Bush, Gore Go Public Over Recount
By DAVID ESPO
.c The Associated Press
With court cases pending and countywide hand recounts in dispute, Florida's contested election and the battle for the White House remain as unpredictable as ever following an unusual long-distance exchange between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
``I don't know what the final results will show,'' Gore said Wednesday night as he suggested a statewide hand recount of Florida's 6 million votes as a way to achieve a ``fair and final'' result without further legal maneuvering.
``The outcome of this election will not be the result of deals or efforts to mold public opinion,'' Bush countered a few hours later in rejecting the vice president's suggestions. Hand recounting, which Gore wants, ``introduces human error and politics into the vote-counting process,'' Bush said.
Bush holds a 300-vote lead over his rival in Florida, the state that will hand one man or the other a majority of the Electoral College and the keys to the White House. Overseas ballots are to be counted Saturday.
The prospect of continued legal battles was underscored Thursday by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Gore's running mate, who said voters who supported the Democratic ticket need to see a ``reasonable and just conclusion'' to the impasse if the next president is to have legitimacy.
Legal action is ``the American way,'' Lieberman said on NBC's ``Today'' show. ``When you feel that you've not received a fair deal, the one place you turn in America is to the courts. I hope that's not necessary but that's still on the table for sure.''
Speaking of Floridians and all Democratic supporters, he said: ``Their anger, their frustration with the way this ended as well as the anger and frustration of millions of other people around the country who voted for us, I think has to find a reasonable and just conclusion or else this country will go into the new century divided with a president who does not have legitimacy.''
Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., said of the Democrats: ``It doesn't take much for them to feel they need to go to court.'' Thompson said expanded recounts by hand are unnecessary because Florida has done a statewide machine recount confirming Bush's edge over Gore.
Gore had offered to set aside further litigation if Bush agreed either to let manual recounts finish in three Democratic-leaning counties, or have ballots recounted by hand everywhere in the state.
President Clinton, in Brunei for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, said Thursday that the Florida controversy will likely spur election reforms.
``I think there will be a lot of pressure to improve the form of ballots and the methods of voting and have more clear standards around the country,'' Clinton said while photographers snapped pictures of him and China's President Jiang Zemin.
The dueling appearances by Gore and Bush capped a tumultuous day in which Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said she would not accept the results of any hand recounts when certifying final totals on Saturday. Only absentee ballots from overseas, due in by midnight Friday night, will be rolled into the totals, she said. Gore's lawyers said they would challenge her decision Thursday.
With Gore urging them on, officials in Broward County said in advance they intended to continue recounting 588,000 ballots by hand Thursday. Just up the Florida coast, Palm Beach County officials said they, too, intended to review ballots cast on Election Day.
Thursday's legal docket stretched to the federal appeals court in Atlanta, where judges called for written arguments on Bush's bid - he lost in Miami federal district court on Monday - to shut down the recounts altogether.
Just over the legal horizon was the U.S. Supreme Court, and already there were predictions the election to pick the nation's 43rd president would wind up there. ``Anything this important is going to find its way to the most important court in the land,'' former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a longtime friend of Bush's running mate Dick Cheney, said in an interview.
Gore and Bush made separate television appearances Wednesday evening, the vice president at his official residence in Washington, the Texan at the governor's mansion in Austin. Both men strove for a statesmanlike presentation, and maneuvered for maximum television exposure.
Gore went first: ``We need a resolution that is fair and final,'' he said. ``We need to move expeditiously to the most complete and accurate count that is possible.''
Suggesting expanded manual recounts, he said: ``Machines can sometimes misread or fail to detect the way ballots are cast.''
He invited Bush to meet with him immediately, ``not to negotiate, but to improve the tone of our dialogue in America.'' And he proposed a second meeting, after the election, ``to reaffirm our national unity.''
In his own remarks a few hours later, Bush said: ``Not for ... Vice President Gore, or for me, but for America, this process must have a point of conclusion, a moment when America and the world know who is the next president.''
``The way to conclude this election in a fair and accurate and final way is for the state of Florida to count the remaining overseas ballots, add them to the certified vote, and announce the results as required by Florida law,'' he said.
Bush said he was willing to meet Gore after the election.
Bush and Gore aside, Harris played a pivotal role in the day's events.
A Republican sharply criticized by Gore allies in recent days, she filed papers with the Florida Supreme Court early Wednesday seeking a halt to the manual recounts.
Rejected there by a unanimous procedural ruling, she announced hours later she would not accept the results of any hand recounts when it comes time to certify the vote totals.
She said four counties had petitioned for permission to update their totals: Democratic-leaning Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade cited hand recounts, while GOP-leaning Collier cited other, unstated reasons.
``The reasons given in the requests are insufficient to warrant waiver of the unambiguous filing deadline imposed by the Florida Legislature,'' she said, without further elaboration.
AP-NY-11-16-00 0815EST
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November 15, 2000
THE SYSTEM
From Partisan Ranks, Electoral Referees
By KEVIN SACK
THE FLORIDA RECOUNT
67 of 67 Counties Recounted (as of 7:35 p.m. ET)
Candidate New Total
Gore 2,910,192
Bush 2,910,492
Bush Leads by 300
Source: Fla. Secretary of State
IAMI, Nov. 14 — As a former official with the Atlanta-based Carter Center, Robert A. Pastor has monitored plenty of elections, mostly in developing countries where democracy is taking its first steps. But Mr. Pastor said he had never seen anything like what unfolded this week right here at home, where both Democratic and Republican partisans in Florida have used their elected positions to influence the counting of presidential ballots.
In most developing countries, Mr. Pastor said, officials quickly conclude that it is vital to separate the counting of votes from any suspicion of partisanship, and they do so by placing a respected jurist or nonpartisan commission over the process.
"The United States is at the most primitive level," said Mr. Pastor, now a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "I mean, it's below Nicaragua and Haiti in the sense that it doesn't have a national election commission and that the composition of the Federal Election Commission is made up solely of members of the parties."
Mr. Pastor said there were often questions in developing countries about whether ostensibly independent election officials were taking sides. "But I can't think of a situation in a developing country like this one, where the senior election officials have come out and declared themselves as partisan," he said.
If it is not quite a dirty little secret, it is at least a rarely considered component of American politics: from local canvassing boards, like those in Palm Beach County, to the Federal Election Commission, people with a partisan stake can play a significant role in determining winners and losers.
Most elections, of course, are not close enough to trigger recounts or raise questions about defective ballots. And when they are, it is hard to know for sure whether officials are acting out of partisanship or an earnest understanding of the law.
But after close contests, charges of partisanship are often hard to avoid, and perception can become reality. Those charges can become magnified in situations like the Florida standoff because a decentralized election system allows states, and even counties, to follow their own laws and regulations.
That has been the case in Florida, where cries of partisanship arose on Monday after Katherine Harris, the secretary of state and the co-chairwoman of Gov. George Bush's presidential campaign in Florida, used her powers to help Mr. Bush. A longtime Republican loyalist, Ms. Harris declared that the state's presidential vote would be certified at 5 p.m. Tuesday, potentially suspending the recounts that could throw the election to Vice President Al Gore.
A state court decision handed down today heightened the Democratic pressure on the Republican official, because Ms. Harris now has the discretion to accept or reject hand-tallied recounts from several counties later this week.
Florida's attorney general, Robert A. Butterworth, an ambitious Democrat and the chairman of Mr. Gore's campaign in Florida, is battling Ms. Harris. As soon as Ms. Harris instructed Palm Beach County officials today to suspend their recount, Mr. Butterworth issued an advisory opinion contrary to hers.
Partisanship has also been perceived in Sunday's 2-to-1 vote by the Palm Beach County canvassing board to conduct a full manual recount. The board's two Democrats voted in favor of a recount while a third member — a judge appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, a Republican and George W. Bush's brother — voted to oppose it.
But one Democrat on that board joined the judge this morning in voting to delay the recount, and a Democrat joined a Republican in Monday's 2-to-1 vote by the Broward County canvassing board against a full manual recount.
In Florida, the canvassing boards, which manage recounts and certify results, are composed of a county judge, the county elections supervisor and the chairman of the county commission. All are elected.
Those officials report results to the secretary of state, who is also elected, as are the secretaries of state in about 40 states. Those positions are often seen as steppingstones to higher office. Paradoxically, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment two years ago that will make the job an appointed post in 2002.
On the national level, the Federal Election Commission, which monitors campaign fund-raising and spending, must be divided between Democrats and Republicans, with the president nominating appointees who are confirmed by the Senate.
Several academic authorities and public officials interviewed today said that the chaos in Florida suggested that election officials, including secretaries of state, should be appointed rather than elected.
"They probably should not be partisan jobs," said Raymond E. Wolfinger, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. But, Mr. Wolfinger added, Americans like the accountability elections provide and may resist giving up control.
Several authorities proposed that a standing federal commission be created to set uniform standards for voting practices and to monitor results. Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana who was a secretary of state, recalled that Indiana created a bipartisan commission to conduct recounts after a tumultuous 1984 election in one Congressional district.
In that race, the Democratic, Frank McCloskey, won the initial count by 72 votes only to lose his lead in a recount certified by a Republican secretary of state. The House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, ultimately overturned that result and sat Mr. McCloskey.
Two years later, Mr. Bayh said, the commission worked well in overseeing recounts in both congressional and legislative races. "You can structure a process that attempts to minimize the amount of partisanship involved," said Mr. Bayh, "but ultimately you have to rely on the integrity and judgment of the people involved. You just can't get around it."
Former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York, a former secretary of state, said he saw little need for reform because the courts provide the ultimate recourse. "What would you trust any more than the political system?" Mr. Cuomo asked. "As long as you can get to a court you don't have a problem."
But judges, of course, can also wield bias, as any judge-shopping lawyer can attest. Over the last two days in Palm Beach County, five judges recused themselves from hearing arguments in a lawsuit involving the election because of potential conflicts of interest.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
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Gore To Court Against Dade County
Decision Not to Recount
Focus On Florida
Palm Beach County Suspends Recount Until Thursday
Miami-Dade Rules Out Manual Tally, Gore Contests The Decision
High Turnover For Gore In Gadsden County Causes Controversy
Nov. 15, 2000
AP
Palm Beach County Sheriff's Sgt. Bob Lonano wraps tape around ballot boxes.
CBS With its 25 electoral votes still up for grabs and critical to deciding the next president, Florida remains at the center of the chaos surrounding the 2000 presidential election.
Republicans and Democrats continue to engage in a war of words over the Florida Secretary of State's decision on the deadline for ballot certification and a court order on the recount deadline.
On Wednesday morning, Secretary of State Katherine Harris asked Florida's Supreme Court to suspend manual vote recounts in three counties — Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.
The court denied the request.
The day before, a state judge upheld Harris's 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline for recounting Florida's presidential votes, but said she could not "arbitrarily" reject vote tallies that are submitted after the deadline just because they are late.
Harris gave Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties until 2 p.m. Wednesday to present their cases to amend their returns.
But at 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, Harris denied all three counties request for an extension, calling the counties' reasoning "insufficient." The Gore campaign quickly vowed a legal challenge to Harris' denial of the recounts.
Harris vowed to certify the Florida election results Saturday without the hand recount totals.
Harris reported late Tuesday that with 67 of 67 counties' results certified, Republican George W. Bush was beating Democrat Al Gore by 300 votes. But overseas absentee ballots, which are due Friday, still need to be tabulated.
The fight careened out of Florida, with a federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed to consider Bush's bid to shut down the recounts. The Texas governor lost a round on that question in federal court earlier this week in Miami.
A rundown of developments:
In Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, officials reversed course Wednesday and granted Gore's request for a full recount of its 588,000 presidential election ballots. After the first 7,000, Gore had picked up three votes.
Officials in Palm Beach, where concerns about the ballot design prompted the Florida dispute, left Wednesday without starting their manual recount. They plan to meet Thursday afternoon to decide how to begin.
Meanwhile, Republicans argued that Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts poked, twisted and manipulated ballots during a hand recount of four precincts and they asked her to step down from the election canvassing board. She refused, saying she had been fair and impartial.
In West Palm Beach, a judge gave the vote counters wide latitude to decide whether a ballot with "dimpled chad" could be counted or not.
Volusia has already completed its recount and reported it to the state, but county officials still filed a motion with a state appellate court that would force her to accept the figures submitted after the deadline.
Officials in Miami-Dade County late Tuesday ruled out a countywide hand recount of its presidential ballots, declaring its results final and ending the ballot uncertainty in one of three disputed Florida counties. The county canvassing board voted 2-1 against a full manual recount after a sample hand count of nearly 6,000 votes in three precincts produced a net gain of only six votes for Gore and no change in Bush's total. The Gore camp weighed a legal challenge to the county, sources said.
In Gadsden County, west of Tallahassee, a new dispute arose after county election officials announced a recheck of more than 2,000 ballots that had been rejected by voting machines gave Gore a net gain of 153. The gain helped whittle Bush's statewide lead to 300 in new figures announced Tuesday.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed in Orlando, which had sought to block counties from conducting manual recounts. Three Brevard County residents who voted for Bush sued election officials in four counties, saying it is unconstitutional for some counties to conduct a hand count and others not to.
The U.S. Postal Service was expediting delivery of military overseas ballots to assure they arrive in county election departments before Friday's deadline. "We understand the urgency of this situation and realize that the entire presidential election could rest on these ballots," spokeswoman Enola C. Rice said.
Copyright 2000, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Rejected Gore and Lieberman
Stalk Florida Vote Tally
Republican Bid to Halt Count Goes to Appeal
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Republicans Wednesday launched a legal bid in the U.S. federal appeals court in Atlanta to end manual recounts in Florida that Democrats believe could swing the U.S. presidential election to Vice President Al Gore. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said the full 12-judge court will hear appeals by Texas Gov. George Bush and supporters in Florida seeking to overturn decisions by two federal judges who rejected attempts to end manual recounts.
Fight Over Florida Election Recount Intensifies
TALLAHASSEE (Reuters) - Florida's top election official, Republican Katherine Harris, Wednesday barred three heavily Democratic counties from changing their returns in the U.S. presidential election to take account of subsequent manual recounts. The campaign of Democrat Al Gore immediately said it would challenge the decision by Harris, secretary of state of Florida whose 25 electoral college votes will decide whether Gore or Republican George W. Bush wins the presidency.
Bush Rebuffs Gore Bid to Settle Election Wrangling
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Republican George W. Bush rejected Democrat Al Gore's solution to the acrimonious dispute over the presidential election Wednesday and urged all involved 'not to poison our politics.' Bush dashed back from his ranch near Crawford, a two-hour drive from the state capital of Austin, to deliver his televised response to the vice president from the living room of the Texas governor's mansion.
Gore Campaign to Challenge Florida Recount Decision
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - The campaign of Democrat Al Gore Wednesday said it will challenge a decision by Florida's secretary of state not to add manual ballot counts to the state's presidential tally -- which will determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Gore campaign chairman William Daley told reporters that the Democrats 'will pursue legal action' in Florida state court to ensure that manual recounts from three counties can be included in the state's presidential count.
Lieberman Slams Bush Over Florida Vote Recount
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic running mate Joseph Lieberman said Thursday he was disappointed by Republican George W. Bush's 'quick and summary' rejection of Democrat Al Gore's offer to resolve a disputed hand recount of votes in Florida and said the only recourse was litigation. Lieberman also criticized what he said was a 'bold and unilateral' decision by the Republican secretary of state in Florida, Katherine Harris, not to include any results from a hand recount in the state's official tally. Florida will decide whether Bush or Gore won Florida, and the 2000 presidential election.
Democrats Fault Harris Decision
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Democrat Al Gore's campaign Wednesday criticized Florida's secretary of state for deciding not to add manual ballot counts to presidential tallies but predicted the hand counts would proceed anyway. 'I think it's unfortunate that people can count more easily the times that (secretary of state) Katherine Harris has tried to delay the election than they can count the votes counted in the election,' spokeswoman Jenny Backus said.
Baker Says Gore Camp Refusing to Accept Finality
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Republican George W. Bush's campaign insisted Wednesday that it was Democrat Al Gore's camp, not Bush, that has delayed the election process in Florida. 'The Gore campaign has been unwilling to make any commitment to accept finality in this election unless it achieves the results that it is seeking,' the top Bush envoy to Florida, former Secretary of State James Baker, told reporters.
Palm Beach Judge Seeks Precedents on Revote Issue
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - A state judge hearing lawsuits calling for a fresh election in Palm Beach County because of confusing ballot sheets said Wednesday he wanted to see a precedent for such a radical solution. Judge Jorge Labarga, hearing consolidated lawsuits from voters who say the so-called butterfly ballot design used by the county was confusing and deprived them of their right to a fair vote in the Nov. 7 presidential election, set a Friday hearing for the case.
Hard-Ball in High-Stakes Election Drama
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - America's system of electing leaders is founded on high-minded and dearly held principles and values. But as the shoot-out over presidential votes in Florida demonstrates, it is also a process of high-stakes and hardball tactics. The recount of Florida ballots launched after the cliffhanger Nov 7 election between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush with relative gentility has devolved eight days later into a cross between a wily chess game and a barnyard brawl.
Florida's Ballot Watchdog, Citrus Heiress
MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who dropped a bombshell Wednesday by refusing to allow a manual recount in the state's disputed vote which is pivotal in choosing the next U.S. president, is a cultured citrus heiress with a staunch Republican pedigree. Harris, 43, became a key figure in the high-stakes presidential drama when she refused to bow to Democratic pressure to let recounted votes come in later than Tuesday, a move which was challenged by Democrats.
08:36 11-16-00
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Palm Beach County Democrat
Denies Ballot Tampering Accusations
By Susan Jones
CNS Morning Editor
November 15, 2000
(CNSNews.com) - Republicans Wednesday accused Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts, a Democrat, of ballot tampering and asked her to recuse herself from any hand-recount of ballots in that county.
Roberts, in full view of television cameras on Tuesday, said she'd be willing to go to jail, if that's what it would take to proceed with a hand recount of Palm Beach County ballots.
On Wednesday morning, at another open-air hearing in Palm Beach County, Roberts refused a Republican request to recuse herself from the three-person elections board.
Republicans allege that Roberts, one of the ballot handlers, has "been observed bending, twisting, poking, and purposely manipulating ballots in a manner that purposely compromised their integrity."
In response to the Republican complaint - "that Miss Roberts...disqualify herself from further serving on the Palm Beach County canvassing board" - local Democrats called the ballot tampering allegations a "ridiculous, frivolous" attempt to discredit Roberts.
But Republicans claim they have affidavits from three individuals who allegedly watched Roberts switch ballots and otherwise manipulate them in favor of Al Gore.
In a statement, Roberts said, "Every action we took in conducting the hand count...were made in full view of the public observers of both parties and cameras from all over the world." She continued, "During the process there was never one complaint about the way that I or any of the other members of the Board handled the ballots. Roberts said she would continue to be "fair and impartial," and she would not recuse herself.
Toward the end of the Wednesday morning hearing, the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board agreed to suspend its manual recount until pending litigation is resolved. That includes questions about how to count "dimpled" or "pregnant" ballots -- those that were not fully punched.
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