBC’s Kelly
O’Donnell reports.
Gore’s lawyers also will formally contest certified
results in at least two other counties: Miami-Dade, where
election officials canceled their manual recount after
concluding they couldn’t meet the deadline, and Nassau,
where Bush gained 52 votes when the canvassing board
voted to use Election Night totals instead of the results of a
machine recount.
Bush’s lawyers were busy Saturday, too. They filed
lawsuits in five counties — Hillsborough, Okaloosa,
Orange, Pasco and Polk — where the campaign contends
election boards systematically excluded absentee ballots
filed by members of the armed forces serving abroad.
Bush’s lawyers first went to court Saturday to
withdraw a suit he filed this week asking a state circuit judge
to force 14 counties to accept excluded absentee ballots
after the judge said he would be “hard-pressed” to rule in
Bush’s favor.
Bush’s lawyers said nine of the counties had decided to
count the ballots voluntarily. The Republican team followed
up by suing four of the five others — Polk, Pasco,
Hillsborough and Okaloosa — to force them to follow suit.
It plans to sue the fifth, Orange County, on Sunday.
As they dashed between courtrooms and strategy
meetings, lawyers for both sides worked on their strategies
for Friday’s hearings before the U.S. Supreme Court, which
dramatically agreed this week to hear one of two appeals
by Bush to bar any hand-counted ballots in Florida.
NBC News legal affairs correspondent Pete Williams
called the Supreme Court’s decision a “stunning legal
development” because the court had never before decided
to review a state Supreme Court ruling during a presidential
election.
CERTIFICATION AND REACTION
Republicans said
the Sunday certification
deadline offered a public
relations opportunity for
Bush — assuming he
still leads Gore. Aides
met Saturday to
determine how to
address the milestone, insisting beforehand that there would
be no celebration if Bush is certified as the winner and no
concession if Gore comes out on top, NBC News
correspondent Campbell Brown reported from Austin,
Texas.
The vice president’s staff, meanwhile, was making
tentative plans for an address Monday by Gore, a senior
adviser said on condition of anonymity. The advisers said
the speech would give him a chance to explain why he was
fighting certification and set the stage for the clash before the
U.S. Supreme Court.
NBC News correspondent Chip Reid reported from
Washington that Gore met Friday with Roy Neel, his former
chief of staff; Labor Secretary Alexis Herman; campaign
chairman William Daley; and running mate Joseph
Lieberman to start general planning for a transition. Aides
said they group did not discuss specific names for Cabinet
appointments, Reid said.
NBC’s Jim Cummins, Claire Shipman, Campbell
Brown, Chip Reid and Pete Williams; The Associated
Press and Reuters contributed to this report. |
