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Sunday Morning News

What Do Voters Think of Florida Recount?

Aired November 26, 2000 - 9:35 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: And the Florida recount, of course, has been tedious, contentious, and confusing, and many of you have called or e-mailed us with questions and comments about what's happening in Florida and the manual recount issue going before the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Here to help us sort things out are an esteemed panel of journalists and expert, one expert, national correspondent Bob Franken, screen left, CNN election analyst Kenneth Gross in the middle, and CNN correspondent Jeff Flock in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Good morning to you all, gentlemen.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

KENNETH GROSS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: All right -- oh, boy, you did that all in unison, very well done, very well done.

Let's -- this first one, let's begin with Bob Franken in Washington at the Supreme Court. This comes from mark@somewhere. The Supreme Court is -- "What criteria," I should say, "is the Supreme Court going to be using to determine whether the Florida Supreme Court exceeded its authority in deciding this factual issue?"

FRANKEN: The criteria will be Florida state law, a federal law that dates back to the 1870s, and the Constitution, with the Article 2, Section 1, of the Constitution. So it's really running the gamut.

Probably the fundamental issue is the old constitutional standby, separation of powers.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go to another e-mail for you. Kyra, you want to take this one?

PHILLIPS: Sure. "If GW, or if George Bush wins today, does the Supreme Court ruling really make any difference? Either it will reject the recount altogether or if such is allowed, then he is certified the winner, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) less, regardless of Gore contesting." Comes from Michael Miller in Ohio. GROSS: Well, if -- it depends who wins. If the Supreme Court upholds the Florida court, then it'll be important for Bush to have won the popular vote as certified tonight. But then Gore is going to contest that. So we'll be back in the whole process again starting Monday. So the Supreme Court, if it upholds the Florida Supreme Court, will not moot anything. The process will go on.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's continue. We've gotten more than 1,000 e-mails once again today, and we thank you all for them. We're going to try to get to a few of them.

"Why is Bush filing additional lawsuits today concerning the military ballots if the close of counting is 5:00 p.m.? Isn't the opportunity to recount votes going to end prior to any court being able to consider these new lawsuits?" Ken, that sounds like one for you.

GROSS: Well, presumably he is contesting. Those lawsuits will be filed under the contest provisions, which come after certification. Those counties have already certified their vote. They're not going to be recertifying. So just in the way that Vice President Gore has indicated that he will file a contest tomorrow after the Miami-Dade and after the Palm Beach results are all certified, this presumably will be done under those contest provisions.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're going to take a phone call now, Art from New Mexico is on the line. Go ahead, Art.

CALLER: Yes, I'd like to make a comment. I feel that the Florida Supreme Court actually did Bush a favor by giving the canvassing boards an unrealistic deadline of 5:00 p.m. today. Also, I think that all votes should be counted, including the dimpled ballots which show voter intent, and also the military overseas ballots. Everything should be counted for this to be a fair election.

PHILLIPS: Any -- no, go on to an e-mail? All right, I thought maybe Jeff was going to respond to that one.

(CROSSTALK)

FLOCK: I was just going to say that that's -- no, that's all right. I was just going to say that that's pretty much a compendium of both sides, accepted all and go from there.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's move along. David Broyles in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has this. "I am sure confused about Palm Beach County being able to turn in a partial count. I would be interested in hearing the law on that. It seems to me that Governor Bush may be cheated out of some votes he would or could have gotten later in the count." Of course, that could cut both ways.

Ken, why don't you take that, or -- well -- Jeff, why don't you take that, Jeff first.

FLOCK: Well, I'd like to let Ken speak to the law on it. But I'll tell you what the canvassing board believes, and that is that they believe they have the authority to authorize that partial recount and to submit that. Now, whether the secretary of state accepts that partial recount or not, the partial results, that's another matter. But they believe that they have the authority to certify it and send it to her -- Ken.

GROSS: Well, it -- the law appears to me that if they're going to recount, they need to recount the entire, the entire county. I suspect that what will happen is that they submit an incomplete recount, what will happen is that Gore or perhaps Bush, depending on who the -- who is gets certified the winner tonight, will contest that and ask that the court impose some sort of remedy, such as extrapolating the results over the uncounted votes or actually just order a completion of the counting.

What happens in the contest phase of this, which will start tomorrow, is it that it shifts the authority away from the canvassing board and puts it in the courts, and the courts have raw discretion in fashioning whatever relief is necessary.

FRANKEN: Now, that point, I would want to point out, is one that did not impress the U.S. Supreme Court justices at all. The Bush campaign had argued that amounted to unequal protection, violating the 14th Amendment, and the Supreme Court here rejected the request to hear that point.

PHILLIPS: All right, guys, hold tight. We're going to take a quick break.

O'BRIEN: We'll be back, stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Counting continues in West Palm. The canvassing board is in overdrive. They've been going since 8:00 a.m. yesterday with only one break, we're told by our Jeff Flock, two and a half hour break. They're trying to make that 5:00 p.m. deadline.

O'BRIEN: You can't see the tension in that room, but you can cut it with a knife.

PHILLIPS: We're going to go to a phone call now, Anne's on the line from Massachusetts. I think she's got a question that's going to go your way, Jeff. Go ahead, Anne.

CALLER: I'd like to know, in the Palm Beach recount, and they say 200,000 votes are counted but not finalized, what does that mean?

FLOCK: Yes, here's the distinction on that, and it's difficult to accurately portray this to you. But all of the votes have been counted, 462,000 votes in the county. They have counted them all. But until the canvassing board, that three-member board, and maybe we can take a picture of them now, and you can see what I'm talking about, until this three-member board signs off on those votes, they are not certified.

Once the canvassing board certifies a precinct, then that counts as votes that have been certified. So there are 200,000 roughly remaining that they haven't certified. Now, what the canvassing board is doing right now is on the disputed ballots, the ones that the counters couldn't make a determination about, they are there making a determination and adjudicating the disputed ballots.

So that's the confusing nature of those numbers. Two hundred thousand votes not yet certified. They have now, we just learned in the break, 3,500 to go. They're down to now 3,500 remaining. And, of course, the clock is ticking, guys.

O'BRIEN: Jeff, do you know offhand the rate at which they're counting at the moment? Do some quick math there (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

FLOCK: They have a double -- according to Denise Cotay (ph), who speaks for the board, they have doubled their rate. And if we observe it now, I mean, we could sit there and listen, and you could get a sense for how fast these ballots are going by and count them for a minute. But if you figure double the rate of 165 an hour, what's that, 330 or so an hour?

O'BRIEN: That's 330, but by my math here, you need at least 500 an hour to make it.

FLOCK: Right, right. So they're still running behind. But keep in mind, they've thrown some of these back out to the counters and asked them to segregate out only the disputed ones, so that they may jump the count up pretty high pretty rapidly if you just -- if you understand where I'm coming from there.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's take an e-mail. James Gordon in Knoxville, Tennessee, has this. "How can you sue and win in a court of law the right to count votes that are not legal? If they count military ballots, shouldn't they count all the civilian ballots also?" Ken?

GROSS: Well, that is one of the issues that the Bush campaign is contesting because they say that, you know, the law has to be followed directly. However, we're back to this issue of the discretion of the canvassing boards. The only way we're able to get through this process, because every variable cannot be anticipated by state statute or state law, is to allow discretion in these canvassing boards within reasonable guidelines.

And I think that's what's happening with the absentee ballots as well as the punching of the dimples.

PHILLIPS: All right, here's another question. "The vote in Florida is almost a dead heat. Why then can't they give 13 votes to Bush and 12 to Gore and end this mess? If this had been done the day after the election, we wouldn't be in this mess."

PHILLIPS: Bob?

FRANKEN: You got me. All sides, of course, both sides are saying that they have a responsibility to the people who voted for them, and they really may do make sure that in fact they've exhausted every possibility that they might be the winner. That's why this has done on. That's the argument for it. Of course, on the other side is the argument that, come on, guys, let's wrap this up, we have a country to run.

O'BRIEN: And Ken, just to clarify that, it's winner take all on the electoral (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in Florida, right?

GROSS: Yes, the state law of Florida, as it is in 47 other, actually 47 other states, is that whoever wins the popular vote of the state gets all of the electoral votes. The reason I said 47 others is because in Maine and Nebraska, you can actually split based on the congressional districts. But those are the only two states.

O'BRIEN: Bob, you want to weigh in?

FRANKEN: Well, no, I was just going to make the Maine and Nebraska point, but he did.

O'BRIEN: OK. Great, you're a great team.

Want to take this next one? Go ahead.

PHILLIPS: Sure. This one comes from Mona Shaw. Here we go. "The answer is pretty simple, really, whether Bush or Gore is up 500 votes should be irrelevant. Either way, a tally this close, considering margins of error, makes the election too close to call. The election is a tie. We have a provision for this. The House of Representatives, while I personally may not like the choice they will make, that's where this needs to go now."

Well, all three of you could probably have some insight on that.

FRANKEN: I got to tell you, as somebody who's covered Congress and knows how contentious that could be, that is making a lot of people very, very nervous, because there would be such political intrigue that just about the last shred of credibility in the mind of many people with this election would be lost.

PHILLIPS: Ken, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

GROSS: I can just report to the, from the trenches here that there are a lot of people having different ideas about how this ought to be settled, everything from a duel to a coin flip. And I'm told that if it comes down to a tie in votes in Florida, which none of us would rule out based on the numbers, that they do flip a coin to determine winners. So who knows?

FRANKEN: Well, 500 votes is not a tie. I'm sure that Vice President Gore would like that to be a tie if he's down 500 votes, but if you win by one vote, that's the winner.

O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen, we have to take a break. We'll leave you on Harry Shearer's comment here. Take a look at the e-mail. And this is perhaps not indicative of how everyone feels in this country. "This is the best thing that's been on TV since O.J.," says Harry. We'll be back with more in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: We've gotten all kinds of comments and questions in our e-mail, a few non sequiturs I'd like to share with you, because they tickled my funnybone. "Look for a lot of new movies and TV series about this in the near future. You all can play the casting game at home amongst yourselves."

And then this one, "Ballots and dimples and chads, oh, my!"

All right, oh, my, oh, my. In Palm Beach County, they're taking a break. So we were talking about the fact that there are seven hours left, 3,500 ballots to go. Nevertheless, human beings need to take a break every now and again. So they are up against the clock there.

PHILLIPS: Once again, we have Bob Franken, Ken Gross, and Jeff Flock, all taking your calls and questions via e-mail. Thank you, gentlemen, again for being with us.

We've got a call from George in Raleigh, North Carolina. Not sure who this one is for, but go ahead, George.

CALLER: Yes, I was wondering, if Palm Beach County turns in a partial, would that give Katherine Harris grounds to delay certification, in a sense delaying the Democratic legal?

PHILLIPS: Jeff?

FLOCK: I don't think she wants to delay. That hasn't been her indication. In terms of her ability to reject that, I think that's a better question for Ken. As I said, the board here fully intends to give her a partial result, if that's all they've got.

GROSS: Well, I think there's a likelihood that she may reject it as a partial result, and that would become part of a contest, and it would be up to a court to decide whether to accept the partial or whether to somehow order a finishing of it.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's go...

FLOCK: Especially if that result winds up going for Gore. I mean, right now, obviously, you can see the swing is not that much. But there are some people that think there are Democratic precincts left to count out there, and if they're -- if the swing winds up going the other way, then that becomes more of a factor.

FRANKEN: Absolutely. And of course at that point, Bush would object. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen, our time has expired. We thank you for answering what is just a small fraction, the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of many of our e-mails which have come in. We appreciate you sending them in to us. We're sorry we can't get to them all, but we do appreciate your efforts to answer them as best you can.

That's Bob Franken, Ken Gross, Jeff Flock.

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