The Florida Recount: Battle Over Ballot Counting Rages On
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Broward County is determined to meet the Florida-Supreme-Court-imposed deadline of Sunday evening to complete its recount, so election workers are doing their job today. We're going to update you on the status of the recount in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties with live reports from correspondents Susan Candiotti, Jeff Flock and Frank Buckley. Let's start things off with Susan. Susan, go ahead.</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon. To make sure that the Broward canvassing board meets that Florida Supreme Court deadline, they decided to work through this day, and work has been underway for about an hour now. As you take a look at what's happening inside a courtroom -- and this setting is just happening, because the man you see now happens to be the chairman of the canvassing board, and he is a Broward County judge, so they're using his courtroom as a setting. What's happening is a recount and a consideration of the so- called "under-votes" -- ballots that did not register for one presidential candidate or the other; for example, someone made a partial puncture in the ballot. And it is up to the job of this canvassing board, made up of two Democrats and one Republican, to see if they can decide a voter's intent. If they are unable to do so, they will reject the ballot. So I'm describing to you -- as you look at this process, the people that you see are the members of the canvassing board. On the opposite end of the cameras are representatives of both the Democratic and the Republican Party, who are closely observing what's going on. And as each member of the canvassing board holds up these ballot cards and looks at them, they show them to each other. They might discuss them. They'll hold them up for these observers sitting on the other end of the table. Those observers are there only to watch. Let's listen in for a few minutes to see what we can pick up right now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that's Gore.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gore.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I agree.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-sixA14, no reasonable certainty.</s>CANDIOTTI: There are roughly 2,000 of these so-called "dimpled ballots" and others where, for example, someone simply circled a hole instead of punching a hole through the ballot. And they are going to be working on this all day long, probably until about 5:00 tonight, when they'll take a break to enjoy at least part of the Thanksgiving holiday and then resume work tomorrow. Leon, back to you.</s>HARRIS: All right, thanks; Susan Candiotti reporting live -- Carol.</s>CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, election workers in Palm Beach County have the day off, but they plan to be back counting dimpled chads tomorrow after a judge ruled they must do so. Jeff Flock is standing by in West Palm Beach this morning with the latest from there. Happy turkey day, Jeff.</s>JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks Carol, appreciate it; happy to be here. Yes, the judge said, basically, they didn't have to count them, but that they could count them if they so chose. So that will be an important thing tomorrow. You know, it's interesting watching the pictures that Susan had there in Broward County that last hour and this hour as well. We've been watching the Palm Beach county canvassing board over the course of this past week. There was nowhere near the kind of give and take that you saw in Broward County with the different judges disagreeing. Most of the Palm Beach County disputed ballots that have been adjudicated thus far -- and it's over 1,000 that they've already ruled on, those were generally unanimous discussions and they were pretty clear on it. Their standard is this, and it doesn't appear to have been perfected by the court ruling yesterday by Judge Labarga: The standard is that they will count the dimpled ballots, the indentations on the ballots, if they can determine other-voter intent; but it can't be just a nick or an indentation on one of the presidential chads, but there needs to be other, sort of, supporting evidence. And that is if there were other dimpled chads in the other state races which indicated, perhaps, they were having difficulty getting their stylus through and punching out the chad. So that's where that stands. Tomorrow, after this break today for Thanksgiving -- tomorrow they begin at 11:00 again. The canvassing board to take a look at these disputed ballots, and there were upwards of 8,000, 9,000, perhaps 10,000 disputed ballots for them to go through which they've got to get done by Sunday. And what they'll do at the start of business tomorrow is have the lawyers from both side -- the Democrats and the Republicans who have been watching this process, just as they are in Broward, as you saw in the live pictures from there -- those lawyers will be arguing their cases about the chads, the dimpled chads. The Democrats will be asking that all dimpled chads, essentially, be counted as votes. The Republicans will be arguing for much less of a standard. They don't want any dimpled ballots to be counted, basically, at all because the numbers are this -- at least those given by the Democrats: of the disputed ballots that they've been through thus far in 1/3 of the precincts, they find a 300-vote swing for Al Gore if you count all the dimpled ballots. But again, that is not expected to be the standard here. Tomorrow we'll know more. For now, I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, reporting live from Palm Beach County, Florida.</s>LIN: Knowing more tomorrow, one can only hope -- Leon.</s>HARRIS: All right; well, chad counting is not going on in Miami- Dade county, either, today and the recounting process may not even restart there. CNN's Frank Buckley is with us now. He's in Miami; he's going to tell us why. Good morning, Frank.</s>FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon. The manual recount process has stopped here in Miami-Dade County because the local canvassing board ordered it stopped. It came to the conclusion that it simply couldn't finish in time for the new Supreme- Court-set deadline.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: The world is watching! The world is watching!</s>BUCKLEY (voice-over): The world watched raucous Republicans protesting the Miami-Dade canvassing board, which began the day with the decision to stop the manual recount of all 654,000 ballots cast and to concentrate, instead, only on the 10,750 so-called "under-vote" ballots. A number of ballots, board members felt, they could count in time to meet the state Supreme Court's new deadline -- a move some Republicans said amounted to a hijacking of the presidency.</s>REP. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (R), FLORIDA: We'd like America to know how the presidential election is being stolen at this time in Miami- Dade County, Florida.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Arrest him! Arrest him! Arrest him!</s>BUCKLEY: In the heated atmosphere, Republicans also accused a Democrat of stealing a single ballot. Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairman Joe Geller was surrounded by police and rushed through an accusing crowd of Republicans before it was revealed he had only a sample ballot. Once the canvassing board convened, it was the Democrats' turn to be disappointed. The board changed its mind, canceling their recount entirely.</s>DAVID LEAHY, SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS: I do not believe that we have the ability to conduct a full, accurate recount.</s>BUCKLEY: Elections supervisor, David Leahy, saying he couldn't guarantee that all 10,750 ballots would be reviewed by the new Sunday deadline, prompting the board to vote three to zero to stop its manual count and to submit its original vote count from before manual counts began.</s>JUDGE LAWRENCE KING, CANVASSING BOARD CHAIRMAN: We cannot meet the deadline of the Supreme Court of the state of Florida, and I feel it incumbent upon this canvassing board to count each and every ballot.</s>BUCKLEY: Democrats filed legal action late Wednesday, asking a state judge to force the board to resume the manual count.</s>BUCKLEY: And that lower court refused to order the local canvassing board to resume its manual recount so, this morning a Gore campaign spokesman told CNN that, in fact, an appeal is being filed with the state Supreme Court, hoping that the Supreme Court can take over that job of ordering the Miami-Dade canvassing board to resume its manual recount. No word on whether the justices will take up the matter today or when they'll take up the matter -- Leon.</s>HARRIS: But Frank, in the board's own words, the only way they could complete a count is if they given more time. Do you have a sense that they would actually do it -- if they would go through with it if the court were to change its mind about the deadline?</s>BUCKLEY: Well, in fact, in talking to some of the county workers there, they note that two of the canvassing board members are judges themselves and they have a sense that both of them clearly feel -- and David Leahy, the elections supervisor, would be willing to follow the letter of the law. There's no sense here that any of the canvassing board members are saying, we just refuse to do this. They felt that, because of the time situation, they couldn't do it. Whether or not, you know, facing a legal order they would then have some form of civil disobedience, who knows. But my sense is, two of them being judges, you're not going to see that.</s>HARRIS: All right; we shall see how things play out; always a surprise. Frank Buckley, thanks much.