vision2020
News from inside the FL recount: A Democrats perspective
Visionaries,
FYI
Here are some new ground-level details from the Florida
recount.
The message was originally sent to a Wesleyan alum
newsgroup. The author is obviously a Democrat, so if you're a Republican
(or "other"), please ignore those opinions.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 03:44:25 EST
From: StevenM820@aol.com
Reply-To: weschat alumni mailing list <weschat-
l@lyris.wesleyan.edu>
To: weschat alumni mailing list <weschat-l@lyris.wesleyan.edu>
Subject: Florida recount info
Hello again,
Thought you'd like another update from the inside. I spent much of Wed. as
the Palm Beach County Dem. Party observer in the recount room at the Palm
Beach County Supervisor of Elections. Also present were lawyers and a
staffer representing GWB, several lawyers representing Gore, representatives
of the Reform Party, the Fla. Democratic and Republican Parties, the DNCC,
US Rep. Clay Shaw and his Dem. challenger Elaine Bloom (this race is still
contested), a Dem. State Senator and a Dem. State Representative from the
County.
The recount was supposed to begin at 1:30, was delayed until 4:00 and ended
at 11:30. Our role basically consisted of sitting in a cramped room
watching five staffers run stacks of puch card ballots through counting
machines. Pretty dull all in all until it was discovered that one precinct
had not been counted in full. This resulted in a net gain for Al of about
360 votes. The Bush boys lost their smug attitudes and began huddling and
whispering every few minutes.
The absentees came through for Al too. When one votes at the polls in
Florida, they provide a punch instrument which, if used correctly,
completely perforates the ballot. However, absentee voters often use a pen
or other implement which does not fully perforate the card. This was
apparent to us from the fact that over 10,000 voters in the County, about
2.2% of the overall turnout did not make any choice in the Presidential
race, but did vote in the US Senate or Congressional races. We theorized
that many voters had partially perforated the card, but the machines weren't
reading them. The more times the ballots are run through the counting
machine, the more likely the loosened chits fall off.
When the absentees were counted, 221 ballots that had previously registered
no vote now did show a vote in the Presidential race. These went
overwhelmingly for Gore, leading to some whooping and high fiving from our
side. The Bushies really lost it at this point and got a little hostile
with the staffers, which in turn elicited some harsh responses from the
assembled masses.
Gore's net gain in the County was 643. Word from other counties is that
Gore closed the 1,700 deficit by over 1,200. Only half of the counties
conducted their recounts on Wednesday. The rest are on Thursday.
The bigger problem is that the ballot in Palm Beach County, which differs in
its layout from the ballots elsewhere in the State, is illegal for several
reasons. Florida statutes specifically mandate the precise layout of the
ballot and the order of candidates. The law was not followed. Bush's name
was first, with Buchanan below him and Gore third. This is completely
improper, as well as the fact that the law requires the names to be placed
to the left with the punch holes to the right of the candidates' names. On
this ballot, some names were on the right and some on the left, with all of
the punch holes in the middle. It was difficult to line up the name with
the correct hole.
Moreover, 19,000 ballots were disqualified because they voted for two or
more candidates. This is a direct result of the confusing layout of the
names on the ballot. This represents over 4% of the total ballots. It was
as high as 15% in some predominantly African-American precincts and about
10% in some precincts with large numbers of Jewish retirees. The Gore vote
in many of these precincts was over 90%.
This explains the networks' exit polling which reflected voters' belief that
they had voted for Gore, but in fact their ballots had been disqualified.
This led to the initial awarding of Florida to Gore.
Folks, the bottom line is that if the names on the ballot were properly
situated Gore would have had an additional 11-13,000 vote margin in this
County, and the election would be over. We have done a precinct by precinct
analysis of where the disqualified votes came from. By attributing the same
percentage of the vote Gore obtained in those precincts to the disqualified
ballots, Gore would be winning Florida by at least 10,000 votes. In other
words, Gore has actually won the election both in the popular vote and in
the electoral vote, but he may well still lose it.
You should also be aware that other large counties in the State disqualified
about one half of one percent of their ballots for casting two or more votes
in the Presidential race. In Palm Beach County it was 4.4%.
Lastly, don't expect the recount to be over on Thursday, as the media is
stating. Legal actions are underway. The next question, will a judge order
a re-vote just in Palm Beach County with a new ballot?
Steven Meyer '86
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