November 19, 2000
Sunday, October 24, 2004, 09:03 PM
NYT Headline: "Bush's Lead Stands at 930 After Overseas Count".

The lead:

"Gov. George W. Bush's lead in Florida more than tripled today as all absentee ballots from overseas were opened and tallied. But his campaign was unable to claim the victory it had expected, as both sides awaited a hearing on Monday in the Florida Supreme Court."

Recounts in two counties yielded small returns, with a net gain of 79 votes in Broward County for Gore, and 12 in Palm Beach County for Bush. A majority of votes in both counties remained uncounted.

"[T]he process, which Republicans have described as chaos, is going painfully slow for the peple watching it around the nation. Republicans say some volunteers are, either by accident or on purpose, dislodging the chads.

Republican monitors actually have gathered some chads off the counting room floor as evidence that the ballots are being mishandled."

While the Bush campaign called in the Governor of Montana to make some press appearances, Florida state lawmakers were also busy planning. The details:

"Ordinarily, presidential electors are chosen through the popular vote and are expected to cast their ballots for the winning candidate. But Republican leaders, who control both houses of the State Legislature, say they are examining a federal law that they believe gives them power to seat electors if the outcome of the popular vote in Florida is unclear.
...
Electors must be seated by Dec. 12. Republicans and Democrats interviewed today said they hoped the matter would be resolved long before then. But if that did not happen, Republican lawmakers said today that they could invoke the federal statute."

An editorial asked what would happen if Bush were elected: "Suppose that George W. Bush pulls it off -- that he gets to the White House on the strength of chads and butterflies. Will he make good on his boast of being a 'uniter, not a divider' ?"



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No News Is Good News
Sunday, October 24, 2004, 08:37 PM
Maybe. The reason that there were no quotes from the Sixth Circuit opinion yesterday in the Ohio provisional ballots case is that no opinion was issued. The only document available is a 2 page order which says that an opinion will be forthcoming.

For those of you who have noticed that Michigan is covered by the Sixth Circuit and are expecting the stay in that provisional balloting case to mean that the lower court decision will be overturned there as well, don't be too sure. The lower court decision there was based on a Michigan statute, not on HAVA, as the Ohio case was. You'll just have to wait and see along with everybody else.

A little over a week away, and the election is still too close to call, both in terms of electoral votes, (today's electoral vote predictor has Kerry with 253 and Bush with 254, according to the most recent polls), but in terms of the popular vote.

Disclaimer: I do not support either Bush or Kerry. The reason I have bizarre pro-Kerry sites listed under the links section is that I have not found any pro-Bush sites that are bizarre enough to include yet. If you find one, please let me know. I reserve the right to decide whether it is truly bizarre enough to make the cut.


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November 18, 2000
Saturday, October 23, 2004, 10:58 PM
NYT Headline: "Florida Court Bars Naming a Winner; Bush Lead Grows With Overseas Tally".

And one of the subheadings: "Manual Count Goes On in a Day of Confusion and Court Rulings".

Hre's the entire text of the Florida Supreme Court's order:

"In order to maintain the status quo, the Court, on its own motion, enjoins the Respondent, Secretary of State and Respondent, the Elections Canvassing Commission from certifying the results of the November 7, 2000, presidential election, until further order of this Court. It is NOT the intent of this Order to stop the counting and conveying to the Secretary of State the results of absentee ballots or any other ballots."

Because of the overseas votes, Bush's lead grew in the last day. The numbers:

Officially certified vote, as of Nov. 14: Bush, 2,910,492 and Gore 2,910,192 with Bush leading by 300 votes. Overseas ballots counted the previous day: Bush, 1,057 and Gore, 597, with a gain of 460 for Bush. Unnoficial hand recounts showed a gain of 48 for Gore, which works out to a net lead of 712 for Bush.

Officials in Miami-Dade Counry voted to conduct a full manual recount after the Florida Supreme Court order came down. They had about half a million votes to examine.

The full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Bush campaign's request to block further hand recounts.

In the meantime, officials in different counties were counting absentee ballots differently. Katherine Harris issued instructions that a ballot, if signed by Election Day but postmarked afterwards, should still be counted. So, some counties counted them if they were postmarked at all, some counted them even without a postmark, and some refused to count them unless the postmark was by Election Day. I guess that about covers all the options, doesn't it? Here's an excerpt from the coverage:

"Counties applied vastly different standards in deciding whether to throw out ballots. A few county officials openly defied the Florida secretary of sate's instructions to accept otherwise valid ballots from overseas that were postmarked after Election Day. Others freely admitted that they did not understand those instructions.
...
'It seems like everybody's been changing the rules to suit their satisfaction,' Fred Galey, the Brevard County supervisor of elections, said dryly. 'This certainly has been educational.' "

Oh, yes, and the same day, Judge Lewis in federal court denied a motion to force Harris to accept the recounted votes tallied after Nov. 14th. Harris argued that only "proof of fraud, noncompliance with election procedures, or a natural disaster could justify accepting the late returns". The Dems argued that this was not an exercise of her discretion but was instead an abuse of that discretion.

You know, I remember when we were living through this that it all sort of made sense to me at the time. That is, I could tell you what lawsuits were going on, in what order, and which ruling depended on which bizarre behavior by which government official(s). But, looking back on this now, I haven't got a f*cking clue.

I'll close with a thought about lawsuits from Judge Burton, talking about the ongoing recount in Palm Beach County:

" 'It's both sides,' said Mr. Burton of the constant challenges that have bogged down the process inside the Palm Beach County Emergency Management Center. 'I'm not blaming anybody. Lately, every time someone coughs or sneezes, it results in another lawsuit.' "


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The lawsuit issue that just keeps on giving
Saturday, October 23, 2004, 08:37 PM
That would be provisional ballots. Yes, I'm finally writing up the survey I've been promising to do, and I'm kinda bummed about it because until today, we had this great ruling from Judge Carr in federal court in Ohio which I wanted to quote from. But today it got overturned. Well, heck, maybe I'll quote from it anyways.

The story is, for those of you not watching Ohio like hawks (and why aren't you?), that Sec. of State Blackwell sent out a directive to county officials that provisional ballots would not be given to voters who appeared at the wrong precinct.

Then the Democratic Party sued in federal court for a preliminary injunction. Judge Carr granted the motion for an injunction and ordered Blackwell to issue a new directive by Oct. 18th that would be in compliance with HAVA (the Help America Vote Act).

On Oct. 20th, two directive versions later, Judge Carr was clearly disgusted with Blackwell's foot-dragging. Read excerpts of his final ruling here.

In the meantime, Blackwell appealed, of course, and the Sixth Circuit chimed in today, overturning Judge Carr's ruling. Yes, they ruled on a Saturday. The text still isn't on their web site, and the story just came out over AP a couple hours ago, with no quotes from the ruling anywhere as of yet.

This map is probably already out of date, but it shows the states which count provisional ballots only if you're at the right precinct, those that count them no matter what, and those where you can register to vote right on the spot. The map doesn't show which states only count parts of the ballot if you're in the wrong precinct, or which parts those are.

If you're a glutton for punishment, you can follow all of the litigation via the Election Law site. I'm sure there will be more along soon.



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November 17, 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004, 11:03 PM
NYT Headline: "Florida's High Court Rules Recounts Can Go On".

The lead paragraph:

"The Florida Supreme Court ruled today that at least two largely Democratic counties ould continue recounting ballots by hand, but a welter of pending legal challenges left in unclear whether any such votes would officially count in determining the outcome of the presidential race."

You can count 'em, but they might not count. Uh huh.

Jeb Bush finally put in a reappearance at the state capitol after days of keeping a low profile. Bush was photographed hanging out at his 1,500 acre ranch.

Palm Beach County's recount was back on, after the Florida Supreme Court decision. Thev olunteers started late that night and expected to take six days to finish.

The new chad standards: hanging and swinging chads would be counted, and ballots with tri-chads and pregnant chads would be put in a separate pile to be counted or not depending on the voter's intention, as best as the counters could discern it.

The hot topic of the day: what is abuse of discretion, and has Katherine Harris done it? That was the issue before Judge Lewis, in state court; in federal court, at the 11th Circuit, media camped out waiting for a decision on the recounts that didn't come.

Gore officially got Oregon and Iowa's electoral votes, still not enough to do him any good.

Yet another article was in the day's paper about our fine election system. "It's that old saying: to err is human, to really screw things up, you need a computer..." (p A29).



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