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Saturday Morning News

Miami-Dade Election Supervisor Denies Reports of Intimidation

Aired November 25, 2000 - 10:34 a.m. ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN SATURDAY MORNING, I'm Carol Lin.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And Leon Harris. We just kind of sneak up on you now.

LIN: That's the way we like to come in, you know, ease you into your day. All right, here's a look at our top stories this morning. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris hopes to certify a winner of the presidential election in the Sunshine State by tomorrow evening. Final results of hand recounts of Florida ballots are due in her office by Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on the Florida recount case next Friday. Lawyers for George W. Bush asked the High Court to overturn a key ruling by Florida Supreme Court. That ruling allowed hand recounts to continue and be included in the state's final vote totals. Attorneys for Al Gore predict the nation's highest court will not reverse the Florida Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, hand recounting does continue today in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Broward County's Canvassing Board is reviewing hundreds of disputed ballots. Board members say they're optimistic they can finish counting today. Palm Beach County board members say they are racing against the clock, though, but hope they'll make it in time for Sunday's deadline.

HARRIS: Now, for those of you who are keeping score at home, here's the latest on the hand recounts. Bush has an official statewide lead now of 930 votes in Florida but seven counties have revised their totals resulting now in a net gain of 90 votes for Bush. Ongoing hand counts give Gore a net gain of 397 votes in Broward County and Bush has a net gain of 8 in Palm Beach County.

So the unofficial Bush lead for now 631. The numbers released by canvassing boards don't include about 500 disputed ballots in Broward County. Palm Beach County must still review about 275,000 ballots, which are counted but not finalized, and there are as many as 6,000 disputed ballots in that county. Now based on the Florida Supreme Court's ruling, these results must be submitted to the Florida Secretary of State by 5 p.m. Eastern tomorrow to be included in the official state total.

LIN: As you know, last week there was some controversy over why Miami-Dade actually stopped counting and whether they were influenced by a group of protestors, perhaps even intimidated. CNN's Frank Buckley standing by in Miami just meeting with election's officials for more on that controversy -- Frank.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Carol.

I just spoke by phone with David Leahy the elections supervisor here in Miami-Dade County to ask him about these criticisms that somehow the three member canvassing board here may have been influenced by the Republican protestors who were in the court house and outside of the courthouse on Wednesday, and he told me that "the protests had no bearing on my decision." "It was logistics and time." That's a quote from David Leahy.

He also said that the board wanted to complete its job and in fact, if it is ordered by a court to continue the recount he said "we're still ready to go." He's been -- some people have criticized him and suggested that he should resign and he said, "It's difficult when you have somebody call for your resignation, particularly when they haven't had the opportunity to talk to me."

As for why they didn't at least submit a partial recount, he said that that would have resulted in skewed results not representative of the entire Miami-Dade County area. Their concern was that you might have just submitted many Democratic precincts or many Republican precincts. So the bottom line here is that David Leahy the Election Supervisor says that the protests on Wednesday did -- had no bearing on his decision, that it had to do with logistics and time -- Carol.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, Frank Buckley, for that update from Miami-Dade County.

Now, we have gotten thousands of e-mails here at CNN since this election dispute began.

HARRIS: We've had plenty of time to get them. Right now we're going to answer some of them. Joining us now CNN's Bill Hemmer live from Tallahassee and our Election Law Analyst Ken Gross is in Washington.

Morning, guys.

LIN: Morning.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning.

HARRIS: All right, let's get right to it.

KENNETH GROSS, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: Morning.

HARRIS: Let's see, let's look at the first e-mail we have here. This is from I think that's Steve Duignan or Dulgnan.

LIN: Duignan, ...

HARRIS: Can't tell if that's an i or an l. LIN: ... Fort Smith, Arkansas.

HARRIS: Dulgnan, thank you very much, Sandra Witt (ph). Now:

"Just saw your live shot of the Palm Beach Board. How are the experts reconciling the extreme difference in results between Palm Beach and Broward counties? With a similar numbers of ballots kicked out by each county's counting machines the statistical pressure must be enormous. No one's talking about that" -- Bill.

HEMMER: I -- we talked with Jeff Flock (ph) earlier today, Leon and Carol, and I think the best way to explain this is that the two canvassing boards between Broward and Palm Beach are operating under different standards.

It is said anyway by reporters down there in Broward that that canvassing commission is a lot more liberal as to what they accept whether dimpled or pregnant or pimpled chads, whereas, the Palm Beach Board appears to be a lot more strict and tight on the standards that it's using.

I think, suffice to say, come Monday after Sunday night at five o'clock when the vote is certified, you can look to Broward and Palm Beach for both sides trying to see what should be contested there and what should not. We know the Gore campaign also is going to contest the results in Palm Beach. We'll see what the Bush campaign does on Monday come with that issue there. But again, suffice to say, different standards being used right now in those two counties.

HARRIS: See that's a simple answer.

LIN: There you go, very clear. OK, let's take another e-mail and see what's coming in right now to the CNN Center. Can't see the name here but it begins:

"Hello, I am neither Republican nor Democrat, did not vote although the legal wrangling are very interesting to watch. One thing that I don't understand is with Gore ahead in the electoral and popular vote why there is so much talk of him folding his tent and giving up, especially now when Cheney's health has to be a concern after four heart attacks. Maybe folks should encourage Bush to pack up his tent." And this is from Elaine in Pennsylvania -- Bill.

HEMMER: Me again, OK. Quickly here I'll explain and respond to that e-mail in this respect. I think the reason why we've seen political pressure on Al Gore to this point is because George Bush still leads on the official tally here.

Again, it had been well over 900 votes and appears it's slipping on the unofficial tally so I think that's why the pressure is being exerted on Al Gore, number one. Number two, a story in "The New York Times" yesterday indicated that Al Gore is actually calling top Democratic officials in Washington and other parts of the country trying to keep the sense of unity right now as we head into certification Sunday night and into Monday for the contest period. It's largely believed that Republicans are well behind George Bush and solidly but Democrats might be wavering a little bit. We've heard some Senators again over the past week or two come out and say, look, you know what, maybe it's time to give up the ship. So if Al Gore can keep those people in line and keep that public political pressure away from him, I think the fight will continue. If he can't, though, and if Bush is certified as the winner in Florida tomorrow night, I think that pressure is just going to really, really grow ...

HARRIS: Yeah.

HEMMER: ... on the Democratic side.

HARRIS: (INAUDIBLE) turns into an uphill battle them.

LIN: That's right.

HARRIS: Let's see if we can get one for Ken here. The guy came all the way in to work he might as well do something while here's here. Let's see, what do we have next? Again, Bill, ...

LIN: But you know, Ken, you can jump in anytime.

HARRIS: No, we'll give this one to Ken.

GROSS: All right.

HARRIS: All right. Keep asking a question without any answer: "If the law in Florida requires a recount if the vote is within one half of one percent, why are they recounting counties that are 50-to-1 in Gore's favor? That's not within the one half of one percent limit." That's from Jerry Salyer (ph).

HEMMER: Yeah, a quick simple answer, Ken Gross can jump in too, but it's because those counties filed for a recount earlier and sooner and met the state statute for when you have to declare a recount. I think there's a 72 hour deadline here in Florida in which you have to do that so that's the basic reason why Broward, Palm Beach and Miami- Dade jumped on ship first.

LIN: Ken.

HARRIS: Ken.

GROSS: Well, the standard is, as Bill is explaining, is that you take one percent of the vote in three counties -- in three precincts in the county and if it determines that the outcome of the election not in that county but the outcome of the election statewide would be affected by the discrepancy of that limited hand count versus the machine count that is enough to warrant, if the board wants, a full hand recount. It's right if the -- if the standard was just to change the result in that county, Gore won those counties going away and there wouldn't be a recount. It's based on the error rate versus the statewide total.

HARRIS: All right, listen guys, we're going to have to break away. We've got some breaking news we want to get to right now. Stand by, Bill Hemmer and Ken Gross in Washington.

LIN: That's right.

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