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Sunday Morning News

What Does Public Think About Presidential Recount?

Aired November 19, 2000 - 9:38 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: All right. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) plenty of talk over the next (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Thanksgiving feast, as we know, well know, and it won't just be families and football.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm not deliberately ignoring you, I'm doing some processing here on the e-mails and...

PHILLIPS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), we're getting warmed up, OK?

O'BRIEN: Why don't you just get started, and I'll be there in a minute, all right?

PHILLIPS: That's right, he's plugging in the e-mails. We're also taking your phone calls. Let's give you the phone number, it's 404-221-1855.

And we're joined by all of our reporters in the field. We've got Bill...

O'BRIEN: Well, not quite all of them, but we have a few of them. Bill Hemmer's in Tallahassee...

PHILLIPS: Right.

O'BRIEN: ... John Zarrella in...

PHILLIPS: In West Palm.

O'BRIEN: ... West Palm Beach.

PHILLIPS: And then we also have...

O'BRIEN: We have Dale Cardwell.

PHILLIPS: That's right, David Cardwell, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'BRIEN: David Cardwell.

PHILLIPS: David.

O'BRIEN: And I don't know where he is. You in Tallahassee?

PHILLIPS: I think he's in Orlando.

O'BRIEN: Orlando, OK.

PHILLIPS: David, are you in Orlando?

DAVID CARDWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm in Orlando, midway...

PHILLIPS: There we go.

CARDWELL: ... between Bill and John.

O'BRIEN: I was enmeshed in Microsoft Word, so I apologize.

PHILLIPS: He gets flustered with all the e-mails, sorry about that.

O'BRIEN: Yes, all right, let's get right to the e-mails, shall we, before we die on the vine here?

Lynn Walden (ph) has this question. "Who will decide if the hand count of votes in Florida is fair and accurate, and how will he/she know for sure?" -- David.

CARDWELL: Well, it'll initially be the county canvassing boards in the three counties they're doing the recounts, but for sure this'll finally be resolved by the Florida Supreme Court. This is -- at this point, it's a state law issue, should be resolved at the state Supreme Court level, though there'll probably be an effort to inject the federal issue and try to get it to the U.S. Supreme Court. But for right now, I'd say it'll be the Florida Supreme Court.

O'BRIEN: And on that note, before we go to you, Bill, couple of supreme court-related questions. Charlie Key (ph) says this. "I bet that the Florida Supreme Court will surprise everyone again." And then a related one, sort of, "In the interests of justice and unity, do you think the Florida Supreme Court would require a total statewide recount? At the status quo, whoever wins will lead a divided country. That is not going to be good for any of us." That's from James Gordon -- Bill.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think with regard to a statewide recount, it is highly unlikely at this point. There have been re -- excuse me, revotes, I apologize. It is my understanding that in Florida election history it has happened a couple times, but never on the statewide level. I think that's a difficult thing to cross.

The other thing that you're going to hear tomorrow in court, legal analysts here in Tallahassee indicate that the true issue here before the supreme court is whether or not Katherine Harris abused her office, abused her discretion when she said all votes have to be in as of Tuesday, 5:00, this past week.

That's going to be truly the potential root of the issue and the argument tomorrow. And who knows where that goes from there? But I think that e-mail may have a good point, the person who wrote in that -- no one's known where this thing's going to go, and it can turn on a dime at any point. Friday was an amazing, thrilling roller coaster ride between the morning and the afternoon, so really, it is anybody's guess where this thing may go once it comes out of the state supreme court, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's head down South and check in with Mr. Zarrella. A pair of chad-related questions for you, Mr. Zarrella. Pat McLeod in Sacramento has this. "Now that the computer-card ballots have been handled so much, I would think that a final computer count would be interesting. Of course, the tape used to fix the ballot might jam up the works." I think tongue is firmly in cheek there.

And then this one from Patricia Smith. "If a chad falls out during the recount, what's the problem? I would think that it simply means it had been a partial punch that may not have been counted by the machines."

John, you are now, like it or not, an expert on chads. Weigh in on this, will you?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as far as the taped ones go, those were on absentee ballots that had been turned in. There were some accusations, I guess you could say, that people -- claims, at least, that, well, maybe people were taping those up inside so that they taped the chad in so it wouldn't fall out on one candidate or another.

But what it was, was, these were absentee ballots that were sent home, and when they got them back in here in the -- at the canvassing board, there was tape. So nobody's quite sure what these people were trying to do, but they probably punched one, realized it was the wrong one, tried to tape it back in, and so that was the issue there.

But as far as the ones that are on the floor, well, that's what their arguing. If it fell out, it fell out. I mean, it -- that -- it was probably supposed to fall out, is what they're -- what the canvassing board and everyone here is saying. Look, it's not a big deal if these chads ended up on the floor, because they were probably supposed to have fallen out anyway.

So -- and -- but it has become clearly an issue with the Republicans charging down in Broward that there were 80 chads on the floor one day, and the judge, in fact, Charles Burton here a little while ago, when he first came on this morning to give instructions, he was very funny, he's not getting much sleep, but he was in there instructing people, and he was going, My gosh, if you find chads -- well, there's a chad on the floor.

So they're making a little bit of light of it at this point.

O'BRIEN: It is a subject...

PHILLIPS: Get a little delirious.

O'BRIEN: ... pregnant with controversy.

We hate to leave you dangling, folks, but we're going to take a break. We'll be back with our distinguished guests, our reporters in the field, in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: We're taking your calls, we're taking your e-mails, we're having a discussion. We've got three of our experts, CNN election analyst David Cardwell, he's in Orlando, Bill Hemmer, still in Tallahassee, and John Zarrella, very excited and full of energy...

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: All of them have been taking a licking, but they're still ticking.

PHILLIPS: See, look, they're all smiling. This is great.

O'BRIEN: I think the right amount of caffeine is a beautiful thing.

PHILLIPS: We're going to go right to a phone call, guys. Paul in Del Ray Beach has a question. Go ahead, Paul.

CALLER: OK, now, what if Miss LePore didn't devise a butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County, which was the only one having this type, and had the same ballot as the other ballots in the whole -- all the other counties, 66, Al Gore would have won going away. And if Governor Bush had his name below Al Gore on the ballot, the Republicans would have been in the same situation as the Democrats. And the punch hole should be at the right of each contestant. Thank you very much for taking my call.

PHILLIPS: Oh, thank you for your comment. Guys, you want to respond to that?

HEMMER: I think Zarrella's the expert on that one.

PHILLIPS: He's the ballot man. Go ahead, John.

ZARRELLA: Ah, that butterfly ballot, yes, indeed. You know, it was funny last night on the half-time of that Florida-Florida State game, they had the butterfly ballot, and they had Oklahoma on top and Florida State-Miami over here, and they were punched, and go, wait, wait, that's one, the VCS from Miami, no, I meant Florida State.

But it's exactly, exactly what they're saying is, yes, the shoe probably would have been on the other foot. But the interesting thing here today is, you know, that this recount is not bearing out what the Democrats had hoped for, at least at this point. You know, with about 202 precincts left to go, all the talk that the vice president was going to pick up up to 1,900 votes, it's not happening at all. It is basically still, you know, too close to call here.

There's no real net gain. We don't have real numbers. They're not giving us firm numbers. But there's been no dramatic change or shift in the number of votes for either candidate.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's take this issue of confusing ballots to Mr. Cardwell. This one comes from a gentleman with the handle of -- or lady with the handle of Doron. "Why are the double-vote ballots not counted as half a vote for each candidate? These could be done in Democratic Palm Beach and Republican Duval." What do you think?

CARDWELL: Well, there's absolutely no statutory authorization for that. Florida election code says that you vote for one, and in the event that you vote for more than one, then your vote is not counted.

Now, the multiple voting or so-called overvoting is something that is unique to the computerized voting systems. The lever machines that were used, they could be set so that you could only pull or push one lever at a time. But there's no authorization for counting half a vote, and what's -- the canvassing board and the counters are struggling with during the manual recount is if they do have a card which the machine read as two votes, they need to look at it and determine, are those two clear punches, or could one be a clear punch and one a partial punch, and the machine read it as two?

And then it's possible that when the counters and the canvassing board look at it, they could determine that the voter's intent was actually to only vote for one, not for two.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's send one to Mr. Hemmer, and maybe Mr. Zarrella can back him up on this one.

Kay Papasian (ph) has this. "Did this morning's count include the totals from the 200-plus precincts that had been counted, or only those in which contested ballots had been resolved?" And just to help our viewers here, we're talking about the 930-vote discrepancy between Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore. And the 200-plus precincts Ms. Papasian is referring to are the 200 precincts in Palm Beach County that have been counted.

So Bill, do you know, the 930, is that factored in?

HEMMER: It is not, actually. The recount is completely separate from what we know right now. The official numbers from the secretary of state's office has it at 9:30, that's with those oversea absentee ballots in. The Gore campaign is quick to point out that they thought Governor Bush would gain more votes. In Austin, though, they're quite pleased. You know, Governor Bush picked up well over 600 votes yesterday to add to his tally.

So it's my understanding -- John, you can correct me if I'm wrong -- but what's happening there has not been put into this revote -- recount, rather, statewide at this point at all, has it?

ZARRELLA: No, that's absolutely correct. This is a totally separate count. And it can't be included until the supreme court of Florida, if it did, were to rule that the secretary of state has to include it. So no. These numbers are not included, not the numbers here or in Broward or in Dade, if they ever get started counting in Dade.

CARDWELL: John, this is Dave Cardwell. But I believe those Palm Beach totals that were sent to the secretary of state did include the four precincts that they had hand-counted as the sample.

O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen.

ZARRELLA: Correct, that -- right, in that sample precincts that they did a week ago.

O'BRIEN: And you are forgiven out there in TV-land if your map is still fuzzy after that conversation. But that was a nice try, guys.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: All right, we're going to take a break, try to let the dust settle on all this mathematics. And for those of you who flunked new math, stay with us, we'll try to get through this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right, our experts in the field standing by. We're going to take a call from Missouri. Go ahead, Carol.

CALLER: Hello. Of all the spinning head (ph) spinners, pundits and talking heads who are chasing each other in circles about how this is splitting the American people apart, has anybody considered that of all the American population, more than half of those who could don't even register to vote, and of those who are registered, only about half of those vote? So the only people with a vested interest in this are the 25 percent who vote and those who want a job in the next administration.

PHILLIPS: Carol, thank you. Gentlemen? I see Hemmer shaking his head.

HEMMER: You know, I think it's really going to be interesting, Kyra and Miles, to see what the fallout is from this race in four years' time, the year 2004. And I understand the caller's point about who votes and who doesn't. But I tell you here in Florida who does vote. The African-American population came out quite strong this past presidential race. It's been an overlooked factor this point.

I'll give you just a little bit of numbers here. In the past year, there was a huge initiative here, one Florida initiative, when Governor Jeb Bush took a stance on affirmative action here in Florida.

In 1996, about 10 percent of the electorate in the state were African-American. They went about 84 percent for President Clinton. This past year, 16 percent of the electorate was African-American. They came to the polls in big numbers. Now, that's an increase of 6 percent in four years' time. If you do the math, 6 percent of the voting electorate in Florida, over 6 million votes, it computes to well over 300,000 votes in addition for Al Gore.

And right now, you look back at this race, and next to 300,000 votes at this point would look like an absolute landslide for one man or the other.

I think it's a point that needs to be made at this time and kept in mind as we look back at the difference in Florida this year.

O'BRIEN: All right, Mr. Hemmer, let's put that aside for a moment. We'll have more opportunities for to discuss that, because we have a lot of e-mails along those lines.

But first, I wanted to ask Dave Cardwell, and this -- the conspiracy theories have begun, Dave. I guess this won't surprise you. "I believe that this whoop-la over the ballots in Florida is planned massive confusion to stage the way for our federal government to centralize our voting in order for them to gain more control over the outcome of our elections." That's from Rita Rainwater. I presume she's writing to us from the grassy knoll or something, I don't know -- Dave.

CARDWELL: Well, what's going on now is actually somewhat of a natural progression during the course of recounts in very close elections. Actions that are taken by elections officials or by the canvassing boards or by the counters in those rooms where the manual recounting, everyone seems to think there's something sinister going on. And very innocent acts tend to get magnified and be misinterpreted or misconstrued as being something that has some sort of adverse effect.

I've seen this in several recounts, where before you get into the recount process, everyone's talking about how everyone is trying to do the best they can, and as you move through it, the tension grows, people are tired, tempers start to flare, and then the conspiracy theories start being spun.

So it's not unusual for this to occur, but it never has occurred on a level that's this intense and at this high a level.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's do one more for Mr. Bill Hemmer here. And this is just something that I think people are thinking a lot about. "When you have a breaking story, there's always someone behind the news person with a cell phone or a sign trying to maneuver his way into the picture. It's very distracting" -- Bill.

HEMMER: I'm sure it is. We've been trying to negotiate with some folks behind us here. They've been quite cooperative. And I heard the song that the man sang about CNN earlier today. And we call him the Cigarette Man. He's been here every day that we've been here for every hour and every minute we've been on the air.

But we're making friends. We're trying to negotiate and make sure they stay out of our way. Again, what we want to communicate is a very confusing story, and it sometimes can be a little difficult when you have distractions behind us. But we'll keep on trying.

PHILLIPS: Well, all of you have been very patient, that is for sure.

O'BRIEN: And as we bid you adieu, let's listen to what Glen Ricker has to say here. We ought to get right on this, guys. "I wonder if you can find out how many babies have been named Chad since this all started." Just leave it at that. Thanks, guys. That's Dave Cardwell, Bill Hemmer...

HEMMER: You got it.

O'BRIEN: ... John Zarrella, taking some tough questions from our viewers. And we appreciate your questions, lots of them. We're sorry we can't get to them all, but we appreciate you participating.

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