Florida Court Upholds 5 p.m. Recount Deadline
By JACKIE HALLIFAX
.c The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Nov. 14) - A Florida judge ruled on Tuesday that officials may cut off the vote recount in the state's fiercely contested presidential election at 5 p.m. EST, handing a victory to George W. Bush and a setback to Al Gore.
Judge Terry Lewis ruled that counties may file supplemental or corrected totals after the deadline, and Secretary of State Katherine Harris may consider them if she employs ''proper exercise of discretion.''
Democratic officials, who have initiated attempts to conduct manual recounts in a few counties, said they would appeal the ruling, as did local officials in Volusia County, where a recount was under way. No details were immediately available on the details of the appeals.
In his ruling, Lewis said, ''Just as the secretary of state cannot decide ahead of time what late returns should or should not be ignored, it would not be proper for me to do so by injunction.
''I can lawfully direct the secretary to properly exercise her discretion in making a decision on the returns, but I cannot enjoin the secretary to make a particular decision, nor can I rewrite the statute, which by its plain meaning, mandates the filing of returns by the canvassing board by 5 p.m. on Nov. 14.
The ruling by the Leon County circuit judge marked the latest turn in a presidential election that remains unsettled one full week after the polls closed.
Harris, citing state law, announced on Monday she would not accept any county vote totals after 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Lawyers for Gore - who has pushed the recount effort - and some counties appealed.
In his order, the judge said, ''I find that the county canvassing boards must certify and file what election returns they have by the statutory deadline of 5 p.m. of Nov. 14, 2000, with due notification to the secretary of state of any pending manual recounts, and thereafter file supplemental or corrective returns.
''The secretary of state may ignore such late-filed returns but may not do so arbitrarily, rather only by the proper exercise of discretion after consideration of all appropriate facts and circumstances.''
The ruling came as a recount proceeded - in varying stages - in three counties. Volusia was nearing an end to it recanvass, but a spokesman said time beyond the deadline was needed.
The recount in Palm Beach County was on hold pending resolution of conflicting legal advice.
Miami-Dade County officials said intended to begin a partial recount later in the day.
Clay Roberts, director of the division of elections, issued an advisory opinion Tuesday to Palm Beach County, saying it does not have a right to conduct a hand recount of ballots.
''Unless the discrepancy between the number of votes determined by the tabulation system and by the manual recount of four precincts is caused by incorrect election parameters or software errors, the county canvassing board is not authorized to manually recount ballots for the entire county,'' Roberts said.
Attorney General Robert Butterworth immediately issued a conflicting opinion, saying the county has a right to hand count ballots.
''The (county) canvassing board has the authority to determine that the voter's intention is clearly expressed,'' Butterworth said.
The division of elections is under the office of the Republican secretary of state, who sent a letter to counties Monday saying each faced a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline to report results.
Harris and Butterworth are both members of the Florida Cabinet, which also includes Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush. Each is elected statewide with equal standing.
The conflict over the Palm Beach count was likely to be settled in court.
''We've got two opinions, and a judge needs to tell us how to proceed,'' said County Judge Charles Burton, canvassing board chairman in Palm Beach County. A senior Gore strategist said the board's decision to delay the recount would be challenged immediately in Circuit Court, along with the Florida secretary of state's ruling on which that decision was based.
Palm Beach County is a Democratic stronghold where voters first complained that they were confused by their ballots. Their outcry unleashed a political tide that froze Florida's 25 electoral votes and left Americans waiting to see who their 43rd president will be.
With the deadline fast approaching, judges in three Florida cities were deciding the fate of recounted votes.
In Volusia County, where workers began hand counting 184,019 ballots Sunday, officials said they would be unable to finish by 5 p.m. The county was prepared to send partial results to the state.
On other legal fronts:
-The Democratic Party filed a motion Tuesday in Circuit Court arguing that Broward County should be ordered to conduct a full hand count of its 588,000 ballots. The motion says the county canvassing board's decision not to conduct such a recount was based on an erroneous opinion by Harris, who said a manual recount can only be conducted if the board finds a problem with the computer that counted the ballots.
-Democrats sued the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on Monday evening, challenging the board's method of reading the ballots. The party wants ''pregnant chads'' - dimpled fragments not detached from the card - counted as votes.
-In West Palm Beach, a judge considered the lawsuits of voters seeking a new vote in their county. The voters argue the punch-card ballots they were given on Election Day may have confused them enough to mistakenly vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan when they intended to vote for Gore.
''We intend to file litigation seeking judicial relief from this decision, which we think was based on an erroneous legal decision sent down by the secretary of state,'' Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus said.
A federal judge who turned away Bush's initial effort to stop the recounting said Monday the stakes couldn't be higher.
''I believe these are serious arguments. The question becomes who should consider them,'' said U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who declined Bush's request for emergency federal intervention and ruled the issue was best left to local courts.
Republicans argue the manual recounting should be ended because the process is prone to abuse and political bias. Democrats hope the recounts will help Gore pick up enough votes to overcome Bush's narrow lead in the state, which an informal Associated Press tally put at 388 votes.
With six of seven of Florida's Supreme Court justices appointed by Democrats, Bush lawyers signaled their strategy was to play defense in the state courts. The seventh was picked by Democrat Lawton Chiles and seconded by Bush's brother, Jeb, the Florida governor.
AP-NY-11-14-00 1322EST
==============================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELECTION 2000, DAY 8
Experts: Hand recount
'trick' inherently biased
Economist, analysts explain statistical
manipulation of Gore strategy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Julie Foster
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
By insisting on hand recounts performed only in heavily Democratic counties, Vice President Al Gore's campaign will bias Florida's overall vote count by not including similar recounts in Republican-leaning counties, analysts say.
Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economics professor, blasted the selective hand recount in his analysis published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
"There is a well-known trick among statistical economists for biasing your data while looking honest," Glaeser wrote. "First, figure out which data points don't agree with your theory. Then zealously clean up the offending data points while leaving the other data alone. The key to maintaining academic dignity is to ensure that you do nothing to the data other than eliminate errors."
"But while this approach may seem to improve accuracy, it actually leads to biased results," he continued. "If you only clean the offending data points, then you will disproportionately keep erroneous data that agrees with your prior views."
Glaeser believes the Gore campaign is using that tactic in Florida, which will result in skewed vote counts in favor of the vice president.
"Hand counting ballots in only a few, carefully chosen counties is a sure way to bias the results," wrote Glaeser. "Even if hand counting is more accurate than machine counting, there is a clear bias introduced because Al Gore chose which counties to hand count. Mr. Gore has selected the state and counties where recounting has the best chance of helping him."
A Minnesota state GOP delegate and sociologist who works professionally with statistics echoes Glaeser's observations.
Far more important than the possibility of human error in the recount, warns Roleigh Martin, is the inherent problem of "skewed fairness" that will likely occur in Palm Beach County and other areas where hand recounts are being performed in Florida.
"It would be skewed because the fairness is only occurring in an area that is skewed to the Democrats," Martin said.
Should a hand recount be performed in predominantly Republican counties, such as in Florida's conservative panhandle where Bush bested Gore, statistics indicate the Texas governor would garner more new votes than Gore in those areas. In other words, just as a visual examination of ballots in pro-Gore counties will show a gain for the vice president, a hand recount in pro-Bush counties would assuredly result in more votes for the Republican candidate.
One such area is Duval County, which is as Republican as Palm Beach County is Democratic. About 27,000 ballots there were disqualified because either more than one presidential candidate was selected or no candidate was marked. Susan Tucker Johnson, a spokeswoman for Duval County Supervisor of Elections John Stafford, told the Associated Press 21,942 ballots were nullified when voters punched their ballots for two candidates for president. An additional 4,967 did not vote for president or did not punch the ballot hard enough for their vote to be registered, she said. The disqualified ballots represent about 9 percent of the 291,626 cast last Tuesday.
Bush carried Duval County by more than 44,000 votes.
Mike Langton, chairman of the northeast Florida Gore campaign, said he would have called for a recount in Duval County had he known how many ballots had been disqualified there. Langton claims the county supervisor of elections told him only 200 to 300 votes had been disqualified. It is now too late for anyone to request additional hand recounts in Florida, as such requests must be made within 72 hours of an election.
Glaeser says the only way to ensure hand recounts accurately indicate the winner of the presidential election is to perform them in all of the nation's states where the race was tight.
"If there is to be recounting by hand, it cannot be selective," the economist wrote. "There needs to be total hand counting, not just within Florida, but across the U.S. in any state that was close. One candidate cannot be allowed just to choose where he wants the data cleaned."
============================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELECTION 2000
Something smells
in St. Louis
More reports of voting
'irregularities' in Missouri
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Julie Foster
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
Combine abandoned voting machines, unguarded ballot boxes, confusion over poll closing times, accusations of criminal collusion and throw in a misleading phone-banking message by Jesse Jackson and you end up with election practices that have thrown St. Louis, Mo., into chaos during what is proving to be the most hotly contested election in American history.
It all started the day before the Nov. 7 election when now-congressman-elect William Lacy Clay, son of the incumbent Democrat William Clay, announced polls would be open late on election day. Then, Tuesday evening, Democrats went to St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Evelyn Baker, alleging that up to 33,000 registered voters had been improperly removed from voter registration rolls. As a result, voters faced significant delays attempting to prove they were eligible to vote. In St. Louis, registered voters who do not participate in the previous year's election are automatically removed from rolls if they do not respond to notices sent by the election board.
Baker ordered the polls to remain open in St. Louis until 10 p.m. to ensure the delays did not prevent voters from casting their ballots due to time constraints. Polls across the state are legally supposed to close at 7 p.m.
Just minutes after Baker issued the order, a phone-banking effort by Jesse Jackson commenced, indicating the Democrat activist had pre-arranged the activity. Jackson had recorded an automated message explaining that polls would remain open until 10 p.m. and that votes could be cast even later at the Board of Election Commission -- until midnight. But this latter part of Jackson's message was not included in Baker's order.
Attorney Thor Hearne represented Republicans in the appeal of Baker's decision, which was granted by a three-judge panel at 7:45 p.m. the same day. The new order required that polls be closed at 8:15. However, locals report voting continued until after 10 p.m. and Jackson's automated phone message continued to be sent to residents after the 8:15 deadline, Hearne said.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, judges at 29 of the city's nearly 400 precincts walked away from their posts, leaving ballot boxes unattended, Hearne added. The next day, St. Louis police located an abandoned voting machine in a vacant lot in the 3900 block of Olive Boulevard. The attorney's investigation into the chaos also revealed that 300 or more unregistered people voted after they were given court orders allowing them to do so. Hearne does not know how the individuals received the court orders.
Democrats insist the voters had been mistakenly removed from registration lists and, therefore, were rightly given the court orders allowing them to vote. Yet, Election Board Chairman Floyd Kimbrough defended the accuracy of the rolls.
Yesterday, Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., called on the FBI and the U.S. Attorney to investigate the situation in St. Louis.
"What I saw and heard on Tuesday night is an outrage," Bond said at a news conference at his office in Clayton. "This is the future of our system. This is the integrity of the ballot box." He added that anyone participating in what he calls the attempt to "defraud" the voters should be charged with criminal voter fraud.
Hearne also fears criminal collusion accounts for the election-day chaos.
"Our concern is that everyone deserves a fair election," he said, "and the concern that this raises is really that this was a systematic effort to try to tamper with the conduct of this election as a way to influence the results for the Democratic Party and create opportunity for vote fraud."
Clay says the accusations are baseless.
===============================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELECTION 2000
Non-citizens vote
with 'Clinton card'?
Democratic mass mailing called 'the stuff
congressional investigations are made of'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Julie Foster
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
A mailer signed by Bill Clinton provided unofficial, paper "voter identification cards" to unregistered non-citizens in California, increasing the potential for rampant voter fraud today in the battleground state with the most electoral votes.
A 20-year-old Guatemalan legally residing in Los Angeles County received the "Clinton card" just three days before the election. The California Democratic Party, which paid for the mailer, said yesterday that information about recipients was taken from voter files. Such files are open to candidates and political parties for campaign purposes. However, WorldNetDaily today confirmed that the woman is not registered to vote and therefore does not have a voter file, raising serious questions as to the party's information source.
The Guatemalan woman and her mother, both of whom wish to remain anonymous, have struggled to obtain U.S. citizenship through the Immigration and Naturalization Service for the better part of decade, but to no avail. Surprised to have received the mailer congratulating her for registering to vote, the young woman contacted WND.
Though she does have a driver's license, Department of Motor Vehicles records are sealed for privacy purposes, meaning the California Democratic Party could not have obtained its information from that agency. Nor could the party legally have obtained pertinent information, such as her address and birth date, from the 20-year-old's confidential student record at the community college she attends in the Los Angeles. INS records are also sealed.
Tim Morgan, California's Republican National Committeeman and an election law attorney, was hard-pressed to think of a legal source the CDP could have used to obtain the Guatemalan woman's address and birth date.
"This is the stuff congressional investigations are made of," he said. "It's not clear to me at all how this could have happened. From the Dornan case, we know really how protected this information is. One is left to speculate."
In 1996, former California Rep. Bob Dornan attempted to access INS records during his investigation into alleged voter fraud in the state's 46th congressional district. His numerous efforts to obtain the records of certain voters, including a congressional subpoena, revealed the administration's tight grip on INS information.
Morgan added that should any unregistered voter try to cast a ballot using the Clinton card or other form of identification, legally the ballot should be set aside as "provisional." Provisional ballots are allowed in cases where voters' names are not listed on a precinct's voter roll and are not counted until registration is verified. That type of ballot is used most commonly among voters who have recently moved and not updated their registration.
The casting of a provisional ballot is the only case in which poll officials are legally allowed to verify a voter's identification in California.
California Democratic Party officials did not return numerous calls requesting the party's source of information for recipients of the Clinton mailer. However, a woman who identified herself as a volunteer became agitated at the question, saying she thinks the story is "crazy" and that she doesn't believe it is true. "That's just my opinion," she added.
Deborah Phillips, chairman and president of the Voting Integrity Project, doesn't think it's crazy at all. While she said she couldn't comment regarding the specific mailer in question, she does question activity that could mislead non-citizens into believing they can and/or should vote.
"I think that would be despicable to do that to people who work so hard to get here," she said, stating her belief that most immigrants would be appalled if they knew they were being asked to do something illegal.
Phillips also noted reports she has received from Florida where immigrants are being allowed to vote using their green cards and passports, despite the protests of bystanders.
"There's definitely activity going on which is extremely questionable," she remarked.
Though it was rumored the secretary of state's office had sent a special alert to California's 58 counties regarding the "Clinton card," a spokesman for the secretary denied such an alert had been sent. In the meantime, Californians must rely on election officials to be aware of and follow laws regarding provisional ballots to prevent votes from unregistered participants from being counted.
==========================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELECTION 2000
California in frenzy
over voter fraud
Many outraged about Democrat
mailer signed by Bill Clinton
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Julie Foster
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
In California, where it is illegal in most cases to ask voters for identification at the polls, there is a growing uproar over a Clinton-signed mailer urging Latinos to bring an unofficial paper "voter identification card" to the polls, potentially allowing non-citizens to vote.
First reported by WorldNetDaily yesterday in a column by Editor Joseph Farah, the ID card is attached to the mailer, which was paid for by the California Democratic Party.
"While every election is important, the November 7th election will determine our future for the next decade, and beyond," the letter reads. "The stakes are high for America's Latino families. And California is the critical battleground." It goes on to explain the purpose of the "voter identification card" attached to the letter. "Here is your personal Voter Identification Card. Sign your name, then detach your card. Bring your card with you to your polling place on Election Day. It will help your voting go more smoothly."
Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser for the California Democratic Party, at first denied the party sent mail targeted at certain racial groups. After he was read the letter, however, he acknowledged that a computer program is used to sort information obtained from voter files by category. In this case, newly registered Latinos were targeted for the mailer received in many households over the weekend. Voter files are accessible to campaigns, political parties and recognized research groups that request the information from county registrars.
But at least one recipient of the letter in Los Angeles County is not a U.S. citizen and so is not eligible to vote, despite the president's letter and ID card. The 20-year-old recipient and her mother, both from Guatemala, have spent several years haggling with the Immigration and Naturalization Service over obtaining their citizenship, but have not yet been successful. And she insists she has never registered to vote.
"It is absolutely illegal for a non-U.S. citizen to register to vote or vote in an election," said Shad Balch, spokesman for California Secretary of State Bill Jones. "The voter file is accessible for political purposes, so it is possible the Democratic Party was able to obtain the voter file."
However, if a recipient of the president's letter is not a citizen, questions arise as to the source of the California Democratic Party's information, since, as Balch indicated, the California Secretary of State's office would not have any information on the woman.
The Guatemalan woman does have a driver's license, but Department of Motor Vehicles records are sealed, thus preventing the California Democratic Party from obtaining personal information from that agency. It is possible the woman inadvertently registered to vote when she obtained her driver license, as voter registration information is included in that paperwork. But she claims she obtained her license from Sacramento -- not Los Angeles -- using special forms due to her status with the INS, thus decreasing the likelihood of an accidental registration.
WorldNetDaily is in the process of verifying the 20-year-old's registration status with the Los Angeles County registrar's office. Should the woman turn out not to be registered, Balch said he does not know how the Democrat Party obtained its information.
The spokesman, who indicated the secretary of state's office is aware of the Clinton mailer, confirmed that should any non-citizen take the paper ID card to a polling place, he or she would not be able to cast a vote since there would be no record of the person on the voter registration lists maintained by poll officials.
Nevertheless, there is a scenario in which votes may be cast with the aid of the Clinton card. According to Charles Bell, general counsel for the California Republican Party, if a voter has recently moved to a new precinct and attempts to vote at the polling place for his new location, he is required to show identification, as his name will not appear on the new location's voter registration rolls.
Such is the case with Clinton's paper ID cards. Were the young Guatemalan woman to appear at her polling place with the card, she may indeed be allowed to vote -- regardless of whether her name appears on the list of registered voters for that precinct.
Generally speaking, it is illegal in California to require voter identification and proof of nationality at polling places. In fact, no one can bring evidence of any kind to a polling place challenging any voters' eligibility. Such challenges can be made only to the registrar of voters and only after registration has taken place, Bell said.
In other words, there is no mechanism in California to prevent non-citizens from registering.
That system has led to rampant abuse, resulting in blatantly fraudulent registrations uncovered by the Institute for Fair Elections, a non-profit, non-partisan citizen group dedicated to exposing voter fraud. Karen Saranita, president of the corporation, decried the failures of California's voter registration requirements.
"There are no verification requirements. The only thing election officials are required to verify is that it is an actual address," she said.
Saranita's institute investigates elections nationwide and reports its findings to government officials and the media. The group has found registered "voters" named "Absolutely Nobody," "Lot O. Money," "Boy Toy" and "Punk Rock Freddie," to name just a few. Specific to the Golden State, "God" is registered in North Hollywood, and "Jesus Christ" is a voter in Santa Monica.
Unfortunately, according to Saranita, "Nobody cares." She appeared on "60 Minutes" the Sunday before the 1996 election, but the story generated little response from the public.
"I think until there is a big race -- a high profile race where the results have actually been changed by fraud -- nothing will change," she predicted. "The government is not good at taking preventative measures."
The activist said she gives credit to California Rep. Steve Horn, who attempted to pass legislation in Congress several years ago that would have required the use of Social Security numbers for voting. The measure failed.
Saranita described the farcical treatment of elections by the government compared to other regulated activities.
An election, she said, is "the only government-conducted activity where the citizen is not only not required to provide ID, but it is against the law to ask them for ID when they register to vote. You can't pay your taxes, you can't apply for a farm subsidy, you can't apply for a federal student loan -- in LA County, you can't get a license for your dog -- unless you show ID. Yet, the government does nothing about it, the people seemingly don't care and nothing changes, except it gets worse."
Saranita said her group is watching today's election closely.
==========================================================
Continue