Foxnews.com 11/7/00 Matt Gross "......George W. Bush has won one of the closest presidential races in history, according to Fox News Channel projections. ....Just after 2 a.m. ET, Fox News projected that the Texas governor had taken Florida, whose 25 electoral votes put him over the critical 269-vote mark. Gore officials said they would contest the Florida results. ....."

The New York Times 11/8/00 Richard Berke "...... George Walker Bush was elected the 43rd president of the United States yesterday by one of the tightest margins in history, crowning a spectacular and exceptionally brisk political rise only eight years after his own father was turned out of the White House. The victory over Vice President Al Gore became clear well after 2 this morning after one of the most fiercely contested battlegrounds, Florida, slipped into his column after the most suspenseful election night in decades, with the fortunes of each candidate shifting almost by the hour. Only hours earlier, the networks had projected that Mr. Gore would carry Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother Jeb is governor. ......"

Newsmax 11/7/00 "...... George W. Bush has been elected president in one of the closest races ever. He did so during a time of great peace and prosperity - all of which should have benefited Al Gore. But you helped Bush win. The talk radio show hosts across America - the listeners - the Internet users - the grass roots of the Republican Party who wanted reform - made the difference. Exit polls showed that honesty and trustworthiness was the No. 1 concern for voters across America. Seventy-eight percent of Bush voters said they voted for Bush on this issue. This election was a repudiation of Bill Clinton. Other factors helped as well. One was little Elian and his heroic mother. She perished trying to bringing her son to America. His freedom, thanks to Clinton-Reno, was ripped from the privacy of his home. Cuban-Americans, who voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, remembered Elian on Election Day. ...."

Reuters 11/8/00 Thomas Ferraro "......An hour after Democrat Al Gore conceded defeat to Republican George W. Bush in their White House race, he called back and said, ``circumstances have changed,'' according to an aide. ..... Gore said updated election returns showed him losing Florida by about 600 votes, rather than the 50,000 earlier reported, and said the margin was close enough to trigger an automatic recount, the aide said. .... The aide said he overheard only Gore's side of the telephone conservation. But he quoted the vice president as telling Bush, something to the effect, ``'Do what you have to do.''' .....Gore made the call at about 3:30 a.m. EST from a room at Nashville's War Memorial Plaza, just moments before he was to publicly concede defeat to a rain-drenched crowd. ......The aide said, ``The vice president told Bush, 'Circumstances have changed since I first called you. We have now learned we are down by only about 600 votes out of millions cast and that means an automatic recount.''' ``'I need to withdraw my concession until the situation is clear,''' the aide quoted the vice president as saying. ``Then Al said, 'Let me explain: If in fact I lose in Florida, I will immediately concede. But it's not in any way clear I have lost and until it is clear I can't concede,''' the aide said......."

CNN 11/8/00 Margaret Carlson/Tucker Carlson Freeper Arthur McGowan "...... Margaret Carlson on CNN just pointed out the backdrop of flags, etc., in the Gore appearance today. Tucker Carlson questioned why the Gore people continually point out that he is ahead in the pop vote--What point are they trying to make? he asked. ....." .... Freeper doppelganger adds "..... Gore likely wouldn't be ahead in the popular vote if the networks hadn't given him Florida (and by implication the election) so early in the evening. Western votes were lost to Bush, even those in conservative western Florida where polls were still open. How about a class action suit against the networks from everyone whose votes were suppressed by this outrage? ....." Freeper Azzurri adds "..... Many absentee ballots haven't been counted in Washington and perhaps California. The national popular vote may yet tip in Bush's favor. Not that it matters because the Electoral College will prevail in this election. ....."

NewsChannel5 (WTVF - Nashville) 11/8/00 ".....His name is Max -- Max C. Williams. Max doesn't have a social security number, but that doesn't stop us from making up one for him. With a few strokes of the pen, Max's application for a voter registration card is ready to mail. NewsChannel 5 investigative reporter Phil Williams showed Max's application to Davidson County election administrator Michael McDonald. "If everything is filled out correctly, would you send a voter registration card to this person?" Williams asks. "Yes," McDonald replies. There's just one catch: Max isn't human. He's a cat. Because people can register by mail, election officials may never see the individual -- or, in the case, the cat -- to whom they issue a voter registration card. "With this social security number and everything, there's no way for us to tell unless someone presents themselves as Max," McDonald adds. "You're exactly right."...."

Severnside 11/8/00 "..... Janet Reno may be in position to steal the election:

1. In cases of vote fraud the Feds are in charge. That means Janet Reno's Justice Department.

2.Many of the recent questions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service going overtime to turn illegals into voting US citizens involve South Florida. I think the Boston Globe had a story on this last Sunday. In any case there have been INS rumors involving South Florida circulating on Capitol Hill for weeks. Recall that the INS is part of Reno's Justice Dept and the current head of the INS is the widow of John Huang's supervisor at the Commerce Department.

3.In the new edition of "Year of the Rat" we devote an entire new chapter of the deal Reno cut with Clinton to protect Gore from Chinagate. That's probably the strongest chapter in the new book. Bottom Line: Reno has spent the past four years protecting Gore. Another few days will be right in line with this.

4. Reno was a Dem activist in South Florida and knows everyone. ...."

WRRK Radio (Pittsburgh PA) 11/8/00 Freeper tank_sherman "...... On this morning's Jim Quinn show callers have reported the following allegations:

- Republican names disappeared from voting rolls, even if long-time residents and regular voters

- Nursing home patients found to have voted by absentee ballots, even though they are paralyzed and can't write or suffer from Alzheimer's disease

- Local NAACP head (who is employed at the state mental hospital) observed driving mental patients in a state-owned van to the polls and "helping" them vote.

Massive voter fraud (close to 1 million votes) rumored in City of Philadelphia.

More instances being reported, but this is making me to ill to continue........ "

Freeper mountaineer 11/8/00 "..... I'll add something to the Tim Stevens (President of local NAACP) story recounted on Quinn this morning. They said the mental patients whom he transported to the polls were all newly-registered as Democrats in the precinct where the state hospital is located, despite where they really lived. If they showed up at that precinct and said they were registered Republicans, the poll workers told them they couldn't vote there, they had to be at their home precincts where they're registered. Insasmuch as they were confined to a mental hospital and were relying on Tim Stevens for their transportation, the Republicans didn't cast their votes. ..."

Freeper Neanderthal 11/8/00 Democrat Vote Fraud Charged in Florida Jack Thompson Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2000 "......NewsMax.com's "Man in Miami," Jack Thompson, predicted Monday on NewsMax.com that Democrat vote fraud would occur in South Florida. The GOP in Broward County, the largest city of which is Fort Lauderdale, is alleging that voting irregularities are now occurring there. What follows is a press release in its entirety, received by Thompson from Republican Party of Broward County: "The Republican Party of Broward County has received a number of complaints from its poll watchers and voters regarding irregularities at the polling places: "Such irregularities reported include

duplicate ballots

"Voters sent away for no apparent reason

"Poll watchers sent away for no apparent reason and a complete lack of cooperation by the poll workers "Irregular voting practices

"Poll watcher being harassed by the poll workers

"Campaigning being allowed inside the polling area

"Of particular concern are the poll watcher problems. The Republican Party and Republican Candidates, approved by the Supervisor of Elections, nominated these volunteers to deter irregularities and fraud, to safeguard the elector process, and to monitor the behavior of the poll workers.

"The Republican Party of Broward County demands that the election code be adhered to and the law be followed. The Republican Party will take the appropriate action, both civil and criminal, to guarantee a fair and free election.. ...

Florida Sun-Sentinal 11/7/00 Steve Friess "...... Hundreds of irate Palm Beach County voters, fearing they or their friends voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore, besieged the county Supervisor of Elections department on Tuesday with complaints about ballot confusion that could have swayed the race. In a contest that saw a turnout expected to be about 70 percent with particularly high participation in precincts that are overwhelmingly elderly or black, polls were so busy that voters were still in line a half-hour after the 7 p.m. closing time. Buchanan received more than 10 votes in more than 40 precincts by presstime, all of which were Democratic strongholds that otherwise went overwhelmingly for Gore. In precinct 162G, the Lakes of Delray area where Gore received one of his highest vote totals in all of Palm Beach County, a county high of 47 voters picked Buchanan, too. ......."People came out of there, and a lot of us don't know if we voted correctly," said Eleanor Merblum, 82, who voted at precinct 162E, a fire station on Hagen Ranch Road in West Delray. "If Gore doesn't win this district, you know something's wrong." ...... Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, a Democrat, insisted any confusion was unintentional and defended the layout of the cluttered ballots as necessary to get all the presidential candidates on facing pages while making the type large enough for voters to read. "I was trying to make the print bigger so elderly people in Palm Beach County can read it," said LePore, who said she doesn't think the ballot is confusing. "If I'd made it small, they would've said we made the print too small." ....... The Gore-Buchanan confusion may prompt an inquiry by the Florida Attorney General's office. ...... "It's been presented to us to take a look at," said Paul Hancock, deputy attorney general in charge of the civil rights division. "The ballot really is confusing." ....."

Florida Sun-Sentinal 11/7/00 Steve Friess "...... "There's nothing wrong with the ballots in Palm Beach County," said Clay Roberts, director of the state division of elections. "The ballot is laid out according to state law and the voting system they have. It's absurd to think that Theresa LePore is in some conspiracy to take votes away from Al Gore and given them to Pat Buchanan. That's absurd." ......... Panicked voters started calling Democratic Party offices shortly after the polls opened at 7 a.m., saying they worried their intended votes for Gore went to Buchanan. Calls continued throughout the day, said Cathy Dubin, special assistant to the county's Democratic Party chairwoman. By 11 a.m., the party dispersed fliers to its 260 poll watchers, warning voters to be careful when voting for Gore. ....... "If me and Pat Buchanan are winning precincts in my district, there is something wrong," Wexler said. At Temple Emeth, a heavily Democratic and elderly precinct in West Delray, more than 30 ballots were voided by 3 p.m., way more than the one or two voided in a typical election, clerk Ann Swift said. In West Boynton, Gore workers greeted voters outside to warn them about the ballot. ....."

Freeper dictatorMA 11/8/00 "...... My friend Don just called me this a.m. to tell me that he personally witnessed people entering polls at broward county locations and being allowed in to vote.. he says the local media down there is all over the story. If thats the case do we have any broward county freepers that can post stories. ....."

Freeper Michael Rivero 11/8/00:

1. In Browards County, Republican Poll watchers are thrown out of the polls by poll workers. Republicans told their names are not on the lists of registered voters and they are not able to vote.

2. In Tennessee, heavily Republican areas have only one viting machine each. Many Republicans, unable to wait in the long lines, leave without voting. Democratic areas have a surplus of machines and no lines. .

3. In Chicago, voting machines set up in GOP districts are found to be defective. Voters are turned away. .

4. In Pennsylvania, Democratic voters are caught crossing county lines to vote multiple times, because their names appear repeatedly on lists of registered voters across the state. Efforts to clean up the voter lists have been blocked by a Democratic Federal Judge. Indictments were brought against two congressmen in a vote fraud case sparked by the Voting Integrity Project investigation, but as is usual in such cases, the charges were dropped. .

5. Checks in Indiana show that over 100,000 names on the voter lists are fakes. More than 500 cases of multiple registrations in different counties (allowing multiple votes) are found, according to an article in last Sunday's Indianapolis Star. A cursory check found criminals, in this case a child molestor and three convicted killers, on the voting lists even though state law bars from voting anyone who has spent even 1 day in jail. .

6. The Federal Election Commmision estimates that as much as 20% of the names on the voter lists across the nation re bogus. .

7. In California, where it is illegal to ask a voter for proof of identity, non-citizens are encouraged to vote in a letter sent out by the California Democratic Party and signed by Bill Clinton. The letter includes a pre-printed "Voter Identification Card" the recipient is supposed to show poll workers to be allowed to vote. The California GOP is reportedly seeking legal redress for this obvious sham. .

8. By comparing voter rolls with Social Security data, the Indianapolis Star found over 300 dead people registered to vote, most in Lake County, whch has a repitation for vote fraud. The dead people have remained on the active rolls long enough to indicate that their names have been used in voting. .

9. A check on voting lists by a local TV station just days before the Nov 7th election revealed 15,000 dead people on the active voting lists in Georgia. In one case, a dead person had voted three times since his death. .

10. The "Motor voter" law, which created millions of registered voters who usually do not vote, specifically forbids the purging of voter rolls for non-voting. This creates a huge surplus of legitmate registered voters for whom absentee ballots may be created. .

11. Just days before the last election, the Tennessee election commission changed the rles to allow anyone with a Tennessee drivers license to vote, whether they were registered or not. This allowed Tennesseans to vote in as many counties as they could drive to. .

12. ...

13. In Wisconson, a TV crew catches Democrats bribing homeless people with cigarettes to go fill out absentee ballots. .

14. In Hawaii, where voters' two punchcards are suppposed to be fed through the voting machines at the time of voting, voters in many precincts report that the vting machines are not running, and their ballots are kept by the poll workers who promise to run them through the voting machine "later on". .

15.Elderly Florida caller to C-Span today (8th) said the radio talk shows in Miami area were causing havoc with voters by telling them to vote 100 times. .

16. In Indiana, voters are handed ballots by the poll workers with Democratic choices already highlighted in dayglo yellow ink. .

ABC News 11/8/00 Reuters ".....After a wild roller- coaster election-night ride, George W. Bush Wednesday quietly awaited a recount in Florida, confident he would be declared the next U.S. president in "a matter of time." ........ The Republican nominee canceled a planned news conference and remained at the governor"s mansion in downtown Austin. Aides said Bush and his vice presidential running mate, Dick Cheney, were expected to make a statement later Wednesday. "We see nothing that is going to change the race," one Bush campaign official said. We"re confident we will prevail, that it"s just a matter of time." ...... Bush watched the bizarre twists unfold with his family at the governor"s mansion. The mood swung there from anxiety to exhilaration as television networks withdrew predictions that Democrat Al Gore had won Florida, put the key state and its 25 Electoral College votes back in the too-close-to-call column and finally awarded it to Bush, pushing him over the 270 needed to win the presidency. ...... The networks declared Bush the 43rd president of the United States, but the Texan had less than an hour to celebrate before the vice president called him to withdraw his concession and election officials announced a recount in Florida that could take until Thursday. ......"

ABC News 11/8/00 Reuters "....."It sure was a roller coaster," senior Bush adviser Ari Fleischer said Wednesday. ...... "The only thing that remains are the overseas ballots ... those ballots trend Republican," he added. Likening the election to a baseball game, Fleischer said it was "in extra innings." "We"ll stay tuned, he added, "But we"re on top and I think we"re going to be there to stay." ..... Bush, his wife, Laura, his father, former President George Bush, and his mother, Barbara Bush, watched the returns on a television set in an upstairs living room at the governor"s mansion, while other family, including Jeb Bush, followed the outcome in the presidential suite at a downtown hotel. Jeb, who is under enormous pressure to deliver Florida and the presidency to his older brother, joined them late in the evening and then flew home to the state capital, Tallahassee, Wednesday. .....Fleischer said Bush got some rest early Wednesday morning and that he had "earned a little bit of sleep" after the thrill of being declared the president-elect, albeit briefly. "I just think it"s going to happen again in due order, in short time," Fleischer added. "It is a wonderful moment when it does." ....."

Freeper algo! 11/8/00 ".....Wouldn't surprise me. The official Michigan web site is giving it (with Wayne Co yet to be reported) to Bush by several thousand votes. Now, Wayne Co includes Detroit and the Wayne County web site shows that Detroit is voting about 257K to 14K in favor of Gore but the rest of the county is 214K to 175K, with 93% of the votes counted, most of those from within Detroit. ....... That huge spike in Detroit may be explainable by demographics. It might also be explainable by some less than honest handling of the ballots. Given that things are so close a recount would be, well, prudent. ......"

Freeper Dog Gone 11/8/00 "..... I heard on the local Houston ABC station 10 minutes ago. They reported Bush WON Michigan after all the ballots were counted and a recount had been demanded. ....."

Freeper abner 11/8/00 on House Managers ".....I believe that Rogan is the only one in question. So much for the "American People" being angry about them impeaching the president. As usual, the media is strangely silent on this front.

Indiana Dan Burton - 70% 194,771 votes.

Arkansas Asa Hutchinson Unopposed-

Pennsylvania George Gekas- 72% 164,750

Illinois Henry Hyde- 59% 133,137

Utah Chris Cannon- 59% 138,125

Wisconsin James Sensenbrenner- 74% 239,130

Florida Bill McCollum- Did not win (I bet he could have kept his Congressional seat though)

Florida Chris Canady- I don't know if he ran.

Indiana Steve Buyer- 61% 130,258

Tennessee- Ed Bryant- 70% 170,690

Ohio- Steve Chabot-53% 112,449

Georgia- Bob Barr- 54% 122,273

California- James Rogan- Still too close to call! ......"

MSNBC 11/8/00 Freeper bigeasy_70118 "...... Ashcroft is setting an example for Gore. Said he will not challenge election despite fraud. PMSNBC anchor "class statement" ...." Freeper ambrose adds "...Remember when Livingstone resigned to set an example? Everyone said "how nice", but Clinton didn't budge. ..."

YAHOO.NEWS 11/8/00 David Royse AP ".....Florida election officials began a recount of nearly 6 million votes Wednesday with the stunningly close presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore in the balance. ...... Florida's secretary of state said the recount should be finished by the end of the day Thursday. Both national parties were sending teams of lawyers to monitor. ......At last count, Bush led Gore by 1,655 votes in the unofficial Associated Press count with all Florida precincts reporting but an unknown number of absentee ballots yet to be counted. Some vote counts had the margin slightly higher or closer. ........ Election supervisors in the state's 67 counties were ordered to start the recount as soon as possible Wednesday. With the vote difference less than 0.5 percent, an automatic recount was triggered under state law. ......In each county, a three-member canvassing board made up of a county judge, the chairman of the county commission and the local elections supervisor, recount the votes. The makeup of the canvassing board is supposed to insulate the process from politics, Roberts said. ....... In Tallahassee, the state capital, the results would be certified by Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the GOP nominee, Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Roberts, also a Republican appointee. ...... Representatives of both national parties were headed to the state. The Gore campaign said former Secretary of State Warren Christopher was in charge of their effort. ........ Florida's attorney general, Democrat Bob Butterworth, was on national television commenting on the situation Wednesday, and the Republicans weren't happy about his involvement. ``My advice as a lawyer to either side would be I'd be a little hesitant about giving an acceptance speech right now,'' said Butterworth, who also was Gore's Florida campaign chairman. ``We don't need the attorney general to tell us how to follow the law,'' Roberts said. He said the job of overseeing elections ``falls solely to the secretary of state.'' ........ Elections supervisors had sent out 585,000 absentee ballots and 416,000 had been returned by late Monday. Underdetermined is the number of overseas ballots, primarily for military personnel and their families, that have been counted. The state counted about 2,300 overseas ballots in the 1996 presidential election. The law allows 10 days to count outstanding overseas ballots as long as they are postmarked no later than Election Day. ...... Roberts said it was ``technically'' possible the absentee ballots could change the result of the election, but it would be extremely rare. ......"

ABQ Journal 11/8/00 KarenMoses "...... Bernalillo County withdrew all early and absentee voting results from its tally early Wednesday morning after discovering a glitch in its data. That means more than 68,000 votes weren't included in the last results released by the county. Television reports and some newspaper stories relied on what the county had released earlier. ..... New vote totals for early and absentee voting could affect several close races. "They were just not getting good results for the early and absentee results," said Cliff Aldrich, assistant director of information technology for the county. ....."

Freeper Think free or die 11/8/00 "...... This is so critical. Here in PA I learned that the voter rolls are no longer purged of inactive voters. In the past, inactive voters were purged every 2 years. Now thanks to changes with Motor Voter, this no longer takes place. I found a relative registered to vote in PA who moved to another state 7 years ago. There's nothing but honor to stop him from requesting an absentee ballot and voting in two battleground states. ...."

American Spectator 11/8/00 Byron Yory "...... This morning it appears that what many experts viewed as an extremely remote possibility -- that one presidential candidate might win the popular vote while losing in the Electoral College -- appears well on the way to becoming a reality. In recent days, the scenario has been something of a pundits' parlor game, a topic that made for amusing talk around the anchor desk but did not pose the threat of a serious political crisis. In part that was because most members of the commentariat believed that such a situation, if it did emerge, would involve vice president Al Gore winning the electoral vote and thus the White House. No problem! But now, as the nation awaits a recount of the Florida vote, it appears the opposite might be true. Gore seems headed to a victory in the popular vote, while Bush seems likely to win Florida's 25 electoral votes and thus prevail in the Electoral College. As difficult as that would be for Gore to accept, the constitution is clear: the candidate who receives 270 or more electoral votes will be the next president. ........"

American Spectator 11/8/00 Byron Yory "...... Even before the final results are known, the outlines of a Democratic plan to undermine a possible Republican victory have already begun to emerge. ....The plan is based on the popular vote. If Gore does indeed win a greater number of votes nationwide than Bush, Alter suggested, then the vice president would challenge the Florida recount in court -- over and over again, if necessary. The Democrats' intent would be to tie the Florida results up in endless litigation, and in the process try to convince the public that no recount can be completely accurate, and that the final Florida result, should it declare Bush the winner, cannot be trusted. ..... At the same time they make that case, Gore's partisans will point to the popular vote and make the argument that, given the allegedly murky nature of the Florida results, the election should go to the winner of the popular vote. After all, they will argue, he is the choice of a majority of Americans. That would be the beginning of an intense effort -- aided, no doubt, by the White House public relations machine -- to create public pressure on Bush to concede victory to Gore. Of course, it's all grossly unconstitutional. ....."

The Associated Press 11/8/00 David Royse ".......Florida officials began recounting nearly 6 million ballots Wednesday to determine the next president, while Democrats and some voters complained of election irregularities. Partial results showed Al Gore cutting into George W. Bush's lead. ...... The recount in all 67 counties was triggered by state law because Republican Bush led Democrat Gore by less than one-half of 1 percentage point. State officials said they expect to finish by the end of the day Thursday. ......Florida elections supervisors also waited for an undetermined number of overseas ballots, primarily from military personnel and their families. The state allows 10 days after the election for the ballots to come in. ......The Florida totals, including all absentee ballots received so far, showed Bush with 2,909,135 votes and Gore with 2,907,351 - a difference of 1,784 in a state with 8.75 million registered voters. After 28 of Florida's 67 counties were recounted Wednesday, Gore had gained 351 votes. ........ Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, will have to redo its count because a poll worker inadvertently failed to run an unknown number of ballots through its computer Wednesday, county Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said. The county retracted its original announcement that Gore had gained 404 votes and Bush dropped by 61 votes in its recount. ......."

The Associated Press 11/8/00 David Royse ".......Even before the recount, the Gore campaign was already eyeing legal options for forcing a new vote in Palm Beach County, where confusion over how to fill out the ballot may have boosted the tally for Pat Buchanan, a senior Gore adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ...... Jesse Jackson said he got calls on Election Day complaining that blacks had difficulty voting in Florida and other Southern states. He said some voters were told there were no more ballots, or that polls were closed. ...... Separately, Democratic officials and voters complained about the way ballots in Palm Beach County were arranged. Voters punched holes in the middle of the ballot, while candidates were alternately listed to the left and then the right. County officials also said more than 19,000 ballots in the presidential race were tossed out because more than one candidate was picked. ...... Jeb Bush said he has seen nothing that indicates fraud, and pledged a fair recount. ``Voter fraud in our state is a felony, and guilty parties will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,'' he said......"

CBSNEWS 11/8/00 "......On an extraordinary evening, the Democrats captured four Republican Senate seats, but the GOP will nevertheless retain control of the upper chamber. One Senate race remains undecided - Democrat Maria Cantwell's challenge to GOP incumbent Slade Gorton in Washington state. If Cantwell loses, Republicans control 51 of the 100 seats in the Senate. But if she wins, the upper chamber will be evenly split. In this scenario, the Republicans would control the Senate anyway. That's because in the event of a Bush victory, Vice President Dick Cheney would cast the tie-breaking vote ..."

Ramesh Ponnuru, NR senior editor 11/8/00 ".....Gore said that while he had won the popular vote, he would of course respect the constitutional process of the electoral college. For this "concession" he is being praised on the airwaves as I write. But whether to abide by the electoral college has never been the serious question. The serious question is how the electoral college should vote: With the national majority, or by state. And Gore is not disavowing a campaign to get electors to vote against their states and with the national popular majority. In fact, the only point to Gore's having mentioned his apparent popular majority was to lay the groundwork for just such a campaign. .......He's going to have a strong case. The Constitution doesn't clearly say that the electors have to vote with their states' plurality. Can George W. Bush, who has talked all along about "trusting the people," really challenge him? What Gore cannot get away with politically, I think, is to try to win this battle in court; if he tries, there will be a backlash. But the electoral-college campaign is going to be very difficult. Republicans are going to have to think quickly and hard about several questions. ......"

UPI 11/8/00 Mark Kukis ".....Democratic lawyers and officials from Vice President Al Gore's campaign are gathering evidence for a possible legal challenge to the pending Florida vote count, a move that could land the presidential election in a legal battle likely to end up in the Supreme Court....... Internal documents from the Democratic National Committee show a legal strategy revolving around three instances of reported abnormalities at Florida ballot boxes on Tuesday......... Another argument centers on Florida Highway Patrol checkpoints in Woodville, a town in northern Florida, where state troopers allegedly intimidated minorities headed to the polling station at a church. Federal and state law enforcement officials are investigating complaints that four troopers set up the checkpoint without following normal Florida Highway Patrol procedures and stopped motorists, issuing citations for traffic violations. Democratic officials say alleged harassment by troopers at the checkpoint may have affected more than 1,000 minority votes at the nearby polling station......Additionally, Democrats cite reports of missing ballot boxes in Florida's Broward County, a heavily Democratic area where 68 percent of voters cast ballots for Gore. Democratic officials do not have an estimate for the number of allegedly missing ballots, but say any losses in the large Democrat turnout would disproportionately count against Gore in the statewide race by a "significant margin." Election officials have denied losing any ballots......."

UPI 11/8/00 Mark Kukis ".....Heather Gerrken, an election law expert at Harvard, said the evidence gathered so far by Democrats could form the basis of a lawsuit similar to many cases in which election results are challenged in state and local courts........ Gerrken said a likely scenario would involve the state Democratic Party bringing a case against Harris, Florida's top election official. In such a case, Gerrken said, a state court could choose to cancel all questionable ballots, call for another statewide vote or simply declare either candidate a winner based on the evidence....... However, Gerrken said, such cases are often difficult, and courts are loath to become involved in election politics...... "It's always hard to win," Gerrken said. "Courts are reluctant to interfere with the democratic process."......"

Fox News 11/8/00 John Martin "......With 27 of 67 Florida counties completing their recounts, Al Gore has cut into George W. Bush's lead by 198 votes late Wednesday, reducing the margin to just over 1,500 votes in the crucial state tally that will determine the nation's 43rd president. Meanwhile in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County, where there have been accusations that the presidential portion of the ballot was confusing, officials announced 19,120 ballots in the presidential race were nullified because more than one candidate was picked. Only 3,783 voters made that mistake on the U.S Senate portion of the ballot. ....."

Msnbc 11/8/00 "......Al Gore set aside the stoic valedictory written for him by an aide and picked up the phone. George W. Bush did not take his call happily. "You don't have to get snippy about this," Gore spat. THE ACID of their yearlong fight - character assaults and name calling, layered onto the Clinton-Gore defeat of Bush's father in 1992 - boiled over as Gore, in an underground office at the War Memorial, insisted that Florida's decisive 25 electoral votes remained in limbo. "Let me make sure I understand," protested Bush, his victory speech in hand. "You're calling me back to retract your concession?" Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, chastened on Election Night when it appeared Bush had lost the state, had just assured his brother it was a done deal. And the TV networks had already declared Texas Gov. George W. Bush the 43rd president of the United States. "Let me explain something," Gore lectured in a stony tone, "your younger brother is not the ultimate authority on this."....."

Voter.com 11/8/00 Ann Coulter "..... Vice President Al Gore has not only lost the presidency but, by insisting on a recount, he has ended his political career. Recounts never change the outcome, and always make the challenger seem like a sore loser. See eg, Bob Dornan (R-CA), Michael Huffington (R-CA), Ellen Sauerbrey (R-MD), and Louis (Woody) Jenkins (R-LA). And all those disputes involved not only close elections but allegations of voter fraud. ...... Gore is just being a sore loser. (That's certainly what the media said about all those Republicans who contest their own narrow defeats, anyway.) ........ Even with the Democrats trolling for votes this year among prisoners -- or the "Democratic base" -- absentee ballots always favor Republicans. One reason for this is that a substantial portion of absentee ballots come from our patriotic fighting men abroad. Another is, absentee ballots favor those who are capable of reading. ....."

The Telegraph (U.K.) 11/9/00 Mark Steyn "..... WELL, here's another first. Al Gore is the first presidential candidate to rescind his concession. He now refuses to concede that he ever conceded. It all depends what the definition of the word "loser" is. The Vice-President was on his way to give his thank-you-and-goodnight speech when he got a call on his cellphone: great news! In the grand tradition of the Clinton-Gore era, they'd found a loophole!. ..."

UPI 11/8/00 Michael Kirkland ".....The Justice Department told United Press International Wednesday evening it will review Democratic allegations of missing ballot boxes in Florida....... The major presidential candidates are waiting on an ongoing recount of Tuesday's votes in Florida to determine the presidency, and depending on how the recount goes, either Texas Gov. George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore will garner more than the 270 votes in the Electoral College necessary to be elected, unless court challenges slow down the process......... Democrats have charged that numerous irregularities in Florida voting cost Gore thousands of votes. Bush held less than an 1,800 vote-lead on the first count........ "

APB News breaking 11/8/00 Rick Sarlat ".....As the world awaits a recount in Florida to learn the outcome of the presidential election, some black voters here are charging that they were deliberately harassed by state troopers who set up a roadblock near a polling station. At the urging of several black motorists, the State Attorney General's Office today is looking into whether the Florida Highway Patrol deliberately set up a checkpoint just one mile from Woodville First Baptist Church. The church is the polling place for a precinct where more than one-third of the voters are black, said Assistant State Attorney General Paul Hancock. ...... "This was not done in accordance with normal [highway patrol] procedure," Hancock said. "We certainly see the sensitivity of the black community in this situation. That's why we jumped right on it." .....Of the 13 drivers cited at the checkpoint for equipment violations, eight were black and five were white. The roadblock was set up between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, police said. ......Howes said the sergeant who set up the checkpoint only chose the location because it had not been used in the past. Police did not release the name of the sergeant and three troopers who operated the roadblock. ....... Howes said the incident is being investigated internally. He said he did not expect the sergeant and troopers to be reprimanded. "They're just out there doing their job," Howes said. "Yes, departmental policy was violated, but the violations were really only administrative oversights." "These driver license and faulty equipment checkpoints have always been a normal part of our overall enforcement strategies," he said. "The sergeant and the troopers were oblivious to any connection between the election and the checkpoint."....."

FOX News 11/8/00 Freeper GunsUp! "...... JUST AIRED: Fox reprots that a relative of Pat Buchanan lives in Palm Beach County. During the 1996 election, Palm Beach posted over 8,000 votes for Pat Buchanan! Therefore it is POSSIBLE that the count of votes for Buchanan is valid!!! ......"

Newsmax 11/8/00 "....... Gore supporters are crying foul because they say that the ballot in Palm Beach County, Fla., was confusing and that votes intended for Gore were accidentally made for Pat Buchanan. At first blush these critics might appear to have a legitimate claim. ....... In Palm Beach County, the Reform Party's Buchanan received 3,407 votes - 1 percent of the vote - at the final tally. ..... In neighboring Broward County, which Democrats argue has similar demographics to Palm Beach County, Buchanan pulled just 789 votes - close to 0 percent of the vote. ....But NewsMax.com reviewed Board of Elections records for both counties. ..... Records show that Palm Beach County is not similiar to Broward County in voter registration. There are far more members of the Independent Party in Palm Beach County than in Broward County. ......According to the Florida supervisor of elections, Broward County has only 189 members of the Independent Party - Florida's Reform party. ... Palm Beach County, on the other hand, has a whopping 14,551 members of the Independent Party. In fact, it has the highest Independent registration in Florida. ....Buchanan received 1 percent of the vote in Palm Beach County. In all the counties in Florida where there is significant Independent Party membership, Buchanan got a similiar 1 percent. ....."

New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum "....... With the presidency at stake, election supervisors in each of Florida's 67 counties today began a recount of the nearly 6 million votes for president in Tuesday's election. But Clay Roberts, the state's director of elections, said he did not anticipate a significant change in the initial tally that showed Gov. George W. Bush slightly ahead....... Katherine Harris, the secretary of state, said she expected to declare a winner based on the recount by the end of business on Thursday, but Democrats suggested that they might try to delay a resolution by filing lawsuits........ Of the counties that reported their recount results to the state government today before the elections office closed for the night, 16 showed small changes in their tallies. Added together, the changes gave Mr. Bush 125 more votes and Mr. Gore 133, a net gain for Mr. Gore of 8 votes......"

New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum ".......In DeLand, in central Florida, a county judge sealed the election headquarters with police tape. In Tampa, Pam Iorio, the Hillsborough County elections supervisor, said that she did not expect big changes but that some were likely because of "hanging shard syndrome," when the tiny squares voters punch out to select their candidates cling to the ballot so that it does not register properly.......It was not clear tonight whether absentee ballots could delay the final count. All the ballots mailed in the United States are part of the initial count, Mr. Roberts said. But Floridians who live abroad only need their ballots postmarked by Nov. 7; state law requires they be counted if officials receive them by Nov. 17......."

New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum "....... There is no statewide record of how many ballots were requested by people abroad, how many have already been received and counted or how many might still be submitted. After the 1996 presidential election, Mr. Roberts said, about 2,300 absentee ballots arrived from overseas........Republicans maintained that most such ballots would come from military personnel, who were likely to vote for Mr. Bush. Democrats said that many in the military were enlistees and members of minority groups likely to vote for Mr. Gore. Also, Democrats said, there could be many Floridians who live in Israel, and they would probably vote Democratic. The truth is, no one knows......."

New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum "....... Mr. Roberts, the election official, did not disagree that the ballots were confusing. But, he said, all candidates had a chance to review them, no complaints were raised before they were printed and disadvantaged candidates had no recourse now.......... An expert on election law, Professor Daniel Lowenstein of the University of California at Los Angeles law school, said it was highly unlikely that the courts would agree to review the case. "I expect courts to take a pretty standoffish view of things like this, and I'd be surprised to find a judge who would intervene," he said...... "It's not an inherently defective ballot," Mr. Lowenstein added, since no one was asserting that it was anything but poorly designed. ....."

UPI 11/8/00 Michael Kirkland "......If Democrats believe the Florida election process has been railroaded in favor of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, they could take the fight to federal court to prevent the state's electors from voting for him in the Electoral College....... Democrats have not indicated that they will pursue that course. But the scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility......... Among the grounds such a legal challenge could claim is a denial of the right to vote for special Florida residents. The ability to vote is among a limited list of "federally protected rights" under U.S. laws such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act........"

Judicial Watch 11/8/00 "......If George W. Bush wins Florida -- as the pundits expect -- and this captures the Presidency, he will, ironically, owe his victory to Elian Gonzalez. This is because the Miami Cuban-American community -- which broke almost evenly for Bill Clinton in the prior 2 elections -- voted overwhelmingly for Bush based on the acts of the Clinton-Gore Administration in returning Elian Gonzalez to Cuba, and gassing & beating innocent bystanders during the fateful raid of Attorney General Reno's INS agents in Little Havana last April 22......... Ironically, Governor George W. Bush of Texas and Jeb Bush of Florida did not take action to try to keep Elian in the United States. However, they were not responsible for the illegal acts of the Clinton-Gore Administration in violating the rights of Elian and other American citizens......."

National Review 11/8/00 Rod Thomson "...... Over the sunny horizon, a plague of lawyers is descending on Florida. They officially are "watching" the presidential recount. But they are also scouring every comma and "whereas" in the Florida code to see if any loophole can be found to invalidate Florida, or to block such an action. The eyes of the world are riveted on the state now, as the historic recount begins. ...... Broward County Supervisor of Elections Jane Carroll, a Democrat, said she believes that any change in the vote total due to the recount will be negligible.. ......"

NRO 11/9/00 Jonah Goldberg ".......The Florida recount is half over and Democrats are rejoicing that Al Gore has cut George Bush's lead in half. But Republicans can take heart from some of the details. Of the 32 counties that have been recounted as of 8:00 A.M. Thursday, the Democratic strongholds of Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach are included. In these counties, the Democratic voter registration outweighs the Republican by 2.4 million to 1.9 million. In the counties remaining, the Republican registered voters outweigh the Democrats 1.4 to 1.3 million. More importantly, of the 1,189 votes that Al Gore has added to his total, three-quarters, or 751, came from Palm Beach County alone, where 19,000 votes were thrown out because voters had chosen more than one candidate (Pat Buchanan, continuing his role as spoiler, announced this morning that he believes most of these ballots belong to Gore). Indeed, the disproportionate surge for Gore in Palm Beach raises the specter for those close to the scene that the Palm Beach recount was flawed in Gore's favor. ...... The bottom line: It looks increasingly unlikely that Al Gore can close the gap from the ballots remaining for recounting. However with 19,000 votes discarded from Palm Beach and a statistically odd surge for Gore in that county's recount, it seems assured that no matter who wins the recount, we will be hearing a lot more about Palm Beach in the days to come. ......"

KSDK Channel 5 in St.Louis 11/9/00 Freeper A Citizen Reporter "...... Senator Bond is saying that there was a scheme to unfairly get votes in a predominantly Democratic area. He said it was planned in advance. Writing a letter to Freeh asking the FBI to investigate the criminal activities. In the St. L Post Dispatch the day of the election there was a story that there would be irregularities and that the polls would need to remain open. He said this is prima facia evidence that there was a pre-planned scheme. He calls it a "major criminal enterprise." ....."

Pensacola News Journal 11/9/00 Scott Streater "...... A fraudulent absentee ballot in Pensacola has sparked a criminal probe into potentially widespread voter fraud that could further muddy a presidential election whose outcome hinges on several thousand votes in Florida. ..... The State Attorney's Office is leading an investigation into whether the forged ballot is part of a much broader scheme to redirect mailed ballots to someone who filled them out and forged the voter's signature. .....``I agree there may well be more than just this one,'' said Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar, who is heading the investigation. ``That's what I'm thinking right now.'' ....... Late Wednesday, Escambia County elections officials discovered what appears to be a second forged absentee ballot that also has been handed over to state prosecutors. ...... The state investigation was prompted by a complaint from Todd Vinson, a law clerk in Miami who is a registered Pensacola voter. Vinson, state investigators and others involved outline this series of events: ...... On Oct. 10, Vinson requested the Escambia County Supervisor of Elections to mail an absentee ballot to his Miami apartment. After it failed to arrive, he requested a second ballot on Oct. 24. ..... It, too, disappeared. Vinson, 28, said he complained to his father, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, last Thursday. That morning, the elder Vinson called Jones. ..... Jones' office reviewed all the absentee ballots and discovered a ballot with Todd Vinson's name on it. When Jones compared the signature on the ballot to the signature on Vinson's voter registration card, the two did not match. ... Jones faxed a copy of the signature to Todd Vinson. ``It was clearly forged,'' he said. ``Somebody definitely got hold of it and sent it back in. The question is where did they get it, and my speculation was that it happened somewhere in the post office. It made it down here to Miami, but it never made it to me.'' ...... Jones sent a third ballot to Vinson via next-day mail that arrived in time for Vinson to cast a ballot for Bush. Jones then contacted the State Attorney's Office, U.S. Attorney Mike Patterson and the Florida Division of Elections. Edgar said the signed witness required for all absentee ballots listed a fictitious address. ... State Attorney Curtis Golden said that if the Postal Service was involved, his office might turn the investigation over to federal law enforcement officials. ......"

CNSNews.com 11/9/00 Scott Hogenson "...... A few people in Palm Beach County, Florida, are so upset with the ballots they were handed on Election Day they're filing a lawsuit over it. The crux of their argument: they were confused and may have inadvertently voted for someone they didn't want to....... We've already heard more than a few dark insinuations of a "constitutional crisis" in the wake of the November 7 elections, what with the prospect of George W. Bush winning an Electoral College victory while losing the popular vote to Al Gore. These pronouncements are pure tripe. Article II of the Constitution is clear about the authority of the Electoral College in determining the chief executive, regardless of the popular vote......... But this Florida lawsuit has the potential to create a genuine constitutional crisis in the event it is given any credence at all by any court, for it holds the potential of creating a precedent by which any electoral result can be challenged because of self-proclaimed ignorance by a plaintiff. It is not merely a slippery slope; it is a sheer precipice......"

St. Louis Post Dispatch 11/8/00 Mark Schlinkmann "...... Missouri state election officials said today that they had received no complaints about punchcard voting problems similar to the one that has spurred controversy - and possibly contributed to the delay in knowing who won the presidency - in Florida. ...... Betsy Byers, deputy secretary of state, said 43 of Missouri's 116 election jurisdictions use punchcard ballots, in which voters punch holes next to candidates' names. ...... St. Louis and St. Louis County, and St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin and Warren counties all use the punchcard system, she said. It's up to each county clerk or election board to decide how to lay out the ballot. ......."

The Hugh Hewitt Show/KIEV Los Angeles 11/9/00 Freeper truthkeeper "..... Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt (a lawyer who used to teach Constitutional Law) is on the air right now asking callers who were affected by the network's fraud (the Florida and Pennsylvania "early calls") to contact him regarding affidavits. He wants to hear from people who were discouraged not to vote, or who have personal knowledge of other people being discouraged not to vote, as a direct result of the calling of Florida and Pennsylvania for Gore by the networks. He also is asking for the Republican volunteer callers, who were devastated and stopped making their phone calls to potential voters. He contends Bush would have garnered millions of additional popular votes had this call not been made. ......... He said if the Democrats pursue this crazy argument of the "Palm Beach confusion," and proceed with litigation, we need to be prepared to counter. He needs people brave and patriotic enough to be willing to TESTIFY IN COURT! He says bring it on, baby. ......:

Today Show Freeper smart_monkey2 "..... Tom Brokaw stated on the Today show that GWB should not declare victory even if he wins the recount. Brokaw stated that the other issues, (which will have no merit in court),must be considered and intimated that assuming victory would not be legitimate. Brokaw went on to say that legitimacy is important for foreign affairs. If Bush maintains his lead, the media is setting Bush up by giving the democrats false charges credence by giving them air time. I really do not believe in black helicopters, but I really think that forces are at work to steal this election. I cannot express the vitreol disgust that is building inside me. Who else has heard the same from other talking heads? ....." Freeper Starfan adds "..... Let Brokaw listen to Torricelli (who finally said something I agree with) and put the nation first. There are two time zones in Florida. Those hearing albore won left the lines and I'm sure that affected the outcome all across the country. Brokaw said they not only have egg on their faces, but omelets. He's right -- they affected this election! Now take responsibility for your actions Tom and shut up. ......"

Miami Herald 11/9/00 Carol Marbin Miller "...... Tuesday morning, Virgie Hawkins went to vote at Blanche Ely High School, where's she's voted for years. But when she arrived at the Pompano Beach campus, she was surprised to learn the polling place had been moved, and no instructions were left on where to go, Hawkins said Wednesday. Hawkins drove to two nearby elementaries and a youth club, hoping to cast her ballot but late in the afternoon, she just stopped trying. ``I said, hey, I give up,'' said Hawkins, 42, of Pompano Beach. ``I tried.'' ...... Hawkins is among hundreds of Broward voters who say they were disenfranchised Tuesday by problems at polling places. In Hawkins' precinct, for example, voter turnout was unusually low -- 46.2 percent compared to 66.2 percent elsewhere in Broward County, records show. ....... Supervisor of Elections Jane Carroll said she was ``more than satisfied -- extremely happy'' with the course of the election in Broward County. ``We didn't have any precincts with zero votes, so people knew where to go,'' she said. ``As far as not being mailed new information for switching, that isn't true. Some people don't always pay close attention to their mail. That's par for the course.'' ....."

NewsMax.com 11/9/00 "......Defense Secretary William Cohen predicted the military vote will have a strong impact on whether Florida's electoral votes - and thus the presidency - go to Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore. "I think there obviously will be a role for the military personnel who have retired in Florida and who also are registered to vote there," he said. ...... "I think it's too early for me to reach any judgment in terms of the proportionalities, how they are going to vote, but they certainly will have an impact in a race that close in that state." Cohen, a former Republican senator, is in the unusual position of serving in the cabinet of a Democrat administration. ......The military is largely presumed to be heavily Republican, with some estimates counting as many as 80 percent of the 1.2 million active-duty personnel. Military officers at the Pentagon say this sounds like a reasonable proportion because service members tend to be socially and fiscally conservative......"

New YorkTimes 11/9/00 Jim Yardley Michael Cooper ".....Ever a creature of habit, Gov. George W. Bush woke up this morning and did what he always does. He went downstairs at the governor's mansion, fed his two cats and his dog and made coffee for his wife, Laura...... But that was the only thing routine on this raw morning. When he walked out of the mansion for a brief news conference before lunch, Mr. Bush looked very tired. He had slept only three and a half hours, perhaps not surprising for a man who thought he had been elected president of the United States only to see the outcome thrown in doubt by the uncertain results in Florida. Today, Mr. Bush found himself in limbo. His parents, former President George and Barbara Bush, who had come for an election-night family dinner and had hugged him when victory seemed assured, had returned home to Houston. His brother, Jeb, the Florida governor, flew back to his home state to face questions about the recount. And Mr. Bush had even called upon James A. Baker III - his father's former confidant and a secretary of state with whom the younger Mr. Bush had once had a famous falling-out - to fly to Florida on his behalf......."

Freeper feymains 11/8/00 "....... Karl Rove said because of the early call of Florida Bush may have lost over 100,000 votes in that state alone. Look at the Vote in Oregon. Bush is winning that state. They mailed the ballots in over a week ago. Rush Limbaugh said he expected a higher turnout and I think they were there ready to vote . But when the Mid West and the west heard Bush was going to lose Florida he may have lost a ton of votes. This stinks to high heaven.Look at the battleground vote. They have a good track record. I have talked to alot of people and they said this stinks to high heaven. ......" Freeper uvular adds "....It sure does smell. Recall the station in Wisconsin that reported the trading of cigarettes for votes; they basically tripped over the story, while filming something else. How many other tricks such as this one occurred that we have not heard about yet? I believe the polls were fairly accurate, but failed to acknowledge the potential for the dems to pull out all the stops this time, so in fear of losing their power. ......."

Freeper GOPRealist 11/9/00 "...... I'd say the most damaging effect occurred in the Republican stronghold of the Florida Panhandle. As soon as those Bush voters came home and saw all the major networks declare Gore the winner of Florida, they were instantly demoralized because the polls were still opened and they hadn't voted yet: Why vote for Bush in Florida when all the major networks are declaring that Gore has already won all 25 of Florida's electoral votes? ...... The liberal network news pollsters didn't need to formally conspire with the Gore campaign. All they did was act independently -- they immediately declared Florida for Gore, knowing it would tilt the election to Gore. How did they know it would tilt the election to Gore? Because they're doing the polling! They knew where the Republican and Democratic regions of Florida are. And they knew that the Florida Panhandle is a Republican stronghold. ........And as usual, the liberal Brian Williams almost laughed off the Liberal Media's Pro-Gore premature announcement that Gore won Florida. Williams, I'm sure, thought to himself, hey, wow, we got away with that premature announcement for over an hour. Hopefully, that should be enough to give Gore Florida and therefore the Presidency. That's why he was smiling when they retracted their "Gore wins Florida" projection. ....... The Gore DemocRATS have performed every possible trick in their lying political strategy handbooks -- except one. Now, they're trying to rig the recount. Missing voter ballot boxes stuffed with Gore votes, trying to scam 6,000 Buchanan votes into 6,000 Gore votes. ......"

Judicial Watch 11/8/00 "...... Based on discussions with an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) source, Judicial Watch said today that the Florida District of the INS has engaged in a systematic program of rushing aliens through the naturalization process to meet INS headquarters "goals" by October 1, 1999 and October 1, 2000. In Florida, a new citizen can register to vote up to October 10th......... An INS source told Judicial Watch that the program is nearly identical to the now infamous 1996 "Citizenship USA" program, wherein thousands of aliens - some with criminal backgrounds - were improperly and illegally rushed through the naturalization process in order to obtain Democratic votes for the presidential election. The Florida INS effort has been termed the "Backlog Reduction Program," - a neutral, bureaucratic-sounding title designed to lower the program's visibility with the media and the general public. INS examiners and clerks who met or exceeded headquarters goals and quotas for the program were rewarded with various types of bonuses, including an extra 40 hours of paid time off....."

NewsMax.com 11/8/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Al Gore served Tennessee as both a congressman and later as a U.S. senator. Like many Democrats in the South, he voted conservative to win. Al had learned the lesson of his dad, Gore Sr., who became too liberal for his home state after spending too long in Washington. Clinton had also been a conservative as governor of Arkansas. Both Clinton and Gore, while serving in their home states, held anti-gun control views and were anti-abortion. ...... As soon as Clinton and Gore became untethered from their home states in 1992, the pair became very left-wing, very anti-gun and very pro-choice. Arkansans accepted that behavior from Clinton, but Tennesseans didn't like to be lied to. Gore thought he had the state in his back pocket. ......"

WorldNetDaily 11/4/00 Jon Dougherty "...... Members of the military who are currently stationed overseas have complained that the Pentagon has not yet sent out absentee ballots this year, meaning they will not get to vote for a new commander in chief on Tuesday. Specifically, members of U.S. Navy units who are stationed overseas and aboard the USS Cole -- the destroyer recently attacked by terrorists while it was undergoing refueling in the port of Aden, Yemen -- have either not received ballots or won't get them in time because of current deployment circumstances, Pentagon officials said yesterday. ...... "I've heard about this within the past week," said Lt. Dave Gay, a Defense Department spokesman. "We are trying to get more information. We don't know if they were delayed through the mail." ...... He added that due to current deployment considerations, some military members overseas likely would not get their ballots in time. ..."

Joy Browne Radio Show 11/8/00 Freeper aspiring.hillbilly "...... Calllers to the Joy Brown radio talk show have reported that Florida voters, appromamately 1 in 20 in certian districts, reported that they were denied the right to vote when they showed up at the poles yesturday. The scheme was that Gore operatives took out absentee ballots prior to the election in the names of unsuspecting voters. These were marked and previously submitted so that the computer lists denied the victims an in person vote yesturday. If the victim of this scheme didn't show at the poles, the fraud would be undetected. Several callers including one election worker reported this..... ......:

Newsmax.com 11/8/00 Jack Thompson "...... A reliable source within the Gore camp informs NewsMax that lawyers this very minute, retained by the Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign, are feverishly putting the finishing touches on a lawsuit that will seek, by various means, to overturn the imminent victory by George W. Bush in Florida. ...... The suit is expected to be filed within the next twenty-four hours and will apparently be a request by the Gore forces to get state officials in Florida to de-certify, or declare invalid, the election. .....No further details can be revealed at this time, but clearly Gore is going to try to attempt to secure in a court room what he appears to be unable to do at the ballot box. ......"

U.S. Newswire 11/9/00 ".....American church leaders from Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox and Protestant traditions will today call on Vice President Al Gore and his campaign to act on virtue and courteously bow to the Constitution, end the rancor of the presidential campaign and acknowledge that George Bush is the president elect. "What the Gore people are doing is not good for the country, nor is it good for civility," said the Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council. ......"It is extremely important for the well-being of the nation -- indeed for the world -- that Mr. Gore politely and peacefully transfer power. The more this is prolonged, the more unsettled we are as a nation, and the more dangerous things can become around the world." ......"

AP via ABCNews.com Politics Wire 11/8/00 "......Though the presidential cliffhanger is providing the country with a stunning political drama, recounts and contested elections are standard fare in a country with more than half a million elected officials. But they usually don't reverse the initial declared result, experts said Wednesday. ...... One former politician who went through two such ordeals - losing one and winning the second - said he feels nothing but empathy for both Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore. "Every hearsay thing gets legs, you worry about it, and people keep calling you saying, 'Have you looked down here?'" said former New Jersey GOP Gov. Thomas Kean, now president of Drew University in Madison, N.J. "It's awful to get through." ....... Despite a recount, Kean said he lost his 1974 bid for the GOP nomination for a House seat from New Jersey by 72 votes out of 30,000 cast. In 1981, after being declared winner of the New Jersey gubernatorial election by 1,677 votes out of 2.3 million total ballots, he had to endure a recount demanded by his opponent, Democratic Rep. James Florio. Six weeks later, Kean's final margin was 1,797 votes - an outcome that professionals in the field say is typical. ......."

CNN 11/8/00 Freeper Styria "..... Compiled from CNN's results page. Control of the House of Representatives by State:

Republican:

1. Alabama

2. Alaska

3. Arizona

4. Colorado

5. Delaware

6. Florida

7. Georgia

8. Idaho

9. Indiana

10. Iowa

11. Kansas

12. Kentuky

13. Louisiana

14. Missouri

15. Montana

16. Nebraska

17. New Hampshire

18. New Mexico

19. North Carolina

20. Ohio

21. Oklahoma

22. Pennsylvania

23. South Carolina

24. South Dakota

25. Tennessee

26. Utah

27. Virginia

28. Wyoming ......

Independent:

1. Vermont

Tied:

1. Connecticut

2. Illinois

3. Maryland

4. New Jersey

5. Nevada ......,"

Miami Herald Online 11/8/00 Carol Marbin Miller "...... Broward's election follies made the national spotlight early this morning. With the presidential race still hanging in the balance and Florida playing a pivotal role in the outcome, NBC News with Tom Brokaw broadcast a report from Broward County on nine missing ballot boxes. That provoked an indignant response from Jane Carroll, Broward's election supervisor. Nothing was missing, Carroll said. Rather, there were 14 boxes of ballots from the Pembroke Pines area that took longer to relay because of heavy turnout. ``They're big precincts,'' she said. ...... There was one ballot box that was mistakenly left sitting at a Pompano Beach polling place, she said, but it had been fetched and was being delivered. ...... ``We have no missing ballots,'' she said. ``Tom Brokaw isn't here. I am here, looking at the ballots. We have no ballots missing.'' ...... Officials with both the Republican and Democratic parties reported scores -- perhaps thousands -- of people turned away from the polls. ...... Carroll said she had checked out every single complaint about voters not being allowed to vote and had found that there was an explanation for every problem. ``I think everybody is a little paranoid,'' Carroll said. .... Many voters didn't register in time to meet the state-mandated deadline for this election, while others moved from another county and forgot to change their voter registration, Carroll said. Another problem is voters who get out of jury duty by saying they no longer live in Broward County. They are automatically deleted from the voter rolls. Those people then show up to vote, Carroll said. ....."

UPI 11/8/00 Paul Singer "......Rev. Jesse Jackson Wednesday called for a thorough investigation of the voting process in Florida and suggested black leaders may initiate legal action to challenge "patterns of irregularities" that appeared to interfere with a full accounting of African-American voters. Jackson was on his way to Florida to meet African-American leaders to consider their legal options. He said a legal challenge may be necessary. Jackson told reporters outside the Loews Hotel where he and the rest of Vice President Gore's party is staying that black leaders are demanding a recount by hand, not by machine, and a thorough investigation into reported "acts of irregularity and/or intimidation." ......."

AP 11/8/00 Mike Feinsilber "...... Texas Gov. George W. Bush claimed cautious victory Wednesday in the unresolved presidential race. The outcome of his race with Democrat Al Gore hung on Florida and the uncertain fate of its 25 electoral votes. "This morning brings news from Florida that the final vote count shows that Secretary Cheney and I have carried the state of Florida,'' Bush told reporters in a midday appearance. "If that result is confirmed in an automatic recount, as we expect it to be, then we have won the election.'' ...... "

Freeper the crow 11/8/00 "....Many reports of voter fraud here in Milwaukee.

1. the rich b!tch from NY passing out smokes to the homeless last week.

2. I know of people getting limosine rides to go to the polls.

3. Multiple reports from all over town of no ID required for on site same day registration [as WI allows]. Apparently students from UW Milwaukee and Marquette U. were going all over town and voting many times. When I heard of long registration lines which stayed long all day, I knew we were in trouble. ..."

CNN.com 11/8/00 Matt Smith Thom Patterson "......It is also possible that one candidate could win the Electoral College vote and the other win the popular vote, which hasn't happened in a hundred years. Nationwide, Gore pulled ahead by 267,557 votes of more than 95 million cast, with all but 3 percent of precincts reporting. ...... Without a decision in Florida -- which commands 25 electoral votes -- Gore led the projected tally in the Electoral College by 14 votes, 260 to 246. The only other state yet to have a projected winner is Oregon, which holds seven electoral votes. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. ....... But at the urging of his Florida campaign staff, the vice president retracted his concession. Gore campaign chief Bill Daley told supporters standing in the rain in Nashville that with a recount pending, "our campaign continues." ......"Without being certain of the results in Florida, we simply cannot be certain of the results of the national election," Daley said....."

Doctor Raoul 11/8/00 "...... On Philadelphia's Channel 10 news, the weather guy, "Hurricane" Schwartz, just showed his Absentee ballot mailed to him by the Palm Beach election board. He only lived there for 6 months, 5 years ago! He didn't get one in the interveining years, but he got one the year Bill Clinton's accomplice was running. ....." Freeper snopercod "....Everyone who has ever lived in Florida is still on the rolls down there. I could have voted there as well as in NC, since I lived in FL two years ago, but that would have been dishonest. They should do like many other states and delete you from the rolls if you don't vote in one election. ...."

Newsmax.com 11/8/00 Carl Limbacher "...... If George W. Bush wins the White House based on an Electoral College victory without winning the popular vote, don't expect the media to play by the rules. Early Wednesday morning, just minutes after his network called the election for Bush, CNN's Jeff Greenfield noticed that the president elect's lead in the popular vote had begun to dwindle. ........ Then, just after 7a.m. eastern time, when it was clear Gore had indeed opened up a razor-thin popular vote lead, NBC's Tim Russert suggested the development would mean Gore would remain a Washington player. ......Even if Bush had indeed captured the White House, Russert advised anchorman Tom Brokaw, Gore would become the "shadow president." ....."

Freeper Russ 11/8/00 "..... Nixon lost the election to Kennedy by about 100,000 votes due to massive voter fraud in Chicago. Had Nixon challenged those votes and demanded a recount Kennedy stood a good chance of not being President. Nixon didn't send in 175 lawyers, have media talking heads crying about it. He took it like a man for the good of the country. You can never accuse Gore of doing anything for the good of the country, only the party and his own power. ..."

Freeper My Favorite Headache "..... Here is the latest. I have yet to comment on last night's dispicable showing in Florida. I along with thousands have worked our butts off for the last year and getting the vote out for W. in Florida. For those who stayed home...CONGRATULATIONS..You might have just given this election to Gore. For those who voted for Pat or Ralph...Congratulations you just gave this to Gore. ......I have been on the phone with CNN producers this morning and am expecting a call back anytime now as they are very interested on the obvious garbage that is going on in Palm Beach county with Jesse Jackson and Robert Wexler. These sample ballots have been out for 5 or 6 weeks. There has been plenty of time for everyone to look at them. There was assistance at the polls for everyone if confused. The early call for Gore threw off the election for Bush in a Republican strong hold in the Panhandle. They had another 45 minutes to go and most walked away or stayed at home thinking it didn't matter anymore. ..... Still waiting to get on air for CNN (holding breath..yeah right). My call into FOXNEWS is coming next. ..."

Freeper Big Ezy "...... If you get to talk to CNN tell them the ballot in question was designed by a Democrat who signed off on it approval.

They have no leg to stand on.

Also last night an ABC employee who was thier number cruncher told Peter Jennings that she had worked for the Florida Sec. Of State working on recounts.

She said that "recounts rarely change the difference very much one way or the other. Maybe 10% of the difference between the two candidates." So if Bush has a lead of 1700 votes he could lose 170 or gain 170 about 10% give or take a few.

Also she said "that the military absentee vote is always in favor of the Republican", I think she mentioned Connie Mack.

Jennings said how can you be so sure? "She replied because of 25 years of doing the same job in Florida". She told Jennings "she would rather be ahead in a recount especially a Republican knowing the only thing out are the military absentees." ..."

FrontPageMagazine 11/9/00 Michael Long ".....GORE WINS the popular vote. Bush wins the electoral vote. That's what's likely. And now Gore will spend the rest of that DNC soft money of his in the campaign of his life to subvert the Electoral College. You didn't think he was just going to take this lying down, did you? ...... The Democrats are about to launch their biggest, dirtiest campaign in modern history. This is the one that you'll tell your grandkids about........ As early as this weekend, expect Al Gore to launch a massive media campaign -- commercials, interviews, whisper campaigns, maybe even a repeat of the kind of travel he's done personally for the last year. And the message will be this: I am Al Gore, and I won the popular vote for the presidency of the United States. The electors in your state have an obligation to enforce the will of the people. Contact your electors and tell them that you want them to vote in the Electoral College for Al Gore, the popularly elected president of the United States. Expect the focus to be twofold. First, Gore will focus on the states where electors are not bound by statute to vote for the candidate on whose behalf they were elected. Second, and most important, Gore will take his case directly to the people. He will say that their will is being subverted, that they elected him properly and honestly and by a majority, and that the Republicans are about to take away even their right to say who leads them. It will be powerful, and it might just be successful. The media will support Gore's effort, and the usual crowd of subservient, liberal academics will, too. They'll sign full-page ads in the Washington Post and the New York Times, saying that the will of the people is about to be tossed away by an anachronistic system over two centuries old. Look for a couple of ex-presidents (you know who you are, gentlemen) to turn the pressure on with public statements and Gore support for his dirty little campaign......"

Caselaw - Apellate Court of Florida 11/9/00 Freeper visagoth ".... Jeanne Khoyi NELSON, as Supervisor of Elections in Pinellas County, et al., Appellants, v. A. S. Jim ROBINSON et al., Appellees ......

No. 74-1201 Court of Appeals of Florida, Second District 301 So. 2d 508; 1974 Fla. App. LEXIS 8601

October 15, 1974 ...... JUDGES: McNulty, Chief Judge. Hobson and Grimes, JJ., concur. ....OPINIONBY: McNULTY ...... In our view the trial court misconstrued the law as to the test to be applied. It is not sufficient that a showing is made of a mere "reasonable possibility that the results of an election could have been changed by irregularities; rather, there must be a showing of a reasonable probability that the results of said election would have been changed except for such irregularities. That error of itself would require a reversal hereof. But further than that, in this case, we can say also that even if the trial court had applied the correct test herein the facts as he found them would, as a matter of law, be insufficient to meet it. Forty-eight assorted voters, poll workers and clerks, thirty-one of them called by plaintiffs/appellees, testified. Yet no finding was made that even a single voter was prevented from exercising this free choice although, concededly, it was found that several voters were "confused." But mere confusion does not amount to an impediment to the voters' free choice if reasonable time and study will sort it out; and no denial is made that, ultimately, all but one of the "confused" voters who testified were able with reasonable [**8] time and effort to find their choices, some of which choices included one or more of the appellees. Parenthetically, it should be noted too that ample notice was given that aid and assistance was available at each polling place to help a voter should he need it. No finding was made, nor was there any basis for one, that an unusual or inordinate number of voters sought such assistance. ......Expressly, the only other evidence upon which the trial court relied was his own observation of the voting machine. He concluded from that, as noted, that the ballot was "confusing and prejudicial," which is a far cry from satisfying the proper test of invalidity we set out above. Moreover, in the presence of counsel for the parties we have examined the same machine, which forms a part of this record, and can say as a matter of law that nothing can be found therein which of itself would support the conclusion that a prudent, observant and conscientious voter was prevented from making his rightful choice......".

National Review Online "..... On March 12, 1996, Pat Buchanan won 8,788 votes in the Republican primary from the four congressional districts that share Palm Beach County. In Rep. Wexler's 19th congressional district, Buchanan won his largest vote of the four - 2,961. ...... Buchanan's top strategist in the 1996 nomination race, Human Events editor Terry Jeffrey, explains that by the time of the 1996 Florida primary, the fight was essentially over. Buchanan had lost South Carolina on March 2, and five other primaries, including Georgia's on March 5. Still, with the nomination lost, and Buchanan not campaigning in Palm Beach (he made only a brief appearance in Miami on March 6), over 8,000 diehard Buchanan Brigaders voted in support of his message. .......Jeffrey says that it is "completely believable to me" that there were 3,000 Buchanan supporters again voting for their man in the Palm Beach area this Tuesday. "Over 8,000 people cast a symbolic vote for Pat and his message after he was eliminated from competition in 1996." ......"

Freeper prometheus 11/99/00 ABC Radio News "...... AFTER 39 COUNTIES COMPELETED BUSH LEAD UP IN OFFICIAL COUNT TO 1173. BILL DAILY OF GORE CAMPAIGN THREATENS LAW SUIT OVER PALM BEACH FLAP. SAYS WILL OF PEOPLE OUGHT TO PREVAIL AND GORE SHOULD BE GIVEN THE VICTORY. SAYS PALM BEACH VOTES FOR BUCHANON IMPLAUSIBLE. SAYS PALM BEACH BALLOT CONFUSING. SAYS BUSH CAMPAIGN LACKS FAIRNESS. SAYS WILL OF PEOPLE OUGHT TO DETERMINE THE ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT. SAYS HAND COUNT TO BE REQUESTED. WILL TAKE LEGAL ACTION. CLAIMS GORE IS PEOPLE'S CHOICE TO BE PRESIDENT. SAYS BUSH CAMPAIGN TRYING TO DIVIDE THE NATION. SAYS LEGAL SYSTEM SHOULD PREVAIL, CLAIMS RULE OF LAW SHOULD DECIDE. ...."

FoxNews 11/8/00 Freeper Reagan Man "..... Bill Daley, Chris Lehane, Joe Andrews, Paul Belgala and the other Gore thugs are attempting to steal this presidential election out from under the American people. Gore could still win honestly if he can get enough votes in the recount, but I think Gore and his henchmen know what will actually be the outcome of the recount. ...... Hold on tight a rough ride is ahead for Bush-Cheney and all their supporters. ......" Freeper Dog Gone adds "......They are committing to fight it. They point to the national popular vote. Regardless of how the recount comes out they plan to sue, and influence the EC. This is essentially a declaration of war and a statement that they won't respect the outcome of the vote. This is serious, folks. ....." Freeper Gritty "...Rush just announced Warren Christopher has announced "voter fraud" in Florida, and the Dims will contest results! ..." Freeper Cosmo "..... I believe that Gore will concede tonight and demonstrate a little class --that is,if he hopes to ever have a hope of winning the Whitehouse in the future. This is my prediction. ......" Freeper logos "..... I've been watching this, and it's crunch time, friends. Bill Daley just said that this election must be decided consistent with "the will" of the Constitution, which he then interpreted to mean whoever wins the popular vote should be the next president. He also said that legal action will be "supported" regarding all "irregularities" in the voting process. Warren Christopher then stated, briefly, that he affirmed all of Daley's comments. Much talk about how the South Florida voters were "disenfranchised" in this election; also many comments about the "illegal" Florida ballot. Friends, this constitutes a declaration of war against the Constitution of the United States by the Democrat Party. I see no other way to interpret these actions and statements. ......"

Associated Press 11/9/00 "..... George W. Bush's margin over Al Gore in make-or-break Florida dwindled to fewer than 1,000 votes Thursday in a continuing recount that held the presidential rivals and the nation in agonizing suspense. Democrats said they would demand a follow-up recount by hand in a few counties and support unspecified ``legal actions.'' ........ Daley and others said it was possible Democrats would seek a new election in that county, where, he said, ``the confusion was massive'' because of the design of the ballot. ...... Earlier former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, tapped by Bush to represent him in Florida, said he had seen neither allegations of fraud nor evidence of it. He said the controversial Palm Beach County ballots had been reviewed before the election by both campaigns, ``and guess what, there were no complaints until after the election.'' ....."

NewsMax 11/9/00 "..... More than 300 protesters showed up outside city hall in West Palm Beach today to protest the presidential election results here in Palm Beach County. Jesse Jackson has arrived but has yet to speak to the gathering crowd. It is obvious from the Gore/Lieberman signs, and from the usual array of suspects - labor unions, government employees, pro-choicers, seniors, etc. - that the Gore campaign has orchestrated this rally. This is one indication that the Gore campaign is not interested in a simple recount but will aggressively pursue this in the courts, in the media and in public opinion. ....."

PRNewswire "......"Whichever candidate wins the electoral vote in Florida and goes on to become President of the United States will have won his margin of victory by the votes of non-citizens and illegal aliens, voting in mass numbers in South Florida," charged Edward Nelson, President, U.S. Border Control. ...... "We have asked legal counsel for U.S. Border Control to review the Florida election results carefully to determine how a challenge can be made to the votes cast in certain Florida precincts in order to document once and for all the scope of voting by non-citizens." ......"Thanks to the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the Motor-Voter law, millions of non-citizens and illegal aliens are being invited to register to vote as they apply for their driver's licenses or welfare benefits." ......."In Florida, as in most other states, the Motor Vehicle Department has been advised not to ask if applicants are citizens because this would somehow violate their civil rights. As a consequence, this 'don't ask -- don't tell' policy is wittingly or unwittingly handing out voter registration cards to tens of thousands of ineligible voters, more than enough to effect the results of a close election." ....."

Reuters 11/9/00 Allan Elsner ".....Democrat Al Gore decided on Thursday to fight the results of Tuesday's presidential election in Florida with campaign officials announcing a legal challenge and demanding a recount by hand of ballots in four counties. .....Without waiting for the result of a recount of the vote in Florida due later on Thursday, Gore campaign manager William Daley told reporters in the state's capital of Tallahassee that the vice president would not accept the outcome or concede the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush , the Republican nominee. ...... Referring to mounting complaints of voting irregularities, Daley said: ``Technicalities should not determine the presidency of the United States; the will of the people should. Demanding an end to this election is not the same as demanding that the person who the people want as president takes office.'' .......The statement took the United States into uncharted constitutional territory, deepening the uncertainty following Tuesday's election, the closest in U.S. history, which failed to produce a clear winner. ...... ``Today the appropriate Florida Democratic officials will be requesting a hand count of ballots of Palm Beach County as well as three other counties,'' Daley said. ...... ``In addition today, I am announcing that we will be working with voters from Florida in support on some legal actions to demand some redress for the disenfranchisement of more than 20,000 voters in Palm Beach County,'' he said. ....."

Freeper randita 11/9/00 ".... Bush spokesperson in press conference. Refuting all the complaints in Palm Beach County. Says Buchanan got large number of votes there in '96. There are 16,000 people there registered in various independent parties affiliated with Reform. 15,000 double punched ballots were thrown out in '96. Says butterfly ballot (which Daley early today claimed was undemocratic) has been the standard ballot in Cook County, Daley's home county for years - zing! ...... Zapped the Gore campaign several times over their shenanigans. Said the Gore campaign is angling for new elections, but we have a law in this country which says that everyone votes on the same day. People can't get a revote if they don't like the outcome. ...... Bush is fighting back -- good for him. ...."

Freeper bigsigh 11/9/00 ".....Rowe says most counties are close to original in recount. Sent a letter to Palm Beach asking why such a descrepency. PB now showing 800 more ballots than two previous reports Tue night and Wed. 1 or 2 not unusual, but 800 is suspicious (my word). ....."

Freeper TigersEye 11/9/00 ".....Yes indeed! And let's be clear who's calling for war. Congressman Deutch declares Bush would be illegitimate President. Hillary agrees that Ralph Nader should be killed for spoiling the election. Jesse Jackson calls for "his people" to take to the streets. Daley asserts that we should ignore the Constitution and decide the election by popular vote. ....."

UPI 11/9/00 ".....Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., Thursday charged there was widespread vote fraud in St. Louis on election night and asked the U.S. attorney and FBI to investigate. A heavy Democratic turnout in St. Louis led to the ouster of Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., and the election of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan in Missouri's U.S. Senate race. In the governor's race, Democrat Bob Holden was elected over Republican Jim Talent by a narrow margin. .......A St. Louis judge ordered polls be kept open past their scheduled 7 p.m. closing time but a three-member appellate court panel overturned the ruling 40 minutes later. Bond charges some polls remained open despite the appellate decision. ......, In letters to U.S. Attorney Audrey Fleissig and FBI Director Louis Freeh, Bond said there is evidence "taped phone calls were prepared in advance to be delivered in the area alerting voters to the fact that the polls would remain open until 10 p.m. election night." ......... Judge Evelyn Baker Tuesday afternoon ruled in response to a petition filed by congressional candidate William "Lacy" Clay that St. Louis polling places remain open until 10 p.m. because long lines and lack of voting materials were depriving people of their right to vote. The Missouri Court of Appeals, however, ordered the polls closed at 7:45 p.m. and the Election Board ordered polls closed at 8:15 p.m. Board Chairman Floyd Kimbrough said, however, the last vote was cast about 10 p.m. ...... "Despite the court order, numerous witnesses have stated that voters were registered and permitted to cast ballots late into the evening in direct violation of that court order," Bond wrote. "Furthermore, witnesses have stated that individuals registering voters and encouraging voting were aware of that order and knowingly ignored the court order, thereby committing voter fraud. ...... "Additionally, election judges at approximately 29 polling places left their positions at 7 p.m., leaving ballots and ballot boxes unattended for an undetermined amount of time. Considering these and other events that transpired over the course of the evening, there is reason to believe that collusion existed to commit voter fraud and voter fraud occurred on a wide scale throughout the city of St. Louis." ......"

Bush Campaign email 11/9/00 "...... RECOUNT UPDATE

Democrats are leaking preliminary data from recounts in Florida. These numbers are not certified, and in many cases disputed. Networks should be cautious in how they report such uncertified numbers. Here are examples of just how questionable these numbers are in two important counties.

Palm Beach County

A precinct-by-precinct count found a change of only six otes, but when the ballots were rerun through computer abulation the change jumped to over 600, most likely the result of a computer glitch which is presently under review.

Democrats are arguing that 19,000 ballots being thrown out in Palm Beach County for overcounting (ballots cast for two candidates for the same office) is abnormal, and the result of a confusing ballot presentation that resulted in Gore voters voting for Buchanan. But in 1996, nearly 15,000 ballots were thrown out for overcounting, similar to the number on Tuesday, when the higher turnout is factored in.

This ballot presentation was published in local newspapers and approved by an elected Democratic party official prior to the election, but was not objected to prior to Election Day, as Florida law requires.

Pinellas County

There have been big discrepancies between the number of absentee ballots counted in the recount versus the number counted election night. In Pinellas County, absentee ballots are sorted into 40 "types" in the county.

On election night, one of the types had 430 ballots counted, but on recount turned up 1,555-a jump of 1,125 ballots. ..."

CNN 11/9/00 Freeper freedom4ever "..... CNN reports the lawsuit is withdrawn by the plaintiffs. Belief is that it will be filed in state court, possibly next week. ...." And ".... This was just on CNN. Litigants were in court, plaintiffs withdrew lawsuit, judge was taken aback, and ran everyone out of the courtroom. ...."

FoxNews 11/9/00 Freeper Teddy "..... I've just seen two separate reporters report fraud allegations in FL. The first involves the recount in Palm Beach County, not equalling the numbers reported from the individual precincts there. Where did Gore's magical 751 votes come from? ..... The second involves at least 2 investigations into absentee ballots being intercepted at post offices around the state and "used illegally". ...." Freeper San Jacinto adds "...... I saw the same report. A Fox News correspondent with an odd name --William Lajanuese, or something similar, said a government attorney (federal, I guess) told him there was an investigation concerning a possibly widespread operation whereby the overseas absentee ballots were being intercepted at the post offices. If this is true, then there could not be a more direct effort to steal the election. As serious as this is, it will not receive 1/10th of the publicity as the phony, made-up BS over "confusing" ballots in Palm Beach County. ......"

Freeper piasa "....I heard that on FOX too. Also, from earlier, a report of a person being caught with 7 absentee ballots on his/her person who had been attempting to deliver absentee ballots to different precincts. My guess is that somewhere out there is a box of unfilled-out absentees that are or will be used to provide Gore with mystery votes. Also, I heard that Seminole County is reporting that they will be late in their recount. My suspicion is that there is an effort to delay the rest of the recount perhaps to tomorrow... thereby allowing more votes to fixed and to put any announcement by GWBush beyond the prime-time hour. ....."

MSNBC 11/9/00 Freeper Recovering_Democrat ".... Some info babe on MSNBC said that Sec. of State Bill Jones is saying "don't count California out....1 million absentee ballots need to be counted still..." Sounds like they needed to fill some time, so they threw this out there, but it might be nice to see... " ....Freeper paul in cape ".... Just announced on MS-NBC, infobabe on with Chris Matthews announced that the Calif. Sect'y of State (I think), the highest ranking Republican in Calif., has just said that Calif.'s 54 electoral votes should be taken out of the Gore column and into the To-Close-To-Call column. Apparently there are over 1 Million Absentee ballots still uncounted, and those opened since yesterday are breaking for Bush! ...."

breaking from Joe Scarborough!!! Freeper dead 11/9/00 "....If Gore does not concede, Republicans will open voter fraud investigations in Iowa, California, Wisconsin. He says Austin is ready to go into four or five states and play hardball with Gore and the Dems. Scarborough says they took 24 hours too long (as usual) to get tough, but they are not playing any longer! ...."

Freeper Mad_Dawgg 11/9/00 "...Fox just said that Palm Beach does not want to call their Recount Valid now! ...."

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Home Page 11/9/00 Freeper FlJoePa ".... Being a resident of Palm Beach County, I thought I'd look up a little information and post it here for your perusal. This information is from the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections' home page.

As of October 25th:

Registered Democrats: 296,122 Total Votes for Algore after re-count: 269,696

Registered Republicans: 231,626 Total Votes for George W. after re-count: 152,954

Now, according to this information, and making the simplistic assumption that no Democrats voted for George W, this gives the Democrats a turnout of 91%. Also, making the same assumption that no Republicans voted for Algore, this gives the Republicans a turnout of only 66%.

Add into the mix the fact that the Dummycrats are now wanting the 19,000 "tossed" ballots counted as well, that would raise the Democratic turnout to 97%. Yeah, there is something funny going on all right, but it's not these "butterfly ballots", rather it is massive voter fraud. The ballot issue is nothing but a smokescreen. ......"

ABC Radio News 11/8/00 Prometheus "..... THREE MORE COUNTIES TO GO. VOTE WILL NOT BE CERTIFIED UNTIL NOVEMBER 17TH WHEN ALL THE ABSENTEE BALLOTS CAN BE COUNTED. RECOUNT MANDATED BY FLORIDA LAW. FLORIDA SECERTARY OF STATE OFFICE SAYS THE UNOFFICIAL RESULTS BY STATE OFFICIALS IS BUSH LEADS BY 1784 VOTES. STATE SAYS WIRE SERVICE NUMBERS ARE BEHIND. NOT ALL PRECENTS TABULATED. ONLY 53 TABULATED. ......"

Freeper SFRigger ".....That IS NOT the final recount...The Florida Secretary of State said that there were 14 counties remaining to send in their official recount. I want W to win as bad as everyone here, but let's not muddy the water here. Bush IS ahead by 1724 votes at this time. It will be later tonight, or tomorrow before we have the numbers from the other counties. It may be as late as the 20th before we know everything including the count of the absentee ballots.

It IS looking good though. ...."

Newsmax 11/9/00 Daniel McAdams "...... The "people power" that has taken to the streets of Florida today courtesy of the Democratic Party and the Rev. Jesse Jackson is not so different from the mobs that have taken to the streets of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe when a vote was being stolen. And no, they are not "defending democracy" but rather they are a critical force-multiplier in the cheating process itself. The pattern may not be familiar to the American public, but as one who has observed elections throughout the former communist world, including those that have ended in violence and massive fraud, the pattern, to me, is unmistakable. .......... What is happening in Florida - and to a lesser degree in places like St. Louis and elsewhere - follows a game plan that has yet to fail: first rule is, delay delay delay. Do not let any official results be announced. The longer you can delay, the more doubt is cast on the elections and the more time there is to manipulate the results. ........Second, latch on to a legitimate issue and marry it to an illegitimate one until the original issue is completely lost. In Florida a recount was automatically called because of a very close race. But who now is talking about the real reason for the recount? Not CNN, not the networks and the liberal talking heads, not the American people. The issue has successfully been reframed. ...... With chaos successfully reigning, the accusations and claims have grown exponentially. .......Americans will no doubt be shocked to find themselves compared to Albanians, but the 2000 presidential election here is shockingly similar to that in Albania in 1996. There, the former Communist party pulled out of the elections just before the polls closed claiming massive vote fraud - despite the fact that there had been little evidence of fraud. The move was calculated to throw the entire process into chaos so as to buy time. Ultimately it did not matter that the anti-communists won. The elections were claimed illegitimate and therefore the government that took power was illegitimate. It was hobbled by the claims, fraudulent though they were, and soon overthrown. ......... The same thing happened to Robert Kocharian in Armenia two years later, though he survived only to be hobbled by legal challenges and questions about his legitimacy. ......Whatever the case, today the fraudsters have their sights set on their holy grail: a re-vote in Palm Beach County. ...... You must recognize what is happening, or you will lose more than you have already. Do not give one inch. No compromises. No new elections. No switching ballots. This election is being stolen. It is up to the Republican Party and all good American people to defend their vote. .......McAdams has observed elections in Central and Eastern Europe for the British Helsinki Human Rights Group. He is senior research associate at the Center for Security Policy in Washington......"

ABCNews 11/8/00 "..... ABC news was saying Bush will start naming Cabinet appointments as soon as vote counted (suggested tomorrow). Bush and Cheney want to pre-empt Demos move to draw this out and instead cement in the minds of voters the finality of the vote ... "

Freeper kazaneder 11/9/00 "..... According to the Sec'y State website from TUESDAY: Bush: 2,909,135 Gore: 2,907,351 Numbers from the news conference: Bush: 2,909,661 Gore: 2,907,877 The numbers from the news conference do not appear to be Tuesday night's numbers. ......"

Freeper FrostFire 11/9/00 "...... ONLY 53 COUNTY VOTE NUMBERS HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED BY COUNTY SUPERVISORS. The rest have been tallied but signed hardcopy certification has not been received from some counties. Now gore is announcing again, that the count doesn't count, he will not abide this count. I guess it's back to Bush. Claim what is his and do it NOW before they get a chance to bogus up the numbers even more. ....."

Fox News 11/9/00 John Martin "...... By 5 p.m. ET Thursday, 53 counties had reported their official, certified tallies to Florida's Division of Elections. According to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Bush led Gore, 2,909,661 to 2,907,877 - a difference of 1,784 votes, exactly the same results reported Wednesday morning. (But according to unofficial Associated Press projections, Bush led by just 362 votes out of roughly 6 million cast, with ballots in 64 of the 67 counties counted.) Harris said Thursday evening the final results might not be complete until next week: Counties are required to submit their certified results by next Tuesday, absentees ballots are still coming in and Florida must certify its statewide results by Nov. 17. ......"

Freeper SunStar 11/9/00 ".... FROM REAL CLEAR POLITICS:

Popular National Vote Still Undecided

At Least 1.5 Million Ballots Still Uncounted Gap Now Under 100,000

Bush Wins Original Florida Vote By 1,784, Before All Overseas Absentee Ballots

State of Florida: After 53 of 67 Counties, Gore has picked up 0 votes. Unofficially. The Bush lead is now 1784.

AP: After 64 of 67 Counties, Gore has picked up 1422 votes. The Bush lead is now 362.

Three Remaining Counties Are All Bush Counties ....."

Freeper ftrader 11/9/00 ".... A 1,000 sample of Palm Beach will be hand counted (3 precincts), but ALL the punch-card ballots will be re-run through the machine again, all this happening Saturday. ..."

FoxNews 11/9/00 ".... U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp dismissed the first of three lawsuits filed to invalidate the Florida presidential election. Lawyers for a Boca Raton voter had sued for a new election in federal court. ...... Attorney Lawrence Navarro told the judge that he wanted to dismiss the case. Ryskamp agreed and walked out in less than a minute. ....... Accusations of fraud, voter intimidation and invalid ballots have led to a flurry of legal actions, including one by a Tampa man who is seeking a court order to stop the state from certifying election results. Willie Dickens' lawyer Sidney Matthew says Dickens tried to vote Tuesday, but was turned away because he didn't have his driver's license. He said that Dickens, a regular voter, went home to get the license but the polls were closed by time he returned..... State prosecutors in Pensacola are also investigating whether a fraudulent absentee ballot submitted in Escambia County could have been part of a broader scheme. .....The investigation began when Todd Vinson, a law clerk living in Miami but registered to vote in Pensacola, complained last week to his father, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, that he had never received either of two absentee ballots that elections officials said they mailed to him. ......They found a ballot with the younger Vinson's name on it, but the signature did not match his and the address of the witness who signed the ballot was fictitious. ...."

Sun-Sentinel 11/9/00 Reuters ".....Palm Beach County will not certify its results in the U.S. presidential election until it recounts votes by machine and by hand starting Saturday, elections officials said Thursday........ The county will not pass along its recount figures to be included in a statewide total for all 67 counties that had been expected to be released by Florida on Thursday evening, a county commissioner who is a member of the Palm Beach County canvassing board said.......The county will conduct a second machine recount of all of its ballots, and will also handcount a sample of one percent of the ballots, which was expected to cover three or four precincts, the county's canvassing board said....... At least two lawsuits seeking a new election were filed in state court by Palm Beach County residents who believe thousands of votes that could have been crucial for Vice President Gore in the residential election were "lost" because of confusion over where to mark the ballot......"

ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Republican George W. Bush"s campaign on Thursday charged the Democratic camp of Vice President Al Gore with politicizing election difficulties in Florida "at the expense of our democracy." .... "Our democratic process calls for a vote on Election Day," said Bush"s campaign manager Don Evans. "It does not call for us to continue voting until someone likes the outcome." "The Democrats, who are politicizing and distorting these events, risk doing so at the -- at the expense of our democracy," Evans said......."

ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Evans and chief strategist Karl Rove accused the Gore camp of especially meddling in Palm Beach County. Democrats have charged that about 3,000 votes intended for Gore were wrongly cast for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan in that county because of confusion over the ballot. They also say a high number of ballots were disqualified in the county. Evans said his Gore campaign counterpart William Daley had not "told the whole story" in his statement about Palm Beach County ballots. The Bush aides said that according to the Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County were registered to parties that supported Reform party candidate Pat Buchanan, an increase of 110 percent since the 1996 presidential election. They called Palm Beach County "a Pat Buchanan stronghold" and said that was why he had received 3,407 votes there......."

ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer, appearing on MSNBC, said the "butterfly" ballot that confused some Palm Beach voters was similar to one used in Cook County, Ill, where both Daley and the Rev. Jesse Jackson vote. Jackson was in Florida on Thursday expressing outrage at the situation. "They only object now that the results of this election did not go the way they want them to go. ...." Fleischer said......"

ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "......Evans said Daley "neglects to point out" that in the 1996 presidential election 14,872 ballots were invalidated for double counting in Palm Beach County, a figure comparable to the number of ballots dismissed this year. "...."

ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Rove suggested the Florida recount might not settle the issue of who won the election, pointing out that there were 10,000 votes yet to be counted in Colorado; 168,000 absentee ballots still being counted in Arizona; almost 70,000 mail-in ballots to be counted in Washington; and perhaps as many as one million absentee votes to be counted in California. ....."

ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Campaign sources said Bush"s vice presidential running mate, Dick Cheney, would oversee the Republican"s transition team in Washington and that Andrew Card, transportation secretary in the administration of Bush"s father, President George Bush, was a likely candidate for White House chief of staff. After Bush was declared president-elect, he would move quickly to name several top members of his team, the sources said, including retired Gen. Colin Powell, probably as his secretary of state, and Condoleezza Rice as his White House National Security Adviser. Bush met with Rice, his chief foreign policy adviser, who also served in the elder Bush"s administration, at the governor"s mansion on Thursday, spokeswoman Karen Hughes said. ....."

ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... At the Republican campaign headquarters in Austin, staff met to devise a strategy for dealing with the increasingly complicated scenario of looming legal challenges that could drag out the process of determining if Bush or Gore will be the 43rd U.S. president. Press spokesmen for Bush were dispatched from headquarters to Florida to handle inquiries from dozens of media representatives who have descended on Tallahassee...."

AP 11/9/00 "..... The Associated Press surveyed elections officials in each of Florida's 67 counties on Wednesday and Thursday to tabulate vote totals in the recount of the presidential election. The results were provided directly to the AP by election officials in those counties either in person or by phone. In every possible instance, the AP also obtained faxed copies of the recounted tally from the county officials. The same results were to be relayed from each county to the Florida secretary of state's office in Tallahassee, and she will then release a final unofficial tally. The vote totals include some but not all absentee ballots sent to Floridians living overseas. Those ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day, but can be returned as late as Nov. 17....."

Freeper Travis McGee ".... Other fraud events I've heard of:

1/ Marquette University, instant registration by students at up to 10 polling places, given absentee ballots.

2/ Miami: Post poll closing "ballot parties" behind closed doors. (Wonder why it took them so many extra hours to get the ballots in?)

3/ Pittsburg: massive multiple voting. Teachers saying they were handed two or more ballots and told "just go do them" by officials.

4/ Florida, absentee ballots which never arrived are found with forged names and filled out for Algore. ...."

AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak ".......While a confusing ballot in Palm Beach County generated the most attention, Democratic Party officials, Gore campaign aides and the NAACP compiled fast-growing lists of complaints. .....Two lawsuits were filed in state court seeking a new vote in Palm Beach County. The Democratic Party and Gore campaign weighed their own lawsuits. ......"

AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak "...... Among alleged irregularities:

--Polls closed while people were still in line in Tampa.

--Voters were denied ballots on grounds that their precinct had changed.

--Some election officials refused to allow translators in voting booths for Haitian-Americans in Miami.

--Hispanic voters in Osceola County alleged they were required to produce two kinds of identification when one was required.

Voters in Osceola County in central Florida said they, too, were confused by their ballots. ....."

AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak "......On the Internet, Democrats.com, a Web site not affiliated with the Democratic National Committee, launched TrustThePeople.com, where voters in Palm Beach could download an affidavit, which they could sign and send election officials protesting the vote. The site had collected over a thousand affidavits by late Thursday afternoon, according to a site administrator. .....Another site, ActForChange.com, offered a form in which Internet users could e-mail Florida election director Clay Roberts directly to demand a revote. ......"

AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak "......''We expect legal challenges,'' Roberts told a news conference. He said Secretary of State Katherine Harris, as the state's chief elections officer, will defend any lawsuit. ...... Adora Obi Nweze, president of the NAACP in Florida, said officials in her Miami precinct tried to deny her a ballot because she had been sent an absentee ballot earlier. The civil rights leader said she never received the mailing and demanded to vote. ''You can take me to jail or let me vote,'' she said she told county officials. She eventually was allowed to sign an affidavit swearing she had not previously voted......."

National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "...... After an election night as suspenseful as an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, deadlock has set in. In light of Florida's electoral-vote dispute, the U.S. must focus on ballot integrity.. ...Supporters of Vice President Al Gore in Palm Beach County, Florida, are complaining that a ballot they found confusing - previously approved by Democratic county elections supervisor Theresa LePore - generated accidental votes for Pat Buchanan. The NAACP claims that blacks were barred from voting in some polling sites. ......"

National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "...... Republicans say that resident aliens in Broward County voted although they are not yet citizens. GOP voters in the conservative Panhandle, within the central time zone, may have stayed home after the networks inaccurately projected Florida for Gore once voting ended in the eastern time zone. ......... Miami poll watchers told MSNBC's Jonathan Alter that some absentee-ballot recipients signed affidavits at the polls swearing that they had not mailed in their absentee ballots, then voted normal ballots. "Quite a number of people in the past in Miami, in Dade County, have voted twice," Alter said. "They filled out the affidavit, but they also filled out their absentee ballot." Officials now may have to compare affidavits and absentee ballots to eliminate repeat voting. ......"

National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "......New York Democratic donor Connie Milstein--who gave $402,000 to Democrats this election cycle and hosted Al Gore at a Park Avenue fundraiser--was caught just before the election giving packs of cigarettes to homeless people in Milwaukee if they would vote for Democrats. "I'm here representing the Gore-Lieberman campaign," she told WISN-TV. "I'm down here trying to get out the vote." Milstein, who was accompanied by two volunteers, later contradicted that statement and claimed to be operating independently. The Democratic National Committee also disavowed her actions. Wisconsin law forbids encouraging someone to vote in exchange for anything worth more than $1.00. ......"

National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "......Meanwhile, the victorious Senate campaign of Missouri's deceased governor Mel Carnahan took yet another odd turn when voter logs disappeared and Republicans charged that improperly registered voters cast ballots. At 21 precincts, ballot boxes reportedly were left unattended. One judge extended voting hours in St. Louis due to high turnout until another judge halted the additional balloting. ...... "

National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "......At this writing, Al Gore leads George W. Bush by about 98,000 votes nationally. Did unorthodox balloting procedures in New York, Wisconsin, and elsewhere swell Gore's overall total, perhaps eclipsing an actual Bush popular-vote victory? Americans may never know. ......."

National Review Robert Alt 11/9/00 "...... In an election where nothing is clear, the outcome in this lawsuit is: Neither the voters nor Gore have a case, so long as the judge follows previous Florida case law. In 1974, the Florida Court of Appeals heard Nelson v. Robinson, a case remarkably similar to this one. In Nelson, voters and losing candidates challenged an election in which names of candidates were placed on the ballot in a confusing way. ...... The court found that some voters were indeed confused by the ballots, which listed the names both horizontally and vertically, but that "mere confusion does not amount to an impediment to the voters' free choice if reasonable time and study will sort it out..." The court made clear that the Constitution assumes the voters' "intelligence to indicate his choice with a degree of care commensurate with the solemnity of the occasion." .........The Nelson court then turned to the candidate, and declared that he does not have a right to a "particular spot on the ballot which might make the voters' choice easier. His constitutional rights in the matter end when his name is place on the ballot." More telling, however, is that it is well-settled that a candidate may not object to a ballot irregularity after an election if he has the opportunity to object beforehand. Indeed, some courts have held that a candidate is barred from bringing such a claim at all. The reason for this rule is clear: Before the election, the risk of candidate self-dealing is lower (since he is uncertain of the results), and the cost for remedying the situation is not as high. After the fact, a candidate is likely seeking his own political advantage based on the particular results; and the costs of the fix - a new election or otherwise altering the tally - are very high. Because these concerns certainly exist in Palm, and because Gore election officials not only saw the ballot beforehand, but signed off on it, they should be precluded from challenging it now. ......."

CNS 11/9/00 ".....Defeated Missouri U.S. Senator John Ashcroft won't challenge the election of his dead opponent, but the Constitution Party will. Howard Phillips, the Constitution Party's presidential candidate, announced Thursday that he plans to sue to prevent Mel Carnahan from being certified as the winner in the Senate contest with Ashcroft. Carnahan was Missouri's governor, running for Ashcroft's senate seat when he was killed in a plane crash last month. ....... In Thursday's announcement, Phillips said the "Constitution makes clear that to win a seat in the Senate, you must meet certain qualifications. You must be at least 30 years old, nine years a citizen and an inhabitant of the state. In Missouri, in violation of the Constitution, it appears state officials are going to certify the election of an individual who is not an inhabitant" of the state. ......"

NewMax 11/9/00 "...... While the media breathlessly report each new vote added to Vice President Al Gore's column in the Florida recount, reporters have been all but silent on the tens of thousands of new votes that have been added to President-elect George Bush's nationwide tally in the last 24 hours. ......."

Nightline 11/9/00 Freeper SpiritOfTruth "..... Reported that the recount vote could not be certified pending a hearing next Tuesday...."

Financial Times 11/9/00 Stephen Fidler "..... As an automatic recount continued on Thursday in Florida, law firms in Washington were poring over Florida election law to find grounds for a court challenge to the vote that would allow Al Gore to claim the presidency. ...... Richard Semiatin, of American University in Washington, says the likelihood of a court overturning the Palm Beach County result is remote. Although on the face of it, the fairness of the vote is in doubt, there is no suggestion that the ballot confusion was deliberately contrived by the Democrats in charge of the election in that county. .... Unless negligence is shown and the election administrators ignored prior complaints about the ballot paper, the complainants would have to show deliberate manipulation. "They have to show some type of deliberate intent to keep people from voting the way they wanted," he says. ..... Had Republicans been in charge of the elections in the county, the question of intent would have been much more open to question, Mr Semiatin says. ....."

Financial Times 11/9/00 Stephen Fidler ".....The possibility of a court-ordered re-run of the vote appears even more remote. ... Assuming Mr Bush still prevails after the recount, many political scientists see strong parallels between Mr Gore's likely predicament and that of Richard Nixon in the close election of 1960. ..... The vice-president would need to balance the potentially huge political cost of reaching the presidency by pressing his case through the courts against the probability that a statesmanlike concession to his opponent would enhance his political credentials to mount a future challenge for the White House.

If a legal challenge is mounted and pushed by the Democratic party, however, a series of tit-for-tat challenges could be mounted elsewhere by Republicans, in the states of Iowa, Wisconsin and New Mexico where Mr Bush lost by narrow margins. ......In the process, the US political system could lose a lot of credibility, constitutional specialists fear. The election system is thought to be much less open to fraud than in 1960, in part because automated voting and improved information transfers sharply lessen the chances for fraud. ....."

Associated Press 11/9/00 "......Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives say the lawyer who represented them in their effort to keep the boy in the United States betrayed them Thursday by taking up Al Gore's cause in the Florida election recount. The Gonzalezes abruptly canceled a Thursday night ceremony to honor Kendall Coffey and the other members of the legal team that donated their time to the failed custody fight over the 6-year-old Cuban boy. A statement released by Armando Gutierrez, the Gonzalezes' spokesman, called Coffey's new role assisting Vice President Gore ``incompressible ...."

Independent U.K. 11/10/00 Andrew Gumbel ".... With almost regal disdain for the growing controversy over the vote in Florida, George W Bush and his advisers spoke and acted yesterday as though the White House was already theirs, telling the world in carefully crafted information leaks that they were hard at work on the transition of power and fully expected to have victory confirmed in short order. The candidate himself stayed well out of the limelight in the governor's mansion in Austin, where he was holed up with his extended family and his running mate, Dick Cheney. ...... .."

New York Times 11/10/00 ".....Part of the test of presidential leadership, it seems to us, is finding a way to resolve electoral matters in the political arena. Given that, it is worrying that Mr. Gore and a legal team led by Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state, would announce their support for a lawsuit while the mandatory recount is still going on and while seven days remain for the arrival of overseas absentee ballots. It is doubly worrying that some Gore associates are using the language of constitutional crisis and talking of efforts to block or cloud the vote of the Electoral College on Dec. 18 and of dragging out the legal battle into January. The CNN political commentator Bill Schneider picked apt language when he spoke of the "treacherous path" that would-be leaders choose when they talk of unraveling the finality of elections. ...... Fortunately, given the Gore campaign's rush to litigation, there is a time window for both political and legal combat. .......One way or another, Republicans and Democrats alike should look toward the earliest possible date for recognizing the legitimacy of one winner in this election. They should not be laying plans that undermine an orderly and honest transition to a new presidency or set damaging precedents for future elections. .........The sad reality is that ballot disputes and imperfections are a feature of every election. It will poison the political atmosphere if presidential elections, in particular, come to be seen as merely a starting point for litigation. ......"

Associated Press 11/8/00 "...... West Palm Beach -- Presidential ballots in Palm Beach County can't be certified by the state pending a Tuesday court hearing, a circuit judge ruled Thursday. ....... The order, issued Thursday night by Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll, is the result of one of six lawsuits filed in Palm Beach County by voters who say they may have mistakenly voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Vice President Gore because of the way the ballot was designed. Two other lawsuits filed in Tallahassee allege race discrimination in Tuesday's balloting.

The Palm Beach County voters want a new election in the county. ......In the order, Kroll wrote that based on a lawsuit filed by two Boca Raton women it appears they would suffer ``irreparable injury'' if the votes are certified before the case can be heard. ....... The injunction, issued Thursday night about 8:30, came quietly. ....Two judges in Tallahassee _ one federal, one state_ refused to issue emergency orders stopping the state from certifying election results. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle scheduled a hearing on one lawsuit for Nov. 21 and County Judge Don Modesitt said he would schedule a hearing Monday in another. ....... The Gore campaign criticized the ballots used in Palm Beach County as confusing, and asked for a hand count of votes cast there and in three other counties _ Volusia, Broward and Miami-Dade. Palm Beach County has agreed to hand-count ballots in three precincts on Saturday and a second computer recount. Volusia has agreed to do a hand recount. ...... Judges will be guided by a 1997 state Supreme Court decision in a Volusia County election in which county elections workers were found to have broken state law 14 times and committed gross negligence in handling absentee ballots, but did not result in a new election. ...."

The Associated Press 11/9/00 "......Latest results from the presidential vote recount in Florida. With votes in 66 of 67 counties recounted, the tally collected by The Associated Press shows Republican George W. Bush leading Democrat Al Gore by 229 votes. Gore has a net gain of 2,234 votes from the election night count. Bush has a net gain of 679 votes. ......... The AP county-by-county tally is an unofficial survey. The vote totals are subject to verification by the Florida Secretary of State's Office and subject to legal challenges by candidates and others. ......"

Telegraph/U.K. 11/10/00 Ben Fenton "...... THE Gore campaign headquarters was a very different place yesterday from the frenetic hive of activity that existed before Tuesday. ...... Younger members of the Gore team, many relying on victory to launch their own Washington careers, have taken enthusiastically to the task of trying to revive the body politic that was pronounced dead. ....... Officially, the campaign building on a business park about two miles from downtown Nashville was covered in a shroud of secrecy. A spokesman said: "The only thing I can tell you about the mood here is that I am not allowed to tell you about the mood here." Calls to eight other members of the team went unanswered. ........Some 70 people are in Florida under the leadership of William Daley, the chairman of the campaign, to scrutinise the recounting of votes. Others have quietly slipped away. ..... These are the people driving Mr Gore forward to do everything he can to put off a second, this time permanent, concession telephone call to Mr Bush.

One of the campaign aides still hustling around Nashville said: "You're looking at 45 days here. It'll be 45 days before this is finished, with all the recounting, the postal ballots and the legal challenges. And at the end of the day, Al Gore will have taken his rightful place." .......A spokesman said: "As long as Al Gore wins the popular vote in America, then we will keep fighting to make sure that we know conclusively whether he won the popular vote in Florida and therefore the electoral college vote and the election itself." ....."

Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... Florida officials said the Texas governor was ahead by 1,784 votes after ballots were recounted in 53 of 67 counties. But the Associated Press put Mr. Bush's lead at just 229 votes after gathering recount numbers from 67 counties. ...... Part of the discrepancy was due to Palm Beach County, where Mr. Gore appears to have picked up hundreds of votes in the recount. The gain was disproportionate to most other counties, where totals shifted by only a handful of ballots. "This is a disturbing difference," said Bush campaign manager Carl Rove. "In fact, we have sent a letter to the Palm Beach authorities raising a question." ...... Mr. Rove is suspicious because the Palm Beach recount turned up 800 extra ballots - three-fourths of which were for Mr. Gore.......The Palm Beach County Canvassing Board yesterday declined to answer questions from reporters, but announced it would conduct yet another computer recount in order to satisfy Republican concerns. The board also agreed to a request from Democrats to hand count 1 percent of the precincts tomorrow....."

Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... Gore supporters, frustrated that the state recount has not reversed the outcome of Tuesday's election, seized on the design of the Palm Beach County ballot, declaring it "illegal" and confusing to would-be Gore voters. A circuit judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the canvassing commission in the county from certifying the final recount results until a hearing is held Tuesday. That was in response to a legal challenge filed with the support of Democrats who say the poor ballot design in the county led some Gore supporters to inadvertently mark their ballots for Pat Buchanan..........In all, eight lawsuits challenging the results were filed in state or federal court, including six in Palm Beach County and two in Tallahassee, where race discrimination was alleged.

But Republicans pointed out the ballot was designed and approved by Democrats, who never objected to its use when they had the chance prior to the election. With state officials saying the final recount might not be completed until next week, Democrats questioned the validity of the election and called for fresh recounts in four counties......"

Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... Bush supporters hinted they would demand recounts in states where Gore won narrowly or Democrats are suspected of fraud.........Bush officials were pondering whether to press for recounts in Iowa - where Mr. Gore won by less than 5,000 - and Wisconsin -where the margin was fewer than 6,000 votes. A recount was under way in New Mexico's most populous county, too. And the law in Oregon requires a recount in close races; the margin was just over 2,000......."

Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon ".....The vote totals include some but not all absentee ballots sent to Floridians living overseas. Those ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day, but can be returned as late as Nov. 17.

Democrats took advantage of the delay by lowering expectations for a speedy resolution to the standoff, saying it could take weeks or even months before a new president is ascertained. They also emphasized Mr. Gore's nationwide victory in the popular vote, although his 200,000-vote lead - just 0.198 percent of the more than 100 million voters - was narrowing as more ballots were tallied........Mr. Gore, who at one point early Wednesday was so resigned to defeat that he congratulated the Texas governor on his victory, now seems prepared for what appears to be a rancorous political and legal war that some fear will spawn a constitutional crisis......."

Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... The sharp escalation in rhetoric underscored the enormous stakes of the dispute. It also threatened to undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of the next president, regardless of which man finally secures the White House. With each passing day of uncertainty, more Americans appear unsettled by the deadlock. Wall Street reacted negatively as investors converted stocks to cash until the unprecedented power void is filled........ Demonstrations by Democratic activists grew larger yesterday as activists like the Rev. Jesse Jackson joined the fray. Addressing a boisterous protest rally in Florida, he brandished a copy of the Palm Beach County ballot, which was emblazoned with a "Gore-Lieberman" sticker...... "

Newsmax 11/10/00 Carl Limbacher "......On Wednesday Palm Beach County poll worker Bernice Epstein told the network's Greg Jarrett that Senator Ron Klein had her steer votes to Gore. "Ron Klein, our state senator, came to me and told me that when we give out these palm cards, give them out to people, I should tell people that they must be very careful to punch Number 5 (for Gore) because the arrows were misleading," said Epstein. .... "And when they came out, they thanked me," the poll worker added. "They told me that it was definitely a problem and it would have been." Apparently concerned that the poll worker had inadvertently revealed pro-Gore vote fraud, Jarrett tried to steer Epstein back on course. "You didn't just tell people to punch Number 5," the reporter interjected. "I mean, you were telling people that 5 corresponds for Gore and that other numbers correspond with other candidates." ..... But Epstein didn't seem to get the message, telling Jarrett next, "These people took my palm cards which the political action committee put out." ..... Epstein's account was first broadcast on MSNBC and later picked up by talk radio's Rush Limbaugh, but has been ignored by journalists who have been doggedly pursuing other allegations of voting irregularities that would help Gore. ......"

Opinion Journal 11/9/00 "...... The cliff-hanging Florida results won't be final until the absentee-ballot deadline of November 17, but yesterday Gore campaign head William Daley told a news conference that no amount of recounting would do. Only one outcome would be acceptable: "If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next President." And if the election results don't do that, the Gore campaign will try to find a judge to do it instead. In your ordinary banana republic, this would be recognized as a Gore coup d'etat. ...... Mr. Daley said the Vice President wasn't going to settle for the recount result, suggesting of course they knew it would go against them and so some pretext needed to be found fast to prevent the election from ending. "Let the legal system run its course," Mr. Daley said. "We will be working with voters from Florida in support of legal actions to demand some redress." He added, "We believe with so much at stake, steps should be taken to make sure that the people's choice becomes our President." ........ Shortly after this, guess what happened? The Democratic Palm Beach plaintiffs seeking "redress" suddenly withdrew their suit from federal court. Why? Because they wanted to shop around for a favorable judge. ......By turning over the Presidential election to the lawyers, the Democrats guarantee that the Republicans would respond in kind, seeking similar irregularities, as are commonly found in South Florida, or anywhere else people voted in the U.S. last Tuesday. The constant harping on the poor souls confused by the Palm Beach butterfly ballot makes for good TV visuals and stirring speeches about the "denial of justice." But no one should pretend this is going to fly through the courts without a substantial counteroffensive by the GOP's own lawyers....... And in any event, there is the prospect of recounts elsewhere. In Wisconsin and Iowa, where Mr. Gore's margin of victory was several thousand votes, automatic triggers may set off recounts. Moreover, the national vote isn't over. Votes are still being completed in many states, with a million absentee votes from California alone. It is not beyond imagining that when this process is done, the current result will be different, or even reversed. ......... "

Opinion Journal 11/9/00 "...... There is no basis in law, however, to believe that demanding that a vote be restaged because of "irregularities" in Florida's election system, or any other state's for that matter, is going to survive in court. Were that true, there'd have been hundreds of restaged votes in this country. Mr. Gore, Mr. Daley and all the Democratic lawyers know this. Their case about irregularities and confusion is merely a pretext for finding some friendly jurist who will overrule the voters in an excruciatingly close contest. This is a destructive course of action for the Republic and the Constitution. Also, by the way, for a Democratic Party already tainted by eight years of its own irregularities, that is to say, by a habit of trashing the rule of law in the pursuit of political advantage. ....."

Washington Post 11/10/00 "....."If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next president," he [Daley] said. ...... A Bush victory would mean the White House had been stolen; that was the plain meaning of the remark. It's a poisonous thing to say in these extraordinary and unsettling circumstances, and Mr. Gore makes a huge mistake if he fails promptly to disown it. ...."

PensacolaNewsjournal.com 11/10/00 Scott Streater "..... State prosecutors in Pensacola are stepping up efforts to unravel a potentially widespread voter fraud scheme as the world watches to see who will be the next U.S. president based on a recount of Florida ballots......At issue is an absentee ballot mailed to a Pensacola voter in Miami that was intercepted, filled out and mailed back to voting officials in Escambia County. The voter's signature was forged, and the name and address of a witness on the ballot was bogus..... The State Attorney's Office on Thursday requested the U.S. Postal Service in Miami, as well as the State Attorney's Office in Dade County, to help track the fraudulent ballot....... State prosecutors also are sharing all information on the case with U.S. Attorney Michael Patterson's office. Elections officials and investigators fear the fraudulent ballot could be part of a much broader voter fraud scheme......."

CNS Information Services 11/10/00 George W Bush/Karen Hughes "..... (Editor's note: The Bush campaign released the following brief statement early Friday morning, after the unofficial vote recount in all 67 Florida counties showed Republican George W. Bush leading Democrat Al Gore by 327 votes. The recount is not yet finished (a hand recount is expected in some Florida counties), nor is the recount certified. That won't happen until Nov. 17 at the earliest, when all overseas absentee ballots come in. The uncertainty may linger much longer, however, depending on the outcome of expected legal challenges from the Gore campaign. ) Bush Campaign Statement ....... The vote count on Tuesday night showed Governor Bush won Florida's election, and a recount has now confirmed his victory. The only votes left to be counted are the overseas absentee ballots, which in the past have favored Republican candidates. Bob Dole carried the overseas ballots in Florida in 1996 by a margin of 54 to 40 percent, even though he lost the election in Florida. We hope Vice President Gore and his campaign will reconsider their threats of lawsuits or still more recounts, which could undermine the constitutional process of selecting a President and has no foreseeable end. ......"

NewsMax 11/10/00 "..... The discovery of forged ballots in northern Florida has set off a probe of what may have been widespread fraud in connection with absentee ballots in the state. .....Moreover, the suggestion has been made that the U.S. Postal Service in Miami may have been involved. ...... "I agree there may well be more than just this one,'' Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar, who is heading the investigation, told the News Journal. "That's what I'm thinking right now.'' ......State Attorney Curtis Golden told the newspaper that if the Postal Service was involved, his office might turn the investigation over to federal law enforcement officials. ...... "

MSNBC 11/9/00 Jay Severin ".......According to people in the room at the time, when Al Gore learned Tuesday night that Florida had tilted back to George Bush, he stormed out of the room declaring, "our campaign continues." And so it does. ...... FOR AL GORE, the election is not over. His own words are the most precise and reliable indicator of his intention, which, surely, is not to concede. Gore still intends to become president, and here is how he intends to do it.

First, Gore plans to ceaselessly exploit his status as winner of the popular vote - the linchpin of his political existence right now. (Should Bush overtake him in the total national vote, however, Gore's entire rationale is instantly vaporized.) Notwithstanding the vice president's touching words on the day after about honoring our Constitution, his real message - and strategy - is this: winning more votes is, really, more legitimate than winning the Electoral College. ...... Step two is that Gore will say he plans to prevail in the recount of the Florida vote. This is possible, but highly unlikely. Though vote totals often change upon recount, the margin between candidates rarely changes greatly.

Then there is the matter of the absentee ballots. .......Al Gore already knows he is unlikely to win the Florida vote, which is why his supporters are now feverishly engaged in step number three: demanding additional by-hand recounts, and endorsing challenges to the vote results based on voter fraud. ...... And notice the compelling public relations case Gore will be building with this series of setbacks, should they occur: the man more Americans voted for, denied his presidency by odious Republicans who steal votes from minorities and the elderly. Every day the Gore spin machine will be pounding out this message, and the establishment media will lap it up and repeat it, word for word. ......Which leads Gore to step four, the biggest and boldest element of his second campaign: lobbying members of the Electoral College to reject George Bush and, as "a matter of conscience" cast their vote for Gore, the candidate who won the popular vote. ......"

Bush/Cheney 20000 "...."New information has come to our attention that puts in perspective the results of the vote in Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3407 votes there. According to the Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County are registered to the Independent Party, the Reform Party, or the American Reform Party, an increase of 110% since the 1996 presidential election. Throughout the rest of Florida, the registration increase for these parties was roughly 38%. In contrast, in neighboring Broward County, only 476 voters are registered to these parties. In addition, in the 1996 presidential election, 14,872 ballots were invalidated for double counting in Palm Beach County, a figure comparable to the number of ballots dismissed this year, considering this year's higher turn out. Given these facts, what happened on Election Night in Palm Beach County - a county whose elections are run by a Democrat - is an understandable event. The Democrats who are politicizing and distorting these routine and predictable events risk doing our democracy a disservice. Throughout this process, it's important that no party to this election act in a precipitous manner or distort an existing voting pattern in an effort to misinform the public. Our nation will be best served by a responsible approach to this recount. This recount will be watched around the world. Its outcome should not only serve as a testament to the strength of our democracy, but also a reflection of how each candidate deals with a matter of the utmost national importance. We remain confident that Governor Bush will win Florida and become the elected President of the United States." ......"

FoxNews 11/10/00 "...... Fox News this morning stated that the possible strategy of the Gore camp is to bind the election in the Florida courts until December 18th when the electoral college formally meets. This would prevent Florida's votes from being read into the record. Gore would win both the electoral and popular vote and could state a mandate to govern! ....."

Boston Globe 11/10/00 David Nyhan "...... YOU CAN GET cheated in politics, as in life. No system is foolproof or perfect or absolutely fair. Life is a sloppy, slippery, disorganized business; politics even more so. So regardless of the fact that Al Gore got more votes nationwide Tuesday night than the other guy, rules are rules. It may be an anachronism, but the Electoral College rules are how we play the game. ..... If it were the other way around, with Gore prevailing in the electoral vote, I'd be making the same argument. ..... What do I think will happen? I think Bush will probably eventually be declared the winner in Florida when the absentee ballots are tallied Nov. 17. There's no practical way to rerun the election, either for Florida as a whole or for the Palm Beach County voters either, without massive expense, confusion, vote-rigging, intimidation, and even violent criminal acts. ..."

IMUS 11/10/00 Freeper Yaya123 "..... Mary Matalin was on a tear! She said she can't believe the media is fermenting this lie..the lie that the votes of 1900 Floridians didn't count because their ballots were disqualified. Mary Matalin said most of those voters who made mistakes on their ballots, got another ballot and voted again. They were not disinfranchised, as Gore Camp, Jesse Jackson, and the media would have you believe. THEY GOT TO VOTE!! She said, of course their first, disqualified ballots were thrown into a pile...that's the 1900 ballots the media and the Gore camp keep talking about. But most of them turned around and did vote. ... See how misleading this is? Matalin said she can't believe the media is not reporting this correctly. She said, with no trouble at all, she found a poll worker from one of the precincts in dispute, tell Mary that during the course of the day, she had people come to her, say they had made mistakes on their ballots, so they were given new ones. Their first ballots were then put into the pile of other disqualified ballots. ....."

St. Petersburg Times 11/10/00 Edie Gross ".....Vice President Al Gore's lead over Texas Gov. George W. Bush widened by 478 votes in Pinellas County on Thursday, the second-largest change of any county in Florida's dramatic recount of presidential votes. ...."What happened was there were several times election night when a card-reader operator did not follow proper procedure," said Pinellas Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark. "Someone made a serious error, several serious errors." ...... One election worker overlooked at least 1,125 absentee ballots during the first count, Clark said, and another election worker apparently counted some ballots twice. .....The change caught the attention of the Bush camp, which sent Pinellas elections officials a letter questioning the new totals. .......In Pinellas County, Clark traced the problems to five batches of absentee ballots. There were 40 types of absentee ballots in all, each different depending on which elections the voter was allowed to participate in. ... One of those absentee ballots covered voters in the Democrat-heavy southern part of the county. While there were 1,555 ballots in that batch, only 430 were put through the ballot-reading machine on election night, Clark said. ...... The opposite problem occurred with a second type of absentee ballot that covered mostly north county residents, who generally are more Republican. In that case, another worker counted 1,782 ballots when only 1,398 existed. Thus, 384 were counted twice. ....Bush lost some votes when those twice-counted ballots were removed during the recount. ......Republicans, who traveled from Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, on Thursday to watch the second recount in Pinellas, were not happy with Clark's explanation. Today, several plan to compare a list of voters who requested absentee ballots to the stack of ballot envelopes received. ......,They want to make sure that no ballots were submitted for people who did not request them. ......"

Albuquerque ABC Channel 7 Freeper CedarDave "..... The wait continues for the NM results. The latest is that while the results of the remaining 40,000 early voter ballots were about to be entered into the computer, someone noticed that there were about 250 more votes cast (from the signature pages, I assume) than there were ballots totaled. Everything stopped, the counting ceased, the sheriff's office secured the warehouse, and this morning they will be looking behind the copy machine for the "misplaced" ballots. It will be another long day in New Mexico. ...."

AP 11/10/00 "......Recount results from all 67 of the Florida's counties gave Bush a lead of 327 votes out of nearly 6 million cast, according to the unofficial AP canvass. The original final margin had been reported at 1,784. ......AP interviewed county election officials to get the recount totals for each candidate. The final county, Seminole, finished its recount in the pre-dawn hours. ...... The official recount lagged behind, and Secretary of State Katherine Harris said it could be as late as next Tuesday - a week after the election - before the state certifies ballot results from all counties. She also pointed out that it would take even longer - at least until Nov. 17 - to tabulate ballots cast by Floridians overseas and postmarked by Election Day. Harris said Bush had 2,909,661 votes to Gore's 2,907,877, a difference of 1,784. The totals from the AP canvass were: Bush with 2,910,198 and Gore with 2,909,871. ......"

San Francisco Chronicle "......After lying low for over a day -- eons in the life of a political spin cycle -- George W. Bush's campaign struck back hard yesterday to insist on the legitimacy of Tuesday's election. The response was delayed until well after the morning airwaves had been filled with assertions from Vice President Al Gore's campaign that the Florida election results were dubious and that the Texas governor lacked the moral authority to govern. ...... Bush officials set out to claim two essential points: that Bush had won the election fair and square, and that the Gore campaign and its Democratic surrogates were engaged in an unseemly and dangerous campaign to undermine democracy itself. "The Democrats, who are politicizing and distorting these events, risk doing so at the expense of our democracy," declared Don Evans, Bush's campaign chairman. "Our process calls for a vote on election day. It does not call for us to continue voting until someone likes the outcome." ...... Even as the Florida recount showed the race narrowing, the Bush team insisted that the Texas governor won the election Tuesday and that his victory will be confirmed by the recount. ......"

NewsMax 11/10/00 Dan Frisa "...... Now we see the lengths to which the Gore camp will go to steal the election in Florida. It turns out that Andre Fladell, a supposed "confused" Palm Beach County voter, who was trotted out to the media as someone who inadvertently cast his ballot for a candidate other than his choice, is a long time Democrat activist. Fladell, in a story by New Times Broward-Palm Beach Online in December, 1999, said "Politics is the greatest challenge. It's where the best and the worst in people comes out. You get the adrenaline of war without having to physically hurt anyone." The local publication also observed: "When he's not re-aligning patients spines and stomping volleyball opponents, he's advising candidates and elected officials in Palm Beach County, mostly Democrats, on how to crush their election foes and steer government decisions their way." ...... LOOK AT THE LINE OF BALONEY HE FED TO THE GULLIBLE MEDIA YESTERDAY, AS REPORTED BY CNS: "I voted for the second punch hole and for the second name," said Fladell, thinking he was voting for Gore. In reality, he believes he voted erroneously for Buchanan. Fladell, a 52-year-old chiropractor who moved to Florida from New York City 22 years ago, admitted he didn't pay close attention to the ballot. "I never looked at it," he said, noting that some of his acquaintances also complained about the ballot. "I leave the voting booth, and I go to the beach, and I'm with my friends. They say, 'Boy, that was the toughest ballot I ever saw,' and I'm laughing because I'm thinking they're not too bright," said Fladell. "Turns out I wasn't too bright." ....."

AP 11/10/00 David Espo "..... The election is over but the campaign continues in the improbable 2000 presidential race, with Al Gore and George W. Bush raising funds for legal battles, waging a public relations struggle and deploying waves of lawyers and political aides to Florida, site of an intensely watched recount. ...... "Contrary to claims being made this morning by the Bush campaign, this election is not over," Gore said in a statement released early Friday. "Again, we want the true and accurate will of the people to prevail, and that means letting the legal system run its course." ........ Republicans continued to urge Gore to drop his challenge of the results, although Florida officials said it could be as late as next Tuesday before the state certifies ballot results from all counties. Further, it could take until Nov. 17 to tabulate ballots cast by Floridians overseas. ....."

AP 11/10/00 David Espo "..... Former Sen. Robert Dole, appearing on CBS' "The Early Show," said, "I think if I were Al Gore, and I know him fairly well -- we've had a count, we've had a recount -- it's time for him to say the election is over, let's go on with the business of America. The recount was held. Bush is still the winner." ....... Not counting the Sunshine State, Bush had won 29 states for 246 electoral votes. Gore had won 18 states plus the District of Columbia for 255, with 270 needed for victory. "We hope Vice President Gore and his campaign will reconsider their threats of lawsuits or still more recounts, which could undermine the constitutional process of selecting a president and has no foreseeable end," Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said in a statement. ...... Palm Beach County agreed to hand-count ballots in three precincts on Saturday. Volusia County also has agreed to conduct a hand-count beginning Saturday, running 24 hours a day. ....... The Bush campaign sent a letter to Palm Beach County asking election officials to double check their ballot figures because they are different from the campaign's review. The campaign also opposes the hand counts because "with human contact, it's one more step down the slippery slope," said spokesman Ari Fleischer. ....... Republicans expressed outrage at the Democratic demands, but suggested they might seek recounts in Iowa and Wisconsin, two states where Gore won narrowly. Oregon, still counting, was so close that the secretary of state said the likelihood of an automatic recount was "pretty high." ....... The state GOP in New Mexico was considering legal action in the vote count there. In New Mexico, the margin of difference between Bush and Gore was slim -- by Thursday, 99 percent of precincts had reported, with Gore leading Bush by 6,825 votes in a state where more than 557,000 votes were cast. ........"

AP 11/10/00 David Espo ".....Eight lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts to challenge the Florida results, including six in Palm Beach County and two in Tallahassee. Democratic Party-backed lawsuits won't be filed until next week, party officials said. ........ Several Republicans, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that in private telephone conference calls, the Bush campaign had been told by governors and congressional leaders they were being outmaneuvered by the Gore camp in the public relations campaign. "They're willing to blow up the entire election," Michigan Gov. John Engler said of the Democrats, after participating in one call. ...... The Bush campaign promised to be more aggressive, these sources said, and within hours, officials began appearing on television to denounce Democrats for attempting to rerun the election until it came out the way they wanted. ......"

AP 11/10/00 David Espo "..... According to one Democratic attorney who worked with the DNC and Gore campaign, the party is backing lawsuits in state court because there is a significant body of Florida law concerning election challenges. This attorney, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the legal standard is "reasonable doubt," which he described as not a very high threshold. ......."

CNSNews 11/10/00 Susan Jones "......The Washington Post, a newspaper that endorsed Al Gore, Friday chastised the Gore campaign for recklessly suggesting that the election will be illegitimate if George W. Bush is declared the winner. ....... Likewise, an editorial in Friday's New York Times says, "Vice President Al Gore has escalated the atmosphere of combat surrounding the presidential election results with his decision to go to court in Florida."....... The Post editorial also criticizes some in the Gore campaign - and Gore himself "by proxy" - for suggesting that Gore's small lead in the popular vote gives him "superior status" - "a greater right" to contest the electoral outcome in Florida. "The electoral vote is what matters," the editorial says. ...... The lead editorial in the New York Times says it is "worrying" that the Gore team - led by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher - "would announce their support for a lawsuit while the mandatory recount is still going on and while seven days remain for the arrival of overseas absentee ballots."......"

Albuquerque Journal 11/10/00 Chaka Ferguson ".....With a judge expressing fear the presidential election in New Mexico had been compromised, the state's most populous county withheld the release of final tabulations Friday and Republicans threatened legal action over the fate of 252 unaccounted-for ballots. ...... Bernalillo County election officials planned to reconvene at 10 a.m. to try to resolve the discrepancy. ...... As officials went over vote tallies from some 38,000 early-voting ballots, the 252-vote discrepancy was uncovered early Friday in a process closely monitored by Republican, Democrat and Green party representatives and state District Judge Theresa Baca. .....Asked if the discrepancy would compromise the election, Baca said: "I think there has been a compromise already." ..... County officials did not release the tallies of the early voting ballots. ...... Without those early voting ballots, unofficial results in the presidential race in New Mexico showed Democrat Al Gore with a 6,825-vote lead over Republican George W. Bush, 269,773 to 262,948. The tallies do include absentee ballots from Bernalillo County counted earlier Thursday. ....... State GOP Chairman John Dendahl, among those watching the tally, said he believed Bush had been within 252 votes of winning New Mexico, according to information on the ballots he received from the GOP. He said the party was contemplating legal action. "I was stunned to hear her (Baca) say the election was compromised," Dendahl said. "I want to know if Judge Baca believes when she says the election has been compromised, if this election has been stolen from George W. Bush. The news is very upsetting." ......"

AJC Online 11/10/00 Bruce Hight http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/today/news_a3b0aa6ca0cde18d00e0.html. ".....Legislative option? ....... It's also possible that, because of the court action, Florida's electors might not be determined by Dec. 18, when the Electoral College will meet to officially vote for president and vice president. In that case, federal law provides for the Florida Legislature to decide on some other method to choose the electors, said Suzanna Sherry, a constitutional law expert at Vanderbilt University. ...." Freeper Pfesser adds "....I checked the Florida legislative page and both houses are controlled by Republicans. ...."

AP 11/10/00 Anne Gearan "......The recount is just the beginning. Amid continued turmoil over ballot confusion and alleged voting irregularities in Florida, America's presidential tossup may be decided at the bench instead of the ballot box. ...... ''There are a number of ways for one side to challenge the results but the other side can do the same thing. This is not a unilateral process,'' said Jan Witold Baran, a Washington election lawyer. ''This has the potential for tit-for-tat and mutual assured destruction.'' ....... Election lawyers said court challenges almost never overturn election results, although losing candidates successfully have sought recounts and vote adjustments. ...... Although election lawyers were skeptical that Democrats have much of a case, some legal challenge seemed all but certain Thursday. ......... Gore campaign chairman William Daley said one possibility is a lawsuit seeking a new election in the heavily Democratic Palm Beach area, site of the most dramatic allegations of voter confusion and illegal ballots. Another option would be a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming voting rights were violated by the makeup of the ballot, or any number of alleged polling irregularities. ...... In either case, Democrats would have to convince a judge that irregularities were severe enough to alter the election outcome. ......"

AP 11/10/00 Anne Gearan "...... If Democrats did win a lower court challenge, appeals could eventually take the case through Florida appellate courts and to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Florida lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said if Democrats decide to sue they would try to show irregularities in West Palm Beach through statistical comparisons with other counties and through witness testimony. ''If something is filed, it will be as quickly as possible,'' he said. ''It's going to happen fast.'' ....... "

Detroit News 11/9/00 "..... For the sake of the nation, Vice-President Al Gore must call off legal challenges to the Florida election results . For the sake of the democracy, Al Gore must tell his supporters they must live with defeat, if that's what voters deliver. For the sake of the Constitution and the future of the world's greatest Republic, Al Gore must stop. Mr. Gore and the Democratic Party have chosen to take the path of victory by any means possible, including using the legal system to subvert the ballot box. ...... That is the desperate act of a man so determined to become president that he's willing to divide the nation and throw into chaos America's sacred tradition of an orderly transition of power. ......Politicizing the counting of votes and allowing the campaign to carry beyond Election Day is not only outrageous, but unprecedented, dangerous and disrespectful of a process that has preserved democracy in this nation for more than 200 years. ....."

FoxNews 11/10/00 Freeper Leroy S Mort "..... James Baker on Fox: Recount has confirmed Bush won..subject only to count of absentees, which traditionally favor Repubs. More and more recounts just offers more chance for error. State of Fla has a procedure for contesting ballots BEFORE the election. rehashing that Dem designed it and did not complain. Vast majority cast legit votes. Our lawyers have confirmed the legality of ballot. Unmarked ballots are never counted in an election. Cant guess the voters intent. No jurisdiction in America would accept those as valid. In 1960 and 76, Nixon and Ford put the interest of the country first. What if we insisted on recounts in WI or Iowa or NM? Let the country think about whats at stake...Theres no reasonable end to this process. We will vigorously oppose the Gore campaigns efforts to recount over and over until it likes the results. This should end. ......"

Freeper Faith 11/10/00 ".... I admit he was powerful. No backing down. Bush still ahead after the recount. Gore needs to accept this for the good of the country. Hand counting only leads to more errors than machine counting. Two thirds of presiding officials in the recount were Democrats. Challenges could be made in several other states where Gore won but the count was very close. However, it is not good for the country for this process to be continued. How many times would recounts need to be repeated until it is a number that satisfies Mr. Gore? It is time to move on. ....."

Freeper tame 11/10/00 ".... BAKER [TO A REPORTER]: "Do you want an answer, or do you want to make a speech?" ...."

Freeper djf 11/10/00 ".... He also focused on the fact that the Gore campaign has demanded yet another set of recounts for counties that coincidentally were high democratic and showed wide variances in Gore's favor following the first recount ....."

Freeper tree of Liberty 11/10/00 "..... Not only that, he said he knows why the numbers have not been certified from the counties with the large swings to gore on the re-count. Hmmmm, just what could he mean me wonders ;) ...."

Tree of Liberty "Not only that, he said he knows why the numbers have not been certified from the counties with the large swings to gore on the re-count. Hmmmm, just what could he mean me wonders ;)"

Freeper Wayfarer ".....Because during the recount they found votes where the candidates name had been circled in pencil, instead of the hole actually being punched (according to a reporter asking questions at the news conference). Florida law states that the hole MUST be punched out... that circling the name in pencil invalidates the voting card. I suggest... that Baker was so firm and adamant in this newsconference was because they KNOW that the recounts in the counties where LARGE gains were made by Gore WILL BE DISCOUNTED IN THE FINAL STATE CERTIFICATION. Basically what Baker was saying was.. "You don't want to go down this path, Gore...you will lose and be made more of a fool than you already are. " ..."

New Mexico Freeper js1138 "....NPR (!!) reported this morning at 8:30 that only 150 votes separated the outcome, and they had misplaced 250 ballots!!!! ....." Freeper pilgrim adds "....Just heard on KKOB with Larry Ahrens, John Dendahl (the Republican State Chairman) stated that according to his numbers 251± votes are missing and Gore is ahead by 164. If I voted straight Republican ticket, I would want to know if my vote was counted or is one of the missing. ...."

Freeper lowteksh (Florida) "...I twas reported that 3000 were sent out and about 2300 are expected to be returned. However, they also said that they are expecting about 1000 from Israel. Are these also diplmatic or military or just foreign expatriots? On MSNBC this morning they reported that only 200 people from Israel were registered to vote in the Florida election. ...."

CNS News 11/10/00 Justin Torres ".....Andre Fladell, the Palm Beach County, Fla., resident who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking a new presidential vote in his county because of an allegedly confusing ballot, is a long-time Democratic operative in the area who advised Democratic Senator-elect Bill Nelson of Florida. Scott Aaronson, a spokesperson for Nelson said he was unable to confirm Fladell's specific role in the Nelson campaign, though he said that Fladell is "a personal friend of the Nelson family." Nelson won election to the Senate Tuesday, defeating Republican Bill McCollum by a 51-46% margin. ...... After filing his lawsuit Wednesday, Fladell told CNSNews.com, "I leave the voting booth and I go to the beach and I'm with my friends, they say, 'Boy, that was the toughest ballot I ever saw,' and I'm laughing because I'm thinking they're not too bright. Turns out I wasn't too bright." ....... When asked how nearly 270,000 Palm Beach County voters apparently did vote for Gore rather than Buchanan or some other candidate, Fladell speculated that it was because some "people who don't vote a lot have an advantage. People who vote a lot have a disadvantage." ......"

FOX NEWS 11/10/00 Freeper Trapper "......Wisconsin GOP Charging Voter Fraud on FOX now! ...." Freeper LurkerNoMore! Adds "....FoxNews & MSNBC carried it.... CNN did not. ...." Freeper JeanS adds "...I just heard the news conference. Milwaukee DA is investigating. People voting at more than one site, one voter in Milwaukee (a H.S. school teacher wearing his school jacket) was given two ballots. Advertisments for Gore in polling places. Much more... " Freeper Longsfor Reagan adds "....I am listening right now. The cigarettes for votes thing is going to bring in federal prosecutors-maybe ...."

WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Jon Dougherty "..... A Florida congressman has written to the House Armed Services Committee to request an investigation into why numerous military personnel -- many who are self-proclaimed Republican supporters of George W. Bush -- are complaining that they did not receive requested absentee ballots in time to vote in this year's presidential election....... Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., in a letter to Rep. Floyd Spence, R-S.C., said an investigation was warranted due to "numerous reports that our military men and women were unable to vote in Tuesday's election due to delays in receiving absentee ballots."...... And in subsequent conversations with a Pentagon spokesman, WorldNetDaily has been told that military personnel stationed overseas or away from their state of residence must themselves request absentee ballots from those states. However, Scarborough said personnel he spoke with claimed to have followed standard procedure -- but still failed to receive ballots. "I have personally spoken to several of these individuals who claim they followed normal procedures but never received their ballots," the congressman said...."

WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Jon Dougherty ".....Because of sudden changes in assignments or other circumstances, service members "might not get your ballot," Bacon said. "So there will be people who fall between the cracks. It's unfortunate." However, many of the complaints received by WorldNetDaily and Scarborough were from service members who were not in unique circumstances or otherwise unreachable by mail. Also, many who complained said 2000 was the first election year in which they had not been able to get a ballot, even though they had followed standard procedure:

* "I'm a frustrated Coast Guard officer who has been trying to secure an absentee ballot from the state of Michigan. I initially requested my absentee ballots for the primary and general election back in February. I received the ballot for the primary, and voted. I never received my ballot for the general election. I began to get concerned and sent a second letter 3-4 weeks ago requesting the absentee ballot to no avail. I am a registered Republican.

"My neighbor, an officer in the USN, never received his absentee ballot from Florida -- he's even more upset than me. This seems too widespread to be a coincidence."

* "My son-in-law who is an Air Force officer in Iceland did not receive his absentee ballot until November 7, 2000 -- too late too get it postmarked and mailed!! It was ordered well in advance of the election!"

* "Failure to receive an absentee ballot didn't just happen to military people overseas. I have a young Air Force staff sergeant who lives next door to us in Montgomery, Ala., who has been complaining about not getting her absentee ballot. And she hasn't gotten a satisfactory answer as to why she didn't get a ballot after requesting one."

* "I am a retired U.S. Navy chief. I can tell you flat out 'some' absentee ballots do not get to service members."

* "While my husband was registered for South Dakota ... his military absentee ballot never arrived where he was deployed. My husband, an Air Force pilot stationed in Indian Springs, Nev., was deployed 82 days in Bosnia. He was able to receive a magazine sent by me through the postal system (it took one week), and he received two cards from his former boss in South Carolina. The mail sent was at the beginning and end of his deployment to an APO address. Yet, he never did receive his absentee ballot. My husband knows he did give plenty of time to send out for his. I am outraged at how this election has been run."

* "I am an instructor at a small community college in eastern North Carolina. Several of my students are the wives and girlfriends of military personnel stationed out of Cherry Point, N.C. Before the election, I reminded every class of students to vote and encouraged them to encourage their friends and family to vote. After the election, I praised the students who took the time to vote. You would not believe how many of those military wives and girlfriends came to me after the election and told me that their husbands and boyfriends had not been allowed to vote because of delays in getting their ballots."

* "I live in Southern Oregon, and my younger brother is stationed in San Diego. He just returned from service in Korea, and he did not get his absentee ballot."

Freeper Tree of Liberty 11/10/00 "....Wisconsin press conference going on right now. Has names and numbers of people willing to testify to the vote fraud. Asking for an investigation. Long list of fraud written to district atty. DA is being aggressive in the follow up. Besides "cigs for votes", poll worker after 8pm let more people vote, students who were registered were allowed to vote without id (violates state statutes). Giving precinct locations where fraud occured. Precincts had posters for Gore/Liberman. Understaffed precincts. People given two ballots. Over 600 complaints to date. Any calls for recount must come from the candidate(s). Bush/Cheney have been consulting with Gov. Tompson. ...."

Tony Snow of Fox News 11/10/00 Freeper rumrunner "..... Tony Snow of Fox news just stated that taking into account the New Mexico change, Bush is wihin 60,000 votes of popular vote, and the lead is "shrinking rapidly". Tony Snow's word. ....."

The Associated Press 11/10/00 David Espo ".....George W. Bush's campaign accused Al Gore on Friday of mounting ``endless challenges'' to a disputed vote count in make-or-break Florida and said the vice president should concede the race for the White House if he loses the state. Gore's top campaign aide countered: ``This election is not over.'' ......... At a news conference in Florida, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Republicans had twice in the past 40 years decided against challenging closely contested elections. ``For the good of the country and for the sake of our standing in the world, the campaigning should end and the business of an orderly transition should begin,'' said Baker, who is Bush's point man in Florida. ...... Earlier, Gore's campaign chairman, William Daley, said, ``The fact of the matter is, this election is in dispute right now.'' ....."

The Associated Press 11/10/00 David Espo ".....Not counting the Sunshine State, Bush had won 29 states for 246 electoral votes. Gore had won 18 states plus the District of Columbia for 255, with 270 needed for victory. ...... The incomplete national popular vote totals - as of 10 a.m. EST - showed Gore with 49,145,560 votes, or 48 percent. Bush had 48,947,577, also 48 percent. ...... Even some Democrats began suggesting that Gore be careful not to take his challenges too far. ......Former Sen. Robert Dole, appearing on CBS' ``The Early Show,'' said, ``I think if I were Al Gore, and I know him fairly well - we've had a count, we've had a recount - it's time for him to say the election is over, let's go on with the business of America. The recount was held. Bush is still the winner.''

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/10/00 ".....A circuit judge seized control of Palm Beach County's presidential ballots Thursday, bringing the courts into an election that has made the county the epicenter of a growing political crisis. ..... Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll issued a temporary injunction Thursday night preventing the county's elections canvassing board from releasing the ballots before a court hearing next week. ...... The injunction was requested by Beverly Rogers and Ray Kaplan, two Boca Raton voters who filed a lawsuit saying they and thousands like them were cheated out of their right to vote because the county's two-sided ballot was illegally confusing. ...... After the hand count, all of Tuesday's 461,000 ballots will be rechecked by machine at the request of the Republican Party, suspicious because most of those newfound votes went to Gore and carved into Bush's narrow lead in Florida. One reason for that, a county employee pushed the wrong button while recording votes from precinct 29E, west of Lake Worth, where voters favored Gore over Bush 368 to 23. "The `clear' button was hit instead," said LePore. "It was just an operator error." ......."

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/10/00 ".....According to an unofficial Associated Press estimate, Gore trailed by just over 200 votes after a recount of about 6 million ballots in the state. Officially, however, Gore trails by 1,784 votes after state officials confirmed the results from 53 of 67 counties. ...... Palm Beach County was among the 14 counties that have not submitted their totals, and now the county can't approve the vote for state officials before Tuesday's hearing in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Secretary of State Katherine Harris said all counties must submit their ballots by Tuesday, with absentee ballots from overseas being collected until next Friday. ......"

CNN (Yep, I couldn't believe it either.) 11/10/00 Freeper DoughtyOne "...... Around 11:45 PST CNN (of all stations) aired a piece that challenged the Gore team's stand on the popular vote claim. The whole emphasis of the presentation was the bogus claim stating that Gore is clearly the choice of the people, and their will should be honored. .......It was stated that this is a bogus claim. Couldn't believe my ears as they stated Bush may yet take the popular vote. They mentioned that California has 1.1 million outstanding absentee votes. The said that New York has 400,000 votes under impound for some reason. And they mentioned Washington has 900,000 votes still outstanding. ...... California's absentee votes may be offset by New York's, but I'm not sure how Washington will go. ...... They went to great lengths to mention that millions of ballots continue to be counted days, if not weeks after the polls close. It was a rather interesting presentation, and didn't got against Bush on a single issue. ......, One error was included, but it seemed to be one of simple ignorance. They suggested that California absentees might lean liberal, since the state went Gore. But they weren't shaken in their premise. They conveyed very clearly that Bush has a real chance of pulling ahead of Gore in the popular count. ...... Interesting to say the least, from CNN. ....."

CNN 11/10/00 "......Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Friday a controversial ballot used in Palm Beach County "fully conforms to Florida law" despite complaints that it confused some voters. ...... "The Department of State has now reviewed the Palm Beach County ballot. Clay Roberts, director of the Division of Elections, and Deborah Kearney, general counsel for the Department of State, have determined that the design and layout of the ballot does conform to the law of the state of Florida," Harris said in a statement. ...... Voters in the county have been complaining that the ballot's "butterfly" layout, with the candidates' names on both the right and left pages and the voting squares in the middle. Some voters said the layout caused them to mistakenly vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan when they meant to vote for Democrat Al Gore. ....."

Palm Beach Post 11/10/00 Michael Van Sickler "......More than 7,000 absentee votes from Florida residents stationed overseas still had not been counted Thursday, making them a possible final swing vote in a razor thin race for president. ..... The Palm Beach Post checked with elections officials in 52 counties Thursday and found at least 7,479 votes still were not counted out of 15,230 absentee votes issued overseas from those offices. Those votes must reach election offices by next Friday, according to state law. ...... But the 7,479 number doesn't include large counties like Broward and Pinellas, or counties like St. Johns that are home to large pockets of Navy personnel, the type of profession that would most likely station people overseas. The number of outstanding ballots for these 15 counties wasn't available late Thursday. ........"

Mary Ellen Klas, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau 11/10/00 ".....QUINCY -- In a small side-street office of this rural North Florida town, four county officials -- all of them Democrats -- spent seven hours Wednesday examining every pencil mark on 2,073 ballots that had been rejected by Gadsden County's ballot scanning machine to try to reconstruct what the voters meant. ....... The machine was calibrated to reject any ballot that had anything from a stray mark to an extra vote for a candidate. ...... But rather than reject these ballots outright -- as they did in Palm Beach County and many other counties that use punch ballots -- the practice of the Gadsden County canvassing board is to look at each questionable ballot to try to determine the intent of each voter. .... Watson, two other county commissioners and a county judge were the people trying to read the minds of their fellow voters. This county, the most Democratic in the state, cast 16,812 votes in the presidential race, 66 percent of them for Vice President Al Gore. ...... When campaign officials for both Gore and his Republican opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, learned of the uncounted ballots, they dispatched election law lawyers to the tiny town. ..... When the Gadsden officials began at 3 p.m, they suspected the results of their efforts had the potential to change the outcome of the presidential race. When they ended their recount at 10 p.m., they found only 170 additional votes for Gore, 17 additional votes for Bush and the threat of a lawsuit from the Florida Republican Party. ....... "They're not simply recounting the votes they counted (election) night, they're adding ballots by taking into consideration ballots that were not considered," said Ken Sukhia, a Tallahassee attorney representing the Republican Party. .......County officials justified their actions, saying they simply forgot to review the ballots before they certified them to the secretary of state on election night. "It was not done. It should have been done," said Watson. "This is Gadsden County, we get a lot of concerns about the ballot box. We wanted to do it to make sure we had the most accurate count." ......"

Reuters 11/11/00 "......In a dramatic turnabout, a recount has pushed Republican George W. Bush into a 17-vote lead over Vice President Al Gore in New Mexico, but there are still uncounted votes to be tallied, officials said on Friday. Before the recount of 67,000 votes from Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque and its suburbs, Bush had trailed Gore by 10,000 votes and television networks had projected Gore to be the winner of New Mexico's five electoral votes. ....... Officials said there were still as many as 189 ``emergency'' ballots still to be counted, but that would not concluded until Thursday. ....... Emergency ballots were cast by voters who originally got an absentee or early vote ballot to send in by mail, but then decided to vote on election day with ordinary ballots. The emergency votes would not be counted until officials were certain the voters had not sent in their original ballots, too. ....."

FoxNews 11/11/00 "...... The Florida judge who decided to delay certifying the votes cast in Palm Beach County is married to a Gore campaign contributor, raising the question of a conflict of interest as the presidency hangs in the balance. FOX News has learned that Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll is married to Jonathan Low, who contributed $500 to Al Gore's campaign. The first $250 donation was made in February 1999, and a second $250 contribution was made in September. ...... Republican Florida Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart said Saturday that Kroll should recuse herself from the case because of her apparent conflict of interest. ..... The Bush campaign filed an injunction to stop hand recounts from occurring, while the Gore camp claimed it is considering "other options" if the count doesn't go their way. Former Secretary of State James Baker - representing George W. Bush's interests - said the injunction was needed to "preserve the integrity and the consistency and the quality and the finality of the most important civic action that Americans take." ...... Filed Saturday morning in U.S. District Court for the southern district of Florida, the suit was assigned to a Clinton appointee, Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks. A hearing is scheduled for Monday. ...... Bush said the injunction was necessary. "It would be good for this country to have this election over so that the new administration can do the people's business," he told reporters at his Texas ranch. Baker said a manual count is unfair, as human error becomes a factor. "Machines are neither Republicans nor Democrats and therefore can be neither consciously or unconsciously biased," he said. ........."

FoxNews 11/11/00 "......A hand-count generally does change the vote tallies, and the counties in question tend to vote for Democrats. But Democrats claim it is necessary in order to count votes that machines cannot read because the holes are not fully punched through. This leaves "hanging chads," which computers read as a "no vote." According to election officials in Tallahassee, approximately 3 percent of all punch card type ballots exhibit such a problem. Some of the hanging chads likely fell off during the recount, which officials believe explains the net gains of both Bush and Gore. According to state law, chads that are partially punched through but left hanging may be counted as a vote, but those that are fully attached, with only an indentation, may not. ....."

AP 11/11/00 "...... As the Bush campaign challenges Democrat-backed recounts in Florida's presidential balloting, it also is sending signals that - if the Florida vote continues to be contested - it may seek recounts in states where Al Gore appears to have narrow victories. ...... The Bush campaign dispatched representatives to Des Moines to try to assess a possible recount in Iowa, where Gore won by 5,069 votes. Possible recounts are also under consideration in New Mexico, Wisconsin and Oregon, where absentee and mail-in ballots are still being counted. ....."

AP 11/11/00 "...... Iowa: The Bush campaign has sent two campaign staff members to Iowa to help assess a possible challenge to Al Gore's scant 5,069 vote lead. Republicans have until absentee ballots arrive - Thursday or Friday, depending on the county - to seek a recount. ...... ``If they want to start looking at Iowa, then I say, 'Make our day.' We don't have anything to hide,'' said Tom Slockett, the auditor in Johnson County, where 53,400 ballots might be re-examined if a recount is requested. ......"

AP 11/11/00 "......New Mexico: Neither party has done anything to suggest a recount would be demanded. But absentee ballots continue to be counted and Bush now leads Gore by 17 votes. Gore had led Bush by 6,825 votes on election night. A recount must be requested within six days of completion of the final canvass. As many as 370 special absentee ballots await counting next week. ...... The latest count included 37,947 early-voting ballots, 1,762 damaged, hand-counted ballots and 257 previously missing ballots discovered in a locked box at the county election warehouse Friday afternoon. ...... "

AP 11/11/00 "......Oregon: There are no reports of Bush representatives coming to Oregon to evaluate a possible recount, although Gore leads by fewer than 6,000 votes out of nearly 1.4 million cast. .... With 99 percent of the votes counted Friday, unofficial results gave 702,218 votes to Gore and 696,462 to Bush - a difference of 5,756. A recount would be required by state law if the margin falls to less than one-fifth of 1 percent, or about 2,800 votes. If a recount is called, it is expected to be held in the first week of December. The counting of about 40,000 votes from the state's mail-in balloting resumes on Monday. ......"

AP 11/11/00 "......Wisconsin: The Bush campaign has not ruled out a demand for a recount in Wisconsin where Gore led Bush by 6,099 votes out of 2.5 million votes cast. There is no automatic recount in Wisconsin, but a candidate may request one within three business days after the last vote canvass. ...... The state Republican Party said it has received about 800 complaints of questionable polling procedures from around the state, including 600 from Milwaukee County. The GOP has asked the Milwaukee County district attorney to look into the allegations, which include voters getting two ballots or being told they had already voted. ......"

Ron Word 11/11/00 "......About 26,000 ballots with more than one presidential candidate or no candidate marked were disqualified in Duval County and never counted, election officials said Saturday. Duval County is as solidly Republican as Palm Beach County is Democratic. Texas Gov. George W. Bush carried Duval County by more than 44,000 votes. Officials said there was no way to know how the nullified ballots affected the race between Bush and Vice President Al Gore. ....... The disqualified ballots represent about 9 percent of the 291,626 cast Tuesday. ......Mike Langton, chairman of the northeast Florida Gore campaign, reacted angrily to news of the 26,000 nullified votes. He said he had learned of them too late to ask for a manual recount, which under Florida law must be requested within 72 hours of the election. He said Stafford had told him only 200 to 300 votes were nullified. Johnson said Langton had misunderstood what Stafford had said. ....... Langton said he had notified the state and national Gore campaigns of the situation. Mike Hightower, who represents the Bush campaign in northeast Florida, said earlier the problems were voter error and not mistakes on the part of election officials. ....."

Freeper rintense ".....I think Gore broke a law! Read these 2 statutes about phone call solicitations in FL!

106.147 Telephone solicitation; disclosure requirements; prohibitions; exemptions; penalties.--

(1)(a) Any telephone call supporting or opposing a candidate, elected public official, or ballot proposal must identify the persons or organizations sponsoring the call by stating either: "paid for by_____" (insert name of persons or organizations sponsoring the call) or "paid for on behalf of_____" (insert name of persons or organizations authorizing call). This paragraph does not apply to any telephone call in which both the individual making the call is not being paid and the individuals participating in the call know each other prior to the call.

(b) Any telephone call conducted for the purpose of polling respondents concerning a candidate or elected public official which is a part of a series of like telephone calls that consists of fewer than 1,000 completed calls and averages more than 2 minutes in duration is presumed to be a political poll and not subject to the provisions of paragraph (a).

(c) No telephone call shall state or imply that the caller represents any person or organization unless the person or organization so represented has given specific approval in writing to make such representation.

(d) No telephone call shall state or imply that the caller represents a nonexistent person or organization.

(2) Any telephone call, not conducted by independent expenditure, supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot proposal, requires prior written authorization by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal that the call supports. A copy of such written authorization must be placed on file with the qualifying officer by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal prior to the time the calls commence.

(3)(a) Any person who willfully violates any provision of this section commits a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

(b) For purposes of paragraph (a), the term "person" includes any candidate; any officer of any political committee, committee of continuous existence, or political party executive committee; any officer, partner, attorney, or other representative of a corporation, partnership, or other business entity; and any agent or other person acting on behalf of any candidate, political committee, committee of continuous existence, political party executive committee, or corporation, partnership, or other business entity.

History.--s. 18, ch. 97-13.

106.1475 Telephone solicitation; registered agent requirements; penalty.--

(1) Any person or organization that conducts any business in this state which consists of making paid telephone calls supporting or opposing any candidate or elected public official must, prior to conducting such business, have and continuously maintain, for at least 180 days following the cessation of such business activities in the state, a registered agent for the purpose of any service of process, notice, or demand required or authorized by law and must file with the division a notice of such registered agent. Such registered agent must be an individual who is a resident of this state, a domestic corporation, or a foreign corporation authorized to do business in this state. However, this subsection does not apply to any person or organization already lawfully registered to conduct business in this state.

(2) For purposes of this section, conducting business in this state as specified in subsection (1) includes both placing telephone calls from a location in this state and placing telephone calls from a location outside this state to individuals located in this state.

(3)(a) The division shall create and maintain forms for the notice required by subsection (1), which, at a minimum, must elicit all of the following information:

1. The name, address, and telephone number of the registered agent.

2. The name, address, and telephone number of the person or organization conducting business in this state as specified in subsection (1).

(b) The person or organization conducting business in this state as specified in subsection (1) must immediately notify the division of any changes in the information required in paragraph (a).

(4) Any person or organization that violates this section commits a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

History.--s. 19, ch. 97-13.

Freeper HeiltoTheChiefNOT! ".....It was also reported that in Fla.(ESPECIALLY Palm Bch.) that REMEMBER TO VOTE and PUNCH NUMBER FIVE POSTCARDS WERE SENT OUT! ..... "

Freeper erotome "...... I find this section interesting:

(2) Any telephone call, not conducted by independent expenditure, supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot proposal, requires prior written authorization by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal that the call supports.

That would be Gore. So much for their blather that the telemarketing calls were in 'response" to a slew of calls from befuddled voters.

A copy of such written authorization must be placed on file with the qualifying officer by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal prior to the time the calls commence.

Let's see it. We've seen the butterfly ballots on camera. Let's see the actual filing document, including the date when it was filed. ......"

Miami Herald 11/11/00 Paul Brinkley-Rogers Tim Henerson "...... More than 7,000 overseas ballots have yet to be returned to Florida, more than enough to turn the corner for George W. Bush or Al Gore -- although no one knows how many will actually be sent back or where in the world they will come from. To be counted, they must arrive by 5 p.m. Friday. ...... According to state law, overseas ballots that arrive after election night are stored unopened in vaults in Florida's 67 counties. They will remain there, uncounted, until the Friday deadline passes. Each county decides when to count its votes. ...... A total of 1,082 ballots went to civilians living overseas. And the largest batch among those -- 44 -- was sent to Floridians living in Israel, where an estimated 10,000 Jews with Florida ties are living. .....Election officials were not sure how many of the ballots from Israel were counted on election night and how many are still out there, or if their senders voted for Gore, as the Democratic Party believes. ..... A Herald survey of 33 counties on Friday showed that 3,975 overseas ballots had not yet arrived in Florida. A Palm Beach Post survey of 52 counties on Thursday showed officials were waiting for 7,429 ballots of 15,230 that were requested. An Associated Press survey of 28 counties found that less than half of the roughly 7,000 ballots mailed overseas had not come back. ...... Okaloosa County Elections Supervisor Pat Hollarn said, ``I expect a sizable number -- at least a couple of hundred -- military votes, and most of those will be Republican.'' ...... Escambia County, where Pensacola naval base is located, still had not received 1,176 ballots sent mostly to military personnel. Hillsborough County was waiting for 518. In Clay County, 195 overseas ballots, mostly military, were locked in a vault. .......``I voted for Bush,'' said Army Staff Sgt. Bill Wyman, who said he was in the Middle East and is from Jacksonville. ``My vote is probably somewhere between here and Florida. That's one vote that could make a big difference.'' In descending order after Israel, Miami-Dade sent out 20 ballots to England, 17 to Costa Rica, 16 to Spain, 13 to Canada and 10 to France. Forty-six percent of those requesting ballots in Miami-Dade were Republicans, and 42 percent were Democrats. ......"

Washington Post Sue Ann Pressley George Lardner Jr 11/11/00 "...... The scene was similarly chaotic farther north in Volusia County, where election officials were forced today to postpone a mammouth recount by hand of 184,000 votes in Tuesday's presidential election when beleaguered members of their canvassing board were unable to complete a preliminary review of write-in votes. ......... The inspection of write-ins had of this afternoon produced four more votes for Vice President Gore, one more for Texas Gov. George W. Bush and one more for Libertarian Party candidate Harry Browne. One voter proposed "Jesus" for president, but the canvassing board discarded it as an unauthorized write-in. ......"

AP 11/10/00 John Solomon "......The Democratic National Committee paid Texas-based TeleQuest to make the calls Tuesday night ­ while polls were still open ­ alerting voters in the heavily Democratic enclave in Florida of possible confusion with the ballots they cast....... "Some voters have encountered a problem today with punch card ballots in Palm Beach County," the script for the call said. "These voters have said that they believe that they accidentally punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate." "If you have already voted and think you may have punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate, you should return to the polls and request that the election officials write down your name so that this problem can be fixed," the script said....... The firm took the names and numbers of voters who said they may have cast an errant ballot, providing the Democratic Party a list of about 2,400 voters in the county who thought they may have misvoted......... If voters were about to go to the polls, the script called for the caller to instruct them to "be sure to punch Number 5 for Gore-Lieberman" and "do NOT punch any other number as you might end up voting for someone else by mistake."......"

AP 11/10/00 John Solomon "......The maneuver indicates that long before Americans awoke to the reality of the Florida ballot dispute, Democrats were already mobilizing voters there. The concern has focused on Palm Beach, where 19,000 ballots were disqualified and hundreds of voters have said they mistakenly voted for Patrick Buchanan while trying to vote for Gore........ Wade Scott, an account manager with TeleQuest, said Democratic Party officials contacted his company shortly before 6 p.m.EST Tuesday to make the calls. With only an hour to go before Florida polls closed, his company mobilized all of its telemarketers to make some 5,000 calls in less than 45 minutes, Scott said. "It was a very short burst of calling for our industry," Scott said. He said only about 100 of the voters in Palm Beach it contacted hadn't voted, and about 2,400 felt they may have made a mistake on the ballot. ....."

Freeper jokemoke "..... This is great. More and more reasons Palm Beach County ballots can not be certified. Keep coming up with these examples of confusion. Many thanks go out to the DemocRATS for making the case for us. ....."

Freeper First_Salute "...... The stunner in this, is that the script which states that some voters were reporting confusion ... was just that(!), a script! The Democrat Party pre-planned the broadcast of the notion it intended the public to absorb, which was, in the event of the Democrats losing Florida, the script was to prejudice enough voter's. Incredible; until now. ....."

Freeper patricia ".... At about midnight last night ALL votes had been counted, and GWB was determined the winner of NM. The Chrm of the Repub Party of NM, John Dendahl was at the 'voting counting' [as were a team of NM Repub] and when the vote counting was completed, the Repub were celebrating and the demos were whining.

The 189 'in lieu of votes' that have to be CHECKED on Thurs are votes to be checked to make sure the person DID NOT VOTE TWICE. These votes represent people who voted at the polls, but who had requested absentee ballots. They signed an affidavit at the polls saying they were voting ONLY at the polls and had NOT sent in the absentee ballot. Thurs, officials will check to make sure there was no replication of votes. The number of votes giving the win in NM to GWB varies depending upon which thread you read here. I personally WOULD NOT TRUST ANY NUMBERS GIVEN TO ME BY THE MEDIA ... John Dendahl has MUCHO STREET AND ELITE SMARTS, has lived in NM all his life, so in intimately familiar with the maze on NM politics ... so I'm trusting at this point that he knows what he's doing ... and he says GWB has won NM. ....." I do not have any idea if this info has been released to CNN or not, and I do NOT want to conjecture why they are doing what they are doing. Just before midnight last night, KKOB-AM released the info on GWB winning NM and the Repubs celebrating ... it was an 'on the scene' report which they had been tracking ALL DAY. I listened ALL DAY because I was so vitally interested in how the count of these last votes would affect GWB in NM. I DO NOT use TV as a news source. GWB was supposedly behind by 9,575 on the evening of 11.07.00 ....... "

Saturday Night Live 11/11/00 Freeper Inspector Harry Callahan "..... Funniest skit was Al making a National address stating: "The olny fair thing to do is have a revote in the heavily populated African American and Jewish communities in Florida with ballots printed in English, Hebrew, and Ebonics" He went on to say he'd abide by the out come of the vote (even though he won the popular vote - a line used 100 times ) Gore has been roasted in every skit tonight called loser and everything else Tune in for a good laugh Which is the greater mistake, voting for Buchanan by mistake of voting for him on purpose? LOL!! ......" Freeper 11th_VA "....RENO: " I'm declaring marshal Law ..." " we've already had one barbeque in Texas " - ROFLOL !! Gore's getting roasted .. "

SNL Inspector Harry Callahan ".... Reno: The voting is not official until I say so. News Commentator: You mean we are under martial law? (martial may have been spelled wrong) Also, Ashcroft used Juigi (may be spelled wrong) Board for the concession to Carnahan......." "Hillary: "I'm used to being one of a hundred" LOL!! " Freeper wrenn1010 "..... Yes indeed, the best rebuke I have seen yet in putting Al Gore to shame and exposing his foolishness. ...."

SNL Freeper michaelt ".....They had Al turning the Palm Beach ballot this way and that, saying he had a Harvard degree and couldn't figure it out. He was confused about all the names on the ballot...Gore, Buchanan, Bush, etc. And all the other names...Al, Joe, George, John, John...hey there are two Johns! How can anyone figure that out? He did the personal sob story again, saying that one elderly couple got confused and ate their ballots, another one sent it to Streisand. He said that he would accept the results of the recount if it didn't go his way, but that then he'd contest elections in Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia.... My wife and I were rolling on the floor laughing. It really was brutal! ....."

Thomas B. Edsall 11/12/00 Washington Post "......Texas Gov. George W. Bush pulled ahead of Vice President Gore yesterday by 17 votes in New Mexico, a key state in a Republican contingency plan if Gore is declared the winner in Florida. The battle to win 270 votes in the electoral college has taken on a unique calculus. Florida remains crucial, but the close outcomes in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon are critical in what one Republican operative called a "scorched-earth strategy" GOP officials hope to avoid implementing....... The strategy is to challenge Gore's close wins in Iowa, Wisconsin and, perhaps, Oregon. If successful in Wisconsin with 11 electoral votes and either Oregon or Iowa, with 7 each, Bush could then, under this scenario, still win in the electoral college without Florida's 25 votes.......That depends on keeping New Mexico in the Bush column. If New Mexico flips back to Gore, Bush would have to overturn the outcome in all three other states - Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon - to make up for the loss of Florida........Republicans may be forced to adopt their recount strategy before Florida is resolved, if the dispute there continues for more than 10 days, to meet the deadlines some states have for making formal recount requests......"

Yahoo 11/12/00 Carol Giacomo "....Calling the presidential deadlock a ``black mark'' on the U.S. election process, Bush campaign representative James Baker on Sunday increased pressure on the Gore campaign to accept a Republican proposal to resolve the dispute quickly. ..... In an interview with Reuters, the former secretary of state stressed the need for ``finality'' and fairness in the still unresolved White House race. ``You don't determine the winner on the basis of this flawed process (in Florida) where in four predominantly Democratic counties, the election officials make the judgement,'' he said. ...... ``That's not a fair way to determine the results of the presidential election.'' ... Baker told NBC's ``Meet the Press'' on Sunday, ``We would dismiss this lawsuit promptly if they would agree with us to respect the results of the statewide recount (of Florida votes) subject only to tabulating the results of the overseas ballots,'' due to be received by Friday. ``Whoever wins then, wins,'' Baker said. ``We will accept that result.'' ...... Appearing on the same NBC program, Gore adviser Warren Christopher, also a former secretary of state, did not embrace the Republican proposal. But he said he believed the disputed election would be settled in ``a matter of days,'' not weeks.

Christopher previously had urged the Bush campaign to withdraw its suit on the manual recount. ....."

***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 11/12/00 "......1) Three media liberals on the weekend talk shows took Al Gore's side and defended his decision to pursue hand counts in selected Democratic counties: Eleanor Clift, Margaret Carlson and Al Hunt. Hunt advocated a "re-vote" for the entire state of Florida. 2) Now we can get around those right-wingers. Newsweek's Evan Thomas wondered of George Bush: "Will he be brave enough" to "sack the right wing leadership" in Congress? James Warren of the Chicago Tribune effused that the divided Senate means no "wacko right-wing Supreme Court nominees......"

Original Sources 11/10/00 Mary Mostert "...... For all the suspense and commotion over the year 2000 election and its importance in setting the stage for the 21st Century it did not actually get many more Americans to the voting booth than the lackluster 1996 election. In 1996 97,273274 Americans voted. So far 100,429,893 or only about 51% of the voting rolls voted in this year's presidential race. ....... There are still about a million votes, most of them absentee votes, still to be counted. Yet, media pundits are still making sweeping statements about the election, such as claiming that Al Gore "has won the popular vote." No, he hasn't. At this point, no one has won anything. What we have are a lot of bumbling pundits on TV voicing their opinions about votes that have not yet been counted. ......"

TITLE 3 - THE PRESIDENT CHAPTER 1 - PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND VACANCIES TEXT Sec. 5. Determination of controversy as to appointment of electors If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned. SOURCE (June 25, 1948, ch. 644, 62 Stat. 673.) SECREF SECTION REFERRED TO IN OTHER SECTIONS This section is referred to in section 15 of this title.

WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Paul Sperry "......Officials in the Pensacola, Fla., elections office say they've been flooded with calls from irate voters who claim they were discouraged from voting for George W. Bush Tuesday when the New York-based TV networks called Florida for Al Gore before polls closed in the state's western panhandle, which is in an earlier time zone. Also, a Republican state lawmaker from Pensacola is rounding up voters who apparently "walked away" from poll lines when they heard the premature news, which turned out to be wrong. Some voters have told the lawmaker they are willing to sue for another chance to cast their vote for Bush, WorldNetDaily has learned. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Republican Party in Escambia County, Fla., has asked his precinct leaders to identify potential Bush voters who reportedly left poll lines because of the erroneous network announcement. Pensacola, home to a Navy base and the Blue Angels, is the county seat. ........"

WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Paul Sperry "......At 7:49 p.m. Eastern time, MSNBC led the network pack in declaring Gore the winner in Florida. ABC, CBS, Fox and Atlanta-based CNN quickly followed. News first reached voters in Florida's panhandle at 6:49 central time -- with 11 minutes left before polls closed. The news could also have affected those waiting in line after 7 p.m, Gilliam says. .....Most of the Florida peninsula is in the Eastern time zone. But 10 counties, including Escambia, are in the central time zone. ...... Escambia County, which voted about 2-to-1 in favor of Bush, has 69,724 registered Republicans, O'Gwynn says. She's says it won't be known for another week or so how many of them did not vote. ......."

ABC News 11/11/00 "......Vice President Al Gore narrowly defeated Gov. George W. Bush in Oregon today, according to unofficial vote tallies released by The Associated Press. .......Even in Oregon, the projected margin is so close that a recount cannot be ruled out. With 99 percent of the votes counted as of Friday afternoon, unofficial results gave 698,252 votes to Gore and 692,279 to Bush - a difference of 5,973, according to The AP. The unofficial results showed Green Party candidate Ralph Nader with 74,156 votes. ...... Paddy McGuire, chief aide to Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, a Democrat, said he got a call at his home this morning from Gore. McGuire said the vice president sounded optimistic. "He said, 'I just wanted to know how things were going there,'" McGuire said. "I said, 'Well, Mr. Vice President, I think we're going to pull it out for you. ......"

Freeper 11/11/00 ".... Tucker Eskew, Bush Campaign Spokesman is on CNN right now. He says that there is deliberate mischief in the recount. ....." Hole_n_one ".....Eskew referred to the sudden rule changes made in evaluating the ballots.....chard attachments and such. ....." Freeper Southflanknothpawsis ".....From what I understand it was much easier to claim a "vote" by simply looking to see if light could be seen through when holding it up. Apparently when they switched to actually looking at the broken tags that hold the punch hole, it reduced the number of ballots that were being interpreted as a vote. ....."

CNN 11/11/00 Freeper GRANGER "...... CNN just showed a video of the hand counting underway in Palm Beach County. It clearly showed a woman impressing her large thumbnail on a ballot. Such an action could and may have altered the ballot. This is direct evidence of ballot tampering. ....."

NewsMax 11/10/00 Christopher Ruddy "......In my short life I have learned that Democrats throw better parties, know how to have fun - and have a penchant for stealing elections. Politics to them is blood sport. That's not true for Republicans. They like to behave like the nice guy........ And that's great - except when you are in a life and death struggle for the future of this country. Bush has exemplified the good guy approach. ....."

Fox News 11/12/00 William LaJeunesse ".....But questions are now circulating about some of those voters being unfairly and illegally influenced - even intimidated - by Democratic campaign workers in certain precincts of Miami's Little Haiti. ....... A near-perfect turnout in a heavily Democratic district helped sweep the state's first Haitian-American state legislator, a well-known activist and attorney, into office with more than 80 percent of the vote.

The Republican candidate, a political novice, is crying foul, saying his opponent's supporters prodded some voters into voting a straight Democratic ticket. ......... More than 100,000 Haitians live in Miami-Dade County, many of them in Little Haiti. Most are new to America, new to democracy and are unfamiliar with the U.S. election process. That leaves them vulnerable to intimidation, say campaign workers and a prominent Haitian minister. ...... "I believe there should be an investigation into the Haitian vote," said Rev. Phipps St. Hilaire of Christian Churches United. "There were a lot of calls here from people who said there were people who intimidated them." ...... Phipps said he received at least three dozen complaints from constituents that Democratic campaign workers for Al Gore and state assemblyman Philip Brutus unfairly and illegally violated the 50-foot rule around some precincts in Little Haiti. ......"

AP 11/12/00 Karin Meadows "...... The totals from the AP canvass were Bush 2,910,195, Gore 2,909,907. Those numbers reflect the latest figures from Palm Beach County. ..... Further complicating the picture, election officials in Polk County said that a rescan of 92 of 163 precincts resulted in a gain of 104 votes for Bush and seven for Gore. These are votes that had not been recorded in the previous count and recount of ballots. ....Election authorities stopped short of making the figures official pending a meeting on Monday to certify the totals and report those to the state. ....."

CNN 11/12/00 Freeper Steven W. "..... Volusia County just figured out they can't meet the Tuesday deadline so they're sueing the Florida Secretary of State ....."

Freeper Clarity on lawsuits "...... Well, of course, you can never discount what a corrupt official might do, but my assessment asumes that the court would follow the law. The law is unambiguous in these matters, as courts will not interfere with political processes that are not unconstitutional. The certification deadline has a presumptive, material public policy underlying it as determined by the Florida legislature. If, and it's really very very remote, some judge stays the deadline, I am quite certain that his ruling would be overturned immediately, probably even that same day, by a higher court. ......" after looking at case law "..... This case affirms what I have been saying about the manual recount. The board has discretion to order one, and it's not likely that its decision to order one will be effectively stayed. However, since I first began saying this, several contrary factors have become prominent, notably (1) the absence of any consistent standards by which valid votes are determined during a manual recount and (2) the evidence of differing standards actually being used simultaneously during the manual recount. Thus, I have changed my mind about the possibility of the manual recount being halted by the federal judge tomorrow. I'd still say it's not likely, but it's definitely not impossible. ......"

Opinion Journal 11/12/00 John Fund "....... If you would like to know exactly how your next president will be determined, read this Saturday night dispatch from the Associated Press: During the manual count of votes in Palm Beach County, Fla., officials switched tests mid-count to decide the validity of the ballots. In the morning, the canvassing board said that they would count a vote if any of the corners of the bits of paper punched out of the cards called "chad" were punched. The board then decided that they would instead use the "sunlight test" if they could see sun come though an indentation, it would count. About a quarter of the way through the counting, however, a board member determined that the light test was flawed and told the others members to go back to the first test. The change in procedures will undoubtedly slow down the hand count as board members had to go back and recount all of the votes previously counted using the new rules. ....."

Opinion Journal 11/12/00 John Fund ".......County Judge Charles Burton, the commission's chairman, urged caution. He put forth a motion to ask the Florida Secretary of State's office for advice before proceeding with a full hand count. But he was overruled. The vote for the complete recount, which came after 2 a.m. today, was 2-1. ....... The two members of the canvassing board are Carol Roberts, a county commissioner, and Theresa LePore, the county elections supervisor. Ms. Roberts is a highly partisan Democrat who met with President Clinton in Palm Beach last year while she was contemplating a run for Congress. Ms. LePore, an elected Democrat, is the designer of the infamous "butterfly ballot" that both Democrats and impartial observers say caused confusion on Election Day. ........ Ms. LePore says she designed the ballot to make the print bigger for seniors, the group complaining the loudest about it. But she sent sample ballots to every voter and all candidates before the election and didn't receive any complaints. Nonetheless, she has come in for bitter criticism. The AP says she "might be the most reviled Democrat in the country" because her ballot "may have cost Al Gore the election." Ms. LePore has gone into near-seclusion and has hired a lawyer to defend herself against lawsuits. ......It is for that reason that Ms. LePore should have recused herself from the decision to launch an unprecedented hand count of all presidential ballots in Palm Beach--and why she should recuse herself from all subsequent decisions about this election. She has a blatant conflict of interest. ....."

AP 11/12/00 ".....Al Gore added 36 votes and George W. Bush lost three in a machine recount in Palm Beach County in Florida's disputed presidential balloting. A hand count of selected precincts turned up enough errors in the election night vote to prompt county election officials to debate a complete recount by hand. ...... Election officials said their exhaustive manual recount found numerous differences from the machine count. Palm Beach County official Carol Roberts said the errors point to potentially 1,900 errors county wide -- more than the total margin between Bush and Gore statewide. She requested a manual recount of all ballots in Palm Beach County, where more than 425,000 votes were cast on Tuesday. ....... "

Freeper GreatOne 11/11/00 ".....If you go to newschannel2000.com, they have a copy of the injunction papers filed. Bush is attempting to have the Florida statutes regarding recounting declared unconstitutional based upon violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, stating that equal protection and free speech are being violated. The theory is much as Jim Baker said earlier today - there is no general standard for determining what is a valid ballot, there is no standard for protecting against human error, this process leads to endless litigation, etc. ....."

Freeper piasa "....... Did you see the old biddy give the blonde the evil eye? ROTFLMAO! Biddy really wants to call the vote- it will make those on the board with common sense look bad to the hysterical dem constituency... and make the biddy look like a freakin' queen bee. Others making it clear that it is NOT machine error but incorrect voting by the voters . (My comment- Why should an idiot who couldn't punch out a simple square get a reprieve?) Biddy wants to meet at 10AM Monday morning to discuss... Board has agreed to have a TOTAL recount over this... based on using their democratic-heavy counties as a point to extrapolate for all other counties (even conservative ones! arseholes!)... these people couldn't write a passing-grade school lab error analysis to save their lives. Duvall County's results, should the pubbies reserve the right to recount, extrapolated over the entire state would get a totally opposite result. ....."

Freeper NittanyLion 11/12/00 "..... Ignoring the SecState's office was a very bad move. Perhaps this idiotic woman should have spent a little more time on FreeRepublic today - she may have understood the constraints. ...." Freeper Howlin ".... They won't get that injunction. BTW, wonder how ALL the people of Palm Beach County will like their votes thrown out?? If she doesn't make her deadline, NONE of the votes will count and Bush will win! ...." Freeper bootyist-monk "...... No worries. Dept. of Elections lawyer already told them they are on shaky ground for calling the recount due to voter error rather than machine tabulation error. Woman who certified the machines reiterated that the machine count was correct. No problems with the machines. Dept. of Elections and the Bush lawsuit shut this down on Monday. Bank on it. ......" Freeper rpierce "...... This Roberts woman just stepped on it in front of the entire world. Her ignoring and bypassing the pleadings of the chairman (who is a judge) and the counsel for the Sec. of State/Elections Commission was a major embarrasment; all on camera for the country and the world to see. Somebody forgot to tell her the backroom Democrat tricks and manueverings won't work quite as well in full view of the world's cameras. ....."

Freeper Borneo1 "..... Did I understand the representative from the Secretary of State's office right? I think she was warning the committee that the threshold probably had not been met to trigger a full hand recount. ..." Freeper Mr.Breeze "..... I suspect the Sec. of State office will advise them not to proceed unless the entire state recounts. Keeping the ball in the air until Monday morning just gives time for the courts to act. As the rep from the state said, this was voter error not machine error. We cannot allow stupidity to be a protected class. ...." Freeper DigR "..... Just watched that manual recount meeting on CNN re: PBC. Carol Roberts, what an idot. Tried to ramrod the manual recount through. The Chair, the only sane person in the bunch of three, motioned that an advisory opionion be sought be going forward with the manual recount. The FL Sec of State asst attorney for elections noted that the stated statute regarding manual recount had to do with computerized tabulation errors, NOT voter errors. The other two women board members, would hear none of it. In fact, the woman who is not Carol Roberts the wench, seemed so dazed and tired and confused, she had to be told what to say! Anyone else see this? Anyway the manual recount is not set to begin until the board meets at 10AM on Monday to determine the process. The Vote to manual recount: 2 to 1. ..." Freeper FirstFlaBn "...... Relax. Florida Statute 102.168 allows for a more formal contest of the returns in state court. The media has been ignoring this, but you know what to expect out of the media. By this law any taxpayer in Florida can file suit within 10 days of the LAST county to certify its results. Go look it up for yourself. ....."

102.112 Deadline for submission of county returns to the Department of State; penalties.--

(1) The county canvassing board or a majority thereof shall file the county returns for the election of a federal or state officer with the Department of State immediately after certification of the election results. 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

102.166 Protest of election returns; procedure.--

(5) If the manual recount indicates an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election, the county canvassing board shall:

(a) Correct the error and recount the remaining precincts with the vote tabulation system;

(b) Request the Department of State to verify the tabulation software; or

(c) Manually recount all ballots.

CNN 11/12/00 Freeper CarolAnne "..... Sheez people. Settle down. Remember, any county that is not certified by Tuesday @ 5 p.m. their votes will be thrown out! And it is impossible to finish a hand count by Tuesday of PBC. Quotes from only one of several articles that have reported this: ....."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." 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. ....."

CNN 11/11/00 scooby321 "....... 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 statue 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." ......"

Washington Post 11/12/00 Dan Biaz "....... Gore campaign chairman William Daley and former secretary of state Warren Christopher made no . . . promise[s] when they spoke with reporters yesterday after meeting with the vice president for much of the afternoon. For now, they made clear, they will hang tough in the face of Bush's legal challenge. ...... The [Gore} campaign has not ruled out embracing further legal action, particularly involving the Palm Beach vote, in part because no one in either campaign has a clear idea whether the hand counting will significantly change the current margin. ...... But Gore's camp is willing to consider additional legal action - despite the concerns by leading Democrats - in large measure because Daley and Christopher were influenced by what they heard in Florida when they arrived there Wednesday. ...."

Sun-Sentinel 9/8/00 Brad Hahn "...... Beverly Green picked up another vote Thursday in her bid for the state House District 84 seat -- but is still 13 short of a chance at victory. Election night results showed the Republican from West Palm Beach had lost her party primary by 14 votes, prompting her to ask for a recount. ....... Computers retabulated the results Thursday and found that she had indeed been shorted by the one vote -- a moral victory, maybe, but not enough to make a difference. Now Green has to decide whether to ask a judge to demand another count. ......Green asked that the votes be counted by hand, but the board unanimously agreed to handle the chore by computer.

"It wasn't that close, the manual count is historically when it's single digits," said Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, who joined County Commissioner Carol Roberts and County Judge James Burton on the board. ....."

US Department of Commerce ".... Let me say: with the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, it's a challenge to find good people. But we are offering good wages, up to $18.50 an hour. I know census takers are high quality, because there are some former census takers who have gone on to hold high public office -- like county commissioner. In fact, Carol Roberts from Palm Beach County Florida was a former census employee, and now as a County Commissioner is touring all those condos in Palm Beach getting everybody to participate. ....."

The Palm Beach Post 7/4/99 Marcia Gelbart ".......They make their decisions in the sixth-floor government chamber in downtown West Palm Beach. But in pursuit of public business, Palm Beach County commissioners travel the state, the country and even the world. Highlights of their recent globe-trotting: the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts, and a Buenos Aires restaurant for dinner and a tango show. ......Altogether, since October 1996, the county's seven commissioners have taken 85 business trips at a total cost to taxpayers of $ 52,566, according to a Palm Beach Post review of county travel records. ....... "An elected official who spends their time wisely traveling can bring home a great deal of knowledge that benefits their constituents," Commissioner Carol Roberts says. Roberts has spent more money crossing the country during this time than any other commissioner: $ 13,319. And the bills are climbing. In the last six months, Roberts spent $ 4,866 - almost as much as she did in all of 1998. .........The travel bug has bitten both Marcus and Roberts especially hard because of their high-level involvement in state and national organizations. ........ On a national level, Roberts says her leadership role has enabled her to make contacts with Washington power-brokers - including Vice President Al Gore, whom Roberts met at the White House to discuss brownfields and Florida's tobacco settlement. Such contacts translate into dollars, Roberts claims, such as the $ 25 to $ 30 million that Palm Tran has received in the last five years........"

Freeper Mia T 11/12/00 ".....The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In other words, the laws of a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. The equal protection clause is not intended to provide "equality" among individuals or classes but only "equal application" of the laws. The result, therefore, of a law is not relevant so long as there is no discrimination in its application.......... Generally, the question of whether the equal protection clause has been violated arises when a state grants a particular class of individuals the right to engage in activity yet denies other individuals the same right. There is no clear rule for deciding when a classification is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has dictated the application of different tests depending on the type of classification and it's effect on fundamental rights. Traditionally, the Court finds a state classification constitutional if it has "a rational basis" to a "legitimate state purpose." The Supreme Court, however, has applied more stringent analysis in certain cases. It will "strictly scrutinize" a distinction when it embodies a "suspect classification." In order for a classification to be subject to strict scrutiny, it must be shown that the state law or its administration is meant to discriminate. [The reason for the Gore camp's selection of only DEMOCRATIC COUNTIES was precisely to discriminate against Bush and for Gore.]

In order for a classification to be found permissible under this test it must be proven, by the state, that there is a compelling interest to the law and that the classification is necessary to further that interest. The Court will also apply a strict scrutiny test if the classification interferes with fundamental rights such as first amendment rights, the right to privacy, or the right to travel [or the right to vote].

The 14th amendment is not by its terms applicable to the federal government. ("No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.") Actions by the federal government, however, that classify individuals in a discriminatory manner will, under similar circumstances, violate the due process of the fifth amendment. ("No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.")

But if fundamental fairness, the essential arbitrariness of the process, fraud laws, rational thought and the due process and equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution aren't enough to challenge Gore's selective manual recount, then Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts is. ......"

FoxNews 11/12/00 Freeper TBBT "..... As per Fox News: Escambia county uses a paper ballot that has arrows pointing to the candidates names. These are broken in the middle an the voter fills the broken arrow in with a pen to (which completes the arrow) indicate the candidate for which they chose to vote for. According to Fox News there were 800 of these ballots that had votes for GWB, but also had the arrow filled next to the "write in" box where the voter also wrote in GWB's name. The counting machines counted these ballots as double votes - but there is now question as to whether in a manual recount that these votes could be counted for Bush. ...."

Freeper staytrue from his answering machine 8:14 am Sunday ".... Do you know if your vote in the presidential election counted ? The headlines say Gore won the popular vote, but not the election. That hasn't happened since Rutherford B. Hayes did it in 1876. Bush claims victory, Gore says not so fast. Election day proves to be a wild ride.

They say that Florida voters say that balloting confusion, especially in West Palm Beach, resulted in a number of voting error. Reports surfaced indicating a number of voting irregularities. Scores of voters were said to be turned away for not complying with the new requirement that they show photo id. .....Ask the question, did your vote really make a difference. Election experts say successfully challenging the outcome of an election is no easy task. The courts look at two very important standards. Number one, voting fraud, where there would be a conscience intent to change the result of an election or gross negligience on the part of election officials to the extent that there is no reasonable way to confirm the true intent of the voter. Both of those are very difficult standards to enforce, and it takes a lot for a judge to find out that an election was indeed illegal. ....... Another puzzling development surfaced as well, an extraordinary high number of voters, some 19,000 in all, punched their ballots for (inaudible but probably "two or more") presidential candidates. That means those votes cancelled and voided and never counted. There was a computer glitch in Volusia county Florida where 16,000 votes were cast for Gore's talley and subtracted. Also, ballot boxes were left unopened. At least two Bethune Cookman college students with proper id and voter registration cards, were turned away and many other students reported complaints about voting irregularities as well. All of this is happening in a state where the governor happens to be related to the Republican Presidential candidate.

Does your vote count? ...."

New York Times 11/12/00 William glaberson "...... The Republican decision to sue in federal court appeared to be a strategic effort to take the politically volatile case out of Florida - and possibly the hands of local elected judges - as quickly as possible, experts on election law said yesterday. ....... Federal courts are generally more reluctant than state courts to overturn election results declared by state officials, the legal experts said........ On strictly legal grounds, some of the experts said they were skeptical of the suit's chance of succeeding. They said the long legal history of permitting recounts until a final, ostensibly correct result was reached did not appear open to the kind of challenge outlined yesterday by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. ....... After a ruling by a federal trial- level judge in the case, an appeal would be to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, the same court that was drawn into the Elián González battle. The next step would be to the United States Supreme Court...... Federal courts interpret state election laws as well as federal statutes, like the Voting Rights Act. But because they see issues like recount disputes as procedural, they have demanded a high standard of proof before second-guessing the actions of local election officials........ "

Yahoo/AP 11/12/00 Karin Meadows ".......Palm Beach County officials ordered an extraordinary countywide recount, by hand, of the more than 425,000 votes cast in the presidential election for Al Gore (news - web sites) and George W. Bush (news - web sites). Gore added 36 votes and Bush lost three in a machine recount of Palm Beach County in Florida's disputed presidential balloting. A hand count of selected precincts turned up enough errors in the election night vote to prompt county election officials to order a complete recount by hand. The vote was 2-1. ..... Election officials said their exhaustive manual recount found numerous differences from the machine count. Palm Beach County official Carol Roberts said the errors point to potentially 1,900 errors county wide - more than the total margin between Bush and Gore statewide. ....."

Republican National Committee 11/11/00 ".....Voters went to the polls Tuesday and cast their ballots across the country. Governor George W. Bush and Secretary Cheney won the election. We have now had a recount of every vote cast Tuesday in the fourth-largest state in the country, and that recount confirms the results of the original count - Governor Bush won the election. ........ The only Florida ballots left to be counted are those remaining overseas ballots - and if history is any guide, they will only add to our margin of victory. In 1996, for instance, the overseas ballots went 54 percent for Senator Bob Dole, even though he was only winning 43 percent of the vote statewide...... In other words, the election is over, and we won........ Despite this clear evidence, the Gore campaign threatens legal challenges to the results - challenges that would take the decision out of the hands of the voters, and put the decision in the hands of lawyers and judges. In a particularly galling statement Thursday, Gore campaign chairman William Daley suggested that "technicalities should not determine the presidency of the United States" - but the Constitution of the United States is not a "technicality," and it's very clear on the matter. The people have spoken; it's time for the drama to close, and the transition to begin. ......"

Republican National Committee 11/11/00 ".....Even some of those on Al Gore's side are beginning to worry about his reaction. Democrat Senators John Breaux and Robert Torricelli, and Democrat U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, have weighed in, suggesting that once the recounts are done, the proper thing would be for Mr. Gore to concede. Even the editors of The New York Times and The Washington Post - the twin pillars of the elite media establishment - have written scorching editorials warning of the dangers ahead should the Gore campaign follow through on its threatened legal challenges..........The time has come for Al Gore to follow Richard Nixon's and Gerald Ford's lead in the interests of our country......"

Freeper Amelia 11/12/00 "..... Gephart & Bob Dole on THIS WEEK.... Dole: "the Democrats control the machinery in these counties, and they vote to keep counting until they get the results they want. Very obvious they're gonna keep counting and keep adding votes until they get Gore in the White House." ....."

Freeper Risky Schemer 11/12/00 "..... You'll want to catch Baker in the first segment of Meet the Press. He makes an authoritative case, and strongly points out the opportunity increases for error with a hand recount, and not only error, but "mischief". ...."

Freeper Amelia 11/12/00 ".... Roundtable: Will: Salutes Algore for putting an 'expert', Daley, in place, and points out that just yesterday the elections commission changed the rules. Steph: In PBC Buchanan got 4X as many votes on butterfly as in absentees. ........ Cokie: Too many wierd things going on. Dems hired telemarking firm to ask voters if they were confused..a lot of them didn't know they were confused til the telemarketers told them they were. NO ONE is going to believe the results of this. ....... Will: "Highly sophisticated vote-manufacturing procedure" ....."

Freeper Lazamataz "...... Fox News LAUGHING at the Clymer in WPB who was talking about Pregnant Chad and Dimpled Chad. More and more absurd. Democrats are looking progressively more silly. G-d moves in our life. He is probably giving America ONE MORE CHANCE. ...." "....... Cokie: If Algore had been able to win his HOME STATE of Tennessee, none of us would be having this discussion today. WOW!!!! UNEXPECTED BY COKIE! ....."

Freeper Amelia "..... George Will talking about fraud all around the country...90% turnout in Detroit, cigarettes handed out elsewhere, etc... "

Freeper bd56 "...... At the bottom of the actual Palm Beach voting instructions. posted in all polling places, if not in all voting booths, its states; After voting check your ballot card to be sure your voting selections are clearly and cleanly punched and there are no chips left hanging on the back of the card" This of course follows the line; "If you make a mistake return you ballot card and obtain another." It would seem to me that any card with "chads" not cleanly punched is invalid!! ....."

Freeper Amelia "...... Maybe I'm biased, but I got the distinct impression that Bob was saying the Gorites would keep going until they won, no matter what it took. McCain on now, disappointed that Daley said even if they resolved the FL dispute, they aren't willing to abide by the word of the voters. ....."

Freeper Lazamataz "....Little Dicky Gephardt refusing to say the loser of the hand count should concede until Sam Donaldson (off camera) starts LAUGHING at him. He then realises he's losing the audience and quickly concedes. AAAAAAUUUUGHHH! He want's us to TAKE A DEEP BREATH!!!! The LIBERAL CATCH PHRASES HAVE BEGUN!!!! ....."

Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... Palm Beach County, a Democratic stronghold, has been at the center of the struggle over the presidential election. Some voters complained that its so-called "butterfly" ballot was so confusing it caused them to mistakenly cast votes for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore. ......... On Friday, Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Bush had 2,910,074 votes to Gore's 2,909,114, a difference of 960, with one county still to be recounted - Palm Beach County where the AP showed a big gain for Gore. The totals from the AP canvass were Bush 2,910,195, Gore 2,909,907. Those numbers reflect the latest figures from Palm Beach County. The state has been unable to include updated Palm Beach County figures in its tally because a state judge issued an injunction Thursday in response to lawsuits filed by voters claiming confusion over the ballot design. ....... Further complicating the picture, election officials in Polk County said that a rescan of 92 of 163 precincts resulted in a gain of 104 votes for Bush and seven for Gore. These are votes that had not been recorded in the previous count and recount of ballots. ....."

Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... Election authorities stopped short of making the figures official pending a meeting on Monday to certify the totals and report those to the state. ......A lawyer for the Republican Party, Mark Wallace, objected to a further manual recount. "It has been pandemonium today," he said. "We vigorously lodge our protest and plead with you not to put the county through that." ..... At times, the recount bordered on the ridiculous. Election officials spent hours poring over individual ballots and disagreeing over the standard used in accepting a vote. ....."

Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... In the morning, the canvassing board said they would count a vote if any of the corners of the bits of paper punched out of the cards - called "chad" - were punched. The board then decided that they would instead use the "sunlight test" - if they could see sun come though an indentation, it would count. However, according to a lawyer for the county, there was a problem with the revised standard. Even if one corner was punched, sometimes the sun wouldn't shine through. So, the standard was revised back to the corner rule, according to the lawyer Leon St. John. ......"

Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "......Volusia County postponed until Sunday a full hand recount of all the county's 184,018 ballots. Workers sifted the ballots on Friday and Saturday for any write-in votes. The judge will hold up each ballot, show it to the Democratic observer and the GOP observer, then to other commission member.

Democrats and Republicans were bringing in more than 100 people each from around the country to witness the process. ....."

Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "......About 26,000 votes in Duval County were disqualified and never counted when voters punched more than one candidate on their ballot or failed to vote for president. The county is solidly Republican. ..."

Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... In Broward County, officials said 6,686 ballots were not counted because the computer did not recognize any selection. Broward election officials voted 2-1 to do a hand-recount of three precincts beginning Monday. If there is a change, they also will consider a full hand-recount. ....."

Florida Case Law - 13 Fla 55 11/12/00 Freeper mn-bush-man "...... This is an excerpt from an old Florida case, State v. Gibbs. The pertinent portion is as follows: An injunction, restraining a Board of Canvassers from proceeding to canvass and certify the result of an election until the further order of the Judge granting the same, where the statute requires the Board to proceed by a certain day, is unauthorized. ......."

Kansas City Star 11/11/00 By the Editorial Staff "..... This newspaper endorsed Al Gore for president because we thought he would make a better president than the less experienced, less intellectual George W. Bush. It is beginning to appear that we gave Gore too much credit. ........ By refusing to shut down the increasingly militant threats of a blizzard of litigation challenging the voting in Florida that left Bush ahead in the unofficial totals, Gore is looking like the opportunist we had hoped he wasn't. ......"

Kansas City Star 11/11/00 By the Editorial Staff "..... Frankly, we had thought Gore was a better man than this. His own reputation is suffering increasing damage every day he permits the lawyers to continue their drumbeat of litigation threats. This behavior makes the Democratic Party look like an aggregation of crybabies. ...... Former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat from Georgia who is recognized as an expert on democratic elections around the world, called on both Gore and Bush to exercise patience and permit the vote counting to be certified before taking other action. ......."

Kansas City Star 11/11/00 By the Editorial Staff ".....Sen. John B. Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat, said it was unwise for Gore to challenge the controversial Palm Beach results in court. He called on the vice president to let the process continue "to count the votes and respect the decision." Sen. Robert Torricelli, a New Jersey Democrat, has called on Gore to avoid getting mired down in the courts: "I want Al Gore to win the election, but more than that, I want somebody to win this election. There is going to have to be a very compelling case for anybody to take this into a court of law. "It's a downward spiral. It may begin in Florida, but it can go to other states, and ultimately the presidency of the United States should not be decided by a judge." ......Torricelli is exactly right. This was not, and there have never been, perfect national elections. But if Gore and his supporters really desire to honor "the will of the people," they will muzzle the lawyers and stop insisting on endless re-counts. ......"

Christopher Spencer 11/12/00 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette "...... Paul Nolte of Little Rock knows a lot about chad -- the little pieces of paper left after a punch-hole ballot is cast -- but few people cared about it until Wednesday. Now the president of the small Little Rock company, Election Resources Corp., is being interviewed by such big-media players as The New York Times, National Public Radio and MSNBC. Nolte's company sold the software that created and counted the punch-hole ballots in Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida, where Democrats are seeking hand recounts of ballots cast to elect the next U.S. president......... The same style ballot was used in Saline and Hot Spring counties and wasn't a problem, Nolte said. ....... "An error rate of 2 percent to 5 percent, believe it or not, is considered acceptable by most election officials... if the error is evenly distributed across all of the candidates."........ Nolte admitted that hanging chad is a problem but said that most ballots instruct voters to check both sides of the card to make sure all holes are cleanly punched -- putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the voter......"

Washington Post 11/11/00 Ron Word "......About 26,000 ballots with more than one presidential candidate or no candidate marked were disqualified in Duval County and never counted, election officials said Saturday. Duval County is as solidly Republican as Palm Beach County is Democratic. Texas Gov. George W. Bush carried Duval County by more than 44,000 votes. Officials said there was no way to know how the nullified ballots affected the race between Bush and Vice President Al Gore. ...... The disqualified ballots represent about 9 percent of the 291,626 cast Tuesday. ...... Mike Langton, chairman of the northeast Florida Gore campaign, reacted angrily to news of the 26,000 nullified votes. He said he had learned of them too late to ask for a manual recount, which under Florida law must be requested within 72 hours of the election. He said Stafford had told him only 200 to 300 votes were nullified. Johnson said Langton had misunderstood what Stafford had said. ....."I sure as hell would have requested a manual recount if I had known 27,000 votes were nullified," Langton said. "We were harmed because we didn't find out in time to ask for a recount." ....Mike Hightower, who represents the Bush campaign in northeast Florida, said earlier the problems were voter error and not mistakes on the part of election officials. ...."

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/12/00 Scott Hiaasen "...... The Republicans' legal challenge to a recount of the ballots in four Florida counties will be heard by a federal judge who is a lifelong Democrat with strong ties to Palm Beach County. George W. Bush's lawsuit was filed in Miami on Saturday morning and assigned to U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, a former aide to Democratic Florida Gov. Reubin Askew, who was appointed to the federal bench three years ago by President Bill Clinton. Middlebrooks, 53, is also married to the daughter of former Democratic Congressman Harry Johnston. He, his wife and two children live in Jupiter. ...... "He's probably one of the brightest people I've ever known," attorney Steve Uhlfelder, a law school classmate and Bush supporter, said of Middlebrooks in a 1997 profile of the judge in the Palm Beach Post. ....... He was a member of the state's Commission on Ethics and later headed the Volunteer Lawyer Resource Center, which attempted to find volunteer lawyers to represent Death Row inmates. ....."

New York Times 11/12/00 Michael Janofsky ".....Gov. George W. Bush of Texas late Friday night took the lead from Vice President Al Gore in the race to claim New Mexico's five electoral votes with what now stands as the slimmest statewide margin in the country and one of the narrowest in American history. After 257 missing ballots were found on Friday, and Bernalillo County officials here decided to count 379 ballots by hand that had been rejected by electronic voting machines on Tuesday, Mr. Bush led Mr. Gore by just four votes - among nearly 600,000 cast. The count was 285,644 for Mr. Bush, and 285,640 for Mr. Gore, according to totals from the state and the county. "We are very gratified, and all I can say is, `Viva Bush,' " said an exuberant John Dendahl, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, who, with his Democratic counterpart, Diane Denish, had paced for hours in the hall outside the room where the counting was under way. Mr. Dendahl said today that he found no inconsistency in policies toward hand counting in Florida and New Mexico. "..... The vote totals are still unofficial and incomplete. They do not include 189 "in lieu of" ballots from Bernalillo County voters who appeared at polling places on Tuesday, insisting the absentee ballots they had requested did not arrive. Those voters were required to sign affidavits, swearing they were voting only once. But with an obligation to make certain, county officials said they would begin reviewing those ballots today to add the totals to the final state tally. The final numbers, they said, would not be confirmed until Tuesday at the earliest....."

New York Post 11/12/00 "...... All eyes are on Florida, where a national election hangs in the balance - and where the Clinton Justice Department might play a big role in resolving the historic dispute. Can Janet Reno's minions be trusted to put politics aside as they go about their duties? Of course not. ......"

AP 11/12/00 Vickie Chachere "..... Polk County elections workers and campaign representatives pushed through a grueling 17-hour day only to find out early Sunday morning that Gore lost a crucial 90 votes from his Election Day total in a single precinct. ..... Polk was completing a routine exercise of reconciling accounting errors in 92 of its 163 precincts. ...... Elections officials said it appears that poll workers counted 90 ballots that had already been scanned at the precinct, but put them in an envelope marked for unscanned ballots. When the envelope was returned to headquarters for a final count, the 90 ballots were counted a second time. ...... The large error put a quick damper on what had been a jovial atmosphere. Workers even took a brief break from the final hours of their counting to catch a Saturday Night Live skit lampooning Gore; the room roaring in laughter at the punch lines. Gore campaign workers quickly demanded to see the voter log books to count for themselves. ........ At the end of the count, Bush picked up a total of 104 votes while Gore could only add seven to his Polk tally. ...... Election authorities stopped short of making the figures official pending a meeting at 10 a.m. Monday to certify the totals and report those to the state. ...."

New York Post 11/12/00 "..... Former Secretary of State James A. Baker went to federal court yesterday to stop a burglary in progress. He didn't put it that way, of course. He said he was trying to "preserve the integrity and the consistency and the equality and the finality" of the presidential vote in Florida - and, we would add, not just Florida. ...... Make no mistake: What the Democrats are attempting to do in Florida is steal the election, pure and simple. What happens in the Sunshine State determines who governs the United States of America for the next four years. ...... The vote was counted in Florida - and Texas Gov. George W. Bush won, subject to the opening of absentee and overseas ballots. The vote was recounted - and Bush still won. ...... Now the Democrats are demanding a third bite out of the electoral apple - but this time, it is to be a very selective recount indeed. They want to recanvass predominantly Democratic counties - and only Democratic counties......And they want the recount to be done by hand, a process that offers virtually unlimited opportunity for ballot defacement and other imaginative types of election fraud. ....And get this! They want the inspectors somehow to determine voter intent - as opposed to what the voter actually did. They'll be scouring the ballots for minute dents and depressions that might suggest how a voter would have voted, had they chosen to do so. ....."

Freeper truthkeeper ".... A telling moment in the Cokie Roberts/James Baker interview. She asked him, if the court rejected Bush's motion tomorrow, "how far they would go - to the Supreme Court?" He gave her a sweet smile and answered, "Well, there are a lot of options." ...."

Freeper Az_Joe 11/12/00 "..... Mark Fleischner, the chairman of the Arizona State Democratic Party, responding to a call-in by an Az Freeper (me) on KFNN radio (1510AM) (Metro Phoenix station) moments ago, stated that should President Elect Bush call for a recount of all FL counties, that "I would support that" He went on to indicate, (responding to my point that counting the over 6 million ballots could take weeks, if not over a month)that THAT was OK by him. Caught the whole thing on tape, kinda ambushed him on a little known, Sunday morning talk show, hee, hee. Hey, you never know where a freeper is lurking, right?! Here we have a Democratic Party Official in support of a total recount of the state of FL, on the record, on tape. Can I get this up into the national media somehow? I got to admit, he came off as fair, although perhaps not to swift on this Sunday morning. ....."

NewsDay 11/12/00 Richard Benke ".....With George W. Bush holding a tiny 17-vote lead over Al Gore in New Mexico, state police have begun impounding ballots from Tuesday's election in case they're needed for recounts or review later. The police action comes after GOP lawyers asked the courts to order protection for early voting and absentee ballots cast statewide. ''It's not to impound all the ballots, but all the paper ballots -- the early voting and absentee,'' said attorney Mickey Barnett, a Republican official in Albuquerque. ...... He said he and lawyer Duncan Scott planned to file impoundment petitions in all of New Mexico's 13 judicial districts Monday to impound ballots within their jurisdictions. ......''There's no allegation whatsoever in this impoundment issue that there's any fraud or anything,'' Barnett said. ''I think it's much more pro-forma than suspicion. I'd just like to know two weeks from now, if something does happen, that they (the ballots) are all there.'' ...."

Washington Post 11/12/00 Ceci Connolly "...... There was no time for a family game of touch football yesterday. Instead, Vice President Gore huddled for nearly five hours with William Daley and Warren Christopher, the two former Cabinet secretaries he asked to oversee a recount of the vote in Florida. With his wife, Tipper, and running mate Joseph I. Lieberman at his side, the man who still believes he will win last Tuesday's election discussed formation of a legal team to appear on his behalf in a Florida courtroom Monday. The group also spoke about options beyond a recount, said Christopher. ......"

AP 11/12/00 Ted Anthony ".....There was disgust. There was optimism. There was weariness and, yes, worry -- that the mess might not be resolved soon and that the country is starting to look ridiculous. And now and then, a bit of patience even surfaced. Americans by and large expressed faith in their 224-year-old system Saturday but, after four days, seemed to be tiring of the electoral impasse that is keeping the identity of their next leader a mystery. Varied opinions seemed to end in similar sentiments -- resolve it correctly, but resolve it. .....``I really wish it would just get settled. We need to move on,'' said Nicole Gregory, 28, of Minneapolis, who doesn't much like either George W. Bush or Al Gore. ....."

Miami Herald 11/12/00 Gail Epstein Nieves "..... U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks stunned Miami's legal community last year when -- after six weeks of trial -- he acquitted all three defendants in the Port of Miami-Dade case, one of the biggest local public-corruption prosecutions in years. On Saturday, Middlebrooks was thrust into the national spotlight on an even more controversial case: the Republican Party's request to halt ballot recounts in Florida. ....... Though Middlebrooks was a President Clinton appointee, and in the 1970s worked as counsel to Democratic Gov. Reuben Askew, lawyers who know him say partisan politics would never influence his legal rulings. ....... ''He was very courageous in the Carmen Lunetta case,'' said attorney Donald Bierman, whose client, former Port Director Lunetta, won acquittal. ''He is a very bright, studied judge who pays attention to the law and the pleadings. I would not expect Donald Middlebrooks to be politically motivated or to decide a case on anything other than the law.'' ....."

NewMax 11/12/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Radio and TV blared the news all Saturday afternoon: A Newsweek poll shows Americans believe it's more important to make certain the presidential vote has been fair and accurate than to resolve matters as soon as possible. ......Translation: The Gore team should continue with controversial hand recounts in Palm Beach Florida and other heavily Democratic counties in the state and the Bush campaign should stop squawking about it. .......But a closer inspection of Newsweek's survey shows that in fact respondents actually favored the position currently argued by the Bush campaign, not the other way around -- even though Newsweek oversampled Gore voters and included people who didn't even vote. ......,, A full 61 percent of those queried say both presidential candidates should accept the results of the state mandated recount after all the absentee votes are counted next week. Only the Gore campaign continues to hold out the possibility of legal action if the recounts and absentee vote doesn't go their way ....."

Real Clear Politics 11/11/00 John McIntyre "..... Over the next 24 hours senior Democrats and liberal newspaper editorials, including the NY Times and others, essentially told the Gore campaign to back off this litigious approach. Realizing their "win at all cost" mentality was not going to sell even with their own supporters, the Gore campaign made the only decision they could and took the position that "we will just have to continue to recount these votes until we get enough to win." ...... Having lost the first two counts, the Gore campaign is now pushing for a third count, this time by hand, in four overwhelming Democratic counties. Is there any doubt who will be ahead in the state of Florida after this third "hand count?" The Bush campaign, fully aware of the likely outcome of these "hand counts" in pro-Gore counties, today filed a Federal injunction to prevent this third count. The press has had a field day telling the America public how the Bush campaign has gone to court to prevent a "fair" count of the vote in Florida. As a result, with the cooperation of the gleeful national networks, this whole process will descend even further into a sickening public relations campaign and legal quagmire........Someone has to stop this madness, before it spirals out of control. The national press with their ridiculous and terribly biased call of Florida on election night, has proven their inability to fairly present the facts to the American people. The networks act like this is a game, just a continuation of the horse race for the Presidency. It is not........ ....."

Palm Beach County Announcement 11/12/00 ".... IMPORTANT INFO For those FReepers who were asleep when the Palm Beach Canvassing Commission released their results late last night / early morning - the results revealed apparent "mischief" during the hand count! ...... Bush / Cheney folks insisted on a mechanical count to immediately follow the handcount. During the handcount, Palm Beach counters "found" 30+ votes for Algore that the machines, which were claimed to have not been detected during either the prior count & recount. ........ Then, after the hand-job, voila - the machines began recognizing the (same) extra 30+ ballots for Algore. The only possible inference is that the 30+ ballots were tampered with, most likely detected originally as blank / incomplete or non-fully punched ballots that they "completed" for Algore. ....... The machines are, indeed, very sensitive and picked up the changes to the ballots and these (apparently changed / tampered) ballots were immediately detected in the mechanical recount following the handcount process. It also bears mention that after the hand-job, Bush LOST 3 votes (meaning, while within possible realm of error, given such apparent tampering, they'd seemingly screwed some of his ballots, or double punched, tampered with, etc., during the handcount, as well)

Observations reported late last night / early this morning by FReeper DrKnow:

1% of the ballots were manually counted. These ballots were then included in the complete machine revote.

The manual recount for Bush was +14

The machine recount for Bush was -3

The manual recount for Gore was +33

The machine recount for Gore was +36

Newsmax 11/12/00 Carl Limbacher "....If Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris sticks to the vote certification schedule that she announced on Thursday, the Gore campaign's plan to use hand recounts to overturn the presidential election will likely fail. ...... Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," Gore campaign manager Bill Daley sounded concerned that Secretary Harris could derail the hand recount gambit.

BLITZER: If (Harris) certifies on Tuesday that Bush has won based on the original recount, is that going to be accepted by the Gore campaign?

DALEY: Oh, I think it's a question because you have legitimate legal hand counts going on. Now, of course, tomorrow if the Bush campaign's legal actions are successful, that's a different situation. But the fact is right now you have legally approved recounts going on by hand in four counties. And I think to certify while there's still a question as to a vote in a county would seem to me to be innapropriate.

BLITZER: So you're asking her to delay any certification until the hand counts are completed?

DALEY: I think that's a realistic question to be asked of her at some point is how do you certify if legally approved hand counts are still going on.

Less than an hour after Daley made his comments, the Palm Beach County election canvassing board, which is in charge of the hand recount, announced it would sue Secretary Harris to extend the state's legally mandated deadline past 5 p.m. on Tuesday. ....."

Washington Post 11/12/00 Dana Milbank ".......Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. ....... But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters........It was the beginning of a week-long tragicomedy of errors in this central Florida county, where an initial count showed Gore beating Bush by 97,063 votes to 82,214. Volusia's mess is in some ways more damning than the mix-up in Palm Beach County, where controversy has centered on a confusing ballot design. .......On election night, six precincts couldn't transmit their results because of computer problems, and the county's returns were delayed until 3 a.m. About that time, sheriff's deputies were dispatched to find an election worker who had left the ballot collection area with two uninspected bags..........Wednesday, when county officials were attempting a recount in front of TV cameras, an elderly poll worker walked in with a bag full of ballots that had been left in his car the previous night.........By Thursday, the elections office was surrounded by police tape, and a local Bush official was thrown out of a meeting for getting too rowdy.......Friday, county workers found a ballot bag in their vault without a seal, another with a broken seal and a third on a shelf with ballots spilling out. Meanwhile, dozens of black students from a local college complained they were turned away from polling stations even though they were registered to vote......... In some ways that is not surprising. The county, which encompasses Orlando bedroom communities on bustling Interstate 4, Daytona Beach and a growing population of Hispanics and northern retirees, was known decades ago for shootouts, ambushes and stolen ballot boxes at election time. "We have a sordid history of election fraud in this county," Circuit Judge John Doyle wrote in a 1997 ruling........"

Associated Press 11/12/00 Ron Fournier "....The legal skirmishing quickened Sunday in the overtime race for the White House as Republicans warned that painstaking recounts in Democratic-dominated counties expose Florida to political "mischief" and human error. Democrats said they expect America's next president will be determined "in a matter of days - not weeks, not months." ...... In Deland, Fla., Volusia County officials began a manual recount of all 184,018 ballots, despite Bush's pending request to stop it. With Democratic-laden Daytona Beach included, Gore's team hoped to pick up more votes. Polk County, Fla., officials, rescanning ballots by machine for a third day, found an additional 104 votes for Bush and seven for Gore. Home to Lakeland, the county went for Gore. ......."

Associated Press 11/12/00 Ron Fournier "....Bush's legal team planned to argue Monday before a Clinton-appointed judge that manual recounts in only four of 67 counties would constitute unequal treatment under the 14th Amendment. Baker suggested that Democrats who control the four counties could play favorites. "It's all subjective, and therefore it presents terrible problems of human error and potential for mischief," Baker said. ........ If Bush fails to win an injunction against the manual counts, a prospect that even GOP officials say is likely, his next step would be fateful. Senior strategists say Bush is likely to seek recounts in some GOP-dominated Florida counties if the Gore-backed recounts and overseas balloting put him in danger of losing the lead. ........ Baker threatened to demand recounts in close-voting states won by Gore, such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon - or too-close-to-call New Mexico. ...."If the Gore campaign is going to continue to call for recount after recount after recount until they are satisfied with the result, we may be forced to suggest there may be recounts in all these states," Baker said. ......"

Associated Press 11/12/00 Ron Fournier "....Overseas ballots are due at Florida election offices by midnight Friday. State officials plan to count them quickly, but have not announced a schedule. If Gore still trails when those totals are published, he might be inclined to concede. Already, aides and allies are telling Gore that he would be positioned well for the 2004 campaign if he concedes with grace - a move that might help shift the perception among many voters that he would do anything to become president. ........ Still, Christopher left open the possibility of legal action if Gore trails after the overseas ballots are counted. ...... Not counting the Sunshine State, Bush carried 29 states for 246 electoral votes. Gore, who added Oregon to his column on Friday, counted 19 states plus the District of Columbia for 262 electoral votes, with 270 needed for victory. Bush led in New Mexico but the state remained too close to call. Its five electoral votes would not be decisive. ....."

ABC News 11/12/00 "....ABC News is reporting the State Official for Florida has refused to extend the Tuesday deadline and the 4 counties wishing to do manual recounts are suing to extend it. ...."

New York Post 11/13/00 ".....THE theft of the presidency proceeds apace. A hand count of electoral returns has either begun or is about to begin in several heavily Democratic Florida counties - a shockingly subjective undertaking, front-end-loaded to deliver the Sunshine State, and thus the White House, to Vice President Al Gore. ..... But before that happens, the veep and his high-powered sidekicks need to think long and hard about what they'll do with a presidency that would amount to stolen property. That is, a presidency devoid of moral authority to govern - a prescription for civil dissonance that will make the Clinton years seem like small beer in comparison. ......We understand that the counting of ballots is part of the political process - that politicians are, of necessity, involved. But too much is enough. The "recount" is swarming with Democratic Party operatives - not one of whom had the decency to do what George Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, did at the outset: recuse himself to avoid the appearance of impropriety. .....By now, all America has seen the result: the Florida "hand recount." ...... This involves putting a disputed ballot up to a lamp and attempting to divine what it was the voter intended to do - as opposed to what he or she actually did. ..... But that's not a recount. That's egg-candling. And mind-reading. ....There's nothing objective about it. Or fair. ....."

Excite.com 11/13/00 ".......Al Gore's advisers denounced as ``arbitrary and unreasonable'' a decision by Florida's Republican secretary of state to maintain a Tuesday deadline for certifying manual recounts in Democratic-dominated counties. ......Emerging from an eight-minute meeting with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Warren Christopher said the country election boards or Gore himself will appeal the decision. .......He suggested that Harris' ruling was politically motivated. Noting that she campaigned for Gore's rival, George W. Bush, and is a political supporter of Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Christopher said. ``Her statement has to be taken into that context.'' ........ Three of the manual recounts requested in four Florida counties probably cannot be completed by the Tuesday deadline. ..... Gore's huge team of operatives and lawyers geared up for a public relations battle. Democrats said they would dispatch Gore surrogates across the country to allege that Harris' actions are evidence that Jeb Bush is using his influence as Florida's governor to help his brother. ........"

Chicago Sun-Times 11/13/00 Robert Novak "....... William M. Daley, the astute chairman of Al Gore's presidential campaign, markedly softened his tone Friday. No longer was this lifelong veteran of Chicago's political wars threatening legal action. Rather, he was staking all on the belief that even after losing two statewide Florida counts of the presidential election, Vice President Gore finally could be counted in for the president. ....... That is much more frightening for Republicans than bluster about going to court. The heart of the Gore strategy is not in Palm Beach County, where the much-publicized complaint about the ballot format is not taken that seriously by key Gore advisers. ...... Rather, heavily Democratic Broward County (Fort Lauderdale) last week soon became the focus for turning apparent defeat into glorious victory. Thousands of Broward voters, presumably Democratic senior citizens, did not apply enough pressure on the punch card to record the vote. ......"

Chicago Sun-Times 11/13/00 Robert Novak "....... One prominent adviser to Gore who asked not to be quoted agreed in substance with Davis, but added it all will be over by Friday of this week. He added that Gore now must engage in a public relations war with Bush to convince Americans that he does not favor disruption of the political system. That newly conciliatory tone, however, is born not of presumptive concession to defeat but from belief that victory is at hand. ........"

Arkansas Democrat Gazette 11/12/00 Jeff Porter "..... ......About 1,400 Arkansas felons who aren't supposed to cast ballots are registered to vote. Under Arkansas law, felons aren't allowed to vote until their sentences are complete, according to an attorney general's opinion issued this year. They must complete both prison and parole time before they can register. ..... But comparing the state's voter-registration list -- about 1.6 million people -- and a list of felons still under their sentences -- about 21,000 -- shows that hundreds are still registered. ..."

Carol Roberts "China moving housing into private sphere" ".....This new housing resembles the new super-large buildings that line almost all of the boulevards of the cities that we visited. In municipalities, China's housing policy changes involve a substantial switch from state subsidized public housing investments toward the intensification of the market process. These changes were made to facilitate the shift from state financed housing to housing financed from personal incomes. These new housing reforms have increased urban housing production. An average floor area of 22 million square meters of housing was built annually in the last 10 years. The majority of these apartments average about 60 square meters (540 sq. ft.) and three to four people could live in them...."

NewsMax 11/11/00 Carl Limbacher "....A hand recount of Palm Beach County's ballots was scheduled to proceed Saturday afternoon despite a determination by Florida's Secretary of State overuling Democrats who complained that the ballot's design was "illegal." ....Questions about the county's "butterfly ballot" format had been the driving force behind calls for a recount from Florida Democrats all week, with the Gore campaign and its allies repeatedly claiming that the ballot did not comply with the law. But Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican elected in 1998, blew that argument out of the water late Friday, in a statement announcing that Palm Baech County's butterfly ballot "conforms in all respects to the requirements of the Florida law." ...."

St Louis Post Dispatch 11/12/00 Bill McClellan "..... Let me tell you right away that I am not a prude when it comes to stealing elections. I was raised in Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago, and we used to have wet ballots. Our clumsy election officials were always spilling things on bunches of our ballots, and they could not be counted until they dried, and they were never dry until all the votes had been counted from the Republican strongholds downstate. Incredible as it may seem, we always ended up with just enough Democratic votes to prevail. As long as Mayor Daley liked the candidate, that is. If the mayor didn't like the guy, then we wouldn't have enough, and the Republicans would win. ........ History will tell you that the mayor liked John F. Kennedy, and when our ballots finally dried out in that 1960 election, we had just enough to put Kennedy over the top. By the way, the fellow Gore sent down to Florida to oversee the recount is the mayor's son, Bill Daley. I watched him on television talking about "the integrity of the electoral process" and I have to give him credit for keeping a straight face. Considering his bloodlines, that was no mean accomplishment. ......"

Meet the Press 11/12/00 Freeper Sarat "..... Mary Matalin appeared with her husband, James Carville, on the Sunday morning television circuit. She clarified that Bush did certify a law on handcounts in Texas. However, these handcounts involve written ballots, not punched out ballots like the ones in Palm County. They don't use those in Texas. She said that the ballots in Palm County are not meant to be subjected to a hand count- they are not designed that way. She was adamant about this, and the inherent corruption involved in the process of hand counting this type of ballot. ....." Freeper Wife of D28man ".... Tony Snow challenged Mitchell on that earlier this evening, and it was wonderful to se. Mitchell came on the scene looking smug and confident, but as Snow challenged each of his talking points, he looked stunned and then got a bit testy. Finally Mitchell said something like, "Well, you've given me every single one of Bush's arguments, how do you answer thus-and-so?" Snow said something like, "I'm not giving you Bush answers, I'm presenting facts to give a fair and balanced picture." Mitchell looked kind of sick. When the interview was over, they thanked each other for the opportunity to do the interview - and, trust me, you wouldn't like to be smiled at the way Mitchell smiled at Snow. ....."

ABCNews 11/12/00 "..... Recounts of Florida ballots could stop sooner rather than later if a state official is not blocked from forcing all counties to turn in their votes by Tuesday or face disqualification. .......Setting the stage for a legal battle, 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. ......" Freeper NittanyLion "...What ABC News did not make clear was that this is not some arbitrary deadline - it's Florida LAW. But hey, who worries about little things like that? ...."

AP 11/12/00 Will Lester "......Democrats face two threats to the manual recounts requested in four counties -- an injunction request by George W. Bush's campaign to block the recounts and a 5 p.m. Tuesday state deadline for counties to turn in certified vote totals. ...... Two top aides to Democrat Al Gore, William Daley and Warren Christopher, planned to meet with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris Monday to ask her position about the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline. ''She will make her announcement (Monday) morning to explain what our interpretation of the statute is,'' said Ben McKay, her chief of staff. .....Two counties -- Volusia and Palm Beach -- which are currently involved in manual recounts, have indicated they will legally challenge any deadline that will not allow the completion of their recounts. ....."

The Times 11/12/00 Daniel McGrory "....THE FBI is being asked to investigate how thousands of mainly black supporters of Al Gore were given ballot papers that had allegedly already been marked for rival candidates. Yesterday Democrat officials were examining claims that up to 17,000 ballot papers in the Miami area had been tampered with in what they described as "organised corruption". Lawyers from across the United States descended on Miami and were busy taking statements from those complaining that they had been cheated or intimidated out of voting for Mr Gore. A senior Democrat official in Miami, who has hired a team of 20 investigators to carry out an inquiry, told The Times: "Until now in Florida, we have been arguing foul-ups, human error and stupidity. But this is deliberate corruption to spoil votes for Gore and that must be a matter for the FBI. ......."We don't want to be seen as playing the race card here, but the areas where this happened are in poorer precincts, which are predominantly black areas that would be expected to vote almost unanimously for Vice-President Gore. We are not accusing the Republican Party or any other ethnic groups for being behind this. All we are saying is the vote was corrupted. There are just too many double-punched papers." ...... Jewish leaders in staunch Democrat areas of the city claimed that they, too, had evidence of voting slips being marked before they reached polling stations in areas populated by retired Jewish couples. At a rally in a Miami synagogue, Lisa Versaci, Florida director of People for the American Way, said: "There can be no innocent explanation for a pre-punched ballot sheet." Republican leaders in Miami dismissed the allegations as "dirty-trick claims". A spokesman said: "A spoiled ballot is not uncommon. There is no dark plot here....."

Recount in Florida: A Statistical Analysis Bruce Borders, PhD "..... If the changes in votes are not statistically different between the two candidates then the evidence supports a conclusion that random errors, random additions, and random invalidation of ballots have taken place. However, if the percentage change for one candidate is significantly different than the percentage change for another candidate then the evidence does not support the case that the vote count changed because of random errors, random additions and random invalidation of ballots. ......... In large democratic leaning counties, the percentage change in votes was significantly larger for Al Gore than for George W. Bush. In these counties (Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach and Pinellas) the percentage increase in votes for Al Gore is approximately 9 times greater than the percentage increase in votes for George W. Bush (0.068% increase for Gore vs 0.0077% for Bush). This is a statistically significant difference at the 0.108 level of probability - this means that we are approximately 90% confident that we are drawing the correct conclusion....... It is not all that important that Al Gore's increase is 9 times larger than George W. Bush's increase. The important thing to note is that the increases are not the same for each candidate. This contradicts the assumption that the changes were due to random errors, random additions, and random invalidation of ballots. Thus, there must be another non-random set of events that is resulting in vote count changes in this group of counties. What is it?......"

Wisconsin GOP 11/13/00 "..... Fox just interviewed a spokesman of the Wisconsin GOP who alleged massive voter fraud and full investigations. Accusations of multiple voting in multiple precincts and handing out multiple ballots. Lots more to come. GOP claims witnesses and that they can prove all of it. ...."

FrontPageMagazine.Com 11/13/00 David Horowitz "..... By allowing his followers to fan racial tensions and undermine confidence in our electoral system, at a time of national crisis, Gore showed that he is not fit to be president....."

Foxnews ***Breaking*** 11/13/00 Freeper tm22721 ".... Foxnews just reported that loose chads have been found on the floor of the Palm Beach counting room during the handcount process !! ...."

Reuters 11/13/00 ".....Democrat Al Gore on Monday launched his first direct legal action in the fight to decide last week's indecisive presidential election, joining a Florida county's lawsuit to extend Tuesday's deadline for vote certification. .......... Gore communications director Mark Fabiani said the vice president's legal team had joined the lawsuit filed by Florida's Volusia county against the deadline of 5 p.m. on Tuesday set by Florida's state secretary of state. ....... ``The citizens of Florida deserve an accurate and speedy count. The Secretary of State, a crony of the Bush brothers, is trying to steal this election away and no one is going to stand for such a naked political act,'' Fabiani said. Earlier on Monday, Florida's Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced she would enforce a Tuesday deadline set by state law to certify the state tally which Bush currently leads by fewer than 400 votes -- a move that threatened Gore's chances of winning the presidency. ...... Ratcheting up the rhetoric, Gore press secretary Chris Lehane charged the Florida secretary of state ``is trying to do an end run that would frustrate the will of the people, much as the Bush campaign tried to give the American people the bum's rush a couple of days ago'' when it sought an injunction to stop the hand count. ....... ``She (Harris) is acting in the finest tradition of a Soviet commissar,'' Lehane said......"

Freeper YaYa123 11/13/00"..... Carl Cameron FOX from Austin, is suggesting if all these deadlines are extended to accomodate manual hand counts in democratic strong holds, then the 72 hour deadline which Bush missed, to request hand counts in their strong counties, should also be extended. ....."

Freeper YaYa123 11/13/00 "..... Volousia and other counties are arguing now before a judge, to have the Vote Certification Deadline extended. That's the "hearing" I mentioned. The Gore campaign has joined Volousia in requesting an extension. Bush camp, according to Carl Carmeron said they would be willing to appeal if the judge decides to rule against the Florida Secretary of State who made the announcement this morning that she would in fact, hold the counties to the 5 pm tomorrow deadline. The Gore camp is saying she is being arbitrary and partisan in abiding by the law. (Gee, I hope that's clear) ....."

Freeper Clarity 11/13/00".... She has NO discretion to extend the deadline. None. The Florida legislature set the deadline in unambiguous language. She DOES have discretion to accept or not accept counties' votes that have missed the deadline. But she has no discretion to extend the deadline. I realize this is a fine line, but it is not unimportant. ....."

Florida case law 11/13/00 Freeper skdhaki "..... 13 Fla. L. Weekly 702 ......... Candidate for United States Congress sought writ of mandamus. The Supreme Court, McDonald, J., held that county canvassing board had met requirement of forwarding election results to Department of State by the seventh day following an election where it had telephoned the results to the Department of State within that time, even though the original certificate did not arrive at the Department of State until three days later..... Petition denied......." adding "...... This case does not directly parallel the current situation in Florida, but it does raise some interesting points. ....... In this case, a candidate tried to get a county's returns thrown out because he contended that the local canvassing commission had not submitted its certification by the 5 p.m. deadline. The commission made a report by telephone before the deadline but didn't get the paperwork in until after the deadline. The court ruled that the phone call was sufficient........ The important point though is that the deadline was in fact recognized as a legitimate requirement and the specific statute (102.111) was referenced. There is nothing here concerning 102.112 which appears to make the deadline less strict......"

Freeper report "..... Well, it was only a matter of time before the Gore campaign accused the Florida Secretary of State of corruption...and how it's happened. Along with the nauseating crap about how Al Gore has won the popular vote, how he's won more votes than anyone else (except one other person, unnamed), how he's "ahead in the electoral college" and how they "know" that he's won Florida. ...... Now he's going on about the "rights of the voters of Florida" and how it's their duty to protect them, along with the rights of all of the voters of the nation. Once again, liberals assuming that people can't fight for themselves...they need liberals to do it for them. ...."

Volusia County 11/13/00 Gary Davidson "....... With Party representatives looking on, teams of county employees completed the tedious process Monday of manually recounting the ballots in all 172 precincts from last week's Presidential election. Still left to manually recount are approximately 29,000 absentee ballots. ..... The next step will be for the Volusia County Canvassing Board to finish examining the ballots to complete the recount. ........ During the manual recount, the ballots were placed into four separate piles -- one for George W. Bush votes, one for Al Gore votes and a third pile representing votes for other candidates. The fourth pile represents the so-called "questionable" ballots, or those ballots in which it wasn't immediately clear for which candidate the vote was cast in the Presidential race. ...... The three-member Volusia County Canvassing Board will inspect those ballots to determine whether the voters' intent can be discerned. The Canvassing Board already has inspected the "questionable" ballots from more than 100 of the county's 172 precincts. ..... Despite the progress of the manual recount, the Volusia County Canvassing Board is moving forward with a suit being filed today in Circuit Court. ..... In its complaint, the Volusia County Canvassing Board claims that the state's 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline has the potential to disenfranchise thousands of voters. If the deadline doesn't change, any results certified after 5 p.m. Tuesday could be ignored by the state. "The Florida Supreme Court has said that the primary consideration in an election contest is whether the will of the people has been effected," the Volusia County Canvassing Board said in its memorandum of law supporting its legal argument to extend the state deadline. "There can be no greater penalty than to disenfranchise each and every voter of Volusia County who casts a ballot to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States. This is a matter of great public importance." ...."

Freeper Big Steve "...... From what I heard on MSNBC, 110 or 112 precincts out of 172 in Volusia County have been completed, and so far Gore has only a net gain of 2 votes. Bush +237, Gore +239. Their next update is at 4:30 PM. If they complete their hand counts today, they most likely will drop their lawsuit to have an extension time of their handcounts. Hope this helps. ......"

Associated Press 11/13/00 Chaka Ferguson ".....The final round of ballot counting to determine the presidential winner in New Mexico's hairbreadth election could be delayed if a request by Republicans to impound ballots is granted in all the state's 33 counties. This morning, Bernalillo County began the count of "in-lieu-of ballots." ...... With Republican George W. Bush clinging to a slim 17-vote lead over Democrat Al Gore, the final 370 or so special absentee ballots in New Mexico were still to be tallied, leaving the state too close to call. ......The special ballots, called "in-lieu-of ballots," were cast by people on Election Day who certified they did not receive requested absentee ballots. It was unclear how many counties still needed to count those ballots. ......The state GOP planned to file petitions in all but one of 13 judicial districts in New Mexico to impound those ballots, along with the early-voting and absentee ballots, to ensure they are protected in case of a recount or challenge. ......"

Associated Press 11/13/00 Chaka Ferguson ".....The petitions, filed on behalf of Rita Nunez Neumann, a GOP candidate for a statewide Court of Appeals seat who lost by about 33,000 votes, asked that ballots - including paper ballots, emergency paper ballots, absentee ballots and absentee ballot applications and registers - be impounded. The petitions ask that state police take custody of ballots not being counted, and take custody of ballots being counted by simply stationing an officer where the tallies are going on to seize them once the results have been certified. The requests came after a tally of 60,000-plus withdrawn ballots in Bernalillo County flip-flopped the lead in the presidential race late Friday, giving Bush the slim 17-vote lead over Gore. However, New Mexico's five electoral votes wouldn't be enough to help either candidate get the 270 needed for a victory. ......"

ACLJ FILES FRIEND-OF-THE-COURT BRIEFS IN FLORIDA STATE COURT "....... (West Palm Beach, FL) - The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm, today filed friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of State election officials in Florida urging a Florida court to not allow a revote in Florida and to permit the election results from the November 7th election to stand........ Both the Florida Secretary of State and the Florida State Canvassing Commission today announced that the Florida vote will be Certified by 5 pm Tuesday, November 14......... "It is our position that the charges raised in the lawsuits in Florida do not warrant a new election," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which has filed the friend-of-the-court briefs in five lawsuits on behalf of election officials. "We do not believe there is a legal basis for a court to intervene in this matter. It is our hope that once the absentee ballots have been tabulated, the state will certify the election and protect the constitutional rights of the millions of Floridians who cast their ballots November 7th. We do not believe the manual Recount should go forward."...... The ACLJ today filed amicus briefs in five lawsuits in the Circuit Court of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County, Florida on behalf of state election officials. The ACLJ briefs assert that there has been no election fraud, corruption, or coercion - the legal standards necessary under Florida law to consider invalidating an election. The briefs also assert that alleged ballot design and alleged voter confusion are insufficient to trigger an invalidation of election results. ......Sekulow said he does not believe the legal challenges filed by voters in Florida will succeed. And, he said the final determination of the presidential election should be made under the provisions provided by the U.S. Constitution. Sekulow said, "The Constitution is very clear - the vote of the Electoral College - and not the popular vote - is the deciding factor in this presidential race. We will continue to challenge lawsuits designed to subvert this constitutional process and to derail the presidential election." ......"

MSNBC Cable News - TV Freeper WomanofStandard "...... Immediately following Al Gore's speech Chris Matthews gave his comment of "No one in this country will believe a word he just said!" in response to Gore's comments. He was absolutely livid! Matthew's co-anchor in reintroducing Matthews after the commerical break said "Here is our Chris Matthews who nearly jumped out of his chair after listening to Al Gore's comments". .......... The comment Gore made that has Matthews so riled is his saying we have to make sure those people who's votes were 'misinterperted' are corrected, or something to that extent. In addition Gore's people left the media with the impression before his statement that he would answer questions but when it was all said and done he refused any questions. Matthews also said about Gore in that regard that he came out and "played the part of a trained seal"! ....."

Fox News 11/13/00 Freeper Williams "..... Fox News just had a live report showing that "much to their surprise," Jesse Jackson and his supporters are being met by a sizeable number of Bush Cheney supporters chanting "Jackson go home." Also, Al Gore statement was that children are learning a great deal about how our democracy works. Refused questions from reporters. Similar to lessons on family life our kids learned from Clinton. ......"

Rush Limbaugh Show 11/13/00 Freeper the_doc "...... On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh read an AP wire release from late Friday night (a "buried" news item on 11/10/00, as Rush characterized it) revealing that the Dems mobilized a telemarketing firm to call 5000 Florida voters an hour before the polls closed on Election Day. The script for the telemarketers planted a seed in the minds of voters to the effect that they might have cast their votes wrong on the butterfly ballot. It specifically urged them to contact government officials if they had concerns about it. ....."

Freeper smith288 "..... Chris Mathews is SLAMMING Gore. He said no one believes this act of grinning and due process. Chris basicaly said the guy seeks victory no matter what. ....."

Freeper YaYa123 "...... Laughing, smiling, and MSNBC is saying "he had all the trappings behind him". Al Gore saying winning was not the important thing just re-emphasizes what a lying bastard he is...you'd think the MSNBC reporters would stop cheering long enough to point out that this whole thing was a staged photo op. ....... Chris Mathews is saying "they are winning the PR battle....but this signals he is going all the way with this, going after the undercounts. Is it the job of anyone to "interpret" votes. Mathews says his demeanor is "exhilarated" ...does anyone believe this? Not one person watching this believes what Gore said today." Mathews says what Gore said, is he is not going to stop till all those voters have their votes "interpreted" . Mathews is incredulous at Gore's demeanor and what he said. ......"

Newsmax 11/13/00 Jack Thompson "..... As predicted last week, Al Gore is right now in court, in a state lawsuit filed in Volusia County, directly challenging the decision today by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to certify the election by 5 PM Tuesday. ......What I predict, even more strongly now, is that the courageous thing she has done will not withstand judicial scrutiny, simply because the mindset of almost every judge in Florida is that what smacks of governmental arbitrariness will be struck down (one would have to practice law here for about 25 years to appreciate this). Judges typically care more for process than for the clear meaning of words. ..... Very significantly, the statewide count can still be triggered by Bush, despite the misreportage by the mainstream media that the Bush camp has missed a 72-hour deadline to ask for such a statewide count. This is false! There is a dual deadline to request this which is as follows: It may be made either within 72 hours OR before the vote is certified by the Secretary of State WHICHEVER EVENT IS LATER. The vote has not been certified. That is something promised to be done by the Secretary of State at 5 PM Tuesday. It is time for Bush to take the side of the angels which cannot possibly be characterized as anything else: get an accurate statewide vote by hand. ......"

http://www.kobtv.com/ "....Bernalillo County released its final results from hand counted and "in lieu of absentee" ballots that give George W. Bush a 126-vote lead in New Mexico. But down south, the Doña Ana County clerk has discovered a 500-vote oversight that could swing the state back in favor of Al Gore. .......Rita Torres in Las Cruces says election workers misread a 600-vote absentee total for a precinct, mistaking the figure as 100. However, Torres says the county canvassing board has not certified the new total for Gore. Election workers also had not updated totals for Bush....... Bernalillo County's final results meant an additional 97 votes for Al Gore and 102 votes for George W. Bush. When added to the latest tally by the Associated Press, it shows Bush with a 126 vote lead in New Mexico......."

Nando Times 11/13/00 David Tirrell Wysocki AP ".....Proofreading and computer errors have narrowed the presidential race in New Hampshire and could change some local races, the secretary of state's office said Monday. One error gave Republican George W. Bush - who won the state - 1,000 too many votes in one Nashua ward, Assistant Secretary of State Karen Ladd said. ..... In several other communities, a programming error miscounted votes for Bush and Al Gore, denying Bush 107 votes in Randolph and Gore 208 in Stark and Stewartstown. ..... The official margin of victory for Bush now is 7,068 as election officials check for other possible errors. ....."

NewsMax.com 11/13/00 Carl Limbacher "....... Just minutes after Florida officials said they would enforce state election law rendering further vote recounts moot after 5 p.m. Tuesday, the media temper tantrum began. Gore friendly journalists, who realize that Florida State Secretary Katherine Harris' decision to obey the law means the vice president's White House hopes are toast, began trying to undermine her reputation immediately. ....... On CBS News radio, every report described Harris as Florida's "Republican Secretary of State," as if the Democrats have their own state secretary who could countermand her at any moment. ..... Reporters repeatedly said Harris was "appointed by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush," though in fact she was elected in her own right by the citizens of Florida in 1998. ........"

NewsMax.com 11/13/00 Carl Limbacher "....... Rather than concentrate on the bombshell news of Harris' decision, the Associated Press led off their account of the bombshell decision with Gore campaign spin. "Al Gore's advisors denounced as 'arbitrary and unreasonable' a decision by Florida's Republican secretary of state to maintain a Tuesday deadline for certifying maunal recounts in Democratic-dominated counties," the AP began. Two paragrahs later, the wire service was quoting Gore agent Warren Christopher denouncing Harris as "politically motivated." Meanwhile, reporters have barely noted that Donald Middledrooks, the federal judge set to hear the Bush campaign's motion to halt Florida's hand re-counts, is a Clinton-Gore appointee who's been a bankrolling their campaigns since 1992. ......"

UPI 11/13/00 Tom Hopkins ".....Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Monday she would except no certified votes from the state's 67 counties after a 5 p.m. EST Tuesday deadline set by law........ The order places in doubt whether the results of manual recounts of ballots in as many as four of the state's counties would be counted......... "She has discretion under the statutes, but she said that would be under certain situations such as a hurricane," Christopher said. "Isn't it a strange situation where she can exercise discretion in other situations but not when the presidency is concerned?" ....... Harris said the more than 2,000 absentee ballots from overseas would be counted Saturday and the results would be made public that day....... "I anticipate that the presidential election in Florida will be official certified by Saturday afternoon barring judicial intervention," said Harris in a written statement......... Agriculture Secretary Bob Crawford, a member of the state canvassing commission, said careful study of the law shows they have little choice than to abide by the deadline. He said a separate statute would seem to give Harris some leeway as secretary of state, but she is also acting as a member of the state canvassing commission and that law is binding........ "The Florida Legislature and the laws of Florida established this commission and the instructions to me are clear: that we have to review the votes that are submitted by 5 p.m. on Tuesday. We looked very closely to see if there was any discretion, there is no discretion," Crawford said........ Legal advisers said, however, if there is a federal judicial order, state officials would abide by it.......... Along with Florida, the state totals still being studied carefully were those of Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin. In the only unresolved race for U.S. Senate, figures from Washington state showed incumbent Republican Slade Gorton retaking a narrow 5,353-vote lead over Democrat Maria Cantwell. A Cantwell victory would split the Senate 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats........"

FLORIDA DEPT. OF STATE 11/13/00 STATEMENT OF KATHERINE HARRIS "...... I am issuing this statement to ensure there are no misunderstandings with respect to the statutory schedule for completing the presidential election in Florida. To that end, I met this morning with representatives of the campaigns of Vice President Al Gore and Governor George Bush, and I communicated by facsimile transmission with the Supervisors of Elections in each of Florida's 67 counties.

The electoral process is a balance between the desire of each individual voter to have his or her intended vote recorded and the right of the public to a clear, final result within a reasonable time. It is the duty of the Florida legislature to strike that balance, and it has done so. In order to serve the interests of individual voters and the candidates who seek elective office, the law provides for automatic recounts in extremely close elections, methods for protesting elections, and procedures for petitioning for, and conducting, manual recounts. And in order to effectuate the public's right to clarity and finality, the law unambiguously states when the process of counting and recounting the votes cast on election day must end.

For this election, that time is 5 PM, November 14, which is tomorrow.

Section 102.112, Florida Statutes, provides that the county canvassing board must certify the county returns by 5 PM on the 7th day following the general election. The performance of this duty is mandatory; there are no exceptions provided in the law. In fact, a $200 a day personal fine is imposed on members of the county canvassing board for failing to meet this deadline.

In this context, I am very aware that a few counties are conducting or contemplating additional recounts in the presidential election. In order to assist them in continuing their recounts as long as the law allows, I am dispatching personnel from my office to the offices of the Supervisors of Elections in every county that does not have a certified return on file in my office at the close of business today. They will remain in the offices of those Supervisors of Elections until 5 PM tomorrow in order to be available to officially receive the certified returns of that county until the last moment, thus providing the maximum possible time for recounting and certification.

As previously stated, it is the duty of the county canvassing board - and the county canvassing board alone - to certify the returns from that county by 5 PM tomorrow. If the certification is not in the possession of the Florida Department of State at that time, the law provides that the votes cast in that county will not be counted in the certification of the statewide results.

Again, Section 102.112, Florida Statutes, which deals with the duties of the county canvassing board, provides, "If the returns are not received by the time specified, such returns may be ignored and the results on file at that time may be certified by the department." Section 102.111, Florida Statutes, is explicitly mandatory. It provides, "If the county returns are not received by the department by 5 PM on the 7th day following an election, all missing counties shall be ignored, and the results on file shall be certified."

Florida law does not provide any date for return certifications other than tomorrow at 5 PM, and it does not provide any penalties for noncompliance other than the fines mentioned above and the disallowance of the entire uncertified vote of the defaulting county. Any discretion vested in me by the legislature in this regard is necessarily limited to circumstances not specifically contemplated by the legislature in the law. Such unforeseen circumstances might include a natural disaster such as Hurricane Andrew, where compliance with the law would be impossible. But a close election, regardless of the identity of the candidates, is not such a circumstance. The legislature obviously specifically contemplated close elections; the law provides for automatic recounts, protests, and manual recounts - and it plainly states when this process must end. Therefore, I will adhere to the date and penalties that are provided for Florida law.

With regard to the status of overseas absentee ballots, they must have been executed as of last Tuesday. They must bear a foreign postmark as provide in Section 101.62(7), and they must be received by the Supervisors of Elections by midnight Friday. They are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday.

I will today ask the Supervisors of Elections to make plans with their canvassing boards to count and certify the relatively few remaining overseas ballots Friday night, or by no later than Saturday morning. I will further ask them to transmit facsimile copies of those certifications to my office by noon Saturday as permitted by applicable case law. I anticipate that the state Elections Canvassing Commission, composed of the Secretary of State, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and the Director of the Division of Elections, will officially certify the results of the presidential election in Florida on Saturday afternoon.

In summary, every county must have official certifications of the voting returns from last Tuesday delivered to the Florida Department of State by 5 PM tomorrow, or those returns will not be included in the statewide canvass. It is my expectation that overseas absentees will be counted and certified by each county canvassing board no later than Saturday morning. Therefore, I anticipate that the presidential election in Florida will be officially certified by Saturday afternoon, barring judicial intervention.

No county canvassing board has ever disenfranchised all the voters of its county by failing to do their legal duty to certify returns by the date specified in the law. I am confident that no county canvassing board will do so in this election. ....."

CNN - Danish media 11/13/00 ".....Two absentee ballots from the U.S. presidential election have turned up in the mailbox of a family on the Danish island of Fyn, the Danish newspaper Fyens Stifttidende reports. A family in Odense, Fyn's main city, discovered the two Washington state absentee ballots over the weekend, mixed with some material they had ordered from a company in the United States. At first the family thought they had received some additional advertising, so they opened one of the envelopes. To their surprise, they found an American presidential ballot marked for George W. Bush. One of the ballots was cast by a man from Bellevue, Washington, who said he didn't know how his vote ended up in Denmark. ......"

MSNBC 11/13/00 Freeper Pooldude "..... The Judge Denied the Injunction, Hand counting to continue Jeeze, What a shock! ....." Freeper Walkin Man adds ".... A judge hand picked by Slick Willie, a man who gave money to the Gore campaign turns down Bush? I'm SHOCKED! /sarcasm ...." And "...Meanwhile the Dow is DN 260, Nasdaq DN 153! Welcome to the Gore Resession America?! ...."

ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/13/00 ".....A federal judge on Monday refused to stop hand recounts in scattered counties in Florida, rejecting a Republican lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said the question of halting recounts is not a matter for federal courts and properly belongs in state court. ..... ``While I share a desire for finality, I do not believe it is served'' by involving a federal court, he said after hearing arguments from lawyers representing George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. ..... The ruling, which Middlebrooks himself said was likely to be appealed by the Republicans, marked the latest turn in a presidential election now one week past the balloting with no end in sight. ........ Speaking from the bench, Middlebrooks said the procedures for manual recounts appear to be politically neutral. Republicans had argued that a manual recount in just a handful of counties selected by the Democrats - rather than all 67 - would dilute the vote of people elsewhere around the state. He said he considered that a serious argument but insufficient to warrant intervention. .......... Earlier, Middlebrooks had signaled clearly he understood the gravity of the case before him and the likelihood his decision would be appealed. ``I am not under an illusion I am the last word on this, and I am rather grateful for that,'' he said. ......"

Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 Ed glaeser "..... There is a well-known trick among statistical economists for biasing your data while looking honest. First, figure out which data points don't agree with your theory. Then zealously clean up the offending data points while leaving the other data alone. The key to maintaining academic dignity is to ensure that you do nothing to the data other than eliminate errors. But while this approach may seem to improve accuracy, it actually leads to biased results. If you only clean the offending data points, then you will disproportionately keep erroneous data that agrees with your prior views. ...."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/archives/politics/brenhouse11-12-00.htm "...I OWN AN APARTMENT in Boca Raton, spend several months a year there, and am eligible to vote there as an absentee. This year, I applied for an absentee ballot, but did not receive one, and was therefore unable to vote ........ On November 9th and 10th, I got calls from two different lawyers identifying themselves as being part of the "Gore effort." They told me that I could still vote from abroad. I told them that it was my impression that one could not vote from anywhere after Nov 7, 2000. They said that the law only deals with the foreign postmark which can be adjusted backward in full compliance with U.S. law, as the U.S. has no foreign jurisdiction over postmarks........ The second of the two lawyers asked me whether I would be willing to fly to Havana, bring my ballot and cast it from there, if he paid for expenses. He asked if I had ever flown on a private corporate jet, which suggested to me that he was willing to go to great expense to get my vote (no one offered a money bribe). One of the lawyers asked if any of my friends or family may also have unused absentee ballots......... I got the impression that the two lawyers might have known each other, because their phraseology was quite similar in at least one place in their dialogs........ At one point, the second lawyer, Mr. Cohen, got very pushy and accusative, because I would not give him an answer. He kept saying that this was a very close election and that I had a responsibility to vote......... In neither phone call was anything suggested to me that I know for sure to be illegal. But, in any case, I feel that their method of securing additional votes goes beyond political mischief. If, in fact, it is illegal and widespread, it is a very serious demonstration of just how corrupt the political system can be....... If anyone else from Florida received similar proposals, please let me know some or all of the details by sending me an e-mail at LateAbsenteeBallot@yahoo.com. Please specify if you wish me to keep your information confidential from anyone else........ Also if any lawyer or anyone else knows anything in particular about the Florida or U.S. law on the dating of absentee ballots please send me that information at LateAbsenteeBallot@yahoo.com......"

Orlando Sentinel 11/13/00 Scott Maxwell David Damron "...... A decision to ignore thousands of presidential ballots cast in Lake County has Democrats crying foul -- and wondering what to do next......"That`s insane," Bob Poe, the chairman of the state Democrats, said after he learned about the Lake County decision Monday night. "We`re not trying to be litigious, but gosh, I just don`t know." ..... The ballyhoo surrounds a decision by the Lake County canvassing board not to count 3,114 ballots that had more than one presidential choice marked....... The sticking point, however, is that although all of those ballots had two choices marked, most of them chose only one candidate. In other words, many voters checked the circle next to Al Gore`s name, and also wrote "Al Gore" in the write-in blank. Others did the same for George W. Bush......... The question now appears to be: Can Democrats do anything to override Lake County`s decision? Some of those interviewed Monday night said it`s unlikely. That`s because every county`s canvassing board theoretically has the final say on such matters. That could mean that different counties have different interpretations of the same law....... "With 67 different canvassing boards, I bet there are differences," said Lake`s Cadwell. Poe said the party would study the matter more closely today. But Lake County officials said they have no intention of going back to revisit those votes. "That`s a decision that needs to be made in Tallahassee," Miller said. "If they say fine, go back and do it, fine. We can do that in 10 minutes."...."

Washington Post 11/14/00 George Will "..... In his campaign to follow in the presidency a man defined by moral turpitude, Al Gore promised, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Now we know what he meant. Credit him with a promise kept. Credit also his farsightedness in entrusting his campaign to Mayor Daley's son, for whom the manufacturing (literally the making by hand) of votes is a family tradition. Credit also the artistry--and audacity; it is being televised--of William Daley's mechanism for manufacturing votes in Florida....."

ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "...... Florida's overseas absentee ballots are usually an afterthought in any state-wide race, but they could make the difference in the 2000 presidential election. With nearly six million ballots cast, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush leads Democratic nominee Al Gore by 961 votes, with 66 of 67 counties having completed a recount........ The final results of the overseas voting will be known this Friday, Nov. 17, the deadline for receiving all overseas ballots. However, each Florida county can decide for itself whether to include overseas ballots received before election day in its current count. Therefore no one really knows how many overseas absentee ballots remain to be counted this year. Some counties have included overseas ballots in the figures they have already released, and some have not...... The Florida secretary of state's office estimates that a minimum of 2,300 overseas ballots were cast for president in 1996, although 30,000 ballots were actually requested and sent out before the election. The Palm Beach Post, in a survey of elections officials from 52 counties, has estimated there could be 7,000 overseas absentee ballots still to be counted, out of 15,000 overseas ballots issued by those counties. ......"

ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "...... The Bush campaign has asserted that most of the overseas absentee ballots will favor their candidate, based on their claim that military personnel tend to vote Republican. But Democrats are saying that a large chunk of the Florida overseas absentee ballots have been cast by traditionally Democratic Jewish-Americans living in Israel. The Washington Post has estimated that as many as 1,500 such ballots were sent to Israel this year....... In every Florida presidential election since 1980, when the state began counting overseas absentee ballots after Election Day, the Republican candidate has received more votes than the Democrat, according to the Associated Press....... Overseas ballots are required to be postmarked by Nov. 7, and must be received by the 17th. Before voting, the ballot must be signed and witnessed....... Jim Smith, a former Florida attorney general, held a news conference this afternoon on behalf of the Florida Republican Party during which he emphasized that Floridians overseas who did not meet the deadline have missed their chance to participate in the election for once and for all. "We're trying to make it clear that it is, in fact, too late to cast that ballot now," Smith said. "If a ballot is not cast and witnessed by Nov. 7, it would be cast aside." ....... One Florida County, Hillsborough, which contains Tampa, has special permission to turn in its overseas absentee ballots on Nov. 20......."

Time 11/12/00 James Poniewozik ".....In a week of general humiliation, there was some good news for the TV networks: they did accurately award Florida to the winner. The bad news: they also awarded it to the loser. Dan Rather assured viewers they could take CBS's election-night projections "to the bank"; then the networks had to make two costly withdrawals. It was, in the words of CBS and CNN election consultant Warren Mitofsky, "embarrassing as hell." Yet it also underscored TV's tremendous power, as the networks' blunders led to Al Gore's concession takeback. And as that wild night set up an acrimonious Florida soap opera played out for the cameras, it revealed the media's dual, contradictory roles: national laughingstock and de facto fourth branch of government. ........"

ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "......But preliminary evidence suggests that in Palm Beach County, a hand recount of ballots could significantly help the Democratic nominee, Al Gore. According to the latest figures released by the Florida Secretary of State's office, with 66 of 67 counties tallied, Bush, the Republican candidate, leads Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore by 961 votes. An unofficial count of all 67 counties by the Associated Press gives Bush a narrower 327-vote lead........ The decision by Palm Beach officials, made shortly after 2 a.m. ET today, was made after they took a preliminary sample of ballots from four precincts, representing one percent of the entire county, and found discrepancies with their previous total....... The manual recount of the four precincts gave Bush 14 more votes and added 33 to Gore's tally in those areas alone. ........ By contrast, a previous machine recount of the entire county yielded 36 new votes for Gore, and subtracted three from Bush's tally, for a net gain of 39 for the Democrat...... The shift was enough to prompt county officials to vote by a 2 to 1 margin to meet Monday morning to count every vote in the county - some 425,000 - by hand next week...... "We feel we have no other choice," Baker said of the legal action."The manual vote count sought by the Gore campaign would not be more accurate than an automated count. ... Human error, individual subjectivity and actions to 'determine the voter intent,' would replace precision machinery." ........ But former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who is heading the Gore campaign's efforts to monitor the recount, defended the request on Saturday, saying "The importance of getting it right outweighs the importance of rushing to judgment." ......."

ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "......The Gore campaign had earlier considered legal action - something Baker criticized Friday, when he said legal challenges were threatening to extend the election endlessly. But with the Republicans having gone to court first, both sides are now working hard to appear as if they are not resorting to use the legal system in an attempt to settle the election. "There has to be some finality to a presidential election," Baker said today on ABCNEWS' This Week, insisting that the GOP was seeking an injunction in order to bring the dispute to a close. .......Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press today, Baker kept the pressure on the Gore camp not to seek additional recounts. "We would dismiss this lawsuit promptly if they would agree with us to respect the results of the statewide recount subject only to tabulating the results of the overseas ballots," Baker said. "Whoever wins then, wins. We will accept that result." ....."

Miami Sun-Sentinel 10/5/00 Kathy Bushouse "...... For 115 people who braved Tuesday's downpour to vote in the state House District 89 Democratic runoff, the exercise was moot: Their ballots were not properly completed. ....... They either voted for both incumbent Curt Levine and challenger Irving Slosberg -- or they voted for no one. In either case, those votes and another 80 absentee ballots were ruled invalid. ...... "It's a phenomenon that nobody can figure out. We don't understand. Why bother going?" said Theresa LePore, supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County. "It's just something that people do, and no one can figure out why." ...... But in a race won by a margin of only 82 votes, those 195 disqualified ballots could have made a difference for Levine -- or strengthened Slosberg's victory in the Boca Raton-area district. No Republicans ran for the seat. ........ It's not the first time that voters failed to properly cast ballots. In Tuesday's state House District 88 race between Anne Gannon and Barry Silver, 144 people erred on their ballots. That district stretches from Delray Beach into Wellington. In the 1998 race between Levine and then-Rep. Silver in District 89, about 300 voters made mistakes. In both Tuesday's and the 1998 elections, roughly 1 percent of the ballots cast were ruled invalid. .......... "

Freeper LN Smithee "...... From the PBC Elections website, in case you hadn't seen it -- instructions from Ms. LePore on how to properly fill out the ballots: ......... Before going to your polling place on election day, you should familiarize yourself with the candidates and issues that will be on your ballot. It is okay for you to bring in a marked Sample Ballot or information to help you make your decisions, but, be sure that you do not display the information for others to see. REMEMBER -- VOTING IS A PRIVATE ISSUE! ....... When you check in at your polling place, you will be asked for identification and to sign a Precinct Register. The poll worker will then direct you to a voting booth. If you are not sure how to use the voting equipment, ask the poll workers for a demonstration. If you make a mistake on your ballot, you may ask for another. Do not hesitate to ask the poll workers for help if you have any questions or problems. ....."

Sun-Sentinel 11/13/00 Robin Benedick ".....With the presidential election possibly hinging on hundreds of absentee ballots still arriving this week from military personnel overseas, the U.S. Postal Service in Miami isn't taking its job lightly. ....... Postal workers at the Air Mail Center near Miami International Airport, where all military absentee ballots arrive in the United States, are making sure Florida's ballots get to election officials they same day they arrive. They also are logging each day how many absentee ballots are returned to Florida. ..... But they don't track where the ballots are coming from and where they are going. Their total for Florida so far: 434 military overseas ballots since Nov. 8, the day after the election. That tally is a day behind and doesn't include Monday. Overseas ballots don't arrive until midnight or early in the morning. ......"

WTMJ Channel 14 Milwaukee "......TODAY'S TMJ4 has learned about some more potential voter irregularities in Milwaukee County. And Republicans said if the recent allegations are proven, it could be enough to eliminate Al Gore's 6000-vote Wisconsin victory. ......... CECIL EDIRISINGHE WAS BORN in Sri Lanka and cherishes his U.S citizenship. He speaks Russian and said at his Shorewood polling place he overheard Russian-speaking poll workers instructing recent immigrants to vote for Gore "It really bothers me because I gave up my previous citizenship and became a U.S. citizen, and I'd like to see U.S. citizenship regarded as something sacred," Edirisinghe said. ........ Matt Collins, of Shorewood, also said he also saw improper, maybe illegal, activity at his Shorewood polling place. "I also saw some people being coached in their cubicles by third parties," Collins said. ....... Republicans have received more than 1,000 phone calls from people claiming to witness voter fraud, including an incident caught on tape by TODAY'S TMJ4, which shows a voter getting in line after the polls closed and voting. ......"

New York Post 11/12/00 Brian Blomquist Malcolm Balfour "...... With the presidential campaigns going into the courthouse tomorrow, the election might just boil down to which side has the best lawyers. The Gore legal team is headed by Kendall Coffey, the Miami lawyer best known for his representation of Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives. ...... But in response to Bush's move to get a federal judge to halt hand recounts in four Democratic counties, the Gore team brought in another big gun for the legal showdown - Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor known for his liberal opinions and constitutional expertise. ........ The more straight-laced Bush legal team is led by Washington-based lawyer Ben Ginsburg, who was general counsel throughout the campaign and former general counsel to the Republican National Committee. Another top lawyer for Bush is Theodore Olson, whose wife, Barbara, is best known for her investigative work for the Republicans. ........ Both sides have tapped the local talent and hired dozens of Florida lawyers to help them. Tallahassee lawyer Mark Herron has been especially helpful to the Gore camp, and local lawyers Barry Richard and Ken Sukhia have helped Bush. Richard, whose nickname in the state capital is "Appellate Ace" - has argued more than 200 appellate cases nationally. ......."If I had to pick any lawyer in the world for a case dealing with political matters, it would be Barry Richard," said Rick McFarlain, counsel for the Florida state bar. ...."

Yahoo News 11/13/00 Patricia Wilson Reuters "......The campaign of Republican George W. Bush charged on Monday that Democrat Al Gore's camp was trying to ``overturn the results'' of the presidential election by reading voters' minds. ...... ``It's becoming increasingly clear that Vice President Gore's campaign simply wants to keep counting votes until they like the results,' Bush's spokeswoman Karen Hughes said. ....... While the Texas governor distanced himself from the legal fray in Florida after a judge denied his injunction to stop a recount of ballots by hand, Hughes told reporters: ``We are increasingly convinced that the manual recount which is now under way in selective, heavily Democratic, hand-selected counties, cannot produce a fair and accurate result.'' ....... ``I think that anyone in America who was watching television over the last two days can conclude independently for themselves that the manual recount cannot possibly be fair or accurate or consistent,'' Hughes said. ``We saw people holding up ballots, trying to, basically, read voters' minds.'' ........ Hughes called the Gore campaign's challenge to the Tuesday deadline ``troubling.'' ``All week the vice president and his campaign have said that Florida's laws should be followed,'' Hughes told reporters. ''Yet, today, the vice president essentially said we should ignore the law so that he can overturn the results of this election.'' ........ ``The people of Florida deserve to have their votes counted fairly and accurately not selectively or subjectively,'' Hughes said. ``Gov. Bush has agreed to abide by that fair and accurate count no matter what it might be, and Vice President Gore should do the same.'' ......"

New York Times 11/14/00 Pam Belluck ".....Milwaukee Describing Election Day problems ranging from accusations that some people voted more than once to claims that homeless people were bribed with cigarettes to vote for Democrats, Republicans said today that they were considering whether to seek a recount in Wisconsin...... In the meantime, Republicans have publicized complaints they say they have received about the voting process. The state party set up a toll- free telephone line, and Rick Graber, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said that about 1,000 complaints had been logged, most in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee County, but some in Green Bay, Madison and Fond du Lac. On Friday, Mr. Graber announced that he had asked the Milwaukee County district attorney, E. Michael McCann, to investigate........ Mr. McCann, a Democrat, said today that he was taking the accusations seriously, but that so far he had found "no evidence of massive voter fraud." He said his staff had verified that one Democratic campaign worker acting on her own bought 40 packs of cigarettes, and that she and other people distributed them to 15 to 25 homeless men as an inducement to send in absentee ballots........... Mr. McCann said he was also investigating complaints that students at Marquette University had voted multiple times. But so far, he said, "we do not have a single name from what was widely rumored multiple voting by students."........Mr. McCann characterized the other complaints as irregularities that probably resulted from polling stations being staffed by inexperienced people overwhelmed by heavy turnout in a state where voters can register at the polls on Election Day. ....."

AP 11/13/00 Jackie Hallifax "......Florida's secretary of state had this message Monday for election workers weary from the tedious task of counting presidential votes: hurry up. Sticking to a firm state deadline, Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris said all 67 counties must finish their recounts by 5 p.m. Tuesday. ........ But her decision was challenged hours later in court by lawyers for Palm Beach and Volusia counties, Democrat Al Gore and the Florida Democratic Party, who said counties should have as much time as they need to complete their hand counts. ..... Broward County, one of the four Florida counties weighing full recounts by hand, rejected the idea late Monday after workers performed a manual count in three precincts and turned up no major problems. The strong Democratic county, which includes Fort Lauderdale, found only four additional votes for Gore after hand counting 3,892 ballots in three precincts. ....."

CBSNEWS 11/12/00 "...... Supporters of Al Gore and George W. Bush held more than 100 rallies were held across the country over the weekend, criticizing alleged election irregularities and vote recount in Florida. In Miami on Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told a group of African-Americans and Jews that they share the danger of being disenfranchised - and that they have a duty to keep that from happening. ....... "Once again, sons and daughters of slavery and Holocaust survivors are bound together with a shared agenda, bound by their hopes and their fears about national policy," Jackson told hundreds packed into a Miami synagogue. ......"

FrontPageMagazine.com 11/13/00 David Horowitz "..... IF ANYONE EVER wanted proof that the media is controlled by Democrats and the anti-American left, the farce going on in Florida right now is sufficient. The media is reporting the Democrat-run recount as though there might be a question about the outcome. There is none. It is a statistical certainty that Gore will increase his vote no matter how even-handed the two out of three Democrat judges are. ........ The voting machines systematically undercount the "vote," because they will not register partial depressions and "hanging chads." Therefore if there are more votes for Gore in a county (and these are overwhelmingly Gore counties), it is statistically certain that a recount by hand that turns up any new votes, will turn up a majority of new votes for Gore......... The media is not reporting this because the media wants Gore to win. ........The media is also not reporting the fact - well-known among political professionals - that a standard Democrat practice in past elections has been to call for by-hand recounts and to have their operatives rip the hanging chads on Democratic ballots (but not Republican ballots) to reverse vote counts in districts where they have lost. ........ The leftwing mafia that runs the Democratic Party does not care about the Constitution or the country; what it cares about is power. Why? Because its mission is to "change the world" -- not to make the imperfect one work as well as it can....."

WKMG 11/12/00 Freeper StockAyatollah ".... Just saw a report on Channel 6 WKMG TV (here in Orlando, FL) that in Volusia County, Gore has picked up 19 votes with about 1/3 of manual re-counting complete. About 200 unclear ballots were given to the canvassing board to determine the "voter's intent". ......"

Butterfly ballot test http://www.sun-sentinel.com/graphics/news/ballot.htm

11/10/00 Robert A Cook PE "....... Ref: 15,000 Bush votes were stolen in Palm Beach, FL. 15,000 Dole and Perot votes were stolen in 1996 *, no wonder they knew how to do it! (*9 Nov, 2000 CNN; Jim Smith, Former Florida Secretary of State; WSJ, 11-10-2000)

The news media is focused on the Democratic Party spin that voters were "confused" in Palm Beach, FL. They are ignoring the 15,000 BUSH and 3,400 Buchanan votes were stolen by fraud in these 19,000 ballots.

There is explicit statistical evidence of massive ballot tampering in Palm Beach FL. These ballots show Democratic voter fraud....NOT Republican fraud or "voter error." Consider these "unusual" ballot problems in Palm Beach, FL - every one of them adds more Gore votes, and removed Republican and Reform party votes.

The voter fraud in the most heavily Democratic precincts Palm Beach County is so bad that Democratic officials are claiming that over 26 people per minute "were confused" and voted twice for President! This means that more voters were being handed new ballots per minute than new voters were being signed in. (19,200 "double punched" Democratic ballots divided by 12 hours, there are approximately 100 precincts in Palm Beach County. The errors are concentrated in only a few of these of these precincts, ALL predominately democratic and ALL with Democratic voter officials.)

ONLY in Palm Beach FL were 15,000 ballots "double punched" in the 1996 election. (This is unique among the entire nation! It is an error rate TEN TIMES larger than reported in ANY other district in the nation using that kind of ballot!)

ONLY in Palm Beach (and almost ONLY heavily Democratic precincts) were 19,200 ballots rejected in 2000 for double punching....(This is a 4.4% error rate overall; in the rest of Florida there is less than 1/2 of ONE percent "double punch" error rate! (Unofficially, this error rate was 15% in predominately Afro-American precincts, and 10% in precincts with large numbers of Jewish retirees.) In strongly Republican precincts, the error rate was the "usual" 1/2 of one percent.)

ONLY in Palm Beach did this "double punch" error happen ONLY in the Gore-Bush-Buchanan selection. (In a truly random "error," the mistakes happen in every race, all at about the same rate. In Palm Beach, the massive errors (over 19,000) ONLY happened in the Presidential race.)

ONLY in Palm Beach has the news media complained about "massive" ballot confusion. In the 43 counties in Missouri, also mostly Democratic voters, which use the same kind of ballot, there are NO complaints about "confused voters" at all. (St Louis Post Dispatch, Nov 8, 2000) Therefore, ONLY in Palm Beach FL do the Democrats have to "explain" a massive number of incorrect votes.

ONLY in Palm Beach did Gore GAIN 750 votes in a recount. In 64 out of 67 counties in FL, the average gain was 5-7 votes, and the "changes" were equally split between ALL the candidates, in proportion to the original number of votes. This means that Palm Beach FL had an error rate in favor of Gore more than 120 TIMES greater than any other county, (Two other heavily Democratic "inner city" counties (Flagler and Pinellas) had changes greater than 400 votes.) In a statistically valid recount, half of the errors would favor Bush, and half favor Gore. This extreme change from the normal in only three counties shows massive "favoritism" towards Gore in those three counties.)

In Palm Beach Gore got more votes than there are registered Democrats. (Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections: registered Democrats = 296,122 while Gore voters = 296.696.)

ONLY in Palm Beach did Bush receive LESS than 65% of the registered Republican voters. (Registered Republicans = 231,626 while Bush voters = 152,954.) In every other county in FL Bush received MORE votes than there were registered Republicans. In the rest of the nation, poll results show more than 90% of registered Republicans actively supported the Republican candidate.

(Also, unique in the entire state, the percentage of Republican voters COUNTED as voting in Palm Beach was much less than normal, despite the pre-election attention to Florida as a critical state; and massive Republican get-out-the-vote campaigns.)

ONLY in Palm Beach did Buchanan get less than HALF the of votes he received before in 1996. His losses in that county in 2000 were much greater than in any other district in Florida. (Buchanan received over 8,000 votes in 1996 Republican PRIMARY (where only registered Republicans can vote; but he received only 3,407 under the Reform Party from ALL voters in the 2000 Presidential election.

(Pat Buchanan has relatives who lives in Palm Beach County, and this local support greatly increase the number of local voters who choose Buchanan, compared to every other region of the country. There are over 14,551 members of the Reform party in Palm Beach County - which indicates that less than 1/5 of the Reform voters voted for their own candidate. The Fraud is NOT whether Gore voters were "confused" and voted for Gore, but rather WHY Reform Party and Libertarian voters were prevented from registering THEIR vote!) ......"

November 10, 2000 Freeper amon "Cook Cunty and Chicago election officials...showing reporters in detail how the county's ballot differs from the controversial Florida ballot..."The voter is never required to skip across the pages to make their voting choices," Orr said. "But it's fair to say that we would love to see the ballot done differently..."

Sierra Times 11/12/00 Hal Turner "..... While Gore supporters are holding protests in the streets, Bush supporters are buying bullets at gun shops. In the three days since the U.S. General Election, ammunition sales throughout the United States have jumped an astonishing nine-hundred percent (900%). Americans are furious over massive, blatant and widespread vote fraud by supporters of Al Gore and many are openly talking about "blood in the streets." ........ "

11/12/00 rumrunner

Five Counties:

Broward Dade Palm Beach Volusia Polk

Broward County and Dade County

Broward County machine recount showed 44 new Gore votes, 43 Bush votes;

Dade showed 62 new Gore votes, 43 Bush votes.

Since Broward and Dade don't have the same "problems" as Palm Beach, assuming that the 1% manual recount of 4 precincts in the respective counties yields little statistical relevance for an entire manual recount, then the most that Gore is going to pick up from these three (Palm, Dade & Broward) are the votes from Palm Beach.

Palm Bach County

As for Palm Beach, don't forget that Daley picked the (initial) 3 precincts in Palm Beach because of the inordinate number of "underpunched" ballots, combined with the overwhelming Gore support (2,841 Gore votes to 1,024 Bush votes), G73%toB26%. The countywide totals was 62% to 35%.

Out of the 4300 votes recounted, they gave Gore 33 and Bush 14. Considering that the 4 counties chosen had a higher probability of underpunched Gore votes than the county as a whole(both 162E and 193E averaged about 165 underpunched ballots), if the entire 357,000 votes in Palm Beach are manually recounted. The Commissioner Roberts "extrapolated" Gore's gain to ALL the ballots cast, which is ludicrous for two reasons: One, the universe of underpunched ballots is only 10,361, and secondly, the universe for all manual recounts is reduced by the absentee ballots. Out of 10,361 underpunched ballots, Gore gained 33 votes from 1% of the sum of all the precincts, but more importantly 3% of the 10,361 underpunched ballots, and 5% of Gore's countywide vote total (882 from precinct 193E plus 1094 from precinct 162E); (while Bush gained 14 votes, or 1.4% of the 10,361 underpunched ballots.

AGAIN, Gore gained 19 votes from precincts that represented at least 3%-and probably closer to 5% of the underpunched votes when the other two precincts are factored in (precinct 193 had 654 gore votes, precinct 6B had 211 gore votes, both roughly 2 to 1 in favor of Gore), and 5% of Gore's countywide vote total using only precinct 193E and 162E.

Volusia County

As for Volusia County, because they use an optical scanning system (The Accu-Vote ES-2000) they will be checking for ballots in which the scanner didn't read the ballot correctly, and divine from the mark if the voter intended to vote for a particular candidate.

Volusia was a moderate pro-Gore county, 49% Gore to 42% (97,063 to 82,214) Bush, about a 15,000 vote difference.

In the Beckstrom case in Volusia from the 1996 election, the manual recount increased the winning guy's margin from 59.75% to 59.9%. According to Volusia County, in this year's Presidential election, only 628 votes were rejected: 238 Democratic, 332 Republican, 58 other. In Beckstrom, the margin increased by some 800 or so votes because the underlying ballots were remarked over the voter's initial mark so that it could be read by the machine. Here it is vitally important to know that the Volusia recount showed NO changes, so the universe of disputed ballots is only 628 votes. Assuming that each uncounted vote is counted, and assuming fruther that the manual recount breaks in Gores favor 6 to 4 (which is out of proportion to begin with) then Gore would only pick up 376 votes, and Bush 251, for a net gain of only 125 votes. My guess is, is Gore will pick up fewer than 20 votes.

Polk County As for Polk County, Bush gained 90 plus votes, coupled with his current lead of 300, and the absentee lead that he will gain, he is our next President.

I am assuming that the Bush campaing has retained some statisticians to guide them in their fight, and from the advice they probably have gotten, lies their strategy. Further assuming that there will be no hand recount in Dade or Broward, Bush will win this election......"

New York Times 11/13/00 Todd Purdum ".....In fact, one senior Republican official with ties to the Bush campaign and prominent Democratic friends said that both campaigns had come to see their struggle as an all-out war of good versus evil, right versus wrong and playing fair versus playing dirty, with no easy choices. "How could they be feeling anything but apprehensive and concerned?" the official asked of the Bush camp. "If they have options, then the other side has options. And when you think about what are their options, what are our options, your head just explodes." ........ Former Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat from neighboring Georgia, issued a statement warning: "Simple mistakes - whether committed by those who oversee and manage the elections or those who vote in them - are common and cannot be seized upon as a pretext to invalidate the result. No amount of litigation could ever ensure a perfectly fair or error-free outcome." ......In a conference call with reporters arranged by the Bush campaign, former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming went into a folksy critique of what he said was the bizarre scene of officials holding ballots up to the light to check the perforations. "It's almost like holding your laundry up to see which is the bluest, which looks the best," he said, adding, "This is the absolutely seat-of- the-pants special; there are no clear standards here." ....... Mr. Simpson ridiculed the idea of election officials "describing to a most curious American public the difference between the hanging, swinging, dimpled, pimpled, pregnant, clinging, dangling" punch holes of the ballots and said the spectacle was "absolutely absurd." ...... "No matter whether Governor Bush gains or loses votes, the confusion on display in Palm Beach County demonstrates that the results of this hand recount will be flawed," said a Bush spokesman, Ari Fleischer......."

UPI 11/12/00 ".....The NAACP on Sunday asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate complaints of election irregularities in Florida and urged the federal government to oversee a vote recount. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said volunteers have investigated complaints made to a special NAACP voter complaint hotline. He said that in one case, a principal reported finding a locked ballot box in a school cafeteria in Miami....... "The NAACP is concerned about reported instances of disproportionate disqualifications of black voters and the failure to pick up at least one ballot box from a heavily black precinct," Mfume said........ "We have grave concerns that these and other acts may violate the 15th Amendment to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965," he said....... Mfume said the federal government should oversee a vote recount. He said he was not suggesting foul play in noting that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the brother of Republican nominee George W. Bush......."

Freeper Russell Scott 11/12/00 "..... Yep, they are running scared folks. Suddenly Gore demands FBI investigation and now NAACP wants DOJ involved. Anyone who thinks AL Gore would not be four more years of Clinton is nuts. These are typical Clinton tactics right out of Larry Nichols old Arkansas playbook. Ain't gunna matter, President Bush has these turkeys by their necks, and they are about to be snapped and served for Thanksgiving. ....."

CBSNEWS 11/12/00 "......Florida Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford, one of three officials overseeing the statewide recount, said the Sunshine State just wasn't designed to take this much heat. "There are a box of ballots probably in many offices stuck in somebody's closet or somebody's filing drawer," he said. "And that box of ballots is worth its weight not in gold, but probably platinum and more - because it will determine the president of the United States." .......".

OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......The validity of the Democrats' claims thus turns on the details of Florida's election law. Examining those statues reveals that many of the claimed "irregularities" are clearly frivolous, for they involve complaints that Florida election officials followed, rather than violated, the rules. The rest of the "irregularities" are disposed of under well-established legal precedents. ......... One complaint is that election officials only gave voters five minutes to vote and refused to allow them to bring others into the polling booth to assist them. Florida statute 101.51 specifies precisely that time limit, and bars others from entering the polling booth unless the voter signs an oath that he is blind, disabled, or unable to read or write. Both rules exist for good reason. .....Right or wrong, these were the rules for the election, and one cannot complain that fidelity to the rules constituted irregularity. Nor can it be irregular to follow Florida statutes that require election officials to turn away voters who do not have identification or who try to vote in the wrong precinct. ....."

OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......The same goes for what the Associated Press called a "horror story," refusing to allow voters who had received absentee ballots to vote in person until they signed affidavits swearing they had had not used their absentee ballots. This horror amounted following the letter of Florida statute 101.69. Following these rules helps to curb double voting and other election law fraud. Failing to follow such rules would have been an irregularity. .......Since none of these claims have any legal significance, one might take comfort in the fact that the courts will dismiss them. But the Gore forces are pursuing not just a legal strategy but a political one. And the constant and irresponsible repetition of these supposed irregularities, without any reference to the actual legal rules, has abetted a destructive political campaign that has already resulted in selective hand recounting of ballots in counties leaning to Mr. Gore. ......"

OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "...... My esteemed Harvard Law colleague, Phil Heymann, acknowledged in the Washington Post on Friday that the standard is whether there was "clear illegality." But he went on to argue that there is "little dispute" that the ballot "flatly violated the law." He based this on Florida statutes 101.5609 and 101.27, which he quotes as stating that where electronic or machine ballots are used "The ballot information shall . . . be in the order of arrangement provided for paper ballots." I have two responses. First, this language only governs the order of the candidates, not where the votes are marked, and thus was not violated by a ballot that put the candidates in the correct order but in two columns. Second, beware of ellipses, for the language excised in the above quote was "as far as practicable." Florida election officials are explicitly allowed by the statute to alter the order of arrangement to meet practical concerns. ......"

OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......Even if the ballot were irregular, it did not deprive voters of a reasonable opportunity to cast their vote. ...Even if the ballot was confusing about which hole to punch, nothing on it should have confused voters into thinking they could vote for two candidates, and this is what happened on the 19,000 ballots that Democrats complain were tossed out. This is a common occurrence governed by Florida statute 101.011: "If the elector marks more names than there are persons to be elected to an office. . . his or her ballot shall not be counted for the office." ....... This rule, similar to that in other states, exists to preserve certainty and the sanctity of secret ballots. Who a voter intended to vote for is determined solely by the objective evidence left on the ballot, and cannot be undermined by testimony that they intended to vote for someone else. The remedy when the voter's intent cannot be determined is to invalidate a portion of that ballot, not the election. If a majority of Floridians don't like this rule, the time to change it is in the future. A past presidential election is no time to make an unprecedented change in the law. ......"

OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......Another effect of a manual recount is to substitute subjective human judgment for objective machine judgments. Here, Florida law has exacerbated the problem by providing no objective standards about whether or how to conduct a recount. Indeed, the standards already have been switched in midstream--from a "sunlight" test (whether you could see through the card) to a partial perforation test. Even if the standard were consistent, judgment calls still must be made, which might be consciously or unconsciously biased. This problem has been worsened by the extraordinary campaign the Democrats have run to pillory the Democratic officials who devised the ballot. Theresa LePore, the Democrat in charge of the Palm Beach County recount, has been described by her friends as "deeply shaken." One need not imagine any conscious wrongdoing to worry that officials who are in deep hot water in their pro-Gore counties might subconsciously be influenced by the fact that the complaints about their ballot would go away if the manual recount favors Mr. Gore......."

Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "......The American people voted on November 7. Governor George W. Bush won 31 states with a total of 271 electoral votes. The vote in Florida was very close, but when it was counted, Governor Bush was the winner. ....... Now, three days later, the vote in Florida has been recounted. Over two-thirds of the state election supervisors overseeing the recount are Democrats......At the end of this recount, Governor Bush is still the winner, subject only to counting the overseas ballots, which have traditionally favored the Republican candidate. No evidence of vote fraud either in the original vote or in the recount has been presented.......... Now the Gore campaign is calling for yet another recount in selective and predominantly Democratic counties where there were unexplained large vote swings in their favor in the recount.......... It appears that the Gore campaign is attempting to unduly prolong the country's national Presidential election through endless challenges to the results of the vote here in Florida........Furthermore, the more often ballots are recounted, especially by hand, the more likely it is that human errors, like lost ballots, and other risks, will be introduced. This frustrates the very reason why we have moved from hand counting to machine counting......."

Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "......Let me say a word specifically about the Palm Beach ballot. There is a rule of law to be followed for elections. The state of Florida has established legal procedures to design, approve, publish and, if need be, to protest ballots before the election. The ballot was designed by a Democratic elections supervisor. She approved it. The Democratic Party did not question it before the election. This "butterfly"-type ballot was used in recent elections in the same county under the same rules. Again, the Democrats did not complain. The overwhelming majority of voters who used the ballot understood it and cast valid votes. Our lawyers have confirmed the legality of this ballot, and we have copies of the relevant Florida statute available for you to see........."

Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "......The Gore campaign has also tried to make a lot of the fact that double marked ballots are not counted. A key principle in America is one person, one vote. If we have ballots with two votes, of course we cannot count them or guess about them. Ballots that are double-marked can't be evidence of the voter's intent to vote one way or another. No jurisdiction in the United States would accept such a ballot as a valid vote, and Florida law specifically does not. It happens in every precinct in every election. And the procedure is clear: These ballots must be disregarded.

Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "...... We understand, and I understand personally, that it is frustrating to lose by a narrow margin. But it happens. It happened to the Republican Presidential candidates in 1960 and 1976. Both Vice President Nixon and President Ford put the country's interest first. They accepted the vote for the good of the country......... It is important that there be some finality to the election process. What if we insisted on recounts in other states that are very close? For example, in Wisconsin, Iowa, (and if we don't win) New Mexico. ....... Let the country step back a moment, pause, and think about what's at stake. This may be the last chance. There is no reasonable end to this process if it slips away.......The purpose of our national election is to establish a "Constitutional government," not unending legal wrangling. We will therefore vigorously oppose the Gore campaign's efforts to keep recounting until it likes the result. For the good of the country and the sake of our standing in the world, the campaigning should end, and the business of an orderly transition should begin......."

Yahoo! and CNN 11/13/00 Mike Schneider "..... Democrats added Osceola County to their list of hand recount requests. The Osceola canvassing board, comprised of two Republicans and one Democrat, meets Monday to weigh it. Al Gore had a small lead over George W. Bush in the 54,000-plus votes cast. Hispanic voters alleged they were required to produce two forms of identification when only one was required. The central Florida county has a large Puerto Rican community. ....."

New York Times 11/13/00 Lynette Holloway "......As the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson continued a civil rights tour across South Florida today, rallying Jewish, black and Hispanic voters to demand an accurate count of the vote in Palm Beach County, Democratic officials and Vice President Al Gore's advisers appeared to back away from earlier complaints that Mr. Jackson was playing too large a role in demonstrations in the county........... Mr. Jackson said no one from the Democratic National Committee had asked him to tamp down his efforts. He said that what he called the breakdown of the electoral system was a civil rights issue as well as a political issue. ........ Mr. Jackson said the election was fraught with problems for student voters, Haitian-Americans, Hispanics and new citizens who were migrant workers. He said Jewish leaders have been supportive of his efforts. "Today, there is not a constitutional crisis," Mr. Jackson said at the temple. "There is a counting crisis. We can afford to lose a race. We've lost many before. We cannot afford to lose a franchise."........"

Wahington Times 11/13/00 Andrew Cain ".....Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and their wives took in a movie Saturday night. The feature was titled "Men of Honor." This coming Friday, if Mr. Gore still trails in Florida, senior Democrats may call on the running mates to live up to that title...... Senior Democrats support Mr. Gore's intention to wait for a count of overseas ballots in Florida. But Democrats are increasingly urging Mr. Gore to accept those results and set aside legal action....... Former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, a centrist Democrat, joined the chorus yesterday. He said Mr. Gore should concede if a hand recount and the overseas ballots show he has lost Florida. As yet, the Gore campaign is unwilling to accept the notion......."

Washington Times 11/13/00 Steve Miller ".....The outcome of the 2000 presidential election is now in the hands of Florida Democrats. "These are not people who are interested in the rule of the law," said Palm Beach County Republican Party member Sid Dinerstein, speaking of local Democrats. "They are interested in winning." Four Democrats are wielding extraordinary power in the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush: .........• Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts joined with Democratic colleague Theresa LePore to outvote the panel's sole Republican to approve a manual recount of the county's 462,657 votes. ....."

USA TODAY 11/13/00 kathy Kiely "...... Bush appeared briefly before the cameras over the weekend and has let it be known that he's beginning transition plans. Gore, who was a portrait in studied casualness over the weekend - playing touch football and going to the movies - is now said to be weighing a request for national television time to discuss his position on the election. ......If he cannot stop hand recounts in the Florida counties of Volusia, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, Bush is threatening to ask for recounts in Republican-leaning counties here as well as in states that Gore won narrowly, such as Iowa, Oregon and Wisconsin. ....."

USA TODAY 11/13/00 Tom Squitieri ".... The presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore continues Monday in five other states where the winner remains in doubt or might be subject to challenge. In New Mexico, ballots will be impounded. In New Hampshire, a recount might be sought by Monday night's deadline. ...... Election officials in Iowa, Oregon and Wisconsin also are braced for possible requests from Republicans to recount votes. Gore won those states by narrow margins. .......

Oregon

Gore leads by 5,756 votes in the battle for seven electoral votes. The counting of about 40,000 votes remaining from the state's all-mail balloting resumes Monday. ...... Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury says Gore's margin is likely to shrink, because ballots still are being tallied from GOP-leaning Jackson County. Computer problems stopped the tally there with about 13,465 ballots uncounted. .... In Oregon, a recount is triggered automatically if the margin of victory is less than one-fifth of one percent, or about 2,800 votes. "I would say the prospect of a recount is pretty high," Bradbury says. If a recount is called, it is expected to be held in the first week of December.

New Hampshire

Gore could challenge the result here, which put Bush ahead by 7,282 votes. If Bush wins Florida, the loss of New Hampshire's four electoral votes would drop him below the 270 he needs to capture the presidency. But the Gore camp may be at a tactical disadvantage in New Hampshire. A request in writing must be received by the secretary of state's office today, before a final Florida result will be known. ....."I haven't heard personally from anyone about a recount," New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner says.

Iowa

Gore won the state's seven electoral votes by a 4,949-vote margin. The Bush campaign has sent two staff members to Iowa to decide on a challenge. The state does not have an automatic recount process. .....Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, says there are "no counties with ballots collected and not counted." He issued that statement after Bush campaign Chairman Don Evans said several ballot boxes from "Republican counties" had not been tallied. ...... Staff members at state GOP headquarters spent the weekend studying county vote tallies in preparation for a possible recount request, GOP spokeswoman Ann Dougherty says. Party officials are lining up Bush supporters in each of the 99 counties to represent Bush on county recount boards.

Wisconsin

Gore won here by 6,099 votes, putting the state's 11 electoral votes in the Democratic column. ....But the Bush campaign has not ruled out a recount in what was the closest Wisconsin vote since 1848. "It's still under consideration," says Bob Hopkins, a Bush spokesman. ........There is no automatic recount in Wisconsin. A candidate has three business days to seek a recount once all 72 counties turn in certified tallies. Those tallies are expected to be completed by Tuesday. ......

The popular vote

While the battle is focused on getting 270 electoral votes, another skirmish is being waged by the Bush side to see if other uncounted votes will push him into the popular vote lead. Gore's lead nationally is 49,260,111 to 49,043,820 - a margin of 216,291. ......... The drive is being led by California Secretary of State Bill Jones, a Republican, who says the state's 1 million absentee ballots "could alter the national popular vote." ......."A mistake was already made on election night because of the media's zeal for ratings," Jones says. "Let's not make that mistake again with prognostications on the national popular vote." .... If past voting practices hold, California absentee ballots generally break roughly 60% to Republicans and 40% to Democrats. That means Bush could receive another 600,000 votes in California - not enough to capture the state, but enough to give him a narrow plurality in the national popular vote. Counties in California have up to 28 days after the election to report absentee vote totals. ....... In 1996, there were about3.5 million absentee and other ballots tallied for the presidential race between election night and final certification by the states. ....."

Washington Times 11/13/00 "...... By filing suit in federal district court on Saturday seeking an injunction blocking the potentially mischievous manual recount sought by Vice President Al Gore in four heavily Democratic Florida counties, George W. Bush and his legal advisers belatedly acknowledged that they finally understood that Mr. Gore and his campaign are utterly uninterested in any norms of electoral fairness. It is unfortunate that their only recourse was to seek judicial relief. But the unmistakable alternative would have been to allow themselves to be rolled in other courts and on the streets by Mr. Gore's politicized mobs............. To their repeated political detriment, Republicans and other fair-minded people, including independent counsels and federal judges, never seem to learn - until it is too late - that Clinton-Gore Democrats play only to win, oblivious to both standards of fairness and self-evident legal restrictions. Recall all of those frivolous "privileges" President Clinton claimed in an effort to stonewall Kenneth Starr's perjury investigation. Indeed, Mr. Gore himself long ago demonstrated that the only bounds he recognizes are those strictly enforced by so-called "controlling legal authority," a self-serving euphemism the vice president created to defend his illegal fund-raising solicitations in 1996 from his White House office. ...."

Washington Post 11/13/00 Michael Warder ".......The clock is ticking for the president-elect. With a pending 327 vote margin of victory in Florida, and likely support from overseas absentee ballots, probable President-elect George W. Bush is losing valuable time each day the outcome is in limbo. When he takes the oath office on Jan. 20, 2001, he still will not have a complete leadership team in place to govern, or a detailed game plan that takes into account the new congressional realities. In 2002 there will be the next congressional elections and, historically, the opposition party gains seats. Mr. Bush may then likely have a harder time getting legislation he can sign through that Congress......."

Boston Herald 11/13/00 Joe Fitzgerald "....... How ironic that Al Gore, hell-bent on swearing two months from now to ``preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,'' must first come up with a way to get around it. Make no mistake, what we're seeing now is not his belief in the American political system, but rather his refusal to accept that system's rejection of him. ....... If the Electoral College had smiled upon his candidacy, he'd have gladly complied with that process, especially if the popular outcome had narrowly favored his foe. ......"

WorldNetDaily.com 11/13/00 Jon Dougherty David Kupelian "...... The manual vote recounts being insisted on by Democratic operatives in Palm Beach County, Fla., have been used for over 20 years to steal elections from Republicans, claim several GOP veterans of hand-recount election-upsets. ....... According to Bob Haueter, chief of staff to the California Assembly Republican Caucus, and an expert on manual recounts, a Democrat lawyer intimately involved in "stealing" elections from Republicans through hand recounts admitted to the process and even shared the techniques involved. After Tuesday's vote and an automatic recount still left GOP nominee George W. Bush ahead by a slim 288-vote margin, Palm Beach elections officials decided that a manual recount of all 425,000 votes should be undertaken. ....... "What's happening in Florida is exactly the game plan laid out to me by an attorney who represented the Democrats in a recount in California where they stole a seat from us," former California Assemblyman Pat Nolan told WorldNetDaily. ......."

Washington Post, via AP 11/13/00 Bill Lester "...... Emerging from an eight-minute meeting with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Warren Christopher said the country election boards or Gore himself will appeal the decision. He suggested that Harris' ruling was politically motivated. Noting that she campaigned for Gore's rival, George W. Bush, and is a political supporter of Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Christopher said. "Her statement has to be taken into that context." ....."

USA TODAY 11/13/00 Judy Keen "......George W. Bush and his advisers say they believe public impatience with the prospect of endless vote recounts could pressure Vice President Al Gore into accepting the outcome after overseas absentee ballots are tallied late this week. But the Bush team has also concluded that the extraordinary election drama might well be resolved ultimately in courtrooms. Bush and his advisers are gearing up for a series of legal challenges, depending on the outcome of the latest recounts in Florida later this week and their federal lawsuit seeking an end to hand counting of ballots in five Florida counties. ......"

NY - POST 11/13/00 Ken Lovett ".......Tales of voter fraud and irregularities in last week's presidential election have swept through Wisconsin, where Al Gore enjoys just a slim lead over George W. Bush. Since the elections, hundreds of voters have complained to the Wisconsin Republican Party of problems they say they either experienced or witnessed at the polls. ........ Nine, all from heavily Democratic Milwaukee County, discussed the allegations with The Post yesterday.

Beverly Hecker, a 63-year-old Republican, said she received a ballot that was already premarked for two Democrats, including Gore. Wisconsin makes voters fill out their ballots before entering them into the polling machine. Hecker said that when she tried to mark her vote for George W. Bush, the ballot machine spit the paper out because it contained two votes for president. Hecker said she gave the defective ballot to an election inspector and voted on a fresh sheet.

John Zimmerman, a GOP committeeman in a Milwaukee suburb, insists he saw a local college student leaving a polling center with a stack of ballots "an inch thick" under his arm.

A Marquette University student boasted on a local radio show that he voted 25 times for Al Gore.

Janet Riordan, 39, said that when she went to vote wearing a Bush-Cheney button, an election inspector asked, "Why would a young woman like you want to vote for George Bush?"

By far the largest complaint was that election inspectors required little or no identification when voters showed up. Wisconsin allows voters to register at the polls.

Cheryl Sorenson, a 44-year-old Republican, said one man was waved right through despite hesitating when asked his address.

Huntly Gordon, a Marquette University Law School student and a Tennessee native, said he was asked simply to sign a registration form without providing any identification. "The election workers were doing nothing," said Gordon, a Democrat who voted for Bush. "It just promotes fraud." ......"

UPI 11/13/00 ".....An election recount case that lead to Massachusetts scrapping punch-card balloting statewide was to be used Monday to help bolster the Democratic Party's defense against a Republican legal challenge to a manual recount in the presidential race in Florida....... The case involved a 1996 primary that initially had Philip Johnston narrowly defeating William Delahunt in the state's 10th Congressional District where punch cards similar to those in question in Florida were used. Delahunt sued for a hand recount and was eventually declared the winner by 108 votes...... The manual recount uncovered extensive errors in the computerized tabulation of the punch-card ballots, according to Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin......."

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....In the fishbowl atmosphere of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, the clash between County Commissioner Carol Roberts and County Court Judge Charles Burton was inevitable. .....They were surrounded by lawyers and scrutinized by the watchful cameras of the world press. .......... And they held incredible power that could decide the course of history and pick the nation's 43rd president. At about 2:15 a.m. Sunday, in the heat of a pivotal decision, their professional demeanor cracked. ........ They clashed openly, first in front of the cameras, when Roberts pushed for a manual recount of all Palm Beach County presidential ballots and Burton urged caution. And then behind closed doors, when Burton approached Roberts and, in her words, demanded to know: "Why did you bushwhack me?" ......... Burton, bleary-eyed from the marathon proceedings, told reporters moments later that Roberts' move had taken him by surprise. He had urged the board to wait a day for a legal opinion but lost when the board's third member, Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, sided with Roberts. .......Suddenly, Carol Roberts had become a lightning rod. ......."

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....At a pro-Bush rally later Sunday, Frank DeMario, the county's Republican Party chairman, said he wanted Roberts removed from the canvassing board. ...... To Burton, Roberts said she could not have told him of her proposal without violating the state open-meetings law. Besides, she said, the idea for a countywide manual recount had dawned on her only moments earlier as she sat at a desk and pondered the results coming in from the hand count of four precincts. ....... At 1:45 a.m. Sunday, nearly 17 hours after it began its work day, Burton announced the findings of the manual recount. In four precincts, Gore added 33 votes and Bush added 14. ........ The numbers played over and over in Roberts' mind. If 1 percent of the vote produced 19 more votes for Gore, a full recount could produce a 1,900-vote edge, turning defeat into victory in Florida and the nation. In the words of the state statute governing recounts, that could alter the outcome of the election. ...... "

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....She spoke quickly and worked to cut off debate by demanding an immediate vote. Burton, the canvassing board chairman, ignored her several times, allowing political representatives scattered in the media-heavy audience to state their views. When Burton suggested that the board wait for a legal opinion from the secretary of state's office, Roberts retorted: "I'm not asking for an opinion. I'm asking for a vote." ....... When an attorney with the secretary of state's office said a manual recount depended on finding errors in the county machines, Roberts said past recounts never took that into account. And, "I would like to call the vote." ...... When Burton ignored her and recognized Democratic state Rep. Lois Frankel, Roberts cut her off and demanded a vote. ..... Finally, LePore, criticized nationally for a ballot that confused voters, made a single comment, clarifying that the recount would be based on human error, not mechanical. ...... "I say it was still an error," Roberts said. "I'd like to call the vote." ......"All right, call the vote," Burton conceded. The time was 2:15 a.m. The motion passed 2-1. ........"

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....A crowd grew around Burton, 41. He patiently explained that while he is a Democrat, he treats the canvassing board as a neutral, nonpartisan, ministerial body -- but that he couldn't answer for other board members. "I think the people have to judge who is partisan and who is nonpartisan," he said. ........ "

Jewish World Review 11/13/00 Charles Krauthammer ".....When a presidential candidate withdraws his concession, when critical network projections have to be retracted twice, when the margin of victory is so small that the presidency can be determined by a few stray ballot boxes in a state of 6 million voters, we've achieved far more drama than any democracy needs. ....... This election has generated not one but two crises of legitimacy. The first arises from the real possibility that Al Gore wins the popular vote but loses the presidency. (This is not certain, however: As of this writing, Gore's margin is under 200,000, with more than 2 million absentee ballots still to be counted in California, Oregon and Washington.) ...... This problem, however, is not the most acute. After all, it is not as if the electoral college system was imposed retroactively on the candidates. They knew the rules of the game in advance. Indeed, it was the Gore campaign that went around before the vote touting the sanctity of the electoral college, at a time when it looked as if Gore would lose the popular vote. Accordingly, both the Bush and Gore campaigns were designed, crafted and executed to meet electoral college requirements rather than popular vote requirements. George W. Bush, for example, would not have spent so much time and get-out-the-vote money in, say, Michigan, if there was no "winning" Michigan. He would have spent his time and money piling up huge popular majorities in Republican, vote-rich Texas and the South. ......"

Chicago Tribune 11/13/00 John Kass "...... Chicago's Bill Daley keeps saying he wants a fair resolution to the presidential contest between his guy, Democrat Al Gore, and Republican George W. Bush. That's probably why Democratic Party judges of elections in Florida are now helping hand-count paper ballots in key Democrat-rich precincts and are magically discovering new votes for Gore. ....... Would the Daley boys be as interested in fairness if the Orange County California Republicans flew to Florida to do the counting? Can't Republicans count too? ......... "

Msnbc 11/12/00 "...... Bush counselor Barry Richards just spoke on MSNBC concerning Volusia County's latest lawsuit and the pending suits in Palm Beach County. He mentioned that they have moved to consolidate all of the pending voter cases and move them to Leon County (Capital seat in Tallahassee). He also mentioned that there are republican lawyers standing by in all Florida counties being challenged by dems. to defend any further cases....."

Jack Tarvin Letter 11/13/00 ".....Congressman Lucas, ....... Please excuse the legibility of my handwriting, my printer is currently out of ink. However, ink on paper cannot possibly express my intense outrage at what is occurring in the state of Florida in Al Gore's name....... I've lived in Campbell County, (Kentucky,) all my life and been a labor union member my entire adult working career. I've voted in every presidential election since 1972 and never voted for Ronald Reagan or George Bush Sr. I've also voted for you personally, as well as Governor Patton. ........ But if Al Gore persists in his attempt to obtain an admittedly subjective and ambiguous (and very likely biased) hand recount, I solemnly swear I will never vote for another Democrat as long as I live and breathe......."

Flyer circulating in St. Louis Freeper silversurfer "..... "With how long Harry has been dead, he should win in a landslide." ........ Quickly following the victory of Mel Carnahan, the Missouri Democratic Committee has announced their choice for Senate in 2002, the late President Harry Truman. "The people have spoken, and we are here to support the people, no matter how silly it might seem." ........Senator elect Hillary Clinton applauded Missouri for its progressive thinking, stating that she plans to run for Senate in Missouri once she is dead. She also hinted at being a big Cardinals fan. ......"

rush limbaugh.com 11/12/00 Freeper rintense ".......

1. Rush is saying Bush WON the mandatory recount.

2. Clarifies that the Bush camp is going to court to prevent a swindle, not to change te results- to see the rule of law is upheld.

3. Al Gore's advisers are upset that the FLA. Sec. of State will not extend deadline. Any county that does not submit ceritfied results by 5pm, their results will not be counted. Dems say ruling politically motivated. Gore himself may challenge.

4. Rush says Harris is operating under a state law and is not playing partison politics. He emphasized the word SHALL.

5. Rush says its the impeachment all over again and the Rule of Law is being violated all over again.

Fox News 11/13/00 Freeper truth_eagle "...... BREAKING - FOX REPORTS THE THIRD MEMBER OF THE PBC COMMISION(THE JUDGE) SAID THE 1% HAND COUNT SHOWS THAT A FULL MANUAL COUNT WAS NOT JUSTIFIED!!! ......"

Freeper seraphMTH '......Here's some history on Judge Terry L. Lewis, the Circuit Judge handling the case. Here's one of his decisions on a previously unrelated case: ____________________________________________________

Judge blocks the state from enforcing a law on abortion notice

TALLAHASSEE - A circuit judge blocked the state from enforcing a recent law requiring doctors to notify parents before performing abortions on minors.

Judge Terry Lewis, 2nd Judicial Circuit, issued the temporary injunction. The law would have required doctors to provide a 48-hours notice to a parent or a legal guardian of anyone younger than 18 seeking an abortion. The law included exceptions allowing minors to ask judges to waive the notice requirement.

Lewis said the state singled out abortion while ignoring other medical procedures that don't require parental notification. He said the law could be unhealthy for some minors who would seek abortions in other states have illegal or self-induced abortions. (7/27/99) ....."

The Associated Press 11/13/00 Marcy Gordon ".....Republicans charged Monday that the process Palm Beach County is using to recount presidential votes is unfair, chaotic and possibly tainted by the Democratic ties of the county's three elected officials, and its commissioner in particular. ........ GOP observers of the weekend's hand recount saw election staff and canvassing board members mishandling ballots, ``potentially producing countless new votes,'' George W. Bush's campaign said in a letter Monday to Theresa LePore, a board member who is the county supervisor of elections. ....... The presence of chads - the bits of paper punched out of ballot cards - on the floor of the room showed that mishandling of ballots rather than the intent of voters was potentially producing new votes, the Republicans said. ........ ``Even the appearance of impropriety calls into question this race,'' said Mark Wallace, the lead Republican observer in Palm Beach County, questioning the officials' Democratic ties. .........Roberts acknowledged giving money to Al Gore's campaign, but said she was not active in it. She said she was even criticized by Democratic Party officials for not getting involved. ........Roberts also said she took her husband to a campaign event for vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman, but that they didn't even meet each other because it was very crowded. ......."

NewsMax.com 11/13/00 "...... Claiming he wanted "the will of people" heard, Al Gore insisted this afternoon that he would continue to contest the presidential election - not because he wanted to win, but because he supported "democracy." "I would not want to win the presidency by a few votes cast in error ... and I don't think Gov. Bush wants that either," Gore said at a 4 p.m. news conference outside the White House. .....Repeatedly referring to America as a "democracy" - which it is not; it is a republic - Gore said that "the integrity of our democracy, making sure that the will of people is expressed" was what mattered. "It is important that every vote is counted, and counted accurately," Gore said. "That's what I'm focused on." ..... He made no reference to reports of widespread Democrat vote fraud across the country, from Miami to Milwaukee to St. Louis to California. Nor did he mention widespread anger that pro-Democrat TV networks mistakenly called Florida for Gore early in the evening on Election Day, seeming to ensure a Gore victory and discouraging Bush supporters in the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones from voting. He refused to answer any questions. ....."

Fox News 11/13/00 Freeper Hildy "..... Fox news just reported that a Rally put on by Jesse Jackson in Florida which was expected to bring about 15,000 people out, ended in a bust, with Jackson leaving when pro-Bush people outnumbered his 1,500 people who showed up!!!!!! They heckled him until he left in disgust! ......"

UPI 11/13/00 "......Hewlett-Packard tripped on its earnings Monday and the whole market fell. The Nasdaq and the Dow Jones industrial average, already nervous about the presidential election, opened lower and stayed there most of the day. The Nasdaq dropped below the 3000 level for the first time in a year and closed at its lowest point in 52 weeks, ending the day down 62.25, or 2 percent, at 2966.74, despite a brief brush above break even. ..."

Fox News 11/13/00 Fox News interview with Sheperd Smith ".......

Hastings: You're a former United States Attorney and I'm a former United States federal judge...[Hastings blithers on]

Barr: And the law. You and I may have had very different legal careers, Alcee. I upheld the law and when the law says "shall", it means shall. Now you may have operated differently.

Hastings: And I interpreted the law and I want you to know...

Barr: Okay. Now see that's the rub. He wants to interpret the law the way they want. The Republicans want to uphold the law as the law says.

Hastings: Ahh see. Well then does the law say, does the law say that the county has the right to accept the legal recount request?

Barr: The law says that the result shall be certified and shall be in.

Hastings: Oh, you want to get to the end result without even the absentee ballots, Bob?

Barr: Well, the fact of the matter is that's what the law says. The officials who said that they would be ready for it except in Palm Beach county.......

Hastings: ...We're getting way away from the voting irregularities that... Barr: There weren't any voting irregularities, Alcee. There were people that after the fact say they want to revote but there are no allegations of voting irregularity.

Hastings: Bob, Bob, they said that on the day of the election - This Is In My District, Sir - and there are twenty-two thousand...[blithering]

Barr: Oh, and that makes it right, just because it's in your district? [Hum-humph.]

Hastings: [blither]...And if they were in your district, what would you say, "Ooops! That's okay." This...

Barr: No, we have smarter voters in our district, Alcee.

Hastings: Oh, Robert, what a nasty thing to say! You don't have to go there! It'll be decided in the United States Supreme Court, I promise you that.

Sheperd: Congressman Hastings, Congressman Barr, this is going to be a tough one to get to the bottom of. Thank you both for your input......"

MSNBC 11/13/00 "......NEWSWEEK "...... "I'm not like George Bush," Al Gore told an aide in 1999, when the campaign was just gearing up. "If he wins or loses, life goes on. I'll do anything to win." Bush may not have been quite as driven. "If this doesn't work out, I've got a life," he told a NEWSWEEK reporter in December 1999, when his campaign seemed to be dragging. ...."

CNN 11/13/00 "..... CNN just announced that a judge withdrew from a case! Does anyone know which one? His name was Steven Graf(sp?) Developing... " Freeper prov1813man "....Fox just reported that this Judge was alleged to have said "I will do anything to keep the democrats from winning". This allegation was made by someone who claimed he overheard it on an elevator, no witnesses. Judge denies it, but recuses himself for the sake of purity. ....."

Florida Statutes 11/13/00 ".....

Title IX ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS Chapter 102

Conducting Elections And Ascertaining The Results

102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.--If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers.

History.--s. 35, ch. 3879, 1889; RS 189; s. 66, ch. 4328, 1895; GS 249; RGS 293; CGL 349; s. 6, ch. 26870, 1951; s. 5, ch. 65-129; ss. 10, 35, ch. 69-106; s. 25, ch. 77-175; s. 46, ch. 79-400.

Note.--Former s. 99.50.

Freeper structure 11/13/00 "...... CNN just announced that they had to correct a statement by one of their guests regarding Ms Harris. The guest (and so many others!) claimed that Harris was appointed by Jeb Bush. Haven't we heard that all day long? Well, she was ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA. So take that, you low life Christopher. ...."

Freeper Will E Horton 11/13/00 ".....Officials in one key Florida county decided late today against conducting a manual recount of presidential votes, which is a potential blow to Al Gore's attempts to be declared the winner in Florida's crucial vote. After doing a sample hand check in three precincts, Broward County officials found only a net four-vote difference from the machine ballot count following last Tuesday's election. Broward, which includes Ft. Lauderdale, had backed Gore over George W. Bush by a nearly 2-1 margin. Gore campaign officials said tonight they will challenge the decision in court on Tuesday, saying officials there got "bad legal advice" from Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. ....." Freeper Steven W "..... The Broward folks actually decided to follow the law. This is the same thing that was told to Palm Beach but Carol Roberts rejected the State's direction & decided to break the law. The hand-job is only called for if the machines or software are proven not to work and cannot be fixed. The gal representing the state (not SOS) told them (Palm Beach) that the hand-job they did on Saturday only proved they had problems with the voters and not with the machines. Thus a handcount was not warranted. The Broward folks came to the proper conclusion and now the DemoncRATS are mad they won't break the law (surprise) ....."

CNN 11/13/00 Freeper rintense "..... MAJOR NEWS: CNN is reporting that Democrats will take Broward County to court to FORCE them to do a manual recount. ....."

Freeper markfnkl 11/13/00 MSNBC "..... MSNBC reported at 9:10 PM ET that approximately 2/3 of the way through the Volusia hand count, Gore has picked up only about 20 votes. It was also stated that this is less than the Gore camp had been hoping for. ....."

nm_james "....... THIS IS THE CASE LAW: It sets a clear precedent and Gore's lawyers must have seen this and KNOW that they MUST lose because of stare decisis

607 So.2d 508; 17 Fla. L. Weekly D2542

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Fourth District.

BROWARD COUNTY CANVASSING BOARD, Appellant,

v.

Alfred S. HOGAN, Appellee.

No. 92-0034.

Nov. 12, 1992.

Losing city council seat candidate brought action seeking manual recount of election results. The Circuit Court, Broward County, W. Herbert Moriarty, J., entered order directing county canvassing board to conduct manual recount. Board appealed. The District Court of Appeal held that county canvassing board acted within its discretion in deciding to defer to count of tabulation equipment following proper calibration and testing in response to demand of candidate for manual recount of election results and, thus, mandamus to compel manual recount was improper.

Reversed and remanded......."

Palm Beach Post 11/13/00 Scott Hiaasen Joel Engelhardt ".......Beneath the tedium of Palm Beach County's recount Saturday was a theme that hummed through the night. One could call it the Democratic Dimple Dilemma. If people tried to punch a ballot but failed to dislodge the cardboard 'chad,' or perforated rectangle, next to Al Gore's name, should the indentation -- or dimple -- left behind be counted because it reveals the voter's intent? ....... In Palm Beach County, a large number of the 10,361 ballots with no choice for president could have been meant for Gore, Democrats say. That belief was bolstered by Saturday's manual recount of four precincts. ......... The recount also fed Democratic efforts to prove ballot confusion by confirming that most of the double votes in the four precincts went to Gore and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. ......Democratic lawyer Ben Kuehne, observing the recount for Al Gore's campaign, repeatedly objected to the canvassing board's refusal to consider dimples. ......."

Drudgereport Website 11/13/00 Deb Weiss "....... Has Clintonism triumphed? You'd be tempted to think so, watching in dazed disbelief as an American election unravels, resembling more and more an opium-eater's nightmare, less and less the sturdy antagonism and occasional cheerful corruption of our traditional politics........... It's clear that Mr. Gore is toying with the idea of a Clintonian end-run around the Constitution. At the end of his game, he has become Tricky Al, the man who'll be remembered for having been outclassed by Richard Nixon. ....... Mr. Gore's lead in the popular vote nationwide (less than 100,000, the last time anyone bothered to look) is insubstantial, given the probability of fraud. What's more, everybody knows it. .....Mr. Gore did get one thing right, in the waning hours of his campaign. This is indeed a battle between good and evil -- between Americanism and Clintonism. At the moment, evil appears to be holding a slight but steady lead. ......But it's still too close to call. ....."

WRKO-AM 11/13/00 Freeper Yikes "..... Caught the tail end of a Boston-based talk show at around 9:30 tonight. Host's guest was Mike Jones, an executive with Republicans Abroad. He was talking from Austin. Said that it is imperative that we all contact our state election officials to absolutely make sure that all absentee ballots are counted. He said that a lot of states simply won't do it if counting them does not make a difference in the state's total. Jones said that Massachusetts, for example, has not yet counted the absentee ballots. He also said that California has 1.8 million absentee ballots, not 1 million. Folks, the states can certify their elections without these ballots. Number one priority tomorrow is to make sure we contact our state's election people. ......"

UPI 11/13/00 ".......Elections officials and the Democratic Party in Jacksonville, Fla., decided Monday to take no action on the issue of 22,000 votes that were thrown out in Duval County during the vote counting process........ At a meeting of officials and representatives of both major parties it was determined that the nature of the ballots on which voters picked two candidates in the presidential race afforded no solution to the problem........ Since under the law a voter can't pick more than one candidate in the same race, they were thrown out. The errors occurred more frequently in four precincts that voted for Gore, but Democratic County Chairman Mike Langton said he could find no way to remedy the situation, unlike Palm Beach County......... In West Palm Beach, Democrats contend an examination of individual ballots can determine the voters' intent in many cases, and a recount is scheduled for 7 a.m. EDT Tuesday......"

UPI 11/13/00 ".......The showdown over who becomes the next U.S. president shifted dramatically from federal to state court Monday after the campaign of Democrat Al Gore won a federal court decision that a hand-count can go forward, then fought in state court to extend a Tuesday deadline that could nullify any gains the hand-counting ruling produces. ......... But the legal maneuvering -- and the close vote in several other states that could theoretically give Bush the advantage even if he loses Florida -- made the outcome no clearer than when the voting began.......... Gore leads by 6,099 votes in Wisconsin, where Republicans are studying alleged voting irregularities in Milwaukee. He also leads by 5,121 votes in Iowa. In New Mexico, Bush had an unofficial 4-point lead and Republicans asked judges to impound early-voting and absentee ballots in case of a recount....... Gore leads by 5,756 in Oregon with 99 percent of votes counted. Oregon Republicans Monday asked the Democratic secretary of state to bow out of the election process, claiming he was too close to the Gore campaign.......... If Florida goes against Bush and he remains ahead in New Mexico, he could still win the Electoral College if he demanded recounts and won in Wisconsin and either Oregon or Iowa.........."

UPI 11/13/00 Paul Singer ".....While most eyes have focused on Florida's recount of its presidential ballot, Republicans in Oregon are asking the state's top election official to recuse himself from any additional participation in the state's razor close presidential balloting due to concerns that he favors Vice President Al Gore. Oregon is only one of several states where recounts or other legal action may be pursued to sort out the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election. ......... Oregon Republican Party Chairman Perry Atkinson wrote to Secretary of State Bill Bradbury Monday asking that he recuse himself from any further involvement in the state's based on news articles suggesting that a Bradbury aide told Gore Friday not to worry about the outcome. Atkinson's letter says Bradbury aide Paddy McGuire told the Associated Press Friday that Gore had called to inquire about the state's election results, and McGuire comforted Gore, saying, "We'll pull it out for you." ......These actions "seriously call into question the objectivity of your office," Atkison wrote, adding that both Bradbury and McGuire should "remove [yourselves] from any contact with the process" of counting ballots in the state. ......"

The Telegraph (U.K.) 11/14/00 Janet Daley "....... WHEN I was in America recently, watching Al Gore strut around during his last television debate with George W Bush - waving his finger in his opponent's face and generally behaving like the most obnoxious smart a - - e in the lower fifth - I thought to myself, "What kind of person thinks that this is the way to behave when he is running for the presidency?" Well, now we know. Mr Gore is the sort of person who is prepared to set fire to the stadium because he has lost the game. ...."

Associated Press 11/13/00 Dara kam "......A Harvard-educated blueblood from one of Florida's wealthiest families, Secretary of State Katherine Harris is no stranger to controversy. She's been investigated for campaign finance violations and criticized for spending state money jetting around the world, spending up to $500 a night for hotel rooms in Washington. She's also been one of George W. Bush's most prominent political supporters, campaigning for him in Florida and elsewhere........ She sits as one of six elected members on the Florida Cabinet, which with Gov. Jeb Bush, decides on issues ranging from the mundane to the momentous affecting schools, the environment and other statewide concerns. ..... As secretary of state, Harris oversees elections, the state's historical and cultural resources and also keeps the state's public records. She makes $106,000 a year. ......"

Freeper Sueann "....What's even better is, one of the ministers was just on O'Reilly and he was upset with Jesse. Said Jesse should be bringing people together, not waging war. Awesome. The guy also said that our media is not reporting what is really going on there in PBC. Amazing! ...."

Las Vegas Sun 11/10/00 Jace Radke "...... At one in 49 million, the chances of hitting Megabucks on one spin are slim, but not as slim as the odds that Vice President Al Gore would make up as much ground as he has in the Florida recount, according to a UNLV study. Economics professor Tom Carroll began running statistical equations Thursday on the net gains both Gore, who gained more than 2,200 votes, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who added about 700 votes, have made in the recount. He found that the statistical chances for such large and different totals to occur as a result of random glitches was less than infinitesimal. "The probability of being struck by lightning is about one in a million," Carroll said. "The same person would have to be hit by lightning 30 times to compare with what we've seen in this recount." ......"

Al Gore's Florida War Room Shut it down now. Please. By Richard Pollock "..... For six years I was the head of a Ralph Nader group, and later for a decade I served on the board of the liberal League of Conservation Voters. As a producer at ABC, I saw old-fashioned political consultants transformed into hardened kamikaze pundits, escalating their rhetoric and political tactics. You could say I have had a front row seat to observe the left in action. ...........Now, however, they are about to outdo themselves. America's liberals, led by Vice President Al Gore and his aides, are consciously preparing to undermine the legality and legitimacy of the next president of the United States. They should stop while they still can. ......"

New York Times 11/14/00 Michael Moss Ford Fessenden "......In the weeks before the presidential election, Florida Republicans mailed party voters tens of thousands of requests for absentee ballots that were virtually completed, requiring only the applicant's signature and social security number......... The aim was to drive up absentee voting for Gov. George W. Bush of Texas. But problems emerged. Many of the forms provided by the Republicans lacked the voter registration number required by Florida's tough anti-fraud election laws.......... Election officials in several counties said in interviews today that they supplied the missing number on the forms and sent out absentee ballots to voters......... A local lawyer in Seminole County, Harry Jacobs, formally protested Ms. Goard's decision to allow Republican campaign workers to correct the applications. "I felt like it was wrong," Mr. Jacobs said. "I felt it was not legal. I felt it was amoral." At a two-hour meeting today, the Seminole County election board rejected Mr. Jacob's complaint and certified the results, saying that Ms. Goard had followed the election law. ....... Mr. Jacobs said he was considering filing a lawsuit over the issue. Florida Democrats assert that Ms. Goard's decision to allow people other than the voters to amend the applications violated election laws. "She let them tamper with her files, and that's a felony," said Bob Poe, the Florida Democratic chairman. ......"

www.sun-sentinel.com 11/13/00 Ellis Berger "...... MIAMI -- Under a cloud of uncertainty about any decision it might make, Miami-Dade County's elections canvassing board was set to meet Tuesday to consider the Democratic Party's request for a hand count of 10,750 ballots in which no presidential choice was registered. Such an extensive manual count would take at least two weeks, because officials would have to sort through the more than 650,000 ballots cast to find the 10,750 in question, county elections supervisor David C. Leahy said Monday. ......... Miami-Dade Democratic chairman Joseph Geller, who submitted the request, said a compromise would be acceptable. Geller said the party would settle for what it has requested in other counties: a look at three precincts selected by the Democrats. Even that effort would likely take more than a day, meaning Miami-Dade would miss the Florida Secretary of State's deadline for all recounts to be completed by 5 p.m. Tuesday. Other counties struggling with the deadline are taking the issue to court. ........"

The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "...... "This is outrageous and illegal," fumed Democratic Rep. Peter Deutsch yesterday after Broward County's three election commissioners voted not to conduct a manual recount of last Tuesday's ballots. Democrats immediately vowed to sue to force a hand count of all ballots. The same Democrats who cheered when Palm Beach County voted for a full recount on Saturday blasted Judge Robert Lee, a Democrat, when he joined Republican Jane Carroll in rejecting a manual recount. Unlike Palm Beach County, Broward conducted a smooth hand count of 3,892 sample ballots and found only four extra votes for Al Gore. ........ The Broward decision severely damages Mr. Gore's efforts to secure enough votes in recounts to overturn George W. Bush's 388-vote lead, which is likely to be bolstered when overseas absentee ballots are all counted on Friday. ...."

The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "...... The only other county that has hand-counted all its ballots is Volusia (Daytona Beach), and Mr. Bush is holding his own there. Officials in Dade County (Miami) will meet Tuesday to discuss a possible sample hand recount, the odds of which have probably declined given that Broward--the county just north--has decided against any more counting. Yesterday, Osceola County, a Democratic stronghold, also reversed its original decision to have a hand recount and has finished its count. ........That leaves Palm Beach County as an outlier county in its determination to buck Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who says she must observe today's 5 p.m. deadline for certification of all counties' vote totals. Judge Terry Lewis promises to rule at 10:30 a.m. today on a request by Palm Beach and Volusia counties, joined by the Gore campaign, to set aside the deadline. ......"

The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "......The 2 a.m. Sunday decision by the Palm Beach election canvassing board to proceed with a full hand count is already hugely controversial. One of the two votes for a hand count came from Theresa LePore, the elections supervisor who designed the infamous butterfly ballot. ........ ... Yesterday Palm Beach County circuit judge Stephen Rapp recused himself from lawsuits over the butterfly ballot after a lawyer accused him of making disparaging remarks about Democrats in a courthouse elevator. Judge Rapp called the accusations "absolutely false" but still withdrew to avoid an appearance of a conflict. ........ Contrast that with Ms. LePore's behavior. An elected Democrat, she no doubt wishes to run for re-election, but she is now the subject of numerous lawsuits filed by voters angry over the ballot. A local Democratic state legislator is mounting a recall campaign against her. "She has an electoral gun held to her head," says one local journalist. "If she didn't go along with an aggressive hand count of ballots she wouldn't be able to live in the county anymore." ......"

The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "...... If Judge Lewis orders an extension of the deadline and allows Palm Beach County to launch a hand count of all its votes, this may prove insufficient to wipe out Mr. Bush's lead. Mr. Gore gained a net of 19 votes after Saturday night's sample recount of 1% of the county's precincts. Democrats extrapolate that a full hand count would yield 1,900 extra votes for Mr. Gore. Statisticians tell me that is highly unlikely. Palm Beach County has fewer than 10,000 "undervote" ballots--those for which the machine count showed no vote for president. The Gore campaign picked the most Democratic precincts that had the greatest number of "undervote" ballots. So instead of recounting only 1% of the total county vote, Palm Beach actually counted 5% of the undervote ballots. Of those, about a tenth were counted by Ms. LePore and her fellow mind-readers as representing ballots that should be counted. Experts guess than only about 1,000 votes could legitimately be found in the county wide boxes of "undervote" ballots. All in all, this might leave Mr. Gore with only a 200 net gain in votes--a not enough for him to catch Mr. Bush. ...... If the number of extra Gore votes exceeds 200 in Palm Beach County, it may be time for voters to start wondering exactly how the vote count was conducted and how carefully the ballots had been handled. ......."

11/14/00 Linda Spice Jesse Garza Journal Sentinel ".....A Marquette University freshman who said he was one of 174 students who told a campus newspaper they cast multiple presidential ballots said he doesn't fear prosecution if it highlights the holes he found in the political system. Election 2000 "I wanted to make the point that the system is screwed up here," said the student, 18, who asked not to be named. "I hope people can recognize the system is flawed, and if a poor college kid with no resources can manipulate the system, a person with an agenda and who wants to get things done - think how easily they can manipulate the system." .....The Marquette Tribune, the university's student newspaper, surveyed 1,000 students and found 174 admitted voting more than once, said Michael McGraw, the Tribune's metro news desk editor........The paper conducted the survey in person and by telephone after state Republicans on Friday alleged instances of voting irregularities, including claims that some students at Marquette and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee voted multiple times......"

CNN via dow Jones 11/14/00 Freeper Interloper ".....The Council for the Democratic Party and Vice President Al Gore will seek a court ruling Tuesday to count "dimpled" votes in Florida, according to Cable News Network. The group wants a judge to tell the Florida canvassing comission that, by Florida law, if an attempt was made by a voter to punch a ballot - even if it's just a tiny dimple - the vote must be counted. Some Democrats are concerned that county election officials in Florida have overlooked the "dimpled" ballots so far, CNN said......"

970 wfla radio 11/14/00 Freeper wrenn1010 "..... WFLA News Radio out of Tampa is reporting a cease in WPB recount. Election board is now questioning the legality of the recount. ...."

The Palm Beach Post 11/14/00 ".....Unofficial numbers show Vice President Al Gore gaining 24 more votes in Volusia County as election workers Monday scrambled to finish the monotonous exercise of recounting more than 184,000 ballots. But the day was not without embarrassment. ....... The canvassing board found 320 uncounted ballots from last Tuesday's election. The ballots had been fed through the electronic vote counter at the beginning of the day but were not recounted after the machine's memory was reset when the machine malfunctioned. Volusia's canvassing board still has plenty of work ahead -- not the least of which is determining voter intent on a stack of questionable ballots more than 2 inches thick. .....The county has until 5 p.m. today to turn its vote count in to the state. Volusia and Palm Beach counties sued the state for more time, and a Tallahassee judge is expected to rule on the request this morning. Volusia workers have finished counting 82 percent of the 172 precincts. ....."

Fox News 11/14/00 "..... Fox News just reported that Bob Butterworth, Attorney General, disagrees with the Palm Beach resolution and it now looks like a motion will be filed in court to continue to hand recount. OY! ...."

Foxnews 11/14/00 Freeper Clinton's a liar "..... Okay, folks. The process is working. The Palm Beach County Canvassing Board (yes, the one with the Dread Pirate Roberts) is having a live press conference. The manual recount has been suspended in Palm Beach County because it is adverse to the law and an binding opinion that the board just received. For some reason they are awaiting a second opinion from the Attorney General. These opinions are "binding" to the board. ...." Freeper Excuse_Me adds "...If they're waiting for a second opinion from the Atty Gen, Bob Butterworth, then they'll be counting again in a short while. He's Gore's Florida Campaign Chair, and he didn't recuse himself like Jeb Bush did... "

Freeper Reb Raider To: Keyesertarian "....... Did anyone hear the elderly gentleman on C-span that said he and his brother(laywers)both volunteer for the Palm Beach(or Florida) democratic party and that his brother was inside during the 1%hand recount? He sounded so sad and said that his brother doesn't want to be involved anymore because people were poking through the chads for Gore and saying "Oh yeah,this is a vote for Gore." I'm in the central time zone, so those of you in the west watch Washington Journal. I think it was 7-15min. after it started. I'd love for the Bush team to find out who this is. Seems like there can't be too many brothers volunteering there for the DNC that are both lawyers. ....."

Freeper Getreal_2000 "..... Based on a 2 to 1 vote the manual count in Palm Beach County is suspended as they have a binding opinion from the state election division that a manual count is not allowed if the machine counting system has been tested and is working properly which is the case. This action can be overturned by the Attorney General's office but a former AG says the election commision's opinions are usually respected. Of course, the court can order whatever, and the PBC canvassing board said that. Looks good for "W" and accurate counting of election results. ....."

Freeper StarFan "CNN REPORTING THAT GORE VICTORY SHRINKS IN IOWA. He was ahead by 5,000 and now is at 4,000 as they still continue to count. ...."

CNN 11/14/00 Freeper structure "...... CNN reporter John Zarella from Palm Beach says the Attorney General Butterworth replies that Sec of State's opinion on manual recount is erroneous. ....... The one paragraph Zarella read on the air said that "manual recount is allowed when there is tabulation error." ......"

Freeper ICU812 ".....The man on the Palm Beach canvassing board(can't remember his name but this is only one male) just told Fox that because they have conflicting opinions from the Director of Elections and the AG they have to take it to a circuit judge and ask for 'declaratory relief'. Sounds like they need a tie-breaker to me. ...."

Dallas Morning News 11/14/00 Charles Ornstein ".......The tumult about how to recount this county's presidential ballots set off partisan sniping Monday - even turning a vote supervisor's bumper sticker into a suspicious political matter. Republicans charged that the counting system Palm Beach County is using is unfair, chaotic and possibly tainted by the Democratic ties of the county's vote canvassing board. ..... Democrats denied that, accusing George W. Bush's supporters of engaging in a "cheap political stunt." ........ "

Dallas Morning News 11/14/00 Charles Ornstein ".......GOP observers of the weekend's initial hand recount said they saw election staff and canvassing board members mishandling ballots, "potentially producing countless new votes," the Bush camp said in a letter Monday to Theresa LePore, a board member who is the county supervisor of elections.

The canvassing board members are registered Democrats, although chairman Charles Burton was named a county judge this year by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. ....... Aides to George W. Bush took particular aim at Carol Roberts, the county commissioner who pressed for the full hand tally. "The person most shrilly and loudly calling for this flawed manual recount was the individual who now today admitted to political involvement in the Gore-Lieberman camp," Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew said. ......"

Dallas Morning News 11/14/00 AP ".......A federal lawsuit filed Monday says George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can't legally claim Texas' 32 electoral votes because both are inhabitants of the state - a violation of the Constitution's 12th Amendment. The amendment bars a state's electors from voting for both a president and vice president from the same state. Mr. Cheney lived and worked in Dallas for eight years, but he switched his voter registration to Wyoming in July to avoid any conflicts. ...... That's not good enough, says the suit by Lawrence Caplan, a Boca Raton, Fla., lawyer. Just moving one's voter registration doesn't meet the legal definition of being an "inhabitant," he said. A Bush spokesman said that Mr. Cheney owns property in Wyoming and that he was a legally registered voter in Wyoming this election. ...."

New York Post 11/14/00 Rod Dreher "...... EXUDING a Strangelovian calm, Al Gore declared to the media yesterday that he would commit the political equivalent of bombing Florida back to the Stone Age. ..... With skin-crawling unctuousness, Gore mewled that this election wasn't about him, but about "our democracy." .........MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews heard in the veep's deceptively mild words a declaration of total war. "He has escalated this thing all the way," a stunned Matthews said, explaining that Gore appears prepared to fight for an extraordinary revote in Palm Beach County. ......"

Reuters 11/14/00 "......Al Gore is considering a proposal to end the stalemate over Florida's vote count that calls for George W. Bush to agree to a manual recount throughout the state and the Vice President would in turn renounce any further lawsuits, the Los Angeles Times said on Tuesday....... Citing Gore campaign aides, the Times said that under the approach being discussed, Gore would not join litigation challenging the "butterfly ballot" in Palm Beach County and would support efforts to recount the ballots by hand in all of Florida's 67 counties, rather than just the four Democratic-leaning counties his campaign has selected......"

New York Post 11/14/00 Brian Blomquist "...... The folksy Florida judge set to decide today whether to give Al Gore more time for a manual recount is a popular Democratic appointee who knows his writes from wrong. Tallahassee Judge Terry Lewis, who penned a mystery thriller about a troubled alcoholic lawyer in 1997 called "Conflict of Interest," has even drawn praise from the GOP. "He's not liberal. He's not conservative. He's how a judge ought to be," Bush lawyer Barry Richard said. "He's got a high intelligence, a sharp legal mind and absolute integrity." ......"

Preliminary recount results show 3-vote gain in Volusia Staff Report 11/14/00 "....Rough, unofficial statistics released by Volusia County officials show Vice President Al Gore with slight gains in a manual recount of U.S. presidential election ballots. ......County employees completed the recount at about 5:15 p.m. Monday, but the Volusia County Canvassing Board still must rule on a stack of questionable ballots, a job that will likely take until today. However, officials are confident they will easily reach a 5 p.m. deadline today to have the results certified and handed over to state officials. ..... The early statistics show Gore with a net gain of three votes over Texas Gov. George W. Bush. More results were expected Monday evening and into the night. ...."

The Palm Beach Post 11/14/00 Joel Engelhardt Susan Spencer-Wendel Marc Caputo ".......Even as Palm Beach County prepared Monday for the tedium of a six-day manual ballot recount, the Democratic Party filed an 11th-hour lawsuit to change the counting criteria. At 5 p.m. Monday, Democratic lawyers -- freshly filed lawsuit in hand -- stood outside the chambers of Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll. They wanted to meet with her, but she already had left for the day. ........ The lawsuit demands that indentations on the ballot be counted as a vote. The so-called dimples are made when a voter fails to punch out the small rectangle, called a chad, on the county's punch-card ballots. ......The suit argues that the county's canvassing board started to count dimples during a manual count of four precincts Saturday, then reversed itself and stopped counting them, costing both Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush "several hundred" votes. ......"

Freeper bootless "....BREAKING? Miami-Dade County has decided not to hand count. Kendall Coffey, DEM lawyer, is very unhappy about it. ....." and ".... Watching the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board take public testimony. The Board chair just told Kendall Coffey (Dem lawyer) to save the fancy stuff for the courtroom, and only address the issues pertinent to their county. ....."

Freeper structure ".....Baker looks pretty confident to me. Talking about the disturbed international markets plus overseas problems with foreign policy implementation. He does not want an endless process, talking about the detrimental effects of the fact that no one knows when this will end. Making new proposal....saying manual recount proposal of the whole state is "crazy." ....." and "...... Baker proposal: both camps accept vote counts of 5pm (including whatever manual counts have been done already)and absentees received by midnight per deadline. Bush camp will agree to drop all suits if Gore camp accepts compromise. Listen, Baker is a dealmaker, if nothing else. I trust him when he tries to make a bargain that he has some idea what he's doing. (IMO anything is better than dealing with David Boies in court.) And he's right about the markets and the fact that no one knows when this will end. Uncertainty is truly a problem. ....."

St Petersburg Times 11/14/00 James Thorner "..... Bill Bunting, dressed in the getup of an 18th-century American revolutionary, called out his band of Republican minutemen to blast what he called the attempted theft of this year's presidential election. Lining the west side of U.S. 19 in Pasco County on Monday afternoon, Bunting and more than 100 supporters of George W. Bush offered a counterpunch to the pro-Al Gore forces rallying in Palm Beach County. ..... "We're being wronged. We're being cheated by the Democrats," Bunting said from under the brim of his tricorner hat, dozens of passing cars and trucks honking in support. "The election is being stolen." ......."

Freeper freedom4ever 11/14/00 ".... A third judge has recused in Palm Beach County. ....."

Freeper rintense "..... And Baker spoke about the Dems SUING Broward County to continue the recount. Baker just made the Dems look like desperate fools. ....."

FoxNews 11/14/00 rockinonritalin "...... Miami-Dade county to recount 3 precincts by hand..." "...Just announced on Fox News Network. ......To begin today. The 3 precincts that they are looking at went for 85% for Gore. ...."

Tampa Bay Online 11/14/00 AP ".....Fox News Channel is investigating whether an executive related to George W. Bush provided his cousin's campaign with insider exit poll data on Election Night. Fox said, however, that John Ellis did not make the final decision when the network declared at 2:16 a.m. on Wednesday that Bush had won the presidency. The network is considering some sort of disciplinary action against Ellis, who was working on a temporary contract, spokesman Rob Zimmerman said Tuesday. Ellis, a first cousin to the Texas governor, was the director of Fox's decision team on election night. He was responsible for interpreting election data and helping Fox News Channel declare states for either Bush or Al Gore, Zimmerman said. Fox was aware that Ellis was a Bush cousin before he was hired, Zimmerman said. Ellis had worked in the past for NBC News. Fox has said that John Moody, its vice president of news and editorial quality, made the final call in declaring Bush the winner in Florida....."

Freeper Cosmo "..... Dailey just said the laws of Florida will be determined by the courts....I thought they were determined by the legislature? ....."

Freeper structure ".... CNN says FOUR JUDGES have now recused themselves. ...."

Freeper StarFan "..... Legal eagle on fox saying don't expect the judge to rule in GWB's favor. He believes recount will continue and doubts supreme court will get involved. Cannot read his name, however. Oh, his name just mentioned - Terence Anderson. ....."

Freeper structure "..... Just heard Gore campaign is claiming "markets are not riled up and there is no problem with uncertainty" ROFLMAO Tell that to the folks on the floor at the market. They're scared to pieces what might happen next. ....."

James Rowley 11/14/00 Bloomberg "......A Florida judge will decide today whether to give two predominantly Democratic counties more time to hand-count ballots in Vice President Al Gore's effort to overtake Republican George W. Bush's lead in the state and gain the presidency. ....... Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes called Gore's remarks ``troubling'' because ``the vice president said we should ignore the law so he could overturn the results of this election.'' ....... Gore picked up 24 votes after ballots from 140 of Volusia County's 172 precincts were hand counted, officials said. Volusia officials say today they'll finish reviewing about 100 ballots that had been deemed questionable.

The focus now turns to Palm Beach County, where officials want to hand count all 480,000 ballots after a weekend sampling of 1 percent of the precincts turned up a 19-vote gain for Gore. ......Broward County officials recounted 3,800 ballots, less than 1 percent of the vote. Gore gained four votes, according to Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the county Democratic Party. The county's election commission voted 2-1 not to proceed with a full recount, saying the added votes didn't indicate large tabulating errors. .....In addition to the recounts, about 5,000 to 14,000 mail-in ballots from Florida voters living abroad are due at midnight Friday and will be tallied Saturday. Bush campaign aides say the Texas governor probably will win a majority of those votes, based on counts from previous elections. ....."

James Rowley 11/14/00 Bloomberg "......Gore adviser and former Secretary of State Warren Christopher called Harris's insistence on today's deadline ``a move in the direction of partisan politics'' that ``has the look of an effort to produce a particular result.'' Gore's campaign is ready to appeal any lower-court decision against extending the deadline, he said. ....... Bob Crawford, a Democrat on Florida's three-member election canvassing board, said Florida law provides Harris ``no discretion'' to grant an extension. ....... After the deadline, ``the door is closed'' to any other results except overseas absentee ballots received by midnight Friday, said Crawford, a Bush supporter named to the panel after the candidate's brother, Governor Jeb Bush, recused himself. ......"

James Rowley 11/14/00 Bloomberg "......Gore attorney Dexter Douglass said it would be a ``very, very great mistake,'' to rush the recount. Gore ``is prepared to lose this election,'' Douglass said. ``He is prepared to accept finality within a reasonable period of time.'' ........... Bush's campaign will decide today whether to appeal a Miami federal judge's refusal to stop the hand counts, campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks denied the Bush request, saying he lacked jurisdiction over state election law. Bush attorney Theodore Olson argued that hand counts would produce ``chaotic, unreliable and capricious results'' by election officials who are prone to error and individual bias. ........"

AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......Officials in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County put their hand recount of ballots on hold Tuesday while representatives of Al Gore and George W. Bush argued over a deadline for certifying the results of all votes cast in the state. ...... The Palm Beach officials voted 2-1 to delay the manual recount of about 430,000 ballots until they could clarify whether they had the legal authority to proceed. The Gore camp planned to appeal. Palm Beach County is asking the Florida Supreme Court to clarify which opinion is correct. .......The dispute produced conflicting opinions from the Democratic attorney general and Republican election officials. ....."

AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......The Florida Democratic Party sued the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on Monday evening, challenging the board's method of reading the ballots. The party wants "pregnant chads" - dimpled fragments not detached from the card - counted as votes. ....."

AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......Democrats prepared to go to court in Broward County to overturn a decision by officials there not to order a countywide manual recount. The county's canvassing board decided Monday against the recount, after counting a sample of votes by hand in three precincts and finding no major discrepancies. "We intend to file litigation seeking judicial relief from this decision, which we think was based on an erroneous legal decision sent down by the secretary of state," Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus said. ....."

AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......Bush's legal team was weighing whether to escalate a fight it began in federal court. The options include appealing Middlebrooks' decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, or possibly going to the U.S. Supreme Court on an emergency basis, according to Republican officials familiar with Bush's strategy. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the possibility that Republicans would seek to expand voter recounts to other Florida counties where Bush fared well was "perceived as unlikely" at this time because deadlines for requesting such recounts had expired in many counties. ...."

Andrew Cain and Audrey Hudson 11/15/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES "......A key strategist for Vice President Al Gore visited Democratic leaders in Congress yesterday to build a case for patience, arguing that the unresolved election is not causing tumult on Capitol Hill.......... Gore campaign Chairman William M. Daley swept through the Capitol, seeking support from top Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri........ Last week, five current or former Democratic senators - Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey and John B. Breaux of Louisiana, and former Sens. Sam Nunn, Dale Bumpers and Bill Bradley all urged a quick end to the election with no drawn-out legal battle......... As lawyers for the vice president and Texas Gov. George W. Bush dueled in Florida, the Gore campaign buttressed its legal Dream Team, adding David Boies, the government's lead attorney in the Microsoft antitrust case........ Earlier in the day, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said international markets are in flux "because they don't see any finality here."

Mr. Daley disputed that logic on Capitol Hill. "The markets go up, the markets go down," Mr. Daley said. "I think most honest observers of the market today would say that, if there are changes in the market, they're a result of some of the earning statements that have been put out by the companies, having nothing to do with what's gone on in the last week in the political world."........ "

Christian Broadcasting Network 11/14/00 Scott Hegenson "......Five Florida voters are preparing a lawsuit against the major broadcast networks, major cable news outlets and the exit polling service they used in projecting Al Gore the winner of the Florida presidential election before the polls had closed in their state. The plaintiffs, all of whom live in the Florida panhandle region of the state, claim they were "disenfranchised by the networks' wrongfully projecting a Gore victory in Florida on Election Night before polls closed," where they live, according to a statement announcing the lawsuit. ......"

CNN Breaking News 11/14/00 Judge Terry Lewis Freeper southernnorthcaroline "..... Tallahassee Judge Terry Lewis just announced that he will allow STATE LAW to prevail and let the 5pm EST Deadline to be the standard of the rule of law. (Thank G*d!) ..... Dow Jones spiking UP hard... "

Freeper mbw "....What's incredibly interesting is how Fox (and others, I'm sure) are reporting this. To quote them, "A shocking decision." What is so damn shocking about following the law as it is written? ...."

Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "...... The only wiggle room is that the sect'y of state in its "may" discretion cannot arbitrarily ignore late filed hand recounts. I think this was meant to address an earlier case where the results were phoned in, but the paper results not received for 3 days. In the end, this deadline holds because handcounts were never authorized in the first place without a finding of system or tabulation machine error. You make the deadline or you don't. ......"

Freeper ftrader "...... Carol Roberts is on now, bitching and complaining. Spinning there are 2 standards. There is an injunction is stopping Palm Beach Country from certifying. IF PALM BEACH CAN'T CERTIFY, THE SEC'Y OF STATE HAS THE RIGHT TO IGNORE THEIR VOTES [my opinion from the statue.] What a mess! The judges keep recusing themselves or declining to hear the "ballot" issue vote. ....."

Freeper hflynn "....... For now is more accurate than you'll ever know. 10 Minutes before the ruling was made public Daley and Tom Daschle were giving a brief news conference on CNN. Someone walked up and whispered something into Daley's ear. It wasn't good. Daley sort of grimaced and then quickly ended the conference. Daley and Daschle headed behind closed doors. They were given a headsup on the ruling. No doubt Plan 23B is about to be executed. They will not stop. ......"

Freeper Steve Schulin "..... The judge told Secretary of State that she must not arbitrarily dismiss future recount data just because it gets submitted after the so-called final deadline. That's why ABC sez we lost. The pressure to include recount data will be incredible. ....."

Freeper Howlin "..... CBS now says Bush up by 435. Go figure. ...."

Freeper monkeyshine "..... CBS is interpreting it differently. I have no idea. But CNN, Fox and ABC radio are calling it for Bush. ......"

Freeper markfnkl "..... CNN anchorette Natalie something-or-other trying valiantly to fight back the tears. She actually just said: "WE still have the appeal."!!! ....."

Freeper L'enn Foxnews "....... Broward County has been ordered by the Court to go back and VOTE AGAIN to determine whether to go forward with manual recounts. Manual recounts were voted against by Broward County over the the objection of its on Democratic supervisor......." JeanS adds "....I just heard on Fox that the board consists of one democrat, one republican, and an bipartisan. The bipartisan is a registered dem and a judge. He was said to be "wavering." This is a clear signal from the democrats to this judge. ...."

NewsMax 11/13/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Colorado presidential elector Mary Hergert reports that ABC News asked her if she would consider changing her vote from George W. Bush to Al Gore. She found the "questions from ABC News more like veiled intimidation than journalistic inquiry," the Rocky Mountain News reported today. Suspicious, she checked her caller ID to make sure it was ABC News - and it was. The caller, "Ed from ABC News," asked Thursday if she would ever consider voting for Gore, and claimed it was unconstitutional for state law to require her to follow Colorado voters' choice of Bush, Hergert said. As the Rocky Mountain News pointed out, the Constitution says nothing on the matter. A second Colorado elector, Rob Dieter, also told about a call from ABC News when the Rocky Mountain News asked if anyone had tried to influence his vote. ......"

Freeper otterpond "......I heard on 580 WDBO radio here in Orlando that Volusia county has a problem. Namely, they hand-counted 68 more ballots than the number of ballots that were issued. The county election officials also announced that they would not be able to correct the count before the 5:00PM deadline. Since the county submitted the hand-count to be certified by Sec. Harris, I wonder if they submitted it knowingly with this error in place? I am not trying to start any rumor here. I am just wondering if any other Central Florida FReeper heard this same report and can confirm it. ....."

Freeper Vermonter "....FOX news just reported that the county committee has not decided what to do about the judge's order and has no meeting scheduled before Friday afternoon! ...." [Broward]

Freeper KeatsforFirstDog on MSNBC "....Roberts just said she was willing to go to jail so that she could keep recounting the numbers. ...." [Palm Beach]

Freeper VA Advogado "....Did you hear Ted Olson (the GOP Lawyer) say to King that "Bill Daley saying this isn't about politics is like a clown saying it isn't about the circus" LOL. ...."

Freeper StarFan in response to "Boise (Gore's lawyer) said he hoped that it was not because of the SOS's "mischief" in demanding a 2 pm memo tomorrow" said ".... I couldn't believe how quick his comeback was (blame the otherside) when first learning of their decision. Guess that is why he and Daley are paid the big bucks......"

Freeper Liberty ".....G.Gordon Liddy had his son Tom on the program today. Tom is a lawyer and goes into states to help with recounts for the Republicans. According to him, there are over a million votes yet to be tabulated, including absentee ballots, which could put Dubya in the lead in popular votes too......"

Washington Post via Drudge 11/14/00 AP ".....A group with Republican links sued TV networks Tuesday and accused them of discouraging voters from going to the polls in the Florida Panhandle by erroneously projecting Al Gore would carry the state. .......The Committee for Honest Politics sued in Shalimar on behalf of an Okaloosa County voter who did cast his ballot but contended its value was diminished by the networks' projection. The Indianapolis-based group's executive director, Dan Perrin, said another lawsuit would be filed on behalf of Bay County voters in Panama City on Friday. Perrin also serves as executive director of the Republican Leadership Coalition and the Fairness Foundation.

The Okaloosa lawsuit seeks an injunction against seven TV networks and the Voter News Service, which conducted exit polls for the networks, to prevent them from making similar projections in future elections before all polls close in a state. ....... It also names election officials as defendants and seeks a new election in Central Time counties if hand counts elsewhere put Gore ahead in Florida. ...... Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections Pat Hollarn said she had received no complaints indicating anyone was discouraged from voting although she, too, was angry about the projection. ....."

New York Times 11/14/00 Daniel Wakin "...... The deadline passed today for Florida's 67 counties to submit vote tallies to the state in a recount that could determine the next president, but the race was far from over because the judge who upheld the deadline also ruled that late totals must be considered. ......Those numbers are unlikely to be final. Florida counties have until Friday to report the results of overseas votes and Democrats are pushing for hand recounts from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, three Democratic-leaning counties. ....... Ms. Harris said by 2 p.m. Wednesday election officials from those counties must send her a statement explaining why they believe a manual recount is necessary. She said she would then ``exercise my discretion'' about whether the county statements justified amending the results filed today with a recount. ........ Ms. Harris said the ruling gave her the power to determine whether or not recounts by hand should be allowed in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties. ``Unless I determine in the exercise of my discretion that these facts and circumstances contained in these written statements justify an amendment to today's official returns, the state Elections Canvassing Commission in a manner consistent with its normal and usual practice will certify the statewide results recorded to this office today,'' she said. Earlier her office issued an opinion saying manual recounts should not be considered barring a mechanical malfunction of the counting machines. ......"

CBS Radio News Freeper Mr. Buzzcut "....Larry Halloran questions whereabouts of 250 Bush votes. Campaign considering options. ....."

Freeper Catphish "...At the press conference by the Volusia officials I heard a reporter ask one of the officials about some obvious discrepancy concerning 250 votes and "incompetence" with respect to them. The official looked nervous about the question and didn't give a straight answer. Not to sure about the details. This could confuse things, those votes could be real important if the oversees votes are tight. ....."

Freeper FtrPilot ".....there is 250 missing absentee ballots. they don't know what happened to them. When the vote is finally declared, Jeb Bush should impound everything and start a criminal investigation. ....."

Freeper org.whodat ".....AS I understood it there was 360 or so more ballots in hand than was shown on the machine. And these unaccounted for ballots reduced the number for Bush, When the reporter ask the fat demo slug. She looked dumn, and then she looked like she was going to get sick. Something stinks here besides the fla. water. ....."

Freeper icwhatudo "..... he said this as she approached the podium for her 7:30 pm news conference.. The tone of his voice said it all... Clueless Chris Matthews on now saying "it looks like Ms Harris has really opened the door here for the Gore camp" I wonder if he really believes what he is saying.. ok back to fox PS I am in love with Ms Harris ....."

Freeper Artist "...They also refered to her as a "millionaire" on the NBC Nightly News....I guess it's time to refer to "millionaire news anchor Tom Brokaw" too. ...."

Freeper Medford Man ".....I imagine at this very moment the Clinton/Gore private investigators are digging out every facet of her present private and business life as well as any and all details of her personal history and every fact obtainable on her family's history. I am 100% sure they at this point have her FBI file at their disposal. I can visualize a roomful of the likes of James Carvile, Lanny Davis, Paul Begala, and Sid Blumenthal determining where and how to destroy this brave soul who has done nothing wrong other than try to uphold the law and stand up to this lawless bunch.

They are going to give her a public going-over that would make Linda Tripp shudder. They will try to intimidate and destroy her as they have everyone else that has stood in their way. They do this not only to influence what is happening now in Florida but also to send a message to all others in the future who would not cave to them. Disgraceful and much more! ....."

Reuters 11/14/00 ".......Broward County, one of four Florida counties where Democrats sought a manual recount of votes from the U.S. presidential election, filed its results with state election officials based on a partial hand recount, officials said Tuesday. ..... That partial manual recount yielded four more votes from Broward for Democrat Al Gore compared to the first results from the Nov. 7 vote in Florida, a crucial state where Gore was behind his rival Republican George W. Bush by a razor-thin margin. ....... Broward halted manual recounting on Monday evening after Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a prominent Republican, Monday ordered election officials in Florida to complete their recounts and file their data by 5 p.m. EST Tuesday.......... On Tuesday afternoon, the Broward county canvassing board recessed until 5 p.m. on Friday, and said it would seek a ruling from the Florida supreme court over the contradictory interpretations of state election law regarding recounts contained in opinions from Harris and Democratic attorney general Bob Butterworth. ....... There was no assurance that the state Supreme Court would take up the matter up, said Norman Ostrau, the attorney for the canvassing board. ......."

Washington Times 11/14/00 Wesley Pruden "...... When the first recount, a statewide tally as required by law, began the next day, there were cautions from both Democratic and Republican veterans of recounts past that the results were unlikely to change very much. Said one official: "They just never do. A vote here, a vote there. It's rare for a result to be reversed." ........ But Palm Beach County is turning out to be the county that could. Al Gore picked up more than 800 votes in the first recount, and Democratic officials there, with no hint of embarrassment, merely suggest that it was the work of those senile or stupid constituents who couldn't punch a hole in a piece of paper even with the help of a machine. Naturally, they don't describe them quite that way. Other Gore gains, always in counties that he had carried on election night with big margins, have slowly erased George W.'s original 1,784-vote final, unofficial margin.

This astonishes a lot of disinterested observers. "The probability of that many going for Gore is less than one in a trillion," Rand Wilcox, a statistics professor at the University of Southern California, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's very peculiar - it's not random. There's something systematic going on." ....."

Freeper Helen "....I'm listening. Now I'm really confused, and getting angry all over again. He's saying that he's handed this to algore with weasel words and legaleze. Levine is saying he gave discretion to the Secretary of State and then took it away....."

Freeper blutobob "...They are selling radio commercials guys.... The Secy of State can do what she wants, as long as it is not "arbitrary and capricious"(that's the legal test for abuse of discretion, unlike what Christopher says..."arbitrary and unreasonable.") If she can come up with a good reason for what she does and shows that she has considered everything, her actions will stand. She will be the lightening rod for the political heat the dems generate, but that is why they pay her the big bucks. ...."

Freeper rintense "....Here's what was said... Mark Levin (I think) also just blew PBC out of the water with the fact that they can not keep doing recounts because there is no proof of a fault with the tabulating machine. He is pointing out that Attn. Gen. Butterworth has no jurisdiction to interfere in this case, nor does he have the right to question the job or decision making of the SOS. Oh, and Butterworth was the Gore Campaign manager in Florida (why haven't the media picked up on THAT since they have nailed Kathy Harris for campaigning for for Bush)............ Levin basically says this judge put the burden on the SOS to prove they shouldn't accept the manual count. He thinks this is not good for the Bush camp, and he has pretty much called the AP reporters idiots for not getting the law or ruling right. Levin believes there is no where the Pubbies can go from here as the Supreme Court of the US truly has no reason to involve itself in a state matter. The Florida Supreme Court is full of left-wing liberals who would probably just laugh at an appeal............ Levin is also chastising Gore for suing Broward County for not going forward with the hand recount. Thinks this is about as bad as it gets. ....."

Freeper wrenn1010 "....A little insider info here from State of Florda government official. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS!!! ...."

Freeper Starfan "....What an interesting day. O'Reilly on Bob Grant is going on about his investigating Jesse Jackson's income and finds some irregularities (no kidding). ...."

Freeper Dog Gone "....... I respect Mark Levin, but he's being way too pessimistic here, and he shouldn't be spreading panic in the ranks like this. I agree with you, and I'm sure Clarity would also. All Harris has to do is have "a reason" for her lawfully-prescribed action in order for it to withstand judicial scrutiny. It doesn't have to be a compelling reason, or even a very good reason. Anything above "a really horrible nonsensical ridiculous reason" is going to be enough to meet the judicial standard. ....... Of course, Levin is right that the Florida Supreme Court might not uphold the State's actions, but that would be the case no matter WHAT they do. If they want to legislate from the bench, they will. That hasn't been their practice in the past. ....... I don't think we lost this court decision at all. It would have been FAR worse if Harris had been ordered to ignore the deadline. She'll enforce it, and then it's up to the Democrats to try to overturn it, a much more difficult task. ......."

Freeper True-Stu 11/14/00 "..... This lawyer belives that the DemocRAT lawyers are guilty of the worst kind of spin. I find it incredible that they would think that the judges ruling that the SOS must not reject later handcounts "arbitrarily" is a ruling favorable to thier position. Of course they really don't believe this- its just spin......... The case law on what is, or is not an "arbitrary" decision is voluminous and well settled. To overturn an administrative officials decision on the basis that it was "arbitrary" requires the complainant to show that there was NO REASONABLE BASIS for the decision. If the official shows at least one reasonble criteria, then the decision will be upheld. The official need not have made the "right" decision in the eyes of the court. In fact, the court doesn't really look to the rightness or wrongness of the decision, only whetther there was some rational basis for it......... An interesting case showing this analysis appears in part below. I found this case particulary interesting since it deals with the continuing legal eduction requirements of Florida lawyers:

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. No. 96-3276. Thomas Rowe SCHWARZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.

Gerald KOGAN, Defendant-Appellee, Florida Bar Foundation, Defendant-Intervenor-Appellee. Jan. 12, 1998.

"...Schwarz nevertheless insists that permitting Bar members to comply with their professional responsibility by making a financial contribution to a legal aid society, instead of personally or collectively performing tangible legal services, makes the Rule arbitrary and capricious. We disagree. It was rational for the Florida Supreme Court to conclude that, since some attorneys inevitably will not or cannot devote twenty hours to pro bono legal work, giving these attorneys the option of satisfying their professional responsibility by donating funds to a legal services organization--under circumstances where they might otherwise do nothing--both maintains respect for the Rule and furthers its ultimate purpose of increasing the availability of legal services to the poor. Moreover, the selection of $350 as the appropriate amount was not irrational, since a larger amount might discourage voluntary contributions or encourage a perception that this provision benefits only wealthy attorneys. There are, admittedly, reasonable arguments against this aspect of the Rule. See, e.g., 630 So.2d at 506 (Barkett, J., specially concurring) (suggesting an "inherent inequality when those who cannot pay are asked to provide twenty hours of work, and those with money can "buy out' for the value of a few hours"). Our task, however, is not to evaluate whether the justifications for this portion of the Rule are more or less persuasive than any arguments to the contrary; we may ask only if there is a "conceivable basis" for allowing Bar members to substitute a legal aid contribution of $350 for a donation of legal services. There is an entirely rational basis for this provision, especially since nothing in the Rule requires Bar members to donate either time or money to the indigent."

Based on the above, I can conclude with reasonable certainty (can anyone be certain in this fiasco?) that if the SOS articulates her basis for refusing to accept the handcounts, i.e. they are only required by law when there are tabulation errors with machines, not voter errors and that hand counting for any other reason, particularly in selective Dem counties, is too subjective and inaccurate to be considered, this decision WILL be upheld.For the higher Court to rule otherwise would fly in the face of established State and Federal case law. ......."

Media Research Center 11/14/00 "....... "Everybody's getting a party label whether they deserve it or not," Peter Jennings promised during an ABC News special Monday night in reference to players in the Florida political and judicial process. His assurance came after ABC failed to identify the Democratic ties of federal Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who turned down the GOP request to halt hand-counts, and just as Jennings was leading into a look at the Bush connections of Secretary of State Katherine Harris who affirmed 5pm Tuesday as the deadline for counties to file their results. ............ ABC's Linda Douglass described Harris as "politically ambitious" and concluded that "Democrats say if she does stop the vote count tomorrow, the country will always wonder about her motives." CBS didn't saying anything about the federal judge's donations to the Clinton-Gore campaigns, but Byron Pitts called Harris "a GOP loyalist" who "was a delegate for Bush at this year's Republican National Convention." ......... NBC spent the most time on Gore team complaints about Harris, although Dan Abrams uniquely noted that Judge Middlebrooks was appointed by President Clinton and "donated $1,500 to the Clinton-Gore campaign in '92 and '96." But unlike with Harris, NBC explained away any significance of Middlebrooks' politics as Abrams insisted those who know him said "they thought he would decide this case on the law, not on politics" since he is "really known as an independent-minded thinker." ......"

Florida Statutes Title 10 Chapter 120 Section 68 "...... 120.68 Judicial review.--

(1) A party who is adversely affected by final agency action is entitled to judicial review. A preliminary, procedural, or intermediate order of the agency or of an administrative law judge of the Division of Administrative Hearings is immediately reviewable if review of the final agency decision would not provide an adequate remedy......

(7) The court shall remand a case to the agency for further proceedings consistent with the court's decision or set aside agency action, as appropriate, when it finds that:

(a) There has been no hearing prior to agency action and the reviewing court finds that the validity of the action depends upon disputed facts;

(b) The agency's action depends on any finding of fact that is not supported by competent, substantial evidence in the record of a hearing conducted pursuant to ss. 120.569 and 120.57; however, the court shall not substitute its judgment for that of the agency as to the weight of the evidence on any disputed finding of fact;

(c) The fairness of the proceedings or the correctness of the action may have been impaired by a material error in procedure or a failure to follow prescribed procedure;

(d) The agency has erroneously interpreted a provision of law and a correct interpretation compels a particular action; or

(e) The agency's exercise of discretion was:

1. Outside the range of discretion delegated to the agency by law;

2. Inconsistent with agency rule;

3. Inconsistent with officially stated agency policy or a prior agency practice, if deviation therefrom is not explained by the agency; or

4. Otherwise in violation of a constitutional or statutory provision; but the court shall not substitute its judgment for that of the agency on an issue of discretion.

(8) Unless the court finds a ground for setting aside, modifying, remanding, or ordering agency action or ancillary relief under a specified provision of this section, it shall affirm the agency's action......"

New York Times 11/15/00 ".......In a carefully balanced decision, Judge Lewis upheld Ms. Harris's authority to call for initial reports from all 67 counties at 5 p.m. yesterday. But he warned her against using that authority in so arbitrary a way as to permit the delay of final vote tallies only in the case of an act of God, such as a hurricane. Judge Lewis said Ms. Harris should decide about delayed totals "based upon a weighing and consideration of all attendant facts and circumstances." ....... The judge's decision was a model of common sense and a rebuke to the partisan misreading of Florida statutes by Ms. Harris, who has blurred her twin responsibilities as chief arbiter of the state's election laws and co-chairwoman of the Bush campaign in Florida. If all parties will respect it, the ruling points to a clear path out of the messy battle over the validity of totals in those places where Vice President Gore is saying that the original machine count missed some of his ballots......"

New York Times 11/15/00 ".......A Bush spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, tried last night to put a favorable spin on Judge Lewis's words, suggesting erroneously that the preliminary results reported by all counties yesterday should be seen as final. It is true that the judge did sustain Ms. Harris's reading that yesterday marked the deadline. But in no uncertain language, he also said there really was no magic hour after which the manual counts may be ignored. He expressly allowed the counties to notify her of any pending returns and to file corrected returns when they were ready. Finally, the judge put Ms. Harris on notice that while she may reject a county's count, she cannot do so "arbitrarily." ...."

New York Times 11/15/00 ".......In responding to Judge Lewis's ruling, Ms. Harris said through her counsel that she would eventually decide the validity of the hand count on a case-by-case basis. But last evening Ms. Harris seemed to subvert the intent of the judge's decision by directing the counties doing hand tabulations to explain by 2 p.m. today why they believed the additional counting was justified. That should be self-evident to everyone who has been following the Florida vote. Any effort by Ms. Harris to stop the hand counting before it is completed would be peremptory and purely partisan....."

National Review 11/14/00 Melissa Seckora "...... . The great unasked question in the Florida recount controversy is: Why were any chads left hanging in the first place? According to the official website for Palm Beach County, ballot instructions explicitly directed voters to remove so-called chads before submitting their ballots: "After voting, check your ballot card to be sure your voting selections are cleanly punched and there are no chips left hanging on the back of the card." The county mailed a booklet and also a sample ballot including the instructions to all voters. ...."

The Associated Press 11/14/00 "......Al Gore's supporters, seeking to recruit lawyers to help with its vote recount efforts in south Florida, asked a national group that works closely with trial lawyers around the country to help. The president of the group said Tuesday night the group doesn't plan to act on the request. The request was passed along on the Internet E-mail list of the National Association of Trial Lawyer Executives (NATLE) by the executive director of the group, Kathleen Wilson, suggesting they pass along the request to lawyers on the Internet E-mail lists they're on. ....... The E-mail said the Gore campaign was requesting volunteers for the recount in Volusia, Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. The E-mail said "they are comfortable that Palm Beach County is under control." "They anticipate that they will need at least 500 lawyer-volunteers, primarily in (Miami-Dade) and Broward counties," the note said, adding they were requesting only lawyer volunteers......"

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... Florida's top elections official announced Tuesday night that Texas Gov. George Bush holds a 300 vote lead over Al Gore based on returns submitted by all 67 counties. She said she would consider updated submissions later from three counties where the vice president has requested manual recounts.

One week after the election, Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Bush has 2,910,492 votes and Gore has 2,910,192--a difference of 300 votes out of 6 million cast. An unknown additional number of overseas absentee ballots remain to be counted by Friday night, she added. .....

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....Karen Hughes, Bush's spokeswoman, responded sharply to the prospect of additional vote counting. ``If they go forward, these Democratic counties are no long recounting, they are reinventing,'' she said. ``The votes in Florida have now been counted and Governor Bush won. They've been recounted and Governor Bush won. The counties have now certified their votes to the Secretary of State and again Governor Bush won. Yet it appears we may have a deadline that may not be respected as a deadline at all.'' ......"

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway said, ``Several counties are proceeding to count their votes and the secretary of state should meet her responsibility to accept those votes before she certifies the election.'' ........ Hours after a Florida judge issued a complicated ruling on the controversy, Harris said her office was requiring officials in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties to explain the ``facts and circumstances'' that support their desire to proceed with manual recounts She set a 2 p.m. Wednesday deadline for the counties to reply. ....."

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....In addition to Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, officials in Volusia County completed a hand recount shortly before the secretary of state's deadline. It provided Gore with a net gain of 98 votes. ........ Before completing their count, county officials there appealed Lewis' ruling to a midlevel Florida appeals court with the expectation that the state's highest court, the Florida Supreme Court, would hear it....."

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....A spokeswoman for Harris said she would consider late filings, but it was unclear what criteria she might use...... .. Lewis ruled that there was nothing in state law to prevent Harris from considering late totals, and warned her in strong language that she would need good reason to ignore them. ``To determine ahead of time that such returns will be ignored ... is not the exercise of discretion. It is the abdication of that discretion,'' Lewis wrote......"

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... The recount in Palm Beach County was on hold pending resolution of conflicting legal advice from Republican state election officials and Florida's Democratic attorney general. Clay Roberts, director of the division of elections, issued an advisory opinion Tuesday saying the county did not have a right to conduct a hand recount of ballots. Attorney General Robert Butterworth immediately issued a conflicting opinion. ....."

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....Miami-Dade County officials said were conducting a partial recount........"

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... Boies held out the possibility the vice president's campaign might file suit later if Democrats think the secretary of state mishandles vote tallies submitted after the deadline. ......State officials say Lewis' ruling means they can proceed on schedule to a final vote certification by Saturday. That is the day after a deadline for absentee ballots mailed in from overseas. ....... "

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....The notice filed Tuesday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was ``to keep our options open,'' Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said. Also, numerous voters have sued separately over alleged voting irregularities in Palm Beach. Celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz represents some of them. ......"

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... The Democratic Party filed a motion in state court arguing that Broward County should be ordered to conduct a full hand count of its 588,000 ballots. The motion said the decision by the county canvassing board not to conduct such a recount was based on an erroneous opinion by Harris, who said a manual recount could only be conducted if the board found a problem with the computer. ....."

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... In West Palm Beach, a judge considered the lawsuits of voters seeking a new vote in their county. The voters argue the punch-card ballots they were given on Election Day may have confused them enough to mistakenly vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan when they intended to vote for Gore. ....."

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... According to state law, overseas ballots that arrive after election night are stored unopened in vaults in Florida's 67 counties. They will remain there, uncounted, until the Friday deadline passes. Each county decides when to count its votes. .....

Miami-Dade absentee ballots:

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... In Miami-Dade County, 1,699 ballots were mailed to places like Barcelona, Spain, and Managua, and 1,138 came back in time to be counted on election night. That means 561 are still outstanding, but from which countries and how many military voters, no one can say. Miami-Dade elections officials said 617 overseas ballots went to military addresses. One hundred of the 617 went to Virginia, and the remainder went to military or government addresses in 41 other states and territories. .......A total of 1,082 ballots went to civilians living overseas. And the largest batch among those -- 44 -- was sent to Floridians living in Israel, where an estimated 10,000 Jews with Florida ties are living. .......Election officials were not sure how many of the ballots from Israel were counted on election night and how many are still out there, or if their senders voted for Gore, as the Democratic Party believes. ...... In descending order after Israel, Miami-Dade sent out 20 ballots to England, 17 to Costa Rica, 16 to Spain, 13 to Canada and 10 to France. Forty-six percent of those requesting ballots in Miami-Dade were Republicans, and 42 percent were Democrats. ..."

ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... A Herald survey of 33 counties on Friday showed that 3,975 overseas ballots had not yet arrived in Florida. A Palm Beach Post survey of 52 counties on Thursday showed officials were waiting for 7,429 ballots of 15,230 that were requested. An Associated Press survey of 28 counties found that less than half of the roughly 7,000 ballots mailed overseas had not come back. ........ Okaloosa County Elections Supervisor Pat Hollarn said, ``I expect a sizable number -- at least a couple of hundred -- military votes, and most of those will be Republican.'' .......Escambia County, where Pensacola naval base is located, still had not received 1,176 ballots sent mostly to military personnel. Hillsborough County was waiting for 518. In Clay County, 195 overseas ballots, mostly military, were locked in a vault......."

Broward absentee ballots:

In Broward County, an elections clerk said one survey showed 1,289 overseas ballots were mailed and 257 had not come back. But a second list showed 1,623 ballots mailed. ..... That second list showed 575 ballots requested by Democrats, of whom 114 were military and 461 were civilian; 596 ballots requested by Republicans, of whom 209 were military and 387 were civilian; and 452 requested by independents, of whom 119 were military and 333 were civilians. ......"

Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "....Good, she is preserving the argument that there has to be a machine or tabulation system error before the canvassing committee can order a full hand recount. This is the next battleground. These counties have not met the condittion precedent to ordering a hand recount without a showing of system or tabulation method error. Dem Roberts railroaded a vote through without clarifying that distinction but LePore admitted it was for human error, not machine error. that is partly why the Judge on the canvassing committee voted not to allow a hand recount. This is important....."

Freeper Riteway ".......I thought I heard that Volusia county had lower numbers than previously reported because they left out approx 280 absentee ballets. Will they turn those by Friday or save them for a recount total after they get done? I am afraid these possible recount counties will hold the absentee ballets hostage until they turn in ank "recounted" numbers. ....."

Freeper report on the statement "...And I'd also like to acknowledge the overwhelming support that we have received as we've worked to fulfill our statutory repsonsibilities in insuring a consistent, accurate and independent process...." Says "...I find the word "consistent" very telling here, given the emphasis she placed upon it. Naturally, the 4 counties doing handcounts with constantly shifting and questionable criteria will not be "consistent" with the results of all the other counties......" adds Freeper George W Bush "....Also telling was her use of the words "consistent and normal practice" to describe how she will conduct the finalization. ...."

Freeper bluefish "..... If votes aren't counted according to the same standards, then each person's vote is worth something different. If the standards in one county cause 5% of the ballots to be thrown out while the standards in another county cause none of the ballots to be thrown out, then one citizen's vote is woth .95 votes while another is worth 1. This would be unconstitutional. ........... Given the argument above, I think that that all precincts, counties, and perhaps even states, should ultimately use the same ballot and polling processes. For now though, FL has to be treated with consistency. I think the machine counts (two of them) are consistent and should be relied upon to determine the winner. Not doing so injects too many questions and raises the specter of unfairness. ......"

Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "....... After a dizzying day of delays, conflicting court rulings, partisan sniping and unresolved ambiguities, Palm Beach County's canvassing board decided Tuesday to again begin the hand count of 462,000 ballots -- and hope that Florida's secretary of state accepts the result. .........Secretary of State Katherine Harris responded by ordering that county officials send her a written statement by 2 p.m. today explaining why she should accept vote counts after the state's deadline, which passed at 5 p.m. Tuesday. .......Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts, a member of the canvassing board, said the reasons were already plain. "I thought we did a pretty good job of explaining it, and it's because according to state law if you think it could change an election, you have to have a recount -- and that's why we're doing it," she said......"

Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "....... With no green light for the hand count, the board also voted to certify its most current election returns, those from the machine recount that ended early Sunday. It gave those numbers to a Division of Elections representative in time to meet the Harris deadline. .......That machine tabulation gave Vice President Al Gore 269,732 votes, compared with Texas Gov. George W. Bush's 152,951 -- a net gain of 682 votes for Gore since the initial count on Nov. 7. .......The board also agreed to attach results from Saturday's hand count of four county precincts -- which represented about 1 percent of the vote. Through that process, Gore's lead in the county grew by 19 votes. ......."

Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "......."Just give them what you have today, period," County Attorney Denise Dytrych advised the canvassing board at a raucous public meeting outside the county's Emergency Operations Center. Dytrych recommended the board hold off on a hand count until it received a definitive opinion from a court. But with no idea of how long that would take, board members said they wanted to move ahead. They noted that a judge might still order them to stop the process. "What happens? Do we go to jail? Because I'm willing to go to jail," Roberts said. ............... "

Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "....... "What we've seen today is a process that has taken a new, even more troubling, turn away from accuracy," said Tucker Eskew, spokesman for Bush-Cheney. "Today we've seen inconsistency on the part of this panel. They've chosen to ignore their own words from this morning." ............ The board had planned to begin the hand count early Tuesday, but decided against it after the state Division of Elections sent word that county officials weren't allowed to recount the votes by hand without proof of mechanical failures in the Nov. 7 balloting. ........Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat and state chair of Al Gore's campaign, immediately issued an opinion to the contrary -- and the board decided to halt everything while asking the state Supreme Court who was right. The case may be heard today. ........."

Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "........ In quick succession, four circuit court judges, citing conflicts of interest, recused themselves from all the presidential election lawsuits filed by aggrieved voters......... In the end, a Republican whose name was pulled out of a hat stuck with the case. Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga, an appointee of Gov. Lawton Chiles, lifted a temporary injunction issued Thursday that stopped certification of Palm Beach County's ballots. After an hourlong hearing on the case, which involved a lawsuit filed by two Boca Raton women, Labarga also ruled that a manual recount could go forward if the canvassing board wanted it. ......"

Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka ".......Burton said the board must abide by the Elections Division view that a manual recount wasn't permitted. "As a county court judge and as chairman of this board," he said, "it is my opinion we should follow the law." ......... Roberts disagreed. "I still believe we have an obligation to allow everybody's vote to be counted," she insisted. ........ Dytrych told the board the Elections Division opinion was binding. That incensed Roberts, who said she would never have asked for an advisory opinion if she'd known the board would have to abide by it. ......."

Sun-sentinel.com 11/14/00 Sean Cavanagh "...... A three-member Broward County elections panel teetered on the edge of reversing itself Tuesday when it considered ordering a hand recount of ballots from the entire county. .... A final decision could come today....... The possibility of a countywide hand recount in Broward was a dramatic turn from the previous day, when the county's canvassing board voted to limit the manual count to three overwhelmingly Democratic precincts. In that limited recount, Democrat Al Gore gained four votes on his opponent, Republican George W. Bush. But state and local Democrats pushed for a hand recount for all of Broward, saying the vote tallies showed enough discrepancies in the vote to require it. ......... On Tuesday morning, they sued in Broward Court to let the hand recount expand to all of Broward County. Judge John A. Miller ruled that the canvassing board had the right to do that, if it wanted......... In what they described as a search for legal answers, the canvassing board decided to join a lawsuit by Palm Beach and Volusia county officials seeking an opinion from the Florida Supreme Court. ..... On Tuesday, the canvassing board agreed to send the four additional votes Gore picked up to the secretary of state's office for certification. The earlier votes counted by machines already had been sent, said Sam Goren, attorney for Broward's elections office. ......"

Orlando Sentinel 11/15/00 Gwyneth Shaw "...... Up to 180,000 ballots were cast but did not count in Florida`s tightest presidential race ever because of human error, mechanical glitches and voters who abstained from that race or deliberately sabotaged their ballots in protest, voting data show.As lawyers stoked court battles across the state over George W. Bush`s apparent winning margin of just 300 votes, this far larger number emerged in a survey by the Orlando Sentinel of results from all 67 counties. The survey includes certified totals from all but the three counties where tallies were still in dispute Tuesday......"

Washington Times 11/15/00 ".......In authorizing some counties to subsequently file "corrective returns," Judge Lewis was evidently relying on another section that stipulates that delinquent returns "may be ignored." In his decision, he declared, "The secretary of state may ignore such late-filed returns but may not do so arbitrarily, rather only by the proper exercise of discretion after consideration of all appropriate facts and circumstances." ........ "

Washington Times 11/15/00 ".......Considering the politicized debacles that the manual recounts have become, how much discretion will be needed to reject the so-called "corrective returns"? Where manual recounts have been conducted, they have been subjected to standardless procedures, which, in the case of one county, have literally evolved throughout the process. In attempting to divine some voters' intentions - by itself a highly questionable procedure - Broward County used a "two-corner test," which required manual recounters to detect at least two corners of the rectangular "chad" separated from the punch card of a voter whose presidential vote was not counted by a machine. Palm Beach County used a "single-corner test" to manually count ballots. Well, that was the latest of several standards that were successively used in Palm Beach County.........Even this wasn't enough for the Democrats, who went to court attempting to force Palm Beach County officials to accept as votes so-called "pregnant chads" - dimpled fragments not detached from the card. When Broward County election officials exercised their right to conclude that the results of their sample manual recount did not require them to conduct a county-wide manual recount, the Democratic Party sued that county in court. When the "corrective returns" arrive, Ms. Harris need only consider the circus atmosphere that has enveloped the manual recounts, the complete lack of uniform standards and the utter unfairness of conducting recounts in only heavily Democratic counties. ....."

Washington Times 11/15/00 Steve Miller ".......Chads were everywhere during Saturday's marathon vote recount, and it's not the night janitor who is upset; it's Republican lawyers. ......... "Chads were seen on the floor during the process," Benjamin Ginsberg, general counsel for the Bush campaign, wrote this week to Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. "This produces further evidence that mishandling of the ballots, not voter intent, potentially was yielding new votes." ....... "There were chads all over the place," said Reeve Bright, an attorney for the county's Republican Party. "The more people who handle them, the more that fall off. I told a computer operator that we ought to bag them all up and sell them on the Internet." ...... Mark Wallace, the lead Republican attorney in the recount process, yesterday attacked the hand count of 462,000 ballots set to begin this morning in Palm Beach County, hinting that the ballots, which are stored in metal cases, could suffer more damage. "What will you do to preserve the sanctity of those ballots?" Mr. Wallace asked county canvassing board Chairman Charles Burton during an afternoon meeting. "The same thing we've always done," Mr. Burton said tersely. .......... Ballots were stacked, they were held, they were waved about and they were grabbed. "The chads have been in every room there has been a recount," Mr. Wallace said. "And to boil this down to which small, paper rectangle is punched out is arcane." ....."What we had is three Democrats holding up the card, flipping it around and passing it around. All kinds of people touched these so all kinds of things were happening to them." ......A lawyer from Broward County, who asked not to be named, said that Bush attorneys are taking affidavits from witnesses to the mishandling of the ballots. ......"

Washington Times 11/15/00 Steve Miller "....... During Mary Morgan's 20 years as an elections supervisor in Collier County on the state's west coast, she endured several manual recounts and also incurred charges of flimsy chads that could sway an election outcome. "If we were going to do a manual, I would get a vacuum cleaner to make sure there was no appearance of falling chads," said Miss Morgan, who retired in June. "The more times they are touched, the more chads that come off," she said....."

Freeper wrenn1010 11/14/00 ".....I think Carol Roberts statement that she is willing to go to jail for re-counts should be included in the Sec. of States assessement of any further supplements from that county. If she is willing to go to jail for counting, she is probably willing to go to jail by tampering with ballots and committing fraud. ....."

NewsMax 11/14/00 ".......Republicans hoping that George W. Bush will get a big boost when Florida's absentee vote is tallied on Friday November 17 may be in for a big disappointment. While military absentee voters are expected to break heavily for Bush, most of their ballots arrived stateside by Election Day via the military's "fast mail" system. Those votes have already been counted, according to election supervisors interviewed by the Tallahassee Democrat. If true, that would severely diminish what was expected to be a big Bush vote windfall. ...... "In Escambia County, where 1,802 ballots were requested, 626 were returned by Nov. 7; by noon Monday, only 136 more had come in, awaiting Friday's count." In fact, Democrat strategists believe that late absentee arrivals will be overwhelmingly civilian and substanitally Jewish, a demographic group that heavily favors Gore. "...."

Freeper monkeyshine:

Of all the votes counted so far, Bush leads by 300.

Bush has 48.9% of the vote.

Gore has 48.8% of the vote.

There are 180,000 ballots that didn't get counted for one reason or another (mechanical problems, "chad" problems, etc). Statisticically, those 180,000 ballots, if counted will break the same way as the 6,000,000 ballots that did get counted; 48.9% for Bush and 48.8% for Gore. That would put Bush ahead of Gore by an additional 240 votes.

For this reason, there should be no hand-count.

Freeper Arkinsaw "...The judge ruled that she has discretion but cannot be arbitrary. She has told the counties that they have until tomorrow at 2:00 to state reasons for changing the totals. Those reasons will be hard to explain. The only one I have heard is "the will of the people must be followed ascertained". All she has to do is issue a release with ALL of the reasons that we have been outlining here for DAYS about why the recounts would not accomplish this. She basically just has to cut and paste James Baker's legal arguments into her refusal.

1) Chads on the floor, ballots deteriation.

2) Subjective methodology for recounts.

3) Inconsistent policy of recounts between counties.

4) Dilution of other citizens votes by selectivity.

5) No evidence that machines faulty, canvassing boards did not even request a check of software.

6) Did not appoint enough counters to meet State deadline.

7) No evidence of fraud.

Etc., etc., etc. She can list a dozen things about these so-called recounts as reasons not to accept them. The more the better. The Gore camp would have to go into court and approve that each and every one of these reasons was arbitrary. A judge would have to rule that ALL of these reasons were invalid and even a Democratic judge would hesitate before making such an obnoxious ruling....."

Freeper nevergore 11/15/00 FoxNews ".....Per Fox News, Palm beach County which was to begin counting at 7:00am this morning has voted to suspend the re-count. ...." Adds freedom1st ".... I heard on CBS radio that the PB vote counters were waiting on a decision from the courts requesting that pregnant "chads" (chads pushed out, but still attached at 4 corners) be counted as indicating a vote. ...."

Freeper rintense ".....This morning, a reporter from NBC specifically mentioned that there is concern that after the overseas ballots are counted, the Gore campaign will know specifically how many votes they need to produce to win.

I am shocked that NBC even gave this air time..."

Freeper Singapore_Yank "....Scott Rasmussen (POA polls) just said that among Gore supporters, 79% believe that Gore really won the election. Among Bush supporters, 95% believe Bush really won the election. He said, "People think the guy they voted for won" and made it sound like the numbers were only a little different. But think about it. Gore's voters "defect" at the rate of 20%. That is, they voted for him, but now don't really think he won (not necessarily that they think Bush won either). But Bush's supporters only defect at a quarter that rate. Only 5% of Bush supporters don't think he won. ....... I take heart from this little poll. Of course, Rasmussen's polls didn't predict this mess so maybe these are off too. ...."

Freeper KellyAdmirer "Carol Roberts accused of vote tampering! Just on Fox! " adds Singapore_Yank "....Fox just announced that a Republican lawyer, James Carroll, says they are suing (I think) Carol Roberts for vote tampering. They say that they have video evidence of her tampering with ballots and putting some in Gore's pile.

Not surprising as we all figured it was going on. If they really have video evidence --- COOL!!! ....."

Freeper Chick-with-a-brain "....I hope you're right!!!! Video evidence of voter fraud should finally end this fiasco. Oh, and how I'd love it to be that Roberts b*tch. She did say yesterday that she was willing to go to jail. I think an orange jump suit and flip flops would fit her well. My initial take on this suspension of ballot counting is that the DemnonRats are using their delay, delay, delay tactic. They know that if they finish the counting particularly before the overseas ballots are in, they've lost. In fact, I think they know they've lost period unless they can pull some votes or "chads" out of thin air. I heard that Daley went up on Capitol Hill yesterday to "calm" the Democratic leadership and tell them to have patience. I think their only hope is to keep dragging this thing out. ...."

WorldNetDaily 11/15/00 "..... The Navy has now confirmed bundles of overseas ballots left behind -- not on one, but three ships in the Persian Gulf region. According to a New York Post account, Cmdr. Greg Smith, a Navy spokesman, said the ballots of some 3,000 sailors and Marines on the USS Tarawa, USS Deleuth and USS Anchorage would be flown back to the United States "expeditiously." ....."

American Legion News 11/14/00 ".....The Navy said yesterday it has discovered bundles of overseas ballots left behind on three ships in the Persian Gulf. Cmdr. Greg Smith, a Navy spokesman, said the ballots cast by some of the 3,000 sailors and Marines on board the USS Tarawa, USS Deleuth and USS Anchorage would be flown back to the United States "expeditiously" - hopefully in time to be counted. ...... "All we're trying to do is see if there's a way to get the mail there," said Smith. ..... Smith said all shipboard mail was left to languish while the three West Coast-based ships assisted the stricken USS Cole after it was bombed by terrorists last month - until someone remembered that the mail included deadline ballots. The Navy will fly the ballots, which were postmarked at the time each crew member turned in his mail onboard, only as far as the mainland, and the Postal Service will handle it routinely from there, Smith said. ......Spokesmen for the Army, Marines and Air Force said they were unaware of any other similar snafus. ...."

Cnn 11/14/00 Freeper rintense ".... Judge George Labarga has decided that the PBC board has the indescretion to decide what they think the intent of the voter, which means DIMPLED BALLOTS will COUNT! " Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA ".... Judge has ruled that Palm Beach County may set any rules they desire in counting ballots. ...."

CNN 11/15/00 Freeper rintense "..... Warren Christopher is currently speaking about the many lawsuits. ....... HOLY COW! The reporters are HAMMERING him saying that in fact, Jim Baker was right that they want the courts to resolve this. Another reporter pointed out that American's are getting very frustrated and want an end. He asked Warren if the Supreme Court rules on the matters at hand, no matter what ruling, will Al Gore STOP--- he DID NOT answer!!! Maybe the media is finally waking up to these frauds! ....."

Freeper rintense "....Reporter asked if there was enough room in the Florida law for Gore camp to continue fighting--- Boies says yes (naturally). Boies is misinterpreting the law. Next reporter BLASTING again saying why isn't the Gore team giving any resolution, like Jim Baker gave yesterday. Boies side steps and says that's what they are proposing to the Supreme Court- to get all the matters of recounts and chads resolved to go forward. Says again that he just wants the process to continue. HOLY CRIPE! He's pushing the popular vote lead AGAIN as well as now adding that Gore is leading in the electoral college. ....."

Freeper Bot-a-bing "....I just watched the live broadcast of the Palm Beach elections canvassing commission.

Someone made a motion to have the red-head-witch recuse herself, or to have the other members vote her off. They read a laundry list of things, all of which imply bias and tampering on her part. She refused to speak, but had a comment read that said there's no way for bias because there's so many people watching. LOL. They are digging their own grave. ......"

Freeper PeterB ".... Quote of the day on Fox this morning. "Al Gore invented the internet and is a huge proponent of it, yet he does not trust computers to accurately count the votes Florida." ...."

FoxNews 11/15/00 Freeper icwhatudo ".... Democrat lawyer at end of hearing stated that nowhere in the voting place was there any directions on how hard or how soft to punch the chads. Not in the halls, not on the walls, instructions where not clear and not given regarding these hanging chads....."

AP 11/15/00 Anne Gearan ".....Florida's secretary of state asked the state's top court Wednesday to delay any hand recounting of ballots and to consolidate lawsuits in the chaotic vote count that has left the presidential election hanging in the balance for more than a week. ...... Katherine Harris, a Republican, filed the petition with the state Supreme Court as officials in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County gathered to begin a recount that she has opposed. .....In her petition, Harris said local canvassing boards should stop any effort to hand count ballots ``pending resolution as to whether any basis exists to modify the certified results after the statutory deadline for submission of returns.'' ......She also asked that the flurry of legal actions around the state be transferred to a court in Tallahassee, the state capital.

``Without question, this court must make it clear that the election of the president and vice president is not a matter of local pleasure,'' the petition said. ``It is, at the least, a statewide matter of concern. This court must assume control over this litigation to preserve its ability to establish standards and to protect the voters of the state.'' ...... In an additional filing Wednesday, Harris addressed the situation in Palm Beach, which an elections official there called ``musical courts.'' .......The Supreme Court should step in and bar the Palm Beach count ``to protect the integrity of the process and ensure the application of a uniform rule of law,'' Harris said. ...The state Supreme Court has seven members, all chosen by Democratic governors. ....."

AP 11/15/00 Anne Gearan ".....Separately, three Brevard County residents who say they voted for Bush appealed a federal suit to the 11th Circuit on Wednesday. A federal judge in Orlando turned down their request to stop hand recounts Tuesday. The voters claim their rights are being violated because their votes are not being hand-counted. ...."

NewsMax 11/15/00 Carl Limbacher ".....After a week of high-stakes wrangling over Florida's photo-finish presidential election, more Americans would rather see George W. Bush become president than Vice President Al Gore, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found. ..... Though Gore won the nation's popular vote on Election Day 49 to 48 percent, his conduct in the days since has apparently prompted some of his supporters to jump ship. ......Unlike other post-election surveys conducted by Newsweek and CNN/Time, New York Times/CBS pollsters used the same sample in this survey as they had in preelections polls, which were comprised of registered and likely voters. ...."

ANNE GEARAN 11/15/00 AP ".... . George W. Bush and Al Gore both turned to the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday to resolve issues critical to the state's contested presidential election, seeking rulings on the legality of continued manual recounts sought by the Democrats. ...... A short while later, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Democrats would ask the court to take jurisdiction over a burgeoning number of election-related lawsuits. He said the papers to be filed would ask the state's top court to rule ``whether hand counts are appropriate under Florida law and if so what is the deadline for their completions.'' ...... The legal maneuvering continued as officials in Broward County reversed course and decided to grant the Gore campaign its request for a full recount by hand. ....... David Boies, a lawyer recently added to Gore's legal team, set out the types of issues that Democrats would like to see addressed. ``What kind of manual recount? When do you terminate it? What are the standards? Can you have a manual recount in some counties and not in another?'' .......... Bush made a one-page filing in the Florida state Supreme Court, saying he is entitled to join Harris' case because ``initial vote tabulation and the statutory recount tabulation resulted in a majority of votes being cast for George W. Bush.'' ....."

CNN 11/15/00 Freeper Smogger "..... This does NOT mean that dimpled ballots will count. The County was ASKING the judge to TELL THEM WHAT TO COUNT AND WHAT NOT TO count. They were in affect asking the judge if he WOULD DIRECT THEM TO COUNT DIMPLED BALLOTS. The judge wisely and FOLLOWING THE LOGIC OF THE BUSH LAWYERS moved that it was up to the discretion of the board themselves. The board has alrighty voted not to count them. This should be construed as a victory for the Bush team as they were arguing that this matter does not belong in court. This will allow the Bush people to argue that the results are arbitrary and biased NO MATTER the result of the hand recount. ...."

Freeper SheRebel: ".... The 2000 Florida Statutes Title IX Electors and Elections

Chapter 102 Conducting Elections and Ascertaining the Results

102.12 Inspectors and clerks to conduct elections.--

(2) Each member of the election board shall be able to read and write the English language and shall be a registered qualified elector of the county in which the member is appointed or a person who has preregistered to vote, pursuant to s. 97.041(1)(b), in the county in which the member is appointed. No election board shall be composed solely of members of one political party; however, in any primary in which only one party has candidates appearing on the ballot, all clerks and inspectors may be of that party. Any person whose name appears as an opposed candidate for any office shall not be eligible to serve on an election board. ...."

CNN Freeper rumrunner 11/15/00 "..... CNN reporting that Broward County reversed itself because of machine error, not voting error ......--totally contradictory, but evidence of the Dem's fear that no manual recount unless machine error is the standard that will be used. ...."

Freeper letter:

Theresa LePore, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections

Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the Palm Beach County canvassing board

Carol Roberts

From:

Bob Williams

Concerned American Citizen

I write this after having watched all of you work your way through what we all would agree is a difficult situation involving important decisions. However, important decisions in difficult situations still simply require a logical, common-sense approach to make. I am not a lawyer, but simply a concerned citizen of this country who believes strongly in the laws of this land whether they are local, state or federal. Therefore, as a common citizen, I have reviewed many of the Florida statutes related to the decisions that are now before you. By applying a logical, common-sense approach to both reading and applying portions of those statutes which relate to conducting a manual recount of all ballots, I would strongly suggest that the laws of Florida and the results of your sample manual recount dictate that you do not proceed with a full manual recount in Palm Beach county.

I believe that the decisions recently made by the canvassing boards in both Broward and Miami-Dade counties to not pursue a full manual recount were based on the type of evidence that I will outline for you with regard to the Palm Beach county election results. Based on the results in their sample manual recounts and the laws of Florida, those boards determined that a full manual recount was not justifiable. I strongly encourage you to follow their lead by examining the evidence that I will outline below and then abandoning any additional manual recount in Palm Beach county.

First, simply review the numbers that the machine counts have provided in the three separate counts of the ballots. The first machine recount and then the second machine recount resulted in a total increase of 105 votes for Bush - a 0.0687% increase over the original count. The first machine recount and then the second machine recount resulted in a total increase of 787 votes for Gore - a 0.293% increase over the original count. The majority of this difference is obviously due to the difference in the original count and then the first machine count of votes for Gore. You may be aware of a specific reason for this increase such as a certain number of ballots that had not been originally counted due to either human (operator) or mechanical error. However, notice that the increase of 36 votes for Gore from the first machine recount to the second machine recount is a 0.0133% increase. Thus, I would argue that additional machine recounts of the ballots would continue to show changes for each candidate that are proportional. This would seem to indicate that any obvious tabulation error for either candidate has been already uncovered by the machine recounts.

Palm Beach County Totals:

Original Count - Bush 152,846 and Gore 268,945

First Machine Recount - Bush 152,954 and Gore 269,696

Second Machine Recount (Certified) - Bush 152,951 and Gore 269,732

As you know, you have submitted the results from the second machine recount to the Secretary of State of Florida for certification. Now, you are considering the continuation of a full manual recount. Therefore, the next step is to review some of the statutes relating to the tabulation of results and the process for conducting a manual recount of ballots. The most relevant portions of the Florida statutes would appear to be 102.131 and 102.166. 102.131 deals with determining the "true vote" or the "will of the people" as it has been referred to more recently. 102.166 deals with the procedure for validating if the vote tabulation has indeed reached a level that it properly reflects the "true vote". The relevant portions of both sections are included here:

102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.--If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers.

102.166 Protest of election returns; procedure.-- (d) The manual recount must include at least three precincts and at least 1 percent of the total votes cast for such candidate or issue. In the event there are less than three precincts involved in the election, all precincts shall be counted. The person who requested the recount shall choose three precincts to be recounted, and, if other precincts are recounted, the county canvassing board shall select the additional precincts.

(5) If the manual recount indicates an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election, the county canvassing board shall:

(a) Correct the error and recount the remaining precincts with the vote tabulation system;

(b) Request the Department of State to verify the tabulation software; or

(c) Manua