FROM FOXNEWS.COM

FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE DENIES HAND COUNTS

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

In the latest election twist, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced Wednesday night she was denying attempts by four counties to submit hand recounts of ballots in the contested presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Mark Foley/AP

Tuesday: Harris announces that so far Bush leads Gore by 300 votes.

Gore's camp promptly responded that they would go to court Thursday to fight the decision.

In Bush's response to the ruling, the Texas governor supported Harris' decision, saying that Florida's votes had been counted and recounted, and that manual counting "introduces human error and politics" into the process. Bush also rejected a Gore proposal for a full-state manual recount, saying such a recount would be "neither fair nor accurate" and "extend a flawed process statewide."

"This process must be accurate and this process must be final," Bush said. He said he would be willing to take the vice president up on his offer to meet after the election was decided to work toward uniting the country.

Four counties had submitted requests to amend their vote totals with manual recounts — Democratic-leaning Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, and GOP-leaning Collier.

Harris had given the counties until 2 p.m. Wednesday to submit written statements supporting their contention that their tallies required manual recounts. But at a Wednesday night press conference, Harris said "the reasons given in the requests are insufficient to warrant waiver of the unambiguous filing deadline imposed by the Florida Legislature."

The state would officially certify its total election results on Saturday with the completion of Florida's absentee ballots, Harris said.

Harris, a Republican who co-chaired Bush's campaign in Florida and has been accused of allowing partisan bias to affect her handling of the recounts, said she made her decision "carefully, consistently, independently and, I believe, correctly."

Minutes after the announcement, Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani said the Democrat will challenge Harris' decision in the state courts. "It's an outrageous decision. It's a rash decision and it won't stand," he said.

According to documents obtained by Fox News, Harris had limited the criteria by which counties would be allowed to submit amended returns to proof of voter fraud, non-compliance with statutory rules or a mechanical or technical malfunction that would have interfered in the voting process.

Issues such as voter error, confusing ballots, or the counties' belief that a recount would change the outcome of the election were not sufficient reasons to continue with the hand counts, according to the documents.

Harris' announcement capped a tumultuous day and evening during which the Florida recount had plunged deeper into legal confusion, with frantic filings, stop-and-start hand counts and new signs that the dispute to decide the next president will fall to either the highest court in the state or the nation.

In the balance hangs the White House.

A 300 Vote Margin

On Tuesday, Harris announced that Bush led by 300 votes out of nearly 6 million cast. Unless a court overturns Harris' decision to deny the hand recounts, only the uncounted absentee ballots could change the outcome of the election.

Only hours before Harris' announcement, Al Gore — in his first public statement in days — called for hand recounts in selected counties to proceed and challenged George W. Bush to accept them in a final tally.

He added that he would agree to recount every ballot in the state, which he said could be completed in a week, and said he would accept the outcome of the election without further litigation if the hand recounts, or a full state recount, were allowed to be completed.

The vice president also offered to meet publicly with Bush before such a recount, hoping to "improve the tone of the dialogue in America."

A Day in Court

Earlier in the day, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to consider a petition by the Bush campaign to block the manual recounts in some Florida counties. The hearing by the full 12-member panel, which could occur in Atlanta as early as Thursday, paves the way for the historic case to eventually land before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Later, the Florida Supreme Court, in a one-paragraph decision, denied a petition by Florida Secretary of State Harris to halt manual recounts in at least two counties and consolidate 11 lower-court cases into a single one. The ruling gave elections officials in Palm Beach and Broward counties reason to restart a hand count of as many as 1 million votes.

But the state court did not abandon a role in the case. Palm Beach County has asked the justices to untangle conflicting opinions from Harris, a Republican, and Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat, over whether the county has the right to launch a hand recount of more than 460,000 ballots. The court gave all sides until noon Thursday to file responses in the case.

LM Otero/AP

Tuesday: Bush supporters cheer the Texas governor's lead outside the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla.

In a separate request that went unanswered, advisers to Gore asked the state Supreme Court to take control of the dispute, rule if the recounts are legal and determine how they should proceed. They also argued that the recount should continue even as the debate over their legality snakes through the courts.

"The problem with holding up the recount is that every day this week the secretary of state has imposed a new deadline," said Gore campaign attorney David Boies. "The game may be: Delay those recounts as long as possible, then bring down the curtain."

The Bush campaign has argued that the seven-member state panel — filled entirely by Democrats — has no authority in the case. "It's my opinion that the [Florida] Supreme Court has no jurisdiction," said Barry Richard, a Bush legal adviser.

Eight days after the election, the competing court filings and rulings temporarily paralyzed the recounts and spawned new debates about whether so-called dangling, dimpled and pregnant "chads" on ballots represent legitimate votes or should be discarded. One lawyer for some Palm Beach County Democrats argued that the only resolution is a new round of voting.

"Everything is getting more complicated by the second," said Denise Dytrych, counsel for the Palm Beach County canvassing board.

In heavily Democratic Broward County, election officials voted along party lines to reverse an earlier decision and launch a hand count of more than 500,000 votes. Palm Beach County officials suspended similar plans until the court cases were resolved, but not before openly expressing the frustration that has built not just in Florida but around the nation.

"On the one hand we're trying to move forward," said Charles Burton, chairman of the Palm Beach County canvassing board. "On the other hand, it almost seems to be musical courts, so to speak. We're going from one courtroom to the next courtroom to the next courtroom."

Meeting Harris' 2 p.m. deadline, the Palm Beach board argued in a letter to the secretary of state that a countywide recount should occur because of conflicting court opinions and the possibility that thousands of county voters miscast their ballots. Burton said that Gore gained 19 votes after recounts of only 1 percent of the ballots.

Wilfredo Lee/AP

Tuesday: Media and protesters surround the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board as it votes to continue hand counting of ballots.

"Clearly the results of the manual recount could affect the outcomes of this very close presidential election," he said, reading the letter.

Broward officials cited similar concerns, adding that heavy turnout, the logistics of tabulating votes and even the Veterans' Day holiday contributed to the delay in vote counting. Miami-Dade cited the law. Officials there voted against a hand count, but could face a challenge from Democrats.

Bush's chief representative, former Secretary of State James Baker, told reporters he sees no reason for that deadline to be extended. He repeated his charges that a manual recount — particularly in four heavily Democratic counties — opens the door to human error and political mischief.

"We're about to recount Palm Beach county for the fourth time," Baker told reporters in Tallahassee. "By now, the Gore campaign strategy, I think, is crystal clear: keep conducting selective recounts, keep filing lawsuits, keep making false charges that divert attention and keep refusing to accept any recounts until the results change."

Gore's chief surrogate in Florida, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, denied that and said the vice president's latest appeal to the state Supreme Court showed they wanted a resolution.

"The whole spirit of the move today is to expedite and clarify the matter," Christopher said.

In another sign of the bubbling political animosity, Republicans charged that Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts, one of the three judges overseeing the canvassing, manipulated or tampered ballots during Saturday's recount to award them to Gore. Roberts, a Democrat, denied the charge and said she would not recuse herself.

"I have and will continue to be impartial," she said.

Dytrych, the board counsel, said the point was moot because the board did not have the authority to remove Roberts anyway.