inq.philly.com
In absentee-ballot case, mistake or conspiracy?
By Thomas Fitzgerald
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The sides agree that something unusual - perhaps even illegal - went on this fall in the offices of the Seminole
County supervisor of elections.
But lawyers clashed yesterday over whether it was an innocent attempt to help people vote or a conspiracy as the trial began in a
lawsuit that seeks to disqualify up to 15,000 absentee ballots from Seminole on the grounds that Republican officials tampered with
application forms.
Relatively obscure until the rest of Vice President Gore's legal options narrowed this week, the Seminole case - as does a similar suit
against Martin County officials - has explosive potential, with more than enough votes at stake in each to upend the presidential
election in Florida once again, tipping the lead from Texas Gov. George W. Bush to Gore.
"Our evidence will show intentional misconduct on the part of a Republican official and the Republican Party - not simply
negligence," said Gerald Richman, lawyer for Democratic activist Harry Jacobs, who brought the Seminole complaint. "There was a
cover-up."
Hanging over the trial was the central question of whether the possible cure, throwing out thousands of legitimate ballots, would be
worse than the disease. Courts hesitate to invalidate votes unless there is clear evidence of fraud, legal experts say.
Defense lawyers seized on that reluctance, arguing that voters who cast absentee ballots in good faith should not be punished for
what they called administrative mistakes that, in any case, did not involve mishandling of any actual ballots.
"A ballot is not a piece of paper - it is a voice, a right to be heard - and it must be protected at all costs," said Terry Young,
representing Seminole elections supervisor Sandra Goard.
[Funny...they didn't think that about the as-yet-uncounted undervotes. What's wrong with this picture?]
Both sides agreed to the basic facts of the case, outlined in a stipulation filed with Circuit Judge Nikki Ann Clark:
In the months before the election, both parties mailed out thousands of preprinted ballot requests, which voters could send to their
county election office after entering their voter registration number, as required by Florida law, and signing the form.
The request forms mailed to Seminole County Democrats included preprinted voter ID numbers, but a printing problem omitted that
information from 80 percent of the postcards the GOP mailed to its voters.
About 2,000 postcard applications, mostly from Republicans, were returned to Goard's office lacking the ID numbers. Initially, she
rejected them. Then, after state GOP officials telephoned, Goard allowed two party operatives with laptops and a database of
registration rolls to spend up to 15 days in her office filling in the missing numbers.
The question is whether those actions violated a state law stating that "the person making the request [for an absentee ballot] must
disclose" pertinent information, including a voter ID number. The law was enacted in 1998, in response to massive fraud in a Miami
mayoral election.
Goard did not testify yesterday, but in a deposition read in court she said this was the first time in 23 years that she had granted
political operatives access to such applications. She also admitted that Florida law did not give her the authority to allow party
officials to fill in the voter ID numbers.
Witnesses called by the Democrats said, among other things, that flawed Republican absentee-ballot requests were set aside in a
shoe box, while those from Democrats or independents were placed in a discard pile. Goard did not call Democrats to invite them to
fix flawed applications, according to her sworn deposition, which the plaintiffs argued showed "disparate treatment" favoring the
GOP.
Also, the Democratic witnesses and Goard's deposition said, the Republican operatives were allowed, unsupervised, in a back room
of the Sanford, Fla., election office that offered easy access to 18 computers full of election data.
While this all sounded faintly sinister, the Democratic side did not advance evidence that the two men tampered with anything.
The Democrats also introduced a witness, J. Bradford DeLong, a University of California at Berkeley statistician, who said Clark did
not have to throw out all 15,000 ballots but could disallow votes in proportion to the likely number yielded to each candidate from the
flawed applications that actually led to votes - or 1,717 for Bush and 213 for Gore. Though a much more narrowly targeted request
than the original one to throw them all out, such a formula would still give the state, and the presidency, to Gore.
On cross-examination, the GOP lawyers questioned DeLong's methodology and revealed that he had done work for Clinton's
Treasury Department. And, using few witnesses, the defense also established that Goard never barred Democrats from coming in to
fix applications; they just never asked.
As the trial ground on into the evening, there were fewer human witnesses. Instead, the lawyers took to introducing large chunks of
depositions into the record. After 10 hours, Clark recessed until closing arguments at 1 p.m. today.
In another Leon County courtroom, Democratic plaintiffs in the Martin County case said that the county election supervisor allowed
fellow Republicans to correct thousands of misprinted absentee-ballot applications, and even let them remove the paperwork from
her office. They want Judge Terry P. Lewis to toss out nearly 9,800 ballots.
Lawyers began tangling in Lewis' courtroom at 7:10 a.m. as the Martin trial opened. The judge should dismiss the case because there
was "no allegation here that inserting a number on a simple request form" would compromise the integrity of the ballot, said Barry
Richard, the GOP lawyer, who also is arguing the Seminole case. "There's no allegation that a single vote was cast by a voter who
was not qualified to do so."
Precedent requires proof of actual tampering with the ballot itself to invalidate votes, he said.
Lewis said he would consider the motion and adjourned the hearing at 8:15 a.m. so the lawyers could move to the Seminole case.
Martin testimony resumed last night after Judge Clark adjourned the Seminole trial for the day. The court was adjourned shortly after
midnight, and the case is to continue at 8 a.m. today. |
