Supreme Court Weighs Intervention
By LAURIE ASSEO
.c The Associated Press
The Supreme Court weighed intervention in Florida's contested presidential election on Friday as George W. Bush gained ground in a recount of military absentee ballots and Al Gore picked up support from a recanvass of votes cast on election day.
Republican running mate Dick Cheney won his release from the hospital, two days after suffering what doctors described as a very mild heart attack - his fourth. Cheney said there were ``no restrictions'' placed on him that would rule out assuming the vice presidency.
Bush holds a 930-vote lead in the state that stands to pick the next president, with recounting allowed until Sunday at 5 p.m. under a deadline fixed earlier in the week by the Florida Supreme Court.
Even then the nation's longest presidential election may not produce an acknowledged winner. Gore served notice on Thursday he intends to contest the results, citing a decision by officials in Miami-Dade County not to conduct a full recount.
``I worry regardless of the result,'' said Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn. ``We really are becoming very polarized. The first-generation American in me says we need to bring this to closure.''
But closure was elusive, with court cases proliferating and recounts continuing.
Bush went to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, seeking a ruling that would invalidate all recounts and preserve his 930-vote lead.
Gore's lawyers objected in a legal filing of their own, and on Friday Bush rebutted the vice president's objections, saying they do not overcome the ``powerful justification for review by this court.''
Theodore Olson, an attorney for the Bush campaign, said on NBC's ``Today'' show Friday that it was ``uncertain'' what the court would do. But, he added, ``Even if the United States Supreme Court does not intervene at this point, it might well decide later that this process, which changes the rules after the election, is unconstitutional.''
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, in papers filed Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court, said her state's highest court changed Florida election law when it allowed the manual recounts to continue.
Until then, she said, ``a manual recount was a last-resort remedy'' to be used only when machine tabulation failed.
The recounts continued, though, and Bush picked up a handful of votes in Broward County, where the canvassing board resumed its review of approximately 1,500 ballots that were noit punched through cleanly by voters on election day.
Elsewhere, officials in Clay County voted to accept 14 of 17 previously rejected overseas ballots. That gave Bush 13 votes and Gore one.
In mid-morning, the situation looked like this in the three counties where Gore sought manual recounts.
Broward County: With all 609 precincts and absentees recounted, as well as 431 of approximately 1500 questionable ballots, Gore has a net gain of 245 votes.
Miami-Dade County: The canvassing board voted unanimously to stop the county's hand recount Wednesday. That negated a net gain of 151 votes for Gore.
Palm Beach County: With results released from 217 of 637 precincts recounted, George W. Bush gained 14 votes.
The Gore campaign asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to order the recount reopened in Miami-Dade, but the justices refused.
Gore campaign attorney David Boies, also on NBC, noted that Miami-Dade officials decided to stop their counting after Republican backers staged noisy demonstrations, ``mini-riots if you will,'' outside the recount office. ``If that's the reason they stopped counting, I think it's very unfortunate.''
Gore's lawyers said they will go to state court in Tallahassee to contest the Miami-Dade election results after the votes are certified, expected late Sunday.
``Nobody should be surprised by this. We've been saying all along that we wanted a full and fair count and that's what we intend to see happen,'' said Ron Klain, a Gore campaign legal adviser. He said some results in other counties also may be challenged, but he did not give details.
The Florida Supreme Court, in setting the Sunday deadline for vote certification, anticipated the vote would be contested and wanted to ensure enough time for such challenges before the state's crucial 25 presidential electors are chosen on Dec. 12. Whoever wins those electors will have enough votes to become the next president.
Bush also has filed suit in a Florida court asking 14 counties with heavy military populations to recount overseas ballots. Hundreds of ballots, many from military outposts, were rejected last week when Democratic lawyers urged county boards to scrutinize them.
In papers filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, the vice president's lawyers said Bush was asking the justices ``to interfere with a task that has been expressly delegated to the state of Florida,'' the choosing of presidential electors.
Florida's Republican state lawmakers have said they may call a special session of the GOP-controlled Legislature to choose their own slate of electors if the hand recounts push Gore over the top or if the Dec. 12 deadline is not met.
House Speaker Tom Feeney said that if the electors were not picked by the required date, ``the responsibility falls on the Legislature in Florida to decide who those electors are going to be.''
AP-NY-11-24-00 1121EST
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Flawed ballots
count only in Florida
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© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
Wait a minute. Am I getting this right? The Florida Supreme Court believes that disputed ballots in three counties handpicked by the Gore campaign should decide who the next president is? The votes of more than 100 million Americans are being put aside and the votes of a few thousand Floridians are the ones that will be decisive? This can't be happening, can it? My God, it is happening!
All over America people are confused. How can ballots already counted by a non-biased machine be suddenly pivotal? The decision of the Florida Supreme Court to allow a hand count is staggering in its unfairness to all Americans because in every county in the USA, ballots are discarded for a variety of reasons. And those ballots do not count. Only the rejected ballots in the three South Florida Democratic counties are the exception.
George W. Bush must be going nuts. First, his campaign miscalculated by not asking for a recount in some Republican Florida counties, and then he gets nailed by the Florida Supreme Court, which is totally comprised of Democrats. The governor is getting a bad deal, but his argument is weakened by the fact that he lost the popular vote by 300,000.
However, if you take New York City out of the equation, Bush actually won the popular vote. The Big Apple went for Gore by more than 300,000, as the minority and union votes kicked in big.
The truth is that the presidential vote was essentially a tie, and America was not ready for a draw. So now we have partisans everywhere, including the Florida Supreme Court, trying to get their guy elected by any means possible.
The Gore campaign has been very shrewd and tactically brilliant in focusing on Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. I give them credit for out flanking the Bush people. But as an American, I do not want the 43rd president of the United States selected by flawed ballots. In fact, I am demanding that that NOT happen. If flawed ballots count in Florida, then they have to count EVERYWHERE.
Got it?
At this point, America is being greatly damaged. An economic recession is possible as foreign investment in America is drying up. The stock market has declined drastically for the past three months, and there is no way to put a happy face on the presidential vote. Whoever actually gets to the Oval Office is going to have a tough time.
All Americans should be very concerned. Our republic is not supposed to be run by hustlers and spinners. Any fair-minded person would quickly realize that the situation in South Florida is wrong. The votes of ALL Americans have not been counted equally in this election, and that is something the country simply cannot tolerate.
Finally, I do feel bad for Al Gore as well as George W. Gore did win the popular vote because, like it or not, New York City remains a part of America. But even Mr. Gore has to see the absurdity of allowing rejected votes in three counties to elevate him to the presidency. And it he doesn't see that, he doesn't deserve the honor.
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Thursday November 23 10:52 AM ET
Democrats to Try to Squeeze Out More Votes in Fla.
By David Lawsky
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - Democrats will make a last effort on Friday to convince Palm Beach County that it should hand count more ``dimpled'' or partially punched ballots for Al Gore, as a Sunday deadline for submitting the vote tallies closes in.
A Palm Beach County court decision on Wednesday fell short of the clear order Democrats had sought requiring the counting of virtually all dimpled punchcard ballots cast in the Nov. 7 presidential election.
Later, the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board said more than two dozen teams of counters had finished manually recounting the county's 462,000 presidential ballots.
The nation's Thanksgiving holiday all but closed down activity in Palm Beach County on Thursday, but the board planned to meet Friday at 9 a.m. on Friday to review thousands of questionable ballots.
A Florida Supreme Court decision requires the board to submit the results of its manually recounted ballots by 5 p.m. on Sunday. At the same time George W. Bush has asked the United States Supreme Court to halt the hand counting.
Palm Beach was one of three predominantly Democratic counties that began the manual tallies. But on Wednesday Miami-Dade dropped out after deciding it could not finish the task in time, a major blow to Gore's chances of erasing a 930-vote lead enjoyed by Republican George W. Bush among nearly 6 million votes cast in the state.
So far, the manual recount in Palm Beach County has been almost identical to the machine count.
Democrats have complained that the board has failed to count all ballots that have any sort of partial mark or dimple in the presidential column.
Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge Jorge LaBarga ruled on the matter on Wednesday at the request of Democrats who wanted him to clarify a Nov. 15 order on the same subject. He granted the Democrats' motion to clarify his ruling, but it stopped far short of ordering the board to change its methods.
Board Won'T Change Its Ways
Afterward, Palm Beach County Canvassing Board chairman Charles Burton said the board had no intention of changing its ways.
``It seems to me we are complying with the standard (the judge) sets in that order,'' Burton said of the board's approach to counting the disputed ballots.
``I said (in testimony before the judge) we would welcome any direction you would give us and I don't think that was included in his order,'' Burton said.
But Burton said that before the board began reviewing the ballots again on Friday it would listen to the arguments of Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats plan to argue that if the board looks carefully at LaBarga's order it will find guidance that requires it to alter its practices.
Burton testified in court on Wednesday that the board counts dimples on the presidential line only if a ballot has dimples next to some other offices.
He said the board rejects dimples on the presidential line if a ballot has fully punched holes next to all other offices.
``Believe it or not there are many people who didn't like either candidate and decided not to vote for president,'' Burton said.
Democratic lawyer Ben Kuehne said that is not what the judge's order meant, if a footnote is read carefully.
``The judge didn't use a club,'' but the message is there, Kuehne said.
In the footnote, LaBarga cited a 1996 ruling in a Massachusetts Supreme Court case, Delahunt vs. Johnston, that set standards for counting punchcard ballots in close congressional race.
An Unpersuasive Argument
``The decision may be of assistance to the board,'' wrote LaBarga. ``The (Massachusetts Supreme) Court held that a 'discernible indentation made on or near a chad should be recorded as a vote for the person to whom the chad is assigned.'''
LaBarga noted that the Massachusetts high court ``found unpersuasive the contention that voters may have started to express a preference in a candidate, made an impression on a punch card, but pulled back because they did not want to express a choice on that particular contest.''
Kuehne said that meant the board was required to count dimpled ballots.
But LaBarga did not order the board to follow the Massachusetts standard. Instead, he noted in his order that ``the canvassing board has been entrusted by the Florida legislature with the task of making factual determinations as to the intent of the voter in casting a ballot.''
His order said that because the board has three members, ``it is in a position to make a determination in each instance by a majority vote.''
During the hearing on Wednesday, the judge compared such a body to a jury. ``Who am I to step in?'' LaBarga asked.
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ClintonGore's chief fundraiser and top campaign insider Terry McAuliffe says Gore has enough ballots in Palm Beach and Broward Counties alone to win... MORE... There are 8,000 contested ballots remaining to examined by the three-member Palm Beach canvassing board... "We've got the votes," McAuliffe bragged to reporters in the past 24 hours... The impression that Gore will not have the votes to catch Bush without Miami-Dade is false, McAuliffe whispered... MORE... The official state count gives Bush an advantage of 930 votes -- adding in the apparent PlamBeachBroward gains by Gore of 211 votes as of Thursday night -- the unofficial Bush advantage was 719 votes.... DEVELOPING...
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