November 15, 2000

More Legal Confusion in Recount
By John P. Martin / FOX News
The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a move by the secretary of state to stop the manual recount and consolidate a flurry of lower-court lawsuits into one. The court, composed of seven judges all appointed by Democrat governors, rejected the move by Secretary of State Katherine Harris without prejudice. There was no word yet on the Gore camp's counter-proposal that the state's highest court alone decide the legality and process of the recounts.

Bush/Gore Join Lawsuit on Recounts
By Paul Simao / Reuters
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Both Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore on Wednesday joined a lawsuit by Florida's top election official that asks the state Supreme Court to rule on manual vote recounts in three counties. Florida's Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris filed an 11-page petition to Florida's highest court asking the justices to order Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties to end manual recounts until the courts decided whether election results certified by all of Florida's counties on Tuesday can be modified. In addition to seeking a halt to recounts, the Harris petition also asked that the Florida Supreme Court consolidate all the outstanding lawsuits over Florida's presidential election and to order that they be heard in the Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, the state capital.

Baker Says Gore Camp Refusing to Accept Finality
Reuters
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Republican George W. Bush's campaign insisted on Wednesday that it was Democrat Al Gore's camp, not Bush, that has delayed the election process in Florida. ``The Gore campaign has been unwilling to make any commitment to accept finality in this election unless it achieves the results that it is seeking,'' the top Bush envoy to Florida, former Secretary of State James Baker, told reporters.

Appeals Court To Hear Bush Case
By Anne Gearan / The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed Wednesday to consider arguments on George W. Bush attempt to shut down Democrat-prompted manual recounts in Florida's contested presidential election. The court issued its announcement at the same time Bush and presidential rival Al Gore were urging the Florida Supreme Court to rule on the legality of the disputed recounting in heavily Democrat counties.

Presidential Race Mired in Complex Litigation
By Paul Simao / Reuters
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - A barrage of complex legal actions threw the outcome of the presidential election into deeper confusion on Wednesday with Florida's top election official, a Republican, asking her state's highest court to suspend a hand count of votes requested by the Democrats.

Black Lawmakers Ask Reno to Probe Election Problems
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Black lawmakers on Tuesday joined the nation's largest civil rights group in asking U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate allegations that black voters faced discrimination at some polls in Florida, whose vote tallies will determine who becomes president.

GOP Accuses Election Board Member
By Karin Meadows / The Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Republicans contend Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts poked, twisted and manipulated ballots during a Saturday hand recount of four precincts and they are asking her to step down from the election canvassing board.

Bush Has Florida by 300 Votes
NewsMax.com
George W. Bush won Florida with 300 more votes than Al Gore, based on results reported to the state by Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline. But Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said she would take written statements from three Democrat-dominated counties on why they should get to recount their votes before she will certify the results of the presidential election.

Judge: Deadline Stands; Harris Walking on Eggshells
By Jack Thompson / NewsMax.com
Leon County Judge Terry Lewis has denied the Gore campaign's request for a temporary restraining order. In doing so, he has allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris' deadline of 5 p.m. today to stand. However, the wording of the Judge's ruling in telling Harris she may proceed, even to the point of disallowing any vote returns submitted late, says that she may do so but not in an "arbitrary" fashion.

Wednesday Is New Florida Vote Deadline
By Anne Gearan / The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Republican Florida official overseeing the state's chaotic presidential vote tally laid down a Wednesday afternoon deadline for Democrat strongholds to justify why they should be allowed to keep counting.

Text of Election Memo
The Associated Press
Text of a memorandum from Clay Roberts, Florida's director of the Division of Elections, sent Tuesday to election supervisors in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.

Republican Lawyers Say To Beware Of Falling Chads
By Steve Miller / The Washington Times
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Chads were everywhere during Saturday's marathon vote recount, and it's not the night janitor who is upset; it's Republican lawyers. "Chads were seen on the floor during the process," Benjamin Ginsberg, general counsel for the Bush campaign, wrote this week to Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. "This produces further evidence that mishandling of the ballots, not voter intent, potentially was yielding new votes."

Gore Campaign Recruiting Lawyers
The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE (AP) - Al Gore's supporters, seeking to recruit lawyers to help with its vote recount efforts in south Florida, asked a national group that works closely with trial lawyers around the country to help.

Democrats Sue to Get Broward Recount Restarted
Reuters
FORT LAUDERDALE (Reuters) - On Tuesday afternoon, the Broward county canvassing board recessed until 5 p.m. Friday, and said it would seek a ruling from the Florida supreme court over the contradictory interpretations of state election law regarding recounts contained in opinions from Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Democrat attorney general Bob Butterworth.

Experts: Hand Recount 'Trick' Inherently Biased
By Julie Foster / WorldNetDaily
By insisting on hand recounts performed only in heavily Democrat 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.

Gore Camp Seeks To Calm Democrats On Capitol Hill
By Andrew Cain And Audrey Hudson / The Washington Times
A key strategist for Vice President Al Gore visited Democrat leaders in Congress yesterday to build a case for patience, arguing that the unresolved election is not causing tumult on Capitol Hill.

Lott Says Hill Is Stopped In Its Tracks
By Dave Boyer / The Washington Times
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said yesterday that Congress has come to a standstill because of uncertainty over the next president, and he criticized the Bush campaign for running a weak race in Florida.

Congress Takes Break Until Dec. 5
By Curt Anderson / The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Congress sent President Clinton legislation Tuesday to stave off a potentially damaging trans-Atlantic trade war by replacing a U.S. export tax system that was judged an illegal subsidy by the World Trade Organization.

Tifton Men Protest Florida Recount
By Wendy Baldree / North Florida Online
TIFTON -- Dennis Bush, a political science professor at ABAC, and Dale Hall, who works in the Turner County school system, walked back and forth in front of the courthouse, with handmade signs that relayed their displeasure with Al Gore, the Democrat party, and the voting situation in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Status in Other Close States
The Associated Press
Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2000; 8:55 p.m. EST. While the Florida recount battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore campaigns continues, five other states had close votes, forcing county-by-county examinations of the totals and raising the possibility of other recounts.

The Vote Heard Around The World
By Helle Bering / The Washington Times
Before too long a medical journal will probably come up with a name for the deep national depression that is settling in among Americans (or at least Republicans), as they watch their presidential election being subverted by Democrat legerdemain and legal wrangling in Florida. As one of the editorial writers here commented last week, "I don't think I am emotionally prepared for a Gore victory." Those of us who have gone through life with faith in the rule of law and order are finding this a truly disturbing experience.

Slow-Motion Larceny In Florida May Succeed If It Can Proceed
By George Will / Access Atlanta
Washington -- In his campaign to follow in the presidency a man defined by moral turpitude, Al Gore promised, ''You ain't seen nothing yet.'' Now we know what he meant. Credit him with a promise kept. Credit also his farsightedness in entrusting his campaign to the late Mayor Richard Daley's son, for whom the manufacturing (literally the making by hand) of votes is a family tradition.

Democracy In Peril
By Tony Blankley / The Washington Times
We may be watching the deconstruction of democracy in America. Yes, you can put me down as an alarmist. The streams of relativism, irony, ignorance, ridicule, ahistoricism, media fatuity, excessive lawyering, hyper-partisanship and power-lust have formed a mighty river of deconstruction that — before our teared eyes — is washing away, at a frightening pace, 200 years of American self-government.

A Nation Divided: Uniting the Forces
By J.J. Johnson / SierraTimes.com
As the escalating war of words continues, we have witnessed the organization and determination of the enemy. As each day passes forward, more of our side is waking up to the fact neither side is backing down, and each of us must take action. Failure to is unacceptable. Although we have neither the funding nor the State-Sponsored Media to forward our cause, we are motivated. A true "movement" has begun.

Voting Shouldn't Be a Right but a Privilege
By Barrett Kalellis / NewsMax.com
Why is any vagrant allowed to cast an ignorant vote on our country's future and that of all of its citizens? Why should our society grant the franchise to people with no knowledge of our form of government, its laws and policies, coupled with little understanding of the issues?

Calhoun Foresaw This
By Thomas J. DiLorenzo / The Ludwig von Mises Institute
The county-by-county electoral map published by USA Today showing that George W. Bush carried 2,434 counties covering 2.4 million square miles, compared to Al Gore’s 677 counties covering about a half million square miles, suggests that the worst fears of one of America’s greatest statesman and political philosopher, John C. Calhoun, may have finally come true.

We Need a Uniter, Not a Divider
By Doug Fiedor / Vigo-Examiner
Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal wrote Wednesday: "America -- or rather the two Americas -- got the government we probably deserved this week. A perfectly divided nation appears to have elected an imperfectly divided government."

CBS: Panel To Study Election Errors
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - CBS appointed a three-member panel on Tuesday to investigate what went wrong on election night when TV networks twice incorrectly projected which presidential candidate would win Florida.

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