November 25, 2000

Broward County Finishes Recount
By Rachel La Corte / The Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Broward County canvassing board completed its hand count of presidential ballots Saturday night, unofficially giving Democrat Al Gore a net gain of 569 votes – badly needed if he is to overtake George W. Bush statewide. The board completed the exhausting, cantankerous recount – which began Nov. 15 – just before midnight. In the end, Gore had a net gain of 569 votes in unofficial totals, cutting into Republican Bush's official lead of 930 votes in Florida, the state both candidates need to win the presidency.

Bush Sues Over Absentee Ballots; Palm Beach Keeps Counting
United Press International
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (UPI) - Less than 24 hours from the deadline for certifying Florida's vote in the presidential election, one county was wrapping up its hand-recount, another planned to work through the night against long odds for finishing in time and five more faced new lawsuits over uncounted military absentee ballots. Texas Gov. George W. Bush's campaign announced Saturday evening it had filed suits against Hillsborough, Okaloosa, Pasco and Polk counties in an effort to force local election officials to reconsider invalidated military ballots cast in the 2000 presidential election.

Bush To Declare Himself The Winner Tonight
By David Wastell / Electronic Telegraph
George W. Bush is preparing to declare himself America's President-elect tonight when final results for the bitterly disputed state of Florida are announced after 19 days of delays and recounts. Although hand recounts had whittled Mr Bush's lead in Florida down to 590 votes by early yesterday - from 930 last weekend - it looked unlikely that his Democrat rival, Vice-President Al Gore, would make up the gap before today's deadline. Mr Bush is planning to visit his Texas governor's mansion in Austin today to claim his expected victory, despite outstanding legal challenges and the surprise decision of the federal Supreme Court to step into the controversy over hand-counted votes in Florida.

Bush Challenge Would Be Moot If He Wins Florida
By Jane Sutton / Reuters
MIAMI (Reuters) - If Republican George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida's presidential election on Sunday, his U.S. Supreme Court challenge of the manual recounts would become meaningless, legal analysts say. ``It would only even be relevant if the hand-count produced results in favor of (Democrat Al) Gore. If Florida certifies Bush as the winner ... then Bush has no standing to challenge the hand counts because he hasn't been harmed by them,'' Nat Stern, a law professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Friday. ``It would be moot,'' agreed Charles Ehrhardt, another law professor at the university.

Supreme Court Will Consider Three Bush Arguments
ABCNEWS.com
The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday it will hear arguments in a Republican lawsuit seeking to prevent manual vote recounts in Florida from being included in the final vote tally, taking the nation’s highest court into largely uncharted legal territory. The Supreme Court’s decision marked a stunning, unexpected development that was a victory for Texas Gov. George W. Bush and the first time the justices have ever considered a case that may decide who eventually wins the White House.

Justices Dust Off an 1887 Statute for Ballot Battle
By David G. Savage, Henry Weinstein / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court argument next week over Florida's ballots will focus almost entirely on a federal law -- apparently never used in the 113 years it has been on the books -- that forbids states to decide presidential elections based on rules adopted after the voting. Lawyers for Texas Gov. George W. Bush had advanced grand constitutional arguments against the hand recounting of Florida's votes. But the justices turned away those claims in their brief order Friday announcing that they would take the case next week. Instead, the justices said they would consider whether the Florida Supreme Court's decision to require that recount results be included in the state's vote totals violated the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

Gore Won’t Get the Palm Beach Votes He Needs
By Christopher Ruddy / NewsMax.com
West Palm Beach -- A source close to the canvassing board here say the hand count of approximately half of more than 8,000 questionable ballots won’t give Gore much of an advantage. Gore’s team was counting on more than 400 votes from the last stage of the manual recount, but so far he may only gather a handful of votes and no where he need to get to win.

Gore Intends Vote Challenge
By David Espo / The Associated Press
Al Gore's lead lawyer said Saturday the vice president intends to challenge certified vote counts in potentially decisive Palm Beach County, where thousands of ballots are uncounted because the voters' intention was not immediately clear in a White House contest like none other. David Boies, Gore's recount lawyer, said he had decided to add that key county to others where challenges are to be raised – most important of which is Miami-Dade, where the re-examination of ballots was brought to an unexpected halt earlier this week, a setback for Gore.

House GOP Wants Military Ballot Bill;
Force Retroactive Count Of Military Absentees
By Mary Orndorff / The Birmingham News
WASHINGTON -- Every state would have to count absentee military ballots, even those without postmarks, under legislation supported by U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills. Congress returns to work Dec. 5 and, depending on the legal decisions between now and then, might take a role in the presidential election. One of its options is to retroactively dictate how state officials treat the ballots sent in by military personnel overseas, said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.

Bush Drops Suit On Overseas Ballots
By David Espo / The Associated Press
George W. Bush gave up his legal fight Saturday to force counties to reconsider overseas military ballots that were rejected for lack of a postmark and other technical problems. And Al Gore's camp extended to include key Palm Beach County the list of Florida counties where it plans to challenge vote counts once they are certified.

Broward Absentee Ballots 'Discovered'
NewsMax.com
Democrat Broward County has pulled a rabbit of a hat for Al Gore --maybe. A final recount of questionable ballots gave Gore an additional 472 votes. The new absentee ballots are expected to increase Gore's lead. But on Saturday, Broward officials offered a bigger surprise: the county discovered some 500 absentee overseas ballots that had not been counted.

Gunzburger's Gall: Transcripts From Broward
Recount Show Hunt For Gore Votes As Race Tightens!
DRUDGE REPORT
As Broward County elections officials pressed to finish their review of disputed presidential ballots, transcripts of the canvassing board recount sessions show member Suzanne Gunzburger, a Democrat and an active contributor to the Democrat National Committee blatantly hunting for more Gore votes!

Palm Beach County Counters To Work All Night
By Tom Hopkins / United Press International
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (UPI) - The three-member canvassing board in Palm Beach County said Saturday they will work all night in an attempt to meet Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline for certifying the county's presidential ballot recount. "We want to get it done," said County Judge Charles Burton, the chairman of the canvassing board. "Never say never, we're going to keep plugging away. I think we can do it."

Gore Plans Monday Speech
By Ron Fournier / The Associated Press
Democrats and Republicans scratched for votes all across Florida as Al Gore and George W. Bush plotted their strategies for Sunday, when the state's top elections official certifies the longest, closest White House race in 124 years. The Texas governor clung to an improbably narrow lead Saturday. His unofficial margin at midday was 540 votes out of 6 million cast.

RNC Accuses Gore of Tampering with Electors
NewsMax.com
In an urgent e-mail sent out to approximately 1 million Republicans, Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson claims that Al Gore is tampering with the Electoral College. Nicholson says Gore's operatives have even begun doing background checks on Republican electors.

U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Bush Case
By Laurie Asseo / The Associated Press
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to intervene in the Florida presidential recount, saying Friday it will hear one of George W. Bush's appeals that seeks to bar hand-counted ballots in the disputed election. In a stunning development and a victory for Bush, the nation's highest court said it will hear arguments Dec. 1 on whether to overturn the Florida Supreme Court's decision that allowed manually recounted votes to be added to Florida's vote total. "The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted," the court's order said.

Text of Supreme Court Orders
The Associated Press
Texts of two orders by the U.S. Supreme Court issued Friday. The first grants a hearing of George W. Bush's petition against the Florida Supreme Court's decision to allow manual ballot recounts to be added to the state's vote total. The second rejects an appeal of a federal judge's decision to allow the recount to go ahead.

Fla. Lawmakers Say Will Join Supreme Court Case
By Patrick Rizzo / Reuters
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida's Republican-dominated state Legislature said on Friday it planned to participate in Republican George W. Bush's pending case in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the use of hand recounts from the state vote in the presidential election. Newly appointed Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney told a news briefing that he had discussed the issue with the state Senate leadership and they wanted to join the Bush campaign's appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court. ``Today, as Speaker of the Florida House, I have agreed to join with the president of the Florida Senate (John McKay) to attempt to participate in the U.S. Supreme Court proceedings pertaining to the question of whether or not the Florida Supreme Court exceeded its authority in rewriting laws, and directing the conduct of executive officers,'' he said.

Fla. Legislature To Join Lawsuit
By Jeffrey McMurray / The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida's top lawmakers decided Friday to hold off on a special session and instead join George W. Bush's legal team in a lawsuit headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. House Speaker Tom Feeney said state lawmakers have hired lawyers to represent them in Supreme Court proceedings over hand recounts of Florida's presidential ballots. The court agreed Friday to take the case. After Florida's Supreme Court decided Tuesday to allow hand counts in three predominantly-Democrat counties, angry Republican lawmakers discussed calling a special session to seat their own slate of electors, if necessary.

Bush Campaign Seeks Count Of All Military Ballots
By Kathy Gambrell / United Press International
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (UPI) - Attorneys for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush on Friday asked a Leon County Circuit Court judge to determine whether 14 Florida counties used proper standards to disqualify military absentee ballots cast during the presidential election -- and to have the counties re-examine the ballots. Judge L. Ralph Smith said he had no evidence to show election officials acted improperly by disqualifying votes based on missing postmarks or signatures. He is expected to rule after receiving additional information from the Bush team.

Harris To Certify Votes Sunday Night
The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a strong supporter of Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush plans to certify Florida's election results Sunday night - regardless of a Supreme Court hearing next Friday. ``The Department of State is prepared for the earliest contingency, which would be certification Sunday evening,'' Harris' chief of staff Ben McKay said. ``This will be done publicly regardless of the outcome, which is, of course, unknown at this time.'' She stood by the Sunday announcement even after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the dispute.

VP Candidate Cheney Leaves Hospital
By John Heilprin / The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Told by doctors his heart condition would not impair his ability to serve as vice president, Dick Cheney left the hospital Friday with a prescription for a blood thinner and advice to take the weekend off before returning to a "full, normal, active life."

Names Of Americans In Military Whose Votes Did Not Count
DRUDGE REPORT
The Drudge Report has obtained a list of soldiers, sailors and other military personnel who had their votes disqualified by teams of Democrat lawyers guided by a five-page memo in Florida's election fiasco.

Political Parade Surrounds Broward Count
By Brittany Wallman / The Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE -- Broward County watched its presidential vote gap tighten Friday in a hand-recount room that served as both a stage for a procession of political elite, including Sen. Bob Dole, and a refuge from screaming protesters. Watch-dogged by partisan observers, the three-member Broward County Canvassing Board looked at hundreds of contested presidential ballots Friday, giving scores of votes to Al Gore.

Magnifying Ballots
The Associated Press
Broward County canvassing board member Judge Robert Rosenberg trains a magnifying glass on a disputed ballot Friday, Nov. 24, 2000, at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Supreme Court Must Scare Gore
By Jack Thompson / NewsMax.com
The U.S. Supreme Court's grant of a writ of certiorari to the campaign of Gov. George W. Bush, thereby agreeing to hear his appeal of the bizarre Florida Supreme Court ruling mandating the inclusion of the hand recounts in the vote totals, has confounded the Gore campaign and his team of lawyers. What it ought to do is scare the hell out of them. Literally. The Gore team has known all along about the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case of Roe v. Alabama, which overturned an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that had changed the way votes were counted, after an election. Sound familiar? And that was in a state election, not a federal one.

At Issue: Did Florida Court Go Too Far?
NewsMax.com
By stepping into the presidential election fray, the U.S. Supreme Court appears focused on two questions: Who sets the rules and can they be changed after the game has ended? As is typical, the high court's brief statement Friday did not amplify on why it agreed to hear one of Republican George W. Bush's challenges to Florida's process for recounting disputed ballots. But it seemed to suggest the justices want to explore whether the Florida Supreme Court overstepped its bounds Tuesday by setting its own deadline of this Sunday night for certifying the state's presidential election tally.

C-SPAN Seeks TV Coverage in Court
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has never allowed television coverage of its courtroom sessions, but C-SPAN is asking the justices to make an exception for next week's argument over the Florida presidential recount. ``We respectfully suggest that televised coverage ... would be an immense public service and would help the country understand and accept the outcome of the election,'' C-SPAN Chairman Brian P. Lamb said in a letter delivered to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist earlier this week. Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Friday, ``There's no response to the letter as of yet.''

Traficant Fears Election Will Be Taken From Bush
The Associated Press
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., D-Ohio, who plans to vote to re-elect GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert, fears Florida recounts will take the presidential election from Republican George W. Bush. ``I am saying that I believe George W. Bush, by the narrowest of margins, has been elected and I believe he's going to get the shaft and I believe the machinations are underway to steal the election,'' Traficant said Wednesday on radio station WTAM in Cleveland.

Is the Fix In?
By Christopher Ruddy / NewsMax.com
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.

A Grand Larceny
The Florida Times-Union
Now that the Florida Supreme Court, acting as a mini-legislature, has rewritten the state election code, the possibility of a fair outcome to the presidential election has diminished. But it is still possible that the will of the people will prevail.

Electors Ward Off 'Tyranny'
By Bob Arndorfer / The Gainesville Sun
More than two weeks ago, George W. Bush supporters voted not for him, but for Marsha Nippert, Alfred Austin, Robert Woody and 22 other Republican Floridians. On Nov. 7, Al Gore fans didn't vote for him, but for Lance Block, Marta Prado, Juanita Scott and 22 other Florida Democrats. And so it went on for all the other presidential candidates whose names appeared on the ballot. "A vote for the candidates will actually be a vote for their electors."

Court: Limit The Terms
The Florida Times-Union
Sen. Arlen Specter has an intriguing idea, that the Senate should take a more proactive role in the selection of U.S. Supreme Court justices. But that doesn't really get to the root of the problem.

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