CDR: Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!

[George at Orwellian.Org]

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.