-Caveat Lector-
Wednesday November 15 3:13 PM ET
Palm Beach Judge Seeks Precedents on Revote Issue
By David Lawsky
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - A state judge hearing lawsuits
calling for a fresh election in Palm Beach County because of
confusing ballot sheets said on Wednesday he wanted to see a
precedent for such a radical solution.
Judge Jorge Labarga, hearing consolidated lawsuits from voters
who say the so-called butterfly ballot design used by the county
was confusing and deprived them of their right to a fair vote in
the Nov. 7 presidential election, set a Friday hearing for the
case.
The ballot sheets in Palm Beach County caused a furor among
Democrats amid a tightly contested presidential vote in Florida,
where Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites) emerged with
a whisker-thin lead over Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites).
Democrats said thousands of votes meant for Vice President Gore
went astray when people mistakenly punched in a vote for Reform
Party candidate Pat Buchanan (news - web sites) or wasted their
vote by punching in votes for two candidates.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs told Labarga on Wednesday they
intended to use as experts some academics from Harvard, the
University of California at Berkeley and Cornell who had analyzed
voting patterns and were prepared to testify that the results
from Palm Beach did not accurately represent the intent of the
voters.
Palm Beach County produced 3,400 votes for Buchanan, well above
the number of votes he garnered in neighboring counties and
surprising given the area's large Jewish and African-American
population. There were also some 19,000 double-punched ballots,
which Democrats said was an unusually high number of wasted
votes.
Just a few of those votes would have been a winning factor for
Gore, who was trailing Bush by just 300 votes after a recount of
Florida's six million votes. Bush and Gore both need the state
to win the White House.
No Time To Prepare, Say Bush Campaign Lawyers
Lawyers for the Bush campaign argued to Labarga that they had had
no time to prepare to defend against the experts proposed by the
Democrats' lawyers by taking depositions and finding their own
group of specialists to respond.
In the end, Labarga took a suggestion from one of the plaintiff's
lawyers, Donald Feldman, that the judge separate the legal
question and the factual questions.
He agreed to consider whether it would be possible under any
circumstances to call a rerun of the election in Palm Beach
County, and broached the issue of precedents for such a move.
The judge cited Florida law, which sets a specific date for
choosing presidential electors to the national Electoral College
that decides the presidency. ``It seems to me the next time that
an election can be held is the second Tuesday after the first
Monday in 2004,'' he said.
Labarga also called on the lawyers to help him find any
precedents for a fresh vote in presidential elections.
``Find me a case in the continental United States since 1776
where there has been a revote for president,'' Labarga said,
adding this was the lawyers' ``homework assignment.''
He set a hearing on the issue for Friday at 9:30 a.m. EST (1430
GMT).
Labarga's views on the case could become moot if the Florida
Supreme Court moves to put the ``butterfly ballot'' cases into a
single court.
In a petition to the highest state court, Florida's election
chief, Secretary of State Katherine Harris (news - external web
site), asked the justices on Wednesday to corral all of the
litigation contesting the presidential election.
Harris, a Republican, called for a state court in Leon County,
where the state capital is located, to become the ''exclusive
venue'' for such litigation.
Butterfly Confusion
The Palm Beach ballot was called a butterfly sheet because it
used two columns of a paper divided in half by punch holes,
rather than a single column of candidates, with punch holes to
the side.
Some voters said it was hard to understand, because while Gore
was the second candidate on the left-hand side of the page,
Buchanan was the first candidate on the right-hand side and the
hole to be punched for Gore was the third one down.
Lawsuits aside, the disputed ballots has brought hundreds of
protesters onto the streets of the county seat, West Palm Beach,
in the last week -- with Gore supporters calling for a new vote
and Bush supporters telling them to accept defeat.
But for the moment at least, the butterfly ballot issue was
taking a back seat to disputes and suits over the progress of
manual vote recounts in a handful of counties, Palm Beach
included, that could tilt the balance in Gore's favor.
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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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