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| CONFUSION IN PALM BEACH | |
 November 10, 2000  |
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A look at ground zero of the Florida vote recount -- Palm Beach County -- and at complaints of voting irregularities. Betty Ann Bowser reports from Palm Beach.
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| The confusing butterfly ballot | ||||||||||||||||||||
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WOMAN: I'm from New Jersey, and I never saw anything like this. WOMAN: It's absolutely ridiculous. WOMAN: It is. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Bev Simon is an elementary school teacher who still isn't sure whether she voted for Vice President Gore or Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. BEV SIMON: The fact of the matter is, that it is very confusing. You're talking about the presidency of the United States, and that needs to be handled by a popular vote. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Do you want a chance to vote over again?
BETTY ANN BOWSER: And insurance executive Gerald Postin says he accidentally voted twice for President, which means his ballot was thrown out. GERALD POSTIN: It is real confusing when you went to punch it and went to look at it. And I remember doing it and then I wanted to go back and there were so many people, I just said 'eh'. BETTY ANN BOWSER: What happened to you? You punched it twice?
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| Calls for revote grow louder | ||||||||||||||||||||
| BETTY ANN BOWSER: Palm
Beach County Democratic officials say they expect they will have another
2,000 affidavits notarized by tomorrow as protests over irregularities
in Tuesday's election grow.
CROWD SHOUTING: Revote, revote!
SPOKESMAN: And in the sample ballot.... BETTY ANN BOWSER: In addition to 19,000 thrown out for being double punched, there were another 10,000 ballots disqualified because they showed no vote for President -- perhaps because of inadequate punches. Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler said an alarming number of those disqualified ballots were in African-American voting precincts.
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| An illegal ballot? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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BETTY ANN BOWSER: And you say without question that's illegal, that ballot is illegal?
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Republican leaders say the ballot was legal under state statutes and they argue only a handful of voters were confused at the polls. Mary McCarty is a Palm Beach County commissioner.
SPOKESMAN: Petition for a manual recount -- BETTY ANN BOWSER: Tomorrow, election officials will conduct another recount. This one will be a random sample of about one percent of the votes. The ballots in three precincts will be hand counted in their entirety. But Republicans aren't happy about this arrangement. Tucker Eskew is spokesman for the Bush campaign in the Palm Beach County.
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BETTY
ANN BOWSER: By early this morning, Palm Beach County Democrats had compiled
more than 5,000 affidavits from voters. Some complained their votes
weren't counted; some said they were unfairly turned away from the polls
on Tuesday by precinct workers. But, overwhelmingly, they complained
the presidential ballot was confusing. 
WOMAN:
I never saw anything so confusing. 
BEV
SIMON: Oh, most definitely. And that's why I'm here today, because I
feel that we have to be given the opportunity. 
GERALD
POSTIN: Yeah. I knew I was going to go back and ask for another card,
but there were so many people waiting on line, I said forget about it.
Then when I got home, I started thinking about it. I said wait a minute.
That means my vote didn't count, you know. Gee, I better do something.
BETTY
ANN BOWSER: Last night as hundreds of people gathered at a church in
Riviera Beach, a Florida circuit court judge issued a temporary injunction.
It prevents the county election board from releasing the ballots to
the state before a court hearing is held next week. 
ROBERT
WEXLER: 4.5 percent of the entire vote of Palm Beach County was literally
put in the trash basket for President of the United States. And when
we examined each individual precinct, what we found was the 4.5 percent
number, as large as it is, as incredulous as it is, there are precincts
that are predominantly African-American where up to 15 and 16 percent
of the vote was thrown away. 
BETTY
ANN BOWSER: At least three lawsuits have been filed challenging the
results of Tuesday's election this, and this ballot is one of the things
they're questioning. Attorneys for the Democratic Party say Florida
law requires the voting preference hole to appear to the right of the
presidential candidate's name. 
STEVEN
MEYER: Yes. Florida state statute has mandatory requirements and it
is in violation of the statute. You need to be able to count them correctly.
There have been counting problems thus far. There has to be a correct
total and ultimately we'll reach the correct total. And I think that
the people of the nation are willing to wait to be satisfied that there
is no taint to the election and that the candidate who received the
most votes in Florida receives the electoral votes, and thereby goes
on to become the President. 
MARY
McCARTY: Suddenly because the Democrats don't like the outcome of the
election, we now have to throw our whole democratic process in turmoil.
It undermines the whole basis of our democratic system. That is not
how democracy works. And, regardless of what people say about confusion
or whatever, it is the voter's responsibility to go in and do the right
thing. And 450,000 people were able to figure it out in Palm Beach County.
TUCKER
ESKEW: Not only did the process not allow for us to provide some sort
of protest or objection before they agreed to request the manual recount,
it's done in a county with strong Gore vote and Democrat control of
the voting board. It is not coincidental that the manual recounts being
conducted in other Florida counties are all counties controlled by Democrats
with strong Gore votes and with voting boards governed by Democrats.
That suggests a sharply partisan motive in this manual recount. 
BETTY
ANN BOWSER: Gore supporters deny they're politically motivated. Meanwhile,
Tuesday is the earliest Palm Beach County officials can turn over their
recounted votes to the state for verification.