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Saturday Morning News

Absentee Ballots Become Latest Subject of Controversy

Aired November 18, 2000 - 7:00 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this morning, of course, in Florida, where the count and recount of ballots cast for George W. Bush and Al Gore is the epicenter of a swirling controversy that will eventually decide the next president of the United States.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Here are the latest developments.

Florida's Supreme Court has ruled the vote will not be certified in the Sunshine State today, as the secretary of state had hoped.

On Monday, Florida's high court will hear arguments on challenges to the manual recounts.

And in Atlanta, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to stop those recounts.

PHILLIPS: The overseas ballots have been counted in all but one of Florida's counties, and the deadline for reporting all of those ballots is noon today.

HEMMER: Now according to the Associated Press, George W. Bush now leads Al Gore by 927 votes. This includes the overseas ballots for 66 of Florida's 67 counties but not the results from the various hand recounts going on in Florida. We should also note that 1,400 of the overseas ballots have been rejected, and this is expected to generate yet another controversy.

PHILLIPS: And for more on the Florida count now, we're going to go to Bill Hemmer now, who's in Tallahassee, the state capital.

Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: Good morning, Bill.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra, Miles, good morning to you.

Not to sound facetious or glib, but the attention here in Tallahassee is slowly moving away from the presidential race to an all-important football game later tonight. Florida State will host Florida here in Tallahassee, but that diversion will only be temporary.

You mentioned the overseas absentee ballots. There is still one county outstanding. That is Jackson County, located north of here right along the border with the state of Georgia. It is believed through officials here in Tallahassee that they will get their numbers in over the next few hours, so that number on the overseas absentee ballots may change through the course of the morning here.

As for the recounting, that does continue again today in Southeastern Florida. But the legal seesaw yesterday was thrilling. First in the morning, later into the afternoon, it was a dramatic day once again here in Tallahassee.

CNN's Mike Boettcher now with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another dramatic turn in a case full of them: Florida's Supreme Court finally intervenes and will attempt to untangle a complicated legal web, with the presidency at stake.

WATERS: In order to maintain the status quo, the court on its own motion enjoins the respondent, secretary of state, and respondent, elections canvassing commission, from certifying the results.

BOETTCHER: Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was making plans for a very public ceremony Saturday to observe the final certification of Florida's statewide vote, when she got the news that her plans were put on hold by the Supreme Court. The day was full of such ups and downs for both sides.

At 10:00 a.m., it was the Gore campaign that got disappointing news from a trial court in Tallahassee.

TERRE CASS, LEON COUNTY COURT ADMINISTRATOR: It appears that the secretary of state has exercised her reasoned judgment to determine what relevant factors and criteria should be considered.

BOETTCHER: Attorneys for Al Gore had argued to Circuit Judge Terry Lewis that Secretary of State Harris had abused her discretion by promising to go ahead and certify Florida's election without giving time for three Florida counties to conduct hand counts. But Judge Lewis rejected their argument, said Katherine Harris acted properly, and allowed the certification process to roll on.

BOETTCHER: But Gore's attorneys were filing an appeal to Florida's Supreme Court.

WARREN CHRISTOPHER, OBSERVER FOR GORE CAMPAIGN: I must say I think most observers have thought this matter would end up in the Supreme Court of Florida.

BOETTCHER: At 7:00 p.m., James Baker stepped to the podium, this time disappointed.

JAMES BAKER, OBSERVER FOR BUSH CAMPAIGN: We remain confident that for all of the reasons discussed by the trial court in its two opinions, the Supreme Court will find that the secretary of state properly exercised her discretion and followed the law.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOETTCHER: The day's twists and turns finally ended in the Sunshine State at its highest court, the Supreme Court, where the spotlights will glare at 2:00 p.m. Monday with the presidency at stake.

And meanwhile, Bill, this morning lawyers for both sides are preparing written arguments, which are due before the court at 2:00 p.m. today.

HEMMER: I'm not one to question the state Supreme Court certainly, but why wait until Monday? Why not go ahead and carry it out today?

BOETTCHER: Well, they consolidated some cases. I think a lot of other cases have put them in one place here. They're going to look at a lot of these cases to try to clean this legal mess. There are some complicated arguments. They wanted to give both sides time. This is highly important. And plus, just a little ways down the road is a big football game...

HEMMER: Sure is.

BOETTCHER: ... and I think probably a lot of the justices we hear will be there, as well the governor and the secretary of state. So in that stadium, all the major players tonight.

HEMMER: Thirteen hours from kickoff, 8:00 Eastern, Mike Boettcher, thank you very much.

I want to shift our attention now again to that recount in certain parts of Florida still taking place today.

It was late last night when Palm Beach officials actually said they may finish that recount sooner than first thought.

CNN's John Zarrella now reporting live from Palm Beach County in West Palm, with more on this Saturday morning.

Hey, John, good morning to you.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill.

And that's correct. They say that it's only going to take them five days to finish the count. So maybe Tuesday, and they may further revise that before the day is over. It could be done early Tuesday as opposed to late Tuesday. And right now the morning counting team is arriving here, expected to get started sometime shortly after 7:00. It took them until about 8:00 before they all got organized yesterday morning and began counting.

But inside there now, they're just going through the motions of getting seated and grabbing a cup of coffee and getting organized so they can start. They worked feverishly yesterday, a good 14 hour day by the two counting teams. In the morning, they had a 26 counting teams, about the same in the afternoon shift. What we don't have is a good indication of the numbers of ballots or change, if there's any major swing. They' re not being very loose with that information on how big a swing there has been with the precincts they have counted so far. We're hoping to get some updated information on that today.

But you folks were mentioning the military ballots and the controversy over the military ballots from the absentees, we had a controversy here last night as well when they threw out one of those ballots because it did not have a postmark or a signature on it, and the Republicans were screaming that because it came from a military base it needed to be included. The canvassing board was skeptical.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot believe that our service boys fighting overseas, that their ballots would be disqualified, and I ask the board to reconsider their position...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... if they would file a protests.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, we will file a protest and arrange for a violin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZARRELLA: As far as we know, that particular vote from the absentee column did not count. Again, we'll keep you posted throughout the day as to numbers, changes, those all important ballots here in Palm Beach County -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right, John Zarrella in West Palm. John, thanks again to you.

We'll talk more about those overseas absentee ballots and whether or not they were certified or not with David Cardwell shortly here, our elections analyst here in Florida. Also, Carter Eskew, a Bush spokesperson down there in Palm Beach County. All of that coming up shortly here from Florida.

Back to Kyra and Miles now.

HEMMER: All right, thank you, Bill.

Lots of litigation to keep track of this morning. Most of the legal maneuvering over Florida's presidential balloting, as Bill referred to, has been in state courts, the state Supreme Court in Florida. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, federal court, also got involved -- or more accurately refused to get involved.

CNN National correspondent Bob Franken was there. As the ruling came down, it was fairly unequivocal, wasn't it?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, temporarily have refused to get involved. What they did is they denied the Republican request -- two Republican requests, really -- to stop the hand-count vote recounting, the temporary restraining orders that have been requested by the Republicans. They denied them without prejudice.

Now what that means is that they are saying that this issue is not necessarily dead, it's just that they were not going to immediately come into the case and deny the hand recounting the chance to continue.

In their order, it says, "At this time, we need not address the likelihood of success on the merits, nor do we address now the merits of the underlying appeal," meaning that at some point down the road, if there is a decision made to come to the federal court and say we need relief, one side or the other, from what has occurred in Florida, the option is still open to at least ask the federal courts if they can still get in because of constitutional requirements.

Now the Republicans or Democrats could do that, but the Democrats may have a big problem because they have been the ones who have been arguing that it doesn't belong in the federal court.

So it's still open to come to the federal courts, built the very practical matter is the appeals court did not get in there and stop the hand recount.

HEMMER: Not a big surprise. There's a lot of case law out there that allows the states a fair amount of discretion for running their own elections. So while this is not surprising, it isn't over in the federal system yet. And, you know, surprisingly the Republicans are seeking redress in the federal courts here.

FRANKEN: Well, it's interesting because it's the Democrats who are saying, no, it shouldn't be in the federal courts. They've used some strong language. They accuse the Republicans in one of their briefs of brazenly invoking the Constitution. That's pretty strong language. What it means is if the tables are turned later, the Democrats are going to have a real credibility problem.

HEMMER: All right, CNN's Bob Franken has been watching the federal court element of this.

We'll be in touch soon.

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