FLORIDA RECOUNT

	November 27, 2000
	Kwame Holman reports on the latest developments in Florida, where the official certified tally gives George W. Bush a 537-vote lead.

JIM LEHRER: Vice President Gore formally challenged the Florida presidential vote today. His lawyers went to court in Tallahassee to contest the results in three Florida counties. Last night, Governor Bush was certified the winner in Florida, by 537 votes. That would give him the state's 25 electoral votes, and thus the presidency. And he went on national television last night to stake such a claim. Kwame Holman reports the events of last evening and today. KWAME HOLMAN: Vice President Gore's contest of the vote certification in Florida became official at mid-day, when three of his lawyers marched into state court in Leon County in Tallahassee to file papers. The Gore filing charges the Florida certification includes some illegal votes and ignores some properly cast ballots. It cites Nassau County, where officials decided to submit their original tally instead of the state-mandated recount, giving Governor Bush 51 additional votes; Miami-Dade County, there a hand-count of 10,750 so-called under vote ballots on which machine counts revealed no vote for President was never done; and Palm Beach County, which finished its manual count after a deadline last night and its revised numbers were not included. This morning an exhausted Judge Charles Burton of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board lamented that neither of those final figures nor partial figures sent to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris before her deadline was accepted. JUDGE CHARLES BURTON: You know, I mean, hindsight is fine. I think looking back we probably said we could have found a few more hours here and there to get this done. It's not only the canvassing board, and we had a whole host of folks, county people and law enforcement, and we've been going about 14 days straight -- 16, 17, 18-hour days - and quite honestly, people needed a day off. KWAME HOLMAN: Harris announced the certified tally last evening. Bush supporters gathered outside the room could be heard as she read. KATHERINE HARRIS: The certified result in the presidential race in Florida is as follows: Governor George W. Bush 2,912,790; Vice President Al Gore 2,912,253. Accordingly... (Crowd cheering) ... accordingly, on behalf of the state elections canvassing commission and in accordance with the laws of the State of Florida, I hereby declare Governor George W. Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes for the President of the United States. KWAME HOLMAN: About two hours later, Governor Bush addressed the nation from Austin. GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: The election was close but tonight after a count, a recount and yet another manual recount, Secretary Cheney and I are honored and humbled to have won the State of Florida, which gives us the needed electoral votes to win the election. We will therefore undertake the responsibility of preparing to serve as America's next President and Vice President. This has been a hard-fought election -- a healthy contest for American democracy. But now that the votes are counted, it is time for the votes to count. The Vice President's lawyers have indicated he will challenge the certified election results. I respectfully ask him to reconsider. Until Florida's votes were certified, the Vice President was working to represent the interests of those who supported him. I did not agree with his call for additional recounts, but I respected his decision to fight until the votes were finally certified. Now that they are certified, we enter a different phase. If the Vice President chooses to go forward, he is filing a contest to the outcome of the election and that is not the best route for America. All of us in this election fought for our views. Now we must live up to our principles. We must show our commitment to the common good, which is bigger than any person or any party. We cannot change yesterday but we share a responsibility for tomorrow. Time runs short, and we have a lot of work to do. KWAME HOLMAN: Today Bush focused on that work, meeting in Austin with his newly chosen chief of staff. ANDY CARD: Secretary Cheney and I have talked a couple of times today. We may just open our own transition office. We'll be talking about that this morning. REPORTER: How does it feel to be the White House chief of staff? ANDY CARD: It's a great privilege and a great honor and Governor Bush is a terrific leader for the country. KWAME HOLMAN: Bush asked the federal General Services Administration to release Presidential transition funds and office space to his transition team. But in Washington, a spokeswoman for the GSA said the agency would not authorize any money or space until there is a clear winner. This afternoon, President Clinton made an announcement regarding the transition issue. PRESIDENT CLINTON: We are committed to maintaining a steady course. That means providing a smooth transition to the next President, whether it is Vice President Gore or Governor Bush. As you know an appropriate legal process is now underway. That process will take a few more days to play itself out. Our job is to do what we've done for eight years now: To focus on the business at hand. That is why I'm signing today an executive order creating a transition coordinating council. The council will provide the President-elect's team with coordinated services especially regarding personnel matters. This action and other efforts by the cabinet will well ensure that we are as prepared as we can possibly be for an orderly transition to the new administration. KWAME HOLMAN: A short while later Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney criticized the General Services Agency's stand. DICK CHENEY: Despite the decision, we feel it is our obligation to the American people to honor their votes by moving forward and assembling the administration that they've chosen in this election. Therefore at the direction of Governor Bush, we will proceed drawing on other sources. The Presidential Transition Act of 1963, as amended in 1988, specifically authorizes public funds for transitions but also makes provision for raising private money and contributions from private sources to supplement the public funds needed to defray the transition-related expenses. This has been done previously, most recently in 1992 by the Clinton-Gore transition. We plan to follow a similar practice now. KWAME HOLMAN: Cheney went on to criticize Al Gore's decision to contest the now-certified vote in Florida. DICK CHENEY: We find ourselves in the unique and totally unprecedented position. Never before in American history has a presidential candidate gone to court to try to change the outcome of an already certified presidential election. But whatever the Vice President's decision, it does not change our obligation to prepare to govern the nation. KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Al Gore got some shoring up from the two top congressional Democrats. They placed a call to Washington to assure their party's standard bearers, they have the backing of Democrats on Capitol Hill. SEN. TOM DASCHLE: We're encouraged by the numbers we've seen in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach and some of the other numbers around. We were just given a new tally this morning that if we counted all of the votes that have already been counted in some of the recount, we'd actually be ahead by maybe nine votes. So we're encouraged by that. REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: Al and Joe, let me just add that Joe knows that we've been on many conference calls with the House Democrats. VOICE: Right. REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: And they have been entirely supportive and continue to be entirely supportive of going ahead with this contest for the purpose of finding out how everybody voted in this election. And our members, as you know, feel very strongly that we need to have a fair and accurate count. VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: This really is about the larger principle that I outlined, but I want you to know that on a personal basis, I'm also very encouraged by what you said at the outset, that from your perspective there on the ground in Florida, if every vote is counted, there are easily more than enough to change the outcome and decide the election in our favor. It's about the principle, but there are more than enough votes to change the outcome, and that's an important factor as well. KWAME HOLMAN: Reporter: Also today, the US Supreme Court rejected media requests for unprecedented TV coverage when the Bush campaign argues against hand recounts before the high court on Friday. Both sides in the Florida fight for the presidency have argued all court actions should be resolved no later than December 12, the day Florida must appoint its electors. JIM LEHRER: Vice President Gore planned to address the nation later tonight. Now representatives of the Gore and Bush campaigns, I spoke with Senator Lieberman, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, earlier this evening.