-Caveat Lector-
Dems Hope Hand Count Closes Gap
By MIKE SCHNEIDER .c The Associated Press
11-10-00 1728EST
DELAND, Fla. (AP) - Election workers in Volusia County were
checking all of the 184,018 ballots there for write-in votes
Friday as Democrats hoped for help in the still-undecided
presidential election.
Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties also were ready for
the possibility of recounting hundreds of thousands of ballots by
hand. And across the state, officials were waiting for what
could be thousands of overseas ballots to arrive in the mail.
Three days after Election Day, it was clear the election was not
over in Florida.
After sifting through about a third of the ballots, Volusia
County election officials had found at least two that had Vice
President Al Gore's name written in by voters who also filled in
a bubble for the candidate. A machine would have discarded the
ballots, reading them as two votes. Election officials counted
them.
The county's election officials planned to go over the ballots
again Saturday, counting each by hand to check the figures
already counted twice by machine. They planned to work 14-hour
days and expected to be finished by Tuesday.
An unofficial Associated Press canvass of the presidential vote
in Florida showed Republican George W. Bush with a 327-vote lead
over Democrat Gore. The eventual winner will take Florida's 25
electoral votes and become the nation's 43rd president.
``It's amazing what people do to these ballots,'' said Volusia
County Judge Michael McDermott, the chairman of the canvassing
board. ``The instructions are nice and clear.''
One voter wrote in Joseph Lieberman - Gore's running mate. The
vote was thrown out.
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 2,910,198, Gore
2,909,871.
Florida election officials also said Friday that the Palm Beach
County ballot did not violate state law as several lawsuits
contend.
Democrats say a poor ballot design in the county led some Gore
supporters to inadvertently mark their ballots for Pat Buchanan.
A circuit judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the
county's canvassing commission from certifying the final recount
results until a hearing Tuesday.
Elsewhere in Florida:
Palm Beach election officials agreed to recount ballots in three
precincts by hand on Saturday. If there is a change in the
count, they will then decide whether to do a recount by hand of
the entire county.
In Miami's Dade County, elections officials will meet Tuesday to
discuss a hand recount.
In Polk County, officials were rescanning ballots in 60 of 163
precincts to reconcile the number of ballots handed out with the
number of votes cast.
Broward election officials voted 2-1 to do a hand-recount of
three precincts Monday. If there is a change, they also will
consider a full hand-recount.
Broward elections supervisor Jane Carroll cast the dissenting
vote, saying, ``We are setting a bad precedent.'' She questioned
why Democrats had asked for a manual recount only in four heavily
Democratic counties rather than the entire state.
One concern the Democrats said they had concerned the possibility
that thousands of votes across the state were not counted because
the tiny piece of paper punched out for a candidate did not
completely dislodge.
For example, 22,557 Palm Beach County ballots recorded no choice
for president. And officials said 6,686 ballots were not counted
in Broward County because the computer did not recognize any
selection.
In all, the Gore campaign is requesting that 1.78 million of the
nearly 6 million Florida ballots cast be hand counted.
``We're looking for a quick resolution of a full, fair, accurate
count,'' said Doug Hattaway, a Gore spokesman. ``There's no
specific timeframe we've laid out.''
Democrats and Republicans were bringing in more than 100 people
each from around the country to witness the Volusia hand recount.
The county was setting up 22 stations with two election workers
and a Democratic and Republican witness at each.
Still a factor in the results are the ballots cast by Floridians
living overseas. An informal survey of 30 of the 67 election
supervisors found that they had mailed out more than 10,000. Of
those, a little less than half had been returned but no
information was available on how many had been counted.
Election supervisors must count any overseas ballots received
within 10 days of the election and postmarked by Election Day.
In Palm Beach, a small groups of protesters gathered in front of
the government center in downtown West Palm Beach Friday and
emotions between Gore and Bush supporters continued to run high.
A group of Bush supporters taunted and followed Democratic Rep.
Robert Wexler outside the government center, where he was being
interviewed by a television station. Sheriff's deputies escorted
him away.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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