Gore Camp Defiant After Court Setback
By Patrick Rizzo
Reuters
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Nov. 23) - Al Gore's campaign remained defiant on Thursday in the battle for the White House, vowing to contest a vote tally in Miami-Dade County after Florida's Supreme Court refused to order officials there to keep counting ballots by hand.
Gore's lawyers also filed papers on Thursday urging the U.S. Supreme Court not to intervene in the Florida recount -- which could decide the presidency -- as requested by George W. Bush, who wants the hand counts ignored.
The nation's highest court is expected to rule on the matter sometime on Friday. If it refuses to take the case, the court would essentially clear the way for hand recounts to be included in the final presidential tally that could finally decide the presidential election, held 16 days ago.
Gore adviser Ron Klain told reporters he was confident Gore would ultimately win Florida -- and the White House.
He said the vice president did not plan to concede the election if Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified a final result after 5 p.m. ET on Sunday, as expected, and Bush was named winner.
Republican George W. Bush leads in Florida by 930 votes out of 6 million cast in the state on Nov. 7, but Gore had cut that margin to about 720 by the time vote-counters in Broward County went home for their Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday.
Broward and Palm Beach counties, like Miami-Dade generally pro-Gore, are still manually recounting ambiguous or disputed ballots and these could boost Gore's numbers on Friday.
The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday handed Democrats a victory when it gave the counties a green light to have their recount results included in the state's final total, although a Nov. 14 statutory deadline for election returns had passed.
But it set the new Sunday deadline, which Miami-Dade decided on Wednesday it could not meet. The county abandoned its hand recount, robbing Gore of a potentially rich load of vital ballots.
Gore's campaign filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court early on Thursday seeking to force Miami-Dade to resume counting, but within hours the seven judges had unanimously rejected the bid.
Klain put a brave face on the setback. ''I believe that if we have a full and fair, accurate count in Broward and Palm Beach counties, those two counties will be enough to put us over the top,'' he told reporters after the ruling.
DEMOCRATS TO CHALLENGE MIAMI-DADE RESULT
''It seems clear there'll be legal action by both sides at that point,'' Klain said, adding that the Gore side would contest the Miami-Dade result because it canceled the hand recount.
''Hopefully the courts can wrap it up very, very quickly,'' he said. ''But to know who's the president, the votes have to be counted and counted the right way. That didn't happen in Dade county and we're going to make sure it happens.''
He said the Democrats would contest the Miami-Dade result on Monday at the latest. He said he did not believe that contesting results would prevent Florida from naming its 25 electoral college members by the deadline of Dec. 12.
Both Gore and Bush need those electoral college votes to win the White House.
In Washington, lawyers for Gore filed papers with the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the issue of permitting recounts was a matter for a state alone to decide and should not be handled by the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.
The Bush campaign had sought to overturn a Florida Supreme Court ruling that a hand recount of votes in the three counties could be included in the final tally of Florida votes.
''These petitions represent a bold attempt to federalize a state law dispute over whether a manual recount is authorized and appropriate,'' Gore lawyer Laurence Tribe wrote in the 29-page brief filed in response on Thursday.
He described the Bush petitions as ''intemperate'' and ''partisan,'' and said a decision by the Supreme Court to intervene would fly in the face of its earlier decisions preserving the rights and sovereignty of states.
''Intervention by this court in this ongoing process would work a significant intrusion into a matter -- this selection of electors -- that is both fundamental to state sovereignty and constitutionally reserved to the states,'' it added.
CLINTON URGES PATIENCE
The Republicans also object to hand recounts in the Florida counties, saying they are haphazard, chaotic and unfair. The human vote counters are trying to ascertain voter intentions from ballots which machines rejected as being unreadable.
But the Gore brief said the allegations mentioned in the Bush petition were too trivial to ''even approach the standard necessary for a constitutional violation,'' and could not be proven in any case.
In Thurmont, Maryland, President Clinton urged the American public to be patient as it waited to find out who would succeed him in January.
''There is a process under way. The courts will do what they're going to do and that's the way it ought to be,'' he told reporters.
Bush headed for his central Texas ranch on Thursday. He telephoned his running mate Dick Cheney, 59, who is recovering from a mild heart attack in a Washington hospital. Bush and Cheney had a good conversation and both men were ''upbeat,'' said spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Gore spent the Thanksgiving holiday at the vice presidential residence in Washington.
Reuters 21:36 11-23-00
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WHY AREN'T THESE GROUPS CONCERNED ABOUT
THE UNCOUNTED VOTES IN ILLINOIS?
Who Are the Uncounted Voters?
By NANCY BENAC
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (Nov. 23) - Their ranks include soldiers and seniors, younger voters, too, and minorities and poor people. There are no names attached to the Florida voters whose ballots have gone uncounted, but they may yet have the last word on America's next president.
All eyes are on the uncounted now that the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that state officials must consider additional ballots before certifying state election returns, which now narrowly favor George W. Bush.
Although research is scant on which voters are most likely to have their ballots thrown out, some experts believe that America's underclass may be over-represented.
``A good part of them are at the lowest rung of the economic ladder,'' said Lance deHaven-Smith, associate director of the Florida Institute of Government. ``They're the least attached part of the electorate. Lacking experience and familiarity with these kinds of ballots, they would be more likely to make a mistake.''
DeHaven-Smith said minorities, immigrants, poor people and younger voters all are more likely to be among these inexperienced voters. The elderly - among the most experienced of voters - also may have had trouble with the ballots, particularly the confusing design in Palm Beach County, due to vision problems, he added.
Most of the focus is on uncounted ballots from two Democratic counties in South Florida, where hand recounts are under way after nearly 73,000 ballots were rejected by machines. So far, the recounts are turning up more votes for Gore than for Bush.
In addition, there is ongoing controversy over whether to take another look at an undetermined number of military ballots from overseas that were thrown out.
A look at three groups thought to be among the uncounted:
ELDERLY
The counties where recounts are under way have large elderly populations, and older voters tend to turn out to vote in higher numbers. In Palm Beach County, for example, 25 percent of the population is 65 or older. It's probable, therefore, that the elderly represent a disproportionate share of the uncounted. But don't blame the elderly for messing up their ballots, says AARP, an advocacy group for the elderly. ``We don't see this as necessarily an older voters' problem,'' said AARP spokesman Steve Hahn. ``Undisputedly, there are some ballot design problems.''
MINORITIES
Some academics believe minorities are over-represented in the uncounted ballots. ``There's a risk that minority voters might end up being the most disenfranchised by a poor ballot design, just because they are more likely to be first-time voters and some of them are clustered in low-income categories,'' said Darrell West, a political science professor at Brown University. In Duval County, for example, of the 27,000 ballots that were not counted, nearly 42 percent of them came from predominantly black areas. Democrats worried that the party's local get-out-the-vote workers had provided ballot guidance that was confusing to inexperienced voters.
SOLDIERS
More than 1,500 overseas absentee ballots were rejected by county election officials, including an undisclosed number of military ballots that had not been postmarked by Election Day. Their rejection drew a protest on behalf of the Bush campaign from retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who said soldiers ``must depend upon a system that takes their ballot directly from their front-line positions on a circuitous route to the ballot box.'' So far, overseas ballots have been favoring Bush. Florida's attorney general, Democrat Bob Butterworth, belatedly urged county election officials to count the spurned military ballots, but the overseas results already have been certified by the state.
The uncounted also most likely include some voters who are just too smart for their own good.
``They think they don't have to read and follow a set of instructions,'' said Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, an independent clearinghouse that works with election authorities throughout the country. ``We have had people who do not or will not or cannot follow a set of instructions from virtually every economic strata and educational strata in life.''
Richard Scher, a professor of American politics at the University of Florida, cautioned against assuming that the uncounted are made up of society's neediest, arguing that many of those people still don't vote.
Scher said a study of those who registered to vote under Florida's ``motor voter'' law found that ``a lot of the new folks aren't really the down-and-outs ... they're solid, middle-class types who hadn't bothered to register and feel only a marginal attachment to the electoral process.''
AP-NY-11-23-00 1324EST
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Judge: Dimples Must Be Considered
But Bush Gains in Votes
By MARCY GORDON
.c The Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Al Gore lost ground to George W. Bush in the critical Palm Beach County recount, even as the Democrat won a court fight in which a circuit judge ordered election officials to consider so-called dimpled ballots in their manual recount.
Election officials released results from 217 of 531 precincts Wednesday night, and Republican Bush had gained another 14 votes on Gore over his bare lead in official vote totals released last week.
Gore was a winner in court, however, where Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga honored the Democrat's request to have dimpled ballots considered by the canvassing board. A Democratic lawyer has said Gore could gain at least hundreds of votes if all dimpled ballots are counted.
County spokeswoman Denise Cote said 10,000 questionable ballots remained to be reviewed by the board. That figure includes the dimpled ballots, which have indentations that possibly show voters' intentions but are not pushed all the way through.
The questionable ballots also include those with other irregularities.
``I don't know that every ding is a dimple,'' said Judge Charles Burton, head of the canvassing board said.
Labarga said the three-member board, all Democrats, can reject dimpled ballots only after seeking to determine the voters' intent. He said county election supervisors must reject any ballot in which they cannot discern the voter's intent.
Bush, who holds a 930-vote lead over Gore statewide, is battling in court to halt the hand recounts as error-prone.
``Since the will of the people is the paramount consideration, and the purpose of our election laws is to obtain a correct expression of the intent of the voters, ... that intention should be given effect,'' Labarga wrote in his ruling. The case was brought by the Democrats.
Jack Corrigan, attorney for the Florida Democratic Party, praised the judge's ruling.
``We believe it sends a clear signal to the canvassing board that these votes are presumed to be valid,'' Corrigan said. ``He clearly leaves the judgment to the canvassing board in determining the intention of the votes cast by each voter.''
Mark Wallace, lawyer for the Republican Party, said the decision was good for the GOP in that it wasn't a blanket order to the canvassing board to count all dimpled ballots. The Democrats ``frankly did not get the relief they sought,'' he said.
Labarga said the canvassing board cannot arbitrarily exclude any ballot, saying ``each ballot must be considered in light of the totality of the circumstances. Where the intention of the voter can be fairly and satisfactorily ascertained, that intention should be given effect.''
Labarga said the policy for dimpled ballots being used now by the Palm Beach County canvassing board restricts its ability to determine the voters' intent. He reiterated that the board has the discretion to consider dimpled ballots and then accept or reject them.
Labarga's hearing grew in importance with Tuesday night's unanimous state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the recounts in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties to continue.
Labarga quoted from the high court decision to support his ruling: ``The right to vote is the right to participate; it is also the right to speak, but more importantly, the right to be heard. We must tread carefully on that right or we risk the unnecessary and unjustified muting of the public voice.''
Burton played down the impact of Labarga's decision. He said the board has already been reviewing ballots on a case-by-case basis. ``I'm not certain that there's anything additional this board needs to do,'' he said.
All the ballots in Palm Beach have now been manually recounted, but the board will return to work Friday to consider questionable ballots. The results of the recount must be turned in to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris by Sunday.
Palm Beach has worked since 1990 under a rule saying at least one corner of a chad, the bit of paper that gets pushed through on a punch-card ballot, must be dislodged for a ballot to count. Democratic lawyer Dennis Newman said 557 ``dimpled'' ballots for Gore and 260 for Bush have been left out of the count.
AP-NY-11-23-00 1502EST
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Broward counting finishes for the day
Republican Attorney Thrown Out By Democrats
Thursday, 23 November 2000 18:00 (ET)
Broward counting finishes for the day
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Nov. 23 (UPI) -- The Broward County, Fla.,
canvassing board Thursday wrapped up their work of counting more than 1,000
questionable ballots, and early tallies indicated that Democratic Vice
President Al Gore had picked up more than 75 votes so far.
The counting, which will resume Friday, was tense, and Republicans made it
clear they were not happy with the proceedings. Once, Republican attorney
William Scherer, a partisan observer, was asked to leave the room by Circuit
Judge Robert W. Lee, the canvassing board chairman .
Scherer, who is allowed to take notes but not participate, complained the
board counted a ballot with a dimple for Gore, but there were clear ballot
punches on it in the non-presidential races.
"Mr. Scherer, you can take notes, but please do not interrupt us again,"
Lee said.
When Scherer continued, the judge called for three policemen to remove
him, but he was allowed to stay after he quieted down.
Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush holds an official 930-vote edge over
Gore, but the examination of dimpled under votes and other questionable
ballots in Broward and Palm Beach Counties this weekend could determine who
the next president will be.
The Broward County board elected to work on Thanksgiving to be on the safe
side when it comes to meeting the Florida Supreme Court's deadline at 5 p.m.
EST Sunday. Palm Beach County took the holiday off, but still expects to
finish on time.
"I would hate to put in this much work and miss the deadline because we
want to celebrate Thanksgiving instead of finishing what we've done," said
board member Suzanne Gunzburger, a Broward County commissioner.
(with reporting from Les Kjos in Miami)
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Is the Fix In for Gore?
Christopher Ruddy
Friday, Nov. 24, 2000
Al Gore’s team says it will contest the Florida election beyond Sunday if Gore doesn't get the votes he needs to be certified the winner.
Gore’s spokesmen also say they probably won’t need to contest the results if votes come in from Palm Beach and Broward counties, as they expect.
They may be right.
Earlier this week I warned about complacency in the Bush/Republican camp. With Bush leading by more than 900 votes, and the manual recount yielding so few votes for Gore, Republicans have the illusion that Gore would not succeed.
As I said, and we will see, the Bush lead is nothing more than an illusion.
Here’s how I see things unfolding:
1. The latest Miami-Dade brouhaha and other entanglements the Gore team has had with the three counties is just a good cop/bad cop to fool people. The three Democratic counties don’t want to look like they are in Gore’s hip pocket. So they have played this little game of not seeming to accede to Gore’s requests.
For example, Broward and Miami-Dade initially refused to do the hand recounts but did so after appeal or court order. By doing it this way the counties look independent and impartial. Meanwhile, the Democrats are all in cahoots and both parties know they can get Democratic judges to do what they want.
2. Miami-Dade has been interesting to watch. The canvassing board initially wanted to end the manual recount and just do a recount of the questionable "under-vote ballots." Gore knows this is the stack that will give him a high yield of votes. But legally, Miami-Dade didn’t want to take the rap if it wasn’t approved. For now, the Supreme Court isn’t forcing Miami-Dade to continue the recount. But after votes are certified, Gore can still contest the Miami-Dade results and a judge can order the recount of questionable ballots.
3. Miami-Dade’s board appears like a foe of Gore’s efforts. Don’t believe this for a second. Yes, the Cuban-Americans, in the wake of Elian, are still seething. But still, the Democratic machine there headed by Miami-Dade mayor Alex Penelas is solidly behind Gore. Be sure everything is being scripted from Bill Daley’s offices.
[During the Elian affair, NewsMax.com revealed that the legal team around Elian was nothing more than a shill for the Clinton administration and Reno. As it turned out, Elian’s attorney, Kendall Coffey, is now heading up Gore’s efforts in Florida.]
4. In Broward we are already seeing how questionable ballots are moving quickly and decidedly to Gore.
5. In Palm Beach, three Democrats are rooting for Gore, led by Carol "I’ll go to jail for Al" Roberts. So far, Palm Beach says it is not counting indented ballots. This, again, is part of the good cop/bad cop routine being scripted by Bugsy Daley. Expect Palm Beach, with more than 10,000 indented ballots, to go for Gore big time. This last phase of the recount could catch the Bush team off guard.
6. Meanwhile, Bush has taken his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bad move!!! The court will likely deny his appeal, and this will be a public relations disaster for Bush. A court denial will be portrayed by the Gore/media camp as having vindicated the kangaroo ruling of the Florida Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court denies Bush’s request at about the time Gore pulls ahead in the recount, it’s a double hit to Bush’s claims.
7. If Harris certifies Gore this Sunday, Bush loses. If Bush can maintain even a slim margin over Gore, support for Gore among Democrats may fizzle and he may need to end his contest.
8. Still, Gore is also considering a fight to the Electoral College. He denied it during his last press conference, but I believe him like I did when he said he invented the Internet or didn’t know the Buddhist temple meeting was a fund raiser. Too many electors are being contacted by Gore allies for this scenario to be dismissed.
From the beginning I said Bush needed to focus his attention in the public arena and Congress, and use public pressure to get Gore’s attention. The legal track alone will not work for Bush.
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Gore's Scorched Earth Policy: Won't Concede
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, Nov. 24, 2000
TALLAHASSEE, (UPI) -- There was no let up, despite the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday, in the seemingly endless legal and political warfare over the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
The campaign of Democratic candidate Vice President Al Gore said Thursday it would contest the vote totals from Miami-Dade county in Florida after they are certified at the weekend, whoever is leading in the statewide tally.
The final results in the state are crucial because whoever wins Florida's 25 electoral votes is almost certain to become the next president. Wednesday's announcement, however, made it clear that even the certification of that state's vote totals will not mark the end of the most closely and bitterly contested presidential race in living memory.
Earlier Thursday, the state Supreme Court had rejected an appeal from Gore's lawyers aimed at forcing the County Canvassing Board in Miami-Dade to resume the manual recount they halted Wednesday. The board had decided it would be impossible to meet a court imposed deadline for completion by 5 p.m. Sunday.
In a separate development Thursday, lawyers for the vice president filed their response to Wednesday's petition from Texas Gov. George W. Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bush had asked the Supreme Court to over-rule a decision by the Florida high court that late totals from ongoing manual recounts of ballots must be included in the state's final vote tally.
Meanwhile in Washington, Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard Cheney was said by campaign aides to be "recovering well" from a slight heart attack he suffered early Wednesday morning.
The decision to contest the Miami-Dade vote was announced by Gore aides in a conference call with reporters Thursday afternoon after the state Supreme Court summarily dismissed their argument that even if the full recount could not be completed, officials had an obligation to count as many votes as they were able to by the deadline.
"We will certainly contest," said Gore legal advisor Ron Klain later, "if -- as they have said they are going to -- the Miami-Dade board files a return of votes that's incomplete, that leaves out thousands and thousands of ballots of people who went to the polls and voted, and have a right to have their votes counted … We're going to contest that return … And we'll file that here in Tallahassee, probably Monday morning."
Bush campaign officials could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.
In the battle for Florida's 25 electoral votes, Bush currently leads Gore by 930 votes statewide. But the Florida Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Secretary of State Katherine Harris must refrain from certifying the state's election total until counties have an opportunity to submit amended vote tallies resulting from ongoing manual recounts. The court set a 5 p.m. Sunday deadline for completion of the recounts.
At the time of the ruling, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties were conducting manual recounts. By Thursday evening -- according to unofficial tallies -- Gore had picked up 213 votes in Broward and 14 in Palm Beach, cutting Bush's lead to just over 700 votes. However, large numbers of questionable or doubtful ballots, totaling as many as 12,000 by some estimates, remained to be ruled upon in both counties.
But the Miami-Dade board decided Wednesday to call off its recount, arguing that they would not have time to finish by the Sunday deadline.
Attorneys for Gore told the Florida Supreme Court Thursday that the decision to stop recounting could cost the vice president the election: "388 votes that the machines [in Miami Dade] failed to tabulate were counted …" said their petition, "the net gain for Gore of 156 votes -- which, if extrapolated, could total almost 800 votes county-wide -- clearly could have a substantial impact on the outcome of the election."
But Klain insisted that the decision to contest the result in Miami-Dade was not made because of fears Gore could not win without the additional votes he had been expected to pick up in the recount.
He said that they would contest the Miami Dade totals even if Gore has more votes than Bush after amended tallies are submitted Sunday night, making it clear that the bitter fight over the outcome of the election will not end. And he hinted that the campaign might also contest vote totals in other counties where they feel the count was incomplete.
"We expect the Bush campaign to present contests, we're going to present contests … The important thing is to get the vote tally right … It seems clear that there'll be legal action by both sides at that point (Sunday after 5 p.m.)," Klain said.
Meanwhile, in Washington Thursday evening, lawyers for Gore filed a response to Wednesday's petition from Texas Gov. George W. Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bush had asked the Supreme Court to over-rule a decision by the Florida high court that late totals from ongoing manual recounts of ballots must be included in the state's final vote tally.
Gore's 32-page submission argues that the high court should not interfere with a task that has been constitutionally delegated to the state level and questions whether the Florida Supreme Court's interpretation of state law really presents a substantial federal question for the U.S. Supreme Court to review.
The brief also contests the Bush assertion that Florida's recount process violates the U.S. Constitution. It concludes by arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court's involvement will have an adverse effect on the outcome of the election.
"This court's interference with the normal processes by which questions of state law are resolved, and indeed, with the ongoing processes by which the President and Vice President of the United State are chosen, would only diminish the legitimacy of the out come of the election," the brief says.
Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush filed a motion Wednesday in the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to overturn the Florida high court's decision that hand counted ballots must be included in the state's final tally of votes cast in the presidential election two weeks ago. Bush, in his petition, argued that the Florida Supreme Court's decision violated provisions of the U.S. Constitution.
His lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme court to stop what they called a "selective, capricious and standardless" vote counting process that "now borders on anarchy" and is "turning the presidential election in Florida into a circus."
The petition also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether the state court's decision is inconsistent with a Constitutional provision that electors shall be appointed by each state "in a manner as the Legislature thereof may direct."
The Bush petition must be considered by the full court with votes of four justices required to succeed, but it was unclear Thursday night when the Supreme Court might act.
Also in Washington, Bush campaign officials said Thursday that GOP vice presidential candidate Richard Cheney was "in great spirits" and had been visited by relatives at the George Washington University medical Center, where he is recovering from a slight heart attack he suffered early Wednesday morning.
Cheney was admitted to the hospital complaining of chest pains, and underwent a procedure to correct a narrowing of a major coronary artery.
Campaign officials said that he had spent Thanksgiving with his wife Lynne, daughter Liz Cheney-Perry and son-in-law Phil Perry.
They added that the former defense secretary was "recovering well" and "could be released "as early as (Friday)."
Cheney, who has a long history of heart disease -- including three heart attacks between 1978 and 1988 when he underwent cardiac bypass surgery -- had a small metal mesh tube, called a stent, installed to correct a narrowing in the diagonal branch of the left anterior descending coronary artery. The stent was placed using a procedure known as angioplasty, during which a small balloon is inserted into the artery, and inflated to widen the narrowed blood vessel.
--
(Shaun Waterman in Washington contributed to this report)
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