BUSH the HYPOCRITE: How manual recounts helped Bush
In some Florida counties, election officials voluntarily
hand-counted ballots that machines couldn't read -- exactly
what Gore wants in Miami-Dade -- and the governor came out
ahead.
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By Anthony York
Nov. 28, 2000 | For days Vice President Al Gore has focused
on 10,000-plus ballots from Miami-Dade County that couldn't
be counted by machine, insisting those are votes that haven't
yet been counted -- and the implication is that many of those
votes are his. The Bush campaign has struck back harshly,
accusing Gore of demanding recount after recount until he gets
results he likes.
Though the vice president's message has been muddled, the
facts support Gore's claim that ballots in Miami-Dade County
have not been counted as thoroughly as ballots were in certain
other parts of the state. In at least four other Florida counties,
election officials took it upon themselves to manually count
ballots that could not be read by machine, and the result of
those impromptu manual recounts was a net 185-vote gain for
Gov. George W. Bush.
The first statewide recount was triggered
automatically because the margin between
Bush and Gore was within one half of 1
percent. Florida law allows canvassing
boards wide discretion on how to handle
those state-mandated recounts, and the
methods used varied widely. Some counties
simply reran their computerized memory
cards in their electronic vote-counting
machines, while others undertook full,
manual recounts.
In Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade
counties, where the Gore campaign demanded manual
recounts, attention focused on the high number of ballots that
did not appear to record a vote for president. In many cases,
the canvassing boards were able to count a vote for one
candidate or another that the machines could not read.
Broward and Palm Beach went ahead with a hand count of
these so-called "undervotes," which yielded hundreds of new
votes for Gore. But while the Miami-Dade board seemed
poised to inspect those unreadable ballots by hand, members
abruptly halted those plans last Wednesday after boisterous
Republican protests.
Now a pillar of Gore's strategy to contest the certified Florida
election results is his allegation that those 10,000 votes were
never counted. And while the Bush camp scoffs at the charge,
it's clear that other counties did exactly what Gore is asking for
in Miami-Dade -- but on their own, without a request from
either candidate.
In Republican Seminole County -- where local Democrats are
suing because Republican election officials allowed GOP party
volunteers to correct absentee ballot applications that had been
filled out improperly -- the canvassing board decided to
manually examine unreadable ballots during the county's
electronic recount. Seminole's recount yielded an additional 98
votes for Bush.
A similar procedure was followed in Polk County, where a
partial manual recount resulted in Gore losing 90 votes that had
apparently been counted twice. Canvassing board member
Bruce Parker classified his county's actions as "a mini hand
count."
In Taylor County, where Bush picked up four votes,
Supervisor of Elections Molly Lilliot said all ballots were re-fed
through the tabulating machine for the recount. "All ballots
kicked out were examined individually by the canvassing
board," she said.
"We ran all the ballots back through the machine," said Carol
Tolle, supervisor of elections in Hamilton County. "Every time
you had an overvote or undervote, we inspected it. If we could
determine the intent of the voter, we counted those votes." In
Hamilton, Gore ended up picking up seven votes.
Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said that under
Florida law, the canvassing boards have discretion as to
whether or not to inspect unreadable ballots by hand. Gore's
cries about Miami undervotes, she said, were just more
attempts by Gore to "continually try to change the rules in the
middle of the game. The ballots were inspected by hand in
some cases but not all, and under Florida law it's the
canvassing board's decision legally. It's our belief that these
votes have been counted."
But Gore spokesman Chris Lehane says the vice president
simply wants the same attention paid to ballots in Miami-Dade
as was given to ballots in other counties. And, he added, most
of the counties that did conduct partial manual recounts used a
more reliable optical scan system of voting, while voters in
Miami-Dade used the infamous punch-card ballots, which yield
many more errors than the OptiScan system.
"Keep in mind, punch cards are used in poorer areas. Most of
these other ballots were optical ones where the reliability was
much, much higher. And in poorer areas, you have bad
machines or flawed ballots. We think we have a pretty clear
and compelling argument."
Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes remains unmoved by that
argument, continuing the GOP full-court press urging Gore to
give up. "Earlier this afternoon, Vice President Gore made
some additional comments about his challenge to the outcome
of the election in Florida," she said. "Having failed to make his
case with the American people last night, he apparently felt the
need to restate his arguments. The vice president said today
that he wants this process to arrive at a fair, expeditious and
truly democratic conclusion. As people across America are
realizing, it already has."
But whether or not they receive a manual count of those
11,000 Miami ballots, the fact remains that other counties did
exactly what the Gore campaign is asking Miami to do, and
Hughes' boss benefited. |
