And the lawsuit has been filed.
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973731700780133282.htm
#
# November 9, 2000
#
# Lawsuit to Recover Lost Gore Votes Overshadows the Recount in
# Florida
#
# By GLENN R. SIMPSON, JACKIE CALMES and CHAD TERHUNE Staff
# Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
#
# Overshadowing a state ballot recount in the tightest presidential
# election in memory, Democrats filed suit to help Al Gore recover
# thousands of votes he may have lost because of a confusing ballot
# in Palm Beach County.
#
# Democratic State Sen. Ron Klein and lawyer Jeffrey Liggio,
# official observers in the Palm Beach County recount, said county
# officials disqualified 19,120 presidential votes here on Tuesday
# because voters selected more than one candidate. That is about
# 4.14% of total votes cast in the county for president, an
# unusually high figure, says Mr. Klein.
#
# The figures were confirmed by Carol Roberts, a county commissioner
# and a member of the Palm Beach County canvassing board. She added
# in an interview that ballots were rejected in the Florida Senate
# contest at a far lower rate -- 0.82%.
#
# Democrats said they believe most of the disqualified votes were
# cast for Al Gore and Pat Buchanan by confused voters who intended
# to pick Mr. Gore, but inadvertently selected both men because
# of the proximity of their names on the paper ballot. If they
# are correct, the problem may have cost Mr. Gore a clear margin
# of victory here statewide and could boost calls to overturn the
# Florida results, which favored George W. Bush by less than 2,000
# votes.
#
# Late Wednesday, a suit was filed in Palm Beach County circuit
# court by three local Democrats to force a new vote in the county
# because of the allegedly confusing ballots.
#
# "It's pretty clear this ballot defect has thwarted the will of
# the people in that county in an amount that would appear to be
# in excess of the current margin between Bush and Gore statewide
# -- well in excess," said Democratic ballot lawyer Chris Sautter,
# an adviser to the Gore campaign who isn't involved in the suit.
#
# The layout of the ballot was intended to make it easier for
# seniors to read. "Obviously, it didn't work that way," said Mr.
# Klein.
#
# Democrats are exploring the possibility that the ballot design
# violates state standards. An official in the governor's office
# disputed the idea, saying the standards only apply to ballots
# counted manually.
#
# Reeve Bright, a lawyer for the Republican Party of Palm Beach
# County, conceded the 19,000 disqualified votes occurred. But
# that doesn't mean the tossed-out votes were all for Gore, he
# stressed. He added that he didn't know whether the total was
# an unusually high one.
#
# "They're just blowing smoke," he said of Democrats' concerns.
# "Are they trying to say the voters are that incompetent, that
# they can't read and follow directions?"
#
# Complaints of ballot confusion and the lawsuit came as state
# officials were outlining the process by which all 67 Florida
# counties would recount the ballots cast Tuesday and help determine
# which candidate wins the state's 25 electoral votes. As of
# Wednesday morning, George W. Bush led by about 1,800 votes of
# the nearly six million cast.
#
# "What happens here will determine the next presidency of the
# United States," said Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth.
#
# Appearing with Mr. Butterworth was Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the
# Republican candidate's brother. To avoid the appearance of a
# conflict of interest, Jeb Bush said he won't serve on the
# three-member state canvassing board that will meet to certify
# final results after Florida counties complete their recount.
#
# State officials had set 5 p.m. Thursday as the deadline for the
# recount, but the governor suggested a further wrinkle: An
# estimated 3,000 ballots still arriving from Florida military
# personnel abroad could further delay the outcome by as many as
# 10 days.
#
# Florida's electoral votes would give either Mr. Bush or Mr. Gore
# the election. Without Florida, Mr. Gore leads narrowly in the
# national popular vote, and he carried enough states to compile
# 260 electoral votes -- 10 shy of the 270 needed for an Electoral
# College majority. Mr. Bush has 246 electoral votes. Besides
# Florida, Oregon was also still too close to call Wednesday because
# of delays in counting ballots in what was the state's first
# mail-in presidential election. But Oregon's seven electoral votes
# aren't enough to give either man the majority.
#
# Meanwhile, the two campaigns each dispatched a former U.S.
# secretary of state -- Warren Christopher for Mr. Gore, and James
# Baker for Mr. Bush -- to monitor events here.
#
# Locally, Florida's county officials were largely on their own
# to figure out how to recount the votes in their areas. Many
# expected the recount to take only a few hours, but scheduling
# conflicts with their canvassing boards were causing delays.
#
# "Most of us were in at 5:30 a.m. and went home after midnight.
# And now we're recreating yesterday. It will be a long night,"
# Marilyn Gerkin, supervisor of elections in Sarasota County, said.
#
# Democrat Kurt Browning, a Pasco County elections supervisor,
# said a recount was almost certain to show differences from the
# original count across the state, in part because of "hanging
# chads." Those are bits of paper that sometimes cling to the punch
# cards used in most of Florida's larger counties, filling in the
# punch hole and effectively invalidating the voter's choice if
# counted by machine. When counted by hand, it is easier to
# distinguish the voter's selection and validate the ballot.
#
# In Orange County in Central Florida, Elections Supervisor Bill
# Cowles was going through a few hundred rejected ballots by hand
# with his canvassing board. The ballot-counting machines had thrown
# out those ballots Tuesday because of stray pen marks or voters
# choosing two candidates in the same race. They hadn't been counted
# at all until Wednesday, so Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush stood to gain
# a few votes.
#
# Once conducted, the ballot recounts will be submitted to the
# state canvassing board, which, besides Florida Gov. Bush, includes
# Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Division of Elections
# Chief Clay Roberts. The secretary of state's office will name
# a replacement for Gov. Bush.
#
# Any challenge of the results would likely require legal action,
# for which both sides were preparing. Florida Democrats announced
# a "voter fraud hotline" to collect complaints that could form
# the basis of a challenge.
#
# Regarding the Palm Beach County lawsuit, local-elections
# supervisor Theresa LePore said in a statement that her office
# has an "unblemished record of public trust." We remain committed
# to protecting this reputation," the statement continued. She
# estimated the recount in Palm Beach County would take about six
# hours after starting Wednesday afternoon.
#
# Others contend the ballot flap was nonsense. "This is a
# manufactured controversy," says Rep. Mark Foley (R., Fla.), the
# local congressman. Mr. Buchanan received 3,407 votes in Palm
# Beach County yesterday and 8,788 votes there in the 1996 GOP
# primary. So, Mr. Foley reasons, Tuesday's results aren't that
# "out of whack."
#
# The problems in Palm Beach County echo the last statewide ballot
# controversy in Florida, when Connie Mack beat Buddy MacKay for
# a U.S. Senate seat in 1988. The design of the Palm Beach County
# ballot was a major problem in that race as well. A recount did
# not change the outcome, and though Democrats complained, they
# did not take legal action.
#
# South Florida had a recent bout with voter fraud that triggered
# tougher state laws in 1998 on voting by absentee ballot.
# Investigations found rampant absentee-ballot fraud in the 1997
# Miami mayoral race, including vote-brokering and the buying and
# selling of votes, and a court ordered a new election. The U.S.
# Justice Department later rejected the state reforms, saying they
# could discriminate against a high number of minority voters who
# rely on absentee voting because of a lack of transportation or
# the ability to get time off from work.