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Palm Beach County suspends hand count By Jackie Hallifax
Nov. 14, 2000 | TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) --
With a deadline fast approaching, judges in three Florida cities are deciding the fate of
recounted votes while Republican George W. Bush's legal team weighs whether to
appeal to a higher federal court.
Amid the swirl of legal maneuvers, officials in Palm Beach
County voted 2-1 on Tuesday to delay their manual recount
until they can clarify whether they have the legal authority to
proceed.
The county, a Democratic stronghold, had planned to count,
by hand about 425,000 ballots -- exactly one week after
voters first complained they were confused by their ballots.
Their outcry unleashed a political tide that froze Florida's 25
electoral votes and left Americans waiting to see who their
43rd president will be.
"The opinion we have received is that this manual recount is
not authorized by Florida statutes. It is my understanding that
an advisory opinion is in fact binding on this board," said
Judge Charles Burton.
Burton had opposed the canvassing commission's earlier decision to order a hand
count.
A federal judge who turned away Bush's initial effort to stop the recounting agreed
Monday the stakes couldn't be higher.
"I believe these are serious arguments. The question becomes who should consider
them," said U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who declined Bush's request
for emergency federal intervention and ruled the issue was best left to local courts.
Among the critical issues to be resolved in local courts -- whether counties can
continue recounting votes beyond a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline set by Florida's
Republican secretary of state, Katherine Harris.
In Tallahassee, a judge expressed doubts about the deadline as he weighed a
request from Vice President Al Gore and two counties to give more time for
recounting that could stretch into the weekend in Palm Beach County.
Leon County Circuit Judge Terry P. Lewis repeatedly questioned Monday why the
state had set the Tuesday deadline when absentee votes can continue to be counted
through the end of the week. "What's the good of doing a certification ahead of time?"
Lewis asked. He also questioned how a large county could ever get a hand recount
done within seven days since voters have three days before they even have to
request one. Lewis was expected to rule Tuesday.
Republicans argue the manual recounting should be ended because the process is
prone to abuse and political bias. Democrats hope the recounts will help Gore pick up
enough votes to overcome Bush's narrow lead in the state, which an informal
Associated Press tally put at 388 votes.
On other legal fronts:
--In West Palm Beach, a judge is considering 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.
--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.
--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.
While Volusia County sought to wrap up its second recount, officials in Miami-Dade
County -- the state's most populous -- were to vote Tuesday on whether to conduct a
recount requested by Gore's campaign.
Bush's legal team is 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.
Bush's lead lawyer sounded his main argument against further recounting on Monday.
"The process, to sum it up, is selective, standardless, subjective, unreliable and
inherently biased," Theodore Olson argued.
Senior Gore adviser Warren Christopher, a former U.S. Secretary of State,
acknowledged that the legal back-and-forth "seems to be getting a little bit
argumentative," but said his side believed the recounts were the only way "to defend
the rights of the voters of Florida to have a fair outcome."
Associated Press