Nov.
16 — George W. Bush appeared to win a major battle
last night when the Florida Secretary of State rejected three contested
counties’ appeals for more time to recount the votes by hand and have the
amended totals included in the final tally for the presidential
election.
On Wednesday, Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, met the 2 p.m. ET
deadline set by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris for each to
explain why new hand-count tallies submitted after the deadline should
replace earlier machine recount totals. Later that day, Harris said the
counties’ presentation of the facts failed to meet adequate criteria to
modify the tallies. “The reasons given in the
requests are insufficient to warrant waiver of the unambiguous filing
deadline imposed by the Florida Legislature,” Harris
said. Certified results from Florida’s 67
counties announced Tuesday night by Harris showed George W. Bush with
2,910,492 votes and Gore with 2,910,192, a 300-vote lead for the Texas
governor. Harris said Tuesday’s vote count
will stand until overseas absentee ballots are rolled into the totals by
midnight Friday. According to the U.S. Postal Service, some 500 military
overseas ballots and 400 civilian overseas ballots have been received so
far. Harris also acknowledged her decision is
subject to an appeal in the courts. A court ruling Tuesday recognized the
secretary of state’s authority to reject any further recount results, but
encouraged her not to do so arbitrarily.
‘Shut
Them Down’ Gore’s advisers have accused Harris, a
Republican and a Bush supporter, of trying to hand the election to George
W. Bush. The vice president’s campaign criticized Harris’ efforts to shut
down the recounts and accused Republicans of trying to delay the process
that would determine who has won Florida and its decisive 25 Electoral
College votes — votes that could decide who becomes the next president of
the United States. Gore’s campaign has said it
will file an appeal to Harris’ decision in court Thursday morning. Gore
spokesman Mark Fabiani said, “Ms. Harris’ attempt to steal this election
will never stand.” Democratic National
Chairman and Gore adviser William Daley regretted that Harris made her
decision so soon after Gore announced his proposal for a
resolution. “There’s a desire to try to shut
this down … their strategy was delay, delay, delay,” Daley said. “It’s
unfortunate this was done in such a quick manner, especilly in light of
fact that the vice president had just put out a proposal.”
Gore’s
Pitch Last night, Gore proposed a plan to resolve Florida’s
vote controversy. Flanked by his running mate, Connecticut Sen. Joe
Lieberman, the vice president proposed: Conducting hand recounts to completion in Miami-Dade,
Broward, and Palm Beach counties, which he said should not take more than
seven days. Those tallies would be added to the absentee ballots to be
counted this weekend. Agreeing to abide by those tallies and not to legally
challenge or support legal challenges of the results there or in other
parts of Florida. Support a statewide hand recount if the Republicans
requested one. Two meetings with George W. Bush, once before the
results are announced, once after, to “improve the tone” on both sides and
call for unity afterward. “We need a
resolution that will be both fair and final,” Gore told reporters from his
private residence in Washington, D.C. “We need to move expeditiously to
the most complete and accurate count that is possible. And that is why I
propose this evening a way to settle this matter with finality and justice
in a period of days, not weeks.” Gore said he
has encouraged his staff to support the ultimate winner. Bush, and his
staff, Gore said, should do the same. Bush
agreed that he and Gore’s staff should support the winner and work
together to reunite the country — but that’s where their agreement ended.
Maintaining his opposition to repeated recounts, the Texas governor
rejected Gore’s proposal, saying that further tallying would increase the
chances for error. “We must be fair to the
voters in America, we must be fair to the voters in certain parts of
Florida,” Bush said. “These votes have been counted. They have been
recounted, and in some counties, they have even been counted a third time
and fourth time. This process must be accurate. … As Americans have
watched on television they have seen for themselves with individuals
making decisions on intent. With each recount, the potential for errors
multiply.” Earlier this week, the Bush
campaign proposed that both sides drop all legal action and abide by the
Florida vote count once the absentee ballots are counted and added to the
current statewide tallies. The Gore camp rejected that proposal.
Florida
Refuses to Block Recount Gore’s announcement came hours
after the Florida Supreme Court rejected a request backed by Bush’s
campaign to stop the hand recount of ballots in the state, as attorneys
for the Republican candidate and Gore pressed on with a flurry of legal
maneuvers. Shortly before the decision was
handed down, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who is overseeing
the recount process on behalf of Bush, accused the Gore camp of trying to
drag out the election. “The Gore campaign’s
strategy, I think, is crystal clear,” he told reporters. “Keep filing
lawsuits, keep making false charges that divert attention and keep
refusing to accept any deadline.” In the
heavily Democratic Palm Beach County, where dozens of suits have been
filed over voter allegations of confusion concerning the “butterfly”
ballot, officials began a full recount this morning, but suspended it an
hour into the process, seeking a circuit court ruling on whether ballots
that are indented but not fully punched should be counted as votes. (Here,
19,000 votes were thrown out because residents double-voted, allegedly
because of confusion over the ballot). Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jorge
Labarga ruled later that the county can accept or reject questionable
ballots at its own discretion. Separately in
another contested county, Broward County officials yesterday reversed an
earlier decision that had come as a blow to the Gore campaign, deciding to
proceed with a hand recount of more than half a million votes. The Gore
camp is confident it will pick up votes after the ballots are counted
there by hand. In Miami-Dade County, officials
voted Tuesday night against a new tally, after a sample recount in three
precincts showed little change from the original vote total. The Gore
campaign, eager to pick up every last vote it can, said earlier yesterday
it was considering court action to try to force a hand count in the
county. Miami-Dade officials are expected to meet Friday to again
reconsider their latest decision. Volusia
County, the fourth county the Gore team had asked to recount its votes,
completed its hand tally Tuesday night, submitting its votes just before a
5 p.m. ET deadline imposed by Harris. The
chairman of Broward’s canvassing board, Robert W. Lee, said there were
indications of “an error in the vote tabulation” in the original tally. He
said the full recount could be completed by 5 p.m. on Monday and cited
“significant periods of delay” due to the Veterans’ Day holiday Friday,
the absence of a canvassing board member who was on vacation, and various
other reasons for the delay. Palm Beach
County officials argued more time should be allowed for a manual recount
because of the gravity of the situation, saying the recount “could affect
the outcome of this very close presidential
election.” A surprise addition came in from
Collier, in southwest Florida. Collier officials are not asking for a
recount, but requested an extension to certify 25 ballots that were not
counted until after the deadline — 24 absentee ballots that had been left
in envelopes and one regular ballot that had simply been overlooked.
Election Count vs. Recount |
Candidate |
Election
Night |
Nov. 14
|
Advantage/Disadvantage |
George W.
Bush |
2,909,135 |
2,910,492 |
+1,784/ +300 |
Al Gore
|
2,907,351 |
2,910,192 |
-1,784/-300 |
|
|
|
|
|
Congressmen: Bipartisanship Key Congressional
leaders speaking on ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America were divided
along party lines as to whether the hand count in Florida should go on,
but agreed bipartisanship will be key to surviving the next
administration. “The speech of this election
will not be given by the winner, but the person who’s the loser of this
election,” said Sen. John Breaux, D-La. “He will set the tone as to how
the president is going to begin a new administration. If he says ‘the
election was stolen from me,’ that’s going to set a very bad
tone.” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the
possible 50-50 Senate and narrowly divided House means the parties will
have to work together. “I think when we come
to the realization that we’re basically divided equally, we have to work
together and hopefully we can do it for the best interest of the country,”
Hatch said. Ballots are still
being counted in New Mexico (five electoral votes) and Oregon (seven),
where the race remains too close to call. The outcomes of the election in
Wisconsin (11) and Iowa (seven) are also now in doubt as an extremely slim
margin of victory for Gore in those states raises speculation about
possible recounts.
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