posted on November 12, 2000 09:19:01 PM new
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla (Reuters) - The Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on Sunday ordered a hand recount of all presidential ballots cast in the county,raising the possibility that a significant number of additional votes could be tallied for Vice President Al Gore. The board voted two-to-one to take the countywide action after it completed a hand count on a sample of more than 4,500 ballots. The sample amounted to one percent of the votes cast in the election and yielded a net gain of 19 votes for Gore.
Board member Carol Roberts, extrapolating that sample across the entire county, speculated that Gore could gain as many as 1,900 additional votes in the countywide hand recount.
``This clearly would affect the result of a national election,'' she said, noting that Republican George W. Bush holds a lead over Gore of only a few hundred votes in the entire state. A win of Florida's 25 electoral votes would give Gore the White House, if no other state results changed. 11/12/00
posted on November 12, 2000 09:24:13 PM new
But Jeb will do this......it's a race!!
Recent statements by a Florida Election Commissioner and the Florida Secretary of State may provide the missing ingredient necessary to permit the Federal Court to
grant George Bush the injunction he seeks, halting the hand count which began over the weekend. According to a story posted at CNN.com Saturday night, Florida Election
Commissioner Bob Crawford threatened to disqualify all of the votes from any county which does not complete its count and send its certified results to the State by Tuesday, November 14. CNN's story makes it very clear that the Commissioner was directing his comments at the Gore campaign: "Bob Crawford, who replaced Gov. Jeb Bush as
commissioner of Florida's Canvassing Commission, said Saturday that if a county misses the state's deadline for certifying results, the entire county's vote will be thrown out. The statute is very clear that if a county's results are not to us by 5 p.m. Tuesday we shall ignore that county's vote, and the counties need to be very aware of that," Crawford told reporters."Candidates asking for recounts need to be aware of that."
Commissioner Crawford is referring to Florida Statutes Section 102.112, which does permit the Department of State to disregard a County's votes if the results are not submitted to the Secretary of State within 7 days. However, it should be noted that this Statute does not require the secretary of state to take this action, it only allows
it. The relevant language reads as follows: "Returns must be filed by 5 p.m. on the 7th day following the first primary and general election and by 3 p.m. on the 3rd day following the second primary. If the returns are not received by the department by the time specified, such returns may be ignored and the results on file at that time may be certified by the department." Late Sunday, it was reported by ABC News at ABC.com that the Florida Secretary of State had indicated that the Tuesday deadline will be enforced, although ABC's report does not specifically state that votes will be disqualified: "the Florida secretary of state’s office told ABCNEWS today that it will enforce a Tuesday deadline for counties to turn in all vote tallies except overseas ballots, which are due Friday."
These threats by Florida State officials may be crucial to George W. Bush's pending request for a court order to block the ongoing hand counts in Palm Beach and other counties, and they appear to be perfectly timed to strengthen Bush's case. Under federal law, a court is much more likely to issue an injunction, the type of order Bush is requesting, if the court finds the injunction is necessary in order to prevent "irreparable harm." As reported in the New York Times Sunday, Bush's suit did not appear to be on strong grounds: " some . . .experts said they were skeptical of the suit's chance of succeeding." These statements by the Florida Secretary of State and an Election Commissioner appear to increase Bush's chance of success because they clearly indicate the possibility of "irreparable harm." If what the Florida officials say is true, that they will impose the draconian penalty of
throwing out hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of votes if the lawful recount is not finished, this would give Bush's lawyers the opportunity to argue that enormous harm will result if an order is not issued stopping the recount.
The Bush campaign could not ask for much better help in its uphill legal fight, and it couldn't ask for better timing. In addition, this hard line stance by Florida officials gives the Bush camp the opportunity to turn the tables on Gore's people, who have been arguing their case before the public that they are only seeking to protect the people's right to be heard. Bush can now claim that Gore is the one endangering the votes of possibly millions of people. If, that is, people believe its really Gore's fault that officials from Florida, the state where
Bush's younger brother Jeb is governor, decide to take such drastic action. --Patrick F. Cox, Esq., 11/13/00
posted on November 13, 2000 06:14:16 AM new
How can
[b]"Florida Election
Commissioner Bob Crawford threatened to disqualify all of the votes from any county which does not complete its count and send its certified results to the State by Tuesday, November 14" [/b]
when the deadline for absentee ballots to arrive is Friday, November 17
(The absentee ballots have to be 'postmarked' by Nov. 7 and arrive by Nov. 17th.)
