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| FLORIDA RECOUNT | |
 November 15, 2000  |
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Betty Ann Bowser reports on today's events in Florida. |
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JIM LEHRER: The Florida Supreme Court refused to block recounts of the presidential vote. It also declined to consolidate all lawsuits including that vote. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris had made both of these requests. The legal fight over hand recounts did continue in federal court. And in Atlanta the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals degreed to hear an appeal by Governor Bush's campaign to stop them. Betty Anne Bowser again chronicles the day's events in this escalating war of ballots and lawyers. BETTY ANN BOWSER: At midday, the Democrats said they agreed with part of the Florida secretary of state's petition, but Gore's representative, Warren Christopher, urged that the hand counting continue pending a ruling from the Florida high court. And he disagreed with the secretary's request to have one circuit court in Tallahassee handle all the cases. WARREN CHRISTOPHER: We think that the effect of this proposal would be to lay yet again the effort to ascertain the views and the will of the people of this state. At the same time, we think there is merit to a notion of moving to resolve the legal disputes more quickly to reach a faster and fairer resolution for all concerned. Therefore, we'll be responding today to Mrs. Harris's petition with our own proposal to speed up the resolution of the matter. Instead of sending the cases to a trial court here in Tallahassee County, we'll be asking the Supreme Court of Florida itself to resolve critical questions. Those questions are, first, whether the hand counts now ongoing are appropriate under Florida law, and if so, what is the deadline for their completion; second, what are the standards for determining if a vote has in fact been cast, and whether a county-wide hand count is justified and warranted? BETTY ANN BOWSER: Gore campaign attorney David Boies accused Secretary of State Harris of imposing unnecessary delays. DAVID BOIES: The problem with holding up the recount is that every day this week the secretary of state has imposed a new deadline, and every day this week the secretary of state has threatened, "well, if you don't get the recounts done by 2:00 or 4:00 or 5:00, it's going to be too late." Under those circumstances, we think it would be very unreasonable to ask people to stop those recounts, because the game here may be-- I hope not-- but the game may be delay those recounts as long as possible and then bring down the curtain. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Governor Bush's representative, James Baker, denied his side was causing the delays. JAMES BAKER: By our most recent count, the Democrats or their supporters have filed at least 12 lawsuits to challenge the election results. They even filed suit in one of their selected Democratic counties to overturn the decision of the local electoral board, which had decided not to recount the whole county manually after its test of three precincts. We have filed only one lawsuit: Our original defensive action in federal district court to try to protect ourselves against the flood of litigation that I warned about from the start several days ago. Indeed, the litigation is so run amok now that when asked about accepting a final court ruling that they themselves are now requesting, Secretary Christopher said today that the numerous questions in litigation created too much uncertainty for them to make such a commitment. REPORTER: What about their claim that all you're trying to do is delay these recounts until the election is certified on Saturday? JAMES BAKER: Well, I think that's patently false on its face. The recounts have not taken place, not because we're delaying them. The federal district court turned us down in our request for a delay on the manual recounts because we thought that the process is unfair, gives rise to human error, gives rise to the potential for great mischief. We've been turned down on our request to do that. The delay, if any there has been, has been on the part of these counties that vote one day one way to conduct a recount, and the next day they change their mind, they vote another way. Then the Gore campaign threatens to sue them or even sues them, and they go back and change their mind one more time. We're not the cause of the delay. That ought to be clear to everybody. BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Republican lawyers said the main reason they joined the Florida secretary of state's petition was to stay on top of the case, but they question whether the high court has jurisdiction. Meanwhile, down in Palm Beach County, vote counters sat idle, waiting for word from a nearby circuit court judge to rule on one of those standards. At issue was what's known as the chad, the little piece of paper that is punched out when a ballot is cast. The Democrats wanted to count ballots that were indented but not perforated. Palm Beach's canvassing board held its meetings outside, in keeping with the state's so- called "sunshine law" that calls for public proceedings to be fully open. While they waited, the chairman of the county canvassing board expressed his frustration. SPOKESMAN: It seems to me like musical courts. We are going from one courtroom to the next courtroom to the next courtroom, which is ultimately going to have an impact on what this board does. BETTY ANN BOWSER: In a Palm Beach County courtroom was a Democratic Party request to accept ballots that were just partially punched. Democrats believe there could be more votes for Gore if those ballots are counted. Judge Jorge Labarga said the county could make its own rules. JUDGE JORGE LABARGA: The Palm Beach County Canvassing Commission has the discretion to use whatever methodology it deems proper to determine the true intention of the voter, and should not be restricted in that task. To that end, the present policy of a per se exclusion of any ballot that doesn't have a partially punched or hanging chad is not in compliance with the intention of the law. Accordingly, the canvassing board has the discretion to consider those ballots and accept or reject them. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Meanwhile, in Broward County, the canvassing board there reversed an earlier decision. Now it will hand count all of its 588,000 ballots. Broward joined three other counties in meeting a 2:00 deadline set by the Florida secretary of state to explain why their amended returns should be certified. The hand counts of some ballots in two of those, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, have already added votes to the Vice President's Florida total. And the Florida Supreme Court's action late today opened the door for those hand counts to proceed. |
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