Gore Gains Few Votes in Broward County
By TERRY SPENCER
.c The Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Al Gore picked up more votes in Democratic-leaning Broward County on Saturday, while Republicans expressed concern about a published report that at least 39 felons cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
At the end of Saturday's count, with 259 of Broward County's 609 precincts hand counted, Gore had gained 79 votes over official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to official totals.
Secretary of State Katherine Harris has said she won't accept any manual recount totals, but the Florida Supreme Court ruled Friday that she cannot certify election results until it holds a hearing Monday.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Bush campaign said Republicans are concerned by a Miami Herald story saying felons, who are barred from voting by Florida law, cast absentee ballots in the two counties. The majority of them - 32 - were Democrats, according to the newspaper.
``Anytime someone votes illegally, it's troubling, particularly when we are talking about convicted felons,'' Ray Sullivan said.
To find the felony voters, the Herald compared a list of all absentee voters in both counties to a Department of Corrections database, then verified each conviction in court records and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement database. The convictions ranged from murder and rape to drunken driving and passing bad checks.
Jane Carroll, the Broward County supervisor of elections and a member of the canvassing board, said her office periodically is sent lists of convicted felons and use those to expunge names of corresponding registered voters. She did not dispute the Herald report but said, ``I can't do anything about the ones who have already voted.''
The Bush campaign planned to ask the canvassing board to conduct an investigation to identify and disqualify votes cast by felons, Sullivan said. Bush advisers also were consulting with lawyers to determine whether they would ask board members to suspend the hand count while the investigation is conducted.
``The Republicans are clearly desperate at this point. This is yet another attempt to delay the process,'' said state Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Weston in Broward County.
The canvassing board did interrupt its hand count Saturday to consider a motion by Democratic member Suzanne Gunzburger to change its standard for determining whether a ballot is valid.
A day earlier, Circuit Court Judge John Miller told the board to reconsider its decision to only count ballots that have two or more corners of the chad completely detached. A chad is the bit of paper from the hole in a punch-card ballot.
Gunzburger wanted the board to adopt a broader standard used by Texas, which includes ballots with one chad corner detached or with chads that are ``pregnant,'' or pushed out.
Carroll, a Republican, opposed the motion.
``I think that if we change the standard in the middle of all this, it's going to be a lot more confusing at the end,'' she said.
The third member of the board, County Judge Robert W. Lee, delayed making a decision but eventually sided with Carroll.
``I don't think (changing the standard) will cause internal confusion but it will cause a lot of external confusion because of all the hype surrounding this,'' Lee said. ``Whatever we say will be misconstrued 12 different ways two minutes after we say it.''
Lee bristled at criticism by Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, who on behalf of the Bush campaign charged there's ``no reasonable assurance'' the canvassing board can ensure the integrity and security of the ballots.
``The canvassing board ignored a request by Republicans to stop the counting until they could do so. Election officials, specifically Judge Lee, have simply expressed that the chad should be brushed on the floor,'' Racicot said.
``I don't know where he got that,'' Lee responded, ``but I defy anyone who is part of this to say I did that. I would not do anything that stupid.''
``The canvassing board ignored a request by Republicans to stop the counting until they could do so. Election officials, specifically Judge Lee, have simply expressed that the chad should be brushed on the floor,'' Racicot said.
``I don't know where he got that,'' Lee responded, ``but I defy anyone who is part of this to say I did that. I would not do anything that stupid.''
AP-NY-11-18-00 2302EST
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Bush Leads Gore by 930 Votes in Fla.
By DAVID ESPO
.c The Associated Press
George W. Bush's campaign fiercely attacked the hand-recounting of votes in Florida's overtime presidential election Saturday, depicting a process riddled with human error and Democratic bias. Al Gore's lawyers defended the effort in papers filed with the state Supreme Court.
``I think when the American people learn about these things, they're going to ask themselves, 'What in the name of God is going on here?''' said Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, brought to Austin, Texas, by the Bush campaign to lead the GOP assault. He alleged ballots had been dropped, misfiled and mishandled by exhausted - or pro-Gore - officials.
Eleven days after America voted, the final tally of overseas absentee ballots showed Bush lengthening his lead from an almost invisible 300 votes to a still-minuscule 930 out of 6 million votes cast.
As court-challenged recounts paused for the night in two counties, Gore had a net gain of 75 votes, which if they are counted would cut Bush's lead to 855.
There was conflict in the overseas count, too, as the GOP charged Democrats with systematically challenging votes cast by members of the armed forces.
In rebuttal, Gore spokesman Chris Lehane accused Bush of injecting ``raw, crass partisan politics into a situation that ought to be guided by the laws of our land.''
All sides readied arguments for Monday's hearing before the state Supreme Court. Ruling unanimously on Friday, the justices stopped Secretary of State Katherine Harris from disallowing the hand recounts and certifying Bush the winner, at least until it can consider the issue.
Controversy trumped certainty from one end of the state to the other.
While Republicans charged Democrats with constructing a flawed recount process, Democrats said the GOP was forcing interminable delays.
``We will all be here until Christmas if this continues,'' said Charles Burton, a member of the Palm Beach County canvassing board deep into the hand recount of 462,350 ballots.
Passions rose later in the day when Republicans accused officials in Miami-Dade County of planning to take some ballots that can't be counted by machine, determine the voter's intent, then mark new ballots accordingly - pink-colored for identification - that the machines would accept.
``They've gone from counting votes, to looking for votes, to now they're going to manufacturing votes,'' charged Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., who arrived in Florida during the day.
Mayco Villafana, spokesman for county, said if ballots are contested by either side, ``the canvassing board can take that card, replace it with a pink duplicate and anyone can tell that it is a duplicate card and that there is an original.''
Up the coast in Palm Beach County, Burton said the recounts were unprecedented.
``I don't think there is anyone in this room who has done this before.''
Or anywhere else, for that matter, in a contest that left Bush and Gore dangling and the nation without a president-elect 11 days after the votes were cast. Neither man emerged from Election Day with enough Electoral College votes to claim victory.
And that made Florida, where Bush's brother is governor and where Gore and running mate Joseph Lieberman campaigned energetically, the decisive state.
Gore has pressed for the recounts, in the hope they will allow him to overtake Bush's narrow lead.
By late Saturday, recounts from 259 of 609 precincts in Broward County showed Gore with a gain of 79 votes, but totals from four of 531 precincts in Palm Beach County showed Bush with a gain of four.
In Miami-Dade, one official said the hand recounting could stretch to the start of December. ``If there are no objections, we expect to begin manually counting ballots this coming Monday, and our goal is to complete a counting by Friday, Dec. 1,'' said David Leahy, supervisor of elections for the county where 654,000 ballots awaited a hand review.
Late Saturday, local Republicans asked an 11th Judicial Circuit judge to stop the county from running the ballots through machines again. ``The more a paper ballot is mechanically or manually handled, the less reliable it is,'' said attorney Bob Martinez, representing the Miami-Dade Republican Party.
Harris' final tally of overseas absentee ballots showed Bush gaining 630 votes on his rival. She released the figures unceremoniously, a contrast to earlier plans to trumpet the results and certify Bush the winner.
The GOP welcomed the increase in support anyway.
``We are hopeful that once the Florida Supreme Court has heard arguments in this case, the laws of Florida will prevail and the election will be certified,'' spokeswoman Karen Hughes said.
Final overseas figures from all 67 counties showed Bush picking up 1,380 votes, Gore 750.
An additional 1,420 ballots were challenged and not counted, many because they did not bear postmarks. The ballots had to be postmarked by Nov. 7, Election Day, to count. Republicans accused Democrats of thwarting efforts by members of the armed forces to have their votes counted.
Hughes unleashed the Bush campaign's attack at midday, saying the recounting was ``distorting, reinventing and miscounting the true intentions of the voters of Florida.''
Racicot went further.
He told reporters that in each of three counties, ``every questionable ballot is decided by a Democrat-dominated canvassing board.''
In addition, he alleged instances in which chad, paper punched out of a ballot, had been taped over the hole that would signify a vote for Bush. He said Bush ballots had been placed in the Gore piles, cited one instance in which an older man had dropped a pile of ballots on the floor, described scenes of exhaustion and confusion.
In their papers filed with the Florida Supreme Court, the Gore lawyers offered a different view.
``Manual recounts are an essential part of the law of Florida'' and other states, and have been used successfully to help resolve other elections, they argued.
``The outcome of Florida's presidential election will determine who becomes the next president of the United States.'' For that reason it is essential, Gore's lawyers continued, ``that the voters of Florida, and all of the citizens of our country, have great confidence that the individual declared the winner of the election here actually was the choice of Florida's voters.''
There were clear indications that Democrats understood the importance of proceeding promptly.
Bruce Rogow, the attorney for Palm Beach County elections supervisor Theresa LaPore, said former Secretary of State Warren Christopher had telephoned him on Thursday, urging him to advise his client to start the oft-delayed recount immediately.
``I told him no. I told him we'd have to wait,'' Rogow recalled.
``He told me he appreciated my position and that was it,'' Rogow added of Christopher, who is laboring on Gore's behalf in the state.
AP-NY-11-18-00 2323EST
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Republicans Angry over Taped Ballots
By KARIN MEADOWS
.c The Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Republicans demanded a recount slowdown Saturday in Palm Beach County after punchcard ballots were found with chads - tiny pieces of paper - reaffixed with tape.
Jeff Kahrs, a Republican observing the counting, said he saw between seven to 10 ballots where the chads had been taped.
``The pieces of Scotch tape had been carefully cut with scissors and were meant to cover a precise amount of space on the ballot,'' he said. ``Obviously the ballots have been tampered.''
``It was clear to me that the Bush hole had been voted and that a chad had been put back over the hole with Scotch tape,'' said Republican observer Elise Kenderian.
County Judge Charles Burton, a Democrat and chairman of the canvassing board, said three absentee ballots had been found with tape and were not counted.
``There's been a couple with tape on it,'' he said. ``I don't see that as a big issue.''
He suggested voters may have made a mistake and tried to fix it before mailing the ballots.
``Is that widespread ballot fraud? Absolutely not,'' he said.
GOP attorney Mark Wallace called on the board to take more time reviewing the ballots.
``The pace needs to be slowed down and it needs to be done in a much more thoughtful way,'' he said.
Bush had a net gain of four votes with four of the 531 precincts counted by Friday in Palm Beach. The canvassing board had not released any new figures by Saturday evening after counting more than 202 precincts.
Burton said they hoped to finish the mammoth recount by Thanksgiving Day.
Earlier in the day, Burton railed at what he said were a multitude of objections being made by partisan observers. Ballots that are called questionable must be reviewed by the three-member canvassing panel - a time-consuming procedure. About 1,800 of the first 16,000 ballots were called into question.
``We're sitting here wasting our time going through all these objectionables,'' Burton said. ``We will all be here until Christmas if this continues. I'm not going to play games anymore.''
Republicans renewed their complaints that ballots were being dropped or mishandled.
Palm Beach County has been at the center of the election dispute with critics saying the design of its punch ballot was confusing - with names on the left and right and holes in-between. Some 19,000 ballots were never counted because voters chose more than one presidential candidate.
Outside the Emergency Operations Center where the votes were being counted, the curious milled about in crowds of politicians, reporters and television crews. The county allowed some members of the public to watch the methodical hand count of 462,350 ballots from behind a glass wall.
Jan Smiley, 50, said she couldn't stand watching the election recount on television. So she and her husband, Jack, drove more than 200 miles from their home in Oviedo to see it for themselves.
``It seems to me it would be a flawless system compared to the machines,'' said Smiley, a Republican who voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. ``I think every county should have a hand recount.''
AP-NY-11-18-00 2212EST
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Rep. Foley Opposes Florida Court Action
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (Nov. 18) - The presidential election shouldn't be taken out of the hands of American voters and decided by the courts, Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., said Saturday.
``This election cannot keep being dragged through the courts because some people don't like the results,'' Foley said in the Republicans' weekly national radio address. ``If it does, the integrity of our presidency - which has already been frayed over the past eight years - will be further weakened and worn.''
Foley also took aim at Vice President Al Gore. The Democratic presidential candidate is pressing to continue recounts by hand of ballots in some Florida counties, including Foley's Palm Beach County district, in hopes of eroding the slim lead held by Republican George W. Bush.
``We are a great nation. We cannot allow the highest office in the land - indeed the most powerful office in the world - to be undermined by one person's boundless political ambitions,'' Foley said. ``Every one of us must demand that the political operatives and lawyers put America first.''
Foley said hand counting of ballots leaves too much room for human error, especially without uniform guidelines governing the process.
But he urged Americans to be patient as they await the final act in the election.
``I believe that all of us must take that proverbial deep breath, calm down and be patient,'' he said. ``But we also must hope that the cycle of filing lawsuits and appeals ends and ends soon.
``It would be a sad commentary if this election ends up being taken out of the hands of the American people and decided by the courts.''
AP-NY-11-18-00 1128EST
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Published Saturday, November 18, 2000, in the Miami Herald
At least 39 felons cast illegal votes
S. Florida rolls compared to databases
BY DAVID KIDWELL AND LISA ARTHUR
dkidwell@herald.com
At least 39 felons -- mostly Democrats -- illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties in the Nov. 7 elections, according to a Herald analysis of absentee votes in those counties.
Their convictions range from murder and rape to drunk driving and passing bad checks. One is on the state's registry of sexual offenders. Three were registered under Social Security numbers different from those on their criminal records. One is even a poll worker.
``I've been voting ever since voting has been voting,'' said Cheryl Elaine Jones, 50, of Homestead, who has a 15-year-old conviction for dealing cocaine. ``I'm a poll worker. I feel like I'm a one-time felon, and that was years ago. I haven't been in trouble since. I think that all should be thrown out.''
Jones was among 19 felons in Miami-Dade and 20 in Broward who have not had their voting rights reinstated by the Florida Office of Executive Clemency but voted Nov. 7. It is illegal for felons to vote, unless they petition the state to have their rights restored.
Although they make up only a tiny number of the 104,865 absentee ballots cast in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, if felons cast illegal votes in the same percentages at the polls it could amount to more than 470 illegal ballots locally and more than 2,000 statewide.
``I don't think that's an unfair analysis,'' said David Leahy, Miami-Dade supervisor of elections. ``Given the amount of inaccuracies in these databases, I can't say I'm surprised.''
Like other election officials around the state, Leahy matches databases of felons against the voter rolls to eliminate illegal voters. Elections officials statewide say they have made enormous advances to scrub the voter rolls clean of felons in the past two years, since Miami's tainted mayoral election made national news.
Leahy said his office alone has eliminated thousands of felons from the registration rolls since 1998.
``It doesn't please me there is even one left, but I'm pleased we are trying the best we can,'' he said.
Janet Keens, director of the Office of Executive Clemency in Tallahassee, was troubled to find ex-convicts voted.
``I don't know how this could happen now,'' Keens said. ``They show up on my database as felons. These people should not have been allowed to vote.''
Florida is one of just 14 states banning felons from the ballot box, a Civil War-era provision which has come under repeated attacks by Democratic congressional leaders and civil rights groups as discriminatory against blacks. In September, eight inmates backed by a New York civil rights center filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law.
To find felony voters, The Herald compared a list of all absentee voters in both counties to a Department of Corrections database, then verified each conviction in court records and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement database.
Oscar Meza, 44, of Miami, voted absentee despite being sentenced to five years in prison for rape, kidnapping and lewd and lascivious assault on a child in 1993.
Meza is on the FDLE's list of sexual offenders and remains on probation. He could not be reached. He was the only Republican on the list from Miami-Dade. There were three Republicans in Broward. The vast majority of felons casting illegal ballots were Democrats -- 32 of 39. There were three independents.
Doreen John, 22, of Miami, said she thinks it's unfair to keep ex-convicts from voting. She was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison in 1994 on convictions for armed robbery, kidnapping, burglary and carrying a concealed weapon. She cast a ballot Nov. 7.
``Before I got locked up, I voted,'' she said. ``I didn't know I couldn't vote now. I don't think that's fair. If you did something in the past, that should have nothing to do with it.''
Several of the felons interviewed insisted they petitioned to have their rights restored, although the clemency office -- which is solely responsible for granting such privileges -- had no record of it.
Cardell Osborne, 42, of Fort Lauderdale, who served six months in the Broward County Jail for felony cocaine possession in 1992, said he voted in the 1996 presidential election after his rights were reinstated.
``Why did they send me a voter's registration card if I don't have the right to vote?'' he said. ``The state is lying if they say I am not cleared.''
Willie Dan Hartley, 70, of Homestead, said he petitioned for his rights 25 years ago, shortly after his release on convictions for aggravated assault in 1973 and 1967.
``Man, that's a long time ago, that's over with,'' he said. ``I've been voting ever since then.''
Herald database editor Geoff Dougherty contributed to this report.
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Judge delays hearing on Seminole County absentee ballots
By Rene Stutzman
of the Sentinel Staff
[Posted 11/18/2000 1:48 PM EST]
A lawsuit asking that all 15,000 absentee ballots in Seminole County be thrown out went nowhere Saturday, despite a hearing that drew more than a dozen unhappy absentee voters.
They were joined outside the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford, Fla., by more protesters, who waved signs mocking Vice President Al Gore and complained that the lawsuit was a stunt, designed to benefit Gore.
Bush received 10,006 absentee votes in Seminole, compared to 5,209 for Gore.
Circuit Judge Debra Nelson heard an hour’s worth of arguments during a rare Saturday session, then announced she would decide by Monday morning whether to toss out the suit. She gave no hint as to which way she might rule, however, she did set aside a full day -- Nov. 27 -- for another round of arguments.
At issue is whether Seminole’s supervisor of elections, Sandy Goard, a Republican, broke the law when she allowed the GOP to add missing voter identification numbers to about 4,700 absentee ballot requests.
Ken Wright, attorney for the state GOP, called the dispute a "hail Mary lawsuit."
In every other county in Florida, election supervisors either decided those requests were valid or had staff members write in the missing numbers, he said.
Goard did nothing wrong, he said, and the GOP had a right to be in her office because it’s a public place.
"She simply provided a chair and a place to work," he said.
Goard was not at Saturday’s hearing.
The suit accuses the GOP of voter fraud and Goard of collusion.
Harry Jacobs, the Longwood personal injury attorney who filed the suit, said nothing during Saturday’s hearing. Afterward, he told reporters, "I am not here representing anybody other than myself. … I am here to see if we can remedy this."
The real excitement of the day came after the hearing, when absentee voters and sympathizers heckled Jacobs and denounced the suit.
"Go chase ambulances, Harry," one protester shouted.
"We are not like Palm Beach weasels," said another. "We will stand our ground."
Eight absentee voters, represented by Liberty Counsel, a conservative, religious rights group, officially joined the legal fight Saturday.
"We fought wars in this country, Your Honor, for the right to vote," said Mathew Staver, the group’s president and general counsel. To throw out the absentee ballots would be treating the people who case them as "second-class citizens," he said.
Bob Russell, 81, of Sanford, voted absentee and is one of those fighting the suit. He is a poll worker and generally works from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on election day.
"What they’re trying to say is you’re not important," he complained.
Another protester, Tim Brock, 47, said it would be wrong to toss out the votes because of what he called "adminis-trivia."
Jacobs’ attorney, Richard Siwica, was frustrated that the judge would not let him argue his case Saturday but put that off for 10 days.
"The right to vote by absentee ballot is not a right. It’s a privilege," he said.
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What Did the Gore People Know, When Did They Know It?
Jack Thompson
Saturday, Nov. 18, 2000
The next time one of Al Gore's $600-per-hour lawyers steps up to a microphone (by the way, where are Gore's women lawyers?), an enterprising member of the media should ask this question:
When were you first contacted by anyone connected with the Gore campaign?
A truthful answer may reveal that prior to Election Day the Gore campaign was planning a challenge to the certification of the vote in Florida and elsewhere. Proving such a scheme would go a long way toward showing that this theft, like everyday petty larcenies, was not reactive to events but rather a premeditated ploy.
Consider the following: A telemarketing firm, as the polls were closing, was instantly in place to call folks in Palm Beach County to encourage them to complain about the style of the ballot. This suggests preparation.
Consider further: Team Gore's legal documents and strategies made public as early as Wednesday morning revealed a depth of knowledge about the vulnerabilities of computer punch card voting machines that would take days to research and digest and more days to formulate a strategy to exploit. Gore's people knew all about "hanging chad" – a phrase not more than one in a million people had ever heard before. Chad has been at the core of a strategy they have executed flawlessly.
Thursday afternoon – two days after Election Day – I called and spoke with Bush's Florida campaign legal counsel. I told him about "hanging chad" and the need of the Bush campaign to at least think about asking for manual recounts, in the 24 hours they had left to do so, in heavily Republican counties to counteract Gore's selective hand recounts in Democrat counties.
This very bright lawyer clearly did not understand what I was talking about and what had to be done. I would have been surprised if he had. No one on the Bush team apparently understood fully the Gore gambit and how it would play out, not even a full day after they had begun to see it.
These are not dumb people. They were behind-the-curve people. Maybe months behind a curve.
Why does this matter? Because if it can be shown that the theft of this presidential election was planned before a single ballot was cast, then at the center of that campaign is a heart of darkness unfit to govern.
The kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby was convicted in part because of papers in his home documenting his plan. What is in William Daley's files indicating when lawyers were contacted? What is in certain lawyers' files? And to name a name, what is in Gore's Miami attorney Kendall Coffey's files? He is the state's specialist in overturning elections, having done so for Miami's mayor. Congress must eventually subpoena all these files.
But in the meantime, reporters need to ask: What did you know and when did you know it?
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