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Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: What's Next in the Florida Recount?

Aired November 25, 2000 - 9:34 a.m. ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, now is the moment...

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now.

O'BRIEN: ... you've been waiting for. You see the computer before us. We are huddled behind -- over it. It's kind of warm, because we've received so many e-mails. Once again, your interest continues sustained, not quite the 10,000 we got the first weekend of this, but nevertheless a lot of interest.

And to field your questions, we have a distinguished group of our colleagues at the other end of the line here, so to speak. Screen left, Bill Schneider, political analyst.

PHILLIPS: Ken Gross, our CNN election law expert.

O'BRIEN: And finally, the man from Tallahassee, Mr. Bill Hemmer.

Let's get right to the e-mail, shall we, gentlemen?

Paul J. Capps in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, says this. "Bill... " So I guess that's to you -- well, it could be to Bill Schneider, it could be to Bill Hemmer. Let's just send this one to Hemmer. "Do you think we will go past the December deadline? I hope so. I am really enjoying this dispute."

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, I'm running out of clothes.

Listen, I would assume -- you know, when we first flew down here on November 8, Wednesday afternoon, we honestly were standing at the airport in Tallahassee thinking we'd be home by Friday night that weekend. And every time I see a high-ranking attorney in this case, I always tell him that.

The one thing that is predictable is that nothing is predictable. The one thing that's for sure is that nothing is quite for sure.

I would have said a long time ago -- Miles and Kyra and Ken Gross and Bill Schneider may have a different opinion on this -- that we would not go into December on this. But already the crews here in Tallahassee are starting to bring small Christmas trees to work with them, they're starting to set them up. All right, listen, there's no telling. It's quite possible, knowing that so many different twists and turns have come in this story. But again, it's a bit difficult to say, and I'm glad our viewer enjoys this.

PHILLIPS: Yes, how about you?

HEMMER: I would say that (OFF-MIKE) there's a lot of folks down here are kind of tired from working this story. But it's fascinating, in all honesty, to see the way things are unfolding here.

I'll shut up and let the other guys jump in now.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the question was the December deadline. December what? There are a couple of December deadlines...

HEMMER: Good point.

SCHNEIDER: ... there's December 12, which is when the electors have to be selected, and if they are not selected by December 12, the legislature has the right, according to federal law, to choose legislatures (ph) of its own -- on its decision, and that would probably mean a Bush slate.

And then the legislators go to Tallahassee -- rather, the electors meet in Tallahassee, whoever is certified, and vote on December 18, and then, of course, it goes to Congress, which has to count the votes on January 5. So there are lots of deadlines, lots of possibilities.

PHILLIPS: All right, Ken Gross, this one is for you. This comes from Linda Rollins. The question is, "Can the U.S. Supreme Court extend Sunday's deadline and force Miami-Dade County and/or other Florida counties to count the votes by hand?" We were talking about that earlier this morning.

KEN GROSS, ELECTION LAW SPECIALIST: Yes, what the U.S. Supreme Court can do is uphold the discretion of the Florida Supreme Court, and then I think that would probably be done by the Florida Supreme Court in their discretion. I'm not saying they will do it, but it would be within their legal authority to fashion whatever relief they want.

But the Supreme Court would essentially be vesting that authority in the Florida Supreme Court.

O'BRIEN: All right, Ken, this is a follow-up for you from Tim Riley. "How partisan has this current U.S. Supreme Court been in its rulings?"

GROSS: Well, this Supreme Court, I don't think, has been highly partisan. They are a predominantly Republican court. They are a conservative court. President Clinton does have nominees that have been appointed as well. It's certainly a Republican majority. It is considered to be a conservative court. But most cases don't demonstrate the partisan stripes, like this one does, and I'm not sure this one will. But this one has the potential because of who's at play.

We -- but we still, I think, have a court, if you look back on other cases involving President Nixon years ago and then more recently President Clinton, the court goes -- bends over backwards not to get involved in the political fray if they can avoid it.

But let me add something. This is a Supreme Court that in its infinite majesty decided a few years ago that the Paula Jones lawsuit could go forward and the president could go ahead and testify in that lawsuit because it would not disrupt his political responsibilities. That's when he testified, and he said under oath that he did not have a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and all hell broke loose.

This Supreme Court doesn't always exercise a great deal of political sense.

PHILLIPS: All right, guys, gentlemen, jump in as you see fit. This one comes from Florida. Rick B. asks, "CNN reported an increase of 90 ballots for Bush in about nine counties. What counties were involved, and what were these adjustments?"

HEMMER: Another riddle, huh?

PHILLIPS: Yes, here comes more for the mathematician Bill Hemmer. Take it away.

HEMMER: (OFF-MIKE) "CNN reported an increase of 90 ballots for Bush in about nine counties. What counties were involved, and what were these adjustments?" To be honest with you, Rick, I can't even recall what that was. But what I can tell you is that there are 13, 13 different counties here that are being contested by the Bush campaign in circuit court today. They want the counties to revisit the issue about these postmarks and signatures and throw them back in the vote tally. Again, that was argued yesterday in circuit court.

The Bush campaign believes, again, they can get about 500 votes if they -- the counties are forced to go ahead and revisit those issues. I think the important thing about that whole argument is that both campaigns are literally trolling the entire state, trying together et a vote here, two votes there, which lets us know how incredibly close this election may be ultimately in the end.

It may not be a difference of a couple hundred votes in the end, it may be 10, 20, or even 50, so we shall see.

PHILLIPS: All right, I...

O'BRIEN: All right. And just to help out my poor colleague there, because we did give him a...

PHILLIPS: Yes, I found a number here.

O'BRIEN: ... (OFF-MIKE) -- the high hard one as they counted. But it's a series of smaller counties, quite frankly, Nassau County, for example, down (OFF-MIKE)...

HEMMER: Right. Oh, OK, yes, yes.

O'BRIEN: These are counties that are going through one more time, they are checking their overseas absentee ballots...

HEMMER: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: ... particularly looking at the military ballots too. And they're coming up with some new numbers.

PHILLIPS: And it's those seven counties...

HEMMER: Just to throw one more thing in there, right, just -- in Nassau County they had found that 200 ballots actually weren't counted before. I don't know that -- how that happened in Nassau County, but those were the -- where the Bush adjustment came in.

And just to throw another word in on that, David Boies indicated last night that they would contest the results in Nassau County come Monday. So there you go, for the folks living in Nassau County.

O'BRIEN: All right, so -- and a point of -- to bring out here is, we have been focusing on the more populous counties here, because those are where the votes are. But obviously much more of Florida is involved in this whole process.

We're going to take a break and bring back our esteemed colleagues in just a brief moment, so please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, "Reporter's Notebook" continues. And let's put up the -- as we...

PHILLIPS: The troupe?

O'BRIEN: The troupe, the troupe. Yes, there they are.

PHILLIPS: Comrades.

O'BRIEN: Bill Schneider, our political analyst, Ken Gross, an expert on matters of election law, Bill Hemmer, current resident of Tallahassee, Florida.

All right, let's get to the e-mail, shall we?

PHILLIPS: Sandy Block. She asks, "It was my understanding that Florida state law said that all of the county must be recounted if there is a hand count, that Miami-Dade knew they could not finish all the ballots, thus they stopped and submitted the 11/8 machine count. If... " November 8 machine count. "If this is the case, what is Palm Beach saying they will do if they cannot finish? Can they legally submit a partial count?"

Ken, you want to start? GROSS: I don't think they can submit a partial count. What the law says is that the canvassing board, if it finds an error based on sampling of the counties, they have a few things that they can do within their discretion. They could do a machine count, they could check the computer software, or they could do an expanded hand count.

But if they agree to do a full hand count, they have to complete it. They can't submit an incomplete count.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go back to the e-mail. This one has a little political implication to it, so let's -- we'll start with Mr. Schneider on this one. This comes from Demitris Voudouris of Oakton, Virginia. And Demitris, I apologize if that wasn't a proper pronunciation. "What is the standard for counting a vote in Broward County? Are dimpled ballots being included? And why is Gore getting so many votes in Broward as compared to Palm Beach?"

Bill, you got any thoughts on that?

SCHNEIDER: I think they have very liberal standards in Broward County, and compared to Palm Beach, that's exactly the case that Bush is trying to make. He's saying that the different counties have different standards. In Palm Beach, they're still trying to figure out what their standards are.

Obviously, they have very liberal standards for counting ballots in Broward County, and they're counting a lot of them. That's the Gore campaign's complaint. I'm sorry, the Bush campaign. That's the Bush campaign's complaint, the standards vary from county to county.

PHILLIPS: Bill Hemmer, you were going to add something?

HEMMER: No, I'm sorry, I should be Bill Number Two. I was a bit confused when you said Bill Schneider. Go ahead.

We were just talking with Jeff Flock, though, a short time ago in the rain down there, and he indicated the same thing that Bill Schneider's pointing out. One county and their canvassing commission appears to have a much liberal -- more liberal stand in what they accept and what they don't. You find that in Broward as opposed to Palm Beach. And that explains, at least for the moment, anyway, why the two counties are coming up with different numbers.

PHILLIPS: Well, this has also been a really big issue right now. This one comes from Vernon Walker in North Carolina. "We must count the military votes of the service men and women." This has really been a big issue in the past day or so. Ken, do you want to begin?

GROSS: Well, unfortunately, the military ballots, these absentee ballots, are subject to so many rules, they make the chads look like child's play, regarding the postmarks, the proper signature, the dating of the ballot, the witnessing of the ballot can only -- one person can only witness five ballots. It has to be in an outer envelope and sealed in an inner envelope.

And if you wanted to bring out the lawyers, which there's no shortage of, you could almost disqualify all of these. That's why the Bush campaign has gone to court in Leon County, which was heard yesterday, to try and get these absent -- more discretion, or at least loosen up the rules a little bit so these absentee ballots are not disenfranchised.

And I think that that's what's happening. They're just relaxing some of these very strict rules to -- in order to bring more of these ballots in.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, isn't there a confusion with the administration rules I've been reading about, and then also the state law?

GROSS: Yes, there's a conflict, it appears, between federal law and state law, just to complicate things. State law is clear. It has to have an FPO, an APO, or a foreign postmark on it. The problem is, federal law say it needs only be signed and dated. And many of these military ballots were never postmarked, since they don't pay postage. So they're trying to determine whether they were still done in a timely fashion.

After all, after this dispute blew up, you could have people signing ballots, bringing them in on November 8 and 9 and 10, and that's no good. So if there's some way to determine it was done before November 7, without a postmark, that's what they're trying to do under the federal rule.

SCHNEIDER: Yes, the issue here is, how rigidly shall these rules be enforced? There are lots of rules. And the Gore campaign, when they counted those overseas military ballots, insisted that the rules be rigidly enforced, because they knew that most of them would probably go to Bush. And they were enforced that way, and a lot of them were thrown out.

And they went headlong into a public relations catastrophe, because people are outraged that the rules are being so rigidly enforced against counting the ballots for military people overseas.

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, it raises the point, Bill, that oftentimes what is legally allowable and what is politically -- you know, what you can do in the political realm doesn't always go mar -- hand in hand.

SCHNEIDER: It was a public relations catastrophe for Al Gore.

O'BRIEN: Yes. All right, let me just -- to wrap this up, and I -- you can all weigh in on this if you like, this is from Med Fadel, who is in Austin, Texas. And we won't read anything into his geographic location here, because this has nothing to do with anything, or it's not that kind of question.

"I'm amazed that in this day and age and in the most advanced country in the world, we are still hand counting." And there's a series of these. "Why would a county continue to use ballot casting equipment that for years has allowed the voter to cast anything less than a perfect ballot?" That from Paula Maddox.

And, "Do you think there will be significant reforms to the way you vote in future elections as a result of the Florida problems?" Mike Bacon has that. "Do you think when this is over, there'll be a whole new voting process, more generic, throughout the entire country?" That one from Robert Wilson.

Take it away, guys.

SCHNEIDER: Well, there are two problems here. One is the -- that counties which are responsible for controlling the process don't like to spend a lot of money on voting machines, because when they have some revenue, the voters say, Spend it on schools, spend it on roads. But for goodness sakes, why waste it on voting machines?

Well, now we have the answer to that. If you don't spend it on voting machines, you're going to get into exactly the situation we have now.

The other half of that answer is that this country, unlike most others in national elections, this country constitutionally allows voting -- the voting procedure to be controlled by not just state but very local authorities, and they can do it any way they wish.

So that's why we have the -- this enormous difference in voting procedures county by county. That's what makes the United States different from most other countries.

O'BRIEN: Anybody else there? Ken?

GROSS: Well, I don't think anybody's...

HEMMER: Well, I...

GROSS: Go ahead, Bill.

HEMMER: Sorry, Ken.

GROSS: I don't think anybody's going to mind if part of the money that we spend on TV commercials is allocated towards reforming our equipment for voting, and I think that if anything good comes out of it, that's what will come good out of it. We're not going to see butterfly ballots any more, and maybe not even punch card ballots, although it'll take awhile to phase that out.

O'BRIEN: Maybe, Ken, what they could do is modify that 1040 form, that little box you check to pay for the campaign, instead to pay for some decent voting machines. I'd check that box. How about you, Bill?

GROSS: You'd get a good response.

HEMMER: You know...

O'BRIEN: Yes. HEMMER: I -- I -- I -- I -- I -- I think both -- I think both the guys are right about the economic thing, even at the county level statewide here in Florida and across the country. The election division sometimes is the last department to get funding. But I think there were a number of legacies out of this story, including how we vote.

Internet voting's going to get a lot more attention, and also ballot by mail that we saw in the state of Oregon that was done this past year, and also in 1998. Those issues are going to become huge over the next four years. Slight prediction from here in Tallahassee.

SCHNEIDER: They're very difficult issues because when you have people voting by mail and by Internet, how do you guarantee the privacy and the secrecy of the ballot? How do you make sure that the person who's casting the ballot is the right person and they're not being unduly influenced?

O'BRIEN: All good questions. All right.

SCHNEIDER: Very, very important issues.

O'BRIEN: With that cautionary note, we will leave it at that. Gentlemen, we could go on, of course, we have many, many e-mails. Thanks to all of you who sent them in, and thanks to Bill Schneider, Ken Gross, and Bill Hemmer for doing their best to take what are sometimes some difficult questions.

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