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| FLORIDA RECOUNT | |
 November 21, 2000  |
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Betty Ann Bowser reports on today's election news from Florida. |
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JIM LEHRER: Another day in Florida, where the presidency
of the United States still hangs in the balance. Betty Ann Bowser has
our report.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: While hundreds of reporters and television crews from all over the world awaited a Supreme Court decision, two justices had other official business to conduct. SPOKESMAN: If you would raise your right hand.... BETTY ANN BOWSER: They went across the street to swear in new members of the Florida legislature. Secretary of State Katherine Harris attended those sessions where she received standing ovations. Harris's decision not to allow late hand-counted ballots to be part of the vote tally is what propelled the case before the high court. In three South Florida counties, the manual count continued. Broward County nearly completed its tally of 588,000 ballots. Palm Beach County has finished less than a third of its count, and Miami-Dade just got started. On another judicial front, a circuit court judge in Miami-Dade County rejected a request from the Republicans who wanted him to set standards for counting ballots and to order a search through garbage cans for fallen chads. In Seminole County, Democrats asked a judge there to throw out 10,000 absentee ballots, allegedly altered by Republican officials. Meanwhile, the controversy over military absentee ballots is growing. More than 1500 were thrown out for irregularities. Many of those did not have a postmark. Yesterday Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth, in a letter to the state's 67 county election officials said those ballots should count. Today, Republican Representative Steve Buyer, who is in Florida investigating those uncounted military ballots, said Democratic election officials in Palm Beach County apparently weren't listening to Butterworth's message. REP. STEVE BUYER: I just came down from Palm Beach and the Judge Burton there who leads the canvassing board, when a lawyer was arguing that these military ballots should be counted, even though they did not have a postmark, he said that... he asked the board to reconsider their opinion. Judge Burton-- here's his quote-- he said, "All right, we'll file a protest and arrange for a violin." Now that is the type of attitude that I think, myself as a veteran and these veterans who are behind me, get very upset about. Because these are the men and women who are serving abroad who protect America's freedoms and our vital national interests. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey, a Gore election observer, said those military ballots in question should not be counted. SEN. BOB KERREY: Failure to get the word is no excuse. Everybody who's in the military understands that. And we should not be playing politics with our military as a consequence of that standard being in place every single day for our fighting men and women. If they have a legal ballot, it should be counted. If it's not a legal ballot, it should not be counted. Men and women in the military should not expect and do not expect to be treated in some fashion that has them being a pawn in a political argument that's very tense and very passionate here in from. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Meanwhile in Tallahassee, the state's top election official, Bob Crawford, told ABC News he hoped the Supreme Court would not order an entire statewide recount. BOB CRAWFORD: If you look at all 67 counties and the thousands and thousands of people it would take to do that, and just think for a minute there, if the Supreme Court goes that route, the risk they're taking is basically this thing can blow up in their faces. So, it hasn't been going well, but if you start changing the rules, you run the peril of even a worse outcome, and that then would be... fall right at the feet of the Supreme Court. And I don't think they want to be in that position. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Back at the Florida Supreme Court, Governor Bush's attorneys added to the case they argued yesterday. On the issue of how to count ballots, they filed a legal brief, writing "the court is without power to decide this question of ballot standards." The Democrats responded with their own brief saying, "the standard is not only an issue of law but a critical issue which should be determined by the court." |
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