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DOW NSIDE LEGACY AT TW O DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON

DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON SECTION: THE RECOUNT SUBSECTION: All Revised 1/8/01 BEFORE THE RECOUNT: Foxnews.com 11/7/00 Matt Gross "......George W. Bush has won one of the closest presidential races in history, according to Fox News Channel projections. ....Just after 2 a.m. ET, Fox News projected that the Texas governor had taken Florida, whose 25 electoral votes put him over the critical 269-vote mark. Gore officials said they would contest the Florida results. ....." The New York Times 11/8/00 Richard Berke "...... George Walker Bush was elected the 43rd president of the United States yesterday by one of the tightest margins in history, crowning a spectacular and exceptionally brisk political rise only eight years after his own father was turned out of the White House. The victory over Vice President Al Gore became clear well after 2 this morning after one of the most fiercely contested battlegrounds, Florida, slipped into his column after the most suspenseful election night in decades, with the fortunes of each candidate shifting almost by the hour. Only hours earlier, the networks had projected that Mr. Gore would carry Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother Jeb is governor. ......" Newsmax 11/7/00 "...... George W. Bush has been elected president in one of the closest races ever. He did so during a time of great peace and prosperity - all of which should have benefited Al Gore. But you helped Bush win. The talk radio show hosts across America - the listeners - the Internet users - the grass roots of the Republican Party who wanted reform - made the difference. Exit polls showed that honesty and trustworthiness was the No. 1 concern for voters across America. Seventy-eight percent of Bush voters said they voted for Bush on this issue. This election was a repudiation of Bill Clinton. Other factors helped as well. One was little Elian and his heroic mother. She perished trying to bringing her son to America. His freedom, thanks to Clinton-Reno, was ripped from the privacy of his home. Cuban-Americans, who voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, remembered Elian on Election Day. ...." DURING THE RECOUNT Reuters 11/8/00 Thomas Ferraro "......An hour after Democrat Al Gore conceded defeat to Republican George W. Bush in their White House race, he called back and said, ``circumstances have changed,'' according to an aide. ..... Gore said updated election returns showed him losing Florida by about 600 votes, rather than the 50,000 earlier reported, and said the margin was close enough to trigger an automatic recount, the aide said. .... The aide said he overheard only Gore's side of the telephone conservation. But he quoted the vice president as telling Bush, something to the effect, ``'Do what you have to do.''' .....Gore made the call at about 3:30 a.m. EST from a room at Nashville's War Memorial Plaza, just moments before he was to publicly concede defeat to a rain-drenched crowd. ......The aide said, ``The vice president told Bush, 'Circumstances have changed since I first called you. We have now learned we are down by only about 600 votes out of millions cast and that means an automatic recount.''' ``'I need to withdraw my concession until the situation is clear,''' the aide quoted the vice president as saying. ``Then Al said, 'Let me explain: If in fact I lose in Florida, I will immediately concede. But it's not in any way clear I have lost and until it is clear I can't concede,''' the aide said......." CNN 11/8/00 Margaret Carlson/Tucker Carlson Freeper Arthur McGowan "...... Margaret Carlson on CNN just pointed out the backdrop of flags, etc., in the Gore appearance today. Tucker Carlson questioned why the Gore people continually point out that he is ahead in the pop vote--What point are they trying to make? he asked. ....." .... Freeper doppelganger adds "..... Gore likely wouldn't be ahead in the popular vote if the networks hadn't given him Florida (and by implication the election) so early in the evening. Western votes were lost to Bush, even those in conservative western Florida where polls were still open. How about a class action suit against the networks from everyone whose votes were suppressed by this outrage? ....." Freeper Azzurri adds "..... Many absentee ballots haven't been counted in Washington and perhaps California. The national popular vote may yet tip in Bush's favor. Not that it matters because the Electoral College will prevail in this election. ....."

NewsChannel5 (WTVF - Nashville) 11/8/00 ".....His name is Max -- Max C. Williams. Max doesn't have a social security number, but that doesn't stop us from making up one for him. With a few strokes of the pen, Max's application for a voter registration card is ready to mail. NewsChannel 5 investigative reporter Phil Williams showed Max's application to Davidson County election administrator Michael McDonald. "If everything is filled out correctly, would you send a voter registration card to this person?" Williams asks. "Yes," McDonald replies. There's just one catch: Max isn't human. He's a cat. Because people can register by mail, election officials may never see the individual -- or, in the case, the cat -- to whom they issue a voter registration card. "With this social security number and everything, there's no way for us to tell unless someone presents themselves as Max," McDonald adds. "You're exactly right."...." Severnside 11/8/00 "..... Janet Reno may be in position to steal the election: 1. In cases of vote fraud the Feds are in charge. That means Janet Reno's Justice Department. 2.Many of the recent questions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service going overtime to turn illegals into voting US citizens involve South Florida. I think the Boston Globe had a story on this last Sunday. In any case there have been INS rumors involving South Florida circulating on Capitol Hill for weeks. Recall that the INS is part of Reno's Justice Dept and the current head of the INS is the widow of John Huang's supervisor at the Commerce Department. 3.In the new edition of "Year of the Rat" we devote an entire new chapter of the deal Reno cut with Clinton to protect Gore from Chinagate. That's probably the strongest chapter in the new book. Bottom Line: Reno has spent the past four years protecting Gore. Another few days will be right in line with this. 4. Reno was a Dem activist in South Florida and knows everyone. ...." WRRK Radio (Pittsburgh PA) 11/8/00 Freeper tank_sherman "...... On this morning's Jim Quinn show callers have reported the following allegations: - Republican names disappeared from voting rolls, even if long-time residents and regular voters - Nursing home patients found to have voted by absentee ballots, even though they are paralyzed and can't write or suffer from Alzheimer's disease - Local NAACP head (who is employed at the state mental hospital) observed driving mental patients in a state-owned van to the polls and "helping" them vote. Massive voter fraud (close to 1 million votes) rumored in City of Philadelphia. More instances being reported, but this is making me to ill to continue........ " Freeper mountaineer 11/8/00 "..... I'll add something to the Tim Stevens (President of local NAACP) story recounted on Quinn this morning. They said the mental patients whom he transported to the polls were all newly-registered as Democrats in the precinct where the state hospital is located, despite where they really lived. If they showed up at that precinct and said they were registered Republicans, the poll workers told them they couldn't vote there, they had to be at their home precincts where they're registered. Insasmuch as they were confined to a mental hospital and were relying on Tim Stevens for their transportation, the Republicans didn't cast their votes. ..." Freeper Neanderthal 11/8/00 Democrat Vote Fraud Charged in Florida Jack Thompson Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2000 "......NewsMax.com's "Man in Miami," Jack Thompson, predicted Monday on NewsMax.com that Democrat vote fraud would occur in South Florida. The GOP in Broward County, the largest city of which is Fort Lauderdale, is alleging that voting irregularities are now occurring there. What follows is a press release in its entirety, received by Thompson from Republican Party of Broward County: "The Republican Party of Broward County has received a number of complaints from its poll watchers and voters regarding irregularities at the polling places: "Such irregularities reported include duplicate ballots "Voters sent away for no apparent reason "Poll watchers sent away for no apparent reason and a complete lack of cooperation by the poll workers "Irregular voting practices "Poll watcher being harassed by the poll workers

"Campaigning being allowed inside the polling area "Of particular concern are the poll watcher problems. The Republican Party and Republican Candidates, approved by the Supervisor of Elections, nominated these volunteers to deter irregularities and fraud, to safeguard the elector process, and to monitor the behavior of the poll workers. "The Republican Party of Broward County demands that the election code be adhered to and the law be followed. The Republican Party will take the appropriate action, both civil and criminal, to guarantee a fair and free election.. ... Florida Sun-Sentinal 11/7/00 Steve Friess "...... Hundreds of irate Palm Beach County voters, fearing they or their friends voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore, besieged the county Supervisor of Elections department on Tuesday with complaints about ballot confusion that could have swayed the race. In a contest that saw a turnout expected to be about 70 percent with particularly high participation in precincts that are overwhelmingly elderly or black, polls were so busy that voters were still in line a half-hour after the 7 p.m. closing time. Buchanan received more than 10 votes in more than 40 precincts by presstime, all of which were Democratic strongholds that otherwise went overwhelmingly for Gore. In precinct 162G, the Lakes of Delray area where Gore received one of his highest vote totals in all of Palm Beach County, a county high of 47 voters picked Buchanan, too. ......."People came out of there, and a lot of us don't know if we voted correctly," said Eleanor Merblum, 82, who voted at precinct 162E, a fire station on Hagen Ranch Road in West Delray. "If Gore doesn't win this district, you know something's wrong." ...... Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, a Democrat, insisted any confusion was unintentional and defended the layout of the cluttered ballots as necessary to get all the presidential candidates on facing pages while making the type large enough for voters to read. "I was trying to make the print bigger so elderly people in Palm Beach County can read it," said LePore, who said she doesn't think the ballot is confusing. "If I'd made it small, they would've said we made the print too small." ....... The Gore-Buchanan confusion may prompt an inquiry by the Florida Attorney General's office. ...... "It's been presented to us to take a look at," said Paul Hancock, deputy attorney general in charge of the civil rights division. "The ballot really is confusing." ....." Florida Sun-Sentinal 11/7/00 Steve Friess "...... "There's nothing wrong with the ballots in Palm Beach County," said Clay Roberts, director of the state division of elections. "The ballot is laid out according to state law and the voting system they have. It's absurd to think that Theresa LePore is in some conspiracy to take votes away from Al Gore and given them to Pat Buchanan. That's absurd." ......... Panicked voters started calling Democratic Party offices shortly after the polls opened at 7 a.m., saying they worried their intended votes for Gore went to Buchanan. Calls continued throughout the day, said Cathy Dubin, special assistant to the county's Democratic Party chairwoman. By 11 a.m., the party dispersed fliers to its 260 poll watchers, warning voters to be careful when voting for Gore. ....... "If me and Pat Buchanan are winning precincts in my district, there is something wrong," Wexler said. At Temple Emeth, a heavily Democratic and elderly precinct in West Delray, more than 30 ballots were voided by 3 p.m., way more than the one or two voided in a typical election, clerk Ann Swift said. In West Boynton, Gore workers greeted voters outside to warn them about the ballot. ....." Freeper dictatorMA 11/8/00 "...... My friend Don just called me this a.m. to tell me that he personally witnessed people entering polls at broward county locations and being allowed in to vote.. he says the local media down there is all over the story. If thats the case do we have any broward county freepers that can post stories. ....." Freeper Michael Rivero 11/8/00: 1. In Browards County, Republican Poll watchers are thrown out of the polls by poll workers. Republicans told their names are not on the lists of registered voters and they are not able to vote. 2. In Tennessee, heavily Republican areas have only one viting machine each. Many Republicans, unable to wait in the long lines, leave without voting. Democratic areas have a surplus of machines and no lines. . 3. In Chicago, voting machines set up in GOP districts are found to be defective. Voters are turned away. . 4. In Pennsylvania, Democratic voters are caught crossing county lines to vote multiple times, because their names appear repeatedly on lists of registered voters across the state. Efforts to clean up the voter lists have been blocked by a Democratic Federal Judge. Indictments were brought against two congressmen in a vote fraud case sparked by the Voting Integrity Project investigation, but as is usual in such cases, the charges were dropped. . 5. Checks in Indiana show that over 100,000 names on the voter lists are fakes. More than 500 cases of multiple registrations in different counties (allowing multiple votes) are found, according to an article in last

Sunday's Indianapolis Star. A cursory check found criminals, in this case a child molestor and three convicted killers, on the voting lists even though state law bars from voting anyone who has spent even 1 day in jail. . 6. The Federal Election Commmision estimates that as much as 20% of the names on the voter lists across the nation re bogus. . 7. In California, where it is illegal to ask a voter for proof of identity, non-citizens are encouraged to vote in a letter sent out by the California Democratic Party and signed by Bill Clinton. The letter includes a pre-printed "Voter Identification Card" the recipient is supposed to show poll workers to be allowed to vote. The California GOP is reportedly seeking legal redress for this obvious sham. . 8. By comparing voter rolls with Social Security data, the Indianapolis Star found over 300 dead people registered to vote, most in Lake County, whch has a repitation for vote fraud. The dead people have remained on the active rolls long enough to indicate that their names have been used in voting. . 9. A check on voting lists by a local TV station just days before the Nov 7th election revealed 15,000 dead people on the active voting lists in Georgia. In one case, a dead person had voted three times since his death. . 10. The "Motor voter" law, which created millions of registered voters who usually do not vote, specifically forbids the purging of voter rolls for non-voting. This creates a huge surplus of legitmate registered voters for whom absentee ballots may be created. . 11. Just days before the last election, the Tennessee election commission changed the rles to allow anyone with a Tennessee drivers license to vote, whether they were registered or not. This allowed Tennesseans to vote in as many counties as they could drive to. . 12. ... 13. In Wisconson, a TV crew catches Democrats bribing homeless people with cigarettes to go fill out absentee ballots. . 14. In Hawaii, where voters' two punchcards are suppposed to be fed through the voting machines at the time of voting, voters in many precincts report that the vting machines are not running, and their ballots are kept by the poll workers who promise to run them through the voting machine "later on". . 15.Elderly Florida caller to C-Span today (8th) said the radio talk shows in Miami area were causing havoc with voters by telling them to vote 100 times. . 16. In Indiana, voters are handed ballots by the poll workers with Democratic choices already highlighted in dayglo yellow ink. . ABC News 11/8/00 Reuters ".....After a wild roller- coaster election-night ride, George W. Bush Wednesday quietly awaited a recount in Florida, confident he would be declared the next U.S. president in "a matter of time." ........ The Republican nominee canceled a planned news conference and remained at the governor"s mansion in downtown Austin. Aides said Bush and his vice presidential running mate, Dick Cheney, were expected to make a statement later Wednesday. "We see nothing that is going to change the race," one Bush campaign official said. We"re confident we will prevail, that it"s just a matter of time." ...... Bush watched the bizarre twists unfold with his family at the governor"s mansion. The mood swung there from anxiety to exhilaration as television networks withdrew predictions that Democrat Al Gore had won Florida, put the key state and its 25 Electoral College votes back in the too-close-to-call column and finally awarded it to Bush, pushing him over the 270 needed to win the presidency. ...... The networks declared Bush the 43rd president of the United States, but the Texan had less than an hour to celebrate before the vice president called him to withdraw his concession and election officials announced a recount in Florida that could take until Thursday. ......" ABC News 11/8/00 Reuters "....."It sure was a roller coaster," senior Bush adviser Ari Fleischer said Wednesday. ...... "The only thing that remains are the overseas ballots ... those ballots trend Republican," he added. Likening the election to a baseball game, Fleischer said it was "in extra innings." "We"ll stay tuned, he added, "But we"re on top and I think we"re going to be there to stay." ..... Bush, his wife, Laura, his father, former President George Bush, and his mother, Barbara Bush, watched the returns on a television set in an upstairs living room at the governor"s mansion, while other family, including Jeb Bush, followed the outcome in the presidential suite at a downtown hotel. Jeb, who is under enormous pressure to deliver Florida and the presidency to his older brother, joined them late in the evening and then flew home to the

state capital, Tallahassee, Wednesday. .....Fleischer said Bush got some rest early Wednesday morning and that he had "earned a little bit of sleep" after the thrill of being declared the president-elect, albeit briefly. "I just think it"s going to happen again in due order, in short time," Fleischer added. "It is a wonderful moment when it does." ....." Freeper algo! 11/8/00 ".....Wouldn't surprise me. The official Michigan web site is giving it (with Wayne Co yet to be reported) to Bush by several thousand votes. Now, Wayne Co includes Detroit and the Wayne County web site shows that Detroit is voting about 257K to 14K in favor of Gore but the rest of the county is 214K to 175K, with 93% of the votes counted, most of those from within Detroit. ....... That huge spike in Detroit may be explainable by demographics. It might also be explainable by some less than honest handling of the ballots. Given that things are so close a recount would be, well, prudent. ......" Freeper Dog Gone 11/8/00 "..... I heard on the local Houston ABC station 10 minutes ago. They reported Bush WON Michigan after all the ballots were counted and a recount had been demanded. ....." Freeper abner 11/8/00 on House Managers ".....I believe that Rogan is the only one in question. So much for the "American People" being angry about them impeaching the president. As usual, the media is strangely silent on this front. Indiana Dan Burton - 70% 194,771 votes. Arkansas Asa Hutchinson UnopposedPennsylvania George Gekas- 72% 164,750 Illinois Henry Hyde- 59% 133,137 Utah Chris Cannon- 59% 138,125 Wisconsin James Sensenbrenner- 74% 239,130 Florida Bill McCollum- Did not win (I bet he could have kept his Congressional seat though) Florida Chris Canady- I don't know if he ran. Indiana Steve Buyer- 61% 130,258 Tennessee- Ed Bryant- 70% 170,690 Ohio- Steve Chabot-53% 112,449 Georgia- Bob Barr- 54% 122,273 California- James Rogan- Still too close to call! ......" MSNBC 11/8/00 Freeper bigeasy_70118 "...... Ashcroft is setting an example for Gore. Said he will not challenge election despite fraud. PMSNBC anchor "class statement" ...." Freeper ambrose adds "...Remember when Livingstone resigned to set an example? Everyone said "how nice", but Clinton didn't budge. ..." YAHOO.NEWS 11/8/00 David Royse AP ".....Florida election officials began a recount of nearly 6 million votes Wednesday with the stunningly close presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore in the balance. ...... Florida's secretary of state said the recount should be finished by the end of the day Thursday. Both national parties were sending teams of lawyers to monitor. ......At last count, Bush led Gore by 1,655 votes in the unofficial Associated Press count with all Florida precincts reporting but an unknown number of absentee ballots yet to be counted. Some vote counts had the margin slightly higher or closer. ........ Election supervisors in the state's 67 counties were ordered to start the recount as soon as possible Wednesday. With the vote difference less than 0.5 percent, an automatic recount was triggered under state law. ......In each county, a three-member canvassing board made up of a county judge, the chairman of the county commission and the local elections supervisor, recount the votes. The makeup of the canvassing board is supposed to insulate the process from politics, Roberts said. ....... In Tallahassee, the state capital, the results would be certified by Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the GOP nominee, Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Roberts, also a Republican appointee. ...... Representatives of both national parties were headed to the state. The Gore campaign said former Secretary of State Warren Christopher was in charge of their effort. ........ Florida's attorney general, Democrat Bob Butterworth, was on national television commenting on the situation Wednesday, and the Republicans weren't happy about his involvement. ``My

advice as a lawyer to either side would be I'd be a little hesitant about giving an acceptance speech right now,'' said Butterworth, who also was Gore's Florida campaign chairman. ``We don't need the attorney general to tell us how to follow the law,'' Roberts said. He said the job of overseeing elections ``falls solely to the secretary of state.'' ........ Elections supervisors had sent out 585,000 absentee ballots and 416,000 had been returned by late Monday. Underdetermined is the number of overseas ballots, primarily for military personnel and their families, that have been counted. The state counted about 2,300 overseas ballots in the 1996 presidential election. The law allows 10 days to count outstanding overseas ballots as long as they are postmarked no later than Election Day. ...... Roberts said it was ``technically'' possible the absentee ballots could change the result of the election, but it would be extremely rare. ......" ABQ Journal 11/8/00 KarenMoses "...... Bernalillo County withdrew all early and absentee voting results from its tally early Wednesday morning after discovering a glitch in its data. That means more than 68,000 votes weren't included in the last results released by the county. Television reports and some newspaper stories relied on what the county had released earlier. ..... New vote totals for early and absentee voting could affect several close races. "They were just not getting good results for the early and absentee results," said Cliff Aldrich, assistant director of information technology for the county. ....." Freeper Think free or die 11/8/00 "...... This is so critical. Here in PA I learned that the voter rolls are no longer purged of inactive voters. In the past, inactive voters were purged every 2 years. Now thanks to changes with Motor Voter, this no longer takes place. I found a relative registered to vote in PA who moved to another state 7 years ago. There's nothing but honor to stop him from requesting an absentee ballot and voting in two battleground states. ...." American Spectator 11/8/00 Byron Yory "...... This morning it appears that what many experts viewed as an extremely remote possibility -- that one presidential candidate might win the popular vote while losing in the Electoral College -- appears well on the way to becoming a reality. In recent days, the scenario has been something of a pundits' parlor game, a topic that made for amusing talk around the anchor desk but did not pose the threat of a serious political crisis. In part that was because most members of the commentariat believed that such a situation, if it did emerge, would involve vice president Al Gore winning the electoral vote and thus the White House. No problem! But now, as the nation awaits a recount of the Florida vote, it appears the opposite might be true. Gore seems headed to a victory in the popular vote, while Bush seems likely to win Florida's 25 electoral votes and thus prevail in the Electoral College. As difficult as that would be for Gore to accept, the constitution is clear: the candidate who receives 270 or more electoral votes will be the next president. ........" American Spectator 11/8/00 Byron Yory "...... Even before the final results are known, the outlines of a Democratic plan to undermine a possible Republican victory have already begun to emerge. ....The plan is based on the popular vote. If Gore does indeed win a greater number of votes nationwide than Bush, Alter suggested, then the vice president would challenge the Florida recount in court -- over and over again, if necessary. The Democrats' intent would be to tie the Florida results up in endless litigation, and in the process try to convince the public that no recount can be completely accurate, and that the final Florida result, should it declare Bush the winner, cannot be trusted. ..... At the same time they make that case, Gore's partisans will point to the popular vote and make the argument that, given the allegedly murky nature of the Florida results, the election should go to the winner of the popular vote. After all, they will argue, he is the choice of a majority of Americans. That would be the beginning of an intense effort -- aided, no doubt, by the White House public relations machine -- to create public pressure on Bush to concede victory to Gore. Of course, it's all grossly unconstitutional. ....." The Associated Press 11/8/00 David Royse ".......Florida officials began recounting nearly 6 million ballots Wednesday to determine the next president, while Democrats and some voters complained of election irregularities. Partial results showed Al Gore cutting into George W. Bush's lead. ...... The recount in all 67 counties was triggered by state law because Republican Bush led Democrat Gore by less than one-half of 1 percentage point. State officials said they expect to finish by the end of the day Thursday. ......Florida elections supervisors also waited for an undetermined number of overseas ballots, primarily from military personnel and their families. The state allows 10 days after the election for the ballots to come in. ......The Florida totals, including all absentee ballots received so far, showed Bush with 2,909,135 votes and Gore with 2,907,351 - a difference of 1,784 in a state with 8.75 million registered voters. After 28 of Florida's 67 counties were recounted Wednesday, Gore had gained 351 votes. ........ Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, will have to redo its count because a poll worker inadvertently failed to run an unknown number of ballots through its computer Wednesday, county Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said. The county retracted its original announcement that Gore had gained 404 votes and Bush dropped by 61 votes in its recount. ......." The Associated Press 11/8/00 David Royse ".......Even before the recount, the Gore campaign was already

eyeing legal options for forcing a new vote in Palm Beach County, where confusion over how to fill out the ballot may have boosted the tally for Pat Buchanan, a senior Gore adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ...... Jesse Jackson said he got calls on Election Day complaining that blacks had difficulty voting in Florida and other Southern states. He said some voters were told there were no more ballots, or that polls were closed. ...... Separately, Democratic officials and voters complained about the way ballots in Palm Beach County were arranged. Voters punched holes in the middle of the ballot, while candidates were alternately listed to the left and then the right. County officials also said more than 19,000 ballots in the presidential race were tossed out because more than one candidate was picked. ...... Jeb Bush said he has seen nothing that indicates fraud, and pledged a fair recount. ``Voter fraud in our state is a felony, and guilty parties will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,'' he said......" CBSNEWS 11/8/00 "......On an extraordinary evening, the Democrats captured four Republican Senate seats, but the GOP will nevertheless retain control of the upper chamber. One Senate race remains undecided - Democrat Maria Cantwell's challenge to GOP incumbent Slade Gorton in Washington state. If Cantwell loses, Republicans control 51 of the 100 seats in the Senate. But if she wins, the upper chamber will be evenly split. In this scenario, the Republicans would control the Senate anyway. That's because in the event of a Bush victory, Vice President Dick Cheney would cast the tie-breaking vote ..." Ramesh Ponnuru, NR senior editor 11/8/00 ".....Gore said that while he had won the popular vote, he would of course respect the constitutional process of the electoral college. For this "concession" he is being praised on the airwaves as I write. But whether to abide by the electoral college has never been the serious question. The serious question is how the electoral college should vote: With the national majority, or by state. And Gore is not disavowing a campaign to get electors to vote against their states and with the national popular majority. In fact, the only point to Gore's having mentioned his apparent popular majority was to lay the groundwork for just such a campaign. .......He's going to have a strong case. The Constitution doesn't clearly say that the electors have to vote with their states' plurality. Can George W. Bush, who has talked all along about "trusting the people," really challenge him? What Gore cannot get away with politically, I think, is to try to win this battle in court; if he tries, there will be a backlash. But the electoral-college campaign is going to be very difficult. Republicans are going to have to think quickly and hard about several questions. ......" UPI 11/8/00 Mark Kukis ".....Democratic lawyers and officials from Vice President Al Gore's campaign are gathering evidence for a possible legal challenge to the pending Florida vote count, a move that could land the presidential election in a legal battle likely to end up in the Supreme Court....... Internal documents from the Democratic National Committee show a legal strategy revolving around three instances of reported abnormalities at Florida ballot boxes on Tuesday......... Another argument centers on Florida Highway Patrol checkpoints in Woodville, a town in northern Florida, where state troopers allegedly intimidated minorities headed to the polling station at a church. Federal and state law enforcement officials are investigating complaints that four troopers set up the checkpoint without following normal Florida Highway Patrol procedures and stopped motorists, issuing citations for traffic violations. Democratic officials say alleged harassment by troopers at the checkpoint may have affected more than 1,000 minority votes at the nearby polling station......Additionally, Democrats cite reports of missing ballot boxes in Florida's Broward County, a heavily Democratic area where 68 percent of voters cast ballots for Gore. Democratic officials do not have an estimate for the number of allegedly missing ballots, but say any losses in the large Democrat turnout would disproportionately count against Gore in the statewide race by a "significant margin." Election officials have denied losing any ballots......." UPI 11/8/00 Mark Kukis ".....Heather Gerrken, an election law expert at Harvard, said the evidence gathered so far by Democrats could form the basis of a lawsuit similar to many cases in which election results are challenged in state and local courts........ Gerrken said a likely scenario would involve the state Democratic Party bringing a case against Harris, Florida's top election official. In such a case, Gerrken said, a state court could choose to cancel all questionable ballots, call for another statewide vote or simply declare either candidate a winner based on the evidence....... However, Gerrken said, such cases are often difficult, and courts are loath to become involved in election politics...... "It's always hard to win," Gerrken said. "Courts are reluctant to interfere with the democratic process."......" Fox News 11/8/00 John Martin "......With 27 of 67 Florida counties completing their recounts, Al Gore has cut into George W. Bush's lead by 198 votes late Wednesday, reducing the margin to just over 1,500 votes in the crucial state tally that will determine the nation's 43rd president. Meanwhile in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County, where there have been accusations that the presidential portion of the ballot was confusing, officials announced 19,120 ballots in the presidential race were nullified because more than one candidate was picked. Only 3,783 voters made that mistake on the U.S Senate portion of the ballot. ....." Msnbc 11/8/00 "......Al Gore set aside the stoic valedictory written for him by an aide and picked up the

phone. George W. Bush did not take his call happily. "You don't have to get snippy about this," Gore spat. THE ACID of their yearlong fight - character assaults and name calling, layered onto the Clinton-Gore defeat of Bush's father in 1992 - boiled over as Gore, in an underground office at the War Memorial, insisted that Florida's decisive 25 electoral votes remained in limbo. "Let me make sure I understand," protested Bush, his victory speech in hand. "You're calling me back to retract your concession?" Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, chastened on Election Night when it appeared Bush had lost the state, had just assured his brother it was a done deal. And the TV networks had already declared Texas Gov. George W. Bush the 43rd president of the United States. "Let me explain something," Gore lectured in a stony tone, "your younger brother is not the ultimate authority on this."....." Voter.com 11/8/00 Ann Coulter "..... Vice President Al Gore has not only lost the presidency but, by insisting on a recount, he has ended his political career. Recounts never change the outcome, and always make the challenger seem like a sore loser. See eg, Bob Dornan (R-CA), Michael Huffington (R-CA), Ellen Sauerbrey (R-MD), and Louis (Woody) Jenkins (R-LA). And all those disputes involved not only close elections but allegations of voter fraud. ...... Gore is just being a sore loser. (That's certainly what the media said about all those Republicans who contest their own narrow defeats, anyway.) ........ Even with the Democrats trolling for votes this year among prisoners -- or the "Democratic base" -- absentee ballots always favor Republicans. One reason for this is that a substantial portion of absentee ballots come from our patriotic fighting men abroad. Another is, absentee ballots favor those who are capable of reading. ....." The Telegraph (U.K.) 11/9/00 Mark Steyn "..... WELL, here's another first. Al Gore is the first presidential candidate to rescind his concession. He now refuses to concede that he ever conceded. It all depends what the definition of the word "loser" is. The Vice-President was on his way to give his thank-you-and-goodnight speech when he got a call on his cellphone: great news! In the grand tradition of the Clinton-Gore era, they'd found a loophole!. ..." UPI 11/8/00 Michael Kirkland ".....The Justice Department told United Press International Wednesday evening it will review Democratic allegations of missing ballot boxes in Florida....... The major presidential candidates are waiting on an ongoing recount of Tuesday's votes in Florida to determine the presidency, and depending on how the recount goes, either Texas Gov. George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore will garner more than the 270 votes in the Electoral College necessary to be elected, unless court challenges slow down the process......... Democrats have charged that numerous irregularities in Florida voting cost Gore thousands of votes. Bush held less than an 1,800 vote-lead on the first count........ " APB News breaking 11/8/00 Rick Sarlat ".....As the world awaits a recount in Florida to learn the outcome of the presidential election, some black voters here are charging that they were deliberately harassed by state troopers who set up a roadblock near a polling station. At the urging of several black motorists, the State Attorney General's Office today is looking into whether the Florida Highway Patrol deliberately set up a checkpoint just one mile from Woodville First Baptist Church. The church is the polling place for a precinct where more than one-third of the voters are black, said Assistant State Attorney General Paul Hancock. ...... "This was not done in accordance with normal [highway patrol] procedure," Hancock said. "We certainly see the sensitivity of the black community in this situation. That's why we jumped right on it." .....Of the 13 drivers cited at the checkpoint for equipment violations, eight were black and five were white. The roadblock was set up between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, police said. ......Howes said the sergeant who set up the checkpoint only chose the location because it had not been used in the past. Police did not release the name of the sergeant and three troopers who operated the roadblock. ....... Howes said the incident is being investigated internally. He said he did not expect the sergeant and troopers to be reprimanded. "They're just out there doing their job," Howes said. "Yes, departmental policy was violated, but the violations were really only administrative oversights." "These driver license and faulty equipment checkpoints have always been a normal part of our overall enforcement strategies," he said. "The sergeant and the troopers were oblivious to any connection between the election and the checkpoint."....." FOX News 11/8/00 Freeper GunsUp! "...... JUST AIRED: Fox reprots that a relative of Pat Buchanan lives in Palm Beach County. During the 1996 election, Palm Beach posted over 8,000 votes for Pat Buchanan! Therefore it is POSSIBLE that the count of votes for Buchanan is valid!!! ......" Newsmax 11/8/00 "....... Gore supporters are crying foul because they say that the ballot in Palm Beach County, Fla., was confusing and that votes intended for Gore were accidentally made for Pat Buchanan. At first blush these critics might appear to have a legitimate claim. ....... In Palm Beach County, the Reform Party's Buchanan received 3,407 votes - 1 percent of the vote - at the final tally. ..... In neighboring Broward County, which Democrats argue has similar demographics to Palm Beach County, Buchanan pulled just 789 votes - close to 0 percent of the vote. ....But NewsMax.com reviewed Board of Elections records for both counties. ..... Records show that Palm Beach County is not similiar to Broward County in voter registration. There are far more members of the Independent Party in Palm Beach County than in Broward County.

......According to the Florida supervisor of elections, Broward County has only 189 members of the Independent Party - Florida's Reform party. ... Palm Beach County, on the other hand, has a whopping 14,551 members of the Independent Party. In fact, it has the highest Independent registration in Florida. ....Buchanan received 1 percent of the vote in Palm Beach County. In all the counties in Florida where there is significant Independent Party membership, Buchanan got a similiar 1 percent. ....." New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum "....... With the presidency at stake, election supervisors in each of Florida's 67 counties today began a recount of the nearly 6 million votes for president in Tuesday's election. But Clay Roberts, the state's director of elections, said he did not anticipate a significant change in the initial tally that showed Gov. George W. Bush slightly ahead....... Katherine Harris, the secretary of state, said she expected to declare a winner based on the recount by the end of business on Thursday, but Democrats suggested that they might try to delay a resolution by filing lawsuits........ Of the counties that reported their recount results to the state government today before the elections office closed for the night, 16 showed small changes in their tallies. Added together, the changes gave Mr. Bush 125 more votes and Mr. Gore 133, a net gain for Mr. Gore of 8 votes......" New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum ".......In DeLand, in central Florida, a county judge sealed the election headquarters with police tape. In Tampa, Pam Iorio, the Hillsborough County elections supervisor, said that she did not expect big changes but that some were likely because of "hanging shard syndrome," when the tiny squares voters punch out to select their candidates cling to the ballot so that it does not register properly.......It was not clear tonight whether absentee ballots could delay the final count. All the ballots mailed in the United States are part of the initial count, Mr. Roberts said. But Floridians who live abroad only need their ballots postmarked by Nov. 7; state law requires they be counted if officials receive them by Nov. 17......." New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum "....... There is no statewide record of how many ballots were requested by people abroad, how many have already been received and counted or how many might still be submitted. After the 1996 presidential election, Mr. Roberts said, about 2,300 absentee ballots arrived from overseas........Republicans maintained that most such ballots would come from military personnel, who were likely to vote for Mr. Bush. Democrats said that many in the military were enlistees and members of minority groups likely to vote for Mr. Gore. Also, Democrats said, there could be many Floridians who live in Israel, and they would probably vote Democratic. The truth is, no one knows......." New York Times 11/9/00 David Rosenbaum "....... Mr. Roberts, the election official, did not disagree that the ballots were confusing. But, he said, all candidates had a chance to review them, no complaints were raised before they were printed and disadvantaged candidates had no recourse now.......... An expert on election law, Professor Daniel Lowenstein of the University of California at Los Angeles law school, said it was highly unlikely that the courts would agree to review the case. "I expect courts to take a pretty standoffish view of things like this, and I'd be surprised to find a judge who would intervene," he said...... "It's not an inherently defective ballot," Mr. Lowenstein added, since no one was asserting that it was anything but poorly designed. ....." UPI 11/8/00 Michael Kirkland "......If Democrats believe the Florida election process has been railroaded in favor of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, they could take the fight to federal court to prevent the state's electors from voting for him in the Electoral College....... Democrats have not indicated that they will pursue that course. But the scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility......... Among the grounds such a legal challenge could claim is a denial of the right to vote for special Florida residents. The ability to vote is among a limited list of "federally protected rights" under U.S. laws such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act........" Judicial Watch 11/8/00 "......If George W. Bush wins Florida -- as the pundits expect -- and this captures the Presidency, he will, ironically, owe his victory to Elian Gonzalez. This is because the Miami Cuban-American community -- which broke almost evenly for Bill Clinton in the prior 2 elections -- voted overwhelmingly for Bush based on the acts of the Clinton-Gore Administration in returning Elian Gonzalez to Cuba, and gassing & beating innocent bystanders during the fateful raid of Attorney General Reno's INS agents in Little Havana last April 22......... Ironically, Governor George W. Bush of Texas and Jeb Bush of Florida did not take action to try to keep Elian in the United States. However, they were not responsible for the illegal acts of the Clinton-Gore Administration in violating the rights of Elian and other American citizens......." National Review 11/8/00 Rod Thomson "...... Over the sunny horizon, a plague of lawyers is descending on Florida. They officially are "watching" the presidential recount. But they are also scouring every comma and "whereas" in the Florida code to see if any loophole can be found to invalidate Florida, or to block such an action. The eyes of the world are riveted on the state now, as the historic recount begins. ...... Broward County Supervisor of Elections Jane Carroll, a Democrat, said she believes that any change in the vote total

due to the recount will be negligible.. ......" NRO 11/9/00 Jonah Goldberg ".......The Florida recount is half over and Democrats are rejoicing that Al Gore has cut George Bush's lead in half. But Republicans can take heart from some of the details. Of the 32 counties that have been recounted as of 8:00 A.M. Thursday, the Democratic strongholds of Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach are included. In these counties, the Democratic voter registration outweighs the Republican by 2.4 million to 1.9 million. In the counties remaining, the Republican registered voters outweigh the Democrats 1.4 to 1.3 million. More importantly, of the 1,189 votes that Al Gore has added to his total, threequarters, or 751, came from Palm Beach County alone, where 19,000 votes were thrown out because voters had chosen more than one candidate (Pat Buchanan, continuing his role as spoiler, announced this morning that he believes most of these ballots belong to Gore). Indeed, the disproportionate surge for Gore in Palm Beach raises the specter for those close to the scene that the Palm Beach recount was flawed in Gore's favor. ...... The bottom line: It looks increasingly unlikely that Al Gore can close the gap from the ballots remaining for recounting. However with 19,000 votes discarded from Palm Beach and a statistically odd surge for Gore in that county's recount, it seems assured that no matter who wins the recount, we will be hearing a lot more about Palm Beach in the days to come. ......" KSDK Channel 5 in St.Louis 11/9/00 Freeper A Citizen Reporter "...... Senator Bond is saying that there was a scheme to unfairly get votes in a predominantly Democratic area. He said it was planned in advance. Writing a letter to Freeh asking the FBI to investigate the criminal activities. In the St. L Post Dispatch the day of the election there was a story that there would be irregularities and that the polls would need to remain open. He said this is prima facia evidence that there was a pre-planned scheme. He calls it a "major criminal enterprise." ....." Pensacola News Journal 11/9/00 Scott Streater "...... A fraudulent absentee ballot in Pensacola has sparked a criminal probe into potentially widespread voter fraud that could further muddy a presidential election whose outcome hinges on several thousand votes in Florida. ..... The State Attorney's Office is leading an investigation into whether the forged ballot is part of a much broader scheme to redirect mailed ballots to someone who filled them out and forged the voter's signature. .....``I agree there may well be more than just this one,'' said Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar, who is heading the investigation. ``That's what I'm thinking right now.'' ....... Late Wednesday, Escambia County elections officials discovered what appears to be a second forged absentee ballot that also has been handed over to state prosecutors. ...... The state investigation was prompted by a complaint from Todd Vinson, a law clerk in Miami who is a registered Pensacola voter. Vinson, state investigators and others involved outline this series of events: ...... On Oct. 10, Vinson requested the Escambia County Supervisor of Elections to mail an absentee ballot to his Miami apartment. After it failed to arrive, he requested a second ballot on Oct. 24. ..... It, too, disappeared. Vinson, 28, said he complained to his father, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, last Thursday. That morning, the elder Vinson called Jones. ..... Jones' office reviewed all the absentee ballots and discovered a ballot with Todd Vinson's name on it. When Jones compared the signature on the ballot to the signature on Vinson's voter registration card, the two did not match. ... Jones faxed a copy of the signature to Todd Vinson. ``It was clearly forged,'' he said. ``Somebody definitely got hold of it and sent it back in. The question is where did they get it, and my speculation was that it happened somewhere in the post office. It made it down here to Miami, but it never made it to me.'' ...... Jones sent a third ballot to Vinson via next-day mail that arrived in time for Vinson to cast a ballot for Bush. Jones then contacted the State Attorney's Office, U.S. Attorney Mike Patterson and the Florida Division of Elections. Edgar said the signed witness required for all absentee ballots listed a fictitious address. ... State Attorney Curtis Golden said that if the Postal Service was involved, his office might turn the investigation over to federal law enforcement officials. ......" CNSNews.com 11/9/00 Scott Hogenson "...... A few people in Palm Beach County, Florida, are so upset with the ballots they were handed on Election Day they're filing a lawsuit over it. The crux of their argument: they were confused and may have inadvertently voted for someone they didn't want to....... We've already heard more than a few dark insinuations of a "constitutional crisis" in the wake of the November 7 elections, what with the prospect of George W. Bush winning an Electoral College victory while losing the popular vote to Al Gore. These pronouncements are pure tripe. Article II of the Constitution is clear about the authority of the Electoral College in determining the chief executive, regardless of the popular vote......... But this Florida lawsuit has the potential to create a genuine constitutional crisis in the event it is given any credence at all by any court, for it holds the potential of creating a precedent by which any electoral result can be challenged because of self-proclaimed ignorance by a plaintiff. It is not merely a slippery slope; it is a sheer precipice......" St. Louis Post Dispatch 11/8/00 Mark Schlinkmann "...... Missouri state election officials said today that they had received no complaints about punchcard voting problems similar to the one that has spurred controversy - and possibly contributed to the delay in knowing who won the presidency - in Florida. ...... Betsy Byers, deputy secretary of state, said 43 of Missouri's 116 election jurisdictions use punchcard ballots,

in which voters punch holes next to candidates' names. ...... St. Louis and St. Louis County, and St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin and Warren counties all use the punchcard system, she said. It's up to each county clerk or election board to decide how to lay out the ballot. ......." The Hugh Hewitt Show/KIEV Los Angeles 11/9/00 Freeper truthkeeper "..... Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt (a lawyer who used to teach Constitutional Law) is on the air right now asking callers who were affected by the network's fraud (the Florida and Pennsylvania "early calls") to contact him regarding affidavits. He wants to hear from people who were discouraged not to vote, or who have personal knowledge of other people being discouraged not to vote, as a direct result of the calling of Florida and Pennsylvania for Gore by the networks. He also is asking for the Republican volunteer callers, who were devastated and stopped making their phone calls to potential voters. He contends Bush would have garnered millions of additional popular votes had this call not been made. ......... He said if the Democrats pursue this crazy argument of the "Palm Beach confusion," and proceed with litigation, we need to be prepared to counter. He needs people brave and patriotic enough to be willing to TESTIFY IN COURT! He says bring it on, baby. ......: Today Show Freeper smart_monkey2 "..... Tom Brokaw stated on the Today show that GWB should not declare victory even if he wins the recount. Brokaw stated that the other issues, (which will have no merit in court),must be considered and intimated that assuming victory would not be legitimate. Brokaw went on to say that legitimacy is important for foreign affairs. If Bush maintains his lead, the media is setting Bush up by giving the democrats false charges credence by giving them air time. I really do not believe in black helicopters, but I really think that forces are at work to steal this election. I cannot express the vitreol disgust that is building inside me. Who else has heard the same from other talking heads? ....." Freeper Starfan adds "..... Let Brokaw listen to Torricelli (who finally said something I agree with) and put the nation first. There are two time zones in Florida. Those hearing albore won left the lines and I'm sure that affected the outcome all across the country. Brokaw said they not only have egg on their faces, but omelets. He's right -they affected this election! Now take responsibility for your actions Tom and shut up. ......" Miami Herald 11/9/00 Carol Marbin Miller "...... Tuesday morning, Virgie Hawkins went to vote at Blanche Ely High School, where's she's voted for years. But when she arrived at the Pompano Beach campus, she was surprised to learn the polling place had been moved, and no instructions were left on where to go, Hawkins said Wednesday. Hawkins drove to two nearby elementaries and a youth club, hoping to cast her ballot but late in the afternoon, she just stopped trying. ``I said, hey, I give up,'' said Hawkins, 42, of Pompano Beach. ``I tried.'' ...... Hawkins is among hundreds of Broward voters who say they were disenfranchised Tuesday by problems at polling places. In Hawkins' precinct, for example, voter turnout was unusually low -- 46.2 percent compared to 66.2 percent elsewhere in Broward County, records show. ....... Supervisor of Elections Jane Carroll said she was ``more than satisfied -- extremely happy'' with the course of the election in Broward County. ``We didn't have any precincts with zero votes, so people knew where to go,'' she said. ``As far as not being mailed new information for switching, that isn't true. Some people don't always pay close attention to their mail. That's par for the course.'' ....." NewsMax.com 11/9/00 "......Defense Secretary William Cohen predicted the military vote will have a strong impact on whether Florida's electoral votes - and thus the presidency - go to Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore. "I think there obviously will be a role for the military personnel who have retired in Florida and who also are registered to vote there," he said. ...... "I think it's too early for me to reach any judgment in terms of the proportionalities, how they are going to vote, but they certainly will have an impact in a race that close in that state." Cohen, a former Republican senator, is in the unusual position of serving in the cabinet of a Democrat administration. ......The military is largely presumed to be heavily Republican, with some estimates counting as many as 80 percent of the 1.2 million active-duty personnel. Military officers at the Pentagon say this sounds like a reasonable proportion because service members tend to be socially and fiscally conservative......" New YorkTimes 11/9/00 Jim Yardley Michael Cooper ".....Ever a creature of habit, Gov. George W. Bush woke up this morning and did what he always does. He went downstairs at the governor's mansion, fed his two cats and his dog and made coffee for his wife, Laura...... But that was the only thing routine on this raw morning. When he walked out of the mansion for a brief news conference before lunch, Mr. Bush looked very tired. He had slept only three and a half hours, perhaps not surprising for a man who thought he had been elected president of the United States only to see the outcome thrown in doubt by the uncertain results in Florida. Today, Mr. Bush found himself in limbo. His parents, former President George and Barbara Bush, who had come for an election-night family dinner and had hugged him when victory seemed assured, had returned home to Houston. His brother, Jeb, the Florida governor, flew back to his home state to face questions about the recount. And Mr. Bush had even called upon James A. Baker III - his father's former confidant and a secretary of state with whom the younger Mr. Bush had once had a famous falling-out - to fly to Florida on his behalf......."

Freeper feymains 11/8/00 "....... Karl Rove said because of the early call of Florida Bush may have lost over 100,000 votes in that state alone. Look at the Vote in Oregon. Bush is winning that state. They mailed the ballots in over a week ago. Rush Limbaugh said he expected a higher turnout and I think they were there ready to vote . But when the Mid West and the west heard Bush was going to lose Florida he may have lost a ton of votes. This stinks to high heaven.Look at the battleground vote. They have a good track record. I have talked to alot of people and they said this stinks to high heaven. ......" Freeper uvular adds "....It sure does smell. Recall the station in Wisconsin that reported the trading of cigarettes for votes; they basically tripped over the story, while filming something else. How many other tricks such as this one occurred that we have not heard about yet? I believe the polls were fairly accurate, but failed to acknowledge the potential for the dems to pull out all the stops this time, so in fear of losing their power. ......." Freeper GOPRealist 11/9/00 "...... I'd say the most damaging effect occurred in the Republican stronghold of the Florida Panhandle. As soon as those Bush voters came home and saw all the major networks declare Gore the winner of Florida, they were instantly demoralized because the polls were still opened and they hadn't voted yet: Why vote for Bush in Florida when all the major networks are declaring that Gore has already won all 25 of Florida's electoral votes? ...... The liberal network news pollsters didn't need to formally conspire with the Gore campaign. All they did was act independently -- they immediately declared Florida for Gore, knowing it would tilt the election to Gore. How did they know it would tilt the election to Gore? Because they're doing the polling! They knew where the Republican and Democratic regions of Florida are. And they knew that the Florida Panhandle is a Republican stronghold. ........And as usual, the liberal Brian Williams almost laughed off the Liberal Media's Pro-Gore premature announcement that Gore won Florida. Williams, I'm sure, thought to himself, hey, wow, we got away with that premature announcement for over an hour. Hopefully, that should be enough to give Gore Florida and therefore the Presidency. That's why he was smiling when they retracted their "Gore wins Florida" projection. ....... The Gore DemocRATS have performed every possible trick in their lying political strategy handbooks -- except one. Now, they're trying to rig the recount. Missing voter ballot boxes stuffed with Gore votes, trying to scam 6,000 Buchanan votes into 6,000 Gore votes. ......" Judicial Watch 11/8/00 "...... Based on discussions with an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) source, Judicial Watch said today that the Florida District of the INS has engaged in a systematic program of rushing aliens through the naturalization process to meet INS headquarters "goals" by October 1, 1999 and October 1, 2000. In Florida, a new citizen can register to vote up to October 10th......... An INS source told Judicial Watch that the program is nearly identical to the now infamous 1996 "Citizenship USA" program, wherein thousands of aliens - some with criminal backgrounds - were improperly and illegally rushed through the naturalization process in order to obtain Democratic votes for the presidential election. The Florida INS effort has been termed the "Backlog Reduction Program," - a neutral, bureaucratic-sounding title designed to lower the program's visibility with the media and the general public. INS examiners and clerks who met or exceeded headquarters goals and quotas for the program were rewarded with various types of bonuses, including an extra 40 hours of paid time off....." NewsMax.com 11/8/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Al Gore served Tennessee as both a congressman and later as a U.S. senator. Like many Democrats in the South, he voted conservative to win. Al had learned the lesson of his dad, Gore Sr., who became too liberal for his home state after spending too long in Washington. Clinton had also been a conservative as governor of Arkansas. Both Clinton and Gore, while serving in their home states, held anti-gun control views and were anti-abortion. ...... As soon as Clinton and Gore became untethered from their home states in 1992, the pair became very left-wing, very anti-gun and very prochoice. Arkansans accepted that behavior from Clinton, but Tennesseans didn't like to be lied to. Gore thought he had the state in his back pocket. ......" WorldNetDaily 11/4/00 Jon Dougherty "...... Members of the military who are currently stationed overseas have complained that the Pentagon has not yet sent out absentee ballots this year, meaning they will not get to vote for a new commander in chief on Tuesday. Specifically, members of U.S. Navy units who are stationed overseas and aboard the USS Cole -- the destroyer recently attacked by terrorists while it was undergoing refueling in the port of Aden, Yemen -- have either not received ballots or won't get them in time because of current deployment circumstances, Pentagon officials said yesterday. ...... "I've heard about this within the past week," said Lt. Dave Gay, a Defense Department spokesman. "We are trying to get more information. We don't know if they were delayed through the mail." ...... He added that due to current deployment considerations, some military members overseas likely would not get their ballots in time. ..." Joy Browne Radio Show 11/8/00 Freeper aspiring.hillbilly "...... Calllers to the Joy Brown radio talk show have reported that Florida voters, appromamately 1 in 20 in certian districts, reported that they were denied the right to vote when they showed up at the poles yesturday. The scheme was that Gore operatives took out absentee ballots prior to the election in the names of unsuspecting voters. These were marked and previously submitted so that the computer lists denied the victims an in person vote yesturday. If the victim of

this scheme didn't show at the poles, the fraud would be undetected. Several callers including one election worker reported this..... ......: Newsmax.com 11/8/00 Jack Thompson "...... A reliable source within the Gore camp informs NewsMax that lawyers this very minute, retained by the Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign, are feverishly putting the finishing touches on a lawsuit that will seek, by various means, to overturn the imminent victory by George W. Bush in Florida. ...... The suit is expected to be filed within the next twenty-four hours and will apparently be a request by the Gore forces to get state officials in Florida to de-certify, or declare invalid, the election. .....No further details can be revealed at this time, but clearly Gore is going to try to attempt to secure in a court room what he appears to be unable to do at the ballot box. ......" U.S. Newswire 11/9/00 ".....American church leaders from Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox and Protestant traditions will today call on Vice President Al Gore and his campaign to act on virtue and courteously bow to the Constitution, end the rancor of the presidential campaign and acknowledge that George Bush is the president elect. "What the Gore people are doing is not good for the country, nor is it good for civility," said the Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council. ......"It is extremely important for the wellbeing of the nation -- indeed for the world -- that Mr. Gore politely and peacefully transfer power. The more this is prolonged, the more unsettled we are as a nation, and the more dangerous things can become around the world." ......" AP via ABCNews.com Politics Wire 11/8/00 "......Though the presidential cliffhanger is providing the country with a stunning political drama, recounts and contested elections are standard fare in a country with more than half a million elected officials. But they usually don't reverse the initial declared result, experts said Wednesday. ...... One former politician who went through two such ordeals - losing one and winning the second - said he feels nothing but empathy for both Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore. "Every hearsay thing gets legs, you worry about it, and people keep calling you saying, 'Have you looked down here?'" said former New Jersey GOP Gov. Thomas Kean, now president of Drew University in Madison, N.J. "It's awful to get through." ....... Despite a recount, Kean said he lost his 1974 bid for the GOP nomination for a House seat from New Jersey by 72 votes out of 30,000 cast. In 1981, after being declared winner of the New Jersey gubernatorial election by 1,677 votes out of 2.3 million total ballots, he had to endure a recount demanded by his opponent, Democratic Rep. James Florio. Six weeks later, Kean's final margin was 1,797 votes - an outcome that professionals in the field say is typical. ......." CNN 11/8/00 Freeper Styria "..... Compiled from CNN's results page. Control of the House of Representatives by State: Republican: 1. Alabama 2. Alaska 3. Arizona 4. Colorado 5. Delaware 6. Florida 7. Georgia 8. Idaho 9. Indiana 10. Iowa 11. Kansas 12. Kentuky 13. Louisiana 14. Missouri

15. Montana 16. Nebraska 17. New Hampshire 18. New Mexico 19. North Carolina 20. Ohio 21. Oklahoma 22. Pennsylvania 23. South Carolina 24. South Dakota 25. Tennessee 26. Utah 27. Virginia 28. Wyoming ...... Independent: 1. Vermont Tied: 1. Connecticut 2. Illinois 3. Maryland 4. New Jersey 5. Nevada ......," Miami Herald Online 11/8/00 Carol Marbin Miller "...... Broward's election follies made the national spotlight early this morning. With the presidential race still hanging in the balance and Florida playing a pivotal role in the outcome, NBC News with Tom Brokaw broadcast a report from Broward County on nine missing ballot boxes. That provoked an indignant response from Jane Carroll, Broward's election supervisor. Nothing was missing, Carroll said. Rather, there were 14 boxes of ballots from the Pembroke Pines area that took longer to relay because of heavy turnout. ``They're big precincts,'' she said. ...... There was one ballot box that was mistakenly left sitting at a Pompano Beach polling place, she said, but it had been fetched and was being delivered. ...... ``We have no missing ballots,'' she said. ``Tom Brokaw isn't here. I am here, looking at the ballots. We have no ballots missing.'' ...... Officials with both the Republican and Democratic parties reported scores -- perhaps thousands -- of people turned away from the polls. ...... Carroll said she had checked out every single complaint about voters not being allowed to vote and had found that there was an explanation for every problem. ``I think everybody is a little paranoid,'' Carroll said. .... Many voters didn't register in time to meet the state-mandated deadline for this election, while others moved from another county and forgot to change their voter registration, Carroll said. Another problem is voters who get out of jury duty by saying they no longer live in Broward County. They are automatically deleted from the voter rolls. Those people then show up to vote, Carroll said. ....." UPI 11/8/00 Paul Singer "......Rev. Jesse Jackson Wednesday called for a thorough investigation of the voting process in Florida and suggested black leaders may initiate legal action to challenge "patterns of irregularities" that appeared to interfere with a full accounting of African-American voters. Jackson was on his way to Florida to meet African-American leaders to consider their legal options. He said a legal challenge may be necessary. Jackson told reporters outside the Loews Hotel where he and the rest of Vice President

Gore's party is staying that black leaders are demanding a recount by hand, not by machine, and a thorough investigation into reported "acts of irregularity and/or intimidation." ......." AP 11/8/00 Mike Feinsilber "...... Texas Gov. George W. Bush claimed cautious victory Wednesday in the unresolved presidential race. The outcome of his race with Democrat Al Gore hung on Florida and the uncertain fate of its 25 electoral votes. "This morning brings news from Florida that the final vote count shows that Secretary Cheney and I have carried the state of Florida,'' Bush told reporters in a midday appearance. "If that result is confirmed in an automatic recount, as we expect it to be, then we have won the election.'' ...... " Freeper the crow 11/8/00 "....Many reports of voter fraud here in Milwaukee. 1. the rich b!tch from NY passing out smokes to the homeless last week. 2. I know of people getting limosine rides to go to the polls. 3. Multiple reports from all over town of no ID required for on site same day registration [as WI allows]. Apparently students from UW Milwaukee and Marquette U. were going all over town and voting many times. When I heard of long registration lines which stayed long all day, I knew we were in trouble. ..." CNN.com 11/8/00 Matt Smith Thom Patterson "......It is also possible that one candidate could win the Electoral College vote and the other win the popular vote, which hasn't happened in a hundred years. Nationwide, Gore pulled ahead by 267,557 votes of more than 95 million cast, with all but 3 percent of precincts reporting. ...... Without a decision in Florida -- which commands 25 electoral votes -- Gore led the projected tally in the Electoral College by 14 votes, 260 to 246. The only other state yet to have a projected winner is Oregon, which holds seven electoral votes. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. ....... But at the urging of his Florida campaign staff, the vice president retracted his concession. Gore campaign chief Bill Daley told supporters standing in the rain in Nashville that with a recount pending, "our campaign continues." ......"Without being certain of the results in Florida, we simply cannot be certain of the results of the national election," Daley said....." Doctor Raoul 11/8/00 "...... On Philadelphia's Channel 10 news, the weather guy, "Hurricane" Schwartz, just showed his Absentee ballot mailed to him by the Palm Beach election board. He only lived there for 6 months, 5 years ago! He didn't get one in the interveining years, but he got one the year Bill Clinton's accomplice was running. ....." Freeper snopercod "....Everyone who has ever lived in Florida is still on the rolls down there. I could have voted there as well as in NC, since I lived in FL two years ago, but that would have been dishonest. They should do like many other states and delete you from the rolls if you don't vote in one election. ...." Newsmax.com 11/8/00 Carl Limbacher "...... If George W. Bush wins the White House based on an Electoral College victory without winning the popular vote, don't expect the media to play by the rules. Early Wednesday morning, just minutes after his network called the election for Bush, CNN's Jeff Greenfield noticed that the president elect's lead in the popular vote had begun to dwindle. ........ Then, just after 7a.m. eastern time, when it was clear Gore had indeed opened up a razor-thin popular vote lead, NBC's Tim Russert suggested the development would mean Gore would remain a Washington player. ......Even if Bush had indeed captured the White House, Russert advised anchorman Tom Brokaw, Gore would become the "shadow president." ....." Freeper Russ 11/8/00 "..... Nixon lost the election to Kennedy by about 100,000 votes due to massive voter fraud in Chicago. Had Nixon challenged those votes and demanded a recount Kennedy stood a good chance of not being President. Nixon didn't send in 175 lawyers, have media talking heads crying about it. He took it like a man for the good of the country. You can never accuse Gore of doing anything for the good of the country, only the party and his own power. ..." Freeper My Favorite Headache "..... Here is the latest. I have yet to comment on last night's dispicable showing in Florida. I along with thousands have worked our butts off for the last year and getting the vote out for W. in Florida. For those who stayed home...CONGRATULATIONS..You might have just given this election to Gore. For those who voted for Pat or Ralph...Congratulations you just gave this to Gore. ......I have been on the phone with CNN producers this morning and am expecting a call back anytime now as they are very interested on the obvious garbage that is going on in Palm Beach county with Jesse Jackson and Robert Wexler. These sample ballots have been out for 5 or 6 weeks. There has been plenty of time for everyone to look at them. There was assistance at the polls for everyone if confused. The early call for Gore threw off the election for Bush in a Republican strong hold in the Panhandle. They had another 45 minutes to go and most walked away or stayed at home thinking it didn't matter anymore. ..... Still waiting to get on air for CNN (holding breath..yeah right). My call into FOXNEWS is coming next. ..."

Freeper Big Ezy "...... If you get to talk to CNN tell them the ballot in question was designed by a Democrat who signed off on it approval. They have no leg to stand on. Also last night an ABC employee who was thier number cruncher told Peter Jennings that she had worked for the Florida Sec. Of State working on recounts. She said that "recounts rarely change the difference very much one way or the other. Maybe 10% of the difference between the two candidates." So if Bush has a lead of 1700 votes he could lose 170 or gain 170 about 10% give or take a few. Also she said "that the military absentee vote is always in favor of the Republican", I think she mentioned Connie Mack. Jennings said how can you be so sure? "She replied because of 25 years of doing the same job in Florida". She told Jennings "she would rather be ahead in a recount especially a Republican knowing the only thing out are the military absentees." ..." FrontPageMagazine 11/9/00 Michael Long ".....GORE WINS the popular vote. Bush wins the electoral vote. That's what's likely. And now Gore will spend the rest of that DNC soft money of his in the campaign of his life to subvert the Electoral College. You didn't think he was just going to take this lying down, did you? ...... The Democrats are about to launch their biggest, dirtiest campaign in modern history. This is the one that you'll tell your grandkids about........ As early as this weekend, expect Al Gore to launch a massive media campaign -- commercials, interviews, whisper campaigns, maybe even a repeat of the kind of travel he's done personally for the last year. And the message will be this: I am Al Gore, and I won the popular vote for the presidency of the United States. The electors in your state have an obligation to enforce the will of the people. Contact your electors and tell them that you want them to vote in the Electoral College for Al Gore, the popularly elected president of the United States. Expect the focus to be twofold. First, Gore will focus on the states where electors are not bound by statute to vote for the candidate on whose behalf they were elected. Second, and most important, Gore will take his case directly to the people. He will say that their will is being subverted, that they elected him properly and honestly and by a majority, and that the Republicans are about to take away even their right to say who leads them. It will be powerful, and it might just be successful. The media will support Gore's effort, and the usual crowd of subservient, liberal academics will, too. They'll sign full-page ads in the Washington Post and the New York Times, saying that the will of the people is about to be tossed away by an anachronistic system over two centuries old. Look for a couple of ex-presidents (you know who you are, gentlemen) to turn the pressure on with public statements and Gore support for his dirty little campaign......" Caselaw - Apellate Court of Florida 11/9/00 Freeper visagoth ".... Jeanne Khoyi NELSON, as Supervisor of Elections in Pinellas County, et al., Appellants, v. A. S. Jim ROBINSON et al., Appellees ...... No. 74-1201 Court of Appeals of Florida, Second District 301 So. 2d 508; 1974 Fla. App. LEXIS 8601 October 15, 1974 ...... JUDGES: McNulty, Chief Judge. Hobson and Grimes, JJ., concur. ....OPINIONBY: McNULTY ...... In our view the trial court misconstrued the law as to the test to be applied. It is not sufficient that a showing is made of a mere "reasonable possibility that the results of an election could have been changed by irregularities; rather, there must be a showing of a reasonable probability that the results of said election would have been changed except for such irregularities. That error of itself would require a reversal hereof. But further than that, in this case, we can say also that even if the trial court had applied the correct test herein the facts as he found them would, as a matter of law, be insufficient to meet it. Forty-eight assorted voters, poll workers and clerks, thirty-one of them called by plaintiffs/appellees, testified. Yet no finding was made that even a single voter was prevented from exercising this free choice although, concededly, it was found that several voters were "confused." But mere confusion does not amount to an impediment to the voters' free choice if reasonable time and study will sort it out; and no denial is made that, ultimately, all but one of the "confused" voters who testified were able with reasonable [**8] time and effort to find their choices, some of which choices included one or more of the appellees. Parenthetically, it should be noted too that ample notice was given that aid and assistance was available at each polling place to help a voter should he need it. No finding was made, nor was there any basis for one, that an unusual or inordinate number of voters sought such assistance. ......Expressly, the only other evidence upon which the trial court relied was his own observation of the voting machine. He concluded from that, as noted, that the ballot was "confusing and prejudicial," which is a far cry from satisfying the proper test of invalidity we set out above. Moreover, in the presence of counsel for the parties we have examined the same machine, which forms a part of this record, and can say as a matter of law that nothing can be found therein which of itself would

support the conclusion that a prudent, observant and conscientious voter was prevented from making his rightful choice......". National Review Online "..... On March 12, 1996, Pat Buchanan won 8,788 votes in the Republican primary from the four congressional districts that share Palm Beach County. In Rep. Wexler's 19th congressional district, Buchanan won his largest vote of the four - 2,961. ...... Buchanan's top strategist in the 1996 nomination race, Human Events editor Terry Jeffrey, explains that by the time of the 1996 Florida primary, the fight was essentially over. Buchanan had lost South Carolina on March 2, and five other primaries, including Georgia's on March 5. Still, with the nomination lost, and Buchanan not campaigning in Palm Beach (he made only a brief appearance in Miami on March 6), over 8,000 diehard Buchanan Brigaders voted in support of his message. .......Jeffrey says that it is "completely believable to me" that there were 3,000 Buchanan supporters again voting for their man in the Palm Beach area this Tuesday. "Over 8,000 people cast a symbolic vote for Pat and his message after he was eliminated from competition in 1996." ......" Freeper prometheus 11/99/00 ABC Radio News "...... AFTER 39 COUNTIES COMPELETED BUSH LEAD UP IN OFFICIAL COUNT TO 1173. BILL DAILY OF GORE CAMPAIGN THREATENS LAW SUIT OVER PALM BEACH FLAP. SAYS WILL OF PEOPLE OUGHT TO PREVAIL AND GORE SHOULD BE GIVEN THE VICTORY. SAYS PALM BEACH VOTES FOR BUCHANON IMPLAUSIBLE. SAYS PALM BEACH BALLOT CONFUSING. SAYS BUSH CAMPAIGN LACKS FAIRNESS. SAYS WILL OF PEOPLE OUGHT TO DETERMINE THE ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT. SAYS HAND COUNT TO BE REQUESTED. WILL TAKE LEGAL ACTION. CLAIMS GORE IS PEOPLE'S CHOICE TO BE PRESIDENT. SAYS BUSH CAMPAIGN TRYING TO DIVIDE THE NATION. SAYS LEGAL SYSTEM SHOULD PREVAIL, CLAIMS RULE OF LAW SHOULD DECIDE. ...." FoxNews 11/8/00 Freeper Reagan Man "..... Bill Daley, Chris Lehane, Joe Andrews, Paul Belgala and the other Gore thugs are attempting to steal this presidential election out from under the American people. Gore could still win honestly if he can get enough votes in the recount, but I think Gore and his henchmen know what will actually be the outcome of the recount. ...... Hold on tight a rough ride is ahead for Bush-Cheney and all their supporters. ......" Freeper Dog Gone adds "......They are committing to fight it. They point to the national popular vote. Regardless of how the recount comes out they plan to sue, and influence the EC. This is essentially a declaration of war and a statement that they won't respect the outcome of the vote. This is serious, folks. ....." Freeper Gritty "...Rush just announced Warren Christopher has announced "voter fraud" in Florida, and the Dims will contest results! ..." Freeper Cosmo "..... I believe that Gore will concede tonight and demonstrate a little class --that is,if he hopes to ever have a hope of winning the Whitehouse in the future. This is my prediction. ......" Freeper logos "..... I've been watching this, and it's crunch time, friends. Bill Daley just said that this election must be decided consistent with "the will" of the Constitution, which he then interpreted to mean whoever wins the popular vote should be the next president. He also said that legal action will be "supported" regarding all "irregularities" in the voting process. Warren Christopher then stated, briefly, that he affirmed all of Daley's comments. Much talk about how the South Florida voters were "disenfranchised" in this election; also many comments about the "illegal" Florida ballot. Friends, this constitutes a declaration of war against the Constitution of the United States by the Democrat Party. I see no other way to interpret these actions and statements. ......" Associated Press 11/9/00 "..... George W. Bush's margin over Al Gore in make-or-break Florida dwindled to fewer than 1,000 votes Thursday in a continuing recount that held the presidential rivals and the nation in agonizing suspense. Democrats said they would demand a follow-up recount by hand in a few counties and support unspecified ``legal actions.'' ........ Daley and others said it was possible Democrats would seek a new election in that county, where, he said, ``the confusion was massive'' because of the design of the ballot. ...... Earlier former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, tapped by Bush to represent him in Florida, said he had seen neither allegations of fraud nor evidence of it. He said the controversial Palm Beach County ballots had been reviewed before the election by both campaigns, ``and guess what, there were no complaints until after the election.'' ....." NewsMax 11/9/00 "..... More than 300 protesters showed up outside city hall in West Palm Beach today to protest the presidential election results here in Palm Beach County. Jesse Jackson has arrived but has yet to speak to the gathering crowd. It is obvious from the Gore/Lieberman signs, and from the usual array of suspects - labor unions, government employees, pro-choicers, seniors, etc. - that the Gore campaign has orchestrated this rally. This is one indication that the Gore campaign is not interested in a simple recount but will aggressively pursue this in the courts, in the media and in public opinion. ....." PRNewswire "......"Whichever candidate wins the electoral vote in Florida and goes on to become President of the United States will have won his margin of victory by the votes of non-citizens and illegal aliens, voting in mass numbers in South Florida," charged Edward Nelson, President, U.S. Border Control. ...... "We have asked legal counsel for U.S. Border Control to review the Florida election results carefully to determine how

a challenge can be made to the votes cast in certain Florida precincts in order to document once and for all the scope of voting by non-citizens." ......"Thanks to the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the Motor-Voter law, millions of non-citizens and illegal aliens are being invited to register to vote as they apply for their driver's licenses or welfare benefits." ......."In Florida, as in most other states, the Motor Vehicle Department has been advised not to ask if applicants are citizens because this would somehow violate their civil rights. As a consequence, this 'don't ask -- don't tell' policy is wittingly or unwittingly handing out voter registration cards to tens of thousands of ineligible voters, more than enough to effect the results of a close election." ....." Reuters 11/9/00 Allan Elsner ".....Democrat Al Gore decided on Thursday to fight the results of Tuesday's presidential election in Florida with campaign officials announcing a legal challenge and demanding a recount by hand of ballots in four counties. .....Without waiting for the result of a recount of the vote in Florida due later on Thursday, Gore campaign manager William Daley told reporters in the state's capital of Tallahassee that the vice president would not accept the outcome or concede the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush , the Republican nominee. ...... Referring to mounting complaints of voting irregularities, Daley said: ``Technicalities should not determine the presidency of the United States; the will of the people should. Demanding an end to this election is not the same as demanding that the person who the people want as president takes office.'' .......The statement took the United States into uncharted constitutional territory, deepening the uncertainty following Tuesday's election, the closest in U.S. history, which failed to produce a clear winner. ...... ``Today the appropriate Florida Democratic officials will be requesting a hand count of ballots of Palm Beach County as well as three other counties,'' Daley said. ...... ``In addition today, I am announcing that we will be working with voters from Florida in support on some legal actions to demand some redress for the disenfranchisement of more than 20,000 voters in Palm Beach County,'' he said. ....." Freeper randita 11/9/00 ".... Bush spokesperson in press conference. Refuting all the complaints in Palm Beach County. Says Buchanan got large number of votes there in '96. There are 16,000 people there registered in various independent parties affiliated with Reform. 15,000 double punched ballots were thrown out in '96. Says butterfly ballot (which Daley early today claimed was undemocratic) has been the standard ballot in Cook County, Daley's home county for years - zing! ...... Zapped the Gore campaign several times over their shenanigans. Said the Gore campaign is angling for new elections, but we have a law in this country which says that everyone votes on the same day. People can't get a revote if they don't like the outcome. ...... Bush is fighting back -- good for him. ...." Freeper bigsigh 11/9/00 ".....Rowe says most counties are close to original in recount. Sent a letter to Palm Beach asking why such a descrepency. PB now showing 800 more ballots than two previous reports Tue night and Wed. 1 or 2 not unusual, but 800 is suspicious (my word). ....." Freeper TigersEye 11/9/00 ".....Yes indeed! And let's be clear who's calling for war. Congressman Deutch declares Bush would be illegitimate President. Hillary agrees that Ralph Nader should be killed for spoiling the election. Jesse Jackson calls for "his people" to take to the streets. Daley asserts that we should ignore the Constitution and decide the election by popular vote. ....." UPI 11/9/00 ".....Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., Thursday charged there was widespread vote fraud in St. Louis on election night and asked the U.S. attorney and FBI to investigate. A heavy Democratic turnout in St. Louis led to the ouster of Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., and the election of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan in Missouri's U.S. Senate race. In the governor's race, Democrat Bob Holden was elected over Republican Jim Talent by a narrow margin. .......A St. Louis judge ordered polls be kept open past their scheduled 7 p.m. closing time but a three-member appellate court panel overturned the ruling 40 minutes later. Bond charges some polls remained open despite the appellate decision. ......, In letters to U.S. Attorney Audrey Fleissig and FBI Director Louis Freeh, Bond said there is evidence "taped phone calls were prepared in advance to be delivered in the area alerting voters to the fact that the polls would remain open until 10 p.m. election night." ......... Judge Evelyn Baker Tuesday afternoon ruled in response to a petition filed by congressional candidate William "Lacy" Clay that St. Louis polling places remain open until 10 p.m. because long lines and lack of voting materials were depriving people of their right to vote. The Missouri Court of Appeals, however, ordered the polls closed at 7:45 p.m. and the Election Board ordered polls closed at 8:15 p.m. Board Chairman Floyd Kimbrough said, however, the last vote was cast about 10 p.m. ...... "Despite the court order, numerous witnesses have stated that voters were registered and permitted to cast ballots late into the evening in direct violation of that court order," Bond wrote. "Furthermore, witnesses have stated that individuals registering voters and encouraging voting were aware of that order and knowingly ignored the court order, thereby committing voter fraud. ...... "Additionally, election judges at approximately 29 polling places left their positions at 7 p.m., leaving ballots and ballot boxes unattended for an undetermined amount of time. Considering these and other events that transpired over the course of the evening, there is reason to believe that collusion existed to commit voter fraud and voter fraud occurred on a wide scale throughout the city of St. Louis." ......"

Bush Campaign email 11/9/00 "...... RECOUNT UPDATE Democrats are leaking preliminary data from recounts in Florida. These numbers are not certified, and in many cases disputed. Networks should be cautious in how they report such uncertified numbers. Here are examples of just how questionable these numbers are in two important counties. Palm Beach County A precinct-by-precinct count found a change of only six otes, but when the ballots were rerun through computer abulation the change jumped to over 600, most likely the result of a computer glitch which is presently under review. Democrats are arguing that 19,000 ballots being thrown out in Palm Beach County for overcounting (ballots cast for two candidates for the same office) is abnormal, and the result of a confusing ballot presentation that resulted in Gore voters voting for Buchanan. But in 1996, nearly 15,000 ballots were thrown out for overcounting, similar to the number on Tuesday, when the higher turnout is factored in. This ballot presentation was published in local newspapers and approved by an elected Democratic party official prior to the election, but was not objected to prior to Election Day, as Florida law requires. Pinellas County There have been big discrepancies between the number of absentee ballots counted in the recount versus the number counted election night. In Pinellas County, absentee ballots are sorted into 40 "types" in the county. On election night, one of the types had 430 ballots counted, but on recount turned up 1,555-a jump of 1,125 ballots. ..." CNN 11/9/00 Freeper freedom4ever "..... CNN reports the lawsuit is withdrawn by the plaintiffs. Belief is that it will be filed in state court, possibly next week. ...." And ".... This was just on CNN. Litigants were in court, plaintiffs withdrew lawsuit, judge was taken aback, and ran everyone out of the courtroom. ...." FoxNews 11/9/00 Freeper Teddy "..... I've just seen two separate reporters report fraud allegations in FL. The first involves the recount in Palm Beach County, not equalling the numbers reported from the individual precincts there. Where did Gore's magical 751 votes come from? ..... The second involves at least 2 investigations into absentee ballots being intercepted at post offices around the state and "used illegally". ...." Freeper San Jacinto adds "...... I saw the same report. A Fox News correspondent with an odd name -William Lajanuese, or something similar, said a government attorney (federal, I guess) told him there was an investigation concerning a possibly widespread operation whereby the overseas absentee ballots were being intercepted at the post offices. If this is true, then there could not be a more direct effort to steal the election. As serious as this is, it will not receive 1/10th of the publicity as the phony, made-up BS over "confusing" ballots in Palm Beach County. ......" Freeper piasa "....I heard that on FOX too. Also, from earlier, a report of a person being caught with 7 absentee ballots on his/her person who had been attempting to deliver absentee ballots to different precincts. My guess is that somewhere out there is a box of unfilled-out absentees that are or will be used to provide Gore with mystery votes. Also, I heard that Seminole County is reporting that they will be late in their recount. My suspicion is that there is an effort to delay the rest of the recount perhaps to tomorrow... thereby allowing more votes to fixed and to put any announcement by GWBush beyond the prime-time hour. ....." MSNBC 11/9/00 Freeper Recovering_Democrat ".... Some info babe on MSNBC said that Sec. of State Bill Jones is saying "don't count California out....1 million absentee ballots need to be counted still..." Sounds like they needed to fill some time, so they threw this out there, but it might be nice to see... " ....Freeper paul in cape ".... Just announced on MS-NBC, infobabe on with Chris Matthews announced that the Calif. Sect'y of State (I think), the highest ranking Republican in Calif., has just said that Calif.'s 54 electoral votes should be taken out of the Gore column and into the To-Close-To-Call column. Apparently there are over 1 Million Absentee ballots still uncounted, and those opened since yesterday are breaking for Bush! ...." breaking from Joe Scarborough!!! Freeper dead 11/9/00 "....If Gore does not concede, Republicans will open voter fraud investigations in Iowa, California, Wisconsin. He says Austin is ready to go into four or five states and play hardball with Gore and the Dems. Scarborough says they took 24 hours too long (as usual) to get tough, but they are not playing any longer! ...." Freeper Mad_Dawgg 11/9/00 "...Fox just said that Palm Beach does not want to call their Recount Valid now!

...." Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Home Page 11/9/00 Freeper FlJoePa ".... Being a resident of Palm Beach County, I thought I'd look up a little information and post it here for your perusal. This information is from the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections' home page. As of October 25th: Registered Democrats: 296,122 Total Votes for Algore after re-count: 269,696 Registered Republicans: 231,626 Total Votes for George W. after re-count: 152,954 Now, according to this information, and making the simplistic assumption that no Democrats voted for George W, this gives the Democrats a turnout of 91%. Also, making the same assumption that no Republicans voted for Algore, this gives the Republicans a turnout of only 66%. Add into the mix the fact that the Dummycrats are now wanting the 19,000 "tossed" ballots counted as well, that would raise the Democratic turnout to 97%. Yeah, there is something funny going on all right, but it's not these "butterfly ballots", rather it is massive voter fraud. The ballot issue is nothing but a smokescreen. ......" ABC Radio News 11/8/00 Prometheus "..... THREE MORE COUNTIES TO GO. VOTE WILL NOT BE CERTIFIED UNTIL NOVEMBER 17TH WHEN ALL THE ABSENTEE BALLOTS CAN BE COUNTED. RECOUNT MANDATED BY FLORIDA LAW. FLORIDA SECERTARY OF STATE OFFICE SAYS THE UNOFFICIAL RESULTS BY STATE OFFICIALS IS BUSH LEADS BY 1784 VOTES. STATE SAYS WIRE SERVICE NUMBERS ARE BEHIND. NOT ALL PRECENTS TABULATED. ONLY 53 TABULATED. ......" Freeper SFRigger ".....That IS NOT the final recount...The Florida Secretary of State said that there were 14 counties remaining to send in their official recount. I want W to win as bad as everyone here, but let's not muddy the water here. Bush IS ahead by 1724 votes at this time. It will be later tonight, or tomorrow before we have the numbers from the other counties. It may be as late as the 20th before we know everything including the count of the absentee ballots. It IS looking good though. ...." Newsmax 11/9/00 Daniel McAdams "...... The "people power" that has taken to the streets of Florida today courtesy of the Democratic Party and the Rev. Jesse Jackson is not so different from the mobs that have taken to the streets of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe when a vote was being stolen. And no, they are not "defending democracy" but rather they are a critical force-multiplier in the cheating process itself. The pattern may not be familiar to the American public, but as one who has observed elections throughout the former communist world, including those that have ended in violence and massive fraud, the pattern, to me, is unmistakable. .......... What is happening in Florida - and to a lesser degree in places like St. Louis and elsewhere - follows a game plan that has yet to fail: first rule is, delay delay delay. Do not let any official results be announced. The longer you can delay, the more doubt is cast on the elections and the more time there is to manipulate the results. ........Second, latch on to a legitimate issue and marry it to an illegitimate one until the original issue is completely lost. In Florida a recount was automatically called because of a very close race. But who now is talking about the real reason for the recount? Not CNN, not the networks and the liberal talking heads, not the American people. The issue has successfully been reframed. ...... With chaos successfully reigning, the accusations and claims have grown exponentially. .......Americans will no doubt be shocked to find themselves compared to Albanians, but the 2000 presidential election here is shockingly similar to that in Albania in 1996. There, the former Communist party pulled out of the elections just before the polls closed claiming massive vote fraud - despite the fact that there had been little evidence of fraud. The move was calculated to throw the entire process into chaos so as to buy time. Ultimately it did not matter that the anti-communists won. The elections were claimed illegitimate and therefore the government that took power was illegitimate. It was hobbled by the claims, fraudulent though they were, and soon overthrown. ......... The same thing happened to Robert Kocharian in Armenia two years later, though he survived only to be hobbled by legal challenges and questions about his legitimacy. ......Whatever the case, today the fraudsters have their sights set on their holy grail: a re-vote in Palm Beach County. ...... You must recognize what is happening, or you will lose more than you have already. Do not give one inch. No compromises. No new elections. No switching ballots. This election is being stolen. It is up to the Republican Party and all good American people to defend their vote. .......McAdams has observed elections in Central and Eastern Europe for the British Helsinki Human Rights Group. He is senior research associate at the Center for Security Policy in Washington......" ABCNews 11/8/00 "..... ABC news was saying Bush will start naming Cabinet appointments as soon as vote counted (suggested tomorrow). Bush and Cheney want to pre-empt Demos move to draw this out and

instead cement in the minds of voters the finality of the vote ... " Freeper kazaneder 11/9/00 "..... According to the Sec'y State website from TUESDAY: Bush: 2,909,135 Gore: 2,907,351 Numbers from the news conference: Bush: 2,909,661 Gore: 2,907,877 The numbers from the news conference do not appear to be Tuesday night's numbers. ......" Freeper FrostFire 11/9/00 "...... ONLY 53 COUNTY VOTE NUMBERS HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED BY COUNTY SUPERVISORS. The rest have been tallied but signed hardcopy certification has not been received from some counties. Now gore is announcing again, that the count doesn't count, he will not abide this count. I guess it's back to Bush. Claim what is his and do it NOW before they get a chance to bogus up the numbers even more. ....." Fox News 11/9/00 John Martin "...... By 5 p.m. ET Thursday, 53 counties had reported their official, certified tallies to Florida's Division of Elections. According to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Bush led Gore, 2,909,661 to 2,907,877 - a difference of 1,784 votes, exactly the same results reported Wednesday morning. (But according to unofficial Associated Press projections, Bush led by just 362 votes out of roughly 6 million cast, with ballots in 64 of the 67 counties counted.) Harris said Thursday evening the final results might not be complete until next week: Counties are required to submit their certified results by next Tuesday, absentees ballots are still coming in and Florida must certify its statewide results by Nov. 17. ......" Freeper SunStar 11/9/00 ".... FROM REAL CLEAR POLITICS: Popular National Vote Still Undecided At Least 1.5 Million Ballots Still Uncounted Gap Now Under 100,000 Bush Wins Original Florida Vote By 1,784, Before All Overseas Absentee Ballots State of Florida: After 53 of 67 Counties, Gore has picked up 0 votes. Unofficially. The Bush lead is now 1784. AP: After 64 of 67 Counties, Gore has picked up 1422 votes. The Bush lead is now 362. Three Remaining Counties Are All Bush Counties ....." Freeper ftrader 11/9/00 ".... A 1,000 sample of Palm Beach will be hand counted (3 precincts), but ALL the punch-card ballots will be re-run through the machine again, all this happening Saturday. ..." FoxNews 11/9/00 ".... U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp dismissed the first of three lawsuits filed to invalidate the Florida presidential election. Lawyers for a Boca Raton voter had sued for a new election in federal court. ...... Attorney Lawrence Navarro told the judge that he wanted to dismiss the case. Ryskamp agreed and walked out in less than a minute. ....... Accusations of fraud, voter intimidation and invalid ballots have led to a flurry of legal actions, including one by a Tampa man who is seeking a court order to stop the state from certifying election results. Willie Dickens' lawyer Sidney Matthew says Dickens tried to vote Tuesday, but was turned away because he didn't have his driver's license. He said that Dickens, a regular voter, went home to get the license but the polls were closed by time he returned..... State prosecutors in Pensacola are also investigating whether a fraudulent absentee ballot submitted in Escambia County could have been part of a broader scheme. .....The investigation began when Todd Vinson, a law clerk living in Miami but registered to vote in Pensacola, complained last week to his father, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, that he had never received either of two absentee ballots that elections officials said they mailed to him. ......They found a ballot with the younger Vinson's name on it, but the signature did not match his and the address of the witness who signed the ballot was fictitious. ...." Sun-Sentinel 11/9/00 Reuters ".....Palm Beach County will not certify its results in the U.S. presidential election until it recounts votes by machine and by hand starting Saturday, elections officials said Thursday........ The county will not pass along its recount figures to be included in a statewide total for all 67 counties that had been expected to be released by Florida on Thursday evening, a county commissioner who is a member of the Palm Beach County canvassing board said.......The county will conduct a second machine recount of all of its ballots, and will also handcount a sample of one percent of the ballots, which was expected to cover three or four precincts, the county's canvassing board said....... At least two lawsuits seeking a new election were filed in state court by Palm Beach County residents who believe thousands of votes that could have been crucial for Vice President Gore in the residential election were "lost" because of confusion over where to mark the ballot......" ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Republican George W. Bush"s campaign on Thursday charged the

Democratic camp of Vice President Al Gore with politicizing election difficulties in Florida "at the expense of our democracy." .... "Our democratic process calls for a vote on Election Day," said Bush"s campaign manager Don Evans. "It does not call for us to continue voting until someone likes the outcome." "The Democrats, who are politicizing and distorting these events, risk doing so at the -- at the expense of our democracy," Evans said......." ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Evans and chief strategist Karl Rove accused the Gore camp of especially meddling in Palm Beach County. Democrats have charged that about 3,000 votes intended for Gore were wrongly cast for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan in that county because of confusion over the ballot. They also say a high number of ballots were disqualified in the county. Evans said his Gore campaign counterpart William Daley had not "told the whole story" in his statement about Palm Beach County ballots. The Bush aides said that according to the Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County were registered to parties that supported Reform party candidate Pat Buchanan, an increase of 110 percent since the 1996 presidential election. They called Palm Beach County "a Pat Buchanan stronghold" and said that was why he had received 3,407 votes there......." ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer, appearing on MSNBC, said the "butterfly" ballot that confused some Palm Beach voters was similar to one used in Cook County, Ill, where both Daley and the Rev. Jesse Jackson vote. Jackson was in Florida on Thursday expressing outrage at the situation. "They only object now that the results of this election did not go the way they want them to go. ...." Fleischer said......" ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "......Evans said Daley "neglects to point out" that in the 1996 presidential election 14,872 ballots were invalidated for double counting in Palm Beach County, a figure comparable to the number of ballots dismissed this year. "...." ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Rove suggested the Florida recount might not settle the issue of who won the election, pointing out that there were 10,000 votes yet to be counted in Colorado; 168,000 absentee ballots still being counted in Arizona; almost 70,000 mail-in ballots to be counted in Washington; and perhaps as many as one million absentee votes to be counted in California. ....." ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... Campaign sources said Bush"s vice presidential running mate, Dick Cheney, would oversee the Republican"s transition team in Washington and that Andrew Card, transportation secretary in the administration of Bush"s father, President George Bush, was a likely candidate for White House chief of staff. After Bush was declared president-elect, he would move quickly to name several top members of his team, the sources said, including retired Gen. Colin Powell, probably as his secretary of state, and Condoleezza Rice as his White House National Security Adviser. Bush met with Rice, his chief foreign policy adviser, who also served in the elder Bush"s administration, at the governor"s mansion on Thursday, spokeswoman Karen Hughes said. ....." ABCNews Reuters 11/9/00 "...... At the Republican campaign headquarters in Austin, staff met to devise a strategy for dealing with the increasingly complicated scenario of looming legal challenges that could drag out the process of determining if Bush or Gore will be the 43rd U.S. president. Press spokesmen for Bush were dispatched from headquarters to Florida to handle inquiries from dozens of media representatives who have descended on Tallahassee...." AP 11/9/00 "..... The Associated Press surveyed elections officials in each of Florida's 67 counties on Wednesday and Thursday to tabulate vote totals in the recount of the presidential election. The results were provided directly to the AP by election officials in those counties either in person or by phone. In every possible instance, the AP also obtained faxed copies of the recounted tally from the county officials. The same results were to be relayed from each county to the Florida secretary of state's office in Tallahassee, and she will then release a final unofficial tally. The vote totals include some but not all absentee ballots sent to Floridians living overseas. Those ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day, but can be returned as late as Nov. 17....." Freeper Travis McGee ".... Other fraud events I've heard of: 1/ Marquette University, instant registration by students at up to 10 polling places, given absentee ballots. 2/ Miami: Post poll closing "ballot parties" behind closed doors. (Wonder why it took them so many extra hours to get the ballots in?) 3/ Pittsburg: massive multiple voting. Teachers saying they were handed two or more ballots and told "just go do them" by officials.

4/ Florida, absentee ballots which never arrived are found with forged names and filled out for Algore. ...." AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak ".......While a confusing ballot in Palm Beach County generated the most attention, Democratic Party officials, Gore campaign aides and the NAACP compiled fast-growing lists of complaints. .....Two lawsuits were filed in state court seeking a new vote in Palm Beach County. The Democratic Party and Gore campaign weighed their own lawsuits. ......" AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak "...... Among alleged irregularities: --Polls closed while people were still in line in Tampa. --Voters were denied ballots on grounds that their precinct had changed. --Some election officials refused to allow translators in voting booths for Haitian-Americans in Miami. --Hispanic voters in Osceola County alleged they were required to produce two kinds of identification when one was required. Voters in Osceola County in central Florida said they, too, were confused by their ballots. ....." AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak "......On the Internet, Democrats.com, a Web site not affiliated with the Democratic National Committee, launched TrustThePeople.com, where voters in Palm Beach could download an affidavit, which they could sign and send election officials protesting the vote. The site had collected over a thousand affidavits by late Thursday afternoon, according to a site administrator. .....Another site, ActForChange.com, offered a form in which Internet users could e-mail Florida election director Clay Roberts directly to demand a revote. ......" AP 11/9/00 Larry Margasak "......''We expect legal challenges,'' Roberts told a news conference. He said Secretary of State Katherine Harris, as the state's chief elections officer, will defend any lawsuit. ...... Adora Obi Nweze, president of the NAACP in Florida, said officials in her Miami precinct tried to deny her a ballot because she had been sent an absentee ballot earlier. The civil rights leader said she never received the mailing and demanded to vote. ''You can take me to jail or let me vote,'' she said she told county officials. She eventually was allowed to sign an affidavit swearing she had not previously voted......." National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "...... After an election night as suspenseful as an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, deadlock has set in. In light of Florida's electoral-vote dispute, the U.S. must focus on ballot integrity.. ...Supporters of Vice President Al Gore in Palm Beach County, Florida, are complaining that a ballot they found confusing - previously approved by Democratic county elections supervisor Theresa LePore generated accidental votes for Pat Buchanan. The NAACP claims that blacks were barred from voting in some polling sites. ......" National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "...... Republicans say that resident aliens in Broward County voted although they are not yet citizens. GOP voters in the conservative Panhandle, within the central time zone, may have stayed home after the networks inaccurately projected Florida for Gore once voting ended in the eastern time zone. ......... Miami poll watchers told MSNBC's Jonathan Alter that some absentee-ballot recipients signed affidavits at the polls swearing that they had not mailed in their absentee ballots, then voted normal ballots. "Quite a number of people in the past in Miami, in Dade County, have voted twice," Alter said. "They filled out the affidavit, but they also filled out their absentee ballot." Officials now may have to compare affidavits and absentee ballots to eliminate repeat voting. ......" National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "......New York Democratic donor Connie Milstein--who gave $402,000 to Democrats this election cycle and hosted Al Gore at a Park Avenue fundraiser--was caught just before the election giving packs of cigarettes to homeless people in Milwaukee if they would vote for Democrats. "I'm here representing the Gore-Lieberman campaign," she told WISN-TV. "I'm down here trying to get out the vote." Milstein, who was accompanied by two volunteers, later contradicted that statement and claimed to be operating independently. The Democratic National Committee also disavowed her actions. Wisconsin law forbids encouraging someone to vote in exchange for anything worth more than $1.00. ......" National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "......Meanwhile, the victorious Senate campaign of Missouri's deceased governor Mel Carnahan took yet another odd turn when voter logs disappeared and Republicans charged that improperly registered voters cast ballots. At 21 precincts, ballot boxes reportedly were left unattended. One judge extended voting hours in St. Louis due to high turnout until another judge halted the additional balloting. ...... " National Review 11/9/00 Deroy Murdock "......At this writing, Al Gore leads George W. Bush by about 98,000

votes nationally. Did unorthodox balloting procedures in New York, Wisconsin, and elsewhere swell Gore's overall total, perhaps eclipsing an actual Bush popular-vote victory? Americans may never know. ......." National Review Robert Alt 11/9/00 "...... In an election where nothing is clear, the outcome in this lawsuit is: Neither the voters nor Gore have a case, so long as the judge follows previous Florida case law. In 1974, the Florida Court of Appeals heard Nelson v. Robinson, a case remarkably similar to this one. In Nelson, voters and losing candidates challenged an election in which names of candidates were placed on the ballot in a confusing way. ...... The court found that some voters were indeed confused by the ballots, which listed the names both horizontally and vertically, but that "mere confusion does not amount to an impediment to the voters' free choice if reasonable time and study will sort it out..." The court made clear that the Constitution assumes the voters' "intelligence to indicate his choice with a degree of care commensurate with the solemnity of the occasion." .........The Nelson court then turned to the candidate, and declared that he does not have a right to a "particular spot on the ballot which might make the voters' choice easier. His constitutional rights in the matter end when his name is place on the ballot." More telling, however, is that it is well-settled that a candidate may not object to a ballot irregularity after an election if he has the opportunity to object beforehand. Indeed, some courts have held that a candidate is barred from bringing such a claim at all. The reason for this rule is clear: Before the election, the risk of candidate self-dealing is lower (since he is uncertain of the results), and the cost for remedying the situation is not as high. After the fact, a candidate is likely seeking his own political advantage based on the particular results; and the costs of the fix - a new election or otherwise altering the tally - are very high. Because these concerns certainly exist in Palm, and because Gore election officials not only saw the ballot beforehand, but signed off on it, they should be precluded from challenging it now. ......." CNS 11/9/00 ".....Defeated Missouri U.S. Senator John Ashcroft won't challenge the election of his dead opponent, but the Constitution Party will. Howard Phillips, the Constitution Party's presidential candidate, announced Thursday that he plans to sue to prevent Mel Carnahan from being certified as the winner in the Senate contest with Ashcroft. Carnahan was Missouri's governor, running for Ashcroft's senate seat when he was killed in a plane crash last month. ....... In Thursday's announcement, Phillips said the "Constitution makes clear that to win a seat in the Senate, you must meet certain qualifications. You must be at least 30 years old, nine years a citizen and an inhabitant of the state. In Missouri, in violation of the Constitution, it appears state officials are going to certify the election of an individual who is not an inhabitant" of the state. ......" NewMax 11/9/00 "...... While the media breathlessly report each new vote added to Vice President Al Gore's column in the Florida recount, reporters have been all but silent on the tens of thousands of new votes that have been added to President-elect George Bush's nationwide tally in the last 24 hours. ......." Nightline 11/9/00 Freeper SpiritOfTruth "..... Reported that the recount vote could not be certified pending a hearing next Tuesday...." Financial Times 11/9/00 Stephen Fidler "..... As an automatic recount continued on Thursday in Florida, law firms in Washington were poring over Florida election law to find grounds for a court challenge to the vote that would allow Al Gore to claim the presidency. ...... Richard Semiatin, of American University in Washington, says the likelihood of a court overturning the Palm Beach County result is remote. Although on the face of it, the fairness of the vote is in doubt, there is no suggestion that the ballot confusion was deliberately contrived by the Democrats in charge of the election in that county. .... Unless negligence is shown and the election administrators ignored prior complaints about the ballot paper, the complainants would have to show deliberate manipulation. "They have to show some type of deliberate intent to keep people from voting the way they wanted," he says. ..... Had Republicans been in charge of the elections in the county, the question of intent would have been much more open to question, Mr Semiatin says. ....." Financial Times 11/9/00 Stephen Fidler ".....The possibility of a court-ordered re-run of the vote appears even more remote. ... Assuming Mr Bush still prevails after the recount, many political scientists see strong parallels between Mr Gore's likely predicament and that of Richard Nixon in the close election of 1960. ..... The vice-president would need to balance the potentially huge political cost of reaching the presidency by pressing his case through the courts against the probability that a statesmanlike concession to his opponent would enhance his political credentials to mount a future challenge for the White House. If a legal challenge is mounted and pushed by the Democratic party, however, a series of tit-for-tat challenges could be mounted elsewhere by Republicans, in the states of Iowa, Wisconsin and New Mexico where Mr Bush lost by narrow margins. ......In the process, the US political system could lose a lot of credibility, constitutional specialists fear. The election system is thought to be much less open to fraud than in 1960, in part because automated voting and improved information transfers sharply lessen the chances for fraud. ....."

Associated Press 11/9/00 "......Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives say the lawyer who represented them in their effort to keep the boy in the United States betrayed them Thursday by taking up Al Gore's cause in the Florida election recount. The Gonzalezes abruptly canceled a Thursday night ceremony to honor Kendall Coffey and the other members of the legal team that donated their time to the failed custody fight over the 6year-old Cuban boy. A statement released by Armando Gutierrez, the Gonzalezes' spokesman, called Coffey's new role assisting Vice President Gore ``incompressible ...." Independent U.K. 11/10/00 Andrew Gumbel ".... With almost regal disdain for the growing controversy over the vote in Florida, George W Bush and his advisers spoke and acted yesterday as though the White House was already theirs, telling the world in carefully crafted information leaks that they were hard at work on the transition of power and fully expected to have victory confirmed in short order. The candidate himself stayed well out of the limelight in the governor's mansion in Austin, where he was holed up with his extended family and his running mate, Dick Cheney. ...... .." New York Times 11/10/00 ".....Part of the test of presidential leadership, it seems to us, is finding a way to resolve electoral matters in the political arena. Given that, it is worrying that Mr. Gore and a legal team led by Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state, would announce their support for a lawsuit while the mandatory recount is still going on and while seven days remain for the arrival of overseas absentee ballots. It is doubly worrying that some Gore associates are using the language of constitutional crisis and talking of efforts to block or cloud the vote of the Electoral College on Dec. 18 and of dragging out the legal battle into January. The CNN political commentator Bill Schneider picked apt language when he spoke of the "treacherous path" that would-be leaders choose when they talk of unraveling the finality of elections. ...... Fortunately, given the Gore campaign's rush to litigation, there is a time window for both political and legal combat. .......One way or another, Republicans and Democrats alike should look toward the earliest possible date for recognizing the legitimacy of one winner in this election. They should not be laying plans that undermine an orderly and honest transition to a new presidency or set damaging precedents for future elections. .........The sad reality is that ballot disputes and imperfections are a feature of every election. It will poison the political atmosphere if presidential elections, in particular, come to be seen as merely a starting point for litigation. ......" Associated Press 11/8/00 "...... West Palm Beach -- Presidential ballots in Palm Beach County can't be certified by the state pending a Tuesday court hearing, a circuit judge ruled Thursday. ....... The order, issued Thursday night by Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll, is the result of one of six lawsuits filed in Palm Beach County by voters who say they may have mistakenly voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Vice President Gore because of the way the ballot was designed. Two other lawsuits filed in Tallahassee allege race discrimination in Tuesday's balloting. The Palm Beach County voters want a new election in the county. ......In the order, Kroll wrote that based on a lawsuit filed by two Boca Raton women it appears they would suffer ``irreparable injury'' if the votes are certified before the case can be heard. ....... The injunction, issued Thursday night about 8:30, came quietly. ....Two judges in Tallahassee _ one federal, one state_ refused to issue emergency orders stopping the state from certifying election results. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle scheduled a hearing on one lawsuit for Nov. 21 and County Judge Don Modesitt said he would schedule a hearing Monday in another. ....... The Gore campaign criticized the ballots used in Palm Beach County as confusing, and asked for a hand count of votes cast there and in three other counties _ Volusia, Broward and Miami-Dade. Palm Beach County has agreed to hand-count ballots in three precincts on Saturday and a second computer recount. Volusia has agreed to do a hand recount. ...... Judges will be guided by a 1997 state Supreme Court decision in a Volusia County election in which county elections workers were found to have broken state law 14 times and committed gross negligence in handling absentee ballots, but did not result in a new election. ...." The Associated Press 11/9/00 "......Latest results from the presidential vote recount in Florida. With votes in 66 of 67 counties recounted, the tally collected by The Associated Press shows Republican George W. Bush leading Democrat Al Gore by 229 votes. Gore has a net gain of 2,234 votes from the election night count. Bush has a net gain of 679 votes. ......... The AP county-by-county tally is an unofficial survey. The vote totals are subject to verification by the Florida Secretary of State's Office and subject to legal challenges by candidates and others. ......" Telegraph/U.K. 11/10/00 Ben Fenton "...... THE Gore campaign headquarters was a very different place yesterday from the frenetic hive of activity that existed before Tuesday. ...... Younger members of the Gore team, many relying on victory to launch their own Washington careers, have taken enthusiastically to the task of trying to revive the body politic that was pronounced dead. ....... Officially, the campaign building on a business park about two miles from downtown Nashville was covered in a shroud of secrecy. A spokesman said: "The only thing I can tell you about the mood here is that I am not allowed to tell you about the mood here." Calls to eight other members of the team went unanswered. ........Some 70 people are in Florida under

the leadership of William Daley, the chairman of the campaign, to scrutinise the recounting of votes. Others have quietly slipped away. ..... These are the people driving Mr Gore forward to do everything he can to put off a second, this time permanent, concession telephone call to Mr Bush. One of the campaign aides still hustling around Nashville said: "You're looking at 45 days here. It'll be 45 days before this is finished, with all the recounting, the postal ballots and the legal challenges. And at the end of the day, Al Gore will have taken his rightful place." .......A spokesman said: "As long as Al Gore wins the popular vote in America, then we will keep fighting to make sure that we know conclusively whether he won the popular vote in Florida and therefore the electoral college vote and the election itself." ....." Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... Florida officials said the Texas governor was ahead by 1,784 votes after ballots were recounted in 53 of 67 counties. But the Associated Press put Mr. Bush's lead at just 229 votes after gathering recount numbers from 67 counties. ...... Part of the discrepancy was due to Palm Beach County, where Mr. Gore appears to have picked up hundreds of votes in the recount. The gain was disproportionate to most other counties, where totals shifted by only a handful of ballots. "This is a disturbing difference," said Bush campaign manager Carl Rove. "In fact, we have sent a letter to the Palm Beach authorities raising a question." ...... Mr. Rove is suspicious because the Palm Beach recount turned up 800 extra ballots - three-fourths of which were for Mr. Gore.......The Palm Beach County Canvassing Board yesterday declined to answer questions from reporters, but announced it would conduct yet another computer recount in order to satisfy Republican concerns. The board also agreed to a request from Democrats to hand count 1 percent of the precincts tomorrow....." Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... Gore supporters, frustrated that the state recount has not reversed the outcome of Tuesday's election, seized on the design of the Palm Beach County ballot, declaring it "illegal" and confusing to would-be Gore voters. A circuit judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the canvassing commission in the county from certifying the final recount results until a hearing is held Tuesday. That was in response to a legal challenge filed with the support of Democrats who say the poor ballot design in the county led some Gore supporters to inadvertently mark their ballots for Pat Buchanan..........In all, eight lawsuits challenging the results were filed in state or federal court, including six in Palm Beach County and two in Tallahassee, where race discrimination was alleged. But Republicans pointed out the ballot was designed and approved by Democrats, who never objected to its use when they had the chance prior to the election. With state officials saying the final recount might not be completed until next week, Democrats questioned the validity of the election and called for fresh recounts in four counties......" Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... Bush supporters hinted they would demand recounts in states where Gore won narrowly or Democrats are suspected of fraud.........Bush officials were pondering whether to press for recounts in Iowa - where Mr. Gore won by less than 5,000 - and Wisconsin -where the margin was fewer than 6,000 votes. A recount was under way in New Mexico's most populous county, too. And the law in Oregon requires a recount in close races; the margin was just over 2,000......." Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon ".....The vote totals include some but not all absentee ballots sent to Floridians living overseas. Those ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day, but can be returned as late as Nov. 17. Democrats took advantage of the delay by lowering expectations for a speedy resolution to the standoff, saying it could take weeks or even months before a new president is ascertained. They also emphasized Mr. Gore's nationwide victory in the popular vote, although his 200,000-vote lead - just 0.198 percent of the more than 100 million voters - was narrowing as more ballots were tallied........Mr. Gore, who at one point early Wednesday was so resigned to defeat that he congratulated the Texas governor on his victory, now seems prepared for what appears to be a rancorous political and legal war that some fear will spawn a constitutional crisis......." Washington Times 11/10/00 Bill Sammon "..... The sharp escalation in rhetoric underscored the enormous stakes of the dispute. It also threatened to undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of the next president, regardless of which man finally secures the White House. With each passing day of uncertainty, more Americans appear unsettled by the deadlock. Wall Street reacted negatively as investors converted stocks to cash until the unprecedented power void is filled........ Demonstrations by Democratic activists grew larger yesterday as activists like the Rev. Jesse Jackson joined the fray. Addressing a boisterous protest rally in Florida, he brandished a copy of the Palm Beach County ballot, which was emblazoned with a "GoreLieberman" sticker...... " Newsmax 11/10/00 Carl Limbacher "......On Wednesday Palm Beach County poll worker Bernice Epstein told the network's Greg Jarrett that Senator Ron Klein had her steer votes to Gore. "Ron Klein, our state senator,

came to me and told me that when we give out these palm cards, give them out to people, I should tell people that they must be very careful to punch Number 5 (for Gore) because the arrows were misleading," said Epstein. .... "And when they came out, they thanked me," the poll worker added. "They told me that it was definitely a problem and it would have been." Apparently concerned that the poll worker had inadvertently revealed pro-Gore vote fraud, Jarrett tried to steer Epstein back on course. "You didn't just tell people to punch Number 5," the reporter interjected. "I mean, you were telling people that 5 corresponds for Gore and that other numbers correspond with other candidates." ..... But Epstein didn't seem to get the message, telling Jarrett next, "These people took my palm cards which the political action committee put out." ..... Epstein's account was first broadcast on MSNBC and later picked up by talk radio's Rush Limbaugh, but has been ignored by journalists who have been doggedly pursuing other allegations of voting irregularities that would help Gore. ......" Opinion Journal 11/9/00 "...... The cliff-hanging Florida results won't be final until the absentee-ballot deadline of November 17, but yesterday Gore campaign head William Daley told a news conference that no amount of recounting would do. Only one outcome would be acceptable: "If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next President." And if the election results don't do that, the Gore campaign will try to find a judge to do it instead. In your ordinary banana republic, this would be recognized as a Gore coup d'etat. ...... Mr. Daley said the Vice President wasn't going to settle for the recount result, suggesting of course they knew it would go against them and so some pretext needed to be found fast to prevent the election from ending. "Let the legal system run its course," Mr. Daley said. "We will be working with voters from Florida in support of legal actions to demand some redress." He added, "We believe with so much at stake, steps should be taken to make sure that the people's choice becomes our President." ........ Shortly after this, guess what happened? The Democratic Palm Beach plaintiffs seeking "redress" suddenly withdrew their suit from federal court. Why? Because they wanted to shop around for a favorable judge. ......By turning over the Presidential election to the lawyers, the Democrats guarantee that the Republicans would respond in kind, seeking similar irregularities, as are commonly found in South Florida, or anywhere else people voted in the U.S. last Tuesday. The constant harping on the poor souls confused by the Palm Beach butterfly ballot makes for good TV visuals and stirring speeches about the "denial of justice." But no one should pretend this is going to fly through the courts without a substantial counteroffensive by the GOP's own lawyers....... And in any event, there is the prospect of recounts elsewhere. In Wisconsin and Iowa, where Mr. Gore's margin of victory was several thousand votes, automatic triggers may set off recounts. Moreover, the national vote isn't over. Votes are still being completed in many states, with a million absentee votes from California alone. It is not beyond imagining that when this process is done, the current result will be different, or even reversed. ......... " Opinion Journal 11/9/00 "...... There is no basis in law, however, to believe that demanding that a vote be restaged because of "irregularities" in Florida's election system, or any other state's for that matter, is going to survive in court. Were that true, there'd have been hundreds of restaged votes in this country. Mr. Gore, Mr. Daley and all the Democratic lawyers know this. Their case about irregularities and confusion is merely a pretext for finding some friendly jurist who will overrule the voters in an excruciatingly close contest. This is a destructive course of action for the Republic and the Constitution. Also, by the way, for a Democratic Party already tainted by eight years of its own irregularities, that is to say, by a habit of trashing the rule of law in the pursuit of political advantage. ....." Washington Post 11/10/00 "....."If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next president," he [Daley] said. ...... A Bush victory would mean the White House had been stolen; that was the plain meaning of the remark. It's a poisonous thing to say in these extraordinary and unsettling circumstances, and Mr. Gore makes a huge mistake if he fails promptly to disown it. ...." PensacolaNewsjournal.com 11/10/00 Scott Streater "..... State prosecutors in Pensacola are stepping up efforts to unravel a potentially widespread voter fraud scheme as the world watches to see who will be the next U.S. president based on a recount of Florida ballots......At issue is an absentee ballot mailed to a Pensacola voter in Miami that was intercepted, filled out and mailed back to voting officials in Escambia County. The voter's signature was forged, and the name and address of a witness on the ballot was bogus..... The State Attorney's Office on Thursday requested the U.S. Postal Service in Miami, as well as the State Attorney's Office in Dade County, to help track the fraudulent ballot....... State prosecutors also are sharing all information on the case with U.S. Attorney Michael Patterson's office. Elections officials and investigators fear the fraudulent ballot could be part of a much broader voter fraud scheme......." CNS Information Services 11/10/00 George W Bush/Karen Hughes "..... (Editor's note: The Bush campaign released the following brief statement early Friday morning, after the unofficial vote recount in all 67 Florida counties showed Republican George W. Bush leading Democrat Al Gore by 327 votes. The recount is not yet finished (a hand recount is expected in some Florida counties), nor is the recount certified. That won't happen until Nov. 17 at the earliest, when all overseas absentee ballots come in. The uncertainty may linger

much longer, however, depending on the outcome of expected legal challenges from the Gore campaign. ) Bush Campaign Statement ....... The vote count on Tuesday night showed Governor Bush won Florida's election, and a recount has now confirmed his victory. The only votes left to be counted are the overseas absentee ballots, which in the past have favored Republican candidates. Bob Dole carried the overseas ballots in Florida in 1996 by a margin of 54 to 40 percent, even though he lost the election in Florida. We hope Vice President Gore and his campaign will reconsider their threats of lawsuits or still more recounts, which could undermine the constitutional process of selecting a President and has no foreseeable end. ......" NewsMax 11/10/00 "..... The discovery of forged ballots in northern Florida has set off a probe of what may have been widespread fraud in connection with absentee ballots in the state. .....Moreover, the suggestion has been made that the U.S. Postal Service in Miami may have been involved. ...... "I agree there may well be more than just this one,'' Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar, who is heading the investigation, told the News Journal. "That's what I'm thinking right now.'' ......State Attorney Curtis Golden told the newspaper that if the Postal Service was involved, his office might turn the investigation over to federal law enforcement officials. ...... " MSNBC 11/9/00 Jay Severin ".......According to people in the room at the time, when Al Gore learned Tuesday night that Florida had tilted back to George Bush, he stormed out of the room declaring, "our campaign continues." And so it does. ...... FOR AL GORE, the election is not over. His own words are the most precise and reliable indicator of his intention, which, surely, is not to concede. Gore still intends to become president, and here is how he intends to do it. First, Gore plans to ceaselessly exploit his status as winner of the popular vote - the linchpin of his political existence right now. (Should Bush overtake him in the total national vote, however, Gore's entire rationale is instantly vaporized.) Notwithstanding the vice president's touching words on the day after about honoring our Constitution, his real message - and strategy - is this: winning more votes is, really, more legitimate than winning the Electoral College. ...... Step two is that Gore will say he plans to prevail in the recount of the Florida vote. This is possible, but highly unlikely. Though vote totals often change upon recount, the margin between candidates rarely changes greatly. Then there is the matter of the absentee ballots. .......Al Gore already knows he is unlikely to win the Florida vote, which is why his supporters are now feverishly engaged in step number three: demanding additional by-hand recounts, and endorsing challenges to the vote results based on voter fraud. ...... And notice the compelling public relations case Gore will be building with this series of setbacks, should they occur: the man more Americans voted for, denied his presidency by odious Republicans who steal votes from minorities and the elderly. Every day the Gore spin machine will be pounding out this message, and the establishment media will lap it up and repeat it, word for word. ......Which leads Gore to step four, the biggest and boldest element of his second campaign: lobbying members of the Electoral College to reject George Bush and, as "a matter of conscience" cast their vote for Gore, the candidate who won the popular vote. ......" Bush/Cheney 20000 "...."New information has come to our attention that puts in perspective the results of the vote in Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3407 votes there. According to the Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County are registered to the Independent Party, the Reform Party, or the American Reform Party, an increase of 110% since the 1996 presidential election. Throughout the rest of Florida, the registration increase for these parties was roughly 38%. In contrast, in neighboring Broward County, only 476 voters are registered to these parties. In addition, in the 1996 presidential election, 14,872 ballots were invalidated for double counting in Palm Beach County, a figure comparable to the number of ballots dismissed this year, considering this year's higher turn out. Given these facts, what happened on Election Night in Palm Beach County - a county whose elections are run by a Democrat - is an understandable event. The Democrats who are politicizing and distorting these routine and predictable events risk doing our democracy a disservice. Throughout this process, it's important that no party to this election act in a precipitous manner or distort an existing voting pattern in an effort to misinform the public. Our nation will be best served by a responsible approach to this recount. This recount will be watched around the world. Its outcome should not only serve as a testament to the strength of our democracy, but also a reflection of how each candidate deals with a matter of the utmost national importance. We remain confident that Governor Bush will win Florida and become the elected President of the United States." ......" FoxNews 11/10/00 "...... Fox News this morning stated that the possible strategy of the Gore camp is to bind the election in the Florida courts until December 18th when the electoral college formally meets. This would prevent Florida's votes from being read into the record. Gore would win both the electoral and popular vote and could state a mandate to govern! ....." Boston Globe 11/10/00 David Nyhan "...... YOU CAN GET cheated in politics, as in life. No system is

foolproof or perfect or absolutely fair. Life is a sloppy, slippery, disorganized business; politics even more so. So regardless of the fact that Al Gore got more votes nationwide Tuesday night than the other guy, rules are rules. It may be an anachronism, but the Electoral College rules are how we play the game. ..... If it were the other way around, with Gore prevailing in the electoral vote, I'd be making the same argument. ..... What do I think will happen? I think Bush will probably eventually be declared the winner in Florida when the absentee ballots are tallied Nov. 17. There's no practical way to rerun the election, either for Florida as a whole or for the Palm Beach County voters either, without massive expense, confusion, vote-rigging, intimidation, and even violent criminal acts. ..." IMUS 11/10/00 Freeper Yaya123 "..... Mary Matalin was on a tear! She said she can't believe the media is fermenting this lie..the lie that the votes of 1900 Floridians didn't count because their ballots were disqualified. Mary Matalin said most of those voters who made mistakes on their ballots, got another ballot and voted again. They were not disinfranchised, as Gore Camp, Jesse Jackson, and the media would have you believe. THEY GOT TO VOTE!! She said, of course their first, disqualified ballots were thrown into a pile...that's the 1900 ballots the media and the Gore camp keep talking about. But most of them turned around and did vote. ... See how misleading this is? Matalin said she can't believe the media is not reporting this correctly. She said, with no trouble at all, she found a poll worker from one of the precincts in dispute, tell Mary that during the course of the day, she had people come to her, say they had made mistakes on their ballots, so they were given new ones. Their first ballots were then put into the pile of other disqualified ballots. ....." St. Petersburg Times 11/10/00 Edie Gross ".....Vice President Al Gore's lead over Texas Gov. George W. Bush widened by 478 votes in Pinellas County on Thursday, the second-largest change of any county in Florida's dramatic recount of presidential votes. ...."What happened was there were several times election night when a card-reader operator did not follow proper procedure," said Pinellas Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark. "Someone made a serious error, several serious errors." ...... One election worker overlooked at least 1,125 absentee ballots during the first count, Clark said, and another election worker apparently counted some ballots twice. .....The change caught the attention of the Bush camp, which sent Pinellas elections officials a letter questioning the new totals. .......In Pinellas County, Clark traced the problems to five batches of absentee ballots. There were 40 types of absentee ballots in all, each different depending on which elections the voter was allowed to participate in. ... One of those absentee ballots covered voters in the Democrat-heavy southern part of the county. While there were 1,555 ballots in that batch, only 430 were put through the ballot-reading machine on election night, Clark said. ...... The opposite problem occurred with a second type of absentee ballot that covered mostly north county residents, who generally are more Republican. In that case, another worker counted 1,782 ballots when only 1,398 existed. Thus, 384 were counted twice. ....Bush lost some votes when those twice-counted ballots were removed during the recount. ......Republicans, who traveled from Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, on Thursday to watch the second recount in Pinellas, were not happy with Clark's explanation. Today, several plan to compare a list of voters who requested absentee ballots to the stack of ballot envelopes received. ......,They want to make sure that no ballots were submitted for people who did not request them. ......" Albuquerque ABC Channel 7 Freeper CedarDave "..... The wait continues for the NM results. The latest is that while the results of the remaining 40,000 early voter ballots were about to be entered into the computer, someone noticed that there were about 250 more votes cast (from the signature pages, I assume) than there were ballots totaled. Everything stopped, the counting ceased, the sheriff's office secured the warehouse, and this morning they will be looking behind the copy machine for the "misplaced" ballots. It will be another long day in New Mexico. ...." AP 11/10/00 "......Recount results from all 67 of the Florida's counties gave Bush a lead of 327 votes out of nearly 6 million cast, according to the unofficial AP canvass. The original final margin had been reported at 1,784. ......AP interviewed county election officials to get the recount totals for each candidate. The final county, Seminole, finished its recount in the pre-dawn hours. ...... The official recount lagged behind, and Secretary of State Katherine Harris said it could be as late as next Tuesday - a week after the election before the state certifies ballot results from all counties. She also pointed out that it would take even longer at least until Nov. 17 - to tabulate ballots cast by Floridians overseas and postmarked by Election Day. Harris said Bush had 2,909,661 votes to Gore's 2,907,877, a difference of 1,784. The totals from the AP canvass were: Bush with 2,910,198 and Gore with 2,909,871. ......" San Francisco Chronicle "......After lying low for over a day -- eons in the life of a political spin cycle -George W. Bush's campaign struck back hard yesterday to insist on the legitimacy of Tuesday's election. The response was delayed until well after the morning airwaves had been filled with assertions from Vice President Al Gore's campaign that the Florida election results were dubious and that the Texas governor lacked the moral authority to govern. ...... Bush officials set out to claim two essential points: that Bush had won the election fair and square, and that the Gore campaign and its Democratic surrogates were engaged

in an unseemly and dangerous campaign to undermine democracy itself. "The Democrats, who are politicizing and distorting these events, risk doing so at the expense of our democracy," declared Don Evans, Bush's campaign chairman. "Our process calls for a vote on election day. It does not call for us to continue voting until someone likes the outcome." ...... Even as the Florida recount showed the race narrowing, the Bush team insisted that the Texas governor won the election Tuesday and that his victory will be confirmed by the recount. ......" NewsMax 11/10/00 Dan Frisa "...... Now we see the lengths to which the Gore camp will go to steal the election in Florida. It turns out that Andre Fladell, a supposed "confused" Palm Beach County voter, who was trotted out to the media as someone who inadvertently cast his ballot for a candidate other than his choice, is a long time Democrat activist. Fladell, in a story by New Times Broward-Palm Beach Online in December, 1999, said "Politics is the greatest challenge. It's where the best and the worst in people comes out. You get the adrenaline of war without having to physically hurt anyone." The local publication also observed: "When he's not re-aligning patients spines and stomping volleyball opponents, he's advising candidates and elected officials in Palm Beach County, mostly Democrats, on how to crush their election foes and steer government decisions their way." ...... LOOK AT THE LINE OF BALONEY HE FED TO THE GULLIBLE MEDIA YESTERDAY, AS REPORTED BY CNS: "I voted for the second punch hole and for the second name," said Fladell, thinking he was voting for Gore. In reality, he believes he voted erroneously for Buchanan. Fladell, a 52-year-old chiropractor who moved to Florida from New York City 22 years ago, admitted he didn't pay close attention to the ballot. "I never looked at it," he said, noting that some of his acquaintances also complained about the ballot. "I leave the voting booth, and I go to the beach, and I'm with my friends. They say, 'Boy, that was the toughest ballot I ever saw,' and I'm laughing because I'm thinking they're not too bright," said Fladell. "Turns out I wasn't too bright." ....." AP 11/10/00 David Espo "..... The election is over but the campaign continues in the improbable 2000 presidential race, with Al Gore and George W. Bush raising funds for legal battles, waging a public relations struggle and deploying waves of lawyers and political aides to Florida, site of an intensely watched recount. ...... "Contrary to claims being made this morning by the Bush campaign, this election is not over," Gore said in a statement released early Friday. "Again, we want the true and accurate will of the people to prevail, and that means letting the legal system run its course." ........ Republicans continued to urge Gore to drop his challenge of the results, although Florida officials said it could be as late as next Tuesday before the state certifies ballot results from all counties. Further, it could take until Nov. 17 to tabulate ballots cast by Floridians overseas. ....." AP 11/10/00 David Espo "..... Former Sen. Robert Dole, appearing on CBS' "The Early Show," said, "I think if I were Al Gore, and I know him fairly well -- we've had a count, we've had a recount -- it's time for him to say the election is over, let's go on with the business of America. The recount was held. Bush is still the winner." ....... Not counting the Sunshine State, Bush had won 29 states for 246 electoral votes. Gore had won 18 states plus the District of Columbia for 255, with 270 needed for victory. "We hope Vice President Gore and his campaign will reconsider their threats of lawsuits or still more recounts, which could undermine the constitutional process of selecting a president and has no foreseeable end," Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said in a statement. ...... Palm Beach County agreed to hand-count ballots in three precincts on Saturday. Volusia County also has agreed to conduct a hand-count beginning Saturday, running 24 hours a day. ....... The Bush campaign sent a letter to Palm Beach County asking election officials to double check their ballot figures because they are different from the campaign's review. The campaign also opposes the hand counts because "with human contact, it's one more step down the slippery slope," said spokesman Ari Fleischer. ....... Republicans expressed outrage at the Democratic demands, but suggested they might seek recounts in Iowa and Wisconsin, two states where Gore won narrowly. Oregon, still counting, was so close that the secretary of state said the likelihood of an automatic recount was "pretty high." ....... The state GOP in New Mexico was considering legal action in the vote count there. In New Mexico, the margin of difference between Bush and Gore was slim -- by Thursday, 99 percent of precincts had reported, with Gore leading Bush by 6,825 votes in a state where more than 557,000 votes were cast. ........" AP 11/10/00 David Espo ".....Eight lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts to challenge the Florida results, including six in Palm Beach County and two in Tallahassee. Democratic Party-backed lawsuits won't be filed until next week, party officials said. ........ Several Republicans, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that in private telephone conference calls, the Bush campaign had been told by governors and congressional leaders they were being outmaneuvered by the Gore camp in the public relations campaign. "They're willing to blow up the entire election," Michigan Gov. John Engler said of the Democrats, after participating in one call. ...... The Bush campaign promised to be more aggressive, these sources said, and within hours, officials began appearing on television to denounce Democrats for attempting to rerun the election until it came out the way they wanted. ......" AP 11/10/00 David Espo "..... According to one Democratic attorney who worked with the DNC and Gore

campaign, the party is backing lawsuits in state court because there is a significant body of Florida law concerning election challenges. This attorney, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the legal standard is "reasonable doubt," which he described as not a very high threshold. ......." CNSNews 11/10/00 Susan Jones "......The Washington Post, a newspaper that endorsed Al Gore, Friday chastised the Gore campaign for recklessly suggesting that the election will be illegitimate if George W. Bush is declared the winner. ....... Likewise, an editorial in Friday's New York Times says, "Vice President Al Gore has escalated the atmosphere of combat surrounding the presidential election results with his decision to go to court in Florida."....... The Post editorial also criticizes some in the Gore campaign - and Gore himself "by proxy" - for suggesting that Gore's small lead in the popular vote gives him "superior status" - "a greater right" to contest the electoral outcome in Florida. "The electoral vote is what matters," the editorial says. ...... The lead editorial in the New York Times says it is "worrying" that the Gore team - led by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher - "would announce their support for a lawsuit while the mandatory recount is still going on and while seven days remain for the arrival of overseas absentee ballots."......" Albuquerque Journal 11/10/00 Chaka Ferguson ".....With a judge expressing fear the presidential election in New Mexico had been compromised, the state's most populous county withheld the release of final tabulations Friday and Republicans threatened legal action over the fate of 252 unaccounted-for ballots. ...... Bernalillo County election officials planned to reconvene at 10 a.m. to try to resolve the discrepancy. ...... As officials went over vote tallies from some 38,000 early-voting ballots, the 252-vote discrepancy was uncovered early Friday in a process closely monitored by Republican, Democrat and Green party representatives and state District Judge Theresa Baca. .....Asked if the discrepancy would compromise the election, Baca said: "I think there has been a compromise already." ..... County officials did not release the tallies of the early voting ballots. ...... Without those early voting ballots, unofficial results in the presidential race in New Mexico showed Democrat Al Gore with a 6,825-vote lead over Republican George W. Bush, 269,773 to 262,948. The tallies do include absentee ballots from Bernalillo County counted earlier Thursday. ....... State GOP Chairman John Dendahl, among those watching the tally, said he believed Bush had been within 252 votes of winning New Mexico, according to information on the ballots he received from the GOP. He said the party was contemplating legal action. "I was stunned to hear her (Baca) say the election was compromised," Dendahl said. "I want to know if Judge Baca believes when she says the election has been compromised, if this election has been stolen from George W. Bush. The news is very upsetting." ......" AJC Online 11/10/00 Bruce Hight http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/today/news_a3b0aa6ca0cde18d00e0.html. ".....Legislative option? ....... It's also possible that, because of the court action, Florida's electors might not be determined by Dec. 18, when the Electoral College will meet to officially vote for president and vice president. In that case, federal law provides for the Florida Legislature to decide on some other method to choose the electors, said Suzanna Sherry, a constitutional law expert at Vanderbilt University. ...." Freeper Pfesser adds "....I checked the Florida legislative page and both houses are controlled by Republicans. ...." AP 11/10/00 Anne Gearan "......The recount is just the beginning. Amid continued turmoil over ballot confusion and alleged voting irregularities in Florida, America's presidential tossup may be decided at the bench instead of the ballot box. ...... ''There are a number of ways for one side to challenge the results but the other side can do the same thing. This is not a unilateral process,'' said Jan Witold Baran, a Washington election lawyer. ''This has the potential for tit-for-tat and mutual assured destruction.'' ....... Election lawyers said court challenges almost never overturn election results, although losing candidates successfully have sought recounts and vote adjustments. ...... Although election lawyers were skeptical that Democrats have much of a case, some legal challenge seemed all but certain Thursday. ......... Gore campaign chairman William Daley said one possibility is a lawsuit seeking a new election in the heavily Democratic Palm Beach area, site of the most dramatic allegations of voter confusion and illegal ballots. Another option would be a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming voting rights were violated by the makeup of the ballot, or any number of alleged polling irregularities. ...... In either case, Democrats would have to convince a judge that irregularities were severe enough to alter the election outcome. ......" AP 11/10/00 Anne Gearan "...... If Democrats did win a lower court challenge, appeals could eventually take the case through Florida appellate courts and to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Florida lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said if Democrats decide to sue they would try to show irregularities in West Palm Beach through statistical comparisons with other counties and through witness testimony. ''If something is filed, it will be as quickly as possible,'' he said. ''It's going to happen fast.'' ....... " Detroit News 11/9/00 "..... For the sake of the nation, Vice-President Al Gore must call off legal challenges to the Florida election results . For the sake of the democracy, Al Gore must tell his supporters they must live with defeat, if that's what voters deliver. For the sake of the Constitution and the future of the world's greatest Republic, Al Gore must stop. Mr. Gore and the Democratic Party have chosen to take the path of

victory by any means possible, including using the legal system to subvert the ballot box. ...... That is the desperate act of a man so determined to become president that he's willing to divide the nation and throw into chaos America's sacred tradition of an orderly transition of power. ......Politicizing the counting of votes and allowing the campaign to carry beyond Election Day is not only outrageous, but unprecedented, dangerous and disrespectful of a process that has preserved democracy in this nation for more than 200 years. ....." FoxNews 11/10/00 Freeper Leroy S Mort "..... James Baker on Fox: Recount has confirmed Bush won..subject only to count of absentees, which traditionally favor Repubs. More and more recounts just offers more chance for error. State of Fla has a procedure for contesting ballots BEFORE the election. rehashing that Dem designed it and did not complain. Vast majority cast legit votes. Our lawyers have confirmed the legality of ballot. Unmarked ballots are never counted in an election. Cant guess the voters intent. No jurisdiction in America would accept those as valid. In 1960 and 76, Nixon and Ford put the interest of the country first. What if we insisted on recounts in WI or Iowa or NM? Let the country think about whats at stake...Theres no reasonable end to this process. We will vigorously oppose the Gore campaigns efforts to recount over and over until it likes the results. This should end. ......" Freeper Faith 11/10/00 ".... I admit he was powerful. No backing down. Bush still ahead after the recount. Gore needs to accept this for the good of the country. Hand counting only leads to more errors than machine counting. Two thirds of presiding officials in the recount were Democrats. Challenges could be made in several other states where Gore won but the count was very close. However, it is not good for the country for this process to be continued. How many times would recounts need to be repeated until it is a number that satisfies Mr. Gore? It is time to move on. ....." Freeper tame 11/10/00 ".... BAKER [TO A REPORTER]: "Do you want an answer, or do you want to make a speech?" ...." Freeper djf 11/10/00 ".... He also focused on the fact that the Gore campaign has demanded yet another set of recounts for counties that coincidentally were high democratic and showed wide variances in Gore's favor following the first recount ....." Freeper tree of Liberty 11/10/00 "..... Not only that, he said he knows why the numbers have not been certified from the counties with the large swings to gore on the re-count. Hmmmm, just what could he mean me wonders ;) ...." Tree of Liberty "Not only that, he said he knows why the numbers have not been certified from the counties with the large swings to gore on the re-count. Hmmmm, just what could he mean me wonders ;)" Freeper Wayfarer ".....Because during the recount they found votes where the candidates name had been circled in pencil, instead of the hole actually being punched (according to a reporter asking questions at the news conference). Florida law states that the hole MUST be punched out... that circling the name in pencil invalidates the voting card. I suggest... that Baker was so firm and adamant in this newsconference was because they KNOW that the recounts in the counties where LARGE gains were made by Gore WILL BE DISCOUNTED IN THE FINAL STATE CERTIFICATION. Basically what Baker was saying was.. "You don't want to go down this path, Gore...you will lose and be made more of a fool than you already are. " ..." New Mexico Freeper js1138 "....NPR (!!) reported this morning at 8:30 that only 150 votes separated the outcome, and they had misplaced 250 ballots!!!! ....." Freeper pilgrim adds "....Just heard on KKOB with Larry Ahrens, John Dendahl (the Republican State Chairman) stated that according to his numbers 251 votes are missing and Gore is ahead by 164. If I voted straight Republican ticket, I would want to know if my vote was counted or is one of the missing. ...." Freeper lowteksh (Florida) "...I twas reported that 3000 were sent out and about 2300 are expected to be returned. However, they also said that they are expecting about 1000 from Israel. Are these also diplmatic or military or just foreign expatriots? On MSNBC this morning they reported that only 200 people from Israel were registered to vote in the Florida election. ...." CNS News 11/10/00 Justin Torres ".....Andre Fladell, the Palm Beach County, Fla., resident who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking a new presidential vote in his county because of an allegedly confusing ballot, is a longtime Democratic operative in the area who advised Democratic Senator-elect Bill Nelson of Florida. Scott Aaronson, a spokesperson for Nelson said he was unable to confirm Fladell's specific role in the Nelson campaign, though he said that Fladell is "a personal friend of the Nelson family." Nelson won election to the Senate Tuesday, defeating Republican Bill McCollum by a 51-46% margin. ...... After filing his lawsuit Wednesday, Fladell told CNSNews.com, "I leave the voting booth and I go to the beach and I'm with my friends, they say, 'Boy, that was the toughest ballot I ever saw,' and I'm laughing because I'm thinking they're

not too bright. Turns out I wasn't too bright." ....... When asked how nearly 270,000 Palm Beach County voters apparently did vote for Gore rather than Buchanan or some other candidate, Fladell speculated that it was because some "people who don't vote a lot have an advantage. People who vote a lot have a disadvantage." ......" FOX NEWS 11/10/00 Freeper Trapper "......Wisconsin GOP Charging Voter Fraud on FOX now! ...." Freeper LurkerNoMore! Adds "....FoxNews & MSNBC carried it.... CNN did not. ...." Freeper JeanS adds "...I just heard the news conference. Milwaukee DA is investigating. People voting at more than one site, one voter in Milwaukee (a H.S. school teacher wearing his school jacket) was given two ballots. Advertisments for Gore in polling places. Much more... " Freeper Longsfor Reagan adds "....I am listening right now. The cigarettes for votes thing is going to bring in federal prosecutors-maybe ...." WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Jon Dougherty "..... A Florida congressman has written to the House Armed Services Committee to request an investigation into why numerous military personnel -- many who are self-proclaimed Republican supporters of George W. Bush -- are complaining that they did not receive requested absentee ballots in time to vote in this year's presidential election....... Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., in a letter to Rep. Floyd Spence, R-S.C., said an investigation was warranted due to "numerous reports that our military men and women were unable to vote in Tuesday's election due to delays in receiving absentee ballots."...... And in subsequent conversations with a Pentagon spokesman, WorldNetDaily has been told that military personnel stationed overseas or away from their state of residence must themselves request absentee ballots from those states. However, Scarborough said personnel he spoke with claimed to have followed standard procedure -- but still failed to receive ballots. "I have personally spoken to several of these individuals who claim they followed normal procedures but never received their ballots," the congressman said...." WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Jon Dougherty ".....Because of sudden changes in assignments or other circumstances, service members "might not get your ballot," Bacon said. "So there will be people who fall between the cracks. It's unfortunate." However, many of the complaints received by WorldNetDaily and Scarborough were from service members who were not in unique circumstances or otherwise unreachable by mail. Also, many who complained said 2000 was the first election year in which they had not been able to get a ballot, even though they had followed standard procedure: * "I'm a frustrated Coast Guard officer who has been trying to secure an absentee ballot from the state of Michigan. I initially requested my absentee ballots for the primary and general election back in February. I received the ballot for the primary, and voted. I never received my ballot for the general election. I began to get concerned and sent a second letter 3-4 weeks ago requesting the absentee ballot to no avail. I am a registered Republican. "My neighbor, an officer in the USN, never received his absentee ballot from Florida -- he's even more upset than me. This seems too widespread to be a coincidence." * "My son-in-law who is an Air Force officer in Iceland did not receive his absentee ballot until November 7, 2000 -- too late too get it postmarked and mailed!! It was ordered well in advance of the election!" * "Failure to receive an absentee ballot didn't just happen to military people overseas. I have a young Air Force staff sergeant who lives next door to us in Montgomery, Ala., who has been complaining about not getting her absentee ballot. And she hasn't gotten a satisfactory answer as to why she didn't get a ballot after requesting one." * "I am a retired U.S. Navy chief. I can tell you flat out 'some' absentee ballots do not get to service members." * "While my husband was registered for South Dakota ... his military absentee ballot never arrived where he was deployed. My husband, an Air Force pilot stationed in Indian Springs, Nev., was deployed 82 days in Bosnia. He was able to receive a magazine sent by me through the postal system (it took one week), and he received two cards from his former boss in South Carolina. The mail sent was at the beginning and end of his deployment to an APO address. Yet, he never did receive his absentee ballot. My husband knows he did give plenty of time to send out for his. I am outraged at how this election has been run." * "I am an instructor at a small community college in eastern North Carolina. Several of my students are the wives and girlfriends of military personnel stationed out of Cherry Point, N.C. Before the election, I reminded every class of students to vote and encouraged them to encourage their friends and family to vote. After the election, I praised the students who took the time to vote. You would not believe how many of those military wives and girlfriends came to me after the election and told me that their husbands and boyfriends had not been allowed to vote because of delays in getting their ballots."

* "I live in Southern Oregon, and my younger brother is stationed in San Diego. He just returned from service in Korea, and he did not get his absentee ballot." Freeper Tree of Liberty 11/10/00 "....Wisconsin press conference going on right now. Has names and numbers of people willing to testify to the vote fraud. Asking for an investigation. Long list of fraud written to district atty. DA is being aggressive in the follow up. Besides "cigs for votes", poll worker after 8pm let more people vote, students who were registered were allowed to vote without id (violates state statutes). Giving precinct locations where fraud occured. Precincts had posters for Gore/Liberman. Understaffed precincts. People given two ballots. Over 600 complaints to date. Any calls for recount must come from the candidate(s). Bush/Cheney have been consulting with Gov. Tompson. ...." Tony Snow of Fox News 11/10/00 Freeper rumrunner "..... Tony Snow of Fox news just stated that taking into account the New Mexico change, Bush is wihin 60,000 votes of popular vote, and the lead is "shrinking rapidly". Tony Snow's word. ....." The Associated Press 11/10/00 David Espo ".....George W. Bush's campaign accused Al Gore on Friday of mounting ``endless challenges'' to a disputed vote count in make-or-break Florida and said the vice president should concede the race for the White House if he loses the state. Gore's top campaign aide countered: ``This election is not over.'' ......... At a news conference in Florida, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Republicans had twice in the past 40 years decided against challenging closely contested elections. ``For the good of the country and for the sake of our standing in the world, the campaigning should end and the business of an orderly transition should begin,'' said Baker, who is Bush's point man in Florida. ...... Earlier, Gore's campaign chairman, William Daley, said, ``The fact of the matter is, this election is in dispute right now.'' ....." The Associated Press 11/10/00 David Espo ".....Not counting the Sunshine State, Bush had won 29 states for 246 electoral votes. Gore had won 18 states plus the District of Columbia for 255, with 270 needed for victory. ...... The incomplete national popular vote totals - as of 10 a.m. EST - showed Gore with 49,145,560 votes, or 48 percent. Bush had 48,947,577, also 48 percent. ...... Even some Democrats began suggesting that Gore be careful not to take his challenges too far. ......Former Sen. Robert Dole, appearing on CBS' ``The Early Show,'' said, ``I think if I were Al Gore, and I know him fairly well - we've had a count, we've had a recount - it's time for him to say the election is over, let's go on with the business of America. The recount was held. Bush is still the winner.'' THE PALM BEACH POST 11/10/00 ".....A circuit judge seized control of Palm Beach County's presidential ballots Thursday, bringing the courts into an election that has made the county the epicenter of a growing political crisis. ..... Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll issued a temporary injunction Thursday night preventing the county's elections canvassing board from releasing the ballots before a court hearing next week. ...... The injunction was requested by Beverly Rogers and Ray Kaplan, two Boca Raton voters who filed a lawsuit saying they and thousands like them were cheated out of their right to vote because the county's two-sided ballot was illegally confusing. ...... After the hand count, all of Tuesday's 461,000 ballots will be rechecked by machine at the request of the Republican Party, suspicious because most of those newfound votes went to Gore and carved into Bush's narrow lead in Florida. One reason for that, a county employee pushed the wrong button while recording votes from precinct 29E, west of Lake Worth, where voters favored Gore over Bush 368 to 23. "The `clear' button was hit instead," said LePore. "It was just an operator error." ......." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/10/00 ".....According to an unofficial Associated Press estimate, Gore trailed by just over 200 votes after a recount of about 6 million ballots in the state. Officially, however, Gore trails by 1,784 votes after state officials confirmed the results from 53 of 67 counties. ...... Palm Beach County was among the 14 counties that have not submitted their totals, and now the county can't approve the vote for state officials before Tuesday's hearing in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Secretary of State Katherine Harris said all counties must submit their ballots by Tuesday, with absentee ballots from overseas being collected until next Friday. ......" CNN (Yep, I couldn't believe it either.) 11/10/00 Freeper DoughtyOne "...... Around 11:45 PST CNN (of all stations) aired a piece that challenged the Gore team's stand on the popular vote claim. The whole emphasis of the presentation was the bogus claim stating that Gore is clearly the choice of the people, and their will should be honored. .......It was stated that this is a bogus claim. Couldn't believe my ears as they stated Bush may yet take the popular vote. They mentioned that California has 1.1 million outstanding absentee votes. The said that New York has 400,000 votes under impound for some reason. And they mentioned Washington has 900,000 votes still outstanding. ...... California's absentee votes may be offset by New York's, but I'm not sure how Washington will go. ...... They went to great lengths to mention that millions of ballots continue to be counted days, if not weeks after the polls close. It was a rather interesting

presentation, and didn't got against Bush on a single issue. ......, One error was included, but it seemed to be one of simple ignorance. They suggested that California absentees might lean liberal, since the state went Gore. But they weren't shaken in their premise. They conveyed very clearly that Bush has a real chance of pulling ahead of Gore in the popular count. ...... Interesting to say the least, from CNN. ....." CNN 11/10/00 "......Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Friday a controversial ballot used in Palm Beach County "fully conforms to Florida law" despite complaints that it confused some voters. ...... "The Department of State has now reviewed the Palm Beach County ballot. Clay Roberts, director of the Division of Elections, and Deborah Kearney, general counsel for the Department of State, have determined that the design and layout of the ballot does conform to the law of the state of Florida," Harris said in a statement. ...... Voters in the county have been complaining that the ballot's "butterfly" layout, with the candidates' names on both the right and left pages and the voting squares in the middle. Some voters said the layout caused them to mistakenly vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan when they meant to vote for Democrat Al Gore. ....." Palm Beach Post 11/10/00 Michael Van Sickler "......More than 7,000 absentee votes from Florida residents stationed overseas still had not been counted Thursday, making them a possible final swing vote in a razor thin race for president. ..... The Palm Beach Post checked with elections officials in 52 counties Thursday and found at least 7,479 votes still were not counted out of 15,230 absentee votes issued overseas from those offices. Those votes must reach election offices by next Friday, according to state law. ...... But the 7,479 number doesn't include large counties like Broward and Pinellas, or counties like St. Johns that are home to large pockets of Navy personnel, the type of profession that would most likely station people overseas. The number of outstanding ballots for these 15 counties wasn't available late Thursday. ........" Mary Ellen Klas, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau 11/10/00 ".....QUINCY -- In a small side-street office of this rural North Florida town, four county officials -- all of them Democrats -- spent seven hours Wednesday examining every pencil mark on 2,073 ballots that had been rejected by Gadsden County's ballot scanning machine to try to reconstruct what the voters meant. ....... The machine was calibrated to reject any ballot that had anything from a stray mark to an extra vote for a candidate. ...... But rather than reject these ballots outright -- as they did in Palm Beach County and many other counties that use punch ballots -- the practice of the Gadsden County canvassing board is to look at each questionable ballot to try to determine the intent of each voter. .... Watson, two other county commissioners and a county judge were the people trying to read the minds of their fellow voters. This county, the most Democratic in the state, cast 16,812 votes in the presidential race, 66 percent of them for Vice President Al Gore. ...... When campaign officials for both Gore and his Republican opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, learned of the uncounted ballots, they dispatched election law lawyers to the tiny town. ..... When the Gadsden officials began at 3 p.m, they suspected the results of their efforts had the potential to change the outcome of the presidential race. When they ended their recount at 10 p.m., they found only 170 additional votes for Gore, 17 additional votes for Bush and the threat of a lawsuit from the Florida Republican Party. ....... "They're not simply recounting the votes they counted (election) night, they're adding ballots by taking into consideration ballots that were not considered," said Ken Sukhia, a Tallahassee attorney representing the Republican Party. .......County officials justified their actions, saying they simply forgot to review the ballots before they certified them to the secretary of state on election night. "It was not done. It should have been done," said Watson. "This is Gadsden County, we get a lot of concerns about the ballot box. We wanted to do it to make sure we had the most accurate count." ......" Reuters 11/11/00 "......In a dramatic turnabout, a recount has pushed Republican George W. Bush into a 17vote lead over Vice President Al Gore in New Mexico, but there are still uncounted votes to be tallied, officials said on Friday. Before the recount of 67,000 votes from Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque and its suburbs, Bush had trailed Gore by 10,000 votes and television networks had projected Gore to be the winner of New Mexico's five electoral votes. ....... Officials said there were still as many as 189 ``emergency'' ballots still to be counted, but that would not concluded until Thursday. ....... Emergency ballots were cast by voters who originally got an absentee or early vote ballot to send in by mail, but then decided to vote on election day with ordinary ballots. The emergency votes would not be counted until officials were certain the voters had not sent in their original ballots, too. ....." FoxNews 11/11/00 "...... The Florida judge who decided to delay certifying the votes cast in Palm Beach County is married to a Gore campaign contributor, raising the question of a conflict of interest as the presidency hangs in the balance. FOX News has learned that Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll is married to Jonathan Low, who contributed $500 to Al Gore's campaign. The first $250 donation was made in February 1999, and a second $250 contribution was made in September. ...... Republican Florida Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart said Saturday that Kroll should recuse herself from the case because of her apparent conflict of interest. ..... The Bush campaign filed an injunction to stop hand recounts from occurring, while the Gore camp claimed it is considering "other options" if the count doesn't go their way. Former Secretary of

State James Baker - representing George W. Bush's interests - said the injunction was needed to "preserve the integrity and the consistency and the quality and the finality of the most important civic action that Americans take." ...... Filed Saturday morning in U.S. District Court for the southern district of Florida, the suit was assigned to a Clinton appointee, Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks. A hearing is scheduled for Monday. ...... Bush said the injunction was necessary. "It would be good for this country to have this election over so that the new administration can do the people's business," he told reporters at his Texas ranch. Baker said a manual count is unfair, as human error becomes a factor. "Machines are neither Republicans nor Democrats and therefore can be neither consciously or unconsciously biased," he said. ........." FoxNews 11/11/00 "......A hand-count generally does change the vote tallies, and the counties in question tend to vote for Democrats. But Democrats claim it is necessary in order to count votes that machines cannot read because the holes are not fully punched through. This leaves "hanging chads," which computers read as a "no vote." According to election officials in Tallahassee, approximately 3 percent of all punch card type ballots exhibit such a problem. Some of the hanging chads likely fell off during the recount, which officials believe explains the net gains of both Bush and Gore. According to state law, chads that are partially punched through but left hanging may be counted as a vote, but those that are fully attached, with only an indentation, may not. ....." AP 11/11/00 "...... As the Bush campaign challenges Democrat-backed recounts in Florida's presidential balloting, it also is sending signals that - if the Florida vote continues to be contested - it may seek recounts in states where Al Gore appears to have narrow victories. ...... The Bush campaign dispatched representatives to Des Moines to try to assess a possible recount in Iowa, where Gore won by 5,069 votes. Possible recounts are also under consideration in New Mexico, Wisconsin and Oregon, where absentee and mail-in ballots are still being counted. ....." AP 11/11/00 "...... Iowa: The Bush campaign has sent two campaign staff members to Iowa to help assess a possible challenge to Al Gore's scant 5,069 vote lead. Republicans have until absentee ballots arrive Thursday or Friday, depending on the county - to seek a recount. ...... ``If they want to start looking at Iowa, then I say, 'Make our day.' We don't have anything to hide,'' said Tom Slockett, the auditor in Johnson County, where 53,400 ballots might be re-examined if a recount is requested. ......" AP 11/11/00 "......New Mexico: Neither party has done anything to suggest a recount would be demanded. But absentee ballots continue to be counted and Bush now leads Gore by 17 votes. Gore had led Bush by 6,825 votes on election night. A recount must be requested within six days of completion of the final canvass. As many as 370 special absentee ballots await counting next week. ...... The latest count included 37,947 early-voting ballots, 1,762 damaged, hand-counted ballots and 257 previously missing ballots discovered in a locked box at the county election warehouse Friday afternoon. ...... " AP 11/11/00 "......Oregon: There are no reports of Bush representatives coming to Oregon to evaluate a possible recount, although Gore leads by fewer than 6,000 votes out of nearly 1.4 million cast. .... With 99 percent of the votes counted Friday, unofficial results gave 702,218 votes to Gore and 696,462 to Bush - a difference of 5,756. A recount would be required by state law if the margin falls to less than one-fifth of 1 percent, or about 2,800 votes. If a recount is called, it is expected to be held in the first week of December. The counting of about 40,000 votes from the state's mail-in balloting resumes on Monday. ......" AP 11/11/00 "......Wisconsin: The Bush campaign has not ruled out a demand for a recount in Wisconsin where Gore led Bush by 6,099 votes out of 2.5 million votes cast. There is no automatic recount in Wisconsin, but a candidate may request one within three business days after the last vote canvass. ...... The state Republican Party said it has received about 800 complaints of questionable polling procedures from around the state, including 600 from Milwaukee County. The GOP has asked the Milwaukee County district attorney to look into the allegations, which include voters getting two ballots or being told they had already voted. ......" Ron Word 11/11/00 "......About 26,000 ballots with more than one presidential candidate or no candidate marked were disqualified in Duval County and never counted, election officials said Saturday. Duval County is as solidly Republican as Palm Beach County is Democratic. Texas Gov. George W. Bush carried Duval County by more than 44,000 votes. Officials said there was no way to know how the nullified ballots affected the race between Bush and Vice President Al Gore. ....... The disqualified ballots represent about 9 percent of the 291,626 cast Tuesday. ......Mike Langton, chairman of the northeast Florida Gore campaign, reacted angrily to news of the 26,000 nullified votes. He said he had learned of them too late to ask for a manual recount, which under Florida law must be requested within 72 hours of the election. He said Stafford had told him only 200 to 300 votes were nullified. Johnson said Langton had misunderstood what Stafford had said. ....... Langton said he had notified the state and national Gore campaigns of the situation. Mike Hightower, who represents the Bush campaign in northeast Florida, said earlier the problems were voter error and not

mistakes on the part of election officials. ....." Freeper rintense ".....I think Gore broke a law! Read these 2 statutes about phone call solicitations in FL! 106.147 Telephone solicitation; disclosure requirements; prohibitions; exemptions; penalties.-(1)(a) Any telephone call supporting or opposing a candidate, elected public official, or ballot proposal must identify the persons or organizations sponsoring the call by stating either: "paid for by_____" (insert name of persons or organizations sponsoring the call) or "paid for on behalf of_____" (insert name of persons or organizations authorizing call). This paragraph does not apply to any telephone call in which both the individual making the call is not being paid and the individuals participating in the call know each other prior to the call. (b) Any telephone call conducted for the purpose of polling respondents concerning a candidate or elected public official which is a part of a series of like telephone calls that consists of fewer than 1,000 completed calls and averages more than 2 minutes in duration is presumed to be a political poll and not subject to the provisions of paragraph (a). (c) No telephone call shall state or imply that the caller represents any person or organization unless the person or organization so represented has given specific approval in writing to make such representation. (d) No telephone call shall state or imply that the caller represents a nonexistent person or organization. (2) Any telephone call, not conducted by independent expenditure, supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot proposal, requires prior written authorization by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal that the call supports. A copy of such written authorization must be placed on file with the qualifying officer by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal prior to the time the calls commence. (3)(a) Any person who willfully violates any provision of this section commits a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083. (b) For purposes of paragraph (a), the term "person" includes any candidate; any officer of any political committee, committee of continuous existence, or political party executive committee; any officer, partner, attorney, or other representative of a corporation, partnership, or other business entity; and any agent or other person acting on behalf of any candidate, political committee, committee of continuous existence, political party executive committee, or corporation, partnership, or other business entity. History.--s. 18, ch. 97-13. 106.1475 Telephone solicitation; registered agent requirements; penalty.-(1) Any person or organization that conducts any business in this state which consists of making paid telephone calls supporting or opposing any candidate or elected public official must, prior to conducting such business, have and continuously maintain, for at least 180 days following the cessation of such business activities in the state, a registered agent for the purpose of any service of process, notice, or demand required or authorized by law and must file with the division a notice of such registered agent. Such registered agent must be an individual who is a resident of this state, a domestic corporation, or a foreign corporation authorized to do business in this state. However, this subsection does not apply to any person or organization already lawfully registered to conduct business in this state. (2) For purposes of this section, conducting business in this state as specified in subsection (1) includes both placing telephone calls from a location in this state and placing telephone calls from a location outside this state to individuals located in this state. (3)(a) The division shall create and maintain forms for the notice required by subsection (1), which, at a minimum, must elicit all of the following information: 1. The name, address, and telephone number of the registered agent. 2. The name, address, and telephone number of the person or organization conducting business in this state as specified in subsection (1). (b) The person or organization conducting business in this state as specified in subsection (1) must immediately notify the division of any changes in the information required in paragraph (a). (4) Any person or organization that violates this section commits a misdemeanor of the first degree,

punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083. History.--s. 19, ch. 97-13. Freeper HeiltoTheChiefNOT! ".....It was also reported that in Fla.(ESPECIALLY Palm Bch.) that REMEMBER TO VOTE and PUNCH NUMBER FIVE POSTCARDS WERE SENT OUT! ..... " Freeper erotome "...... I find this section interesting: (2) Any telephone call, not conducted by independent expenditure, supporting or opposing a candidate or ballot proposal, requires prior written authorization by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal that the call supports. That would be Gore. So much for their blather that the telemarketing calls were in 'response" to a slew of calls from befuddled voters. A copy of such written authorization must be placed on file with the qualifying officer by the candidate or sponsor of the ballot proposal prior to the time the calls commence. Let's see it. We've seen the butterfly ballots on camera. Let's see the actual filing document, including the date when it was filed. ......" Miami Herald 11/11/00 Paul Brinkley-Rogers Tim Henerson "...... More than 7,000 overseas ballots have yet to be returned to Florida, more than enough to turn the corner for George W. Bush or Al Gore -- although no one knows how many will actually be sent back or where in the world they will come from. To be counted, they must arrive by 5 p.m. Friday. ...... According to state law, overseas ballots that arrive after election night are stored unopened in vaults in Florida's 67 counties. They will remain there, uncounted, until the Friday deadline passes. Each county decides when to count its votes. ...... A total of 1,082 ballots went to civilians living overseas. And the largest batch among those -- 44 -- was sent to Floridians living in Israel, where an estimated 10,000 Jews with Florida ties are living. .....Election officials were not sure how many of the ballots from Israel were counted on election night and how many are still out there, or if their senders voted for Gore, as the Democratic Party believes. ..... A Herald survey of 33 counties on Friday showed that 3,975 overseas ballots had not yet arrived in Florida. A Palm Beach Post survey of 52 counties on Thursday showed officials were waiting for 7,429 ballots of 15,230 that were requested. An Associated Press survey of 28 counties found that less than half of the roughly 7,000 ballots mailed overseas had not come back. ...... Okaloosa County Elections Supervisor Pat Hollarn said, ``I expect a sizable number -- at least a couple of hundred -- military votes, and most of those will be Republican.'' ...... Escambia County, where Pensacola naval base is located, still had not received 1,176 ballots sent mostly to military personnel. Hillsborough County was waiting for 518. In Clay County, 195 overseas ballots, mostly military, were locked in a vault. .......``I voted for Bush,'' said Army Staff Sgt. Bill Wyman, who said he was in the Middle East and is from Jacksonville. ``My vote is probably somewhere between here and Florida. That's one vote that could make a big difference.'' In descending order after Israel, Miami-Dade sent out 20 ballots to England, 17 to Costa Rica, 16 to Spain, 13 to Canada and 10 to France. Forty-six percent of those requesting ballots in MiamiDade were Republicans, and 42 percent were Democrats. ......" Washington Post Sue Ann Pressley George Lardner Jr 11/11/00 "...... The scene was similarly chaotic farther north in Volusia County, where election officials were forced today to postpone a mammouth recount by hand of 184,000 votes in Tuesday's presidential election when beleaguered members of their canvassing board were unable to complete a preliminary review of write-in votes. ......... The inspection of write-ins had of this afternoon produced four more votes for Vice President Gore, one more for Texas Gov. George W. Bush and one more for Libertarian Party candidate Harry Browne. One voter proposed "Jesus" for president, but the canvassing board discarded it as an unauthorized write-in. ......" AP 11/10/00 John Solomon "......The Democratic National Committee paid Texas-based TeleQuest to make the calls Tuesday night while polls were still open alerting voters in the heavily Democratic enclave in Florida of possible confusion with the ballots they cast....... "Some voters have encountered a problem today with punch card ballots in Palm Beach County," the script for the call said. "These voters have said that they believe that they accidentally punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate." "If you have already voted and think you may have punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate, you should return to the polls and request that the election officials write down your name so that this problem can be fixed," the script said....... The firm took the names and numbers of voters who said they may have cast an errant ballot, providing the Democratic Party a list of about 2,400 voters in the county who thought they may have misvoted......... If voters were about to go to the polls, the script called for the caller to instruct them to "be sure to punch Number 5 for Gore-Lieberman" and "do NOT punch any other number as you might end up voting for someone else by mistake."......"

AP 11/10/00 John Solomon "......The maneuver indicates that long before Americans awoke to the reality of the Florida ballot dispute, Democrats were already mobilizing voters there. The concern has focused on Palm Beach, where 19,000 ballots were disqualified and hundreds of voters have said they mistakenly voted for Patrick Buchanan while trying to vote for Gore........ Wade Scott, an account manager with TeleQuest, said Democratic Party officials contacted his company shortly before 6 p.m.EST Tuesday to make the calls. With only an hour to go before Florida polls closed, his company mobilized all of its telemarketers to make some 5,000 calls in less than 45 minutes, Scott said. "It was a very short burst of calling for our industry," Scott said. He said only about 100 of the voters in Palm Beach it contacted hadn't voted, and about 2,400 felt they may have made a mistake on the ballot. ....." Freeper jokemoke "..... This is great. More and more reasons Palm Beach County ballots can not be certified. Keep coming up with these examples of confusion. Many thanks go out to the DemocRATS for making the case for us. ....." Freeper First_Salute "...... The stunner in this, is that the script which states that some voters were reporting confusion ... was just that(!), a script! The Democrat Party pre-planned the broadcast of the notion it intended the public to absorb, which was, in the event of the Democrats losing Florida, the script was to prejudice enough voter's. Incredible; until now. ....." Freeper patricia ".... At about midnight last night ALL votes had been counted, and GWB was determined the winner of NM. The Chrm of the Repub Party of NM, John Dendahl was at the 'voting counting' [as were a team of NM Repub] and when the vote counting was completed, the Repub were celebrating and the demos were whining. The 189 'in lieu of votes' that have to be CHECKED on Thurs are votes to be checked to make sure the person DID NOT VOTE TWICE. These votes represent people who voted at the polls, but who had requested absentee ballots. They signed an affidavit at the polls saying they were voting ONLY at the polls and had NOT sent in the absentee ballot. Thurs, officials will check to make sure there was no replication of votes. The number of votes giving the win in NM to GWB varies depending upon which thread you read here. I personally WOULD NOT TRUST ANY NUMBERS GIVEN TO ME BY THE MEDIA ... John Dendahl has MUCHO STREET AND ELITE SMARTS, has lived in NM all his life, so in intimately familiar with the maze on NM politics ... so I'm trusting at this point that he knows what he's doing ... and he says GWB has won NM. ....." I do not have any idea if this info has been released to CNN or not, and I do NOT want to conjecture why they are doing what they are doing. Just before midnight last night, KKOB-AM released the info on GWB winning NM and the Repubs celebrating ... it was an 'on the scene' report which they had been tracking ALL DAY. I listened ALL DAY because I was so vitally interested in how the count of these last votes would affect GWB in NM. I DO NOT use TV as a news source. GWB was supposedly behind by 9,575 on the evening of 11.07.00 ....... " Saturday Night Live 11/11/00 Freeper Inspector Harry Callahan "..... Funniest skit was Al making a National address stating: "The olny fair thing to do is have a revote in the heavily populated African American and Jewish communities in Florida with ballots printed in English, Hebrew, and Ebonics" He went on to say he'd abide by the out come of the vote (even though he won the popular vote - a line used 100 times ) Gore has been roasted in every skit tonight called loser and everything else Tune in for a good laugh Which is the greater mistake, voting for Buchanan by mistake of voting for him on purpose? LOL!! ......" Freeper 11th_VA "....RENO: " I'm declaring marshal Law ..." " we've already had one barbeque in Texas " - ROFLOL !! Gore's getting roasted .. " SNL Inspector Harry Callahan ".... Reno: The voting is not official until I say so. News Commentator: You mean we are under martial law? (martial may have been spelled wrong) Also, Ashcroft used Juigi (may be spelled wrong) Board for the concession to Carnahan......." "Hillary: "I'm used to being one of a hundred" LOL!! " Freeper wrenn1010 "..... Yes indeed, the best rebuke I have seen yet in putting Al Gore to shame and exposing his foolishness. ...." SNL Freeper michaelt ".....They had Al turning the Palm Beach ballot this way and that, saying he had a Harvard degree and couldn't figure it out. He was confused about all the names on the ballot...Gore, Buchanan, Bush, etc. And all the other names...Al, Joe, George, John, John...hey there are two Johns! How can anyone figure that out? He did the personal sob story again, saying that one elderly couple got confused and ate their ballots, another one sent it to Streisand. He said that he would accept the results of the recount if it didn't go his way, but that then he'd contest elections in Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia.... My wife and I were rolling on the floor laughing. It really was brutal! ....." Thomas B. Edsall 11/12/00 Washington Post "......Texas Gov. George W. Bush pulled ahead of Vice President Gore yesterday by 17 votes in New Mexico, a key state in a Republican contingency plan if Gore is

declared the winner in Florida. The battle to win 270 votes in the electoral college has taken on a unique calculus. Florida remains crucial, but the close outcomes in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon are critical in what one Republican operative called a "scorched-earth strategy" GOP officials hope to avoid implementing....... The strategy is to challenge Gore's close wins in Iowa, Wisconsin and, perhaps, Oregon. If successful in Wisconsin with 11 electoral votes and either Oregon or Iowa, with 7 each, Bush could then, under this scenario, still win in the electoral college without Florida's 25 votes.......That depends on keeping New Mexico in the Bush column. If New Mexico flips back to Gore, Bush would have to overturn the outcome in all three other states - Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon - to make up for the loss of Florida........Republicans may be forced to adopt their recount strategy before Florida is resolved, if the dispute there continues for more than 10 days, to meet the deadlines some states have for making formal recount requests......" Yahoo 11/12/00 Carol Giacomo "....Calling the presidential deadlock a ``black mark'' on the U.S. election process, Bush campaign representative James Baker on Sunday increased pressure on the Gore campaign to accept a Republican proposal to resolve the dispute quickly. ..... In an interview with Reuters, the former secretary of state stressed the need for ``finality'' and fairness in the still unresolved White House race. ``You don't determine the winner on the basis of this flawed process (in Florida) where in four predominantly Democratic counties, the election officials make the judgement,'' he said. ...... ``That's not a fair way to determine the results of the presidential election.'' ... Baker told NBC's ``Meet the Press'' on Sunday, ``We would dismiss this lawsuit promptly if they would agree with us to respect the results of the statewide recount (of Florida votes) subject only to tabulating the results of the overseas ballots,'' due to be received by Friday. ``Whoever wins then, wins,'' Baker said. ``We will accept that result.'' ...... Appearing on the same NBC program, Gore adviser Warren Christopher, also a former secretary of state, did not embrace the Republican proposal. But he said he believed the disputed election would be settled in ``a matter of days,'' not weeks. Christopher previously had urged the Bush campaign to withdraw its suit on the manual recount. ....." ***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 11/12/00 "......1) Three media liberals on the weekend talk shows took Al Gore's side and defended his decision to pursue hand counts in selected Democratic counties: Eleanor Clift, Margaret Carlson and Al Hunt. Hunt advocated a "re-vote" for the entire state of Florida. 2) Now we can get around those right-wingers. Newsweek's Evan Thomas wondered of George Bush: "Will he be brave enough" to "sack the right wing leadership" in Congress? James Warren of the Chicago Tribune effused that the divided Senate means no "wacko right-wing Supreme Court nominees......" Original Sources 11/10/00 Mary Mostert "...... For all the suspense and commotion over the year 2000 election and its importance in setting the stage for the 21st Century it did not actually get many more Americans to the voting booth than the lackluster 1996 election. In 1996 97,273274 Americans voted. So far 100,429,893 or only about 51% of the voting rolls voted in this year's presidential race. ....... There are still about a million votes, most of them absentee votes, still to be counted. Yet, media pundits are still making sweeping statements about the election, such as claiming that Al Gore "has won the popular vote." No, he hasn't. At this point, no one has won anything. What we have are a lot of bumbling pundits on TV voicing their opinions about votes that have not yet been counted. ......" TITLE 3 - THE PRESIDENT CHAPTER 1 - PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND VACANCIES TEXT Sec. 5. Determination of controversy as to appointment of electors If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned. SOURCE (June 25, 1948, ch. 644, 62 Stat. 673.) SECREF SECTION REFERRED TO IN OTHER SECTIONS This section is referred to in section 15 of this title. WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Paul Sperry "......Officials in the Pensacola, Fla., elections office say they've been flooded with calls from irate voters who claim they were discouraged from voting for George W. Bush Tuesday when the New York-based TV networks called Florida for Al Gore before polls closed in the state's western panhandle, which is in an earlier time zone. Also, a Republican state lawmaker from Pensacola is rounding up voters who apparently "walked away" from poll lines when they heard the premature news, which turned out to be wrong. Some voters have told the lawmaker they are willing to sue for another chance to cast their vote for Bush, WorldNetDaily has learned. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Republican Party in Escambia County, Fla., has asked his precinct leaders to identify potential Bush voters who reportedly left poll lines because of the erroneous network announcement. Pensacola, home to a Navy base and the Blue

Angels, is the county seat. ........" WorldNetDaily 11/10/00 Paul Sperry "......At 7:49 p.m. Eastern time, MSNBC led the network pack in declaring Gore the winner in Florida. ABC, CBS, Fox and Atlanta-based CNN quickly followed. News first reached voters in Florida's panhandle at 6:49 central time -- with 11 minutes left before polls closed. The news could also have affected those waiting in line after 7 p.m, Gilliam says. .....Most of the Florida peninsula is in the Eastern time zone. But 10 counties, including Escambia, are in the central time zone. ...... Escambia County, which voted about 2-to-1 in favor of Bush, has 69,724 registered Republicans, O'Gwynn says. She's says it won't be known for another week or so how many of them did not vote. ......." ABC News 11/11/00 "......Vice President Al Gore narrowly defeated Gov. George W. Bush in Oregon today, according to unofficial vote tallies released by The Associated Press. .......Even in Oregon, the projected margin is so close that a recount cannot be ruled out. With 99 percent of the votes counted as of Friday afternoon, unofficial results gave 698,252 votes to Gore and 692,279 to Bush - a difference of 5,973, according to The AP. The unofficial results showed Green Party candidate Ralph Nader with 74,156 votes. ...... Paddy McGuire, chief aide to Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, a Democrat, said he got a call at his home this morning from Gore. McGuire said the vice president sounded optimistic. "He said, 'I just wanted to know how things were going there,'" McGuire said. "I said, 'Well, Mr. Vice President, I think we're going to pull it out for you. ......" Freeper 11/11/00 ".... Tucker Eskew, Bush Campaign Spokesman is on CNN right now. He says that there is deliberate mischief in the recount. ....." Hole_n_one ".....Eskew referred to the sudden rule changes made in evaluating the ballots.....chard attachments and such. ....." Freeper Southflanknothpawsis ".....From what I understand it was much easier to claim a "vote" by simply looking to see if light could be seen through when holding it up. Apparently when they switched to actually looking at the broken tags that hold the punch hole, it reduced the number of ballots that were being interpreted as a vote. ....." CNN 11/11/00 Freeper GRANGER "...... CNN just showed a video of the hand counting underway in Palm Beach County. It clearly showed a woman impressing her large thumbnail on a ballot. Such an action could and may have altered the ballot. This is direct evidence of ballot tampering. ....." NewsMax 11/10/00 Christopher Ruddy "......In my short life I have learned that Democrats throw better parties, know how to have fun - and have a penchant for stealing elections. Politics to them is blood sport. That's not true for Republicans. They like to behave like the nice guy........ And that's great - except when you are in a life and death struggle for the future of this country. Bush has exemplified the good guy approach. ....." Fox News 11/12/00 William LaJeunesse ".....But questions are now circulating about some of those voters being unfairly and illegally influenced - even intimidated - by Democratic campaign workers in certain precincts of Miami's Little Haiti. ....... A near-perfect turnout in a heavily Democratic district helped sweep the state's first Haitian-American state legislator, a well-known activist and attorney, into office with more than 80 percent of the vote. The Republican candidate, a political novice, is crying foul, saying his opponent's supporters prodded some voters into voting a straight Democratic ticket. ......... More than 100,000 Haitians live in Miami-Dade County, many of them in Little Haiti. Most are new to America, new to democracy and are unfamiliar with the U.S. election process. That leaves them vulnerable to intimidation, say campaign workers and a prominent Haitian minister. ...... "I believe there should be an investigation into the Haitian vote," said Rev. Phipps St. Hilaire of Christian Churches United. "There were a lot of calls here from people who said there were people who intimidated them." ...... Phipps said he received at least three dozen complaints from constituents that Democratic campaign workers for Al Gore and state assemblyman Philip Brutus unfairly and illegally violated the 50-foot rule around some precincts in Little Haiti. ......" AP 11/12/00 Karin Meadows "...... The totals from the AP canvass were Bush 2,910,195, Gore 2,909,907. Those numbers reflect the latest figures from Palm Beach County. ..... Further complicating the picture, election officials in Polk County said that a rescan of 92 of 163 precincts resulted in a gain of 104 votes for Bush and seven for Gore. These are votes that had not been recorded in the previous count and recount of ballots. ....Election authorities stopped short of making the figures official pending a meeting on Monday to certify the totals and report those to the state. ....." CNN 11/12/00 Freeper Steven W. "..... Volusia County just figured out they can't meet the Tuesday deadline so they're sueing the Florida Secretary of State ....." Freeper Clarity on lawsuits "...... Well, of course, you can never discount what a corrupt official might do, but my assessment asumes that the court would follow the law. The law is unambiguous in these matters, as

courts will not interfere with political processes that are not unconstitutional. The certification deadline has a presumptive, material public policy underlying it as determined by the Florida legislature. If, and it's really very very remote, some judge stays the deadline, I am quite certain that his ruling would be overturned immediately, probably even that same day, by a higher court. ......" after looking at case law "..... This case affirms what I have been saying about the manual recount. The board has discretion to order one, and it's not likely that its decision to order one will be effectively stayed. However, since I first began saying this, several contrary factors have become prominent, notably (1) the absence of any consistent standards by which valid votes are determined during a manual recount and (2) the evidence of differing standards actually being used simultaneously during the manual recount. Thus, I have changed my mind about the possibility of the manual recount being halted by the federal judge tomorrow. I'd still say it's not likely, but it's definitely not impossible. ......" Opinion Journal 11/12/00 John Fund "....... If you would like to know exactly how your next president will be determined, read this Saturday night dispatch from the Associated Press: During the manual count of votes in Palm Beach County, Fla., officials switched tests mid-count to decide the validity of the ballots. In the morning, the canvassing board said that they would count a vote if any of the corners of the bits of paper punched out of the cards called "chad" were punched. The board then decided that they would instead use the "sunlight test" if they could see sun come though an indentation, it would count. About a quarter of the way through the counting, however, a board member determined that the light test was flawed and told the others members to go back to the first test. The change in procedures will undoubtedly slow down the hand count as board members had to go back and recount all of the votes previously counted using the new rules. ....." Opinion Journal 11/12/00 John Fund ".......County Judge Charles Burton, the commission's chairman, urged caution. He put forth a motion to ask the Florida Secretary of State's office for advice before proceeding with a full hand count. But he was overruled. The vote for the complete recount, which came after 2 a.m. today, was 2-1. ....... The two members of the canvassing board are Carol Roberts, a county commissioner, and Theresa LePore, the county elections supervisor. Ms. Roberts is a highly partisan Democrat who met with President Clinton in Palm Beach last year while she was contemplating a run for Congress. Ms. LePore, an elected Democrat, is the designer of the infamous "butterfly ballot" that both Democrats and impartial observers say caused confusion on Election Day. ........ Ms. LePore says she designed the ballot to make the print bigger for seniors, the group complaining the loudest about it. But she sent sample ballots to every voter and all candidates before the election and didn't receive any complaints. Nonetheless, she has come in for bitter criticism. The AP says she "might be the most reviled Democrat in the country" because her ballot "may have cost Al Gore the election." Ms. LePore has gone into near-seclusion and has hired a lawyer to defend herself against lawsuits. ......It is for that reason that Ms. LePore should have recused herself from the decision to launch an unprecedented hand count of all presidential ballots in Palm Beach--and why she should recuse herself from all subsequent decisions about this election. She has a blatant conflict of interest. ....." AP 11/12/00 ".....Al Gore added 36 votes and George W. Bush lost three in a machine recount in Palm Beach County in Florida's disputed presidential balloting. A hand count of selected precincts turned up enough errors in the election night vote to prompt county election officials to debate a complete recount by hand. ...... Election officials said their exhaustive manual recount found numerous differences from the machine count. Palm Beach County official Carol Roberts said the errors point to potentially 1,900 errors county wide -- more than the total margin between Bush and Gore statewide. She requested a manual recount of all ballots in Palm Beach County, where more than 425,000 votes were cast on Tuesday. ....... " Freeper GreatOne 11/11/00 ".....If you go to newschannel2000.com, they have a copy of the injunction papers filed. Bush is attempting to have the Florida statutes regarding recounting declared unconstitutional based upon violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, stating that equal protection and free speech are being violated. The theory is much as Jim Baker said earlier today there is no general standard for determining what is a valid ballot, there is no standard for protecting against human error, this process leads to endless litigation, etc. ....." Freeper piasa "....... Did you see the old biddy give the blonde the evil eye? ROTFLMAO! Biddy really wants to call the vote- it will make those on the board with common sense look bad to the hysterical dem constituency... and make the biddy look like a freakin' queen bee. Others making it clear that it is NOT machine error but incorrect voting by the voters . (My comment- Why should an idiot who couldn't punch out a simple square get a reprieve?) Biddy wants to meet at 10AM Monday morning to discuss... Board has agreed to have a TOTAL recount over this... based on using their democratic-heavy counties as a point to extrapolate for all other counties (even conservative ones! arseholes!)... these people couldn't write a passing-grade school lab error analysis to save their lives. Duvall County's results, should the pubbies reserve the right to recount, extrapolated over the entire state would get a totally opposite result. ....."

Freeper NittanyLion 11/12/00 "..... Ignoring the SecState's office was a very bad move. Perhaps this idiotic woman should have spent a little more time on FreeRepublic today - she may have understood the constraints. ...." Freeper Howlin ".... They won't get that injunction. BTW, wonder how ALL the people of Palm Beach County will like their votes thrown out?? If she doesn't make her deadline, NONE of the votes will count and Bush will win! ...." Freeper bootyist-monk "...... No worries. Dept. of Elections lawyer already told them they are on shaky ground for calling the recount due to voter error rather than machine tabulation error. Woman who certified the machines reiterated that the machine count was correct. No problems with the machines. Dept. of Elections and the Bush lawsuit shut this down on Monday. Bank on it. ......" Freeper rpierce "...... This Roberts woman just stepped on it in front of the entire world. Her ignoring and bypassing the pleadings of the chairman (who is a judge) and the counsel for the Sec. of State/Elections Commission was a major embarrasment; all on camera for the country and the world to see. Somebody forgot to tell her the backroom Democrat tricks and manueverings won't work quite as well in full view of the world's cameras. ....." Freeper Borneo1 "..... Did I understand the representative from the Secretary of State's office right? I think she was warning the committee that the threshold probably had not been met to trigger a full hand recount. ..." Freeper Mr.Breeze "..... I suspect the Sec. of State office will advise them not to proceed unless the entire state recounts. Keeping the ball in the air until Monday morning just gives time for the courts to act. As the rep from the state said, this was voter error not machine error. We cannot allow stupidity to be a protected class. ...." Freeper DigR "..... Just watched that manual recount meeting on CNN re: PBC. Carol Roberts, what an idot. Tried to ramrod the manual recount through. The Chair, the only sane person in the bunch of three, motioned that an advisory opionion be sought be going forward with the manual recount. The FL Sec of State asst attorney for elections noted that the stated statute regarding manual recount had to do with computerized tabulation errors, NOT voter errors. The other two women board members, would hear none of it. In fact, the woman who is not Carol Roberts the wench, seemed so dazed and tired and confused, she had to be told what to say! Anyone else see this? Anyway the manual recount is not set to begin until the board meets at 10AM on Monday to determine the process. The Vote to manual recount: 2 to 1. ..." Freeper FirstFlaBn "...... Relax. Florida Statute 102.168 allows for a more formal contest of the returns in state court. The media has been ignoring this, but you know what to expect out of the media. By this law any taxpayer in Florida can file suit within 10 days of the LAST county to certify its results. Go look it up for yourself. ....." 102.112 Deadline for submission of county returns to the Department of State; penalties.-(1) The county canvassing board or a majority thereof shall file the county returns for the election of a federal or state officer with the Department of State immediately after certification of the election results. Returns must be filed by 5 p.m. on the 7th day following the first primary and general election and by 3 p.m. on the 3rd day following the second primary. If the returns are not received by the department by the time specified, such returns may be ignored and the results on file at that time may be certified by the department 102.166 Protest of election returns; procedure.-(5) If the manual recount indicates an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election, the county canvassing board shall: (a) Correct the error and recount the remaining precincts with the vote tabulation system; (b) Request the Department of State to verify the tabulation software; or (c) Manually recount all ballots. CNN 11/12/00 Freeper CarolAnne "..... Sheez people. Settle down. Remember, any county that is not certified by Tuesday @ 5 p.m. their votes will be thrown out! And it is impossible to finish a hand count by Tuesday of PBC. Quotes from only one of several articles that have reported this: ....."The statute is very clear that if a county's results are not to us by 5 p.m. Tuesday we shall ignore that county's vote, and the counties need to be very aware of that," Crawford told reporters. "Candidates asking for recounts need to be aware of that." Bob Crawford, who replaced Gov. Jeb Bush as commissioner of Florida's Canvassing Commission, said Saturday that if a county misses the state's deadline for certifying results, the entire county's vote will be thrown out. ....." CNN 11/11/00 scooby321 "....... Bob Crawford, who replaced Gov. Jeb Bush as commissioner of Florida's Canvassing Commission, said Saturday that if a county misses the state's deadline for certifying results, the entire county's vote will be thrown out. "The statue is very clear that if a county's results are not to us by 5 p.m. Tuesday we shall ignore that county's vote, and the counties need to be very aware of that," Crawford told reporters. "Candidates asking for recounts need to be aware of that." ......"

Washington Post 11/12/00 Dan Biaz "....... Gore campaign chairman William Daley and former secretary of state Warren Christopher made no . . . promise[s] when they spoke with reporters yesterday after meeting with the vice president for much of the afternoon. For now, they made clear, they will hang tough in the face of Bush's legal challenge. ...... The [Gore} campaign has not ruled out embracing further legal action, particularly involving the Palm Beach vote, in part because no one in either campaign has a clear idea whether the hand counting will significantly change the current margin. ...... But Gore's camp is willing to consider additional legal action - despite the concerns by leading Democrats - in large measure because Daley and Christopher were influenced by what they heard in Florida when they arrived there Wednesday. ...." Sun-Sentinel 9/8/00 Brad Hahn "...... Beverly Green picked up another vote Thursday in her bid for the state House District 84 seat -- but is still 13 short of a chance at victory. Election night results showed the Republican from West Palm Beach had lost her party primary by 14 votes, prompting her to ask for a recount. ....... Computers retabulated the results Thursday and found that she had indeed been shorted by the one vote -- a moral victory, maybe, but not enough to make a difference. Now Green has to decide whether to ask a judge to demand another count. ......Green asked that the votes be counted by hand, but the board unanimously agreed to handle the chore by computer. "It wasn't that close, the manual count is historically when it's single digits," said Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, who joined County Commissioner Carol Roberts and County Judge James Burton on the board. ....." US Department of Commerce ".... Let me say: with the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, it's a challenge to find good people. But we are offering good wages, up to $18.50 an hour. I know census takers are high quality, because there are some former census takers who have gone on to hold high public office -- like county commissioner. In fact, Carol Roberts from Palm Beach County Florida was a former census employee, and now as a County Commissioner is touring all those condos in Palm Beach getting everybody to participate. ....." The Palm Beach Post 7/4/99 Marcia Gelbart ".......They make their decisions in the sixth-floor government chamber in downtown West Palm Beach. But in pursuit of public business, Palm Beach County commissioners travel the state, the country and even the world. Highlights of their recent globe-trotting: the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts, and a Buenos Aires restaurant for dinner and a tango show. ......Altogether, since October 1996, the county's seven commissioners have taken 85 business trips at a total cost to taxpayers of $ 52,566, according to a Palm Beach Post review of county travel records. ....... "An elected official who spends their time wisely traveling can bring home a great deal of knowledge that benefits their constituents," Commissioner Carol Roberts says. Roberts has spent more money crossing the country during this time than any other commissioner: $ 13,319. And the bills are climbing. In the last six months, Roberts spent $ 4,866 - almost as much as she did in all of 1998. .........The travel bug has bitten both Marcus and Roberts especially hard because of their high-level involvement in state and national organizations. ........ On a national level, Roberts says her leadership role has enabled her to make contacts with Washington power-brokers - including Vice President Al Gore, whom Roberts met at the White House to discuss brownfields and Florida's tobacco settlement. Such contacts translate into dollars, Roberts claims, such as the $ 25 to $ 30 million that Palm Tran has received in the last five years........" Freeper Mia T 11/12/00 ".....The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In other words, the laws of a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. The equal protection clause is not intended to provide "equality" among individuals or classes but only "equal application" of the laws. The result, therefore, of a law is not relevant so long as there is no discrimination in its application.......... Generally, the question of whether the equal protection clause has been violated arises when a state grants a particular class of individuals the right to engage in activity yet denies other individuals the same right. There is no clear rule for deciding when a classification is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has dictated the application of different tests depending on the type of classification and it's effect on fundamental rights. Traditionally, the Court finds a state classification constitutional if it has "a rational basis" to a "legitimate state purpose." The Supreme Court, however, has applied more stringent analysis in certain cases. It will "strictly scrutinize" a distinction when it embodies a "suspect classification." In order for a classification to be subject to strict scrutiny, it must be shown that the state law or its administration is meant to discriminate. [The reason for the Gore camp's selection of only DEMOCRATIC COUNTIES was precisely to discriminate against Bush and for Gore.] In order for a classification to be found permissible under this test it must be proven, by the state, that there is a compelling interest to the law and that the classification is necessary to further that interest. The Court

will also apply a strict scrutiny test if the classification interferes with fundamental rights such as first amendment rights, the right to privacy, or the right to travel [or the right to vote]. The 14th amendment is not by its terms applicable to the federal government. ("No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.") Actions by the federal government, however, that classify individuals in a discriminatory manner will, under similar circumstances, violate the due process of the fifth amendment. ("No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.") But if fundamental fairness, the essential arbitrariness of the process, fraud laws, rational thought and the due process and equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution aren't enough to challenge Gore's selective manual recount, then Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts is. ......" FoxNews 11/12/00 Freeper TBBT "..... As per Fox News: Escambia county uses a paper ballot that has arrows pointing to the candidates names. These are broken in the middle an the voter fills the broken arrow in with a pen to (which completes the arrow) indicate the candidate for which they chose to vote for. According to Fox News there were 800 of these ballots that had votes for GWB, but also had the arrow filled next to the "write in" box where the voter also wrote in GWB's name. The counting machines counted these ballots as double votes - but there is now question as to whether in a manual recount that these votes could be counted for Bush. ...." Freeper staytrue from his answering machine 8:14 am Sunday ".... Do you know if your vote in the presidential election counted ? The headlines say Gore won the popular vote, but not the election. That hasn't happened since Rutherford B. Hayes did it in 1876. Bush claims victory, Gore says not so fast. Election day proves to be a wild ride. They say that Florida voters say that balloting confusion, especially in West Palm Beach, resulted in a number of voting error. Reports surfaced indicating a number of voting irregularities. Scores of voters were said to be turned away for not complying with the new requirement that they show photo id. .....Ask the question, did your vote really make a difference. Election experts say successfully challenging the outcome of an election is no easy task. The courts look at two very important standards. Number one, voting fraud, where there would be a conscience intent to change the result of an election or gross negligience on the part of election officials to the extent that there is no reasonable way to confirm the true intent of the voter. Both of those are very difficult standards to enforce, and it takes a lot for a judge to find out that an election was indeed illegal. ....... Another puzzling development surfaced as well, an extraordinary high number of voters, some 19,000 in all, punched their ballots for (inaudible but probably "two or more") presidential candidates. That means those votes cancelled and voided and never counted. There was a computer glitch in Volusia county Florida where 16,000 votes were cast for Gore's talley and subtracted. Also, ballot boxes were left unopened. At least two Bethune Cookman college students with proper id and voter registration cards, were turned away and many other students reported complaints about voting irregularities as well. All of this is happening in a state where the governor happens to be related to the Republican Presidential candidate. Does your vote count? ...." New York Times 11/12/00 William glaberson "...... The Republican decision to sue in federal court appeared to be a strategic effort to take the politically volatile case out of Florida - and possibly the hands of local elected judges - as quickly as possible, experts on election law said yesterday. ....... Federal courts are generally more reluctant than state courts to overturn election results declared by state officials, the legal experts said........ On strictly legal grounds, some of the experts said they were skeptical of the suit's chance of succeeding. They said the long legal history of permitting recounts until a final, ostensibly correct result was reached did not appear open to the kind of challenge outlined yesterday by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. ....... After a ruling by a federal trial- level judge in the case, an appeal would be to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, the same court that was drawn into the Elin Gonzlez battle. The next step would be to the United States Supreme Court...... Federal courts interpret state election laws as well as federal statutes, like the Voting Rights Act. But because they see issues like recount disputes as procedural, they have demanded a high standard of proof before secondguessing the actions of local election officials........ " Yahoo/AP 11/12/00 Karin Meadows ".......Palm Beach County officials ordered an extraordinary countywide recount, by hand, of the more than 425,000 votes cast in the presidential election for Al Gore (news - web sites) and George W. Bush (news - web sites). Gore added 36 votes and Bush lost three in a machine recount of Palm Beach County in Florida's disputed presidential balloting. A hand count of selected precincts turned up enough errors in the election night vote to prompt county election officials to order a complete recount by hand. The vote was 2-1. ..... Election officials said their exhaustive manual recount found

recount by hand. The vote was 2-1. ..... Election officials said their exhaustive manual recount found numerous differences from the machine count. Palm Beach County official Carol Roberts said the errors point to potentially 1,900 errors county wide - more than the total margin between Bush and Gore statewide. ....." Republican National Committee 11/11/00 ".....Voters went to the polls Tuesday and cast their ballots across the country. Governor George W. Bush and Secretary Cheney won the election. We have now had a recount of every vote cast Tuesday in the fourth-largest state in the country, and that recount confirms the results of the original count - Governor Bush won the election. ........ The only Florida ballots left to be counted are those remaining overseas ballots - and if history is any guide, they will only add to our margin of victory. In 1996, for instance, the overseas ballots went 54 percent for Senator Bob Dole, even though he was only winning 43 percent of the vote statewide...... In other words, the election is over, and we won........ Despite this clear evidence, the Gore campaign threatens legal challenges to the results - challenges that would take the decision out of the hands of the voters, and put the decision in the hands of lawyers and judges. In a particularly galling statement Thursday, Gore campaign chairman William Daley suggested that "technicalities should not determine the presidency of the United States" - but the Constitution of the United States is not a "technicality," and it's very clear on the matter. The people have spoken; it's time for the drama to close, and the transition to begin. ......" Republican National Committee 11/11/00 ".....Even some of those on Al Gore's side are beginning to worry about his reaction. Democrat Senators John Breaux and Robert Torricelli, and Democrat U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, have weighed in, suggesting that once the recounts are done, the proper thing would be for Mr. Gore to concede. Even the editors of The New York Times and The Washington Post - the twin pillars of the elite media establishment - have written scorching editorials warning of the dangers ahead should the Gore campaign follow through on its threatened legal challenges..........The time has come for Al Gore to follow Richard Nixon's and Gerald Ford's lead in the interests of our country......" Freeper Amelia 11/12/00 "..... Gephart & Bob Dole on THIS WEEK.... Dole: "the Democrats control the machinery in these counties, and they vote to keep counting until they get the results they want. Very obvious they're gonna keep counting and keep adding votes until they get Gore in the White House." ....." Freeper Risky Schemer 11/12/00 "..... You'll want to catch Baker in the first segment of Meet the Press. He makes an authoritative case, and strongly points out the opportunity increases for error with a hand recount, and not only error, but "mischief". ...." Freeper Amelia 11/12/00 ".... Roundtable: Will: Salutes Algore for putting an 'expert', Daley, in place, and points out that just yesterday the elections commission changed the rules. Steph: In PBC Buchanan got 4X as many votes on butterfly as in absentees. ........ Cokie: Too many wierd things going on. Dems hired telemarking firm to ask voters if they were confused..a lot of them didn't know they were confused til the telemarketers told them they were. NO ONE is going to believe the results of this. ....... Will: "Highly sophisticated vote-manufacturing procedure" ....." Freeper Lazamataz "...... Fox News LAUGHING at the Clymer in WPB who was talking about Pregnant Chad and Dimpled Chad. More and more absurd. Democrats are looking progressively more silly. G-d moves in our life. He is probably giving America ONE MORE CHANCE. ...." "....... Cokie: If Algore had been able to win his HOME STATE of Tennessee, none of us would be having this discussion today. WOW!!!! UNEXPECTED BY COKIE! ....." Freeper Amelia "..... George Will talking about fraud all around the country...90% turnout in Detroit, cigarettes handed out elsewhere, etc... " Freeper bd56 "...... At the bottom of the actual Palm Beach voting instructions. posted in all polling places, if not in all voting booths, its states; After voting check your ballot card to be sure your voting selections are clearly and cleanly punched and there are no chips left hanging on the back of the card" This of course follows the line; "If you make a mistake return you ballot card and obtain another." It would seem to me that any card with "chads" not cleanly punched is invalid!! ....." Freeper Amelia "...... Maybe I'm biased, but I got the distinct impression that Bob was saying the Gorites would keep going until they won, no matter what it took. McCain on now, disappointed that Daley said even if they resolved the FL dispute, they aren't willing to abide by the word of the voters. ....." Freeper Lazamataz "....Little Dicky Gephardt refusing to say the loser of the hand count should concede until Sam Donaldson (off camera) starts LAUGHING at him. He then realises he's losing the audience and quickly concedes. AAAAAAUUUUGHHH! He want's us to TAKE A DEEP BREATH!!!! The LIBERAL CATCH PHRASES HAVE BEGUN!!!! ....."

Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... Palm Beach County, a Democratic stronghold, has been at the center of the struggle over the presidential election. Some voters complained that its so-called "butterfly" ballot was so confusing it caused them to mistakenly cast votes for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore. ......... On Friday, Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Bush had 2,910,074 votes to Gore's 2,909,114, a difference of 960, with one county still to be recounted - Palm Beach County where the AP showed a big gain for Gore. The totals from the AP canvass were Bush 2,910,195, Gore 2,909,907. Those numbers reflect the latest figures from Palm Beach County. The state has been unable to include updated Palm Beach County figures in its tally because a state judge issued an injunction Thursday in response to lawsuits filed by voters claiming confusion over the ballot design. ....... Further complicating the picture, election officials in Polk County said that a rescan of 92 of 163 precincts resulted in a gain of 104 votes for Bush and seven for Gore. These are votes that had not been recorded in the previous count and recount of ballots. ....." Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... Election authorities stopped short of making the figures official pending a meeting on Monday to certify the totals and report those to the state. ......A lawyer for the Republican Party, Mark Wallace, objected to a further manual recount. "It has been pandemonium today," he said. "We vigorously lodge our protest and plead with you not to put the county through that." ..... At times, the recount bordered on the ridiculous. Election officials spent hours poring over individual ballots and disagreeing over the standard used in accepting a vote. ....." Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... In the morning, the canvassing board said they would count a vote if any of the corners of the bits of paper punched out of the cards - called "chad" - were punched. The board then decided that they would instead use the "sunlight test" - if they could see sun come though an indentation, it would count. However, according to a lawyer for the county, there was a problem with the revised standard. Even if one corner was punched, sometimes the sun wouldn't shine through. So, the standard was revised back to the corner rule, according to the lawyer Leon St. John. ......" Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "......Volusia County postponed until Sunday a full hand recount of all the county's 184,018 ballots. Workers sifted the ballots on Friday and Saturday for any write-in votes. The judge will hold up each ballot, show it to the Democratic observer and the GOP observer, then to other commission member. Democrats and Republicans were bringing in more than 100 people each from around the country to witness the process. ....." Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "......About 26,000 votes in Duval County were disqualified and never counted when voters punched more than one candidate on their ballot or failed to vote for president. The county is solidly Republican. ..." Karin Meadows 11/12/00 AP "...... In Broward County, officials said 6,686 ballots were not counted because the computer did not recognize any selection. Broward election officials voted 2-1 to do a hand-recount of three precincts beginning Monday. If there is a change, they also will consider a full hand-recount. ....." Florida Case Law - 13 Fla 55 11/12/00 Freeper mn-bush-man "...... This is an excerpt from an old Florida case, State v. Gibbs. The pertinent portion is as follows: An injunction, restraining a Board of Canvassers from proceeding to canvass and certify the result of an election until the further order of the Judge granting the same, where the statute requires the Board to proceed by a certain day, is unauthorized. ......." Kansas City Star 11/11/00 By the Editorial Staff "..... This newspaper endorsed Al Gore for president because we thought he would make a better president than the less experienced, less intellectual George W. Bush. It is beginning to appear that we gave Gore too much credit. ........ By refusing to shut down the increasingly militant threats of a blizzard of litigation challenging the voting in Florida that left Bush ahead in the unofficial totals, Gore is looking like the opportunist we had hoped he wasn't. ......" Kansas City Star 11/11/00 By the Editorial Staff "..... Frankly, we had thought Gore was a better man than this. His own reputation is suffering increasing damage every day he permits the lawyers to continue their drumbeat of litigation threats. This behavior makes the Democratic Party look like an aggregation of crybabies. ...... Former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat from Georgia who is recognized as an expert on democratic elections around the world, called on both Gore and Bush to exercise patience and permit the vote counting to be certified before taking other action. ......." Kansas City Star 11/11/00 By the Editorial Staff ".....Sen. John B. Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat, said it was unwise for Gore to challenge the controversial Palm Beach results in court. He called on the vice president to let the process continue "to count the votes and respect the decision." Sen. Robert Torricelli, a New Jersey Democrat, has called on Gore to avoid getting mired down in the courts: "I want Al Gore to win the election, but more than that, I want somebody to win this election. There is going to have to be a very compelling case

for anybody to take this into a court of law. "It's a downward spiral. It may begin in Florida, but it can go to other states, and ultimately the presidency of the United States should not be decided by a judge." ......Torricelli is exactly right. This was not, and there have never been, perfect national elections. But if Gore and his supporters really desire to honor "the will of the people," they will muzzle the lawyers and stop insisting on endless re-counts. ......" Christopher Spencer 11/12/00 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette "...... Paul Nolte of Little Rock knows a lot about chad -- the little pieces of paper left after a punch-hole ballot is cast -- but few people cared about it until Wednesday. Now the president of the small Little Rock company, Election Resources Corp., is being interviewed by such big-media players as The New York Times, National Public Radio and MSNBC. Nolte's company sold the software that created and counted the punch-hole ballots in Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida, where Democrats are seeking hand recounts of ballots cast to elect the next U.S. president......... The same style ballot was used in Saline and Hot Spring counties and wasn't a problem, Nolte said. ....... "An error rate of 2 percent to 5 percent, believe it or not, is considered acceptable by most election officials... if the error is evenly distributed across all of the candidates."........ Nolte admitted that hanging chad is a problem but said that most ballots instruct voters to check both sides of the card to make sure all holes are cleanly punched -- putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the voter......" Washington Post 11/11/00 Ron Word "......About 26,000 ballots with more than one presidential candidate or no candidate marked were disqualified in Duval County and never counted, election officials said Saturday. Duval County is as solidly Republican as Palm Beach County is Democratic. Texas Gov. George W. Bush carried Duval County by more than 44,000 votes. Officials said there was no way to know how the nullified ballots affected the race between Bush and Vice President Al Gore. ...... The disqualified ballots represent about 9 percent of the 291,626 cast Tuesday. ...... Mike Langton, chairman of the northeast Florida Gore campaign, reacted angrily to news of the 26,000 nullified votes. He said he had learned of them too late to ask for a manual recount, which under Florida law must be requested within 72 hours of the election. He said Stafford had told him only 200 to 300 votes were nullified. Johnson said Langton had misunderstood what Stafford had said. ....."I sure as hell would have requested a manual recount if I had known 27,000 votes were nullified," Langton said. "We were harmed because we didn't find out in time to ask for a recount." ....Mike Hightower, who represents the Bush campaign in northeast Florida, said earlier the problems were voter error and not mistakes on the part of election officials. ...." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/12/00 Scott Hiaasen "...... The Republicans' legal challenge to a recount of the ballots in four Florida counties will be heard by a federal judge who is a lifelong Democrat with strong ties to Palm Beach County. George W. Bush's lawsuit was filed in Miami on Saturday morning and assigned to U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, a former aide to Democratic Florida Gov. Reubin Askew, who was appointed to the federal bench three years ago by President Bill Clinton. Middlebrooks, 53, is also married to the daughter of former Democratic Congressman Harry Johnston. He, his wife and two children live in Jupiter. ...... "He's probably one of the brightest people I've ever known," attorney Steve Uhlfelder, a law school classmate and Bush supporter, said of Middlebrooks in a 1997 profile of the judge in the Palm Beach Post. ....... He was a member of the state's Commission on Ethics and later headed the Volunteer Lawyer Resource Center, which attempted to find volunteer lawyers to represent Death Row inmates. ....." New York Times 11/12/00 Michael Janofsky ".....Gov. George W. Bush of Texas late Friday night took the lead from Vice President Al Gore in the race to claim New Mexico's five electoral votes with what now stands as the slimmest statewide margin in the country and one of the narrowest in American history. After 257 missing ballots were found on Friday, and Bernalillo County officials here decided to count 379 ballots by hand that had been rejected by electronic voting machines on Tuesday, Mr. Bush led Mr. Gore by just four votes - among nearly 600,000 cast. The count was 285,644 for Mr. Bush, and 285,640 for Mr. Gore, according to totals from the state and the county. "We are very gratified, and all I can say is, `Viva Bush,' " said an exuberant John Dendahl, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, who, with his Democratic counterpart, Diane Denish, had paced for hours in the hall outside the room where the counting was under way. Mr. Dendahl said today that he found no inconsistency in policies toward hand counting in Florida and New Mexico. "..... The vote totals are still unofficial and incomplete. They do not include 189 "in lieu of" ballots from Bernalillo County voters who appeared at polling places on Tuesday, insisting the absentee ballots they had requested did not arrive. Those voters were required to sign affidavits, swearing they were voting only once. But with an obligation to make certain, county officials said they would begin reviewing those ballots today to add the totals to the final state tally. The final numbers, they said, would not be confirmed until Tuesday at the earliest....." New York Post 11/12/00 "...... All eyes are on Florida, where a national election hangs in the balance - and where the Clinton Justice Department might play a big role in resolving the historic dispute. Can Janet Reno's minions be trusted to put politics aside as they go about their duties? Of course not. ......"

AP 11/12/00 Vickie Chachere "..... Polk County elections workers and campaign representatives pushed through a grueling 17-hour day only to find out early Sunday morning that Gore lost a crucial 90 votes from his Election Day total in a single precinct. ..... Polk was completing a routine exercise of reconciling accounting errors in 92 of its 163 precincts. ...... Elections officials said it appears that poll workers counted 90 ballots that had already been scanned at the precinct, but put them in an envelope marked for unscanned ballots. When the envelope was returned to headquarters for a final count, the 90 ballots were counted a second time. ...... The large error put a quick damper on what had been a jovial atmosphere. Workers even took a brief break from the final hours of their counting to catch a Saturday Night Live skit lampooning Gore; the room roaring in laughter at the punch lines. Gore campaign workers quickly demanded to see the voter log books to count for themselves. ........ At the end of the count, Bush picked up a total of 104 votes while Gore could only add seven to his Polk tally. ...... Election authorities stopped short of making the figures official pending a meeting at 10 a.m. Monday to certify the totals and report those to the state. ...." New York Post 11/12/00 "..... Former Secretary of State James A. Baker went to federal court yesterday to stop a burglary in progress. He didn't put it that way, of course. He said he was trying to "preserve the integrity and the consistency and the equality and the finality" of the presidential vote in Florida - and, we would add, not just Florida. ...... Make no mistake: What the Democrats are attempting to do in Florida is steal the election, pure and simple. What happens in the Sunshine State determines who governs the United States of America for the next four years. ...... The vote was counted in Florida - and Texas Gov. George W. Bush won, subject to the opening of absentee and overseas ballots. The vote was recounted - and Bush still won. ...... Now the Democrats are demanding a third bite out of the electoral apple - but this time, it is to be a very selective recount indeed. They want to recanvass predominantly Democratic counties - and only Democratic counties......And they want the recount to be done by hand, a process that offers virtually unlimited opportunity for ballot defacement and other imaginative types of election fraud. ....And get this! They want the inspectors somehow to determine voter intent - as opposed to what the voter actually did. They'll be scouring the ballots for minute dents and depressions that might suggest how a voter would have voted, had they chosen to do so. ....." Freeper truthkeeper ".... A telling moment in the Cokie Roberts/James Baker interview. She asked him, if the court rejected Bush's motion tomorrow, "how far they would go - to the Supreme Court?" He gave her a sweet smile and answered, "Well, there are a lot of options." ...." Freeper Az_Joe 11/12/00 "..... Mark Fleischner, the chairman of the Arizona State Democratic Party, responding to a call-in by an Az Freeper (me) on KFNN radio (1510AM) (Metro Phoenix station) moments ago, stated that should President Elect Bush call for a recount of all FL counties, that "I would support that" He went on to indicate, (responding to my point that counting the over 6 million ballots could take weeks, if not over a month)that THAT was OK by him. Caught the whole thing on tape, kinda ambushed him on a little known, Sunday morning talk show, hee, hee. Hey, you never know where a freeper is lurking, right?! Here we have a Democratic Party Official in support of a total recount of the state of FL, on the record, on tape. Can I get this up into the national media somehow? I got to admit, he came off as fair, although perhaps not to swift on this Sunday morning. ....." NewsDay 11/12/00 Richard Benke ".....With George W. Bush holding a tiny 17-vote lead over Al Gore in New Mexico, state police have begun impounding ballots from Tuesday's election in case they're needed for recounts or review later. The police action comes after GOP lawyers asked the courts to order protection for early voting and absentee ballots cast statewide. ''It's not to impound all the ballots, but all the paper ballots - the early voting and absentee,'' said attorney Mickey Barnett, a Republican official in Albuquerque. ...... He said he and lawyer Duncan Scott planned to file impoundment petitions in all of New Mexico's 13 judicial districts Monday to impound ballots within their jurisdictions. ......''There's no allegation whatsoever in this impoundment issue that there's any fraud or anything,'' Barnett said. ''I think it's much more pro-forma than suspicion. I'd just like to know two weeks from now, if something does happen, that they (the ballots) are all there.'' ...." Washington Post 11/12/00 Ceci Connolly "...... There was no time for a family game of touch football yesterday. Instead, Vice President Gore huddled for nearly five hours with William Daley and Warren Christopher, the two former Cabinet secretaries he asked to oversee a recount of the vote in Florida. With his wife, Tipper, and running mate Joseph I. Lieberman at his side, the man who still believes he will win last Tuesday's election discussed formation of a legal team to appear on his behalf in a Florida courtroom Monday. The group also spoke about options beyond a recount, said Christopher. ......" AP 11/12/00 Ted Anthony ".....There was disgust. There was optimism. There was weariness and, yes, worry -- that the mess might not be resolved soon and that the country is starting to look ridiculous. And now and then, a bit of patience even surfaced. Americans by and large expressed faith in their 224-year-old system

Saturday but, after four days, seemed to be tiring of the electoral impasse that is keeping the identity of their next leader a mystery. Varied opinions seemed to end in similar sentiments -- resolve it correctly, but resolve it. .....``I really wish it would just get settled. We need to move on,'' said Nicole Gregory, 28, of Minneapolis, who doesn't much like either George W. Bush or Al Gore. ....." Miami Herald 11/12/00 Gail Epstein Nieves "..... U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks stunned Miami's legal community last year when -- after six weeks of trial -- he acquitted all three defendants in the Port of Miami-Dade case, one of the biggest local public-corruption prosecutions in years. On Saturday, Middlebrooks was thrust into the national spotlight on an even more controversial case: the Republican Party's request to halt ballot recounts in Florida. ....... Though Middlebrooks was a President Clinton appointee, and in the 1970s worked as counsel to Democratic Gov. Reuben Askew, lawyers who know him say partisan politics would never influence his legal rulings. ....... ''He was very courageous in the Carmen Lunetta case,'' said attorney Donald Bierman, whose client, former Port Director Lunetta, won acquittal. ''He is a very bright, studied judge who pays attention to the law and the pleadings. I would not expect Donald Middlebrooks to be politically motivated or to decide a case on anything other than the law.'' ....." NewMax 11/12/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Radio and TV blared the news all Saturday afternoon: A Newsweek poll shows Americans believe it's more important to make certain the presidential vote has been fair and accurate than to resolve matters as soon as possible. ......Translation: The Gore team should continue with controversial hand recounts in Palm Beach Florida and other heavily Democratic counties in the state and the Bush campaign should stop squawking about it. .......But a closer inspection of Newsweek's survey shows that in fact respondents actually favored the position currently argued by the Bush campaign, not the other way around -- even though Newsweek oversampled Gore voters and included people who didn't even vote. ......,, A full 61 percent of those queried say both presidential candidates should accept the results of the state mandated recount after all the absentee votes are counted next week. Only the Gore campaign continues to hold out the possibility of legal action if the recounts and absentee vote doesn't go their way ....." Real Clear Politics 11/11/00 John McIntyre "..... Over the next 24 hours senior Democrats and liberal newspaper editorials, including the NY Times and others, essentially told the Gore campaign to back off this litigious approach. Realizing their "win at all cost" mentality was not going to sell even with their own supporters, the Gore campaign made the only decision they could and took the position that "we will just have to continue to recount these votes until we get enough to win." ...... Having lost the first two counts, the Gore campaign is now pushing for a third count, this time by hand, in four overwhelming Democratic counties. Is there any doubt who will be ahead in the state of Florida after this third "hand count?" The Bush campaign, fully aware of the likely outcome of these "hand counts" in pro-Gore counties, today filed a Federal injunction to prevent this third count. The press has had a field day telling the America public how the Bush campaign has gone to court to prevent a "fair" count of the vote in Florida. As a result, with the cooperation of the gleeful national networks, this whole process will descend even further into a sickening public relations campaign and legal quagmire........Someone has to stop this madness, before it spirals out of control. The national press with their ridiculous and terribly biased call of Florida on election night, has proven their inability to fairly present the facts to the American people. The networks act like this is a game, just a continuation of the horse race for the Presidency. It is not........ ....." Palm Beach County Announcement 11/12/00 ".... IMPORTANT INFO For those FReepers who were asleep when the Palm Beach Canvassing Commission released their results late last night / early morning - the results revealed apparent "mischief" during the hand count! ...... Bush / Cheney folks insisted on a mechanical count to immediately follow the handcount. During the handcount, Palm Beach counters "found" 30+ votes for Algore that the machines, which were claimed to have not been detected during either the prior count & recount. ........ Then, after the hand-job, voila - the machines began recognizing the (same) extra 30+ ballots for Algore. The only possible inference is that the 30+ ballots were tampered with, most likely detected originally as blank / incomplete or non-fully punched ballots that they "completed" for Algore. ....... The machines are, indeed, very sensitive and picked up the changes to the ballots and these (apparently changed / tampered) ballots were immediately detected in the mechanical recount following the handcount process. It also bears mention that after the hand-job, Bush LOST 3 votes (meaning, while within possible realm of error, given such apparent tampering, they'd seemingly screwed some of his ballots, or double punched, tampered with, etc., during the handcount, as well) Observations reported late last night / early this morning by FReeper DrKnow: 1% of the ballots were manually counted. These ballots were then included in the complete machine revote. The manual recount for Bush was +14 The machine recount for Bush was -3

The machine recount for Bush was -3 The manual recount for Gore was +33 The machine recount for Gore was +36 Newsmax 11/12/00 Carl Limbacher "....If Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris sticks to the vote certification schedule that she announced on Thursday, the Gore campaign's plan to use hand recounts to overturn the presidential election will likely fail. ...... Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," Gore campaign manager Bill Daley sounded concerned that Secretary Harris could derail the hand recount gambit. BLITZER: If (Harris) certifies on Tuesday that Bush has won based on the original recount, is that going to be accepted by the Gore campaign? DALEY: Oh, I think it's a question because you have legitimate legal hand counts going on. Now, of course, tomorrow if the Bush campaign's legal actions are successful, that's a different situation. But the fact is right now you have legally approved recounts going on by hand in four counties. And I think to certify while there's still a question as to a vote in a county would seem to me to be innapropriate. BLITZER: So you're asking her to delay any certification until the hand counts are completed? DALEY: I think that's a realistic question to be asked of her at some point is how do you certify if legally approved hand counts are still going on. Less than an hour after Daley made his comments, the Palm Beach County election canvassing board, which is in charge of the hand recount, announced it would sue Secretary Harris to extend the state's legally mandated deadline past 5 p.m. on Tuesday. ....." Washington Post 11/12/00 Dana Milbank ".......Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. ....... But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters........It was the beginning of a week-long tragicomedy of errors in this central Florida county, where an initial count showed Gore beating Bush by 97,063 votes to 82,214. Volusia's mess is in some ways more damning than the mix-up in Palm Beach County, where controversy has centered on a confusing ballot design. .......On election night, six precincts couldn't transmit their results because of computer problems, and the county's returns were delayed until 3 a.m. About that time, sheriff's deputies were dispatched to find an election worker who had left the ballot collection area with two uninspected bags..........Wednesday, when county officials were attempting a recount in front of TV cameras, an elderly poll worker walked in with a bag full of ballots that had been left in his car the previous night.........By Thursday, the elections office was surrounded by police tape, and a local Bush official was thrown out of a meeting for getting too rowdy.......Friday, county workers found a ballot bag in their vault without a seal, another with a broken seal and a third on a shelf with ballots spilling out. Meanwhile, dozens of black students from a local college complained they were turned away from polling stations even though they were registered to vote......... In some ways that is not surprising. The county, which encompasses Orlando bedroom communities on bustling Interstate 4, Daytona Beach and a growing population of Hispanics and northern retirees, was known decades ago for shootouts, ambushes and stolen ballot boxes at election time. "We have a sordid history of election fraud in this county," Circuit Judge John Doyle wrote in a 1997 ruling........" Associated Press 11/12/00 Ron Fournier "....The legal skirmishing quickened Sunday in the overtime race for the White House as Republicans warned that painstaking recounts in Democratic-dominated counties expose Florida to political "mischief" and human error. Democrats said they expect America's next president will be determined "in a matter of days - not weeks, not months." ...... In Deland, Fla., Volusia County officials began a manual recount of all 184,018 ballots, despite Bush's pending request to stop it. With Democraticladen Daytona Beach included, Gore's team hoped to pick up more votes. Polk County, Fla., officials, rescanning ballots by machine for a third day, found an additional 104 votes for Bush and seven for Gore. Home to Lakeland, the county went for Gore. ......." Associated Press 11/12/00 Ron Fournier "....Bush's legal team planned to argue Monday before a Clintonappointed judge that manual recounts in only four of 67 counties would constitute unequal treatment under the 14th Amendment. Baker suggested that Democrats who control the four counties could play favorites. "It's all subjective, and therefore it presents terrible problems of human error and potential for mischief," Baker said. ........ If Bush fails to win an injunction against the manual counts, a prospect that even GOP

officials say is likely, his next step would be fateful. Senior strategists say Bush is likely to seek recounts in some GOP-dominated Florida counties if the Gore-backed recounts and overseas balloting put him in danger of losing the lead. ........ Baker threatened to demand recounts in close-voting states won by Gore, such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon - or too-close-to-call New Mexico. ...."If the Gore campaign is going to continue to call for recount after recount after recount until they are satisfied with the result, we may be forced to suggest there may be recounts in all these states," Baker said. ......" Associated Press 11/12/00 Ron Fournier "....Overseas ballots are due at Florida election offices by midnight Friday. State officials plan to count them quickly, but have not announced a schedule. If Gore still trails when those totals are published, he might be inclined to concede. Already, aides and allies are telling Gore that he would be positioned well for the 2004 campaign if he concedes with grace - a move that might help shift the perception among many voters that he would do anything to become president. ........ Still, Christopher left open the possibility of legal action if Gore trails after the overseas ballots are counted. ...... Not counting the Sunshine State, Bush carried 29 states for 246 electoral votes. Gore, who added Oregon to his column on Friday, counted 19 states plus the District of Columbia for 262 electoral votes, with 270 needed for victory. Bush led in New Mexico but the state remained too close to call. Its five electoral votes would not be decisive. ....." ABC News 11/12/00 "....ABC News is reporting the State Official for Florida has refused to extend the Tuesday deadline and the 4 counties wishing to do manual recounts are suing to extend it. ...." New York Post 11/13/00 ".....THE theft of the presidency proceeds apace. A hand count of electoral returns has either begun or is about to begin in several heavily Democratic Florida counties - a shockingly subjective undertaking, front-end-loaded to deliver the Sunshine State, and thus the White House, to Vice President Al Gore. ..... But before that happens, the veep and his high-powered sidekicks need to think long and hard about what they'll do with a presidency that would amount to stolen property. That is, a presidency devoid of moral authority to govern - a prescription for civil dissonance that will make the Clinton years seem like small beer in comparison. ......We understand that the counting of ballots is part of the political process - that politicians are, of necessity, involved. But too much is enough. The "recount" is swarming with Democratic Party operatives - not one of whom had the decency to do what George Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, did at the outset: recuse himself to avoid the appearance of impropriety. .....By now, all America has seen the result: the Florida "hand recount." ...... This involves putting a disputed ballot up to a lamp and attempting to divine what it was the voter intended to do - as opposed to what he or she actually did. ..... But that's not a recount. That's egg-candling. And mind-reading. ....There's nothing objective about it. Or fair. ....." Excite.com 11/13/00 ".......Al Gore's advisers denounced as ``arbitrary and unreasonable'' a decision by Florida's Republican secretary of state to maintain a Tuesday deadline for certifying manual recounts in Democratic-dominated counties. ......Emerging from an eight-minute meeting with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Warren Christopher said the country election boards or Gore himself will appeal the decision. .......He suggested that Harris' ruling was politically motivated. Noting that she campaigned for Gore's rival, George W. Bush, and is a political supporter of Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Christopher said. ``Her statement has to be taken into that context.'' ........ Three of the manual recounts requested in four Florida counties probably cannot be completed by the Tuesday deadline. ..... Gore's huge team of operatives and lawyers geared up for a public relations battle. Democrats said they would dispatch Gore surrogates across the country to allege that Harris' actions are evidence that Jeb Bush is using his influence as Florida's governor to help his brother. ........" Chicago Sun-Times 11/13/00 Robert Novak "....... William M. Daley, the astute chairman of Al Gore's presidential campaign, markedly softened his tone Friday. No longer was this lifelong veteran of Chicago's political wars threatening legal action. Rather, he was staking all on the belief that even after losing two statewide Florida counts of the presidential election, Vice President Gore finally could be counted in for the president. ....... That is much more frightening for Republicans than bluster about going to court. The heart of the Gore strategy is not in Palm Beach County, where the much-publicized complaint about the ballot format is not taken that seriously by key Gore advisers. ...... Rather, heavily Democratic Broward County (Fort Lauderdale) last week soon became the focus for turning apparent defeat into glorious victory. Thousands of Broward voters, presumably Democratic senior citizens, did not apply enough pressure on the punch card to record the vote. ......" Chicago Sun-Times 11/13/00 Robert Novak "....... One prominent adviser to Gore who asked not to be quoted agreed in substance with Davis, but added it all will be over by Friday of this week. He added that Gore now must engage in a public relations war with Bush to convince Americans that he does not favor disruption of the political system. That newly conciliatory tone, however, is born not of presumptive concession to defeat but from belief that victory is at hand. ........"

Arkansas Democrat Gazette 11/12/00 Jeff Porter "..... ......About 1,400 Arkansas felons who aren't supposed to cast ballots are registered to vote. Under Arkansas law, felons aren't allowed to vote until their sentences are complete, according to an attorney general's opinion issued this year. They must complete both prison and parole time before they can register. ..... But comparing the state's voter-registration list -- about 1.6 million people -- and a list of felons still under their sentences -- about 21,000 -- shows that hundreds are still registered. ..." Carol Roberts "China moving housing into private sphere" ".....This new housing resembles the new superlarge buildings that line almost all of the boulevards of the cities that we visited. In municipalities, China's housing policy changes involve a substantial switch from state subsidized public housing investments toward the intensification of the market process. These changes were made to facilitate the shift from state financed housing to housing financed from personal incomes. These new housing reforms have increased urban housing production. An average floor area of 22 million square meters of housing was built annually in the last 10 years. The majority of these apartments average about 60 square meters (540 sq. ft.) and three to four people could live in them...." NewsMax 11/11/00 Carl Limbacher "....A hand recount of Palm Beach County's ballots was scheduled to proceed Saturday afternoon despite a determination by Florida's Secretary of State overuling Democrats who complained that the ballot's design was "illegal." ....Questions about the county's "butterfly ballot" format had been the driving force behind calls for a recount from Florida Democrats all week, with the Gore campaign and its allies repeatedly claiming that the ballot did not comply with the law. But Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican elected in 1998, blew that argument out of the water late Friday, in a statement announcing that Palm Baech County's butterfly ballot "conforms in all respects to the requirements of the Florida law." ...." St Louis Post Dispatch 11/12/00 Bill McClellan "..... Let me tell you right away that I am not a prude when it comes to stealing elections. I was raised in Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago, and we used to have wet ballots. Our clumsy election officials were always spilling things on bunches of our ballots, and they could not be counted until they dried, and they were never dry until all the votes had been counted from the Republican strongholds downstate. Incredible as it may seem, we always ended up with just enough Democratic votes to prevail. As long as Mayor Daley liked the candidate, that is. If the mayor didn't like the guy, then we wouldn't have enough, and the Republicans would win. ........ History will tell you that the mayor liked John F. Kennedy, and when our ballots finally dried out in that 1960 election, we had just enough to put Kennedy over the top. By the way, the fellow Gore sent down to Florida to oversee the recount is the mayor's son, Bill Daley. I watched him on television talking about "the integrity of the electoral process" and I have to give him credit for keeping a straight face. Considering his bloodlines, that was no mean accomplishment. ......" Meet the Press 11/12/00 Freeper Sarat "..... Mary Matalin appeared with her husband, James Carville, on the Sunday morning television circuit. She clarified that Bush did certify a law on handcounts in Texas. However, these handcounts involve written ballots, not punched out ballots like the ones in Palm County. They don't use those in Texas. She said that the ballots in Palm County are not meant to be subjected to a hand count- they are not designed that way. She was adamant about this, and the inherent corruption involved in the process of hand counting this type of ballot. ....." Freeper Wife of D28man ".... Tony Snow challenged Mitchell on that earlier this evening, and it was wonderful to se. Mitchell came on the scene looking smug and confident, but as Snow challenged each of his talking points, he looked stunned and then got a bit testy. Finally Mitchell said something like, "Well, you've given me every single one of Bush's arguments, how do you answer thus-and-so?" Snow said something like, "I'm not giving you Bush answers, I'm presenting facts to give a fair and balanced picture." Mitchell looked kind of sick. When the interview was over, they thanked each other for the opportunity to do the interview - and, trust me, you wouldn't like to be smiled at the way Mitchell smiled at Snow. ....." ABCNews 11/12/00 "..... Recounts of Florida ballots could stop sooner rather than later if a state official is not blocked from forcing all counties to turn in their votes by Tuesday or face disqualification. .......Setting the stage for a legal battle, the Florida secretary of state's office told ABCNEWS today that it will enforce a Tuesday deadline for counties to turn in all vote tallies except overseas ballots, which are due Friday. ......" Freeper NittanyLion "...What ABC News did not make clear was that this is not some arbitrary deadline - it's Florida LAW. But hey, who worries about little things like that? ...." AP 11/12/00 Will Lester "......Democrats face two threats to the manual recounts requested in four counties - an injunction request by George W. Bush's campaign to block the recounts and a 5 p.m. Tuesday state deadline for counties to turn in certified vote totals. ...... Two top aides to Democrat Al Gore, William Daley and Warren Christopher, planned to meet with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris Monday to ask her position about the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline. ''She will make her announcement (Monday) morning to explain

what our interpretation of the statute is,'' said Ben McKay, her chief of staff. .....Two counties -- Volusia and Palm Beach -- which are currently involved in manual recounts, have indicated they will legally challenge any deadline that will not allow the completion of their recounts. ....." The Times 11/12/00 Daniel McGrory "....THE FBI is being asked to investigate how thousands of mainly black supporters of Al Gore were given ballot papers that had allegedly already been marked for rival candidates. Yesterday Democrat officials were examining claims that up to 17,000 ballot papers in the Miami area had been tampered with in what they described as "organised corruption". Lawyers from across the United States descended on Miami and were busy taking statements from those complaining that they had been cheated or intimidated out of voting for Mr Gore. A senior Democrat official in Miami, who has hired a team of 20 investigators to carry out an inquiry, told The Times: "Until now in Florida, we have been arguing foul-ups, human error and stupidity. But this is deliberate corruption to spoil votes for Gore and that must be a matter for the FBI. ......."We don't want to be seen as playing the race card here, but the areas where this happened are in poorer precincts, which are predominantly black areas that would be expected to vote almost unanimously for Vice-President Gore. We are not accusing the Republican Party or any other ethnic groups for being behind this. All we are saying is the vote was corrupted. There are just too many doublepunched papers." ...... Jewish leaders in staunch Democrat areas of the city claimed that they, too, had evidence of voting slips being marked before they reached polling stations in areas populated by retired Jewish couples. At a rally in a Miami synagogue, Lisa Versaci, Florida director of People for the American Way, said: "There can be no innocent explanation for a pre-punched ballot sheet." Republican leaders in Miami dismissed the allegations as "dirty-trick claims". A spokesman said: "A spoiled ballot is not uncommon. There is no dark plot here....." Recount in Florida: A Statistical Analysis Bruce Borders, PhD "..... If the changes in votes are not statistically different between the two candidates then the evidence supports a conclusion that random errors, random additions, and random invalidation of ballots have taken place. However, if the percentage change for one candidate is significantly different than the percentage change for another candidate then the evidence does not support the case that the vote count changed because of random errors, random additions and random invalidation of ballots. ......... In large democratic leaning counties, the percentage change in votes was significantly larger for Al Gore than for George W. Bush. In these counties (Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach and Pinellas) the percentage increase in votes for Al Gore is approximately 9 times greater than the percentage increase in votes for George W. Bush (0.068% increase for Gore vs 0.0077% for Bush). This is a statistically significant difference at the 0.108 level of probability - this means that we are approximately 90% confident that we are drawing the correct conclusion....... It is not all that important that Al Gore's increase is 9 times larger than George W. Bush's increase. The important thing to note is that the increases are not the same for each candidate. This contradicts the assumption that the changes were due to random errors, random additions, and random invalidation of ballots. Thus, there must be another non-random set of events that is resulting in vote count changes in this group of counties. What is it?......" Wisconsin GOP 11/13/00 "..... Fox just interviewed a spokesman of the Wisconsin GOP who alleged massive voter fraud and full investigations. Accusations of multiple voting in multiple precincts and handing out multiple ballots. Lots more to come. GOP claims witnesses and that they can prove all of it. ...." FrontPageMagazine.Com 11/13/00 David Horowitz "..... By allowing his followers to fan racial tensions and undermine confidence in our electoral system, at a time of national crisis, Gore showed that he is not fit to be president....." Foxnews ***Breaking*** 11/13/00 Freeper tm22721 ".... Foxnews just reported that loose chads have been found on the floor of the Palm Beach counting room during the handcount process !! ...." Reuters 11/13/00 ".....Democrat Al Gore on Monday launched his first direct legal action in the fight to decide last week's indecisive presidential election, joining a Florida county's lawsuit to extend Tuesday's deadline for vote certification. .......... Gore communications director Mark Fabiani said the vice president's legal team had joined the lawsuit filed by Florida's Volusia county against the deadline of 5 p.m. on Tuesday set by Florida's state secretary of state. ....... ``The citizens of Florida deserve an accurate and speedy count. The Secretary of State, a crony of the Bush brothers, is trying to steal this election away and no one is going to stand for such a naked political act,'' Fabiani said. Earlier on Monday, Florida's Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced she would enforce a Tuesday deadline set by state law to certify the state tally which Bush currently leads by fewer than 400 votes -- a move that threatened Gore's chances of winning the presidency. ...... Ratcheting up the rhetoric, Gore press secretary Chris Lehane charged the Florida secretary of state ``is trying to do an end run that would frustrate the will of the people, much as the Bush campaign tried to give the American people the bum's rush a couple of days ago'' when it sought an injunction to stop the hand count. ....... ``She (Harris) is acting in the finest tradition of a Soviet commissar,'' Lehane said......"

Freeper YaYa123 11/13/00"..... Carl Cameron FOX from Austin, is suggesting if all these deadlines are extended to accomodate manual hand counts in democratic strong holds, then the 72 hour deadline which Bush missed, to request hand counts in their strong counties, should also be extended. ....." Freeper YaYa123 11/13/00 "..... Volousia and other counties are arguing now before a judge, to have the Vote Certification Deadline extended. That's the "hearing" I mentioned. The Gore campaign has joined Volousia in requesting an extension. Bush camp, according to Carl Carmeron said they would be willing to appeal if the judge decides to rule against the Florida Secretary of State who made the announcement this morning that she would in fact, hold the counties to the 5 pm tomorrow deadline. The Gore camp is saying she is being arbitrary and partisan in abiding by the law. (Gee, I hope that's clear) ....." Freeper Clarity 11/13/00".... She has NO discretion to extend the deadline. None. The Florida legislature set the deadline in unambiguous language. She DOES have discretion to accept or not accept counties' votes that have missed the deadline. But she has no discretion to extend the deadline. I realize this is a fine line, but it is not unimportant. ....." Florida case law 11/13/00 Freeper skdhaki "..... 13 Fla. L. Weekly 702 ......... Candidate for United States Congress sought writ of mandamus. The Supreme Court, McDonald, J., held that county canvassing board had met requirement of forwarding election results to Department of State by the seventh day following an election where it had telephoned the results to the Department of State within that time, even though the original certificate did not arrive at the Department of State until three days later..... Petition denied......." adding "...... This case does not directly parallel the current situation in Florida, but it does raise some interesting points. ....... In this case, a candidate tried to get a county's returns thrown out because he contended that the local canvassing commission had not submitted its certification by the 5 p.m. deadline. The commission made a report by telephone before the deadline but didn't get the paperwork in until after the deadline. The court ruled that the phone call was sufficient........ The important point though is that the deadline was in fact recognized as a legitimate requirement and the specific statute (102.111) was referenced. There is nothing here concerning 102.112 which appears to make the deadline less strict......" Freeper report "..... Well, it was only a matter of time before the Gore campaign accused the Florida Secretary of State of corruption...and how it's happened. Along with the nauseating crap about how Al Gore has won the popular vote, how he's won more votes than anyone else (except one other person, unnamed), how he's "ahead in the electoral college" and how they "know" that he's won Florida. ...... Now he's going on about the "rights of the voters of Florida" and how it's their duty to protect them, along with the rights of all of the voters of the nation. Once again, liberals assuming that people can't fight for themselves...they need liberals to do it for them. ...." Volusia County 11/13/00 Gary Davidson "....... With Party representatives looking on, teams of county employees completed the tedious process Monday of manually recounting the ballots in all 172 precincts from last week's Presidential election. Still left to manually recount are approximately 29,000 absentee ballots. ..... The next step will be for the Volusia County Canvassing Board to finish examining the ballots to complete the recount. ........ During the manual recount, the ballots were placed into four separate piles -one for George W. Bush votes, one for Al Gore votes and a third pile representing votes for other candidates. The fourth pile represents the so-called "questionable" ballots, or those ballots in which it wasn't immediately clear for which candidate the vote was cast in the Presidential race. ...... The three-member Volusia County Canvassing Board will inspect those ballots to determine whether the voters' intent can be discerned. The Canvassing Board already has inspected the "questionable" ballots from more than 100 of the county's 172 precincts. ..... Despite the progress of the manual recount, the Volusia County Canvassing Board is moving forward with a suit being filed today in Circuit Court. ..... In its complaint, the Volusia County Canvassing Board claims that the state's 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline has the potential to disenfranchise thousands of voters. If the deadline doesn't change, any results certified after 5 p.m. Tuesday could be ignored by the state. "The Florida Supreme Court has said that the primary consideration in an election contest is whether the will of the people has been effected," the Volusia County Canvassing Board said in its memorandum of law supporting its legal argument to extend the state deadline. "There can be no greater penalty than to disenfranchise each and every voter of Volusia County who casts a ballot to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States. This is a matter of great public importance." ...." Freeper Big Steve "...... From what I heard on MSNBC, 110 or 112 precincts out of 172 in Volusia County have been completed, and so far Gore has only a net gain of 2 votes. Bush +237, Gore +239. Their next update is at 4:30 PM. If they complete their hand counts today, they most likely will drop their lawsuit to have an extension time of their handcounts. Hope this helps. ......" Associated Press 11/13/00 Chaka Ferguson ".....The final round of ballot counting to determine the presidential winner in New Mexico's hairbreadth election could be delayed if a request by Republicans to

impound ballots is granted in all the state's 33 counties. This morning, Bernalillo County began the count of "in-lieu-of ballots." ...... With Republican George W. Bush clinging to a slim 17-vote lead over Democrat Al Gore, the final 370 or so special absentee ballots in New Mexico were still to be tallied, leaving the state too close to call. ......The special ballots, called "in-lieu-of ballots," were cast by people on Election Day who certified they did not receive requested absentee ballots. It was unclear how many counties still needed to count those ballots. ......The state GOP planned to file petitions in all but one of 13 judicial districts in New Mexico to impound those ballots, along with the early-voting and absentee ballots, to ensure they are protected in case of a recount or challenge. ......" Associated Press 11/13/00 Chaka Ferguson ".....The petitions, filed on behalf of Rita Nunez Neumann, a GOP candidate for a statewide Court of Appeals seat who lost by about 33,000 votes, asked that ballots including paper ballots, emergency paper ballots, absentee ballots and absentee ballot applications and registers - be impounded. The petitions ask that state police take custody of ballots not being counted, and take custody of ballots being counted by simply stationing an officer where the tallies are going on to seize them once the results have been certified. The requests came after a tally of 60,000-plus withdrawn ballots in Bernalillo County flip-flopped the lead in the presidential race late Friday, giving Bush the slim 17-vote lead over Gore. However, New Mexico's five electoral votes wouldn't be enough to help either candidate get the 270 needed for a victory. ......" ACLJ FILES FRIEND-OF-THE-COURT BRIEFS IN FLORIDA STATE COURT "....... (West Palm Beach, FL) The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm, today filed friend-of-thecourt briefs on behalf of State election officials in Florida urging a Florida court to not allow a revote in Florida and to permit the election results from the November 7th election to stand........ Both the Florida Secretary of State and the Florida State Canvassing Commission today announced that the Florida vote will be Certified by 5 pm Tuesday, November 14......... "It is our position that the charges raised in the lawsuits in Florida do not warrant a new election," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which has filed the friend-of-the-court briefs in five lawsuits on behalf of election officials. "We do not believe there is a legal basis for a court to intervene in this matter. It is our hope that once the absentee ballots have been tabulated, the state will certify the election and protect the constitutional rights of the millions of Floridians who cast their ballots November 7th. We do not believe the manual Recount should go forward."...... The ACLJ today filed amicus briefs in five lawsuits in the Circuit Court of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County, Florida on behalf of state election officials. The ACLJ briefs assert that there has been no election fraud, corruption, or coercion - the legal standards necessary under Florida law to consider invalidating an election. The briefs also assert that alleged ballot design and alleged voter confusion are insufficient to trigger an invalidation of election results. ......Sekulow said he does not believe the legal challenges filed by voters in Florida will succeed. And, he said the final determination of the presidential election should be made under the provisions provided by the U.S. Constitution. Sekulow said, "The Constitution is very clear the vote of the Electoral College - and not the popular vote - is the deciding factor in this presidential race. We will continue to challenge lawsuits designed to subvert this constitutional process and to derail the presidential election." ......" MSNBC Cable News - TV Freeper WomanofStandard "...... Immediately following Al Gore's speech Chris Matthews gave his comment of "No one in this country will believe a word he just said!" in response to Gore's comments. He was absolutely livid! Matthew's co-anchor in reintroducing Matthews after the commerical break said "Here is our Chris Matthews who nearly jumped out of his chair after listening to Al Gore's comments". .......... The comment Gore made that has Matthews so riled is his saying we have to make sure those people who's votes were 'misinterperted' are corrected, or something to that extent. In addition Gore's people left the media with the impression before his statement that he would answer questions but when it was all said and done he refused any questions. Matthews also said about Gore in that regard that he came out and "played the part of a trained seal"! ....." Fox News 11/13/00 Freeper Williams "..... Fox News just had a live report showing that "much to their surprise," Jesse Jackson and his supporters are being met by a sizeable number of Bush Cheney supporters chanting "Jackson go home." Also, Al Gore statement was that children are learning a great deal about how our democracy works. Refused questions from reporters. Similar to lessons on family life our kids learned from Clinton. ......" Rush Limbaugh Show 11/13/00 Freeper the_doc "...... On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh read an AP wire release from late Friday night (a "buried" news item on 11/10/00, as Rush characterized it) revealing that the Dems mobilized a telemarketing firm to call 5000 Florida voters an hour before the polls closed on Election Day. The script for the telemarketers planted a seed in the minds of voters to the effect that they might have cast their votes wrong on the butterfly ballot. It specifically urged them to contact government officials if they had concerns about it. ....."

Freeper smith288 "..... Chris Mathews is SLAMMING Gore. He said no one believes this act of grinning and due process. Chris basicaly said the guy seeks victory no matter what. ....." Freeper YaYa123 "...... Laughing, smiling, and MSNBC is saying "he had all the trappings behind him". Al Gore saying winning was not the important thing just re-emphasizes what a lying bastard he is...you'd think the MSNBC reporters would stop cheering long enough to point out that this whole thing was a staged photo op. ....... Chris Mathews is saying "they are winning the PR battle....but this signals he is going all the way with this, going after the undercounts. Is it the job of anyone to "interpret" votes. Mathews says his demeanor is "exhilarated" ...does anyone believe this? Not one person watching this believes what Gore said today." Mathews says what Gore said, is he is not going to stop till all those voters have their votes "interpreted" . Mathews is incredulous at Gore's demeanor and what he said. ......" Newsmax 11/13/00 Jack Thompson "..... As predicted last week, Al Gore is right now in court, in a state lawsuit filed in Volusia County, directly challenging the decision today by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to certify the election by 5 PM Tuesday. ......What I predict, even more strongly now, is that the courageous thing she has done will not withstand judicial scrutiny, simply because the mindset of almost every judge in Florida is that what smacks of governmental arbitrariness will be struck down (one would have to practice law here for about 25 years to appreciate this). Judges typically care more for process than for the clear meaning of words. ..... Very significantly, the statewide count can still be triggered by Bush, despite the misreportage by the mainstream media that the Bush camp has missed a 72-hour deadline to ask for such a statewide count. This is false! There is a dual deadline to request this which is as follows: It may be made either within 72 hours OR before the vote is certified by the Secretary of State WHICHEVER EVENT IS LATER. The vote has not been certified. That is something promised to be done by the Secretary of State at 5 PM Tuesday. It is time for Bush to take the side of the angels which cannot possibly be characterized as anything else: get an accurate statewide vote by hand. ......" http://www.kobtv.com/ "....Bernalillo County released its final results from hand counted and "in lieu of absentee" ballots that give George W. Bush a 126-vote lead in New Mexico. But down south, the Doa Ana County clerk has discovered a 500-vote oversight that could swing the state back in favor of Al Gore. .......Rita Torres in Las Cruces says election workers misread a 600-vote absentee total for a precinct, mistaking the figure as 100. However, Torres says the county canvassing board has not certified the new total for Gore. Election workers also had not updated totals for Bush....... Bernalillo County's final results meant an additional 97 votes for Al Gore and 102 votes for George W. Bush. When added to the latest tally by the Associated Press, it shows Bush with a 126 vote lead in New Mexico......." Nando Times 11/13/00 David Tirrell Wysocki AP ".....Proofreading and computer errors have narrowed the presidential race in New Hampshire and could change some local races, the secretary of state's office said Monday. One error gave Republican George W. Bush - who won the state - 1,000 too many votes in one Nashua ward, Assistant Secretary of State Karen Ladd said. ..... In several other communities, a programming error miscounted votes for Bush and Al Gore, denying Bush 107 votes in Randolph and Gore 208 in Stark and Stewartstown. ..... The official margin of victory for Bush now is 7,068 as election officials check for other possible errors. ....." NewsMax.com 11/13/00 Carl Limbacher "....... Just minutes after Florida officials said they would enforce state election law rendering further vote recounts moot after 5 p.m. Tuesday, the media temper tantrum began. Gore friendly journalists, who realize that Florida State Secretary Katherine Harris' decision to obey the law means the vice president's White House hopes are toast, began trying to undermine her reputation immediately. ....... On CBS News radio, every report described Harris as Florida's "Republican Secretary of State," as if the Democrats have their own state secretary who could countermand her at any moment. ..... Reporters repeatedly said Harris was "appointed by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush," though in fact she was elected in her own right by the citizens of Florida in 1998. ........" NewsMax.com 11/13/00 Carl Limbacher "....... Rather than concentrate on the bombshell news of Harris' decision, the Associated Press led off their account of the bombshell decision with Gore campaign spin. "Al Gore's advisors denounced as 'arbitrary and unreasonable' a decision by Florida's Republican secretary of state to maintain a Tuesday deadline for certifying maunal recounts in Democratic-dominated counties," the AP began. Two paragrahs later, the wire service was quoting Gore agent Warren Christopher denouncing Harris as "politically motivated." Meanwhile, reporters have barely noted that Donald Middledrooks, the federal judge set to hear the Bush campaign's motion to halt Florida's hand re-counts, is a Clinton-Gore appointee who's been a bankrolling their campaigns since 1992. ......" UPI 11/13/00 Tom Hopkins ".....Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Monday she would except no certified votes from the state's 67 counties after a 5 p.m. EST Tuesday deadline set by law........ The order places in doubt whether the results of manual recounts of ballots in as many as four of the state's counties

would be counted......... "She has discretion under the statutes, but she said that would be under certain situations such as a hurricane," Christopher said. "Isn't it a strange situation where she can exercise discretion in other situations but not when the presidency is concerned?" ....... Harris said the more than 2,000 absentee ballots from overseas would be counted Saturday and the results would be made public that day....... "I anticipate that the presidential election in Florida will be official certified by Saturday afternoon barring judicial intervention," said Harris in a written statement......... Agriculture Secretary Bob Crawford, a member of the state canvassing commission, said careful study of the law shows they have little choice than to abide by the deadline. He said a separate statute would seem to give Harris some leeway as secretary of state, but she is also acting as a member of the state canvassing commission and that law is binding........ "The Florida Legislature and the laws of Florida established this commission and the instructions to me are clear: that we have to review the votes that are submitted by 5 p.m. on Tuesday. We looked very closely to see if there was any discretion, there is no discretion," Crawford said........ Legal advisers said, however, if there is a federal judicial order, state officials would abide by it.......... Along with Florida, the state totals still being studied carefully were those of Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin. In the only unresolved race for U.S. Senate, figures from Washington state showed incumbent Republican Slade Gorton retaking a narrow 5,353-vote lead over Democrat Maria Cantwell. A Cantwell victory would split the Senate 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats........" FLORIDA DEPT. OF STATE 11/13/00 STATEMENT OF KATHERINE HARRIS "...... I am issuing this statement to ensure there are no misunderstandings with respect to the statutory schedule for completing the presidential election in Florida. To that end, I met this morning with representatives of the campaigns of Vice President Al Gore and Governor George Bush, and I communicated by facsimile transmission with the Supervisors of Elections in each of Florida's 67 counties. The electoral process is a balance between the desire of each individual voter to have his or her intended vote recorded and the right of the public to a clear, final result within a reasonable time. It is the duty of the Florida legislature to strike that balance, and it has done so. In order to serve the interests of individual voters and the candidates who seek elective office, the law provides for automatic recounts in extremely close elections, methods for protesting elections, and procedures for petitioning for, and conducting, manual recounts. And in order to effectuate the public's right to clarity and finality, the law unambiguously states when the process of counting and recounting the votes cast on election day must end. For this election, that time is 5 PM, November 14, which is tomorrow. Section 102.112, Florida Statutes, provides that the county canvassing board must certify the county returns by 5 PM on the 7th day following the general election. The performance of this duty is mandatory; there are no exceptions provided in the law. In fact, a $200 a day personal fine is imposed on members of the county canvassing board for failing to meet this deadline. In this context, I am very aware that a few counties are conducting or contemplating additional recounts in the presidential election. In order to assist them in continuing their recounts as long as the law allows, I am dispatching personnel from my office to the offices of the Supervisors of Elections in every county that does not have a certified return on file in my office at the close of business today. They will remain in the offices of those Supervisors of Elections until 5 PM tomorrow in order to be available to officially receive the certified returns of that county until the last moment, thus providing the maximum possible time for recounting and certification. As previously stated, it is the duty of the county canvassing board - and the county canvassing board alone to certify the returns from that county by 5 PM tomorrow. If the certification is not in the possession of the Florida Department of State at that time, the law provides that the votes cast in that county will not be counted in the certification of the statewide results. Again, Section 102.112, Florida Statutes, which deals with the duties of the county canvassing board, provides, "If the returns are not received by the time specified, such returns may be ignored and the results on file at that time may be certified by the department." Section 102.111, Florida Statutes, is explicitly mandatory. It provides, "If the county returns are not received by the department by 5 PM on the 7th day following an election, all missing counties shall be ignored, and the results on file shall be certified." Florida law does not provide any date for return certifications other than tomorrow at 5 PM, and it does not provide any penalties for noncompliance other than the fines mentioned above and the disallowance of the entire uncertified vote of the defaulting county. Any discretion vested in me by the legislature in this regard is necessarily limited to circumstances not specifically contemplated by the legislature in the law. Such unforeseen circumstances might include a natural disaster such as Hurricane Andrew, where compliance with the law would be impossible. But a close election, regardless of the identity of the candidates, is not such a circumstance. The legislature obviously specifically contemplated close elections; the law provides for

such a circumstance. The legislature obviously specifically contemplated close elections; the law provides for automatic recounts, protests, and manual recounts - and it plainly states when this process must end. Therefore, I will adhere to the date and penalties that are provided for Florida law. With regard to the status of overseas absentee ballots, they must have been executed as of last Tuesday. They must bear a foreign postmark as provide in Section 101.62(7), and they must be received by the Supervisors of Elections by midnight Friday. They are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday. I will today ask the Supervisors of Elections to make plans with their canvassing boards to count and certify the relatively few remaining overseas ballots Friday night, or by no later than Saturday morning. I will further ask them to transmit facsimile copies of those certifications to my office by noon Saturday as permitted by applicable case law. I anticipate that the state Elections Canvassing Commission, composed of the Secretary of State, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and the Director of the Division of Elections, will officially certify the results of the presidential election in Florida on Saturday afternoon. In summary, every county must have official certifications of the voting returns from last Tuesday delivered to the Florida Department of State by 5 PM tomorrow, or those returns will not be included in the statewide canvass. It is my expectation that overseas absentees will be counted and certified by each county canvassing board no later than Saturday morning. Therefore, I anticipate that the presidential election in Florida will be officially certified by Saturday afternoon, barring judicial intervention. No county canvassing board has ever disenfranchised all the voters of its county by failing to do their legal duty to certify returns by the date specified in the law. I am confident that no county canvassing board will do so in this election. ....." CNN - Danish media 11/13/00 ".....Two absentee ballots from the U.S. presidential election have turned up in the mailbox of a family on the Danish island of Fyn, the Danish newspaper Fyens Stifttidende reports. A family in Odense, Fyn's main city, discovered the two Washington state absentee ballots over the weekend, mixed with some material they had ordered from a company in the United States. At first the family thought they had received some additional advertising, so they opened one of the envelopes. To their surprise, they found an American presidential ballot marked for George W. Bush. One of the ballots was cast by a man from Bellevue, Washington, who said he didn't know how his vote ended up in Denmark. ......" MSNBC 11/13/00 Freeper Pooldude "..... The Judge Denied the Injunction, Hand counting to continue Jeeze, What a shock! ....." Freeper Walkin Man adds ".... A judge hand picked by Slick Willie, a man who gave money to the Gore campaign turns down Bush? I'm SHOCKED! /sarcasm ...." And "...Meanwhile the Dow is DN 260, Nasdaq DN 153! Welcome to the Gore Resession America?! ...." ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/13/00 ".....A federal judge on Monday refused to stop hand recounts in scattered counties in Florida, rejecting a Republican lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said the question of halting recounts is not a matter for federal courts and properly belongs in state court. ..... ``While I share a desire for finality, I do not believe it is served'' by involving a federal court, he said after hearing arguments from lawyers representing George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. ..... The ruling, which Middlebrooks himself said was likely to be appealed by the Republicans, marked the latest turn in a presidential election now one week past the balloting with no end in sight. ........ Speaking from the bench, Middlebrooks said the procedures for manual recounts appear to be politically neutral. Republicans had argued that a manual recount in just a handful of counties selected by the Democrats - rather than all 67 - would dilute the vote of people elsewhere around the state. He said he considered that a serious argument but insufficient to warrant intervention. .......... Earlier, Middlebrooks had signaled clearly he understood the gravity of the case before him and the likelihood his decision would be appealed. ``I am not under an illusion I am the last word on this, and I am rather grateful for that,'' he said. ......" Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 Ed glaeser "..... There is a well-known trick among statistical economists for biasing your data while looking honest. First, figure out which data points don't agree with your theory. Then zealously clean up the offending data points while leaving the other data alone. The key to maintaining academic dignity is to ensure that you do nothing to the data other than eliminate errors. But while this approach may seem to improve accuracy, it actually leads to biased results. If you only clean the offending data points, then you will disproportionately keep erroneous data that agrees with your prior views. ...." http://www.frontpagemag.com/archives/politics/brenhouse11-12-00.htm "...I OWN AN APARTMENT in Boca Raton, spend several months a year there, and am eligible to vote there as an absentee. This year, I applied for an absentee ballot, but did not receive one, and was therefore unable to vote ........ On November 9th and 10th, I got calls from two different lawyers identifying themselves as being part of the "Gore effort." They told me that I could still vote from abroad. I told them that it was my impression that one could not vote from anywhere after Nov 7, 2000. They said that the law only deals with the foreign postmark which can be

adjusted backward in full compliance with U.S. law, as the U.S. has no foreign jurisdiction over postmarks........ The second of the two lawyers asked me whether I would be willing to fly to Havana, bring my ballot and cast it from there, if he paid for expenses. He asked if I had ever flown on a private corporate jet, which suggested to me that he was willing to go to great expense to get my vote (no one offered a money bribe). One of the lawyers asked if any of my friends or family may also have unused absentee ballots......... I got the impression that the two lawyers might have known each other, because their phraseology was quite similar in at least one place in their dialogs........ At one point, the second lawyer, Mr. Cohen, got very pushy and accusative, because I would not give him an answer. He kept saying that this was a very close election and that I had a responsibility to vote......... In neither phone call was anything suggested to me that I know for sure to be illegal. But, in any case, I feel that their method of securing additional votes goes beyond political mischief. If, in fact, it is illegal and widespread, it is a very serious demonstration of just how corrupt the political system can be....... If anyone else from Florida received similar proposals, please let me know some or all of the details by sending me an e-mail at LateAbsenteeBallot@yahoo.com. Please specify if you wish me to keep your information confidential from anyone else........ Also if any lawyer or anyone else knows anything in particular about the Florida or U.S. law on the dating of absentee ballots please send me that information at LateAbsenteeBallot@yahoo.com......" Orlando Sentinel 11/13/00 Scott Maxwell David Damron "...... A decision to ignore thousands of presidential ballots cast in Lake County has Democrats crying foul -- and wondering what to do next......"That`s insane," Bob Poe, the chairman of the state Democrats, said after he learned about the Lake County decision Monday night. "We`re not trying to be litigious, but gosh, I just don`t know." ..... The ballyhoo surrounds a decision by the Lake County canvassing board not to count 3,114 ballots that had more than one presidential choice marked....... The sticking point, however, is that although all of those ballots had two choices marked, most of them chose only one candidate. In other words, many voters checked the circle next to Al Gore`s name, and also wrote "Al Gore" in the write-in blank. Others did the same for George W. Bush......... The question now appears to be: Can Democrats do anything to override Lake County`s decision? Some of those interviewed Monday night said it`s unlikely. That`s because every county`s canvassing board theoretically has the final say on such matters. That could mean that different counties have different interpretations of the same law....... "With 67 different canvassing boards, I bet there are differences," said Lake`s Cadwell. Poe said the party would study the matter more closely today. But Lake County officials said they have no intention of going back to revisit those votes. "That`s a decision that needs to be made in Tallahassee," Miller said. "If they say fine, go back and do it, fine. We can do that in 10 minutes."...." Washington Post 11/14/00 George Will "..... In his campaign to follow in the presidency a man defined by moral turpitude, Al Gore promised, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Now we know what he meant. Credit him with a promise kept. Credit also his farsightedness in entrusting his campaign to Mayor Daley's son, for whom the manufacturing (literally the making by hand) of votes is a family tradition. Credit also the artistry--and audacity; it is being televised--of William Daley's mechanism for manufacturing votes in Florida....." ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "...... Florida's overseas absentee ballots are usually an afterthought in any state-wide race, but they could make the difference in the 2000 presidential election. With nearly six million ballots cast, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush leads Democratic nominee Al Gore by 961 votes, with 66 of 67 counties having completed a recount........ The final results of the overseas voting will be known this Friday, Nov. 17, the deadline for receiving all overseas ballots. However, each Florida county can decide for itself whether to include overseas ballots received before election day in its current count. Therefore no one really knows how many overseas absentee ballots remain to be counted this year. Some counties have included overseas ballots in the figures they have already released, and some have not...... The Florida secretary of state's office estimates that a minimum of 2,300 overseas ballots were cast for president in 1996, although 30,000 ballots were actually requested and sent out before the election. The Palm Beach Post, in a survey of elections officials from 52 counties, has estimated there could be 7,000 overseas absentee ballots still to be counted, out of 15,000 overseas ballots issued by those counties. ......" ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "...... The Bush campaign has asserted that most of the overseas absentee ballots will favor their candidate, based on their claim that military personnel tend to vote Republican. But Democrats are saying that a large chunk of the Florida overseas absentee ballots have been cast by traditionally Democratic Jewish-Americans living in Israel. The Washington Post has estimated that as many as 1,500 such ballots were sent to Israel this year....... In every Florida presidential election since 1980, when the state began counting overseas absentee ballots after Election Day, the Republican candidate has received more votes than the Democrat, according to the Associated Press....... Overseas ballots are required to be postmarked by Nov. 7, and must be received by the 17th. Before voting, the ballot must be signed and witnessed....... Jim Smith, a former Florida attorney general, held a news conference this afternoon on behalf of the Florida Republican Party during which he emphasized that Floridians overseas who did not meet the deadline have missed their chance to participate in the election for once and for all. "We're trying to make it

clear that it is, in fact, too late to cast that ballot now," Smith said. "If a ballot is not cast and witnessed by Nov. 7, it would be cast aside." ....... One Florida County, Hillsborough, which contains Tampa, has special permission to turn in its overseas absentee ballots on Nov. 20......." Time 11/12/00 James Poniewozik ".....In a week of general humiliation, there was some good news for the TV networks: they did accurately award Florida to the winner. The bad news: they also awarded it to the loser. Dan Rather assured viewers they could take CBS's election-night projections "to the bank"; then the networks had to make two costly withdrawals. It was, in the words of CBS and CNN election consultant Warren Mitofsky, "embarrassing as hell." Yet it also underscored TV's tremendous power, as the networks' blunders led to Al Gore's concession takeback. And as that wild night set up an acrimonious Florida soap opera played out for the cameras, it revealed the media's dual, contradictory roles: national laughingstock and de facto fourth branch of government. ........" ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "......But preliminary evidence suggests that in Palm Beach County, a hand recount of ballots could significantly help the Democratic nominee, Al Gore. According to the latest figures released by the Florida Secretary of State's office, with 66 of 67 counties tallied, Bush, the Republican candidate, leads Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore by 961 votes. An unofficial count of all 67 counties by the Associated Press gives Bush a narrower 327-vote lead........ The decision by Palm Beach officials, made shortly after 2 a.m. ET today, was made after they took a preliminary sample of ballots from four precincts, representing one percent of the entire county, and found discrepancies with their previous total....... The manual recount of the four precincts gave Bush 14 more votes and added 33 to Gore's tally in those areas alone. ........ By contrast, a previous machine recount of the entire county yielded 36 new votes for Gore, and subtracted three from Bush's tally, for a net gain of 39 for the Democrat...... The shift was enough to prompt county officials to vote by a 2 to 1 margin to meet Monday morning to count every vote in the county - some 425,000 - by hand next week...... "We feel we have no other choice," Baker said of the legal action."The manual vote count sought by the Gore campaign would not be more accurate than an automated count. ... Human error, individual subjectivity and actions to 'determine the voter intent,' would replace precision machinery." ........ But former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who is heading the Gore campaign's efforts to monitor the recount, defended the request on Saturday, saying "The importance of getting it right outweighs the importance of rushing to judgment." ......." ABCNEWS 11/12/00 "......The Gore campaign had earlier considered legal action - something Baker criticized Friday, when he said legal challenges were threatening to extend the election endlessly. But with the Republicans having gone to court first, both sides are now working hard to appear as if they are not resorting to use the legal system in an attempt to settle the election. "There has to be some finality to a presidential election," Baker said today on ABCNEWS' This Week, insisting that the GOP was seeking an injunction in order to bring the dispute to a close. .......Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press today, Baker kept the pressure on the Gore camp not to seek additional recounts. "We would dismiss this lawsuit promptly if they would agree with us to respect the results of the statewide recount subject only to tabulating the results of the overseas ballots," Baker said. "Whoever wins then, wins. We will accept that result." ....." Miami Sun-Sentinel 10/5/00 Kathy Bushouse "...... For 115 people who braved Tuesday's downpour to vote in the state House District 89 Democratic runoff, the exercise was moot: Their ballots were not properly completed. ....... They either voted for both incumbent Curt Levine and challenger Irving Slosberg -- or they voted for no one. In either case, those votes and another 80 absentee ballots were ruled invalid. ...... "It's a phenomenon that nobody can figure out. We don't understand. Why bother going?" said Theresa LePore, supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County. "It's just something that people do, and no one can figure out why." ...... But in a race won by a margin of only 82 votes, those 195 disqualified ballots could have made a difference for Levine -- or strengthened Slosberg's victory in the Boca Raton-area district. No Republicans ran for the seat. ........ It's not the first time that voters failed to properly cast ballots. In Tuesday's state House District 88 race between Anne Gannon and Barry Silver, 144 people erred on their ballots. That district stretches from Delray Beach into Wellington. In the 1998 race between Levine and then-Rep. Silver in District 89, about 300 voters made mistakes. In both Tuesday's and the 1998 elections, roughly 1 percent of the ballots cast were ruled invalid. .......... " Freeper LN Smithee "...... From the PBC Elections website, in case you hadn't seen it -- instructions from Ms. LePore on how to properly fill out the ballots: ......... Before going to your polling place on election day, you should familiarize yourself with the candidates and issues that will be on your ballot. It is okay for you to bring in a marked Sample Ballot or information to help you make your decisions, but, be sure that you do not display the information for others to see. REMEMBER -- VOTING IS A PRIVATE ISSUE! ....... When you check in at your polling place, you will be asked for identification and to sign a Precinct Register. The poll worker will then direct you to a voting booth. If you are not sure how to use the voting equipment, ask the poll workers for a demonstration. If you make a mistake on your ballot, you may ask for another. Do not hesitate to ask the poll workers for help if you have any questions or problems. ....."

Sun-Sentinel 11/13/00 Robin Benedick ".....With the presidential election possibly hinging on hundreds of absentee ballots still arriving this week from military personnel overseas, the U.S. Postal Service in Miami isn't taking its job lightly. ....... Postal workers at the Air Mail Center near Miami International Airport, where all military absentee ballots arrive in the United States, are making sure Florida's ballots get to election officials they same day they arrive. They also are logging each day how many absentee ballots are returned to Florida. ..... But they don't track where the ballots are coming from and where they are going. Their total for Florida so far: 434 military overseas ballots since Nov. 8, the day after the election. That tally is a day behind and doesn't include Monday. Overseas ballots don't arrive until midnight or early in the morning. ......" WTMJ Channel 14 Milwaukee "......TODAY'S TMJ4 has learned about some more potential voter irregularities in Milwaukee County. And Republicans said if the recent allegations are proven, it could be enough to eliminate Al Gore's 6000-vote Wisconsin victory. ......... CECIL EDIRISINGHE WAS BORN in Sri Lanka and cherishes his U.S citizenship. He speaks Russian and said at his Shorewood polling place he overheard Russian-speaking poll workers instructing recent immigrants to vote for Gore "It really bothers me because I gave up my previous citizenship and became a U.S. citizen, and I'd like to see U.S. citizenship regarded as something sacred," Edirisinghe said. ........ Matt Collins, of Shorewood, also said he also saw improper, maybe illegal, activity at his Shorewood polling place. "I also saw some people being coached in their cubicles by third parties," Collins said. ....... Republicans have received more than 1,000 phone calls from people claiming to witness voter fraud, including an incident caught on tape by TODAY'S TMJ4, which shows a voter getting in line after the polls closed and voting. ......" New York Post 11/12/00 Brian Blomquist Malcolm Balfour "...... With the presidential campaigns going into the courthouse tomorrow, the election might just boil down to which side has the best lawyers. The Gore legal team is headed by Kendall Coffey, the Miami lawyer best known for his representation of Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives. ...... But in response to Bush's move to get a federal judge to halt hand recounts in four Democratic counties, the Gore team brought in another big gun for the legal showdown - Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor known for his liberal opinions and constitutional expertise. ........ The more straight-laced Bush legal team is led by Washington-based lawyer Ben Ginsburg, who was general counsel throughout the campaign and former general counsel to the Republican National Committee. Another top lawyer for Bush is Theodore Olson, whose wife, Barbara, is best known for her investigative work for the Republicans. ........ Both sides have tapped the local talent and hired dozens of Florida lawyers to help them. Tallahassee lawyer Mark Herron has been especially helpful to the Gore camp, and local lawyers Barry Richard and Ken Sukhia have helped Bush. Richard, whose nickname in the state capital is "Appellate Ace" has argued more than 200 appellate cases nationally. ......."If I had to pick any lawyer in the world for a case dealing with political matters, it would be Barry Richard," said Rick McFarlain, counsel for the Florida state bar. ...." Yahoo News 11/13/00 Patricia Wilson Reuters "......The campaign of Republican George W. Bush charged on Monday that Democrat Al Gore's camp was trying to ``overturn the results'' of the presidential election by reading voters' minds. ...... ``It's becoming increasingly clear that Vice President Gore's campaign simply wants to keep counting votes until they like the results,' Bush's spokeswoman Karen Hughes said. ....... While the Texas governor distanced himself from the legal fray in Florida after a judge denied his injunction to stop a recount of ballots by hand, Hughes told reporters: ``We are increasingly convinced that the manual recount which is now under way in selective, heavily Democratic, hand-selected counties, cannot produce a fair and accurate result.'' ....... ``I think that anyone in America who was watching television over the last two days can conclude independently for themselves that the manual recount cannot possibly be fair or accurate or consistent,'' Hughes said. ``We saw people holding up ballots, trying to, basically, read voters' minds.'' ........ Hughes called the Gore campaign's challenge to the Tuesday deadline ``troubling.'' ``All week the vice president and his campaign have said that Florida's laws should be followed,'' Hughes told reporters. ''Yet, today, the vice president essentially said we should ignore the law so that he can overturn the results of this election.'' ........ ``The people of Florida deserve to have their votes counted fairly and accurately not selectively or subjectively,'' Hughes said. ``Gov. Bush has agreed to abide by that fair and accurate count no matter what it might be, and Vice President Gore should do the same.'' ......" New York Times 11/14/00 Pam Belluck ".....Milwaukee Describing Election Day problems ranging from accusations that some people voted more than once to claims that homeless people were bribed with cigarettes to vote for Democrats, Republicans said today that they were considering whether to seek a recount in Wisconsin...... In the meantime, Republicans have publicized complaints they say they have received about the voting process. The state party set up a toll- free telephone line, and Rick Graber, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said that about 1,000 complaints had been logged, most in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee County, but some in Green Bay, Madison and Fond du Lac. On Friday, Mr. Graber announced that he had asked the Milwaukee County district attorney, E. Michael McCann, to investigate........ Mr. McCann, a Democrat, said today that he was taking the accusations seriously, but that so far he had found "no evidence of massive voter fraud." He said his staff had verified that one Democratic

campaign worker acting on her own bought 40 packs of cigarettes, and that she and other people distributed them to 15 to 25 homeless men as an inducement to send in absentee ballots........... Mr. McCann said he was also investigating complaints that students at Marquette University had voted multiple times. But so far, he said, "we do not have a single name from what was widely rumored multiple voting by students."........Mr. McCann characterized the other complaints as irregularities that probably resulted from polling stations being staffed by inexperienced people overwhelmed by heavy turnout in a state where voters can register at the polls on Election Day. ....." AP 11/13/00 Jackie Hallifax "......Florida's secretary of state had this message Monday for election workers weary from the tedious task of counting presidential votes: hurry up. Sticking to a firm state deadline, Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris said all 67 counties must finish their recounts by 5 p.m. Tuesday. ........ But her decision was challenged hours later in court by lawyers for Palm Beach and Volusia counties, Democrat Al Gore and the Florida Democratic Party, who said counties should have as much time as they need to complete their hand counts. ..... Broward County, one of the four Florida counties weighing full recounts by hand, rejected the idea late Monday after workers performed a manual count in three precincts and turned up no major problems. The strong Democratic county, which includes Fort Lauderdale, found only four additional votes for Gore after hand counting 3,892 ballots in three precincts. ....." CBSNEWS 11/12/00 "...... Supporters of Al Gore and George W. Bush held more than 100 rallies were held across the country over the weekend, criticizing alleged election irregularities and vote recount in Florida. In Miami on Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told a group of African-Americans and Jews that they share the danger of being disenfranchised - and that they have a duty to keep that from happening. ....... "Once again, sons and daughters of slavery and Holocaust survivors are bound together with a shared agenda, bound by their hopes and their fears about national policy," Jackson told hundreds packed into a Miami synagogue. ......" FrontPageMagazine.com 11/13/00 David Horowitz "..... IF ANYONE EVER wanted proof that the media is controlled by Democrats and the anti-American left, the farce going on in Florida right now is sufficient. The media is reporting the Democrat-run recount as though there might be a question about the outcome. There is none. It is a statistical certainty that Gore will increase his vote no matter how even-handed the two out of three Democrat judges are. ........ The voting machines systematically undercount the "vote," because they will not register partial depressions and "hanging chads." Therefore if there are more votes for Gore in a county (and these are overwhelmingly Gore counties), it is statistically certain that a recount by hand that turns up any new votes, will turn up a majority of new votes for Gore......... The media is not reporting this because the media wants Gore to win. ........The media is also not reporting the fact - well-known among political professionals - that a standard Democrat practice in past elections has been to call for by-hand recounts and to have their operatives rip the hanging chads on Democratic ballots (but not Republican ballots) to reverse vote counts in districts where they have lost. ........ The leftwing mafia that runs the Democratic Party does not care about the Constitution or the country; what it cares about is power. Why? Because its mission is to "change the world" -- not to make the imperfect one work as well as it can....." WKMG 11/12/00 Freeper StockAyatollah ".... Just saw a report on Channel 6 WKMG TV (here in Orlando, FL) that in Volusia County, Gore has picked up 19 votes with about 1/3 of manual re-counting complete. About 200 unclear ballots were given to the canvassing board to determine the "voter's intent". ......" Butterfly ballot test http://www.sun-sentinel.com/graphics/news/ballot.htm 11/10/00 Robert A Cook PE "....... Ref: 15,000 Bush votes were stolen in Palm Beach, FL. 15,000 Dole and Perot votes were stolen in 1996 *, no wonder they knew how to do it! (*9 Nov, 2000 CNN; Jim Smith, Former Florida Secretary of State; WSJ, 11-10-2000) The news media is focused on the Democratic Party spin that voters were "confused" in Palm Beach, FL. They are ignoring the 15,000 BUSH and 3,400 Buchanan votes were stolen by fraud in these 19,000 ballots. There is explicit statistical evidence of massive ballot tampering in Palm Beach FL. These ballots show Democratic voter fraud....NOT Republican fraud or "voter error." Consider these "unusual" ballot problems in Palm Beach, FL - every one of them adds more Gore votes, and removed Republican and Reform party votes. The voter fraud in the most heavily Democratic precincts Palm Beach County is so bad that Democratic officials are claiming that over 26 people per minute "were confused" and voted twice for President! This means that more voters were being handed new ballots per minute than new voters were being signed in. (19,200 "double punched" Democratic ballots divided by 12 hours, there are approximately 100 precincts in Palm Beach County. The errors are concentrated in only a few of these of these precincts, ALL predominately democratic and ALL with Democratic voter officials.)

ONLY in Palm Beach FL were 15,000 ballots "double punched" in the 1996 election. (This is unique among the entire nation! It is an error rate TEN TIMES larger than reported in ANY other district in the nation using that kind of ballot!) ONLY in Palm Beach (and almost ONLY heavily Democratic precincts) were 19,200 ballots rejected in 2000 for double punching....(This is a 4.4% error rate overall; in the rest of Florida there is less than 1/2 of ONE percent "double punch" error rate! (Unofficially, this error rate was 15% in predominately Afro-American precincts, and 10% in precincts with large numbers of Jewish retirees.) In strongly Republican precincts, the error rate was the "usual" 1/2 of one percent.) ONLY in Palm Beach did this "double punch" error happen ONLY in the Gore-Bush-Buchanan selection. (In a truly random "error," the mistakes happen in every race, all at about the same rate. In Palm Beach, the massive errors (over 19,000) ONLY happened in the Presidential race.) ONLY in Palm Beach has the news media complained about "massive" ballot confusion. In the 43 counties in Missouri, also mostly Democratic voters, which use the same kind of ballot, there are NO complaints about "confused voters" at all. (St Louis Post Dispatch, Nov 8, 2000) Therefore, ONLY in Palm Beach FL do the Democrats have to "explain" a massive number of incorrect votes. ONLY in Palm Beach did Gore GAIN 750 votes in a recount. In 64 out of 67 counties in FL, the average gain was 5-7 votes, and the "changes" were equally split between ALL the candidates, in proportion to the original number of votes. This means that Palm Beach FL had an error rate in favor of Gore more than 120 TIMES greater than any other county, (Two other heavily Democratic "inner city" counties (Flagler and Pinellas) had changes greater than 400 votes.) In a statistically valid recount, half of the errors would favor Bush, and half favor Gore. This extreme change from the normal in only three counties shows massive "favoritism" towards Gore in those three counties.) In Palm Beach Gore got more votes than there are registered Democrats. (Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections: registered Democrats = 296,122 while Gore voters = 296.696.) ONLY in Palm Beach did Bush receive LESS than 65% of the registered Republican voters. (Registered Republicans = 231,626 while Bush voters = 152,954.) In every other county in FL Bush received MORE votes than there were registered Republicans. In the rest of the nation, poll results show more than 90% of registered Republicans actively supported the Republican candidate. (Also, unique in the entire state, the percentage of Republican voters COUNTED as voting in Palm Beach was much less than normal, despite the pre-election attention to Florida as a critical state; and massive Republican get-out-the-vote campaigns.) ONLY in Palm Beach did Buchanan get less than HALF the of votes he received before in 1996. His losses in that county in 2000 were much greater than in any other district in Florida. (Buchanan received over 8,000 votes in 1996 Republican PRIMARY (where only registered Republicans can vote; but he received only 3,407 under the Reform Party from ALL voters in the 2000 Presidential election. (Pat Buchanan has relatives who lives in Palm Beach County, and this local support greatly increase the number of local voters who choose Buchanan, compared to every other region of the country. There are over 14,551 members of the Reform party in Palm Beach County - which indicates that less than 1/5 of the Reform voters voted for their own candidate. The Fraud is NOT whether Gore voters were "confused" and voted for Gore, but rather WHY Reform Party and Libertarian voters were prevented from registering THEIR vote!) ......" November 10, 2000 Freeper amon "Cook Cunty and Chicago election officials...showing reporters in detail how the county's ballot differs from the controversial Florida ballot..."The voter is never required to skip across the pages to make their voting choices," Orr said. "But it's fair to say that we would love to see the ballot done differently..." Sierra Times 11/12/00 Hal Turner "..... While Gore supporters are holding protests in the streets, Bush supporters are buying bullets at gun shops. In the three days since the U.S. General Election, ammunition sales throughout the United States have jumped an astonishing nine-hundred percent (900%). Americans are furious over massive, blatant and widespread vote fraud by supporters of Al Gore and many are openly talking about "blood in the streets." ........ " 11/12/00 rumrunner

Five Counties: Broward Dade Palm Beach Volusia Polk Broward County and Dade County Broward County machine recount showed 44 new Gore votes, 43 Bush votes; Dade showed 62 new Gore votes, 43 Bush votes. Since Broward and Dade don't have the same "problems" as Palm Beach, assuming that the 1% manual recount of 4 precincts in the respective counties yields little statistical relevance for an entire manual recount, then the most that Gore is going to pick up from these three (Palm, Dade & Broward) are the votes from Palm Beach. Palm Bach County As for Palm Beach, don't forget that Daley picked the (initial) 3 precincts in Palm Beach because of the inordinate number of "underpunched" ballots, combined with the overwhelming Gore support (2,841 Gore votes to 1,024 Bush votes), G73%toB26%. The countywide totals was 62% to 35%. Out of the 4300 votes recounted, they gave Gore 33 and Bush 14. Considering that the 4 counties chosen had a higher probability of underpunched Gore votes than the county as a whole(both 162E and 193E averaged about 165 underpunched ballots), if the entire 357,000 votes in Palm Beach are manually recounted. The Commissioner Roberts "extrapolated" Gore's gain to ALL the ballots cast, which is ludicrous for two reasons: One, the universe of underpunched ballots is only 10,361, and secondly, the universe for all manual recounts is reduced by the absentee ballots. Out of 10,361 underpunched ballots, Gore gained 33 votes from 1% of the sum of all the precincts, but more importantly 3% of the 10,361 underpunched ballots, and 5% of Gore's countywide vote total (882 from precinct 193E plus 1094 from precinct 162E); (while Bush gained 14 votes, or 1.4% of the 10,361 underpunched ballots. AGAIN, Gore gained 19 votes from precincts that represented at least 3%-and probably closer to 5% of the underpunched votes when the other two precincts are factored in (precinct 193 had 654 gore votes, precinct 6B had 211 gore votes, both roughly 2 to 1 in favor of Gore), and 5% of Gore's countywide vote total using only precinct 193E and 162E. Volusia County As for Volusia County, because they use an optical scanning system (The Accu-Vote ES-2000) they will be checking for ballots in which the scanner didn't read the ballot correctly, and divine from the mark if the voter intended to vote for a particular candidate. Volusia was a moderate pro-Gore county, 49% Gore to 42% (97,063 to 82,214) Bush, about a 15,000 vote difference. In the Beckstrom case in Volusia from the 1996 election, the manual recount increased the winning guy's margin from 59.75% to 59.9%. According to Volusia County, in this year's Presidential election, only 628 votes were rejected: 238 Democratic, 332 Republican, 58 other. In Beckstrom, the margin increased by some 800 or so votes because the underlying ballots were remarked over the voter's initial mark so that it could be read by the machine. Here it is vitally important to know that the Volusia recount showed NO changes, so the universe of disputed ballots is only 628 votes. Assuming that each uncounted vote is counted, and assuming fruther that the manual recount breaks in Gores favor 6 to 4 (which is out of proportion to begin with) then Gore would only pick up 376 votes, and Bush 251, for a net gain of only 125 votes. My guess is, is Gore will pick up fewer than 20 votes. Polk County As for Polk County, Bush gained 90 plus votes, coupled with his current lead of 300, and the absentee lead that he will gain, he is our next President. I am assuming that the Bush campaing has retained some statisticians to guide them in their fight, and from the advice they probably have gotten, lies their strategy. Further assuming that there will be no hand recount in Dade or Broward, Bush will win this election......" New York Times 11/13/00 Todd Purdum ".....In fact, one senior Republican official with ties to the Bush campaign and prominent Democratic friends said that both campaigns had come to see their struggle as an all-out war of good versus evil, right versus wrong and playing fair versus playing dirty, with no easy choices. "How could they be feeling anything but apprehensive and concerned?" the official asked of the Bush camp.

"How could they be feeling anything but apprehensive and concerned?" the official asked of the Bush camp. "If they have options, then the other side has options. And when you think about what are their options, what are our options, your head just explodes." ........ Former Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat from neighboring Georgia, issued a statement warning: "Simple mistakes - whether committed by those who oversee and manage the elections or those who vote in them - are common and cannot be seized upon as a pretext to invalidate the result. No amount of litigation could ever ensure a perfectly fair or error-free outcome." ......In a conference call with reporters arranged by the Bush campaign, former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming went into a folksy critique of what he said was the bizarre scene of officials holding ballots up to the light to check the perforations. "It's almost like holding your laundry up to see which is the bluest, which looks the best," he said, adding, "This is the absolutely seat-of- the-pants special; there are no clear standards here." ....... Mr. Simpson ridiculed the idea of election officials "describing to a most curious American public the difference between the hanging, swinging, dimpled, pimpled, pregnant, clinging, dangling" punch holes of the ballots and said the spectacle was "absolutely absurd." ...... "No matter whether Governor Bush gains or loses votes, the confusion on display in Palm Beach County demonstrates that the results of this hand recount will be flawed," said a Bush spokesman, Ari Fleischer......." UPI 11/12/00 ".....The NAACP on Sunday asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate complaints of election irregularities in Florida and urged the federal government to oversee a vote recount. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said volunteers have investigated complaints made to a special NAACP voter complaint hotline. He said that in one case, a principal reported finding a locked ballot box in a school cafeteria in Miami....... "The NAACP is concerned about reported instances of disproportionate disqualifications of black voters and the failure to pick up at least one ballot box from a heavily black precinct," Mfume said........ "We have grave concerns that these and other acts may violate the 15th Amendment to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965," he said....... Mfume said the federal government should oversee a vote recount. He said he was not suggesting foul play in noting that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the brother of Republican nominee George W. Bush......." Freeper Russell Scott 11/12/00 "..... Yep, they are running scared folks. Suddenly Gore demands FBI investigation and now NAACP wants DOJ involved. Anyone who thinks AL Gore would not be four more years of Clinton is nuts. These are typical Clinton tactics right out of Larry Nichols old Arkansas playbook. Ain't gunna matter, President Bush has these turkeys by their necks, and they are about to be snapped and served for Thanksgiving. ....." CBSNEWS 11/12/00 "......Florida Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford, one of three officials overseeing the statewide recount, said the Sunshine State just wasn't designed to take this much heat. "There are a box of ballots probably in many offices stuck in somebody's closet or somebody's filing drawer," he said. "And that box of ballots is worth its weight not in gold, but probably platinum and more - because it will determine the president of the United States." .......". OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......The validity of the Democrats' claims thus turns on the details of Florida's election law. Examining those statues reveals that many of the claimed "irregularities" are clearly frivolous, for they involve complaints that Florida election officials followed, rather than violated, the rules. The rest of the "irregularities" are disposed of under well-established legal precedents. ......... One complaint is that election officials only gave voters five minutes to vote and refused to allow them to bring others into the polling booth to assist them. Florida statute 101.51 specifies precisely that time limit, and bars others from entering the polling booth unless the voter signs an oath that he is blind, disabled, or unable to read or write. Both rules exist for good reason. .....Right or wrong, these were the rules for the election, and one cannot complain that fidelity to the rules constituted irregularity. Nor can it be irregular to follow Florida statutes that require election officials to turn away voters who do not have identification or who try to vote in the wrong precinct. ....." OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......The same goes for what the Associated Press called a "horror story," refusing to allow voters who had received absentee ballots to vote in person until they signed affidavits swearing they had had not used their absentee ballots. This horror amounted following the letter of Florida statute 101.69. Following these rules helps to curb double voting and other election law fraud. Failing to follow such rules would have been an irregularity. .......Since none of these claims have any legal significance, one might take comfort in the fact that the courts will dismiss them. But the Gore forces are pursuing not just a legal strategy but a political one. And the constant and irresponsible repetition of these supposed irregularities, without any reference to the actual legal rules, has abetted a destructive political campaign that has already resulted in selective hand recounting of ballots in counties leaning to Mr. Gore. ......" OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "...... My esteemed Harvard Law colleague, Phil Heymann, acknowledged in the Washington Post on Friday that the standard is whether there was "clear illegality." But he went on to argue that there is "little dispute" that the ballot "flatly violated the

law." He based this on Florida statutes 101.5609 and 101.27, which he quotes as stating that where electronic or machine ballots are used "The ballot information shall . . . be in the order of arrangement provided for paper ballots." I have two responses. First, this language only governs the order of the candidates, not where the votes are marked, and thus was not violated by a ballot that put the candidates in the correct order but in two columns. Second, beware of ellipses, for the language excised in the above quote was "as far as practicable." Florida election officials are explicitly allowed by the statute to alter the order of arrangement to meet practical concerns. ......" OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......Even if the ballot were irregular, it did not deprive voters of a reasonable opportunity to cast their vote. ...Even if the ballot was confusing about which hole to punch, nothing on it should have confused voters into thinking they could vote for two candidates, and this is what happened on the 19,000 ballots that Democrats complain were tossed out. This is a common occurrence governed by Florida statute 101.011: "If the elector marks more names than there are persons to be elected to an office. . . his or her ballot shall not be counted for the office." ....... This rule, similar to that in other states, exists to preserve certainty and the sanctity of secret ballots. Who a voter intended to vote for is determined solely by the objective evidence left on the ballot, and cannot be undermined by testimony that they intended to vote for someone else. The remedy when the voter's intent cannot be determined is to invalidate a portion of that ballot, not the election. If a majority of Floridians don't like this rule, the time to change it is in the future. A past presidential election is no time to make an unprecedented change in the law. ......" OpinionJournal.Com 11/13/00 Einer Elhauge (Professor of Law, Harvard) "......Another effect of a manual recount is to substitute subjective human judgment for objective machine judgments. Here, Florida law has exacerbated the problem by providing no objective standards about whether or how to conduct a recount. Indeed, the standards already have been switched in midstream--from a "sunlight" test (whether you could see through the card) to a partial perforation test. Even if the standard were consistent, judgment calls still must be made, which might be consciously or unconsciously biased. This problem has been worsened by the extraordinary campaign the Democrats have run to pillory the Democratic officials who devised the ballot. Theresa LePore, the Democrat in charge of the Palm Beach County recount, has been described by her friends as "deeply shaken." One need not imagine any conscious wrongdoing to worry that officials who are in deep hot water in their pro-Gore counties might subconsciously be influenced by the fact that the complaints about their ballot would go away if the manual recount favors Mr. Gore......." Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "......The American people voted on November 7. Governor George W. Bush won 31 states with a total of 271 electoral votes. The vote in Florida was very close, but when it was counted, Governor Bush was the winner. ....... Now, three days later, the vote in Florida has been recounted. Over two-thirds of the state election supervisors overseeing the recount are Democrats......At the end of this recount, Governor Bush is still the winner, subject only to counting the overseas ballots, which have traditionally favored the Republican candidate. No evidence of vote fraud either in the original vote or in the recount has been presented.......... Now the Gore campaign is calling for yet another recount in selective and predominantly Democratic counties where there were unexplained large vote swings in their favor in the recount.......... It appears that the Gore campaign is attempting to unduly prolong the country's national Presidential election through endless challenges to the results of the vote here in Florida........Furthermore, the more often ballots are recounted, especially by hand, the more likely it is that human errors, like lost ballots, and other risks, will be introduced. This frustrates the very reason why we have moved from hand counting to machine counting......." Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "......Let me say a word specifically about the Palm Beach ballot. There is a rule of law to be followed for elections. The state of Florida has established legal procedures to design, approve, publish and, if need be, to protest ballots before the election. The ballot was designed by a Democratic elections supervisor. She approved it. The Democratic Party did not question it before the election. This "butterfly"-type ballot was used in recent elections in the same county under the same rules. Again, the Democrats did not complain. The overwhelming majority of voters who used the ballot understood it and cast valid votes. Our lawyers have confirmed the legality of this ballot, and we have copies of the relevant Florida statute available for you to see........." Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "......The Gore campaign has also tried to make a lot of the fact that double marked ballots are not counted. A key principle in America is one person, one vote. If we have ballots with two votes, of course we cannot count them or guess about them. Ballots that are double-marked can't be evidence of the voter's intent to vote one way or another. No jurisdiction in the United States would accept such a ballot as a valid vote, and Florida law specifically does not. It happens in every precinct in every election. And the procedure is clear: These ballots must be disregarded. Bush-Cheney Website 11/9/00 James Baker "...... We understand, and I understand personally, that it is

frustrating to lose by a narrow margin. But it happens. It happened to the Republican Presidential candidates in 1960 and 1976. Both Vice President Nixon and President Ford put the country's interest first. They accepted the vote for the good of the country......... It is important that there be some finality to the election process. What if we insisted on recounts in other states that are very close? For example, in Wisconsin, Iowa, (and if we don't win) New Mexico. ....... Let the country step back a moment, pause, and think about what's at stake. This may be the last chance. There is no reasonable end to this process if it slips away.......The purpose of our national election is to establish a "Constitutional government," not unending legal wrangling. We will therefore vigorously oppose the Gore campaign's efforts to keep recounting until it likes the result. For the good of the country and the sake of our standing in the world, the campaigning should end, and the business of an orderly transition should begin......." Yahoo! and CNN 11/13/00 Mike Schneider "..... Democrats added Osceola County to their list of hand recount requests. The Osceola canvassing board, comprised of two Republicans and one Democrat, meets Monday to weigh it. Al Gore had a small lead over George W. Bush in the 54,000-plus votes cast. Hispanic voters alleged they were required to produce two forms of identification when only one was required. The central Florida county has a large Puerto Rican community. ....." New York Times 11/13/00 Lynette Holloway "......As the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson continued a civil rights tour across South Florida today, rallying Jewish, black and Hispanic voters to demand an accurate count of the vote in Palm Beach County, Democratic officials and Vice President Al Gore's advisers appeared to back away from earlier complaints that Mr. Jackson was playing too large a role in demonstrations in the county........... Mr. Jackson said no one from the Democratic National Committee had asked him to tamp down his efforts. He said that what he called the breakdown of the electoral system was a civil rights issue as well as a political issue. ........ Mr. Jackson said the election was fraught with problems for student voters, HaitianAmericans, Hispanics and new citizens who were migrant workers. He said Jewish leaders have been supportive of his efforts. "Today, there is not a constitutional crisis," Mr. Jackson said at the temple. "There is a counting crisis. We can afford to lose a race. We've lost many before. We cannot afford to lose a franchise."........" Wahington Times 11/13/00 Andrew Cain ".....Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and their wives took in a movie Saturday night. The feature was titled "Men of Honor." This coming Friday, if Mr. Gore still trails in Florida, senior Democrats may call on the running mates to live up to that title...... Senior Democrats support Mr. Gore's intention to wait for a count of overseas ballots in Florida. But Democrats are increasingly urging Mr. Gore to accept those results and set aside legal action....... Former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, a centrist Democrat, joined the chorus yesterday. He said Mr. Gore should concede if a hand recount and the overseas ballots show he has lost Florida. As yet, the Gore campaign is unwilling to accept the notion......." Washington Times 11/13/00 Steve Miller ".....The outcome of the 2000 presidential election is now in the hands of Florida Democrats. "These are not people who are interested in the rule of the law," said Palm Beach County Republican Party member Sid Dinerstein, speaking of local Democrats. "They are interested in winning." Four Democrats are wielding extraordinary power in the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush: ......... Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts joined with Democratic colleague Theresa LePore to outvote the panel's sole Republican to approve a manual recount of the county's 462,657 votes. ....." USA TODAY 11/13/00 kathy Kiely "...... Bush appeared briefly before the cameras over the weekend and has let it be known that he's beginning transition plans. Gore, who was a portrait in studied casualness over the weekend - playing touch football and going to the movies - is now said to be weighing a request for national television time to discuss his position on the election. ......If he cannot stop hand recounts in the Florida counties of Volusia, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, Bush is threatening to ask for recounts in Republican-leaning counties here as well as in states that Gore won narrowly, such as Iowa, Oregon and Wisconsin. ....." USA TODAY 11/13/00 Tom Squitieri ".... The presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore continues Monday in five other states where the winner remains in doubt or might be subject to challenge. In New Mexico, ballots will be impounded. In New Hampshire, a recount might be sought by Monday night's deadline. ...... Election officials in Iowa, Oregon and Wisconsin also are braced for possible requests from Republicans to recount votes. Gore won those states by narrow margins. ....... Oregon Gore leads by 5,756 votes in the battle for seven electoral votes. The counting of about 40,000 votes remaining from the state's all-mail balloting resumes Monday. ...... Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury says Gore's margin is likely to shrink, because ballots still are being tallied from GOP-leaning Jackson

says Gore's margin is likely to shrink, because ballots still are being tallied from GOP-leaning Jackson County. Computer problems stopped the tally there with about 13,465 ballots uncounted. .... In Oregon, a recount is triggered automatically if the margin of victory is less than one-fifth of one percent, or about 2,800 votes. "I would say the prospect of a recount is pretty high," Bradbury says. If a recount is called, it is expected to be held in the first week of December. New Hampshire Gore could challenge the result here, which put Bush ahead by 7,282 votes. If Bush wins Florida, the loss of New Hampshire's four electoral votes would drop him below the 270 he needs to capture the presidency. But the Gore camp may be at a tactical disadvantage in New Hampshire. A request in writing must be received by the secretary of state's office today, before a final Florida result will be known. ....."I haven't heard personally from anyone about a recount," New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner says. Iowa Gore won the state's seven electoral votes by a 4,949-vote margin. The Bush campaign has sent two staff members to Iowa to decide on a challenge. The state does not have an automatic recount process. .....Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, says there are "no counties with ballots collected and not counted." He issued that statement after Bush campaign Chairman Don Evans said several ballot boxes from "Republican counties" had not been tallied. ...... Staff members at state GOP headquarters spent the weekend studying county vote tallies in preparation for a possible recount request, GOP spokeswoman Ann Dougherty says. Party officials are lining up Bush supporters in each of the 99 counties to represent Bush on county recount boards. Wisconsin Gore won here by 6,099 votes, putting the state's 11 electoral votes in the Democratic column. ....But the Bush campaign has not ruled out a recount in what was the closest Wisconsin vote since 1848. "It's still under consideration," says Bob Hopkins, a Bush spokesman. ........There is no automatic recount in Wisconsin. A candidate has three business days to seek a recount once all 72 counties turn in certified tallies. Those tallies are expected to be completed by Tuesday. ...... The popular vote While the battle is focused on getting 270 electoral votes, another skirmish is being waged by the Bush side to see if other uncounted votes will push him into the popular vote lead. Gore's lead nationally is 49,260,111 to 49,043,820 - a margin of 216,291. ......... The drive is being led by California Secretary of State Bill Jones, a Republican, who says the state's 1 million absentee ballots "could alter the national popular vote." ......."A mistake was already made on election night because of the media's zeal for ratings," Jones says. "Let's not make that mistake again with prognostications on the national popular vote." .... If past voting practices hold, California absentee ballots generally break roughly 60% to Republicans and 40% to Democrats. That means Bush could receive another 600,000 votes in California - not enough to capture the state, but enough to give him a narrow plurality in the national popular vote. Counties in California have up to 28 days after the election to report absentee vote totals. ....... In 1996, there were about3.5 million absentee and other ballots tallied for the presidential race between election night and final certification by the states. ....." Washington Times 11/13/00 "...... By filing suit in federal district court on Saturday seeking an injunction blocking the potentially mischievous manual recount sought by Vice President Al Gore in four heavily Democratic Florida counties, George W. Bush and his legal advisers belatedly acknowledged that they finally understood that Mr. Gore and his campaign are utterly uninterested in any norms of electoral fairness. It is unfortunate that their only recourse was to seek judicial relief. But the unmistakable alternative would have been to allow themselves to be rolled in other courts and on the streets by Mr. Gore's politicized mobs............. To their repeated political detriment, Republicans and other fair-minded people, including independent counsels and federal judges, never seem to learn - until it is too late - that Clinton-Gore Democrats play only to win, oblivious to both standards of fairness and self-evident legal restrictions. Recall all of those frivolous "privileges" President Clinton claimed in an effort to stonewall Kenneth Starr's perjury investigation. Indeed, Mr. Gore himself long ago demonstrated that the only bounds he recognizes are those strictly enforced by so-called "controlling legal authority," a self-serving euphemism the vice president created to defend his illegal fund-raising solicitations in 1996 from his White House office. ...." Washington Post 11/13/00 Michael Warder ".......The clock is ticking for the president-elect. With a pending 327 vote margin of victory in Florida, and likely support from overseas absentee ballots, probable Presidentelect George W. Bush is losing valuable time each day the outcome is in limbo. When he takes the oath office on Jan. 20, 2001, he still will not have a complete leadership team in place to govern, or a detailed game plan that takes into account the new congressional realities. In 2002 there will be the next

congressional elections and, historically, the opposition party gains seats. Mr. Bush may then likely have a harder time getting legislation he can sign through that Congress......." Boston Herald 11/13/00 Joe Fitzgerald "....... How ironic that Al Gore, hell-bent on swearing two months from now to ``preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,'' must first come up with a way to get around it. Make no mistake, what we're seeing now is not his belief in the American political system, but rather his refusal to accept that system's rejection of him. ....... If the Electoral College had smiled upon his candidacy, he'd have gladly complied with that process, especially if the popular outcome had narrowly favored his foe. ......" WorldNetDaily.com 11/13/00 Jon Dougherty David Kupelian "...... The manual vote recounts being insisted on by Democratic operatives in Palm Beach County, Fla., have been used for over 20 years to steal elections from Republicans, claim several GOP veterans of hand-recount election-upsets. ....... According to Bob Haueter, chief of staff to the California Assembly Republican Caucus, and an expert on manual recounts, a Democrat lawyer intimately involved in "stealing" elections from Republicans through hand recounts admitted to the process and even shared the techniques involved. After Tuesday's vote and an automatic recount still left GOP nominee George W. Bush ahead by a slim 288-vote margin, Palm Beach elections officials decided that a manual recount of all 425,000 votes should be undertaken. ....... "What's happening in Florida is exactly the game plan laid out to me by an attorney who represented the Democrats in a recount in California where they stole a seat from us," former California Assemblyman Pat Nolan told WorldNetDaily. ......." Washington Post, via AP 11/13/00 Bill Lester "...... Emerging from an eight-minute meeting with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Warren Christopher said the country election boards or Gore himself will appeal the decision. He suggested that Harris' ruling was politically motivated. Noting that she campaigned for Gore's rival, George W. Bush, and is a political supporter of Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Christopher said. "Her statement has to be taken into that context." ....." USA TODAY 11/13/00 Judy Keen "......George W. Bush and his advisers say they believe public impatience with the prospect of endless vote recounts could pressure Vice President Al Gore into accepting the outcome after overseas absentee ballots are tallied late this week. But the Bush team has also concluded that the extraordinary election drama might well be resolved ultimately in courtrooms. Bush and his advisers are gearing up for a series of legal challenges, depending on the outcome of the latest recounts in Florida later this week and their federal lawsuit seeking an end to hand counting of ballots in five Florida counties. ......" NY - POST 11/13/00 Ken Lovett ".......Tales of voter fraud and irregularities in last week's presidential election have swept through Wisconsin, where Al Gore enjoys just a slim lead over George W. Bush. Since the elections, hundreds of voters have complained to the Wisconsin Republican Party of problems they say they either experienced or witnessed at the polls. ........ Nine, all from heavily Democratic Milwaukee County, discussed the allegations with The Post yesterday. Beverly Hecker, a 63-year-old Republican, said she received a ballot that was already premarked for two Democrats, including Gore. Wisconsin makes voters fill out their ballots before entering them into the polling machine. Hecker said that when she tried to mark her vote for George W. Bush, the ballot machine spit the paper out because it contained two votes for president. Hecker said she gave the defective ballot to an election inspector and voted on a fresh sheet. John Zimmerman, a GOP committeeman in a Milwaukee suburb, insists he saw a local college student leaving a polling center with a stack of ballots "an inch thick" under his arm. A Marquette University student boasted on a local radio show that he voted 25 times for Al Gore. Janet Riordan, 39, said that when she went to vote wearing a Bush-Cheney button, an election inspector asked, "Why would a young woman like you want to vote for George Bush?" By far the largest complaint was that election inspectors required little or no identification when voters showed up. Wisconsin allows voters to register at the polls. Cheryl Sorenson, a 44-year-old Republican, said one man was waved right through despite hesitating when asked his address. Huntly Gordon, a Marquette University Law School student and a Tennessee native, said he was asked simply to sign a registration form without providing any identification. "The election workers were doing nothing," said Gordon, a Democrat who voted for Bush. "It just promotes fraud." ......"

UPI 11/13/00 ".....An election recount case that lead to Massachusetts scrapping punch-card balloting statewide was to be used Monday to help bolster the Democratic Party's defense against a Republican legal challenge to a manual recount in the presidential race in Florida....... The case involved a 1996 primary that initially had Philip Johnston narrowly defeating William Delahunt in the state's 10th Congressional District where punch cards similar to those in question in Florida were used. Delahunt sued for a hand recount and was eventually declared the winner by 108 votes...... The manual recount uncovered extensive errors in the computerized tabulation of the punch-card ballots, according to Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin......." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....In the fishbowl atmosphere of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, the clash between County Commissioner Carol Roberts and County Court Judge Charles Burton was inevitable. .....They were surrounded by lawyers and scrutinized by the watchful cameras of the world press. .......... And they held incredible power that could decide the course of history and pick the nation's 43rd president. At about 2:15 a.m. Sunday, in the heat of a pivotal decision, their professional demeanor cracked. ........ They clashed openly, first in front of the cameras, when Roberts pushed for a manual recount of all Palm Beach County presidential ballots and Burton urged caution. And then behind closed doors, when Burton approached Roberts and, in her words, demanded to know: "Why did you bushwhack me?" ......... Burton, bleary-eyed from the marathon proceedings, told reporters moments later that Roberts' move had taken him by surprise. He had urged the board to wait a day for a legal opinion but lost when the board's third member, Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, sided with Roberts. .......Suddenly, Carol Roberts had become a lightning rod. ......." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....At a pro-Bush rally later Sunday, Frank DeMario, the county's Republican Party chairman, said he wanted Roberts removed from the canvassing board. ...... To Burton, Roberts said she could not have told him of her proposal without violating the state open-meetings law. Besides, she said, the idea for a countywide manual recount had dawned on her only moments earlier as she sat at a desk and pondered the results coming in from the hand count of four precincts. ....... At 1:45 a.m. Sunday, nearly 17 hours after it began its work day, Burton announced the findings of the manual recount. In four precincts, Gore added 33 votes and Bush added 14. ........ The numbers played over and over in Roberts' mind. If 1 percent of the vote produced 19 more votes for Gore, a full recount could produce a 1,900-vote edge, turning defeat into victory in Florida and the nation. In the words of the state statute governing recounts, that could alter the outcome of the election. ...... " THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....She spoke quickly and worked to cut off debate by demanding an immediate vote. Burton, the canvassing board chairman, ignored her several times, allowing political representatives scattered in the media-heavy audience to state their views. When Burton suggested that the board wait for a legal opinion from the secretary of state's office, Roberts retorted: "I'm not asking for an opinion. I'm asking for a vote." ....... When an attorney with the secretary of state's office said a manual recount depended on finding errors in the county machines, Roberts said past recounts never took that into account. And, "I would like to call the vote." ...... When Burton ignored her and recognized Democratic state Rep. Lois Frankel, Roberts cut her off and demanded a vote. ..... Finally, LePore, criticized nationally for a ballot that confused voters, made a single comment, clarifying that the recount would be based on human error, not mechanical. ...... "I say it was still an error," Roberts said. "I'd like to call the vote." ......"All right, call the vote," Burton conceded. The time was 2:15 a.m. The motion passed 2-1. ........" THE PALM BEACH POST 11/13/00 Joel Engelhardt Stephen Kiehl ".....A crowd grew around Burton, 41. He patiently explained that while he is a Democrat, he treats the canvassing board as a neutral, nonpartisan, ministerial body -- but that he couldn't answer for other board members. "I think the people have to judge who is partisan and who is nonpartisan," he said. ........ " Jewish World Review 11/13/00 Charles Krauthammer ".....When a presidential candidate withdraws his concession, when critical network projections have to be retracted twice, when the margin of victory is so small that the presidency can be determined by a few stray ballot boxes in a state of 6 million voters, we've achieved far more drama than any democracy needs. ....... This election has generated not one but two crises of legitimacy. The first arises from the real possibility that Al Gore wins the popular vote but loses the presidency. (This is not certain, however: As of this writing, Gore's margin is under 200,000, with more than 2 million absentee ballots still to be counted in California, Oregon and Washington.) ...... This problem, however, is not the most acute. After all, it is not as if the electoral college system was imposed retroactively on the candidates. They knew the rules of the game in advance. Indeed, it was the Gore campaign that went around before the vote touting the sanctity of the electoral college, at a time when it looked as if Gore would lose the popular vote. Accordingly, both the Bush and Gore campaigns were designed, crafted and executed to meet electoral college requirements rather than popular vote requirements. George W. Bush, for example, would not have spent so much time and get-out-the-vote money in, say, Michigan, if there was no "winning"

Michigan. He would have spent his time and money piling up huge popular majorities in Republican, vote-rich Texas and the South. ......" Chicago Tribune 11/13/00 John Kass "...... Chicago's Bill Daley keeps saying he wants a fair resolution to the presidential contest between his guy, Democrat Al Gore, and Republican George W. Bush. That's probably why Democratic Party judges of elections in Florida are now helping hand-count paper ballots in key Democrat-rich precincts and are magically discovering new votes for Gore. ....... Would the Daley boys be as interested in fairness if the Orange County California Republicans flew to Florida to do the counting? Can't Republicans count too? ......... " Msnbc 11/12/00 "...... Bush counselor Barry Richards just spoke on MSNBC concerning Volusia County's latest lawsuit and the pending suits in Palm Beach County. He mentioned that they have moved to consolidate all of the pending voter cases and move them to Leon County (Capital seat in Tallahassee). He also mentioned that there are republican lawyers standing by in all Florida counties being challenged by dems. to defend any further cases....." Jack Tarvin Letter 11/13/00 ".....Congressman Lucas, ....... Please excuse the legibility of my handwriting, my printer is currently out of ink. However, ink on paper cannot possibly express my intense outrage at what is occurring in the state of Florida in Al Gore's name....... I've lived in Campbell County, (Kentucky,) all my life and been a labor union member my entire adult working career. I've voted in every presidential election since 1972 and never voted for Ronald Reagan or George Bush Sr. I've also voted for you personally, as well as Governor Patton. ........ But if Al Gore persists in his attempt to obtain an admittedly subjective and ambiguous (and very likely biased) hand recount, I solemnly swear I will never vote for another Democrat as long as I live and breathe......." Flyer circulating in St. Louis Freeper silversurfer "..... "With how long Harry has been dead, he should win in a landslide." ........ Quickly following the victory of Mel Carnahan, the Missouri Democratic Committee has announced their choice for Senate in 2002, the late President Harry Truman. "The people have spoken, and we are here to support the people, no matter how silly it might seem." ........Senator elect Hillary Clinton applauded Missouri for its progressive thinking, stating that she plans to run for Senate in Missouri once she is dead. She also hinted at being a big Cardinals fan. ......" rush limbaugh.com 11/12/00 Freeper rintense "....... 1. Rush is saying Bush WON the mandatory recount. 2. Clarifies that the Bush camp is going to court to prevent a swindle, not to change te results- to see the rule of law is upheld. 3. Al Gore's advisers are upset that the FLA. Sec. of State will not extend deadline. Any county that does not submit ceritfied results by 5pm, their results will not be counted. Dems say ruling politically motivated. Gore himself may challenge. 4. Rush says Harris is operating under a state law and is not playing partison politics. He emphasized the word SHALL. 5. Rush says its the impeachment all over again and the Rule of Law is being violated all over again. Fox News 11/13/00 Freeper truth_eagle "...... BREAKING - FOX REPORTS THE THIRD MEMBER OF THE PBC COMMISION(THE JUDGE) SAID THE 1% HAND COUNT SHOWS THAT A FULL MANUAL COUNT WAS NOT JUSTIFIED!!! ......" Freeper seraphMTH '......Here's some history on Judge Terry L. Lewis, the Circuit Judge handling the case. Here's one of his decisions on a previously unrelated case: ____________________________________________________ Judge blocks the state from enforcing a law on abortion notice TALLAHASSEE - A circuit judge blocked the state from enforcing a recent law requiring doctors to notify parents before performing abortions on minors. Judge Terry Lewis, 2nd Judicial Circuit, issued the temporary injunction. The law would have required doctors to provide a 48-hours notice to a parent or a legal guardian of anyone younger than 18 seeking an abortion. The law included exceptions allowing minors to ask judges to waive the notice requirement. Lewis said the state singled out abortion while ignoring other medical procedures that don't require parental

Lewis said the state singled out abortion while ignoring other medical procedures that don't require parental notification. He said the law could be unhealthy for some minors who would seek abortions in other states have illegal or self-induced abortions. (7/27/99) ....." The Associated Press 11/13/00 Marcy Gordon ".....Republicans charged Monday that the process Palm Beach County is using to recount presidential votes is unfair, chaotic and possibly tainted by the Democratic ties of the county's three elected officials, and its commissioner in particular. ........ GOP observers of the weekend's hand recount saw election staff and canvassing board members mishandling ballots, ``potentially producing countless new votes,'' George W. Bush's campaign said in a letter Monday to Theresa LePore, a board member who is the county supervisor of elections. ....... The presence of chads - the bits of paper punched out of ballot cards - on the floor of the room showed that mishandling of ballots rather than the intent of voters was potentially producing new votes, the Republicans said. ........ ``Even the appearance of impropriety calls into question this race,'' said Mark Wallace, the lead Republican observer in Palm Beach County, questioning the officials' Democratic ties. .........Roberts acknowledged giving money to Al Gore's campaign, but said she was not active in it. She said she was even criticized by Democratic Party officials for not getting involved. ........Roberts also said she took her husband to a campaign event for vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman, but that they didn't even meet each other because it was very crowded. ......." NewsMax.com 11/13/00 "...... Claiming he wanted "the will of people" heard, Al Gore insisted this afternoon that he would continue to contest the presidential election - not because he wanted to win, but because he supported "democracy." "I would not want to win the presidency by a few votes cast in error ... and I don't think Gov. Bush wants that either," Gore said at a 4 p.m. news conference outside the White House. .....Repeatedly referring to America as a "democracy" - which it is not; it is a republic - Gore said that "the integrity of our democracy, making sure that the will of people is expressed" was what mattered. "It is important that every vote is counted, and counted accurately," Gore said. "That's what I'm focused on." ..... He made no reference to reports of widespread Democrat vote fraud across the country, from Miami to Milwaukee to St. Louis to California. Nor did he mention widespread anger that pro-Democrat TV networks mistakenly called Florida for Gore early in the evening on Election Day, seeming to ensure a Gore victory and discouraging Bush supporters in the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones from voting. He refused to answer any questions. ....." Fox News 11/13/00 Freeper Hildy "..... Fox news just reported that a Rally put on by Jesse Jackson in Florida which was expected to bring about 15,000 people out, ended in a bust, with Jackson leaving when pro-Bush people outnumbered his 1,500 people who showed up!!!!!! They heckled him until he left in disgust! ......" UPI 11/13/00 "......Hewlett-Packard tripped on its earnings Monday and the whole market fell. The Nasdaq and the Dow Jones industrial average, already nervous about the presidential election, opened lower and stayed there most of the day. The Nasdaq dropped below the 3000 level for the first time in a year and closed at its lowest point in 52 weeks, ending the day down 62.25, or 2 percent, at 2966.74, despite a brief brush above break even. ..." Fox News 11/13/00 Fox News interview with Sheperd Smith "....... Hastings: You're a former United States Attorney and I'm a former United States federal judge...[Hastings blithers on] Barr: And the law. You and I may have had very different legal careers, Alcee. I upheld the law and when the law says "shall", it means shall. Now you may have operated differently. Hastings: And I interpreted the law and I want you to know... Barr: Okay. Now see that's the rub. He wants to interpret the law the way they want. The Republicans want to uphold the law as the law says. Hastings: Ahh see. Well then does the law say, does the law say that the county has the right to accept the legal recount request? Barr: The law says that the result shall be certified and shall be in. Hastings: Oh, you want to get to the end result without even the absentee ballots, Bob? Barr: Well, the fact of the matter is that's what the law says. The officials who said that they would be ready for it except in Palm Beach county....... Hastings: ...We're getting way away from the voting irregularities that... Barr: There weren't any voting irregularities, Alcee. There were people that after the fact say they want to revote but there are no

allegations of voting irregularity. Hastings: Bob, Bob, they said that on the day of the election - This Is In My District, Sir - and there are twenty-two thousand...[blithering] Barr: Oh, and that makes it right, just because it's in your district? [Hum-humph.] Hastings: [blither]...And if they were in your district, what would you say, "Ooops! That's okay." This... Barr: No, we have smarter voters in our district, Alcee. Hastings: Oh, Robert, what a nasty thing to say! You don't have to go there! It'll be decided in the United States Supreme Court, I promise you that. Sheperd: Congressman Hastings, Congressman Barr, this is going to be a tough one to get to the bottom of. Thank you both for your input......" MSNBC 11/13/00 "......NEWSWEEK "...... "I'm not like George Bush," Al Gore told an aide in 1999, when the campaign was just gearing up. "If he wins or loses, life goes on. I'll do anything to win." Bush may not have been quite as driven. "If this doesn't work out, I've got a life," he told a NEWSWEEK reporter in December 1999, when his campaign seemed to be dragging. ...." CNN 11/13/00 "..... CNN just announced that a judge withdrew from a case! Does anyone know which one? His name was Steven Graf(sp?) Developing... " Freeper prov1813man "....Fox just reported that this Judge was alleged to have said "I will do anything to keep the democrats from winning". This allegation was made by someone who claimed he overheard it on an elevator, no witnesses. Judge denies it, but recuses himself for the sake of purity. ....." Florida Statutes 11/13/00 "..... Title IX ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS Chapter 102 Conducting Elections And Ascertaining The Results 102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.--If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. History.--s. 35, ch. 3879, 1889; RS 189; s. 66, ch. 4328, 1895; GS 249; RGS 293; CGL 349; s. 6, ch. 26870, 1951; s. 5, ch. 65-129; ss. 10, 35, ch. 69-106; s. 25, ch. 77-175; s. 46, ch. 79-400. Note.--Former s. 99.50. Freeper structure 11/13/00 "...... CNN just announced that they had to correct a statement by one of their guests regarding Ms Harris. The guest (and so many others!) claimed that Harris was appointed by Jeb Bush. Haven't we heard that all day long? Well, she was ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA. So take that, you low life Christopher. ...." Freeper Will E Horton 11/13/00 ".....Officials in one key Florida county decided late today against conducting a manual recount of presidential votes, which is a potential blow to Al Gore's attempts to be declared the winner in Florida's crucial vote. After doing a sample hand check in three precincts, Broward County officials found only a net four-vote difference from the machine ballot count following last Tuesday's election. Broward, which includes Ft. Lauderdale, had backed Gore over George W. Bush by a nearly 2-1 margin. Gore campaign officials said tonight they will challenge the decision in court on Tuesday, saying officials there got "bad legal advice" from Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. ....." Freeper Steven W "..... The Broward folks actually decided to follow the law. This is the same thing that was told to Palm Beach but Carol Roberts rejected the State's direction & decided to break the law. The hand-job is only called for if the machines or software are proven not to work and cannot be fixed. The gal representing the state (not SOS) told them (Palm Beach) that the hand-job they did on Saturday only proved they had problems with the voters and not with the machines. Thus a handcount was not warranted. The Broward folks came to the proper conclusion and now the DemoncRATS are mad they won't break the law (surprise) ....."

proper conclusion and now the DemoncRATS are mad they won't break the law (surprise) ....." CNN 11/13/00 Freeper rintense "..... MAJOR NEWS: CNN is reporting that Democrats will take Broward County to court to FORCE them to do a manual recount. ....." Freeper markfnkl 11/13/00 MSNBC "..... MSNBC reported at 9:10 PM ET that approximately 2/3 of the way through the Volusia hand count, Gore has picked up only about 20 votes. It was also stated that this is less than the Gore camp had been hoping for. ....." nm_james "....... THIS IS THE CASE LAW: It sets a clear precedent and Gore's lawyers must have seen this and KNOW that they MUST lose because of stare decisis 607 So.2d 508; 17 Fla. L. Weekly D2542 District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District. BROWARD COUNTY CANVASSING BOARD, Appellant, v. Alfred S. HOGAN, Appellee. No. 92-0034. Nov. 12, 1992. Losing city council seat candidate brought action seeking manual recount of election results. The Circuit Court, Broward County, W. Herbert Moriarty, J., entered order directing county canvassing board to conduct manual recount. Board appealed. The District Court of Appeal held that county canvassing board acted within its discretion in deciding to defer to count of tabulation equipment following proper calibration and testing in response to demand of candidate for manual recount of election results and, thus, mandamus to compel manual recount was improper. Reversed and remanded......." Palm Beach Post 11/13/00 Scott Hiaasen Joel Engelhardt ".......Beneath the tedium of Palm Beach County's recount Saturday was a theme that hummed through the night. One could call it the Democratic Dimple Dilemma. If people tried to punch a ballot but failed to dislodge the cardboard 'chad,' or perforated rectangle, next to Al Gore's name, should the indentation -- or dimple -- left behind be counted because it reveals the voter's intent? ....... In Palm Beach County, a large number of the 10,361 ballots with no choice for president could have been meant for Gore, Democrats say. That belief was bolstered by Saturday's manual recount of four precincts. ......... The recount also fed Democratic efforts to prove ballot confusion by confirming that most of the double votes in the four precincts went to Gore and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. ......Democratic lawyer Ben Kuehne, observing the recount for Al Gore's campaign, repeatedly objected to the canvassing board's refusal to consider dimples. ......." Drudgereport Website 11/13/00 Deb Weiss "....... Has Clintonism triumphed? You'd be tempted to think so, watching in dazed disbelief as an American election unravels, resembling more and more an opium-eater's nightmare, less and less the sturdy antagonism and occasional cheerful corruption of our traditional politics........... It's clear that Mr. Gore is toying with the idea of a Clintonian end-run around the Constitution. At the end of his game, he has become Tricky Al, the man who'll be remembered for having been outclassed by Richard Nixon. ....... Mr. Gore's lead in the popular vote nationwide (less than 100,000, the last time anyone bothered to look) is insubstantial, given the probability of fraud. What's more, everybody knows it. .....Mr. Gore did get one thing right, in the waning hours of his campaign. This is indeed a battle between good and evil -- between Americanism and Clintonism. At the moment, evil appears to be holding a slight but steady lead. ......But it's still too close to call. ....." WRKO-AM 11/13/00 Freeper Yikes "..... Caught the tail end of a Boston-based talk show at around 9:30 tonight. Host's guest was Mike Jones, an executive with Republicans Abroad. He was talking from Austin. Said that it is imperative that we all contact our state election officials to absolutely make sure that all absentee ballots are counted. He said that a lot of states simply won't do it if counting them does not make a difference in the state's total. Jones said that Massachusetts, for example, has not yet counted the absentee ballots. He also said that California has 1.8 million absentee ballots, not 1 million. Folks, the states can certify their elections without these ballots. Number one priority tomorrow is to make sure we contact our state's

election people. ......" UPI 11/13/00 ".......Elections officials and the Democratic Party in Jacksonville, Fla., decided Monday to take no action on the issue of 22,000 votes that were thrown out in Duval County during the vote counting process........ At a meeting of officials and representatives of both major parties it was determined that the nature of the ballots on which voters picked two candidates in the presidential race afforded no solution to the problem........ Since under the law a voter can't pick more than one candidate in the same race, they were thrown out. The errors occurred more frequently in four precincts that voted for Gore, but Democratic County Chairman Mike Langton said he could find no way to remedy the situation, unlike Palm Beach County......... In West Palm Beach, Democrats contend an examination of individual ballots can determine the voters' intent in many cases, and a recount is scheduled for 7 a.m. EDT Tuesday......" UPI 11/13/00 ".......The showdown over who becomes the next U.S. president shifted dramatically from federal to state court Monday after the campaign of Democrat Al Gore won a federal court decision that a hand-count can go forward, then fought in state court to extend a Tuesday deadline that could nullify any gains the hand-counting ruling produces. ......... But the legal maneuvering -- and the close vote in several other states that could theoretically give Bush the advantage even if he loses Florida -- made the outcome no clearer than when the voting began.......... Gore leads by 6,099 votes in Wisconsin, where Republicans are studying alleged voting irregularities in Milwaukee. He also leads by 5,121 votes in Iowa. In New Mexico, Bush had an unofficial 4-point lead and Republicans asked judges to impound early-voting and absentee ballots in case of a recount....... Gore leads by 5,756 in Oregon with 99 percent of votes counted. Oregon Republicans Monday asked the Democratic secretary of state to bow out of the election process, claiming he was too close to the Gore campaign.......... If Florida goes against Bush and he remains ahead in New Mexico, he could still win the Electoral College if he demanded recounts and won in Wisconsin and either Oregon or Iowa.........." UPI 11/13/00 Paul Singer ".....While most eyes have focused on Florida's recount of its presidential ballot, Republicans in Oregon are asking the state's top election official to recuse himself from any additional participation in the state's razor close presidential balloting due to concerns that he favors Vice President Al Gore. Oregon is only one of several states where recounts or other legal action may be pursued to sort out the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election. ......... Oregon Republican Party Chairman Perry Atkinson wrote to Secretary of State Bill Bradbury Monday asking that he recuse himself from any further involvement in the state's based on news articles suggesting that a Bradbury aide told Gore Friday not to worry about the outcome. Atkinson's letter says Bradbury aide Paddy McGuire told the Associated Press Friday that Gore had called to inquire about the state's election results, and McGuire comforted Gore, saying, "We'll pull it out for you." ......These actions "seriously call into question the objectivity of your office," Atkison wrote, adding that both Bradbury and McGuire should "remove [yourselves] from any contact with the process" of counting ballots in the state. ......" The Telegraph (U.K.) 11/14/00 Janet Daley "....... WHEN I was in America recently, watching Al Gore strut around during his last television debate with George W Bush - waving his finger in his opponent's face and generally behaving like the most obnoxious smart a - - e in the lower fifth - I thought to myself, "What kind of person thinks that this is the way to behave when he is running for the presidency?" Well, now we know. Mr Gore is the sort of person who is prepared to set fire to the stadium because he has lost the game. ...." Associated Press 11/13/00 Dara kam "......A Harvard-educated blueblood from one of Florida's wealthiest families, Secretary of State Katherine Harris is no stranger to controversy. She's been investigated for campaign finance violations and criticized for spending state money jetting around the world, spending up to $500 a night for hotel rooms in Washington. She's also been one of George W. Bush's most prominent political supporters, campaigning for him in Florida and elsewhere........ She sits as one of six elected members on the Florida Cabinet, which with Gov. Jeb Bush, decides on issues ranging from the mundane to the momentous affecting schools, the environment and other statewide concerns. ..... As secretary of state, Harris oversees elections, the state's historical and cultural resources and also keeps the state's public records. She makes $106,000 a year. ......" Freeper Sueann "....What's even better is, one of the ministers was just on O'Reilly and he was upset with Jesse. Said Jesse should be bringing people together, not waging war. Awesome. The guy also said that our media is not reporting what is really going on there in PBC. Amazing! ...." Las Vegas Sun 11/10/00 Jace Radke "...... At one in 49 million, the chances of hitting Megabucks on one spin are slim, but not as slim as the odds that Vice President Al Gore would make up as much ground as he has in the Florida recount, according to a UNLV study. Economics professor Tom Carroll began running statistical equations Thursday on the net gains both Gore, who gained more than 2,200 votes, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who added about 700 votes, have made in the recount. He found that the statistical

chances for such large and different totals to occur as a result of random glitches was less than infinitesimal. "The probability of being struck by lightning is about one in a million," Carroll said. "The same person would have to be hit by lightning 30 times to compare with what we've seen in this recount." ......" Al Gore's Florida War Room Shut it down now. Please. By Richard Pollock "..... For six years I was the head of a Ralph Nader group, and later for a decade I served on the board of the liberal League of Conservation Voters. As a producer at ABC, I saw old-fashioned political consultants transformed into hardened kamikaze pundits, escalating their rhetoric and political tactics. You could say I have had a front row seat to observe the left in action. ...........Now, however, they are about to outdo themselves. America's liberals, led by Vice President Al Gore and his aides, are consciously preparing to undermine the legality and legitimacy of the next president of the United States. They should stop while they still can. ......" New York Times 11/14/00 Michael Moss Ford Fessenden "......In the weeks before the presidential election, Florida Republicans mailed party voters tens of thousands of requests for absentee ballots that were virtually completed, requiring only the applicant's signature and social security number......... The aim was to drive up absentee voting for Gov. George W. Bush of Texas. But problems emerged. Many of the forms provided by the Republicans lacked the voter registration number required by Florida's tough anti-fraud election laws.......... Election officials in several counties said in interviews today that they supplied the missing number on the forms and sent out absentee ballots to voters......... A local lawyer in Seminole County, Harry Jacobs, formally protested Ms. Goard's decision to allow Republican campaign workers to correct the applications. "I felt like it was wrong," Mr. Jacobs said. "I felt it was not legal. I felt it was amoral." At a two-hour meeting today, the Seminole County election board rejected Mr. Jacob's complaint and certified the results, saying that Ms. Goard had followed the election law. ....... Mr. Jacobs said he was considering filing a lawsuit over the issue. Florida Democrats assert that Ms. Goard's decision to allow people other than the voters to amend the applications violated election laws. "She let them tamper with her files, and that's a felony," said Bob Poe, the Florida Democratic chairman. ......" www.sun-sentinel.com 11/13/00 Ellis Berger "...... MIAMI -- Under a cloud of uncertainty about any decision it might make, Miami-Dade County's elections canvassing board was set to meet Tuesday to consider the Democratic Party's request for a hand count of 10,750 ballots in which no presidential choice was registered. Such an extensive manual count would take at least two weeks, because officials would have to sort through the more than 650,000 ballots cast to find the 10,750 in question, county elections supervisor David C. Leahy said Monday. ......... Miami-Dade Democratic chairman Joseph Geller, who submitted the request, said a compromise would be acceptable. Geller said the party would settle for what it has requested in other counties: a look at three precincts selected by the Democrats. Even that effort would likely take more than a day, meaning Miami-Dade would miss the Florida Secretary of State's deadline for all recounts to be completed by 5 p.m. Tuesday. Other counties struggling with the deadline are taking the issue to court. ........" The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "...... "This is outrageous and illegal," fumed Democratic Rep. Peter Deutsch yesterday after Broward County's three election commissioners voted not to conduct a manual recount of last Tuesday's ballots. Democrats immediately vowed to sue to force a hand count of all ballots. The same Democrats who cheered when Palm Beach County voted for a full recount on Saturday blasted Judge Robert Lee, a Democrat, when he joined Republican Jane Carroll in rejecting a manual recount. Unlike Palm Beach County, Broward conducted a smooth hand count of 3,892 sample ballots and found only four extra votes for Al Gore. ........ The Broward decision severely damages Mr. Gore's efforts to secure enough votes in recounts to overturn George W. Bush's 388-vote lead, which is likely to be bolstered when overseas absentee ballots are all counted on Friday. ...." The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "...... The only other county that has hand-counted all its ballots is Volusia (Daytona Beach), and Mr. Bush is holding his own there. Officials in Dade County (Miami) will meet Tuesday to discuss a possible sample hand recount, the odds of which have probably declined given that Broward--the county just north--has decided against any more counting. Yesterday, Osceola County, a Democratic stronghold, also reversed its original decision to have a hand recount and has finished its count. ........That leaves Palm Beach County as an outlier county in its determination to buck Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who says she must observe today's 5 p.m. deadline for certification of all counties' vote totals. Judge Terry Lewis promises to rule at 10:30 a.m. today on a request by Palm Beach and Volusia counties, joined by the Gore campaign, to set aside the deadline. ......" The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "......The 2 a.m. Sunday decision by the Palm Beach election canvassing board to proceed with a full hand count is already hugely controversial. One of the two votes for a hand count came from Theresa LePore, the elections supervisor who designed the infamous butterfly ballot. ........ ... Yesterday Palm Beach County circuit judge Stephen Rapp recused himself from lawsuits over the butterfly ballot after a lawyer accused him of making disparaging remarks about Democrats in a

courthouse elevator. Judge Rapp called the accusations "absolutely false" but still withdrew to avoid an appearance of a conflict. ........ Contrast that with Ms. LePore's behavior. An elected Democrat, she no doubt wishes to run for re-election, but she is now the subject of numerous lawsuits filed by voters angry over the ballot. A local Democratic state legislator is mounting a recall campaign against her. "She has an electoral gun held to her head," says one local journalist. "If she didn't go along with an aggressive hand count of ballots she wouldn't be able to live in the county anymore." ......" The Wall Street Journal 11/13/00 John Fund "...... If Judge Lewis orders an extension of the deadline and allows Palm Beach County to launch a hand count of all its votes, this may prove insufficient to wipe out Mr. Bush's lead. Mr. Gore gained a net of 19 votes after Saturday night's sample recount of 1% of the county's precincts. Democrats extrapolate that a full hand count would yield 1,900 extra votes for Mr. Gore. Statisticians tell me that is highly unlikely. Palm Beach County has fewer than 10,000 "undervote" ballots-those for which the machine count showed no vote for president. The Gore campaign picked the most Democratic precincts that had the greatest number of "undervote" ballots. So instead of recounting only 1% of the total county vote, Palm Beach actually counted 5% of the undervote ballots. Of those, about a tenth were counted by Ms. LePore and her fellow mind-readers as representing ballots that should be counted. Experts guess than only about 1,000 votes could legitimately be found in the county wide boxes of "undervote" ballots. All in all, this might leave Mr. Gore with only a 200 net gain in votes--a not enough for him to catch Mr. Bush. ...... If the number of extra Gore votes exceeds 200 in Palm Beach County, it may be time for voters to start wondering exactly how the vote count was conducted and how carefully the ballots had been handled. ......." 11/14/00 Linda Spice Jesse Garza Journal Sentinel ".....A Marquette University freshman who said he was one of 174 students who told a campus newspaper they cast multiple presidential ballots said he doesn't fear prosecution if it highlights the holes he found in the political system. Election 2000 "I wanted to make the point that the system is screwed up here," said the student, 18, who asked not to be named. "I hope people can recognize the system is flawed, and if a poor college kid with no resources can manipulate the system, a person with an agenda and who wants to get things done - think how easily they can manipulate the system." .....The Marquette Tribune, the university's student newspaper, surveyed 1,000 students and found 174 admitted voting more than once, said Michael McGraw, the Tribune's metro news desk editor........The paper conducted the survey in person and by telephone after state Republicans on Friday alleged instances of voting irregularities, including claims that some students at Marquette and the University of WisconsinMilwaukee voted multiple times......" CNN via dow Jones 11/14/00 Freeper Interloper ".....The Council for the Democratic Party and Vice President Al Gore will seek a court ruling Tuesday to count "dimpled" votes in Florida, according to Cable News Network. The group wants a judge to tell the Florida canvassing comission that, by Florida law, if an attempt was made by a voter to punch a ballot - even if it's just a tiny dimple - the vote must be counted. Some Democrats are concerned that county election officials in Florida have overlooked the "dimpled" ballots so far, CNN said......" 970 wfla radio 11/14/00 Freeper wrenn1010 "..... WFLA News Radio out of Tampa is reporting a cease in WPB recount. Election board is now questioning the legality of the recount. ...." The Palm Beach Post 11/14/00 ".....Unofficial numbers show Vice President Al Gore gaining 24 more votes in Volusia County as election workers Monday scrambled to finish the monotonous exercise of recounting more than 184,000 ballots. But the day was not without embarrassment. ....... The canvassing board found 320 uncounted ballots from last Tuesday's election. The ballots had been fed through the electronic vote counter at the beginning of the day but were not recounted after the machine's memory was reset when the machine malfunctioned. Volusia's canvassing board still has plenty of work ahead -- not the least of which is determining voter intent on a stack of questionable ballots more than 2 inches thick. .....The county has until 5 p.m. today to turn its vote count in to the state. Volusia and Palm Beach counties sued the state for more time, and a Tallahassee judge is expected to rule on the request this morning. Volusia workers have finished counting 82 percent of the 172 precincts. ....." Fox News 11/14/00 "..... Fox News just reported that Bob Butterworth, Attorney General, disagrees with the Palm Beach resolution and it now looks like a motion will be filed in court to continue to hand recount. OY! ...." Foxnews 11/14/00 Freeper Clinton's a liar "..... Okay, folks. The process is working. The Palm Beach County Canvassing Board (yes, the one with the Dread Pirate Roberts) is having a live press conference. The manual recount has been suspended in Palm Beach County because it is adverse to the law and an binding opinion that the board just received. For some reason they are awaiting a second opinion from the Attorney General. These opinions are "binding" to the board. ...." Freeper Excuse_Me adds "...If they're waiting for a

second opinion from the Atty Gen, Bob Butterworth, then they'll be counting again in a short while. He's Gore's Florida Campaign Chair, and he didn't recuse himself like Jeb Bush did... " Freeper Reb Raider To: Keyesertarian "....... Did anyone hear the elderly gentleman on C-span that said he and his brother(laywers)both volunteer for the Palm Beach(or Florida) democratic party and that his brother was inside during the 1%hand recount? He sounded so sad and said that his brother doesn't want to be involved anymore because people were poking through the chads for Gore and saying "Oh yeah,this is a vote for Gore." I'm in the central time zone, so those of you in the west watch Washington Journal. I think it was 7-15min. after it started. I'd love for the Bush team to find out who this is. Seems like there can't be too many brothers volunteering there for the DNC that are both lawyers. ....." Freeper Getreal_2000 "..... Based on a 2 to 1 vote the manual count in Palm Beach County is suspended as they have a binding opinion from the state election division that a manual count is not allowed if the machine counting system has been tested and is working properly which is the case. This action can be overturned by the Attorney General's office but a former AG says the election commision's opinions are usually respected. Of course, the court can order whatever, and the PBC canvassing board said that. Looks good for "W" and accurate counting of election results. ....." Freeper StarFan "CNN REPORTING THAT GORE VICTORY SHRINKS IN IOWA. He was ahead by 5,000 and now is at 4,000 as they still continue to count. ...." CNN 11/14/00 Freeper structure "...... CNN reporter John Zarella from Palm Beach says the Attorney General Butterworth replies that Sec of State's opinion on manual recount is erroneous. ....... The one paragraph Zarella read on the air said that "manual recount is allowed when there is tabulation error." ......" Freeper ICU812 ".....The man on the Palm Beach canvassing board(can't remember his name but this is only one male) just told Fox that because they have conflicting opinions from the Director of Elections and the AG they have to take it to a circuit judge and ask for 'declaratory relief'. Sounds like they need a tie-breaker to me. ...." Dallas Morning News 11/14/00 Charles Ornstein ".......The tumult about how to recount this county's presidential ballots set off partisan sniping Monday - even turning a vote supervisor's bumper sticker into a suspicious political matter. Republicans charged that the counting system Palm Beach County is using is unfair, chaotic and possibly tainted by the Democratic ties of the county's vote canvassing board. ..... Democrats denied that, accusing George W. Bush's supporters of engaging in a "cheap political stunt." ........ " Dallas Morning News 11/14/00 Charles Ornstein ".......GOP observers of the weekend's initial hand recount said they saw election staff and canvassing board members mishandling ballots, "potentially producing countless new votes," the Bush camp said in a letter Monday to Theresa LePore, a board member who is the county supervisor of elections. The canvassing board members are registered Democrats, although chairman Charles Burton was named a county judge this year by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. ....... Aides to George W. Bush took particular aim at Carol Roberts, the county commissioner who pressed for the full hand tally. "The person most shrilly and loudly calling for this flawed manual recount was the individual who now today admitted to political involvement in the Gore-Lieberman camp," Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew said. ......" Dallas Morning News 11/14/00 AP ".......A federal lawsuit filed Monday says George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can't legally claim Texas' 32 electoral votes because both are inhabitants of the state - a violation of the Constitution's 12th Amendment. The amendment bars a state's electors from voting for both a president and vice president from the same state. Mr. Cheney lived and worked in Dallas for eight years, but he switched his voter registration to Wyoming in July to avoid any conflicts. ...... That's not good enough, says the suit by Lawrence Caplan, a Boca Raton, Fla., lawyer. Just moving one's voter registration doesn't meet the legal definition of being an "inhabitant," he said. A Bush spokesman said that Mr. Cheney owns property in Wyoming and that he was a legally registered voter in Wyoming this election. ...." New York Post 11/14/00 Rod Dreher "...... EXUDING a Strangelovian calm, Al Gore declared to the media yesterday that he would commit the political equivalent of bombing Florida back to the Stone Age. ..... With skin-crawling unctuousness, Gore mewled that this election wasn't about him, but about "our democracy." .........MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews heard in the veep's deceptively mild words a declaration of total war. "He has escalated this thing all the way," a stunned Matthews said, explaining that Gore appears prepared to fight for an extraordinary revote in Palm Beach County. ......" Reuters 11/14/00 "......Al Gore is considering a proposal to end the stalemate over Florida's vote count that

calls for George W. Bush to agree to a manual recount throughout the state and the Vice President would in turn renounce any further lawsuits, the Los Angeles Times said on Tuesday....... Citing Gore campaign aides, the Times said that under the approach being discussed, Gore would not join litigation challenging the "butterfly ballot" in Palm Beach County and would support efforts to recount the ballots by hand in all of Florida's 67 counties, rather than just the four Democratic-leaning counties his campaign has selected......" New York Post 11/14/00 Brian Blomquist "...... The folksy Florida judge set to decide today whether to give Al Gore more time for a manual recount is a popular Democratic appointee who knows his writes from wrong. Tallahassee Judge Terry Lewis, who penned a mystery thriller about a troubled alcoholic lawyer in 1997 called "Conflict of Interest," has even drawn praise from the GOP. "He's not liberal. He's not conservative. He's how a judge ought to be," Bush lawyer Barry Richard said. "He's got a high intelligence, a sharp legal mind and absolute integrity." ......" Preliminary recount results show 3-vote gain in Volusia Staff Report 11/14/00 "....Rough, unofficial statistics released by Volusia County officials show Vice President Al Gore with slight gains in a manual recount of U.S. presidential election ballots. ......County employees completed the recount at about 5:15 p.m. Monday, but the Volusia County Canvassing Board still must rule on a stack of questionable ballots, a job that will likely take until today. However, officials are confident they will easily reach a 5 p.m. deadline today to have the results certified and handed over to state officials. ..... The early statistics show Gore with a net gain of three votes over Texas Gov. George W. Bush. More results were expected Monday evening and into the night. ...." The Palm Beach Post 11/14/00 Joel Engelhardt Susan Spencer-Wendel Marc Caputo ".......Even as Palm Beach County prepared Monday for the tedium of a six-day manual ballot recount, the Democratic Party filed an 11th-hour lawsuit to change the counting criteria. At 5 p.m. Monday, Democratic lawyers -- freshly filed lawsuit in hand -- stood outside the chambers of Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll. They wanted to meet with her, but she already had left for the day. ........ The lawsuit demands that indentations on the ballot be counted as a vote. The so-called dimples are made when a voter fails to punch out the small rectangle, called a chad, on the county's punch-card ballots. ......The suit argues that the county's canvassing board started to count dimples during a manual count of four precincts Saturday, then reversed itself and stopped counting them, costing both Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush "several hundred" votes. ......" Freeper bootless "....BREAKING? Miami-Dade County has decided not to hand count. Kendall Coffey, DEM lawyer, is very unhappy about it. ....." and ".... Watching the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board take public testimony. The Board chair just told Kendall Coffey (Dem lawyer) to save the fancy stuff for the courtroom, and only address the issues pertinent to their county. ....." Freeper structure ".....Baker looks pretty confident to me. Talking about the disturbed international markets plus overseas problems with foreign policy implementation. He does not want an endless process, talking about the detrimental effects of the fact that no one knows when this will end. Making new proposal....saying manual recount proposal of the whole state is "crazy." ....." and "...... Baker proposal: both camps accept vote counts of 5pm (including whatever manual counts have been done already)and absentees received by midnight per deadline. Bush camp will agree to drop all suits if Gore camp accepts compromise. Listen, Baker is a dealmaker, if nothing else. I trust him when he tries to make a bargain that he has some idea what he's doing. (IMO anything is better than dealing with David Boies in court.) And he's right about the markets and the fact that no one knows when this will end. Uncertainty is truly a problem. ....." St Petersburg Times 11/14/00 James Thorner "..... Bill Bunting, dressed in the getup of an 18th-century American revolutionary, called out his band of Republican minutemen to blast what he called the attempted theft of this year's presidential election. Lining the west side of U.S. 19 in Pasco County on Monday afternoon, Bunting and more than 100 supporters of George W. Bush offered a counterpunch to the pro-Al Gore forces rallying in Palm Beach County. ..... "We're being wronged. We're being cheated by the Democrats," Bunting said from under the brim of his tricorner hat, dozens of passing cars and trucks honking in support. "The election is being stolen." ......." Freeper freedom4ever 11/14/00 ".... A third judge has recused in Palm Beach County. ....." Freeper rintense "..... And Baker spoke about the Dems SUING Broward County to continue the recount. Baker just made the Dems look like desperate fools. ....." FoxNews 11/14/00 rockinonritalin "...... Miami-Dade county to recount 3 precincts by hand..." "...Just announced on Fox News Network. ......To begin today. The 3 precincts that they are looking at went for 85% for Gore. ...."

Tampa Bay Online 11/14/00 AP ".....Fox News Channel is investigating whether an executive related to George W. Bush provided his cousin's campaign with insider exit poll data on Election Night. Fox said, however, that John Ellis did not make the final decision when the network declared at 2:16 a.m. on Wednesday that Bush had won the presidency. The network is considering some sort of disciplinary action against Ellis, who was working on a temporary contract, spokesman Rob Zimmerman said Tuesday. Ellis, a first cousin to the Texas governor, was the director of Fox's decision team on election night. He was responsible for interpreting election data and helping Fox News Channel declare states for either Bush or Al Gore, Zimmerman said. Fox was aware that Ellis was a Bush cousin before he was hired, Zimmerman said. Ellis had worked in the past for NBC News. Fox has said that John Moody, its vice president of news and editorial quality, made the final call in declaring Bush the winner in Florida....." Freeper Cosmo "..... Dailey just said the laws of Florida will be determined by the courts....I thought they were determined by the legislature? ....." Freeper structure ".... CNN says FOUR JUDGES have now recused themselves. ...." Freeper StarFan "..... Legal eagle on fox saying don't expect the judge to rule in GWB's favor. He believes recount will continue and doubts supreme court will get involved. Cannot read his name, however. Oh, his name just mentioned - Terence Anderson. ....." Freeper structure "..... Just heard Gore campaign is claiming "markets are not riled up and there is no problem with uncertainty" ROFLMAO Tell that to the folks on the floor at the market. They're scared to pieces what might happen next. ....." James Rowley 11/14/00 Bloomberg "......A Florida judge will decide today whether to give two predominantly Democratic counties more time to hand-count ballots in Vice President Al Gore's effort to overtake Republican George W. Bush's lead in the state and gain the presidency. ....... Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes called Gore's remarks ``troubling'' because ``the vice president said we should ignore the law so he could overturn the results of this election.'' ....... Gore picked up 24 votes after ballots from 140 of Volusia County's 172 precincts were hand counted, officials said. Volusia officials say today they'll finish reviewing about 100 ballots that had been deemed questionable. The focus now turns to Palm Beach County, where officials want to hand count all 480,000 ballots after a weekend sampling of 1 percent of the precincts turned up a 19-vote gain for Gore. ......Broward County officials recounted 3,800 ballots, less than 1 percent of the vote. Gore gained four votes, according to Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the county Democratic Party. The county's election commission voted 2-1 not to proceed with a full recount, saying the added votes didn't indicate large tabulating errors. .....In addition to the recounts, about 5,000 to 14,000 mail-in ballots from Florida voters living abroad are due at midnight Friday and will be tallied Saturday. Bush campaign aides say the Texas governor probably will win a majority of those votes, based on counts from previous elections. ....." James Rowley 11/14/00 Bloomberg "......Gore adviser and former Secretary of State Warren Christopher called Harris's insistence on today's deadline ``a move in the direction of partisan politics'' that ``has the look of an effort to produce a particular result.'' Gore's campaign is ready to appeal any lower-court decision against extending the deadline, he said. ....... Bob Crawford, a Democrat on Florida's three-member election canvassing board, said Florida law provides Harris ``no discretion'' to grant an extension. ....... After the deadline, ``the door is closed'' to any other results except overseas absentee ballots received by midnight Friday, said Crawford, a Bush supporter named to the panel after the candidate's brother, Governor Jeb Bush, recused himself. ......" James Rowley 11/14/00 Bloomberg "......Gore attorney Dexter Douglass said it would be a ``very, very great mistake,'' to rush the recount. Gore ``is prepared to lose this election,'' Douglass said. ``He is prepared to accept finality within a reasonable period of time.'' ........... Bush's campaign will decide today whether to appeal a Miami federal judge's refusal to stop the hand counts, campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks denied the Bush request, saying he lacked jurisdiction over state election law. Bush attorney Theodore Olson argued that hand counts would produce ``chaotic, unreliable and capricious results'' by election officials who are prone to error and individual bias. ........" AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......Officials in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County put their hand recount of ballots on hold Tuesday while representatives of Al Gore and George W. Bush argued over a deadline for certifying the results of all votes cast in the state. ...... The Palm Beach officials voted 2-1 to delay the manual recount of about 430,000 ballots until they could clarify whether they had the legal authority to proceed. The Gore camp planned to appeal. Palm Beach County is asking the Florida Supreme Court to clarify which opinion is correct. .......The dispute produced conflicting opinions from the Democratic attorney general and Republican election officials. ....."

AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......The Florida Democratic Party sued the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on Monday evening, challenging the board's method of reading the ballots. The party wants "pregnant chads" - dimpled fragments not detached from the card - counted as votes. ....." AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......Democrats prepared to go to court in Broward County to overturn a decision by officials there not to order a countywide manual recount. The county's canvassing board decided Monday against the recount, after counting a sample of votes by hand in three precincts and finding no major discrepancies. "We intend to file litigation seeking judicial relief from this decision, which we think was based on an erroneous legal decision sent down by the secretary of state," Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus said. ....." AP 11/14/00 Jackie Hallifax ".......Bush's legal team was weighing whether to escalate a fight it began in federal court. The options include appealing Middlebrooks' decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, or possibly going to the U.S. Supreme Court on an emergency basis, according to Republican officials familiar with Bush's strategy. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the possibility that Republicans would seek to expand voter recounts to other Florida counties where Bush fared well was "perceived as unlikely" at this time because deadlines for requesting such recounts had expired in many counties. ...." Andrew Cain and Audrey Hudson 11/15/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES "......A key strategist for Vice President Al Gore visited Democratic leaders in Congress yesterday to build a case for patience, arguing that the unresolved election is not causing tumult on Capitol Hill.......... Gore campaign Chairman William M. Daley swept through the Capitol, seeking support from top Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri........ Last week, five current or former Democratic senators - Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey and John B. Breaux of Louisiana, and former Sens. Sam Nunn, Dale Bumpers and Bill Bradley all urged a quick end to the election with no drawn-out legal battle......... As lawyers for the vice president and Texas Gov. George W. Bush dueled in Florida, the Gore campaign buttressed its legal Dream Team, adding David Boies, the government's lead attorney in the Microsoft antitrust case........ Earlier in the day, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said international markets are in flux "because they don't see any finality here." Mr. Daley disputed that logic on Capitol Hill. "The markets go up, the markets go down," Mr. Daley said. "I think most honest observers of the market today would say that, if there are changes in the market, they're a result of some of the earning statements that have been put out by the companies, having nothing to do with what's gone on in the last week in the political world."........ " Christian Broadcasting Network 11/14/00 Scott Hegenson "......Five Florida voters are preparing a lawsuit against the major broadcast networks, major cable news outlets and the exit polling service they used in projecting Al Gore the winner of the Florida presidential election before the polls had closed in their state. The plaintiffs, all of whom live in the Florida panhandle region of the state, claim they were "disenfranchised by the networks' wrongfully projecting a Gore victory in Florida on Election Night before polls closed," where they live, according to a statement announcing the lawsuit. ......" CNN Breaking News 11/14/00 Judge Terry Lewis Freeper southernnorthcaroline "..... Tallahassee Judge Terry Lewis just announced that he will allow STATE LAW to prevail and let the 5pm EST Deadline to be the standard of the rule of law. (Thank G*d!) ..... Dow Jones spiking UP hard... " Freeper mbw "....What's incredibly interesting is how Fox (and others, I'm sure) are reporting this. To quote them, "A shocking decision." What is so damn shocking about following the law as it is written? ...." Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "...... The only wiggle room is that the sect'y of state in its "may" discretion cannot arbitrarily ignore late filed hand recounts. I think this was meant to address an earlier case where the results were phoned in, but the paper results not received for 3 days. In the end, this deadline holds because handcounts were never authorized in the first place without a finding of system or tabulation machine error. You make the deadline or you don't. ......" Freeper ftrader "...... Carol Roberts is on now, bitching and complaining. Spinning there are 2 standards. There is an injunction is stopping Palm Beach Country from certifying. IF PALM BEACH CAN'T CERTIFY, THE SEC'Y OF STATE HAS THE RIGHT TO IGNORE THEIR VOTES [my opinion from the statue.] What a mess! The judges keep recusing themselves or declining to hear the "ballot" issue vote. ....." Freeper hflynn "....... For now is more accurate than you'll ever know. 10 Minutes before the ruling was made public Daley and Tom Daschle were giving a brief news conference on CNN. Someone walked up and whispered something into Daley's ear. It wasn't good. Daley sort of grimaced and then quickly ended the

conference. Daley and Daschle headed behind closed doors. They were given a headsup on the ruling. No doubt Plan 23B is about to be executed. They will not stop. ......" Freeper Steve Schulin "..... The judge told Secretary of State that she must not arbitrarily dismiss future recount data just because it gets submitted after the so-called final deadline. That's why ABC sez we lost. The pressure to include recount data will be incredible. ....." Freeper Howlin "..... CBS now says Bush up by 435. Go figure. ...." Freeper monkeyshine "..... CBS is interpreting it differently. I have no idea. But CNN, Fox and ABC radio are calling it for Bush. ......" Freeper markfnkl "..... CNN anchorette Natalie something-or-other trying valiantly to fight back the tears. She actually just said: "WE still have the appeal."!!! ....." Freeper L'enn Foxnews "....... Broward County has been ordered by the Court to go back and VOTE AGAIN to determine whether to go forward with manual recounts. Manual recounts were voted against by Broward County over the the objection of its on Democratic supervisor......." JeanS adds "....I just heard on Fox that the board consists of one democrat, one republican, and an bipartisan. The bipartisan is a registered dem and a judge. He was said to be "wavering." This is a clear signal from the democrats to this judge. ...." NewsMax 11/13/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Colorado presidential elector Mary Hergert reports that ABC News asked her if she would consider changing her vote from George W. Bush to Al Gore. She found the "questions from ABC News more like veiled intimidation than journalistic inquiry," the Rocky Mountain News reported today. Suspicious, she checked her caller ID to make sure it was ABC News - and it was. The caller, "Ed from ABC News," asked Thursday if she would ever consider voting for Gore, and claimed it was unconstitutional for state law to require her to follow Colorado voters' choice of Bush, Hergert said. As the Rocky Mountain News pointed out, the Constitution says nothing on the matter. A second Colorado elector, Rob Dieter, also told about a call from ABC News when the Rocky Mountain News asked if anyone had tried to influence his vote. ......" Freeper otterpond "......I heard on 580 WDBO radio here in Orlando that Volusia county has a problem. Namely, they hand-counted 68 more ballots than the number of ballots that were issued. The county election officials also announced that they would not be able to correct the count before the 5:00PM deadline. Since the county submitted the hand-count to be certified by Sec. Harris, I wonder if they submitted it knowingly with this error in place? I am not trying to start any rumor here. I am just wondering if any other Central Florida FReeper heard this same report and can confirm it. ....." Freeper Vermonter "....FOX news just reported that the county committee has not decided what to do about the judge's order and has no meeting scheduled before Friday afternoon! ...." [Broward] Freeper KeatsforFirstDog on MSNBC "....Roberts just said she was willing to go to jail so that she could keep recounting the numbers. ...." [Palm Beach] Freeper VA Advogado "....Did you hear Ted Olson (the GOP Lawyer) say to King that "Bill Daley saying this isn't about politics is like a clown saying it isn't about the circus" LOL. ...." Freeper StarFan in response to "Boise (Gore's lawyer) said he hoped that it was not because of the SOS's "mischief" in demanding a 2 pm memo tomorrow" said ".... I couldn't believe how quick his comeback was (blame the otherside) when first learning of their decision. Guess that is why he and Daley are paid the big bucks......" Freeper Liberty ".....G.Gordon Liddy had his son Tom on the program today. Tom is a lawyer and goes into states to help with recounts for the Republicans. According to him, there are over a million votes yet to be tabulated, including absentee ballots, which could put Dubya in the lead in popular votes too......" Washington Post via Drudge 11/14/00 AP ".....A group with Republican links sued TV networks Tuesday and accused them of discouraging voters from going to the polls in the Florida Panhandle by erroneously projecting Al Gore would carry the state. .......The Committee for Honest Politics sued in Shalimar on behalf of an Okaloosa County voter who did cast his ballot but contended its value was diminished by the networks' projection. The Indianapolis-based group's executive director, Dan Perrin, said another lawsuit would be filed on behalf of Bay County voters in Panama City on Friday. Perrin also serves as executive director of the Republican Leadership Coalition and the Fairness Foundation. The Okaloosa lawsuit seeks an injunction against seven TV networks and the Voter News Service, which

conducted exit polls for the networks, to prevent them from making similar projections in future elections before all polls close in a state. ....... It also names election officials as defendants and seeks a new election in Central Time counties if hand counts elsewhere put Gore ahead in Florida. ...... Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections Pat Hollarn said she had received no complaints indicating anyone was discouraged from voting although she, too, was angry about the projection. ....." New York Times 11/14/00 Daniel Wakin "...... The deadline passed today for Florida's 67 counties to submit vote tallies to the state in a recount that could determine the next president, but the race was far from over because the judge who upheld the deadline also ruled that late totals must be considered. ......Those numbers are unlikely to be final. Florida counties have until Friday to report the results of overseas votes and Democrats are pushing for hand recounts from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, three Democratic-leaning counties. ....... Ms. Harris said by 2 p.m. Wednesday election officials from those counties must send her a statement explaining why they believe a manual recount is necessary. She said she would then ``exercise my discretion'' about whether the county statements justified amending the results filed today with a recount. ........ Ms. Harris said the ruling gave her the power to determine whether or not recounts by hand should be allowed in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties. ``Unless I determine in the exercise of my discretion that these facts and circumstances contained in these written statements justify an amendment to today's official returns, the state Elections Canvassing Commission in a manner consistent with its normal and usual practice will certify the statewide results recorded to this office today,'' she said. Earlier her office issued an opinion saying manual recounts should not be considered barring a mechanical malfunction of the counting machines. ......" CBS Radio News Freeper Mr. Buzzcut "....Larry Halloran questions whereabouts of 250 Bush votes. Campaign considering options. ....." Freeper Catphish "...At the press conference by the Volusia officials I heard a reporter ask one of the officials about some obvious discrepancy concerning 250 votes and "incompetence" with respect to them. The official looked nervous about the question and didn't give a straight answer. Not to sure about the details. This could confuse things, those votes could be real important if the oversees votes are tight. ....." Freeper FtrPilot ".....there is 250 missing absentee ballots. they don't know what happened to them. When the vote is finally declared, Jeb Bush should impound everything and start a criminal investigation. ....." Freeper org.whodat ".....AS I understood it there was 360 or so more ballots in hand than was shown on the machine. And these unaccounted for ballots reduced the number for Bush, When the reporter ask the fat demo slug. She looked dumn, and then she looked like she was going to get sick. Something stinks here besides the fla. water. ....." Freeper icwhatudo "..... he said this as she approached the podium for her 7:30 pm news conference.. The tone of his voice said it all... Clueless Chris Matthews on now saying "it looks like Ms Harris has really opened the door here for the Gore camp" I wonder if he really believes what he is saying.. ok back to fox PS I am in love with Ms Harris ....." Freeper Artist "...They also refered to her as a "millionaire" on the NBC Nightly News....I guess it's time to refer to "millionaire news anchor Tom Brokaw" too. ...." Freeper Medford Man ".....I imagine at this very moment the Clinton/Gore private investigators are digging out every facet of her present private and business life as well as any and all details of her personal history and every fact obtainable on her family's history. I am 100% sure they at this point have her FBI file at their disposal. I can visualize a roomful of the likes of James Carvile, Lanny Davis, Paul Begala, and Sid Blumenthal determining where and how to destroy this brave soul who has done nothing wrong other than try to uphold the law and stand up to this lawless bunch. They are going to give her a public going-over that would make Linda Tripp shudder. They will try to intimidate and destroy her as they have everyone else that has stood in their way. They do this not only to influence what is happening now in Florida but also to send a message to all others in the future who would not cave to them. Disgraceful and much more! ....." Reuters 11/14/00 ".......Broward County, one of four Florida counties where Democrats sought a manual recount of votes from the U.S. presidential election, filed its results with state election officials based on a partial hand recount, officials said Tuesday. ..... That partial manual recount yielded four more votes from Broward for Democrat Al Gore compared to the first results from the Nov. 7 vote in Florida, a crucial state where Gore was behind his rival Republican George W. Bush by a razor-thin margin. ....... Broward halted manual recounting on Monday evening after Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a prominent Republican, Monday ordered election officials in Florida to complete their recounts and file their data by 5

p.m. EST Tuesday.......... On Tuesday afternoon, the Broward county canvassing board recessed until 5 p.m. on Friday, and said it would seek a ruling from the Florida supreme court over the contradictory interpretations of state election law regarding recounts contained in opinions from Harris and Democratic attorney general Bob Butterworth. ....... There was no assurance that the state Supreme Court would take up the matter up, said Norman Ostrau, the attorney for the canvassing board. ......." Washington Times 11/14/00 Wesley Pruden "...... When the first recount, a statewide tally as required by law, began the next day, there were cautions from both Democratic and Republican veterans of recounts past that the results were unlikely to change very much. Said one official: "They just never do. A vote here, a vote there. It's rare for a result to be reversed." ........ But Palm Beach County is turning out to be the county that could. Al Gore picked up more than 800 votes in the first recount, and Democratic officials there, with no hint of embarrassment, merely suggest that it was the work of those senile or stupid constituents who couldn't punch a hole in a piece of paper even with the help of a machine. Naturally, they don't describe them quite that way. Other Gore gains, always in counties that he had carried on election night with big margins, have slowly erased George W.'s original 1,784-vote final, unofficial margin. This astonishes a lot of disinterested observers. "The probability of that many going for Gore is less than one in a trillion," Rand Wilcox, a statistics professor at the University of Southern California, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's very peculiar - it's not random. There's something systematic going on." ....." Freeper Helen "....I'm listening. Now I'm really confused, and getting angry all over again. He's saying that he's handed this to algore with weasel words and legaleze. Levine is saying he gave discretion to the Secretary of State and then took it away....." Freeper blutobob "...They are selling radio commercials guys.... The Secy of State can do what she wants, as long as it is not "arbitrary and capricious"(that's the legal test for abuse of discretion, unlike what Christopher says..."arbitrary and unreasonable.") If she can come up with a good reason for what she does and shows that she has considered everything, her actions will stand. She will be the lightening rod for the political heat the dems generate, but that is why they pay her the big bucks. ...." Freeper rintense "....Here's what was said... Mark Levin (I think) also just blew PBC out of the water with the fact that they can not keep doing recounts because there is no proof of a fault with the tabulating machine. He is pointing out that Attn. Gen. Butterworth has no jurisdiction to interfere in this case, nor does he have the right to question the job or decision making of the SOS. Oh, and Butterworth was the Gore Campaign manager in Florida (why haven't the media picked up on THAT since they have nailed Kathy Harris for campaigning for for Bush)............ Levin basically says this judge put the burden on the SOS to prove they shouldn't accept the manual count. He thinks this is not good for the Bush camp, and he has pretty much called the AP reporters idiots for not getting the law or ruling right. Levin believes there is no where the Pubbies can go from here as the Supreme Court of the US truly has no reason to involve itself in a state matter. The Florida Supreme Court is full of left-wing liberals who would probably just laugh at an appeal............ Levin is also chastising Gore for suing Broward County for not going forward with the hand recount. Thinks this is about as bad as it gets. ....." Freeper wrenn1010 "....A little insider info here from State of Florda government official. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS!!! ...." Freeper Starfan "....What an interesting day. O'Reilly on Bob Grant is going on about his investigating Jesse Jackson's income and finds some irregularities (no kidding). ...." Freeper Dog Gone "....... I respect Mark Levin, but he's being way too pessimistic here, and he shouldn't be spreading panic in the ranks like this. I agree with you, and I'm sure Clarity would also. All Harris has to do is have "a reason" for her lawfully-prescribed action in order for it to withstand judicial scrutiny. It doesn't have to be a compelling reason, or even a very good reason. Anything above "a really horrible nonsensical ridiculous reason" is going to be enough to meet the judicial standard. ....... Of course, Levin is right that the Florida Supreme Court might not uphold the State's actions, but that would be the case no matter WHAT they do. If they want to legislate from the bench, they will. That hasn't been their practice in the past. ....... I don't think we lost this court decision at all. It would have been FAR worse if Harris had been ordered to ignore the deadline. She'll enforce it, and then it's up to the Democrats to try to overturn it, a much more difficult task. ......." Freeper True-Stu 11/14/00 "..... This lawyer belives that the DemocRAT lawyers are guilty of the worst kind of spin. I find it incredible that they would think that the judges ruling that the SOS must not reject later handcounts "arbitrarily" is a ruling favorable to thier position. Of course they really don't believe this- its just spin......... The case law on what is, or is not an "arbitrary" decision is voluminous and well settled. To overturn an administrative officials decision on the basis that it was "arbitrary" requires the complainant to

show that there was NO REASONABLE BASIS for the decision. If the official shows at least one reasonble criteria, then the decision will be upheld. The official need not have made the "right" decision in the eyes of the court. In fact, the court doesn't really look to the rightness or wrongness of the decision, only whetther there was some rational basis for it......... An interesting case showing this analysis appears in part below. I found this case particulary interesting since it deals with the continuing legal eduction requirements of Florida lawyers: United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. No. 96-3276. Thomas Rowe SCHWARZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gerald KOGAN, Defendant-Appellee, Florida Bar Foundation, Defendant-Intervenor-Appellee. Jan. 12, 1998. "...Schwarz nevertheless insists that permitting Bar members to comply with their professional responsibility by making a financial contribution to a legal aid society, instead of personally or collectively performing tangible legal services, makes the Rule arbitrary and capricious. We disagree. It was rational for the Florida Supreme Court to conclude that, since some attorneys inevitably will not or cannot devote twenty hours to pro bono legal work, giving these attorneys the option of satisfying their professional responsibility by donating funds to a legal services organization--under circumstances where they might otherwise do nothing--both maintains respect for the Rule and furthers its ultimate purpose of increasing the availability of legal services to the poor. Moreover, the selection of $350 as the appropriate amount was not irrational, since a larger amount might discourage voluntary contributions or encourage a perception that this provision benefits only wealthy attorneys. There are, admittedly, reasonable arguments against this aspect of the Rule. See, e.g., 630 So.2d at 506 (Barkett, J., specially concurring) (suggesting an "inherent inequality when those who cannot pay are asked to provide twenty hours of work, and those with money can "buy out' for the value of a few hours"). Our task, however, is not to evaluate whether the justifications for this portion of the Rule are more or less persuasive than any arguments to the contrary; we may ask only if there is a "conceivable basis" for allowing Bar members to substitute a legal aid contribution of $350 for a donation of legal services. There is an entirely rational basis for this provision, especially since nothing in the Rule requires Bar members to donate either time or money to the indigent." Based on the above, I can conclude with reasonable certainty (can anyone be certain in this fiasco?) that if the SOS articulates her basis for refusing to accept the handcounts, i.e. they are only required by law when there are tabulation errors with machines, not voter errors and that hand counting for any other reason, particularly in selective Dem counties, is too subjective and inaccurate to be considered, this decision WILL be upheld.For the higher Court to rule otherwise would fly in the face of established State and Federal case law. ......." Media Research Center 11/14/00 "....... "Everybody's getting a party label whether they deserve it or not," Peter Jennings promised during an ABC News special Monday night in reference to players in the Florida political and judicial process. His assurance came after ABC failed to identify the Democratic ties of federal Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who turned down the GOP request to halt hand-counts, and just as Jennings was leading into a look at the Bush connections of Secretary of State Katherine Harris who affirmed 5pm Tuesday as the deadline for counties to file their results. ............ ABC's Linda Douglass described Harris as "politically ambitious" and concluded that "Democrats say if she does stop the vote count tomorrow, the country will always wonder about her motives." CBS didn't saying anything about the federal judge's donations to the Clinton-Gore campaigns, but Byron Pitts called Harris "a GOP loyalist" who "was a delegate for Bush at this year's Republican National Convention." ......... NBC spent the most time on Gore team complaints about Harris, although Dan Abrams uniquely noted that Judge Middlebrooks was appointed by President Clinton and "donated $1,500 to the Clinton-Gore campaign in '92 and '96." But unlike with Harris, NBC explained away any significance of Middlebrooks' politics as Abrams insisted those who know him said "they thought he would decide this case on the law, not on politics" since he is "really known as an independent-minded thinker." ......" Florida Statutes Title 10 Chapter 120 Section 68 "...... 120.68 Judicial review.-(1) A party who is adversely affected by final agency action is entitled to judicial review. A preliminary, procedural, or intermediate order of the agency or of an administrative law judge of the Division of Administrative Hearings is immediately reviewable if review of the final agency decision would not provide an adequate remedy...... (7) The court shall remand a case to the agency for further proceedings consistent with the court's decision or set aside agency action, as appropriate, when it finds that: (a) There has been no hearing prior to agency action and the reviewing court finds that the validity of the

action depends upon disputed facts; (b) The agency's action depends on any finding of fact that is not supported by competent, substantial evidence in the record of a hearing conducted pursuant to ss. 120.569 and 120.57; however, the court shall not substitute its judgment for that of the agency as to the weight of the evidence on any disputed finding of fact; (c) The fairness of the proceedings or the correctness of the action may have been impaired by a material error in procedure or a failure to follow prescribed procedure; (d) The agency has erroneously interpreted a provision of law and a correct interpretation compels a particular action; or (e) The agency's exercise of discretion was: 1. Outside the range of discretion delegated to the agency by law; 2. Inconsistent with agency rule; 3. Inconsistent with officially stated agency policy or a prior agency practice, if deviation therefrom is not explained by the agency; or 4. Otherwise in violation of a constitutional or statutory provision; but the court shall not substitute its judgment for that of the agency on an issue of discretion. (8) Unless the court finds a ground for setting aside, modifying, remanding, or ordering agency action or ancillary relief under a specified provision of this section, it shall affirm the agency's action......" New York Times 11/15/00 ".......In a carefully balanced decision, Judge Lewis upheld Ms. Harris's authority to call for initial reports from all 67 counties at 5 p.m. yesterday. But he warned her against using that authority in so arbitrary a way as to permit the delay of final vote tallies only in the case of an act of God, such as a hurricane. Judge Lewis said Ms. Harris should decide about delayed totals "based upon a weighing and consideration of all attendant facts and circumstances." ....... The judge's decision was a model of common sense and a rebuke to the partisan misreading of Florida statutes by Ms. Harris, who has blurred her twin responsibilities as chief arbiter of the state's election laws and co-chairwoman of the Bush campaign in Florida. If all parties will respect it, the ruling points to a clear path out of the messy battle over the validity of totals in those places where Vice President Gore is saying that the original machine count missed some of his ballots......" New York Times 11/15/00 ".......A Bush spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, tried last night to put a favorable spin on Judge Lewis's words, suggesting erroneously that the preliminary results reported by all counties yesterday should be seen as final. It is true that the judge did sustain Ms. Harris's reading that yesterday marked the deadline. But in no uncertain language, he also said there really was no magic hour after which the manual counts may be ignored. He expressly allowed the counties to notify her of any pending returns and to file corrected returns when they were ready. Finally, the judge put Ms. Harris on notice that while she may reject a county's count, she cannot do so "arbitrarily." ...." New York Times 11/15/00 ".......In responding to Judge Lewis's ruling, Ms. Harris said through her counsel that she would eventually decide the validity of the hand count on a case-by-case basis. But last evening Ms. Harris seemed to subvert the intent of the judge's decision by directing the counties doing hand tabulations to explain by 2 p.m. today why they believed the additional counting was justified. That should be self-evident to everyone who has been following the Florida vote. Any effort by Ms. Harris to stop the hand counting before it is completed would be peremptory and purely partisan....." National Review 11/14/00 Melissa Seckora "...... . The great unasked question in the Florida recount controversy is: Why were any chads left hanging in the first place? According to the official website for Palm Beach County, ballot instructions explicitly directed voters to remove so-called chads before submitting their ballots: "After voting, check your ballot card to be sure your voting selections are cleanly punched and there are no chips left hanging on the back of the card." The county mailed a booklet and also a sample ballot including the instructions to all voters. ...." The Associated Press 11/14/00 "......Al Gore's supporters, seeking to recruit lawyers to help with its vote recount efforts in south Florida, asked a national group that works closely with trial lawyers around the country to help. The president of the group said Tuesday night the group doesn't plan to act on the request. The request was passed along on the Internet E-mail list of the National Association of Trial Lawyer

Executives (NATLE) by the executive director of the group, Kathleen Wilson, suggesting they pass along the request to lawyers on the Internet E-mail lists they're on. ....... The E-mail said the Gore campaign was requesting volunteers for the recount in Volusia, Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. The E-mail said "they are comfortable that Palm Beach County is under control." "They anticipate that they will need at least 500 lawyer-volunteers, primarily in (Miami-Dade) and Broward counties," the note said, adding they were requesting only lawyer volunteers......" ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... Florida's top elections official announced Tuesday night that Texas Gov. George Bush holds a 300 vote lead over Al Gore based on returns submitted by all 67 counties. She said she would consider updated submissions later from three counties where the vice president has requested manual recounts. One week after the election, Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris said Bush has 2,910,492 votes and Gore has 2,910,192--a difference of 300 votes out of 6 million cast. An unknown additional number of overseas absentee ballots remain to be counted by Friday night, she added. ..... ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....Karen Hughes, Bush's spokeswoman, responded sharply to the prospect of additional vote counting. ``If they go forward, these Democratic counties are no long recounting, they are reinventing,'' she said. ``The votes in Florida have now been counted and Governor Bush won. They've been recounted and Governor Bush won. The counties have now certified their votes to the Secretary of State and again Governor Bush won. Yet it appears we may have a deadline that may not be respected as a deadline at all.'' ......" ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway said, ``Several counties are proceeding to count their votes and the secretary of state should meet her responsibility to accept those votes before she certifies the election.'' ........ Hours after a Florida judge issued a complicated ruling on the controversy, Harris said her office was requiring officials in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties to explain the ``facts and circumstances'' that support their desire to proceed with manual recounts She set a 2 p.m. Wednesday deadline for the counties to reply. ....." ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....In addition to Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, officials in Volusia County completed a hand recount shortly before the secretary of state's deadline. It provided Gore with a net gain of 98 votes. ........ Before completing their count, county officials there appealed Lewis' ruling to a midlevel Florida appeals court with the expectation that the state's highest court, the Florida Supreme Court, would hear it....." ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....A spokeswoman for Harris said she would consider late filings, but it was unclear what criteria she might use...... .. Lewis ruled that there was nothing in state law to prevent Harris from considering late totals, and warned her in strong language that she would need good reason to ignore them. ``To determine ahead of time that such returns will be ignored ... is not the exercise of discretion. It is the abdication of that discretion,'' Lewis wrote......" ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... The recount in Palm Beach County was on hold pending resolution of conflicting legal advice from Republican state election officials and Florida's Democratic attorney general. Clay Roberts, director of the division of elections, issued an advisory opinion Tuesday saying the county did not have a right to conduct a hand recount of ballots. Attorney General Robert Butterworth immediately issued a conflicting opinion. ....." ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....Miami-Dade County officials said were conducting a partial recount........" ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... Boies held out the possibility the vice president's campaign might file suit later if Democrats think the secretary of state mishandles vote tallies submitted after the deadline. ......State officials say Lewis' ruling means they can proceed on schedule to a final vote certification by Saturday. That is the day after a deadline for absentee ballots mailed in from overseas. ....... " ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press ".....The notice filed Tuesday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was ``to keep our options open,'' Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said. Also, numerous voters have sued separately over alleged voting irregularities in Palm Beach. Celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz represents some of them. ......" ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... The Democratic Party filed a motion in state court arguing that Broward County should be ordered to conduct a full hand count of its 588,000 ballots. The motion said the decision by the county canvassing board not to conduct such a recount was based on an erroneous opinion by Harris, who said a manual recount could only be conducted if the board found a problem with the

computer. ....." ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... In West Palm Beach, a judge considered the lawsuits of voters seeking a new vote in their county. The voters argue the punch-card ballots they were given on Election Day may have confused them enough to mistakenly vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan when they intended to vote for Gore. ....." ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... According to state law, overseas ballots that arrive after election night are stored unopened in vaults in Florida's 67 counties. They will remain there, uncounted, until the Friday deadline passes. Each county decides when to count its votes. ..... Miami-Dade absentee ballots: ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... In Miami-Dade County, 1,699 ballots were mailed to places like Barcelona, Spain, and Managua, and 1,138 came back in time to be counted on election night. That means 561 are still outstanding, but from which countries and how many military voters, no one can say. Miami-Dade elections officials said 617 overseas ballots went to military addresses. One hundred of the 617 went to Virginia, and the remainder went to military or government addresses in 41 other states and territories. .......A total of 1,082 ballots went to civilians living overseas. And the largest batch among those -44 -- was sent to Floridians living in Israel, where an estimated 10,000 Jews with Florida ties are living. .......Election officials were not sure how many of the ballots from Israel were counted on election night and how many are still out there, or if their senders voted for Gore, as the Democratic Party believes. ...... In descending order after Israel, Miami-Dade sent out 20 ballots to England, 17 to Costa Rica, 16 to Spain, 13 to Canada and 10 to France. Forty-six percent of those requesting ballots in Miami-Dade were Republicans, and 42 percent were Democrats. ..." ANNE GEARAN 11/14/00 Associated Press "..... A Herald survey of 33 counties on Friday showed that 3,975 overseas ballots had not yet arrived in Florida. A Palm Beach Post survey of 52 counties on Thursday showed officials were waiting for 7,429 ballots of 15,230 that were requested. An Associated Press survey of 28 counties found that less than half of the roughly 7,000 ballots mailed overseas had not come back. ........ Okaloosa County Elections Supervisor Pat Hollarn said, ``I expect a sizable number -- at least a couple of hundred -- military votes, and most of those will be Republican.'' .......Escambia County, where Pensacola naval base is located, still had not received 1,176 ballots sent mostly to military personnel. Hillsborough County was waiting for 518. In Clay County, 195 overseas ballots, mostly military, were locked in a vault......." Broward absentee ballots: In Broward County, an elections clerk said one survey showed 1,289 overseas ballots were mailed and 257 had not come back. But a second list showed 1,623 ballots mailed. ..... That second list showed 575 ballots requested by Democrats, of whom 114 were military and 461 were civilian; 596 ballots requested by Republicans, of whom 209 were military and 387 were civilian; and 452 requested by independents, of whom 119 were military and 333 were civilians. ......" Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "....Good, she is preserving the argument that there has to be a machine or tabulation system error before the canvassing committee can order a full hand recount. This is the next battleground. These counties have not met the condittion precedent to ordering a hand recount without a showing of system or tabulation method error. Dem Roberts railroaded a vote through without clarifying that distinction but LePore admitted it was for human error, not machine error. that is partly why the Judge on the canvassing committee voted not to allow a hand recount. This is important....." Freeper Riteway ".......I thought I heard that Volusia county had lower numbers than previously reported because they left out approx 280 absentee ballets. Will they turn those by Friday or save them for a recount total after they get done? I am afraid these possible recount counties will hold the absentee ballets hostage until they turn in ank "recounted" numbers. ....." Freeper report on the statement "...And I'd also like to acknowledge the overwhelming support that we have received as we've worked to fulfill our statutory repsonsibilities in insuring a consistent, accurate and independent process...." Says "...I find the word "consistent" very telling here, given the emphasis she placed upon it. Naturally, the 4 counties doing handcounts with constantly shifting and questionable criteria will not be "consistent" with the results of all the other counties......" adds Freeper George W Bush "....Also telling was her use of the words "consistent and normal practice" to describe how she will conduct the finalization. ...." Freeper bluefish "..... If votes aren't counted according to the same standards, then each person's vote is worth something different. If the standards in one county cause 5% of the ballots to be thrown out while the

standards in another county cause none of the ballots to be thrown out, then one citizen's vote is woth .95 votes while another is worth 1. This would be unconstitutional. ........... Given the argument above, I think that that all precincts, counties, and perhaps even states, should ultimately use the same ballot and polling processes. For now though, FL has to be treated with consistency. I think the machine counts (two of them) are consistent and should be relied upon to determine the winner. Not doing so injects too many questions and raises the specter of unfairness. ......" Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "....... After a dizzying day of delays, conflicting court rulings, partisan sniping and unresolved ambiguities, Palm Beach County's canvassing board decided Tuesday to again begin the hand count of 462,000 ballots -- and hope that Florida's secretary of state accepts the result. .........Secretary of State Katherine Harris responded by ordering that county officials send her a written statement by 2 p.m. today explaining why she should accept vote counts after the state's deadline, which passed at 5 p.m. Tuesday. .......Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts, a member of the canvassing board, said the reasons were already plain. "I thought we did a pretty good job of explaining it, and it's because according to state law if you think it could change an election, you have to have a recount -- and that's why we're doing it," she said......" Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "....... With no green light for the hand count, the board also voted to certify its most current election returns, those from the machine recount that ended early Sunday. It gave those numbers to a Division of Elections representative in time to meet the Harris deadline. .......That machine tabulation gave Vice President Al Gore 269,732 votes, compared with Texas Gov. George W. Bush's 152,951 -- a net gain of 682 votes for Gore since the initial count on Nov. 7. .......The board also agreed to attach results from Saturday's hand count of four county precincts -- which represented about 1 percent of the vote. Through that process, Gore's lead in the county grew by 19 votes. ......." Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "......."Just give them what you have today, period," County Attorney Denise Dytrych advised the canvassing board at a raucous public meeting outside the county's Emergency Operations Center. Dytrych recommended the board hold off on a hand count until it received a definitive opinion from a court. But with no idea of how long that would take, board members said they wanted to move ahead. They noted that a judge might still order them to stop the process. "What happens? Do we go to jail? Because I'm willing to go to jail," Roberts said. ............... " Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "....... "What we've seen today is a process that has taken a new, even more troubling, turn away from accuracy," said Tucker Eskew, spokesman for Bush-Cheney. "Today we've seen inconsistency on the part of this panel. They've chosen to ignore their own words from this morning." ............ The board had planned to begin the hand count early Tuesday, but decided against it after the state Division of Elections sent word that county officials weren't allowed to recount the votes by hand without proof of mechanical failures in the Nov. 7 balloting. ........Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat and state chair of Al Gore's campaign, immediately issued an opinion to the contrary -- and the board decided to halt everything while asking the state Supreme Court who was right. The case may be heard today. ........." Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka "........ In quick succession, four circuit court judges, citing conflicts of interest, recused themselves from all the presidential election lawsuits filed by aggrieved voters......... In the end, a Republican whose name was pulled out of a hat stuck with the case. Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga, an appointee of Gov. Lawton Chiles, lifted a temporary injunction issued Thursday that stopped certification of Palm Beach County's ballots. After an hourlong hearing on the case, which involved a lawsuit filed by two Boca Raton women, Labarga also ruled that a manual recount could go forward if the canvassing board wanted it. ......" Sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Brad Hahn Jon Burstein Mitch Lipka ".......Burton said the board must abide by the Elections Division view that a manual recount wasn't permitted. "As a county court judge and as chairman of this board," he said, "it is my opinion we should follow the law." ......... Roberts disagreed. "I still believe we have an obligation to allow everybody's vote to be counted," she insisted. ........ Dytrych told the board the Elections Division opinion was binding. That incensed Roberts, who said she would never have asked for an advisory opinion if she'd known the board would have to abide by it. ......." Sun-sentinel.com 11/14/00 Sean Cavanagh "...... A three-member Broward County elections panel teetered on the edge of reversing itself Tuesday when it considered ordering a hand recount of ballots from the entire county. .... A final decision could come today....... The possibility of a countywide hand recount in Broward was a dramatic turn from the previous day, when the county's canvassing board voted to limit the manual count to three overwhelmingly Democratic precincts. In that limited recount, Democrat Al Gore gained four votes on his opponent, Republican George W. Bush. But state and local Democrats pushed for a hand

recount for all of Broward, saying the vote tallies showed enough discrepancies in the vote to require it. ......... On Tuesday morning, they sued in Broward Court to let the hand recount expand to all of Broward County. Judge John A. Miller ruled that the canvassing board had the right to do that, if it wanted......... In what they described as a search for legal answers, the canvassing board decided to join a lawsuit by Palm Beach and Volusia county officials seeking an opinion from the Florida Supreme Court. ..... On Tuesday, the canvassing board agreed to send the four additional votes Gore picked up to the secretary of state's office for certification. The earlier votes counted by machines already had been sent, said Sam Goren, attorney for Broward's elections office. ......" Orlando Sentinel 11/15/00 Gwyneth Shaw "...... Up to 180,000 ballots were cast but did not count in Florida`s tightest presidential race ever because of human error, mechanical glitches and voters who abstained from that race or deliberately sabotaged their ballots in protest, voting data show.As lawyers stoked court battles across the state over George W. Bush`s apparent winning margin of just 300 votes, this far larger number emerged in a survey by the Orlando Sentinel of results from all 67 counties. The survey includes certified totals from all but the three counties where tallies were still in dispute Tuesday......" Washington Times 11/15/00 ".......In authorizing some counties to subsequently file "corrective returns," Judge Lewis was evidently relying on another section that stipulates that delinquent returns "may be ignored." In his decision, he declared, "The secretary of state may ignore such late-filed returns but may not do so arbitrarily, rather only by the proper exercise of discretion after consideration of all appropriate facts and circumstances." ........ " Washington Times 11/15/00 ".......Considering the politicized debacles that the manual recounts have become, how much discretion will be needed to reject the so-called "corrective returns"? Where manual recounts have been conducted, they have been subjected to standardless procedures, which, in the case of one county, have literally evolved throughout the process. In attempting to divine some voters' intentions - by itself a highly questionable procedure - Broward County used a "two-corner test," which required manual recounters to detect at least two corners of the rectangular "chad" separated from the punch card of a voter whose presidential vote was not counted by a machine. Palm Beach County used a "single-corner test" to manually count ballots. Well, that was the latest of several standards that were successively used in Palm Beach County.........Even this wasn't enough for the Democrats, who went to court attempting to force Palm Beach County officials to accept as votes so-called "pregnant chads" - dimpled fragments not detached from the card. When Broward County election officials exercised their right to conclude that the results of their sample manual recount did not require them to conduct a county-wide manual recount, the Democratic Party sued that county in court. When the "corrective returns" arrive, Ms. Harris need only consider the circus atmosphere that has enveloped the manual recounts, the complete lack of uniform standards and the utter unfairness of conducting recounts in only heavily Democratic counties. ....." Washington Times 11/15/00 Steve Miller ".......Chads were everywhere during Saturday's marathon vote recount, and it's not the night janitor who is upset; it's Republican lawyers. ......... "Chads were seen on the floor during the process," Benjamin Ginsberg, general counsel for the Bush campaign, wrote this week to Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. "This produces further evidence that mishandling of the ballots, not voter intent, potentially was yielding new votes." ....... "There were chads all over the place," said Reeve Bright, an attorney for the county's Republican Party. "The more people who handle them, the more that fall off. I told a computer operator that we ought to bag them all up and sell them on the Internet." ...... Mark Wallace, the lead Republican attorney in the recount process, yesterday attacked the hand count of 462,000 ballots set to begin this morning in Palm Beach County, hinting that the ballots, which are stored in metal cases, could suffer more damage. "What will you do to preserve the sanctity of those ballots?" Mr. Wallace asked county canvassing board Chairman Charles Burton during an afternoon meeting. "The same thing we've always done," Mr. Burton said tersely. .......... Ballots were stacked, they were held, they were waved about and they were grabbed. "The chads have been in every room there has been a recount," Mr. Wallace said. "And to boil this down to which small, paper rectangle is punched out is arcane." ....."What we had is three Democrats holding up the card, flipping it around and passing it around. All kinds of people touched these so all kinds of things were happening to them." ......A lawyer from Broward County, who asked not to be named, said that Bush attorneys are taking affidavits from witnesses to the mishandling of the ballots. ......" Washington Times 11/15/00 Steve Miller "....... During Mary Morgan's 20 years as an elections supervisor in Collier County on the state's west coast, she endured several manual recounts and also incurred charges of flimsy chads that could sway an election outcome. "If we were going to do a manual, I would get a vacuum cleaner to make sure there was no appearance of falling chads," said Miss Morgan, who retired in June. "The more times they are touched, the more chads that come off," she said....." Freeper wrenn1010 11/14/00 ".....I think Carol Roberts statement that she is willing to go to jail for re-counts

should be included in the Sec. of States assessement of any further supplements from that county. If she is willing to go to jail for counting, she is probably willing to go to jail by tampering with ballots and committing fraud. ....." NewsMax 11/14/00 ".......Republicans hoping that George W. Bush will get a big boost when Florida's absentee vote is tallied on Friday November 17 may be in for a big disappointment. While military absentee voters are expected to break heavily for Bush, most of their ballots arrived stateside by Election Day via the military's "fast mail" system. Those votes have already been counted, according to election supervisors interviewed by the Tallahassee Democrat. If true, that would severely diminish what was expected to be a big Bush vote windfall. ...... "In Escambia County, where 1,802 ballots were requested, 626 were returned by Nov. 7; by noon Monday, only 136 more had come in, awaiting Friday's count." In fact, Democrat strategists believe that late absentee arrivals will be overwhelmingly civilian and substanitally Jewish, a demographic group that heavily favors Gore. "...." Freeper monkeyshine: Of all the votes counted so far, Bush leads by 300. Bush has 48.9% of the vote. Gore has 48.8% of the vote. There are 180,000 ballots that didn't get counted for one reason or another (mechanical problems, "chad" problems, etc). Statisticically, those 180,000 ballots, if counted will break the same way as the 6,000,000 ballots that did get counted; 48.9% for Bush and 48.8% for Gore. That would put Bush ahead of Gore by an additional 240 votes. For this reason, there should be no hand-count. Freeper Arkinsaw "...The judge ruled that she has discretion but cannot be arbitrary. She has told the counties that they have until tomorrow at 2:00 to state reasons for changing the totals. Those reasons will be hard to explain. The only one I have heard is "the will of the people must be followed ascertained". All she has to do is issue a release with ALL of the reasons that we have been outlining here for DAYS about why the recounts would not accomplish this. She basically just has to cut and paste James Baker's legal arguments into her refusal. 1) Chads on the floor, ballots deteriation. 2) Subjective methodology for recounts. 3) Inconsistent policy of recounts between counties. 4) Dilution of other citizens votes by selectivity. 5) No evidence that machines faulty, canvassing boards did not even request a check of software. 6) Did not appoint enough counters to meet State deadline. 7) No evidence of fraud. Etc., etc., etc. She can list a dozen things about these so-called recounts as reasons not to accept them. The more the better. The Gore camp would have to go into court and approve that each and every one of these reasons was arbitrary. A judge would have to rule that ALL of these reasons were invalid and even a Democratic judge would hesitate before making such an obnoxious ruling....." Freeper nevergore 11/15/00 FoxNews ".....Per Fox News, Palm beach County which was to begin counting at 7:00am this morning has voted to suspend the re-count. ...." Adds freedom1st ".... I heard on CBS radio that the PB vote counters were waiting on a decision from the courts requesting that pregnant "chads" (chads pushed out, but still attached at 4 corners) be counted as indicating a vote. ...." Freeper rintense ".....This morning, a reporter from NBC specifically mentioned that there is concern that after the overseas ballots are counted, the Gore campaign will know specifically how many votes they need to produce to win. I am shocked that NBC even gave this air time..."

Freeper Singapore_Yank "....Scott Rasmussen (POA polls) just said that among Gore supporters, 79% believe that Gore really won the election. Among Bush supporters, 95% believe Bush really won the election. He said, "People think the guy they voted for won" and made it sound like the numbers were only a little different. But think about it. Gore's voters "defect" at the rate of 20%. That is, they voted for him, but now don't really think he won (not necessarily that they think Bush won either). But Bush's supporters only defect at a quarter that rate. Only 5% of Bush supporters don't think he won. ....... I take heart from this little poll. Of course, Rasmussen's polls didn't predict this mess so maybe these are off too. ...." Freeper KellyAdmirer "Carol Roberts accused of vote tampering! Just on Fox! " adds Singapore_Yank "....Fox just announced that a Republican lawyer, James Carroll, says they are suing (I think) Carol Roberts for vote tampering. They say that they have video evidence of her tampering with ballots and putting some in Gore's pile. Not surprising as we all figured it was going on. If they really have video evidence --- COOL!!! ....." Freeper Chick-with-a-brain "....I hope you're right!!!! Video evidence of voter fraud should finally end this fiasco. Oh, and how I'd love it to be that Roberts b*tch. She did say yesterday that she was willing to go to jail. I think an orange jump suit and flip flops would fit her well. My initial take on this suspension of ballot counting is that the DemnonRats are using their delay, delay, delay tactic. They know that if they finish the counting particularly before the overseas ballots are in, they've lost. In fact, I think they know they've lost period unless they can pull some votes or "chads" out of thin air. I heard that Daley went up on Capitol Hill yesterday to "calm" the Democratic leadership and tell them to have patience. I think their only hope is to keep dragging this thing out. ...." WorldNetDaily 11/15/00 "..... The Navy has now confirmed bundles of overseas ballots left behind -- not on one, but three ships in the Persian Gulf region. According to a New York Post account, Cmdr. Greg Smith, a Navy spokesman, said the ballots of some 3,000 sailors and Marines on the USS Tarawa, USS Deleuth and USS Anchorage would be flown back to the United States "expeditiously." ....." American Legion News 11/14/00 ".....The Navy said yesterday it has discovered bundles of overseas ballots left behind on three ships in the Persian Gulf. Cmdr. Greg Smith, a Navy spokesman, said the ballots cast by some of the 3,000 sailors and Marines on board the USS Tarawa, USS Deleuth and USS Anchorage would be flown back to the United States "expeditiously" - hopefully in time to be counted. ...... "All we're trying to do is see if there's a way to get the mail there," said Smith. ..... Smith said all shipboard mail was left to languish while the three West Coast-based ships assisted the stricken USS Cole after it was bombed by terrorists last month - until someone remembered that the mail included deadline ballots. The Navy will fly the ballots, which were postmarked at the time each crew member turned in his mail onboard, only as far as the mainland, and the Postal Service will handle it routinely from there, Smith said. ......Spokesmen for the Army, Marines and Air Force said they were unaware of any other similar snafus. ...." Cnn 11/14/00 Freeper rintense ".... Judge George Labarga has decided that the PBC board has the indescretion to decide what they think the intent of the voter, which means DIMPLED BALLOTS will COUNT! " Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA ".... Judge has ruled that Palm Beach County may set any rules they desire in counting ballots. ...." CNN 11/15/00 Freeper rintense "..... Warren Christopher is currently speaking about the many lawsuits. ....... HOLY COW! The reporters are HAMMERING him saying that in fact, Jim Baker was right that they want the courts to resolve this. Another reporter pointed out that American's are getting very frustrated and want an end. He asked Warren if the Supreme Court rules on the matters at hand, no matter what ruling, will Al Gore STOP--- he DID NOT answer!!! Maybe the media is finally waking up to these frauds! ....." Freeper rintense "....Reporter asked if there was enough room in the Florida law for Gore camp to continue fighting--- Boies says yes (naturally). Boies is misinterpreting the law. Next reporter BLASTING again saying why isn't the Gore team giving any resolution, like Jim Baker gave yesterday. Boies side steps and says that's what they are proposing to the Supreme Court- to get all the matters of recounts and chads resolved to go forward. Says again that he just wants the process to continue. HOLY CRIPE! He's pushing the popular vote lead AGAIN as well as now adding that Gore is leading in the electoral college. ....." Freeper Bot-a-bing "....I just watched the live broadcast of the Palm Beach elections canvassing commission. Someone made a motion to have the red-head-witch recuse herself, or to have the other members vote her off. They read a laundry list of things, all of which imply bias and tampering on her part. She refused to speak, but had a comment read that said there's no way for bias because there's so many people watching. LOL. They are digging their own grave. ......"

Freeper PeterB ".... Quote of the day on Fox this morning. "Al Gore invented the internet and is a huge proponent of it, yet he does not trust computers to accurately count the votes Florida." ...." FoxNews 11/15/00 Freeper icwhatudo ".... Democrat lawyer at end of hearing stated that nowhere in the voting place was there any directions on how hard or how soft to punch the chads. Not in the halls, not on the walls, instructions where not clear and not given regarding these hanging chads....." AP 11/15/00 Anne Gearan ".....Florida's secretary of state asked the state's top court Wednesday to delay any hand recounting of ballots and to consolidate lawsuits in the chaotic vote count that has left the presidential election hanging in the balance for more than a week. ...... Katherine Harris, a Republican, filed the petition with the state Supreme Court as officials in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County gathered to begin a recount that she has opposed. .....In her petition, Harris said local canvassing boards should stop any effort to hand count ballots ``pending resolution as to whether any basis exists to modify the certified results after the statutory deadline for submission of returns.'' ......She also asked that the flurry of legal actions around the state be transferred to a court in Tallahassee, the state capital. ``Without question, this court must make it clear that the election of the president and vice president is not a matter of local pleasure,'' the petition said. ``It is, at the least, a statewide matter of concern. This court must assume control over this litigation to preserve its ability to establish standards and to protect the voters of the state.'' ...... In an additional filing Wednesday, Harris addressed the situation in Palm Beach, which an elections official there called ``musical courts.'' .......The Supreme Court should step in and bar the Palm Beach count ``to protect the integrity of the process and ensure the application of a uniform rule of law,'' Harris said. ...The state Supreme Court has seven members, all chosen by Democratic governors. ....." AP 11/15/00 Anne Gearan ".....Separately, three Brevard County residents who say they voted for Bush appealed a federal suit to the 11th Circuit on Wednesday. A federal judge in Orlando turned down their request to stop hand recounts Tuesday. The voters claim their rights are being violated because their votes are not being hand-counted. ...." NewsMax 11/15/00 Carl Limbacher ".....After a week of high-stakes wrangling over Florida's photo-finish presidential election, more Americans would rather see George W. Bush become president than Vice President Al Gore, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found. ..... Though Gore won the nation's popular vote on Election Day 49 to 48 percent, his conduct in the days since has apparently prompted some of his supporters to jump ship. ......Unlike other post-election surveys conducted by Newsweek and CNN/Time, New York Times/CBS pollsters used the same sample in this survey as they had in preelections polls, which were comprised of registered and likely voters. ...." ANNE GEARAN 11/15/00 AP ".... . George W. Bush and Al Gore both turned to the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday to resolve issues critical to the state's contested presidential election, seeking rulings on the legality of continued manual recounts sought by the Democrats. ...... A short while later, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Democrats would ask the court to take jurisdiction over a burgeoning number of election-related lawsuits. He said the papers to be filed would ask the state's top court to rule ``whether hand counts are appropriate under Florida law and if so what is the deadline for their completions.'' ...... The legal maneuvering continued as officials in Broward County reversed course and decided to grant the Gore campaign its request for a full recount by hand. ....... David Boies, a lawyer recently added to Gore's legal team, set out the types of issues that Democrats would like to see addressed. ``What kind of manual recount? When do you terminate it? What are the standards? Can you have a manual recount in some counties and not in another?'' .......... Bush made a one-page filing in the Florida state Supreme Court, saying he is entitled to join Harris' case because ``initial vote tabulation and the statutory recount tabulation resulted in a majority of votes being cast for George W. Bush.'' ....." CNN 11/15/00 Freeper Smogger "..... This does NOT mean that dimpled ballots will count. The County was ASKING the judge to TELL THEM WHAT TO COUNT AND WHAT NOT TO count. They were in affect asking the judge if he WOULD DIRECT THEM TO COUNT DIMPLED BALLOTS. The judge wisely and FOLLOWING THE LOGIC OF THE BUSH LAWYERS moved that it was up to the discretion of the board themselves. The board has alrighty voted not to count them. This should be construed as a victory for the Bush team as they were arguing that this matter does not belong in court. This will allow the Bush people to argue that the results are arbitrary and biased NO MATTER the result of the hand recount. ...." Freeper SheRebel: ".... The 2000 Florida Statutes Title IX Electors and Elections Chapter 102 Conducting Elections and Ascertaining the Results 102.12 Inspectors and clerks to conduct elections.--

(2) Each member of the election board shall be able to read and write the English language and shall be a registered qualified elector of the county in which the member is appointed or a person who has preregistered to vote, pursuant to s. 97.041(1)(b), in the county in which the member is appointed. No election board shall be composed solely of members of one political party; however, in any primary in which only one party has candidates appearing on the ballot, all clerks and inspectors may be of that party. Any person whose name appears as an opposed candidate for any office shall not be eligible to serve on an election board. ...." CNN Freeper rumrunner 11/15/00 "..... CNN reporting that Broward County reversed itself because of machine error, not voting error ......--totally contradictory, but evidence of the Dem's fear that no manual recount unless machine error is the standard that will be used. ...." Freeper letter: Theresa LePore, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the Palm Beach County canvassing board Carol Roberts From: Bob Williams Concerned American Citizen I write this after having watched all of you work your way through what we all would agree is a difficult situation involving important decisions. However, important decisions in difficult situations still simply require a logical, common-sense approach to make. I am not a lawyer, but simply a concerned citizen of this country who believes strongly in the laws of this land whether they are local, state or federal. Therefore, as a common citizen, I have reviewed many of the Florida statutes related to the decisions that are now before you. By applying a logical, common-sense approach to both reading and applying portions of those statutes which relate to conducting a manual recount of all ballots, I would strongly suggest that the laws of Florida and the results of your sample manual recount dictate that you do not proceed with a full manual recount in Palm Beach county. I believe that the decisions recently made by the canvassing boards in both Broward and Miami-Dade counties to not pursue a full manual recount were based on the type of evidence that I will outline for you with regard to the Palm Beach county election results. Based on the results in their sample manual recounts and the laws of Florida, those boards determined that a full manual recount was not justifiable. I strongly encourage you to follow their lead by examining the evidence that I will outline below and then abandoning any additional manual recount in Palm Beach county. First, simply review the numbers that the machine counts have provided in the three separate counts of the ballots. The first machine recount and then the second machine recount resulted in a total increase of 105 votes for Bush - a 0.0687% increase over the original count. The first machine recount and then the second machine recount resulted in a total increase of 787 votes for Gore - a 0.293% increase over the original count. The majority of this difference is obviously due to the difference in the original count and then the first machine count of votes for Gore. You may be aware of a specific reason for this increase such as a certain number of ballots that had not been originally counted due to either human (operator) or mechanical error. However, notice that the increase of 36 votes for Gore from the first machine recount to the second machine recount is a 0.0133% increase. Thus, I would argue that additional machine recounts of the ballots would continue to show changes for each candidate that are proportional. This would seem to indicate that any obvious tabulation error for either candidate has been already uncovered by the machine recounts. Palm Beach County Totals: Original Count - Bush 152,846 and Gore 268,945 First Machine Recount - Bush 152,954 and Gore 269,696 Second Machine Recount (Certified) - Bush 152,951 and Gore 269,732 As you know, you have submitted the results from the second machine recount to the Secretary of State of Florida for certification. Now, you are considering the continuation of a full manual recount. Therefore, the next step is to review some of the statutes relating to the tabulation of results and the process for conducting

next step is to review some of the statutes relating to the tabulation of results and the process for conducting a manual recount of ballots. The most relevant portions of the Florida statutes would appear to be 102.131 and 102.166. 102.131 deals with determining the "true vote" or the "will of the people" as it has been referred to more recently. 102.166 deals with the procedure for validating if the vote tabulation has indeed reached a level that it properly reflects the "true vote". The relevant portions of both sections are included here: 102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.--If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. 102.166 Protest of election returns; procedure.-- (d) The manual recount must include at least three precincts and at least 1 percent of the total votes cast for such candidate or issue. In the event there are less than three precincts involved in the election, all precincts shall be counted. The person who requested the recount shall choose three precincts to be recounted, and, if other precincts are recounted, the county canvassing board shall select the additional precincts. (5) If the manual recount indicates an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election, the county canvassing board shall: (a) Correct the error and recount the remaining precincts with the vote tabulation system; (b) Request the Department of State to verify the tabulation software; or (c) Manually recount all ballots. (6) Any manual recount shall be open to the public. Now, the most relevant statement in 102.131 is as follows: "The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns." This would strongly suggest that, as members, you are not to be considering the total vote in the state of Florida, but simply the vote within Palm Beach county when making your decisions relative to manual recounts. Determining the "true vote" in Florida is left to the combined efforts of all 67 canvassing boards. You are charged simply with determining the "true vote" in Palm Beach county. With that in mind, any and all decisions that you make with regard to the continuation of a full manual recount in Palm Beach county should be purely based on the evidence and data within Palm Beach county. I strongly suggest, based on the results of your sample manual recount, that your current election results do indeed reflect the "true vote" of Palm Beach county. Any consideration of the effect any net increase for either candidate in Palm Beach county would have on the overall returns of the state of Florida would seem to violate the mindset that you are to follow according to 102.131. At this time, you have completed a sample manual recount and are now faced with taking the results from that sample and determining if the evidence leads to the undertaking of a full manual recount in Palm Beach county. Based on your actions to this point, I would suggest that the most relevant statement in 102.166 is as follows: "If the manual recount indicates an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election, the county canvassing board shall: (c) Manually recount all ballots." Therefore, did the sample manual recount indicate an error that could affect the outcome of the election? You cannot answer this question without first accepting the mindset that is outlined in 102.131. Using that mindset, does the data from the sample manual recount indicate an error that affects the "true vote" of Palm Beach county? Only if this is the case, should a full manual recount be conducted. Therefore, considering the following numbers for the 1% sample used in the sample manual recount, here is what is known: The precincts that were used for the sample were 6B, 162E, 193 and 193E. Within these 4 precincts, Gore received 2863 votes, Bush received 1020 votes and all other candidates received 132 votes. The sample manual recount was conducted using 4695 ballots. By adding the votes cast for any candidate, 4015 votes for President were made in the sample data set. Therefore, 680 ballots were either "over-punched" or "under-punched". 144 of the 680 ballots were "over-

punched". Therefore, 536 ballots contained either no vote for President or were "under-punched". Of those 536, the board "determined the intent" of the voter for 47 ballots where 33 votes were for Gore and 14 were for Bush. I believe that any discussion of the rules used to "determine the intent" of those 47 ballots, while debatable, are not relevant. Thus, the sample manual recount resulted in a remainder of 489 ballots that still contained no vote for President or were "under-punched". My conclusion is that this sample manual recount shows the following: Both candidates had their vote total increase by a nearly uniform, consistent percentage - 1.53% for Gore (33 new votes / 2863 original votes) and 1.37% for Bush (14 new votes / 1020 original votes). Thus, the sample manual recount clearly does not demonstrate any significant advantage to one candidate or the other. More importantly, in the context of Palm Beach county, the sample manual recount did not provide any evidence that the "true vote" of Palm Beach county would be changed by conducting a full manual recount. This evidence in itself simply and clearly demonstrates that, under the guidelines provided in 102.131 and 102.166, there are no grounds for continuing with a full manual recount in Palm Beach county. As outlined above, your mindset is not to consider the total vote in the state of Florida. However, at least one of you, has repeatedly mentioned a believed number of increased votes for one particular candidate and how that relates to the vote total in the state of Florida. While I believe that such statements demonstrate a lack of attention to the guidelines in 102.131, they also demonstrate a lack of understanding of what the sample manual recount actually shows. The evidence simply does not indicate that a gain of 1900 votes for one particular candidate will occur due to a full manual recount. 19 votes in 1% does not automatically equate into 1900 in 100%. In Palm Beach county, 29,702 total ballots were cast with no registered vote for President (includes both "over-punched" and "under-punched"). I believe that one could clearly accept that the "intent of the voter" cannot be determined for any "over-punched" ballot. Therefore, any change in the totals for each candidate would only be due to any errors in the mechanical tabulation systems and in the determination of the "intent of the voter" for the approximately 10, 500 "under-punched" ballots. As discussed above, the results of the machine recounts have now shown a uniform, consistent error level in the mechanical tabulation systems for each candidate. Therefore, we are mainly left with the issue of the "under-punched" ballots. Even assuming that all 47 added votes from the sample manual recount were due to a determination of the "intent of the voter" from these "under-punched" ballots, then the actual increase of one particular candidate directly following this data set should result in a gain more like (10,500 / 536) * 19 which is around 375 votes. Based on the statutes outlined here, the findings of the three machine counts, the data from the sample manual recount and the faulty math used in some part to make the determination to proceed with a full manual recount, I would strongly encourage you to not further pursue a full manual recount and move to finalize the certification of the results you submitted to the state of Florida on November 14, 2000. Thank you for your careful consideration of this matter. Bob Williams Law.com 11/15/00 R Robin McDonald "........R. Robin McDonald (Fulton County Daily Report) -- The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta -- the next stop for the Bush campaign to halt hand recounts of Florida's presidential vote -- has already affirmed its right to intervene in an election....... The 11th Circuit has interpreted the definition of what constitutes a federal election broadly. In 1999 a three-judge panel, including former Florida Supreme Court Justice Rosemary Barkett, affirmed the right of the federal courts to wade in on allegations of vote-buying in a Georgia county commissioner's race simply because there was an uncontested federal race on the same ballot. USA vs. McCranie, No. 97-9358 (11th Cir. March 12, 1999). The text of that ruling would appear to give the 11th Circuit ample precedent to pull on its legal boots and wade into the Florida presidential fracas, Siegel vs. LePore, No. 00-9009-civ (M.D. Fla., Nov. 13, 2000)........ "Whether federal jurisdiction exists in this type of fraudulent voting activities case is a question of first impression in this circuit," wrote Judge Joel F. Dubina, who authored the McCranie opinion for the threejudge panel. "As a starting point, we observe that the federal vote buying statute ... and the multiple voting statute ... plainly prohibit voting fraud 'in any general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of electing federal candidates.' " Citing a 1994 7th Circuit opinion, United States v. Cole, 41 F.3d 303 (7th Cir. 1994), Dubina noted, "The court held that federal jurisdiction exists even if the federal candidate is unopposed because fraud in a mixed election does have an impact 'on the integrity of the election.' "....... That statement would seemingly lay to rest any protest that the presidential election in Florida is a state function that should be governed by the state, rather than the federal, courts. But McCranie involves blatant allegations of corruption. The 1996 candidates for the Dodge County Commission and for sheriff had set up tables inside the courthouse at opposite ends of the hall, where supporters on

both sides openly bid for absentee votes. Buyers for both sides paid voters $20 to $40 after the voter cast his or her absentee ballot, according to the appellate opinion. Cash payments often occurred in the courthouse bathroom. The Bush campaign's suit, on the other hand, states, "There is no allegation or evidence of voter fraud or of coercion or corruption," in Florida, and that fraud is not the campaign's reason for seeking to halt the recounts. But in McCranie, the appeals panel interpreted federal election statutes broadly. The Cole decision "correctly observed that the federal election fraud statutes were implemented to protect two aspects of a federal election: the actual results of the election and the integrity of the process of electing federal officials," Dubina wrote......." Law.com 11/15/00 R Robin McDonald "........Citing a 5th Circuit case, United States v. Bowman, 636 F.2nd 1003 (5th Cir. Unit A. Feb. 1981) -- which is binding on the 11th Circuit because it was then part of the 5th Circuit -- Dubina noted, "The language in Bowman not only prohibits any fraudulent activity that affects the outcome of a federal election but also prohibits any activity that has the potential to affect 'the integrity and purity' of an election." ...... In 1995, a three-judge panel including former Florida District Court Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat, Stanley F. Birch Jr., and J.L. Edmondson, all of them appointed by Republican presidents, asserted jurisdiction in a legal brawl over the counting of absentee ballots in Alabama in the race for state treasurer and chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. ....... In a split vote, the appeals panel affirmed the lower court's injunction preserving all the ballots and enjoining the Alabama secretary of state from certifying the election results. Then, it decided to pose a question to the Alabama Supreme Court as to whether certifying the contested absentee ballots was, in fact, legal......... The appellate panel defended its decision, stating, "The unnecessary delay that would result were we to leave the plaintiffs to their state court remedy would be particularly insidious: It would extend the time that the two offices at issue remain in limbo, hindering those offices in the handling of state affairs. Time is, therefore, of the essence." ......... But two months later, the same panel remanded the case to the district court for trial on the merits with a list of 17 questions to address after the Alabama Supreme Court opined that the contested ballots were, in fact, legal.......... The district court judge eventually ruled that counting the contested ballots diluted the votes of those people who cast their votes in conformance with state law. He ordered the Alabama Secretary of State to certify the election results without the contested ballots. An appellate panel, this time composed of Floridians Tjoflat and Barkett, and Chief Judge R. Lanier Anderson III, affirmed the lower court ruling.......:" sun-sentinel.com 11/15/00 Karin Meadows "......Republicans contend Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts poked, twisted and manipulated ballots during a Saturday hand recount of four precincts and they are asking her to step down from the election canvassing board....... She said Wednesday she had been ``fair and impartial.'' She rejected the Republican demand to recuse herself. ``As a member of this board, I have been and continue to be fair,'' she said. ......... Roberts approved several ballots displaying only minor indentations while refusing to count ballots with partially punched holes, according to a letter to the canvassing board from Republican lawyer James Higgins. ``The Republicans filed a written request that Ms. Roberts should recuse herself from the board. They are alleging she is biased,'' said County Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the three-member board. He read a statement from Roberts Wednesday in which she said the ballots were recounted ``in full view of observers from both parties and cameras from all over the world,'' that all questions were decided by the three members of the board and that no complaints were voiced at the time. ......." Freeper miyamoto "....104.051 (4) Any supervisor, deputy supervisor, or election employee who attempts to influence or interfere with any elector voting a ballot commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084. 775.082 Penalties; applicability of sentencing structures; mandatory minimum sentences for certain reoffenders previously released from prison.-- (1) A person who has been convicted of a capital felony shall be punished by death if the proceeding held to determine sentence according to the procedure set forth in s. 921.141 results in findings by the court that such person shall be punished by death, otherwise such person shall be punished by life imprisonment and shall be ineligible for parole. ...." Bush-Cheney 2000! 11/14/00 "...... Statement by Ari Fleischer on the Actions of Florida's Attorney General "The opinion issued today by the Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth violates his own written standard as published on the Attorney General's web page. According to Butterworth's own web page, he has neither the authority nor the jurisdiction to provide advisory opinions on election issues. Such jurisdiction resides with the Division of Elections." ............ The Florida Attorney General's web page states that the Attorney General will not issue advisory opinions on questions that fall under the jurisdiction of other state agencies. "Questions arising under the Florida Election Code should be directed to the Division of Elections

in the Department of State," according to Butterworth's own web page. ......." Bush-Cheney 2000! 11/15/00 "...... "Pam Iorio, Democrat election supervisor in Hillsborough County, FL, and head of the FL State Association of Supervisors of Elections, on hand-counting: 'Hand counting is not always the most accurate indicator of voter intent.' "American University's Richard Smolka, who publishes Election Administration Reports: 'Hand counting is really mislabeled because it's not a matter of counting. It's a matter of examining and determining voter intent.'" ....." Palm Beach Post 11/15/00 Mary Ellen Klas ".....If there was any question the secretary of state's interpretation of election law carried a political tinge, one look at the phone calls and gifts arriving at her office Tuesday morning told the tale. "Many thanks for upholding your Florida law. We appreciate you very much," wrote Allan and Ann Webb of Canadian, Texas, on a card attached to a bountiful bouquet of roses and lilies. "Madame Secretary, thank you for your courage. Please know that we and millions of Americans are supporting and praying for you," read the card from Milton and Nancy Rester of Georgetown, Texas. .........,, Katherine Harris, weary-eyed from days of little sleep, poked her head into the lobby of her Capitol office to peek at the six bouquets. She already had directed another cart full of flowers to be sent to the Division of Elections offices. "I have no idea who these people are," she said. "Leave the cards on," she instructed the receptionist, "so I can write thank-you notes." ......" Associated Press 11/15/00 "...... Excerpts from an emergency petition by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris asking the Florida Supreme Court to clarify issues surrounding the presidential election recounts: Multiple lawsuits before multiple judges now address the presidential election. This will produce an unpredictable variety of results, theories, legal rulings and procedures applying throughout the state. ... The court is confronted by a significant risk of forum shopping, inconsistent results and loss of control necessary for the fair administration of justice. ... The multiplicity of actions also creates the spectacle of the judicial system in Florida running in myriad directions, all while the citizens of Florida and the nation await the final tally of votes to determine who will be the next president of the United States. ... Without question, this court must make it clear that the election of the president and vice president is not a matter of local pleasure. It is, at the least, a statewide matter of concern. This court must assume control over this litigation to preserve its ability to establish standards and to protect the voters of the state. ... The precise legal issues that may well have to be decided have not yet been conclusively identified but all election issues regarding this one election need to be joined in a coherent process of hearings, determinations and appellate review. Most importantly, if countywide manual recounts continue before this court decides whether such recounts are authorized and/or constitutional, the results will be broadcast to the nation, which will neither advance the process nor serve the interests of public policy. ......" Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/15/00 Brittany Wallman "......Miami-Dade County elections officials agreed to count by hand some ballots in the Elaine Bloom-Clay Shaw congressional race, which like some others, did not end on Election Day. The final tally in U.S. Congressional District 22, which spans three counties, had Shaw winning by fewer than 600 votes. ..... Miami-Dade officials agreed unanimously Tuesday to recount six precincts in the race, likely starting this morning. Broward and Palm Beach counties have denied Bloom's request for hand counts and certified the results in their parts of the long, thin congressional district that stretches from Miami Beach to Juno Beach.......Each candidate selected three precincts for recount in MiamiDade, Bloom's base. ...." Freeper Dinsmorian "...... In Palm Beach County, there was ballot tampering with over 18,000 ballots out of a total of 19,000 double-punched ballots. These ballots are not discarded ballots. Some believe these voters returned a double-punched ballot for a clean ballot and that is what is counted as double-punched ballots. That is incorrect. The votes of approximately 19,000 people were not counted because there were two holes punched for the office of President. Based on the 1% sample of hand counted votes, 95% of doublepunched ballots have a Gore hole punched. Over one half of the 19,000 double punched ballots are Gore-Buchanan ballots. If you include all single punched Buchanan ballots (3400) and double punched ballots with a Buchanan hole, there is a total of over 12,000 ballots with at least one Buchanan hole. The Democrat spin is 19,000 Palm Beach voters were able to find their way to their precinct but once there, voters punched two holes for the office of the President. Over 10,000 voters supposedly punched holes one

on top of the other. From the Palm Beach Post 11-14-00: "Number Crunchers: Vote Totals Irregular" the following: Two statisticians from Cornell, two from Harvard, and one from Northwestern wrote: "We find that Buchanan's Palm Beach County vote total is not merely large but that in statistical terms it is extraordinary." (See report at http://elections.fas.harvard.edu) Their worrds: "practically unbelievable event." There are two possible explanations for the "practically unbelievable event". 19,000 Palm Beach citizens were so confused they punched two holes for President. In other words, almost 19,000 individuals all made the exact same mistake in selecting a choice for President. The Democrat spin is to destroy the reputation of an entire county to cover their backs. Mind you, these citizens were looking at the names clearly printed in large print and arrows when they punched their ballots. As you can see, the faulty ballot/incompetent voter spin is not a reasonable explanation of the known facts. This is what happened. The ballots were tampered with using the double punch method. With punch card ballots, if you stack the ballots like a deck of cards and run a punch thorough the Gore hole, all Gore votes remain Gore votes, but all of Gore's opponent's votes in the stack become double-punched ballots and are invalid. This occurred after the voters had turned in their ballots. Here is the problem- there are no names on the punch cards. The spin is that many voters expected Gore to be the second hole down. The person or persons assigned to punch the Gore hole was looking at a stack of cards with only numbers identifying the holes. The puncher selected the second hole down and punched a Buchanan hole in 10,000 plus ballots that had already been completed by voters. Once punched, a ballot cannot be unpunched. There are votes on these ballots for all the other offices. You cannot throw them away. Once the mistake was discovered the only option was to punch the Gore hole in the 10,000 plus Buchanan mistakes. Hence, 19,000 double-punched ballots- 95% with one Gore hole punched and 12,000 plus with one Buchanan hole punched. Bush received fewer votes than the Republican Senate candidate, McCollum. Bush's double holed ballots were not counted. Bush's votes equal 66% of registered Republicans in Palm Beach County. The faulty ballot spin does not explain these numbers. How do you cover up 19,000 double-punched ballots including the 12,000 plus ballots with a Buchanan punch? First you contact the Martin Agency. The Martin Agency contracts with a telemarketing firm called Telequest. (Reference New York Times 11-11-200 David Firestone-Party mobilized...) The purpose of the calls was to convince Palm Beach County voters they had punched the wrong hole. These were not machine calls, they were personal interviews (Reference New York Times-5,000 calls made with 2400 people telling callers they may have made a mistake). This is the key. The calls continued even after Florida had been called for Gore, even after the polls were closed. Why spend the money to call people after polls in Palm Beach County are closed and Gore is the winner? The purpose was to create a cover story for 19,000 double-punched ballots. Blame the people. Ridicule the Palm County voters in the press. Tell me if the New York Times story makes sense. You do the math. Telequest began making calls at 6 p.m. The polls closed at 7 p.m. How long would one telemarketer spend calling and then actually interviewing a Palm Beach County voter? I will give them the benefit, let's assume an average of 2 1/2 minutes per interview. The New York Times article implies the calling stopped at 7 p.m.-poll closing. 5,000 calls times 2 1/2 minutes all made in one hour. How many telemarketers were working that night? This explanation would require 208 telemarketers to call 5000 voters in one hour if each call including dialing lasted 2 1/2 minutes. There were not two hundred telemarketers and the calls did not stop at 7 p.m. There are 5000 people who were contacted. They know if it they were contacted before or after the election was called for Gore. It was reported that a representative of the Martin Agency remained at the Telequest Office in Wichita Falls, TX until he had all the data from the survey in his possession. This was a highly unusual procedure for transferring survey results. With the data in hand, the Martin representative placed a cell phone call, reportedly to the Vice-President's limo. Obviously, it is difficult to determine with certainty from a one-sided

conversation who was on the other end of the line, but the fact remains after the cell phone call was completed , the Vice-President's limo enroute to the concession speech turned around. It was reported that two days after the election Telequest was sold to a company based in India. YOU CAN HELP! Distribute this to as many people as you can. People are depending on your efforts to email, fax, mail or spread flyers. I have done all I can do by getting this in your hands. The rest is up to you. ......" Double Punch Emphasis: Florida .... The Times 11/12/00 Daniel McGrory "....THE FBI is being asked to investigate how thousands of mainly black supporters of Al Gore were given ballot papers that had allegedly already been marked for rival candidates. Yesterday Democrat officials were examining claims that up to 17,000 ballot papers in the Miami area had been tampered with in what they described as "organised corruption". Lawyers from across the United States descended on Miami and were busy taking statements from those complaining that they had been cheated or intimidated out of voting for Mr Gore. A senior Democrat official in Miami, who has hired a team of 20 investigators to carry out an inquiry, told The Times: "Until now in Florida, we have been arguing foul-ups, human error and stupidity. But this is deliberate corruption to spoil votes for Gore and that must be a matter for the FBI. ......."We don't want to be seen as playing the race card here, but the areas where this happened are in poorer precincts, which are predominantly black areas that would be expected to vote almost unanimously for Vice-President Gore. We are not accusing the Republican Party or any other ethnic groups for being behind this. All we are saying is the vote was corrupted. There are just too many doublepunched papers." ...... Jewish leaders in staunch Democrat areas of the city claimed that they, too, had evidence of voting slips being marked before they reached polling stations in areas populated by retired Jewish couples. At a rally in a Miami synagogue, Lisa Versaci, Florida director of People for the American Way, said: "There can be no innocent explanation for a pre-punched ballot sheet." Republican leaders in Miami dismissed the allegations as "dirty-trick claims". A spokesman said: "A spoiled ballot is not uncommon. There is no dark plot here....." Wisconsin ..... NY - POST 11/13/00 Ken Lovett ".......Tales of voter fraud and irregularities in last week's presidential election have swept through Wisconsin, where Al Gore enjoys just a slim lead over George W. Bush. Since the elections, hundreds of voters have complained to the Wisconsin Republican Party of problems they say they either experienced or witnessed at the polls. ........ Nine, all from heavily Democratic Milwaukee County, discussed the allegations with The Post yesterday. ....Beverly Hecker, a 63-year-old Republican, said she received a ballot that was already premarked for two Democrats, including Gore. Wisconsin makes voters fill out their ballots before entering them into the polling machine. Hecker said that when she tried to mark her vote for George W. Bush, the ballot machine spit the paper out because it contained two votes for president. Hecker said she gave the defective ballot to an election inspector and voted on a fresh sheet. Village Voice 11/15/00 James Ridgeway ".....Two South Carolina members of the electoral college claim they have received phone calls from an unidentified person asking them to change their votes from Republican George W. Bush to Democrat Al Gore, according the Columbia newspaper, The State. Bush easily carried South Carolina, garnering 57 percent of the vote. The state has eight electoral votes. Both electors said they assumed the requests came from the Gore campaign, but the paper reports this morning that the Democratic camp denies making any such calls. ..." Fox News 11/15/00 Freeper truthkeeper ".... WILL be heard "en bank" - the 12 judge panel. No time set yet. 11th Circuit, Atlanta...." Freeper truthkeeper "....Sorry, Dan. That's all the information Fox gave when they broke the story, and I reported it exactly as given. NOW, several minutes later, Fox has a little more information. The case will be heard in an expedited manner, which means possibly within 24 hours. The fact that a similar case in going to the State Supreme Court could produce a situation, according to Carl Cameron's report, where federal law is set that would supercede state law. ...." Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/15/00 Ellis Berger David Cazares ".....The Gore campaign lost its bid late Tuesday for a far-reaching manual recount in Miami-Dade County when close scrutiny of ballots in three precincts produced a gain of only six votes for the Democratic presidential candidate....... The wider effort failed despite adoption earlier in the day of the least restrictive and most subjective recount approach taken

by any South Florida county....... The push for that approach -- as well as a failed effort to have a full recount -- was led by the election canvassing board's only member with a declared party affiliation, County Judge Lawrence D. King, a registered Democrat....... He said the fact that Palm Beach County is going through a manual recount means that the election could be significantly swayed, and Miami-Dade should follow suit. But County Judge Myriam Lehr and Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor David C. Leahy, canvassing board members with no party affiliation, accepted the Republican Party's argument presented by Attorney Bob Martinez, also a former U.S. attorney. Martinez repeated the argument he made throughout the day: The opposition failed to establish tabulation error justifying even the most limited recount. "They have to follow the rules," Martinez said. "They have to show there is an error. What happened today, the six votes garnered by Vice President Al Gore is not an error."......" Freeper Robert A. Cook, PE "...... There is a spreadsheet showing that across the board, more Democrats got "recorded votes" than were "registered Democrats" - - by marings averaging over 140% of the registered democrats in that precinct. ....." Northwest Florida Dailey News 11/15/00 Michael Stewart "......The Okaloosa County Canvassing Board shot down a request Tuesday for a manual recount of the presidential election Supervisor of Elections Pat Hollarn, County Judge Keith Brace and County Commission Chairwoman Paul Riggs said a protest filed by a woman identified as Karla Zeieler had no merit. ...... The protest requested that all ballots be manually recounted because an "unlawful announcement of a result before the polls closed resulted in the vote not fairly representing the will of the voters in Okaloosa County and thus in Florida." "There is nothing in the protest about anything to do with the ballots, the machines or the manner in which the election was conducted," Hollarn said. ......." Reuters/USA Today 11/15/00 "...... "But the state cannot certify its overall official results until after it has counted mail-in absentee ballots, which must be postmarked by Nov. 7 and received by midnight EST on Friday. ...... USA Today on Wednesday quoted county election officials as saying they had already received 4,039 absentee ballots in 65 of Florida's 67 counties, a big increase from the 2,300 mail-in ballots counted in the 1996 presidential election." ....." Freeper sdkhaki "...... I just did some digging and came up with the following makeup of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Ford appointees: Judge Tjoflat Carter appointees: Judge Kravitch, Judge Anderson Reagan appointees: Judge Cox, Judge Edmondson Bush appointees: Judge Carnes, Judge Birch, Judge Black Clinton appointees: Judge Wilson, Judge Barkett, Judge Marcus (a one-time Reagan District Court appointee), Judge Hull AP 11/15/00 "......A top prosecutor said a rural north Florida county should not have recounted by hand more than 2,000 presidential ballots that had been rejected by voting machines. The day after the Nov. 7 election, Gadsden County"s mostly Democratic canvassing board went into a back room and recounted all the votes machines had rejected. Members of the public watched through a window. When they were finished, Vice President Al Gore had 170 more votes than before the recount. ..... Hutchinson, 63, who was knocked out of his job in the September primary, said he resigned from the board because of a health concern. Judge Richard L. Hood and Gadsden County Commissioners Ed Dixon and Sterling Watson, who replaced Hutchinson, are the present canvassing board members. All are Democrats. ...... State Attorney Willie Meggs, the region"s top prosecutor and a Democrat, said he had never heard of ballots being counted that way and told The New York Times the recounted ballots were invalid. "You don"t give a vote to someone whose ballot was not counted," Meggs said. Gadsden County"s canvassing board agreed to let both parties inspect the disputed ballots Wednesday. Earlier, Hood, the Republican chairman of the canvassing board, defended the examination and counting of the rejected ballots. "As far as I was concerned, the election was fair," Hood told the Times. Hutchinson, a Democrat, said he was opposed to counting the rejected ballots because so many of them were in bad shape. Many were marked up with pencil marks, crossed-out selections and multiple selections. "Ballots like this didn"t have any business being counted," Hutchinson told the newspaper....." Broward County Canvassing Board 11/15/00 to Secretary Harris: "....This letter is in response to your November 14, 2000 memorandum in which you required the Broward County Canvassing Board (the ``Board'') to submit a written statement of facts and circumstances justifying an amended certification of

county returns. The Board has concluded that the limited manual recount to date indicates an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election, requiring a manual recount of all ballots. The Board states the following additional facts and circumstances that justify an amended certification: 1. Extremely large voter turnout, and the resulting ballots cast, dramatically increased the time required for the initial tabulation. 2. This Board, representing voters in the second largest county in Florida, needs additional time to complete all necessary tabulation, and should be afforded more time than boards representing voters in lesspopulated counties. 3. The large number of ballots has created additional logistical problems, requiring that ballots be moved to an alternate location for further tabulation. The Supervisor's location can accommodate a very limited number of counting teams. 4. The Board has encountered significant periods of delay, including: A. The actions of the Board have been materially impacted by numerous lawsuits, including lawsuits filed in state circuit courts in Broward County, Palm Beach County and Leon County, and in federal court in both the Southern District and Middle District of Florida. B. The actions of the Board have been materially impacted by conflicting opinion letters issued by Cabinet officers. On November 13, 2000, an opinion letter was issued by the Director of the Division of Elections, on behalf of the Secretary of State. On November 14, 2000, a conflicting opinion letter was issued by the Office of the Attorney General. These opinion letters impacted the Board's decision-making process regarding a manual recount and further impeded the Board's ability to proceed more expeditiously. C. One of the members of the Board, Supervisor of Election Jane Carroll, was out of state on a pre-planned family holiday and therefore unavailable from November 9, 2000 through November 12, 2000. D. The Veterans' Day holiday, observed in Broward County by different governmental agencies on either November 10, 2000, or November 13, 2000, further limited the Board's ability to act. E. The Board was required by state law to conduct an automatic recount prior to determining the necessity of a full manual recount. Based on these facts and circumstances, the Board voted today to begin a full manual recount. The Board expects to complete the recount by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, November 20, 2000. In accordance with your memorandum, the Board will advise you in the future of any change in relevant facts and circumstances regarding this recount, including the estimated completion time. Please feel free to contact me with any question or concerns. Respectfully Submitted, Robert W. Lee County Court Judge Chair, Broward County Canvassing Board ...." Freeper icwhatudo "..... So basically there was no fraud and there were no machine errors. Uhhhhhh, what moron member of an election board would schedule a vacation for the days right after the votes are collected and need counting? ...." Freeper tm22721 "..... They are spinning that the machines have a built-in error since they can't read underpunched ballots reliably. ....." Freeper monkeyshine "..... Machine error. That's the only legal reason for a recount. But it stands to reason that if the machines are faulty, they are faulty all across the state. They would have the same error rate. The result will be the same. Bush up by 300, plus apx 200 of the 180,000 faulty ballots. ......" Sun-Sentinel from rumrunner "......But Gunzburger, the most insistent proponent of a full manual recount in Broward, said the hand recount was needed to ensure that every vote is counted and to rectify errors uncovered in a sample hand recount. ``The machines did not properly count all the properly voted ballots. It was tabulation errors by the machines, not voter error,'' Gunzburger said. ....."

Freeper hcmama "...... Just heard on MSNBC that Gore's lawyers have gone to court to prevent the Eleventh Circuit from hearing the appeal. ..." National Review Online 11/15/00 "......For example, even before the selective hand recount, Palm Beach County certified 800 more votes than its precinct-by-precinct canvass reported on election night. That's not fuzzy math; it's impossible math. ........ On election night, Bush had a 1,784-vote lead over Gore, but after several recounts, that margin is now down to 327 votes. How did that happen? A University of Nevada professor calculated that the chance that Gore would increase his Florida vote total as much as he did are 43 million to one. How did Gore beat the odds? ......... One thing we know now is that, when the ballots were recounted by machine, Pinellas County (another Gore stronghold) showed an extra 417 votes for Gore. How can that be? It turns out that the very human election officials decided to help things along by altering the ballots before they were resubmitted to the machine. They removed the chaff (the little piece of paper the voter is supposed to push through the computer ballot) by hand - thus giving Gore an extra 417 votes. No other Florida county did that. The election officials treated the Gore ballots differently than the Bush ballots. ......" Freeper beavus "...... Linda Vester on Fox just reported that the current vote count in NM puts Gore 375 votes ahead of Bush....." Freeper A Citizen Reporter on Sec Baker "....He is saying that it is untrue that Republicans ask for recounts in any counties. Today, they have admitted that there are no standards for manual recounts. They have now asked a court for some standards. Inexplicably they are going ahead with the manual recounts, BEFORE they get those standards. ...." Freeper William_Rusher "..... Baker says he warned that the election would drag on and on through the courts , demos have refused to accept the original count-re-count-re-re-count, now Palm Beach is recounting for the 4th time. Says the mis-statements by dems about republican recounts have occured are false, says they have had no republican recounts. Says the demos have filed 12 seperate lawsuits and we have filed only one suit in defense that Baker warned about from the start. ....." Freeper DJ88 "...... James Baker on now....a few days ago that the Palm Beach Ballot was illegal, it is legal, contrary to what they said; now they asserting that Republicans have sought manual recounts in 6 other counties, untrue; today finally they admitted their are no standards and they are going to ask a court to set standards, yet they are going on with recounts anyway; they have filed 12 lawsuits; one in the Democratic counties (Broward); we have only filed one. By now the Gore campaign strategy is clear: keep recounting, keep filing recounts etc etc until the results change....end. ...." Freeper A Citizen Reporter ".... This is great. "WE are not delaying the re-counts, their own lawsuits are delaying them." ....." Palm Beach Canvassing Commission Illegal: Roberts, Lepore, Burton all Dems Freeper rumrunner "..... Fla. Stat.102(2) Each member of the election board shall be able to read and write the English language...No election board shall be composed solely of members of one political party however, in any primary in which only one party has candidates appearing on the ballot, all clerks and inspectors may be of that party. Any person whose name appears as an opposed candidate for any office shall not be eligible to serve on an election board. ......County Judge Charles Burton, the canvassing board's chairman, acknowledged publicly Monday for the first time since the recounting began that he is registered to vote as a Democrat. But he said he is not involved in party activities...." The Associated Press, ".......- Theresa LePore, 45, is the county supervisor of elections who designed the so-called ``butterfly'' ballot that critics have assailed as confusing. LePore, who won the post in 1996, has said she has ``a policy of being nonpartisan.'' She's a lifetime elections worker, starting in the Palm Beach office in 1971 at the age of 16. A die-hard Democrat and daughter of a former West Palm Beach commissioner, she slowly moved up the ladder to her current post. ....." The Associated Press, ".......- Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts has acknowledged giving money to Al Gore's campaign, but said she was not active in it. She said she was even criticized by Democratic Party officials for not getting involved. Roberts also said she took her husband to a campaign event for vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman, but that they didn't meet because it was very crowded. ``I was not active in the campaign,'' said Roberts, whose car sports a Gore bumper sticker. The Associated Press, "....... County Judge Charles Burton, the canvassing board's chairman, acknowledged publicly Monday for the first time since the recounting began that he is registered to vote as a Democrat. But he said he is not involved in party activities. ....."

The Associated Press, "....... Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga, assigned an election lawsuit in Palm Beach County, said he changed his party affiliation to ``no party affiliation'' after being appointed judge in January 1996 by late Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles. Labarga said he had served on the county GOP executive committee and was a former president of the Cuba-American Republican Club. ....." Miami-Dade County to Secretary Harris: "...After a careful review of the written filings, exhibits and presentation of oral argument of the requesting party, the Democratic Party, as well as the Republican Party's response and all other interested persons, the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board exercised its discretion and unanimously voted to conduct a manual recount of three precincts selected by the requesting party comprising 1% of the vote as provided for pursuant to Florida Statute 102.166. The Miami-Dade County Canvassing Board urges you to accept the Supplemental Certificate of Results for the Office of President of the United States. These supplemental votes are a result of the Canvassing Board's decision to hand count three precincts. The manual recount of the three precincts was completed at approximately 8:00 p.m. on November 14, 2000. The Supplemental Certificate of Results will be faxed to the Division of Elections prior to 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 15, 2000 and an original certification will be sent to the Division of Elections such that it will be received by that office on November 16, 2000. The Miami-Dade County Canvassing Board believes it is imperative that the votes for the Office of President of the United States contained in the Supplemental Certificate of Results be added to the vote totals of the Boards Certificate of Results dated November 9, 2000. Please contact David C. Leahy, Supervisor of Elections for Miami-Dade County, at 305-375-3150 if you have any questions regarding this request or the Supplemental Certificate of Results. MSNBC 11/15/00 Azzuri "...... Just before the Jim Baker news conference, MSNBC began a report on the overseas absentee ballots. They said Dade County has 75 overseas ballots to be counted thus far. Most importantly, they said the makeup of those 75 ballots is: 46 REGISTERED REPUBLICANS, 10 REGISTERED DEMOCRATS, AND 19 INDEPENDENTS. This is great news. They cut away to go to the Baker press conference right before they were going to discuss other counties, but they may resume this report any time now. Tune into MSNBC. ......" Freeper Azzurri ".....Citrus County -> 47 ballots, 25 Reps, 7 Dems, 15 Other Pasco County -> 15 ballots, 7 Reps, 4 Dems, 4 Other St Lucie County ->10 ballots, 4 Reps, 4 Dems, 2 Other Escambia County -> 203 ballots, no party affiliation registered Escambia is military country so those must be mostly Republicans No information for other counties at this time. ....." Palm Beach County to Secretary Harris: "..... This letter is in response to your request for a written statement of the facts and circumstances which would necessitate a change to be made in the final certification of the statewide vote based on the results of Palm Peach County's manual recount of all the ballots cast in Palm Beach County for the offices of President and Vice President. The Palm Beach county Canvassing Board has conducted a machine recount of the ballots and a limited manual recount of 1% of the total votes cast in accordance with Section 102.166(4)(d), Florida Statutes. The limited manual recount produced different results than the machine recount. The machine recorded approximately 10,000 undervotes. As stated in the Canvassing Board's Petition For Extraordinary Writ, it elected to conduct a manual recount ''(b)ecause the results could affect the outcome of the election.'' See. 102.166(5), Fla. Stat. On Sunday, November 12, 2000, the Canvassing Board voted to conduct a manual recount of all the ballots cast in Palm Beach County for the offices of President and Vice President pursuant to the authority granted to it under Section 102.166(5)(c), Florida Statutes. As you are aware, the Canvassing Board also voted to seek advisory opinions from the Division of Elections and the Attorney General regarding the proper interpretation of Section 102.166(5), Florida Statutes. The opinions were conflicting; accordingly, the Canvassing Board is currently seeking an adjudication by the Florida Supreme Court to resolve the conflicting opinions on the question of whether the Canvassing Board may, under the above-referenced circumstances, conduct a manual recount of the votes cast for President and Vice President. The Canvassing Board has voted to suspend its manual recount pending the resolution of this issue and other issues by the Florida Supreme Court.

A manual recount of four precincts, which accounts for approximately one% of the total votes cast in Palm Beach County, resulted in a difference in the vote totals. The 4,695 ballots manually recounted in four precincts resulted in a total gain of 33 votes for Vice President Al Gore and 14 votes for Governor George W. Bush, which is a net gain of 19 votes for Vice President Al Gore. Clearly, the results of the manual recount could affect the outcome of this very close presidential election if the manual recounts in the other precincts also vary in this degree from the machine counts. Freeper markfnkl "...... This letter, and the one from Broward, appear weak. Other than stating that the results of a hand count could affect the outcome of the election, they offer no justification for conducting the sample count in the first place, namely, that there was evidence of a problem in tabulation, ie, a problem with the machines. If SOS Harris exercises her discretion to ignore the hand counts, I find it hard to imagine that this letter will be close to sufficient to overturn her decision. ..... Indeed, the letter appears surprisingly superficial and perfunctory. Perhaps PBC simply feels that the issue will be decided in a different forum and this letter will mean little one way or the other. But they could be taking a fatal risk! ....." Collier County Canvasing Board to Secreaty Harris "..... On November 14, 2000, as Collier County Supervisor of Elections Employees were preparing the ballot envelopes of this November 7, 2000, General Election for storage, we performed a post election audit of all envelopes to confirm all envelopes were empty. During this audit, we found 24 ballots had not been removed from the envelope in which they were received, although accepted and opened prior to the election, but were not counted. These 24 ballots represent a cross-section of voters of several political parties upon review of the unopened ballot envelopes. An additional ballot was received October 18, 2000, and accepted. Upon opening, it was ascertained to be a ballot card for the first primary election. Upon further investigation of this ballot, it was determined that the voter had voted for the general election using a first primary ballot card. We provide this for your information; we are not requesting a manual recount of ballots for this recent General Election. We do inquire if the Canvassing Board of Collier County Florida may provide an amended recount certification of Collier's ballots by merely adding these inadvertently omitted absentee ballots to the total ballot counts already certified and provided. If this amended recount is approved, the count of these 25 ballots will take place on Friday, November 17, 2000, at 2 p.m. in the Elections Office, M.L. King Building, 3301 Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida 34104. This will occur at the same meeting at which our overseas ballots will be canvassed, however, they will be certified separately. ...." Federal and Florida Statutes Freeper PhiKapMom 11/15/00 "...... OVERSEAS ABSENTEE BALLOT RULES -FLORIDA From the Federal Voting Assistance Program: Para A states "These procedures apply to persons who are U.S. citizens, residents of Florida, and members of the Uniformed Services and their family members. Para B (2) (Page 2) states "... postmarked or dated not later than day of election and received up to 10 days after the general election or primary." This can be verified at http://www.fvap.ncr.gov/Vag00/florida.pdf This pertains to all persons other than Uniformed Personnel and their defendents who are provided for under Federal Law which supercedes State Law (see above): From the Florida voting statutes: (6) With respect to absent electors overseas entitled to vote in the election, the supervisor of elections shall mail an official ballot with a secrecy envelope, a return mailing envelope, and instructions sufficient to describe the voting process to each such elector on a date sufficient to allow such elector time to vote in the election and to have his or her marked ballot reach the supervisor by 7 p.m. on the day of the election. The above can be verified at 2000-Ch0101-Section%206103"Florida Voting Statute Freeper rface to PhiKapMom ".....does this mean that over-seas ballots, that are NOT military, have to be received by 7:00 pm election day and that military ballots have 10 days after the election to be received? or

am I too dense to read this right... " reply "....Yes it does -- All uniformed personnel and their families to include the Armed Services, Merchant Marine, Coast Guard, Public Health, and NOAA (weather). All others have to have their ballots back by 7 p.m. on election night. ...." Florida Statutes 11/15/00 DouglasKC "....."0102.131"; Returns before canvassing commission. If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. MSNBC 11/15/00 Freeper KellyAdmirer [Florida Supreme Ct Decision] "....A one-page order. There were no reasons given. This is actually good news, as it leaves the lower-court ruling in place and, thus, the SOS's discretion. Bush's lawyer said that the Florida Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction, and it looks from this as though the Supreme Court agrees. ....." adds TheBig B "...... I agree. This is another punt. I think at this point NO court other than the U.S. Supreme Court will intervene. It all depends on whether or not SoS Harris decides to accept the handcounted results. There is plenty of justification, IMHO, for her not to do so. ...." Freeper Ifly4Him adds ".... Legal expert says that there is some good news for Bush here. Bush camp believes that FL Sup Ct does not have jurisdiction in this case. The Sup Ct seems to support that view as well. He said that they gave Harris the right to go back to trial court "without predjudice" to seek relief. I'm not an attorney, so I can't translate. ....." Freeper Clean Sweep "...The court does not want to take responsibility for the actions of the SOS. She is still free to exercise her discretionary powers. ...." Freeper HashemEchod FoxNews 11/15/00 (caution: unconfirmed) ".... Fox news is announcing that in Ocaloosa (sp?) county, there were at least 680 ballots where people voted twice for Bush, once by marking an arrow and once by writing in. These ballots were kicked out for double voting. However, if INTENT OF THE VOTER is the overriding criterion, these should be counted. The county is trying to figure out what to do with these hundreds of Bush votes ...." Freeper EarlyBird adds "...saw this report on Saturday I think and posted it as a reply to something. But I only saw the report once and then it was gone. William La Juenesse reported it ONCE. Never saw it again. I figured it was an erroneous report since these ballots get scanned at the polling place and would have been kicked out in front of the voter who would have been directed to try again. But if now we find it's true, I can only say that Fox sat on this until it was too late. If so, they're no more helpful to us than CNN. ...." Townhall.com 11/15/00 Paul Craig Roberts "..... Karl Marx said it best: "Audacity is 90 percent of the battle." Lenin showed that he had learned this Marxist lesson well when he declared his tiny band "the majority" and seized power in Russia in the name of a non-existent proletariat. It is the year 2000 in the United States, not 1917 in a Russia convulsed by war and the abdication of the Tsar. Nevertheless, on Nov. 8-10, the entire world watched as Al Gore and the Democratic Party deliberated an American coup d'etat. ........ The Party of Corruption (aka the Democratic Party) considered obtaining a restraining order from a Democratic judge. The order would bar Florida's governor from filing Florida's Certificate of Ascertainment by Dec. 18, the date set by federal law for the Electoral College to announce the vote. Without this certificate, there would be no electors from Florida present when the Electoral College tallies the vote. ....... This plan has been put into effect in one county. Democratic activists, posing as civil-rights litigants, have convinced a judge to prevent certification of the county's vote until allegations that voters were confused by the ballot and deprived of their civil rights are heard. ......" FoxNews 11/15/00 Adrienned Mand "....By a margin of 51 percent to 40 percent, the respondents said Bush "should be the next president of the United States," based on what they currently know about the election. In addition, 52 percent said they believe Bush will be elected president "if the votes are counted perfectly, accurately and honestly in Florida," compared to 32 percent who believe he will lose. Democratic voters, however, sharply favored Gore on both questions, and Republican voters favored Bush, with the independents siding with Bush. ......The turmoil is hurting Gore more than Bush. If Gore wins Florida, 42 percent of voters will believe the results have been arrived at fairly, while 56 percent will believe so if Bush wins. ..... In addition, if Gore takes Florida, 47 percent want to recount ballots in other states. If Bush wins, 57 percent would oppose recounts elsewhere. ....." Colonel David Hackworth "..... Rudyard Kipling's 19th-century poem "Tommy" perfectly captures the

frustration of many in our armed forces toward the disconnected mind-set of too many of today's politicians, media folks and uncaring Americans. ......When the country has a gun pointed at its head, nothing's too good for the troops. But when the market's high and peace is blowing in the wind, signs quickly proclaim: "No dogs or soldiers allowed." There's no national threat this week, but our Tommys and Tammys are suddenly in the spotlight. It's their absentee ballots that may decide the presidential election and who will be their next commander in chief. What irony! Now those who wear our uniform have become critically important to an administration that for the past eight years has treated them with callousness and contempt -- as if they were indentured servants. ....... They've been sent on one harebrained mission after another, none of which have zilch to do with national security. Their ability to defend America has been dulled by social experiments seemingly designed to turn a once-disciplined, highly effective fighting machine into a politically correct commune. They've been marginalized, downsized and socialized, screwed with, manipulated and jerked around every way but loose. ........Finally, these defenders of ours have made prime time and Page One without another USS Cole tragedy or an old atrocity charge or a new scandal. Now that they're the main event, let's hope they use their 15 minutes to send a loud and clear message about what's on their minds. ....." Associated Press 11/5/00 Dara Kam "......Democrats withdrew a request Wednesday to inspect about 2,200 presidential ballots that were rejected by voting machines in a Panhandle county where Democrats outnumber Republicans 9-to-1. The day after the election, the all-Democratic Gadsden County canvassing board recounted all the votes that machines rejected Nov. 7. After the recount, Vice President Al Gore had a net gain of 153 votes. Republicans and a prosecutor said the county canvassing board had no right to count the rejected ballots by hand. ``What they did here is different than just about anything in the state,'' said Heath Thompson, a spokesman for Texas Gov. George W. Bush. ``They arbitrarily decided to examine the overvotes and undervotes that were rejected by the machine.'' ........State Attorney Willie Meggs, the region's top prosecutor and a Democrat, said he had never heard of ballots being counted that way and told The New York Times the recounted ballots were invalid. ``You don't give a vote to someone whose ballot was not counted,'' Meggs said. ....." General Maximus 11/15/00 "....Los Angeles-- A gathering of about 120 Bush Supporters rallied outside the CNN building at 6430 W. Sunset, and the media was conspicuously absent. Although most major networks have stations within a two block radius of the CNN building, there was no camera presence, nor did there appear to be any coverage from the major newspapers. Ironically, the protesters were focusing on MEDIA BIAS. Protesters lined the block surrounding CNN from 11:30am to 1:30pm holding signs condemning CNN's coverage of the presidential campaign. There were also many Bush/Cheney signs and posters urging Al Gore to concede to Bush...." Associated Press 11/15/00 Anne Gearan ".....Florida's highest court rejected the Republican secretary of state's request Wednesday to delay any hand recounting of ballots in the chaotic tally of presidential ballots. Katherine Harris had asked the Florida Supreme Court to order a halt to ongoing manual recounts ''pending resolution as to whether any basis exists'' for their legitimacy. ...... ''We have considered this petition and have determined that the decision should be denied,'' the unanimous seven-member court wrote in a brief order. .......The court ruled without holding a hearing on Harris' request. In rejecting her suit, the judges, all chosen by Democratic governors, did not address the many other election-related legal challenges making their way through Florida courts. ......" FoxNews 11/15/00 John Martin "......Gore's chief surrogate in Florida, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, called the petition a new form of GOP delay and said the vice president's legal team will ask the high court to take control of the dispute instead of sending it to a lower court. The seven justices on the Supreme Court were all appointed by Democratic governors. ....... Christopher dismissed suggestions that such a move was in itself another form of delay. "The whole spirit of the move today is to expedite and clarify the matter," he said. ....." FoxNews 11/15/00 John Martin "......The Palm Beach board also brushed aside a complaint from Republicans that one of its three canvassing judges, County Commissioner Carol Roberts, manipulated or tampered ballots during Saturday's recount to award them to Gore. Roberts, a Democrat, denied the charge and said she would not recuse herself. "I have and will continue to be impartial," she said. Dytrych, the board counsel, said the point was moot because the board did not have the authority to remove Roberts anyway. ....." FoxNews 11/15/00 John Martin "......In neighboring Broward County, a heavily Democratic district, elections officials voted along party lines, 2-1, to reopen their recount of nearly 500,000 votes, reversing a Monday decision. The county is one of four where the Gore campaign has asked for ballot recounts, citing confusion

over the ballot and thousands of invalidated votes. Miami-Dade County rejected the request after initial sampling by hand turned up little statistical difference. Volusia County completed its recount Tuesday, giving Gore an additional 98 votes. ....." Gore Speech 11/15/00 Freeper Patriot ".... 1. Complete all hand counts. 2. All counties in the state acceptable for hand count 3. Gore wants to meet with Bush (he knows he is hosed if he wins) 4. All supporters unite 5. This is about democracy not ME! ....." Freeper Fury "...... Says this is a test of democracy that we will and must pass. Says we need to honor Constitution. Says we need to honor every voter and every vote. Says that hand recount is accepted as a way to check machine recounts... Says we need a resolution that is fair and final. Proposes to settle the matter with finality and justice. Says hand counts should be completed in PB, Dade and Broward to determine the intent of the voter. Says he will abide by the results of above and will initiate and support no legal action if the above is accepted. Says he would also support a complete full hand recount, if Bush agrees to. Says he would like to meet with Bush to reaffirm our national unity. ...." Freeper Recovering_Democrat in response to "I think Gore may be nervous about that federal circuit court. Perhaps he will propose that all ballots be manually counted to head off the circuit court throwing out the cherry picked ballots. " said "...I think you've hit the nail on the head. Gore knows how RELUCTANTLY the 11th CC sided with his corrupt administration on the Elian case...and he KNOWS these federal judges know he's a consummate vote-stealer, given his connections with the son of graft, Bill Daley. Gore will make some kind of BS speech about the integrity of the constitution, etc. etc., the PRESS will praise him for coming up to the plate, and wonder out loud why Bush hasn't said anything publicly. ...... But back to the court issue...he's going to try and get Bush to agree to something BEFORE the court rules. Only if he agrees to concede should Bush agree. ....." Midwaukee Journal Sentinet 11/15/00 Jessica McBride Linda Spice "..... A Marquette University freshman who told reporters that he voted multiple times in the presidential election recanted his comments Wednesday Rob Bosworth, 18, and his attorney, Laura Arbuckle, released a statement before a news conference saying that the student had only voted once - for himself. The statement said Bosworth had "voiced his disappointment with the potential for voter fraud by overstating his position."...... The statement continued that the student, who had told reporters he had voted four times for himself, "was contacted by members of the national media and in his zest to voice his frustration regarding possible voter fraud, he crossed the line by making a direct statement that he had voted on more than one occasion on election day. This statement was untrue. His motivation was to draw attention to the flaws he observed in the election."......Attorneys for the student met Wednesday morning with members of the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office, which is investigating election fraud allegations......" Associated Press 11/15/00 ".......When he issued a legal opinion this week that was helpful to Al Gore in Florida's election dispute, Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth went against a 22-year-old office standard to avoid giving advice on election issues. ......The principle that election opinions should be deferred to the Florida secretary of state was written in 1978 by one of Butterworth's predecessors, Attorney General Robert L. Shevin. ....... And it was displayed on Butterworth's own official Web site when he intervened in the presidential cliffhanger Tuesday. ``Questions arising under the Florida Election Code should be directed to the Division of Elections in the Department of State,'' Butterworth's Web site said. ......His Web page on legal opinions also promised that ``opinions are not rendered on questions pending before the courts.'' At the time he intervened, the Florida dispute over hand vote recounts was pending in several courts. ......" FoxNews 11/15/00 abigkahuna "..... According to FOx News Pat B. may file a lawsuit because the reform candidate has yet to be informed officially of a recount according to law. Yet another suit thrown into the mix. He told them about the fact earlier in the week, and he still has yet to recieve official notification of recounta according to law....."

FoxNews 11/15/00 Freeper beavus "..... Gore announced that all counties in Florida should undergo a manual recount, this despite the fact that Florida law requires all such requests to be made within 72 hours of election day. ....." Freeper Don'tMessWithTexas "..... First, Gore is ABSOLUTELY no position to dictate to the people of Florida what they should do. There are election laws to be followed and the SoS is following them. This indicates to me that Gore is tossing up his Hail Mary. He knows that the SoS is in the driver's seat. He knows that this is going to an 11th Cir Ct. that is on record of being fovaroable to the Bush side. This is one of the biggest sucker deals I have ever seen. Baker saw this kind of stuff in dealing with Sadaam in Iraq. Not to mention the fact that Gore lied about the GOP recounts. Gore is starting to sweat folks. ......" The Associated Press 11/15/00 Jesse Holland "......Vice President Al Gore floated two possible solutions to Florida's contested election on Wednesday night, suggesting a hand recount of all 6 million ballots cast in Florida's 67 counties if Republicans won't accept results of recounts under way in three counties selected by Democrats. With running mate Joseph Lieberman at his side, Gore also suggested that he and Texas Gov. George W. Bush meet in person ``not to negotiate but to improve the tone of our dialogue in America.'' ........." FoxNews 11/15/00 Freeper truth_eagle on Katherine Harris speech "Hand Counts Dennied" Freeper spectre adds "...It's the LAW!! She is going with the LAW! Praise the Lord! ..." Freeper Shethink13 adds "....I found it interesting that Ms. Harris stated that she sent notification to the appropriate counties of her rejection of amended ballots. I think I'm beginning to understand why Gore came forth with his hokey proposal. ...." Freeper Hodar adds "....Gore has painted himself into a corner. If he had of been smart he would have waited to see what Ms. Harris was going to say before his statement. Now he's bound to what he said earlier...no more badmouthing or else he shows to the rest of the dumorats how dishonorable he REALLY is. (we repubs already know that about him). ....." Freeper seahawk "..... No way - Gore cannot go any furthur without being a LIAR - he already said that he would accept the votes and would not take any more legal action - didn't he? Now there is only one chicken house to watch and that is the absentees coming in - I read that there are members from both parties watching as these come off the plane or something They are documenting these.- Just try and steal the votes now and you are caught big time. And the demos can't trash Ms. Harris too much since Al has asked that no one say anything bad anymore.LOLOLOL ....." Freeper SouthernGal "..... Alcee Hastings is losing it on Hannity and Colmes about Katherine Harris' decision not to extend the hand count deadline. The RATS might as well face it. It's over. ..." Freeper randita "... As David Frum wrote in a column of last week, "It is left up to the Florida Secretary of State to do the work 100 Senators failed to do two years ago." ...." Freeper TildaJane ".... "and I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't foget the men who died who gave that right to me, and I'll gladly stand up, next to you, and defend her still today, cause there ain't no doubt, I love this land, GOD BLESS THE USA!!!!!!" (AND SECRETARY OF STATE HARRIS) PICTURE FIREWORKS HERE ....." CSPAN 11/15/00 Freeper Havisham "..... Sec. of State Katherine Harris went into the history books tonight as a genuine hero for the principles of self-governance and the rule of law. By my reckoning, she is the first person with the spine to stand up to the lawless Clinton-Gore administration. Long may her name live in glory! ......" Mason Dixon Polls 11/15/00 Bill Cotterell "... Floridians trust elected officials to recount presidential ballots honestly and don't want to prolong the worldwide suspense with court fights or new elections, a new poll indicated Monday. ...... The poll showed that 79 percent of voters believe the top vote-getter in the countyby-county tabulation should get Florida's 25 electoral votes. Despite widespread reports of voter confusion and mistakenly punched ballots -- which have resulted in Democratic Party protests in four counties carried by Vice President Al Gore -- 54 percent of those surveyed don't want a re-vote in Palm Beach County, and 72 percent opposed holding a new election statewide. ...... The survey also showed 60-percent opposition to court action challenging the Palm Beach County returns. ....."While a majority of Florida voters feel the election was fair (65 percent) and that the results are accurate (61 percent), that appears to depend upon who wins," poll director Brad Coker said. "If Bush is certified the winner based on the machine tally recount and overseas absentee ballots, 81 percent indicated they would accept that outcome." ******But he said only

53 percent said they would be convinced if Gore is certified on the basis of already completed machine recounts and the overseas ballots that are due Friday. ....." Freeper Howlin "...MSNBC just reported that out of 57 precincts counted today in Broward County, Gore picked up SEVEN votes! ...." Freeper Lizzie "...... Pat Caddell was just talking about this poll on MSNBC...the Republicans should send this guy flowers 'cuz he stands up for them better than ANY of their own people do. ..... He openly states that the Dems chose their four counties NOT because there was a high incidence of "irregularities" (because there were counties with HIGHER rates, but they were counties controlled by Republicans!), but because they were the best sources for them to mine for votes. He openly states that the purpose of their quest is to overturn the election. Every other person, at MOST, tiptoes around the issue of fraud, as if the Republicans are paranoid. ....... They ALL know, as well as Caddell does, what the purpose of this whole exercise is, but they pretend that the Republicans are just afraid of a "full count"... ......." FoxNews 11/15/00 Rita Cosby "......With no clear end to Florida's election chaos in sight, tensions are rising, even within Al Gore's camp. Sources close to the vice president told FOX News that his longtime adviser Peter Knight has been told by several key donors that they don't have open wallets with unlimited cash, and that they want the election turmoil to end in the next few days. Knight has held two conference calls with about 75 supporters and donors to raise $3 million to pay for lawyers to take their case in Florida to the courts. As the race drags on, however, that cost could rise. Sources said that in the last call, some donors told Knight they were running out of patience. ...,,Sources close to Gore also told FOX News that this week members of Gore's campaign staff called Sens. John Breaux, D-La, and Robert Torricelli, D-NJ, to express their anger over the senators' public comments that the Florida situation should not drag out much longer because it could damage the legitimacy of the presidency. ......" FoxNews 11/15/00 Freeper NoCalEyes on Bush Speech "..... Bush states =(for those who did not hear it) This process MUST be : 1.Fair 2.Acurate 3.Final Acurate- Too many hands make it LESS acurate. Final- Must have a point of Conclusion That is why we have DEADLINES ! Next deadline is Friday night. Counted, Recounted, and Certified Add certified votes and end it !! Vice-President want to extend FLAWED process.NOT FAIR NOR ACCURATE,, RESPECT the law, do not UNDERMINED it ! AFTER this is over, Bush will meet with Gore to UNITE this country.. ....." Freeper the adds ".... Boise just cancelled interview with Paula Zone at the last minute, after Bush's speech. BWWWWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ...." Freeper airedale adds "..... Paula Zahn said when Harris made her speech the Gore camp was throwing things at the TV and reacted very juvenilely. Probably did the same thing with this speech. ....." Freeper mtrott "..... What had to really irk the libs was that Bush was so smooth and fluent in his delivery. No

word-manglings to focus on, no smirks, just a home-run statesmanlike position statement! ....." EUN-KYUNG Kim Associated Press 11/15/00 "......Texas Gov. George W. Bush rejected Al Gore's proposal for a statewide manual recount in Florida, calling the procedure underway in Democratic-leaning countries ''neither fair or accurate. It would be arbitrary and chaotic,'' he said Wednesday night. Following Gore in front of a nationally televised audience, Bush accepted Gore's offer to meet together after Florida's contentious election outcome is resolved -- but did not mention the vice president's suggestion that they meet sooner. ''Not for Vice President Gore or me, but for America this process must have a point of conclusion. America and the world must know who will be the next president,'' Bush said from the living room of the governor's mansion, a setting that resembled a formal White House scene. ....." Freeper gov_bean_counter ".....Kudos to the Florida SOS strategy. By going forward through the courts as she did, she had a standard established. (Not arbitrary) She requested justifcations for hand counts. Florida law has established standards for hand counts. The responses from Palm County, etal did not pass the standards as established by law. Now here is the kicker, the decision was made the election commission. SOS was not the lone voice on this. The courts will not revisit this issue. ....." Freeper Jabba the Tutt ".....NY Times-Wall Street Journal poll says that 70% of Americans want to count the overseas ballots and declare the winner. Also 2 to 1, Americans believe that Bush will be the next President. ...." And ".... This has been Bush's best week in the polls, since the convention. Election night 49%, today's poll 57%. ...." Miami Herald Online 11/15/00 ".....After a seesaw week in which Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush traded the lead in New Mexico, the Democratic candidate Tuesday regained a slim edge because officials had misread an absentee total. ...... In New Mexico, Gore now leads by 375 votes out of more than 571,000 cast, though that state's five electoral votes are not enough to give either candidate the presidency. .......Bush took the lead after the state's most populous county, Bernalillo, worked out glitches in its election system that had kept thousands of votes from being counted. But the oversight in Doa Ana County, where election workers misread a 620-vote absentee total for a precinct -- mistaking the figure as 120 -- put the state back in Gore's favor. ......" Miami Herald Online 11/15/00 Phil Long ".....In his first public outing since last week's election, Gov. Jeb Bush said he's worried about the long-term effects on the state of the bitter, partisan battle over the presidency playing out in Florida. ...... ``Now, here's the deal,'' Bush said. ``I am going to be governor after all this is resolved. I love my state. ``I am disheartened about the image of this great state over literally a handful of votes out of millions cast. There are a lot of people who are angry right now. There is a lot of passion.'' ``We're going to have to clean up after this, after all this.'' ......" CNN 11/15/00 "...... DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Vice President Al Gore's lead in Iowa narrowed by more than 900 votes Wednesday after election officials discovered a math error as Texas Gov. George W. Bush's campaign considered seeking recounts there and in three other states where Gore holds a narrow lead. ...... The day after the November 7 election, Democratic presidential nominee Gore led his Republican rival by more than 5,100 votes out of 1.3 million cast. Bush picked up 895 votes due to a clerical error in Iowa's largely Republican Sioux County discovered early Tuesday. Other Iowa counties added 184 votes to the Republican nominee's total, but a revised count in Des Moines gave Gore another 140 votes. That leaves Bush trailing Gore by 4,182 -- a net gain for the Republican nominee of 939 votes. ...." CNN 11/15/00 ".....The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Wednesday to hear an appeal filed by lawyers for Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush seeking to halt the manual ballot recounts in Florida on grounds it violates the Constitution's 14th Amendment....... The appeals court consolidated Bush's appeal of a Miami federal judge's decision to allow the recounts to proceed with another federal appeal out of Orlando also seeking to halt the manual recounts. ....... Bush's lawyers argued that allowing some, not all, Florida counties to recount ballots by hand violates the equal protection provisions under the 14th Amendment by giving Gore an unfair advantage in Democratic areas......In a 1986 ruling, the court ruled that federal courts "will not intervene" to examine the validity of individual ballots or supervise the administrative details of local elections. That ruling would appear to favor the Democratic position that the federal courts have no authority to stop the manual recounts.........." Freeper Scott from the Left Coast ".... They would not have taken this case if they didn't have something to say about it. Had they merely wished to keep the Federal government out of it, they would simply have upheld the District Judge's ruling. That they accepted the appeal tells us that they want to weigh in with something different than the District Judge said. ....." CNN 11/15/00 Edwin Chen ".....One will become president; the other a martyr. And that sets up a possible rematch between Al Gore and George W. Bush in four years, no matter who prevails in the current

quagmire. A rematch becomes even more probable if one candidate bows out in a gracious manner that earns him enduring public gratitude, according to the budding consensus of many top officeholders and political analysts. CBS 11/15/00 ".....The battle for Florida's crucial electoral votes escalated on two fronts Wednesday night, with the presidential candidates trading nationally televised salvos as a GOP state official stopped the hand counts of votes. Vice President Al Gore proposed that he and Texas Gov. George W. Bush meet in person "not to negotiate but to improve the tone of our dialogue in America", an offer Bush rejected. ..... And Florida's secretary of state denied three counties the right to conduct manual recounts, a move the Democrats vowed to challenge in court. ...... But Bush rejected Gore's call for what the Texas governor dubbed either "continuing with selective hand recounts that are neither fair nor accurate or compounding the error by expanding the recount statewide." "This process must have a point of conclusion. This is precisely why the laws of Florida have deadlines," he said. ....... "As Americans have watched on television, they have seen for themselves that manual counting...introduces human error and politics into the vote counting process," Bush said. "Each time these voting cards are handled, the potential for error multiplies, making the process less accurate, not more so." ....." CNN 11/15/00 Edwin Chen "..... Earlier Wednesday, Harris tried to block manual recounts of votes in those counties. But Florida's State Supreme Court rejected her bid, allowing the recounts to go forward. But announcing her across-the-board denial late Wednesday, Harris said she had the authority to decide whether the counties served recounts and concluded, " The reasons given in (the counties') requests are insufficient to warrant waiver." ...... Based on her decision, "the state election canvassing commission has certified the results of Tuesday's election in Florida," Harris said, adding" "I expect that after the receipt, tabulation and certification of the overseas ballots by the counties, the state election canvassing commission will finally certify the presidential election in Florida on Saturday." ....... Less than an hour after Harris' statement, Gore campaign chairman William Daley announced the Democrats would return to Lewis' court, which gave Harris the right to weigh individual counties' requests, saying "the spirit of the order was violated." ..... " RCP 11/15/00 Tom Bevan "..... It's hard to imagine it getting any uglier. After eight years under the Bill Clinton regime, America has gotten used to the vicious attack-dog politics of James Carville and Sydney Blumenthal. But now, with the presidency hanging in the balance, Democrat operatives have gone over the line in their attempt to discredit and destroy anyone who stands in their way of winning this election. It has become clear there is nothing they will not say to retain their grip on power. ....... Am I overstating the case? Consider the personal attacks launched on Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a duly elected Republican who governs the state's election process. Earlier this week Gore spokesman Chris Lehane likened her actions to that of a "Soviet commissar." Last night on CNN Alan Dershowitz derided Harris as "corrupt," "a crook," and said that she had "laundered money." ......" Orlando Sentinel 11/15/00 ".....Attorney General Bob Butterworth said Wednesday he gave legal advice but didn't try to persuade Volusia County to do a hand recount when he spoke with Judge Michael R. McDermott, chairman of that county's canvassing board. "No good deed ever goes unpunished,'' said Butterworth, a Democrat who was skewered by Republicans for what they said was undue influence put on Volusia officials........ On Tuesday, Butterworth said Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris was wrong when she told Palm Beach County officials they could not finish a hand recount of last week's vote. Butterworth issued an advisory opinion saying the county has a right to finish it. That decision seems contrary to an earlier one by Butterworth's office, that says questions arising under the Florida Election Code should be directed to the Division of Elections in the Department of State. ...... " Freeper P-Marlowe 11/15/00 "...... According to the Law the ONLY person in Florida that has the power to certify the elections is the secretary of state. If the Supreme court decides that she abused her discretion they can advise her to reconsider her decision. She can then come up with better reasons or she can change her mind. ........ The Florida Supreme court could theoretically order the Secretary of State to issue a directive allowing the recounts under a Writ of Mandamus. This is an extraordinary writ and it is almost NEVER granted. .......... (In my field of law the last writ of mandamus was granted in 1987) ........ It would be an order to the SOS to decertify the election. The secretary of state could then ignore the order and tell the Supreme court to take a hike! Obviously she would be held in contempt. HOWEVER, the election would remain certified under the law and would remain so until the Legislature was able to vote to remove the SOS from office by way of impeachment. ...... That's not going to happen. By the time all of this was done, the electors would have already elected GWB and he would already have been sworn into office. ..... The SOS could then step down and get appointed to a high cabinet post in the GWB administration. I think the court is aware of this and they are not about to get involved. That's my understanding. ........ Smoke if you got

'em!!!!!! I am an attorney in California. ...." Freeper Clinton's a Liar [Roberts Fraud allegation] "....I haven't seen anything on the news. It was the Florida Republicans that were accusing Carol Roberts of fraud. It doesn't seem the Bush campaign has weighed in on this one. That's PROBABLY because one of the reasons stated to ALLOW a hand count in Palm Beach County was fraud -- and they don't want the hand count, so they're not bringing it up. They would, I'm sure, if the hand count votes were going to be counted. ....." Reuters 11/15/00"...... Republican George W. Bush 's campaign insisted on Wednesday that it was Democrat Al Gore's camp, not Bush, that has delayed the election process in Florida. ....... ``The Gore campaign has been unwilling to make any commitment to accept finality in this election unless it achieves the results that it is seeking,'' the top Bush envoy to Florida, former Secretary of State James Baker, told reporters. Democrats are arguing Bush is delaying by trying to stop manual hand counting of votes in heavily Democratic counties. Baker said the Gore camp has been instrumental in filing a dozen lawsuits over the recounting process, compared to only one by the Bush side. ``We're not the cause of the delay. That should be clear to everybody,'' said Baker. ...... He said it was ``patently false'' of Democrats to suggest that the Bush side was hoping to delay the hand counting until Saturday to enable Florida's final tally to reflect the current Bush lead and give him the election. ....." ABCNews 11/15/00 "...... Harris, who has been staunchly against hand recounts of votes in South Florida, has been an active supporter of the Texas governor's bid for the presidency. Along with several others, the 43-year-old Republican served as co-chair of the Bush campaign in Florida, and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia last July......... Harris was elected secretary of state in 1998, following four years representing Sarasota in the Florida Senate, where she was chairwoman of the Commerce and Economic Development Committee. Harris holds a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University, but she had virtually no political experience prior to running for the state Senate....... Politics may be in her blood, however. Harris comes from one of Florida's most prominent and wealthy families, with close ties to the Republican party. ...." THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/15/00 "..... Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced Wednesday night she would deny attempts by scattered counties to submit hand recounts of ballots to the results of the contested presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. ....... The state's chief elections officer, sharply criticized by Democrats in recent days as a partisan Republican, declared it was ``my duty under Florida law'' to reject requests from several counties to update their totals. ........ Harris said the state's vote count would be official when overseas absentee ballots are rolled into the totals by midnight Friday. She noted her decision was subject to an appeal in the courts _ and it seemed likely there would be one. ........ ``The reasons given in the requests are insufficient to warrant waiver of the unambiguous filing deadline imposed by the Florida Legislature,'' she said, without further elaboration. ....... The federal court's unusually rapid decision to accept the case could launch the controversy firmly on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to intervene came as the major players in the vote count also asked Florida's highest court to settle some of the questions. ......." And concerning the State Supreme Court decision ".....The Bush camp disputed that interpretation and noted that the state high court's one-paragraph rejection slip did not address the substance of Harris' request. The court left open the option that Harris could sue in a lower state court, or make her arguments another way. ......" and still pending before the court "..... The state high court agreed to review complaints from two South Florida counties _ Broward and Palm Beach _ that say they are confused about how to proceed with recounts. Harris and state Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth have given the counties conflicting guidance. The counties are suing both. ....." FoxNews 11/15/00 "...... One of the Fox News Channels mentioned that if we indeed did have a statewide recount a democratic and republican lawyer would need to be present at each precent where they count the ballots. He then asked, "Do you know how many precents there are in Florida?".... "6,000." You do the math. 6,000 X 2 = 12,000 lawyers!! George W. should simply point out that Al's proposal would require flying in an additional 12,000 lawyers for a recount. Is that what the people of Florida let alone the United States really want? Any other suggestions on how to use this? ........" Freeper NoCalEyes "..... Daley speech update ~~~ Daley responding to SOS Harris decision He is suprised by SOS Harris' decision . He said that she did not give enough to time to review the proposals.. NOW I know why GORE made his proposal to meet BUSH... DELAY ,,DELAY ,,, Daley said that the V.P. JUST came out and they did not even LOOK at his proposal. (cry me a river) ....." Freeper Galtoid "....Bush is up at 10:15. Guess what? I think Daley knows he's lost. He is now relegated to suing a woman who was elected by the state of Florida, and who is exercising the duties of her office. NO

suing a woman who was elected by the state of Florida, and who is exercising the duties of her office. NO damn court is going to hear this thing. Courts absolutely hate to intervene in elections. Daley will seek to overturn this election, and he will fail. He has now discovered that Florida isn't the pushover that inner city Chicago has always been. Go South, Bill, and you are going to be slammed. ...." Freeper Big Ezy ".....Bush's speech knocked the shine off of Al's con job. In fact Bush came off as looking and sounding more Presidental then Gore could ever hope to be. Bottom line is this will be right back into the Florida Supreme Court and Al Gore will have once again lied to the American people. I read an article where Harris has received thousands of letters,cards,faxes,e-mails,calls and flowers and plants from all 50 states telling her to stand strong. This IMO is what character is all about. ....." CNN 11/15/00 Ted Barrett ".....Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that Democrat Al Gore's potential presidency is "teetering on the edge of not being legitimate" and accused the Democratic nominee of trying to "steal" votes as he presses for manual recounts in some Florida counties. ...... Gingrich said Gore's only road to legitimacy is if he wins the election based on the overseas ballots that remain to be counted. "I think he will be remarkably tainted if they try to find some way to steal the ballots by recounting in a way that changes the rules," Gingrich told CNN. ......" CNN 11/15/00 Ted Barrett ".....Asked about reports that congressional Republicans are concerned about some of the public relations tactics employed by the Bush campaign, Gingrich defended the campaign's top man in Florida, former Secretary of State James Baker. "I learned a long time ago, as a junior member of Congress, never to second-guess Jim Baker. Jim Baker is one of the smartest general leaders the United States has had in 25 years," Gingrich said. ...." Associated Press 11/15/00 David Ammons "......Republican Sen. Slade Gorton's lead widened over his Democratic challenger Maria Cantwell Wednesday as the ballot count continued in the nation's last undecided U.S. Senate race. With the addition of 55,000 ballots from 19 counties, Gorton had an 8,325-vote margin, gaining more than 3,000 votes from Tuesday's tally. ...." ABCNews 11/15/00 Vlasto and Ruppe "......Several days after presidential votes were tallied in what has become the hotbed of Florida's post-election confusion, police in Palm Beach County confiscated a ballotbox mechanism from the car of a well-known local Democrat. ........ The mechanism, called a "Votamatic," did not contain any ballots. It's a device used on some types of ballot boxes to punch votes through ballot cards, which are then tallied by computers. According to a police report filed at the Palm Beach County sheriff's office and obtained by ABCNEWS, Irving Slosberg, 53, pulled the mechanism from his car and handed it over to police on Nov. 11 after denying to a county government employee that he had it. ......... When told of the incident, Palm Beach County's supervisor of elections, Theresa Lefore, declined to press charges, according to the report. "She noted that this incident did occur during the hand count of the presidential election and Lefore stated she did not wish to pursue further this matter at this time due to extenuating circumstances," it said. ......." Associated Press 11/15/00 David Ammons "......The unidentified officer who filed the report had been working a special elections detail when he was contacted by Denise Cote, director of public affairs for Palm Beach County. Cote said she believed Slosberg had an official Palm Beach County ballot box, according to the police report. Cote told the officer she first wanted to speak with Slosberg alone to convince him to give the machinery back, but she asked the officer to stand by. Ten minutes later, Cote returned to the officer and said Slosberg had become confrontational and denied having the mechanism. ........ "I asked Mr. Slosberg to return it to me, and he said no, he intended to use it," Cote told ABCNEWS.com. She said Slosberg did not say how he wanted to use it and he declined to say how he had obtained it. ........"I was told by the county's attorney's office that it must have been taken from a voting booth, because there was no other way that he could have obtained it," Cote said. When the officer asked Slosberg whether he had the item, Slosberg led the officer to his car and handed over the Votamatic, according to the police report. ...." Freeper rolling-stone adds ".... I wonder who "authorized" him to have possesion of that voting machine? The 2000 Florida Statutes Title IX ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS Chapter 104 Election Code: Violations; Penalties View Entire Chapter 104.30 Voting machine; unlawful possession; tampering.-- (1) Any unauthorized person who unlawfully has possession of any voting machine or key thereof is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083. (2) Any person who tampers or attempts to tamper with or destroy any voting machine with the intention of interfering with the election process or the results thereof is guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084. Jewish Bulletin News 11/15/00 Zap Brannigan "...... The idea that there will be a deluge of Israeli votes for Goron is a myth. The Jewish population of Florida is approximately 700k. This population is superconcentrated in three counties: Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward. Together, these three counties are

home to 644k Jews. It is therefore logical to assume that the vast majority of any overseas ballots from Israel would be sent to these three counties....... According to the St. Petersburg Times data, the above counties had the following overseas absentee ballots on hand as of Tuesday: Miami-Dade -- 141 Broward -- 37 Palm Beach -- 23 In the case of Miami-Dade, the Miami Herald reported that only 44 absentee ballots were even sent to Israel. In the case of Broward county, the Associated Press reported that of the 1,623 overseas absentee ballots mailed, 37% went to Republicans, 35% to Democrats, and 28% to Independents. If we assume that all 63% of these Democratic/Independent votes went to Israel and that they were returned at the same percentage as Republican ballots, then Goron would only get a maximum of 23 votes (37 x 63%)from Israel. ...... So, between these three counties we get a maximum of 90 Israeli votes (23+23+44). This represents only 4.8% of the on hand ballots (90/1865). Obviously, this is extremely conservative because some, if not many, of the Democratic absentee voters in these counties are Democrats from places other than Israel. Furthermore, at least some of the Independents will vote for Bush. One factor of uncertainty though is whether ballots from these three counties will continue to trickle in at the same rate as ballots to other counties during the next few days. ......" New York Times 11/16/00 Tim Golden "....... Most of the overseas absentee ballots waiting to be tallied in Florida's disputed presidential election have come from voters registered in counties that supported Gov. George W. Bush in the Nov. 7 vote, an analysis by The New York Times shows. ....... According to a survey of election boards in Florida's 67 counties, about 2,200 of these ballots, from residents who mailed absentee ballots from abroad, have been collected since Election Day. .......If the overseas votes waiting to be tallied were to divide along the same lines as the counties where they had been received, they would favor Mr. Bush, 1,216 to 951 votes, or 54.8 percent to 42.9 percent. The remaining 2.3 percent of the votes would be split among other candidates. ....... But it is by no means clear that the overseas votes will follow the pattern of county returns. ........ Still, officials from the Republican and Democratic campaigns emphasized that the politics of overseas voters might vary significantly from those of voters where their ballots would be counted. ...... Only on Wednesday, for example, did officials in Pinellas County realize that they had mistakenly kept for counting all of the absentee ballots that had come in since Election Day, rather than just the ones with foreign return addresses. "We have made this a whole lot more complicated than it needed to be," said Deborah Clark, the supervisor of elections in Pinellas County. ...... Since 1980, the Democrats have never won a majority of Florida's overseas absentee ballots in a presidential race. Both Bob Dole and George Bush comfortably outpolled Bill Clinton in the previous two elections, and Mr. Bush trounced Michael S. Dukakis in the overseas balloting in 1988 by 2,288 votes to 850. ......" Wall Street Journal 11/15/00 Thomas Bray "...... Maybe duty, honor and country matter after all. Not to mention taxes. While the fierce combat over recounting votes in Florida continues, up to 7,600 ballots may still be in the mail from overseas voters, according to a St. Petersburg Times survey of Florida's 67 county election office, which the paper published Monday. And because those votes are expected to come heavily from members of the military service abroad, who often declare residency in Florida because it doesn't have an income tax, those votes are expected to break heavily for George W. Bush. ......... In addition, there is reason to think the military vote for Mr. Bush may be particularly large this year. "Everybody I talk to in the military is unhappy about this administration," says Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness in Livonia, Mich. "They have pushed the tempo of operations to the breaking point without providing the necessary men or resources. And they have tried to make a social experiment out of the military." ...... The American Legion this fall conducted an unscientific poll of its members and active-duty members of the armed forces. By a 9-to-1 margin, they favored Mr. Bush over Mr. Gore. Notes a spokesman pointedly: "Bush came to our convention. Gore didn't." ....... Military culture may be only part of the story. The Navy Times, the Navy's official newspaper, noted in an article recently that "Florida's tax laws may have put the selection of the next president of the United States into the hands of military voters." More than one in eight service members claim Florida as their legal residence--a pretty good example for the argument that taxes do make a difference to people's behavior. ....." New York Times 11/16/00 Dexter Filkins "......With a disputed hand count under way in South Florida, Vice President Al Gore's aides said today that Gov. George W. Bush had gained from the hand counting of ballots in Florida just as the Democrats had. ...... In statements here, Gore aides said that even as the Bush camp tried to block hand counts in the heavily Democratic precincts of South Florida, Republican officials had requested hand counts in seven Florida counties on Election Day or the day after. In those seven

counties, the Democrats said, Mr. Bush gained 418 votes. "The Republicans have hand-counted in many, many of the counties themselves, and they're heavily Republican in nature," said former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Mr. Gore's representative in the vote battle. "So I think that the notion that somehow we have picked out a certain few counties that are trying to get the result we want to achieve is belied by what's happened in the various counties." .......... Republican leaders responded angrily and produced sworn statements from Republican leaders and election officials in two of those counties, stating that there had been no hand counts there. Bush aides said the Democrats were bending the recounts in their favor by their choice of counties. Democrats have requested hand counts in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia counties, all heavily Democratic counties. ......... Limited hand-counting did take place in at least some of the seven counties Democrats cited: Franklin, Gadsden, Hamilton, Lafayette, Seminole, Taylor and Washington. In some of the cases, election officials counted by hand only the ballots that counting machines had rejected, usually a small percentage of the total. The hand counts were done not necessarily at the request of the Republicans, but as part of the county's vote- counting procedures. ....." Steve Miller 11/16/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".....Five observers to Saturday's hand count in Palm Beach County have filed affidavits in federal court charging that a Democratic county commissioner manipulated ballots so Al Gore would receive more votes than George W. Bush......... Carol Roberts, a de facto appointee to the three-member elections canvassing board, is accused in the filings of asking a Democratic observer to the count whether ballots should count and that she "twisted the ballots and poked her finger directly in sections of, and aggressively handled, the ballots." ..... On one occasion, observer John Grotta said in a sworn statement, Miss Roberts looked at a ballot and said " 'Unfortunately, the corners aren't detached,' as she was referring to a ballot that would have been a vote for Vice President Gore." ........ The most pointed charges in the affidavits were cited in a request by the Palm Beach Republican Party that Miss Roberts, a longtime Democrat, step down from the board because of her partisan behavior in last week's sample count of 4,600 ballots. ......... The charge against Miss Roberts "is not a witch hunt," said Mark Hoch, administrator for the county's Republican Party. "We have complaints coming out of the woodwork, and most of the things we look at are unsubstantiated," Mr. Hoch said. "Carol Roberts, though, can be seen as truly partisan.".......At one point this week, Miss Roberts said she would go to jail to have the manual recount accomplished. In Palm Beach County, recounts by hand and machine have added 787 votes for Mr. Gore to an extra 119 for Mr. Bush - a net Gore pick up of 668.....The affidavits filed yesterday also include charges that elections workers were reluctant to reassess votes despite the protests of observers........ In one case, a worker refused to recount a stack of ballots that contained Bush votes, according to observer Mark Klimer......... Mr. Klimer's statement included the accusation that Miss Roberts picked up ballots from a stack that was to be evaluated later by the entire board and interspersed them with a stack of Gore votes....... He also said the ballot evaluation was inconsistent. Some ballots judged as Gore votes did not meet the agreed standards for a valid vote, the West Palm Beach banker said......... Mr. Klimer said yesterday he was in the counting room for 4 and 1/2 hours on Saturday. A Republican, Mr. Klimer said his interest was not partisan: "I was there to make sure it was fair." "Beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I saw is the absolute truth," Mr. Klimer said........." Washington Times 11/16/00 Mona Charen ".....Sadly, Vice President Al Gore did far, far worse, fulfilling the worst suspicions some harbor about what he learned at President Clinton's knee. The hallmark of the Clinton administration was contempt for law and morality. Subpoena, what subpoena? The Senate would not confirm Bill Lann Lee? Just do a recess appointment - it isn't legal, but let them challenge it (we'll cry anti-Asian bias!). The relatives of Elian Gonzalez broke no law? Never mind, with a faulty warrant (ask Alan Dershowitz) and enough war gear to take a small Caribbean island, we'll break down their door, trash the house and grab the traumatized 6-year-old at gunpoint - all the while claiming falsely to be "just following the law." .......... But in the aftermath of this election, Mr. Gore has taken the tactics of spin and win to new lows, because now what's at stake is the very legitimacy of our electoral process..........The Gore people swooped down on Florida on Nov. 8 with one agenda: to change the outcome by whatever means necessary. In the smoke and dust of battle, that insight has been lost. So it is worth recalling that Mr. Gore's campaign manager, William Daley, arrived in Florida saying, "If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be declared our next president." This was before any hand count had begun. For admirers of tactics, it was a brilliant display. The Democratic Party swung into action, throwing up claims of "disenfranchisement" of 19,000 Palm Beach County voters, rallying the usual activists to take to the streets, beating the bushes for a few black voters to claim harassment and suggesting that the only legitimate outcome would be for Mr. Gore to take the presidency since he had narrowly won the popular vote nationwide............. For two days, shell-shocked Republicans were kept busy attempting to shoot down accusations of illegality regarding Palm Beach's "butterfly ballot," only to awaken on Saturday morning to find that it had been a feint. In fact, Mr. Daley's gambit was to demand (within the 72-hour period required by law) a hand count in four heavily Democratic counties.......... No one believes that the Gore campaign is acting in good faith. When Warren Christopher was asked if Mr. Gore would accept a hand count that favored Mr.

Bush, he declined to answer, saying rather that they were pursuing "various options." So thanks to the skillful if ruthless maneuvering of the Gore forces, we are faced with the monumentally unjust ...." Associated Press 11/15/00 Terry Spencer "......-Democrat Al Gore picked up only four votes after election officials in Democratic-leaning Broward County worked into the evening recounting about 20,000 ballots. Broward had initially decided against a hand recount, but a Democrat on the board reversed his stance Wednesday and cast the decisive vote that granted a request by Gore's campaign for a full hand recount of 588,000 ballots. ....... Late Wednesday, the board refused to acknowledge a request by Republicans to end the recount in light of an announcement by Secretary of State Katherine Harris that she would not accept the new totals. ..... ``Well, then let her get a (court order) to make us stop,'' said County Judge Robert W. Lee, the canvassing board chairman. ``She's not the final legal authority.'' ....." Washington Times 11/16/00 Bill Sammon "......Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris last night certified the official returns from all 67 Florida counties, rejecting pleas from three predominantly Democratic counties requesting more time for hand counts Mrs. Harris said the only remaining task is to add the absentee ballots from overseas, which are due at midnight tomorrow. Gov. George W. Bush now has a 300-vote lead....In a ruling the Al Gore camp vowed to fight in court, Mrs. Harris rejected the arguments from the three counties that wanted her to amend the certified total with tardy results from recounts that remain incomplete. ........ "I've decided it is my duty under Florida law to exercise my discretion in denying these requested amendments," Mrs. Harris announced. "The reasons given in their requests are insufficient to warrant waiver of the unambiguous filing deadline imposed by the Florida legislature....." Florida election code from Freeper KeatsforFirstDog ".... Section 99.012, Florida Statutes 2000 99.012 Restrictions on individuals qualifying for public office.-(2) No person may qualify as a candidate for more than one public office, whether federal, state, district, county, or municipal, if the terms or any part thereof run concurrently with each other. Adds First_Salute: ".... At Palm Beach canvassing commission..., it appears that County Judge Charles Burton is the Palm Beach County canvassing commission's chairman. The statutes at the top of the page, prohibit Charles Burton from being both a sitting judge and an elected canvassing commissioner at the same time. "(2) No person may qualify as a candidate for more than one public office, whether federal, state, district, county, or municipal, if the terms or any part thereof run concurrently with each other." "Term" means period of occupancy of a public office. He is functioning in two offices concurrently. The term, the period of time in which he is now in public office as a judge ... is concurrent with the term, the period of time he is now in public office as chairman on the canvassing commission....." Freeper abner "..... I am working on Volusia right now. A few Stats for you... Total votes recounted(including an unusual amount of duplicates) 183,792 Registered voters: Dems 110,877 Reps. 97,777 Total number of ballots that were questioned and looked at individually by canvassers: Bush 193 Gore 487 I am not even going to get into all of the unsealed bags, ballots with adhesive on them, etc. that are recorded on the tally sheets. Thats what I'm doing tomorrow. ..These figures with the exception of registered voters(they are from some article I cannot remember as my eyes fall shut) are from the Volusia County web

site. ...." Townhall.com 11/16/00 Thomas Sowell "...... The same ugly tactics that worked for the Clinton administration during impeachment are now being used by Al Gore in a last desperate effort to capture Florida and the presidency. These tactics include creating as much noise and chaos as possible in the media, with reckless and inflammatory charges made by professional loudmouths, led by demagogue laureate Jesse Jackson. ........... But when you look past the rhetoric and the mob scenes, what are the plain facts? Governor George W. Bush won the vote in Florida when it was first counted. He won again when the close vote was automatically recounted, in accordance with Florida law. Now the Democrats have come up with a third counting, using their own methods, which allow them to "interpret" ballots that were not cast in such a way as to be counted by the legally prescribed methods. The media keep referring to this re-recount in precincts controlled by Democrats as "hand-counting." But the real issue is interpreting ballots, not counting them. ............. Much has been made of nearly 20,000 ballots in Democrats' districts that were not counted by the official methods prescribed by law because these ballots involved voting twice or other irregularities. But even more than 20,000 ballots in Republican districts were disqualified for the very same reason. Out of all the people who voted in Florida, there were some Democrats and some Republicans who were sloppy or careless in the way they handled their ballots. What does that prove? That human beings make mistakes and that millions of human beings will make lots of mistakes. ...." USA Today 11/16/00 Joan Biskupic and Martin Kasindorf "..... Palm Beach's elections canvassing board, however, decided to delay a recount until the state Supreme Court rules, possibly Thursday, on a case that asks whether a recount there would be legal. .......... That case arose from dueling legal opinions - one from Florida's Republican elections director, L. Clayton Roberts, saying a recount would be illegal; another, from Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth, saying it would not. Palm Beach officials say that because their canvassing board is a main party in the suit, they want court guidance before beginning a recount. ....... The Palm Beach case remains in the state Supreme Court building and could have a profound impact on which presidential candidate collects Florida's 25 electoral votes. ........... The justices requested written arguments and responses today and allowed Bush, Gore, the Florida Democratic Party executive committee and Broward election officials to participate in the litigation. ........ State elections director Roberts, on behalf of Harris, responded Monday to a request from Florida GOP Chairman Al Cardenas to define the kind of "error in the vote tabulation" that would justify a recount if the error could affect an election's outcome. Roberts wrote that only a mechanical or software failure of a county vote tabulation system to count properly marked ballots could justify a hand recount. ........... But Palm Beach and Broward counties also had asked Butterworth for his opinion. Strongly disagreeing with the Harris position, he said Tuesday that if a sample hand recount of a few precincts showed a discrepancy with the initial count that could affect the outcome, that was an error in the tabulation sufficient to justify a hand recount of all ballots. ........ If the Supreme Court sides with Harris, any recounts probably would have to stop. ......" USA Today 11/16/00 Joan Biskupic and Martin Kasindorf "..... Baker responded that suggestions that Republicans were simply trying to delay recounts until Harris' Saturday deadline were "patently false." Baker blasted Gore's campaign for "misstatements" and blamed Democrats for filing 12 lawsuits while the Bush campaign had filed only one "defensive" case. ......... Acting in that case Wednesday, a federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed to consider Bush's complaint that the manual recounts violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law. ....... It also accepted an appeal brought by three GOP voters who claim selective manual recounting in Democrat-dominated counties would unfairly tip the results toward Gore, who trails Bush by 300 votes in the latest state count. ...... Bush's lawyers argued that the selective hand counts are unconstitutional because they effectively treat voters in some counties differently than those elsewhere . Middlebrooks cited 11th Circuit precedent in declaring that the Constitution limits federal court relief in state election disputes. ......... The appeals court took the unusual step of saying the case would be considered by all 12 judges - seven of whom are appointees of GOP presidents, five of whom were named by Democrats. The court did not say whether it would hold oral arguments in the case or decide the dispute on the basis of written briefs alone. ............ "That the full court will hear the case is a statement of how compelling this all is," says E. Joshua Rosenkranz, president of the Brennan Center at New York University. But he and other legal analysts say it's highly unlikely that a U.S. court will intervene in a state ballot dispute. ........" WorldNetDaily 11/16/00 Julie Foster "..... California Secretary of State Bill Jones is investigating an electionweekend mailer that included an unofficial "voter registration card" targeted at newly registered Latinos, signed by President Bill Clinton and mysteriously sent to at least one unregistered non-citizen. The existence of the mass mailing was first brought to light by WorldNetDaily on Nov. 7. ........Shad Balch, spokesman the California secretary of state, could not comment on details of the ongoing investigation, but he did make one observation. When asked how the "Clinton card" could live up to its promise to "help your voting go more smoothly," Balch quickly replied, "It couldn't." .......The "Clinton card" is about 2.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches high and is a perforated attachment to a letter encouraging Latinos to "vote Democratic on November 7th." At the top of the card is the phrase, "Su voto es su voz," Spanish for "Your vote is your voice." Written in

bold at the bottom is "VOTER IDENTIFICATION CARD" in English on one side and Spanish on the other. On the Spanish side, the recipient's name and address are printed along with a signature line. The letter itself is also written in both English and Spanish. ........ Jones' investigation is significant since the mailer, paid for by the California Democratic Party, was received by at least one unregistered non-citizen legally residing in Los Angeles County. Poll workers without a working knowledge of election laws may have allowed Clinton-card carriers to cast a ballot whether or not the card carrier was actually registered to vote. ...." Florida Times-Union 11/16/00 Jim Saunders Randolph Pendleton "....Saying it was her "duty under Florida law," Secretary of State Katherine Harris Wednesday night rejected efforts to recount presidential ballots by hand in heavily Democratic counties. ....... Harris' decision led the state elections canvassing commission to certify election results showing Republican candidate George W. Bush leading Democrat Al Gore by 300 votes in the battle to clinch the presidency. ........If Harris' decision stands, it will leave only overseas absentee ballots to be counted. Those ballots are due at midnight Friday, and Harris said the state would be able to certify a winner Saturday. ....."I want to reassure the public that my decisions in this process have been made carefully, consistently, independently and, I believe, correctly," said Harris, a Republican who supported Bush during the campaign. ......" Law.com 11/16/00 R Robin McDonald Janet L Conley "....... Republican voters in Florida's Brevard County have, independently of George W. Bush's presidential campaign, filed an emergency motion for an injunction in Atlanta's 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to halt hand recounts of Florida's presidential ballots and exclude all hand-counted ballots from the state's certified vote totals. ..... The voters are represented by two conservative public-interest law groups. ......... The appeals court on Wednesday afternoon announced that the entire court, instead of the usual three-judge panel, will hear arguments in both cases. .....The 11th Circuit had given the attorneys for the four county canvassing boards named in the Southern District appeal until 7 a.m. today to respond to the emergency motion, according to Heidi Meyer, an attorney with Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom in Terre Haute, Ind. ....... The Touchstons and Shepperd moved for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court in Florida's Middle District just hours after a similar request by the Bush campaign was turned down by Middlebrooks in Florida's Southern District......... They lost. Antoon's order says that federal courts should not intervene in local, individualized election processes. Federal courts, he wrote, may intervene only in statewide, systemic denials of equal voting rights. ...... In their emergency motion, his clients, the Brevard County Bush voters, claim that hand counts elsewhere in Florida illegally dilute their votes "by allowing partisan political candidates in statewide elections to selectively seek a manual recount only in heavily populated counties where the machine-tabulated vote favored the [Democratic] candidate." ........In counties that the vice president won overwhelmingly, the Gore campaign has asked for hand recounts "based not upon a failure of the voting tabulation system to accurately count votes, but rather on a desire to mine votes," the motion states. ........ The motion also accuses election canvassing boards in the four counties of using "vague, subjective, arbitrary and capricious tests" to determine a voter's preference even though the voter failed to cast a ballot correctly by punching cleanly through the ballot. ........ But, their motion argues that such incompleted ballots could be interpreted two ways -- that "the voter was so frail and/or clumsy that he was not able to punch through the ballot, even though the voter intended to do so, or 2) the voter had second thoughts and reconsidered his vote ... with the result that the voter never intended to vote for the candidate at all." ......... Citing a 1986 11th Circuit opinion, Curry vs. Baker, Antoon wrote that federal courts will not intervene to examine the validity of individual ballots or supervise the administrative details of a local election. Rather, federal courts are concerned with state laws and practices that create patterns of systemic denial of voting equality. .....Staver says the order doesn't mean that the plaintiffs now must show on appeal a systematic state pattern and practice of denial of voting equality. He casts the case as one about voter dilution, and says federal courts have intervened in such cases in the past. ...." Daytona Beach News=Journal "......When he issued a legal opinion helpful to Al Gore in Florida's election dispute, Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth went against a 22-year-old office standard to avoid giving advice on election issues. ....... The principle that election opinions should be deferred to the Florida secretary of state was written in 1978 by a Butterworth predecessor, Attorney General Robert Shevin. ....... Butterworth's opinion "violates his own written standard as published on the Attorney General's web page," Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "He has neither the authority nor the jurisdiction to provide advisory opinions on election issues." Shevin declared in 1978 that the attorney general was not authorized to offer opinions in disputes arising out of Florida election law. "When an opinion request is received on a question falling within statutory jurisdiction of some other state agency, the request will either be transferred to that agency or the requesting party will be advised to contact the other agency," Shevin wrote 22 years ago. "Opinions are not rendered on questions pending before the courts." Butterworth described Shevin's writing as "an office policy that would defer in certain areas to other agencies" but added, "It's not a legal restriction on my authority." ......." Freeper madmaxx 11/16/00 "....... Tim Russert just reported on the Today show that Florida County Sheriffs

found more than 50 loose chad on the floor of counties conducting recounts. ..." Miami Herald 11/16/00 Peter Whoriskey "...... A federal report issued 12 years ago recommended abandoning the controversial punch card ballots widely used in Florida, citing inaccuracies and uncertainties in their tallies, and delivered a clear warning of the ``hanging chad'' problem that has vexed this year's presidential race. ..... The National Bureau of Standards report, conducted because of concerns over ``inaccuracy or fraud in computerized vote-tallying,'' chronicled instances of election confusion across the country caused by punch card technology, including a 1984 election in Palm Beach County, now the epicenter of the presidential election controversy. ....." Mike Reagan 11/15/00 Freeper Francohio "......Alone among American media, Mike Reagan reports his findings upon interviewing the executives of the company who built and maintain the voting machines in Palm Beach. 1. Their design failure rate is one in a million ballots, MAXIMUM. i.e. 0+1, 1-1. 2. These machines were tested less than 1 year ago at a "0" ballots per million failure rate. They have had "0" service calls. 3. "Pregnant Chads." "Indented Chads," "Hanging Chads" are not supposed to count. 4. A machine count is statistically hundreds of times more accurate than a hand count. That's why voting machines were invented. 5. Repeated handling of ballots causes chads to fall out. Not recommended. That's another reason why hand counts should be avoided....." Sarasota Herald-Tribune 11/16/00 Kevin Valine ".......Call it indecision 2000 or the "none of the above" factor. Whatever you call it, 8,794 residents from Manatee to Collier counties voted Nov. 7 for more than one candidate for president. Some may have even voted for all 11 presidential candidates on the ballot, from Republican George W. Bush to Socialist Party of Florida candidate David McReynolds. ...... It's a common phenomenon called "overvoting." It happens in every election and leaves election officials scratching their heads. "Sometimes you see ballots where every single hole is punched," said Richard Riker, assistant to Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Marilyn Gerkin. ....." Florida Statutes Freeper Alancarp "...... FLA STATUE, TITLE IX, CHAPTER 97, "Qualification and Registration of Electors", Part 1 "General Provisions" 97.12 Secretary of State as chief election officer.--The Secretary of State is the chief election officer of the state, and it is his or her responsibility to: (1) Obtain and maintain uniformity in the application, operation, and ***interpretation*** of the election laws. (2) Provide uniform standards for the proper and equitable implementation of the registration laws. (3) Actively seek out and collect the data and statistics necessary to knowledgeably scrutinize the effectiveness of election laws. (4) Provide technical assistance to the supervisors of elections on voter education and election personnel training services. (5) Provide technical assistance to the supervisors of elections on voting systems. (6) Provide voter education assistance to the public. (7) Coordinate the state's responsibilities under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. (8) Provide training to all affected state agencies on the necessary procedures for proper implementation of this chapter. (8) Ensure that all registration applications and forms prescribed or approved by the department are in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (9) Coordinate with the United States Department of Defense so that armed forces recruitment offices administer voter registration in a manner consistent with the procedures set forth in this code for voter

registration agencies. (11) Create and maintain a central voter file. (12) Maintain a voter fraud hotline and provide election fraud education to the public. NRO 11/16/00 Rich Lowry "...... Finally. The Bush campaign got the stagecraft right. Bush last night gave sober and serious prepared remarks, in a manner that was calm, reassuring, and maybe even - here's that vaguest and most clichd of adjectives - presidential. Bush repeated the words "fair" and "accurate" over and over again, aligning himself with the two values that the public considers most important in evaluating the controversy. "Finality" was Bush's other watchword. Although it isn't clear the public cares about that much yet, it will eventually. The Bush campaign is hoping by about, oh, Saturday. ......" St Petersburg Times 11/16/00 Diane Rado Adam Smith Bill Adair ".....Holed up in her Capitol office with the national media encamped outside, Secretary of State Katherine Harris was happy to greet a friend this week from her old days in the Florida Senate -- Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon. ...... What she revealed behind closed doors made Lee angry: Harris told Lee she was frustrated that no one in the Republican Party was speaking up for her as she faces enormous pressure over the fate of the presidential election and an onslaught of criticism from Democrats. "I think she's feeling a little alone," Lee said Wednesday. "Very honestly, I'm concerned our party may be throwing her to the wolves. She doesn't deserve that." ......" Orlando Sentinel 11/16/00 Scott Maxwell "......If Republican George W. Bush is still ahead when the Florida recounts are complete, then Gadsden County may be no more than a footnote in political history. But if Democrat Al Gore takes the lead, then this small, poor county in Florida`s Panhandle may play a pivotal role in deciding the next president. That`s because Republican lawyers are quietly mounting a legal challenge to a recount there last week that netted Gore 153 votes. If Gore pulls ahead, the GOP may try to take back those votes, arguing that they were added illegally and in a somewhat secretive manner. ........ Democrats think that if Bush is declared the winner, Republicans won`t say another word about this poor and mostly black county. But if Gore takes the lead, Democrats think, Republicans will point to Gadsden as the poster child of Florida`s political problems and file a lawsuit saying so. ....." Freeper George W Bush "......Breaking on Fox: Deputies collected 78 chads from the floor and turned them over to the director of elections, Jane Carol. She's "concerned" but of course this is just a normal part of ballot handling. Yeah, right. But this gives the GOP traction in court to have the SoS throw out the county........." Marc Caputo 11/16/00 Palm Beach Post "......Florida's GOP accused Palm Beach County canvasser Carol Roberts on Wednesday of unfairly "bending, twisting, poking and purposefully manipulating ballots" in an effort to throw the U.S. presidential election to Al Gore. ........ As a result, Republicans wanted Roberts removed from the county's canvassing board, which reviews and certifies ballots to the state. ........ Why Roberts did not read the denial herself is unclear. And it remains to be seen whether the GOP asks a judge to disqualify Roberts. Florida law doesn't allow the board to remove its own members. ...... The Republican charges against Roberts follow two GOP lawsuits and complaints that error-prone people shouldn't trump unbiased machines. This accusation, filed with the canvassing board by Fort Lauderdale attorney James Carroll, comes three days after the manual recount of 4,600 votes from select Democratic strongholds in the county. Carroll said more than one Republican saw Roberts pushing, prodding and shuffling ballots to steer more votes to Gore. ....... So at her suggestion, the canvassing board voted 2-1 to recount all the county's votes. Burton dissented. Roberts noted the law requires a total recount in case of "an error in the vote tabulation." Republicans howled. They questioned the board's leeway to decide the intent of 10,381 voters whose ballots didn't register during the three machine counts conducted since Nov. 7. .......While the Republicans continued questioning the all-Democratic board, they zeroed in on Roberts. ...." Fox and Friends 11/16/00 Freeper truthkeeper "... This show posed the on-question "Did Katherine Harris Do The Right Thing?" Just before signing off, a woman caller answered by saying, "Of course she did the right thing. Here in the Midwest we're getting ready to strike. We'll be growing our food and taking it home. Let's see how you all like eating CHADS!" The liberal airhead, Edie, gasped, looked shocked, and said "Whoa!" The blond guy (a conservative, I think) seemed to enjoy it. Anyway, I loved it. I was really glad to hear this lady call in. I wish more conservatives could get through to these shows ..." Foxnews 11/16/00 ".....Foxnews just reported that Secretary of State Katherine Harris has received two death threats and that authorities are investigating. ...." Larry Lipman 11/16/00 Palm Beach Post ".......The American public is overwhelmingly against letting hand

recounts in Palm Beach and three other Florida counties determine who will be the next president, according to a massive Internet poll completed late Tuesday. ........ "There was no support at all for simply counting four counties in Florida and letting that recount be the basis for deciding who wins Florida and, in fact, the presidency," said Gordon Black, Harris Interactive's chairman and chief executive officer. Only 6 percent of those surveyed supported a hand count in the four counties. Roughly three in 10 would hand count the entire state while four in 10 oppose any hand counting. ....The public also opposes allowing a revote in Palm Beach or other Florida counties to determine the outcome. ...." NewsMax 11/16/00 Carl Limbacher "....... The more Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris shows that she means to stick by her guns -- and Florida state law -- the uglier the attacks from Democrats and their media allies become. Even before Harris' decision Wednesday that counties seeking an extension of the state's legally mandated deadline for final vote certification had failed to offer compelling reasons, Gorites like Alan Dershowitz were calling her "a crook." Why? Because she'd accepted some suspect campaign contributions in the past. ...... That's the same Alan Dershowitz who argued that double-murderer O.J. Simpson was innocent and defended President Clinton's perjury in the Paula Jones case. Now he calls Harris a crook to boost Gore, whose political career was built on suspect campaign contributions from the likes of Maria Hsia and John Huang. ....... But for sheer nasty invective, no one beats "West Wing" star Martin Sheen. Earlier in the week while addressing a group of recovering alcoholics, Sheen described President-elect Bush as " a white-knuckled drunk" who needed to get help. ....Sheen has yet to offer his two-cents worth on Harris, but when he does, you can bet it won't be pretty. ...." Etherzone.com 11/16/00 John Bender "....... In defiance of Florida law and against the advice of their own attorney, the Palm Beach County canvassing board resumed hand counting ballots today. This blatantly criminal act shows the depths the Gore team will sink to in order to overturn the election and steal the Presidency from President-elect Bush. ....... Yesterday the State Division of Elections ordered the board to stop their illegal hand count. County Attorney Denise Dytrych advised the board that the Division of Elections decision carried the weight of law and the board should abide by Florida law. ...... Carol Roberts, one of the most partisan members of the board, was totally disdainful of the law. She declared her defiance of the rule of law saying, "What happens? Do we go to jail? Because I'm willing to go to jail." ...... The action of the board and Roberts' declaration that she is willing to break the law to overturn the election shows what the decent people of the nation are up against. The Gore gang will do anything to steal this election. The law means nothing to them if it stands in the way of their quest for personal power. ......" Boston Herald 11/16/00 Margery Eagan "..... It's possible, I suppose, that when The Presidential Hostage Crisis concludes, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris - whose image was all over TV and newspapers yesterday and today - will be remembered for her astute political maneuvering. Most likely, however, she'll be remembered for looking just ghastly Tuesday night. At least by Wednesday her appearance seemed almost - if not quite - transformed. Like Dr. Richard Sharpe, the transvestite and alleged wife killer. Or Marilyn Manson. Or Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie. Or Cruella DeVil. Or Leona Helmsley on Halloween. ....... " Etherzone 11/16/00 John Renalds ".......Mr. Jon Dougherty, of World Net Daily, in his column dated November 15, 2000 announced a development that has not (as of the time of this writing) been addressed by the so-called mainstream media, by the courts, by the lawyers, by the political teams, but it is something unforeseen which may ultimately bring this Democratic coup d'etat to a screeching halt. ......... The Buchanan Campaign has reportedly served notice on the Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach County that Florida Law has not been followed, i.e., the Buchanan Campaign was not notified that a recount would take place, to give them the opportunity to send representatives to witness the recount process. Pending verification from the other counties that have conducted recounts, it would appear that those counties were not in compliance with Florida State Law, 102.166(4)(c), which says that when a county canvassing board authorizes a manual recount, "the county canvassing board shall make a reasonable effort to notify each candidate whose race is being recounted at the time and place of such recount." ......... In other words, IF the counties did not follow Florida State Law by notifying the Buchanan Campaign (which has raised this issue in Palm Beach County), the results which were obtained cannot be accepted as valid or certifiable and must be discarded. The only vote totals which can be accepted are the totals as of Election Night November 7th, at the discretion of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. ......" Etherzone 11/16/00 John Bender "...... The pundits in the elite media are not pointing out why Al Gore will not concede that he lost to President-elect Bush. Some may not know why. Others do not want to say it. If Gore loses, he is finished in politics. He will not be the Democrat nominee in 2004. Hillary Clinton will be the nominee. Gore knows this, even if the pundits do not. Gore is operating under no illusion. He knows the

Clintons and he knows that Hillary will not wait until 2008 to run for president. ....." CNN Freeper sonsofliberty2000 ".... BREAKING NEWS from CNN.com =!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!... -- The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals gives parties in the Florida hand recount lawsuit a 7 a.m. EST Friday deadline to respond to today's filings. ....." Freeper reaganite ".......Billy Tauzin, a Congressman who is from Louisiana?, and his committee is investigating what the media, VNS, pulled on election night. Cox from California is also part of this committee. I'm detail impaired since it took all I could muster to flag someone about this. ....." adds bduet ".... He is the US Rep from Southeast Louisiana. He is a Dem turned Pubie after the 94 election. From my former district of the Lafourche Parish area. A pretty stand up guy. Middle grounder. ...." Freeper ftrader "..... Tauzin is head of the FCC commission. He has charts and graphs showing that in every case, when the election had winners by 6%, ONLY the Democrat counties were called and they delayed FOR HOURS calling the Bush wins in states with the same or higher percentages of lead. BIAS. Voter turnout in the West DOWN because of this. Impression left was a GORE LANDSLIDE DEVELOPING and discouraged voters. ALL the complaints we have made, he is detailing out, and will hold hearings. EVERY MAJOR NETWORK HEAD as well as the Voter Service company WILL BE CALLED. ....." Freeper Be Free private email "...... The following is a snippet of an e-mail I received from a long-time friend, now retired from the US Military. Add this to the list of the lengths to which the corrupt Clinton/Gore machine is/was willing to go to to fix the Florida vote. "the USAF 1st Special Operations Wing, based in Hurlburt Fld, FL was alerted and deployed almost in its entirely in the early hours of Monday 6 Nov. United States Special Operations Command HQ, and US Central Command HQ, based in MacDill AFB, FL, were also alerted to meet contingency requirements. I can only hope that their ballots were secured before they launched. HERE is your evidence of denying a person his/her right to vote." ....." ABCNews 11/16/00 Terry Moran Mark Halperin "..... Harris may well be on firm legal ground. As the appropriate, statutorily empowered official, she has exercised the discretion the law grants her. She has given specific reasons for her actions. Those reasons are clearly not grounded in racial bias, mere whim, sheer irrationality, or other factors that would give legal grounds for challenging her decision. Thus, the law generally presumes the courts will give due deference to her exercise of power in this matter. ...... To make their case, lawyers for Gore would have to show Harris abused her discretion - a very tough standard to meet. They would also likely have to argue that her interpretation of her responsibility in this matter is so out of line with the letter and spirit of the law that the courts must take the rare step of reaching into the executive branch of Florida's government and forcing a duly empowered official to change policy. It could happen, but it wouldn't be easy in the courts - regardless of any victories Gore may have achieved in the court of public opinion. ....." Wall Street Journal 11/16/00 Bob Dole "....... In no way should the media halt their nonstop coverage of the recount. Elections are too important, and the First Amendment is too precious. But the media can and should report in a more responsible and accurate manner. Let me give you an example of media bias. Realizing that it is losing on the message, the Gore campaign has now resorted to attacking the messenger. In this case, it is assaulting the integrity of the secretary of state of Florida, Katherine Harris, in the hopes of blurring the fact that she is simply upholding the law. Never mind that she was elected by the people of Florida. Never mind that she has been praised by Democrats and Republicans for her work on the state's behalf. And never mind that she does not have a partisan reputation. Ms. Harris has said that she will uphold the election laws in Florida, and for that, her character is questioned. Vile comments made by Alan Dershowitz (and reported in the press) referring to Ms. Harris as a "crook," only serve to remind us of the poisonous rhetoric directed at some women by this administration over the past eight years......... But it's one thing for the Gore campaign to question her integrity. It's another for the mainstream media to follow suit. Yesterday's banner headline in the New York Times proclaimed, "Judge Upholds Hand Recounts in Florida." No fair and balanced reading of that ruling would come to that conclusion.......... Staying with the Times: In a front-page story about Ms. Harris in Tuesday's edition, the lead sentence called her a "Republican Party stalwart who serves in Governor Jeb Bush's cabinet." The story went on to discuss her role as co-chair of George W. Bush's Florida campaign. It would be okay if the Times wanted to label this as an opinion piece. But the front page? This was not serious news. It was an editorial posing as a front-page story. But if the media is unable to refrain from labeling certain players as "partisan Republicans," then fairness demands that they hold Democrats to the same bar. Unfortunately, this appears too much to ask....... One of the central figures in this entire recount is Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth. On Monday, Mr. Butterworth came forward with an advisory opinion urging Palm Beach to ignore Ms. Harris's ruling that manual recounts should not be conducted in Palm Beach. This despite the fact that Mr. Butterworth's own Web page says he has neither the authority nor the jurisdiction to provide advisory opinions on election issues. In reporting these events, few in the media have mentioned that Mr. Butterworth is an intense partisan who was Mr. Gore's campaign

chairman in Florida. A double standard?....." Associated Press 11/16/00 David Royse "...... George W. Bush and Al Gore are just 300 votes apart in Florida's presidential election, but more than 180,000 Floridians who went to the polls on Nov. 7 could have just stayed home. Their ballots were tossed out because they chose more than one presidential candidate, didn't choose one at all or their vote didn't register. According to an Associated Press survey of Florida's 67 county elections supervisors, the vote for a presidential candidate wasn't counted on 180,299 of the ballots. ...... That's nearly 3 percent of the 6,138,567 ballots that Florida citizens turned in. Experts say the national average usually runs at less than 2 percent, depending on the type of voting method used. ...... In MiamiDade County, 28,601 ballots were not counted in the presidential race, out of about 654,044 cast. In Palm Beach County, home of the controversial ``butterfly ballot,'' 29,702 votes weren't counted out of 462,888 total. In Jacksonville and surrounding Duval County, 26,909 votes went uncounted out of 291,545 cast. It is possible that some of those people didn't want to vote for president and were only concerned with other races down the ballot. But most of the ballots that weren't counted were ones on which someone messed up. ......The number of ballots tossed out statewide increased this year from 1992 when just over 2 percent of the presidential ballots weren't counted, according to an analysis by the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. In 1996, 2.5 percent of ballots in Florida were disqualified. ......" Wall Street Journal 11/16/00 John D McKinnon Joni James "......U.S. Postal Service officials in Miami said Wednesday that the number of military absentee ballots arriving there was running at an average of 77 a day and totaled 541 by the close of business Tuesday. Miami's Postal Service office is pulling the distinctive red-striped ballot envelopes out and speeding delivery to local supervisors.........Moreover, contrary to published reports, military ballots also were coming in from New York and San Francisco, and postal officials there weren't separating them. Those ballots could add hundreds to the postelection total. .... But the St. Petersburg Times survey also showed some potential worries for Democrats. For instance, their two strongholds, Palm Beach and Broward counties, had a total of only 60 absentee ballots yet to be opened, compared to 239 in Escambia County -- home to the huge Pensacola Naval Air Station -- and 161 in Duval County, home to several military bases. Other Republican counties also showed big numbers left to be counted: 164 in Seminole County near Orlando, and 120 in Manatee County south of St. Petersburg. MiamiDade, the state's most international county, had 141....... At least 22,186 overseas absentee ballots had been requested from Florida supervisors, and at least 12,590 had been counted already. Combined with the unopened ballots, that is a 65% return rate. The numbers don't include generic federal ballots that are available in embassies and don't include local races. Republicans are optimistic that a much larger percentage of the requested absentee ballots will come in, based on historical norms......" Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 6/11/97 ".....A federal jury in Fort Lauderdale has convicted the final three defendants in a $ 31 million telemarketing scam in which customers were lied to about the earning potential of pizza vending machines. Vincent Leonardo, 63, of Delray Beach; Gary Cooperman, 48, of Miami, and Sandy Klein, 55, of West Palm Beach, each were convicted on Monday of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the Justice Department said. U.S. District Court Judge William J. Zloch set sentencing for Aug. 22. ....... Leonardo and Klein face a maximum five years imprisonment and a $ 250,000 fine. Cooper faces a 10-year prison term and a $ 250,000 fine. Klein is a former Port of Palm Beach commissioner and the brother of Palm Beach County Commissioner Carol Roberts. ...." Katherine Harris Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a fourth-generation Floridian, is Florida's 23rd Secretary of State. She was elected November 3, 1998, and sworn into office on January 5, 1999. Prior to her election, Secretary Harris served four years in the Florida Senate where she was chairman of the Senate's Commerce and Economic Development Committee. During her Senate tenure, Secretary Harris earned a solid reputation as a strong champion of economic development, an effective proponent of Florida's emerging international leadership and as a forceful advocate of the arts. As head of the Department of State, Secretary Harris oversees Florida's international relations, cultural entities, libraries, historic preservation, the elections process, the licensing of security officers and concealed weapons permits and corporate registration system. Secretary Harris is a former IBM marketing executive and vice president of a commercial real estate firm. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in history from Agnes Scott College and a Master's Degree from Harvard University with a specialization in international trade and negotiations. She is a lifelong supporter of the arts, has a tremendous understanding of government and possesses a keen knowledge of Florida's business climate. Secretary Harris has received numerous honors for her dedicated work on behalf of Florida including: the Florida Arts Advocacy Award; the Florida Economic Development Council Legislator of the Year Award; the Florida United Business Association Outstanding Legislator Award; the Milton N. Fisher Award for International Trade Advocacy; and the Sarasota Humanitarian of the Year Award.

CNS 11/16/00 Susan Jones ".....Two days - that's all the Gore campaign has left to prevent Florida from declaring a final winner in the hotly disputed presidential election. On Thursday morning, Gore's public relations offense continued, with Sen. Joe Lieberman telling the nation that it's the "spirit" of the law that counts - not "the technical, legal detail of the law." ...." Florida case law 11/16/00 dukeman "..... STATE OF FLORIDA ON THE RELATION OF BILL CHAPPELL, JR., Petitioner, v. BOB MARTINEZ, et al., etc., Respondents Supreme Court of Florida 536 So. 2d 1007; 1988 Fla. LEXIS 1292 December 8, 1988 PRIOR HISTORY: [**1] Original Proceeding - Mandamus. CASE SUMMARY .......OVERVIEW: An election between petitioner candidate and his opponent was so close that a recount was mandated by Fla. Stat. ch. 102.111 (1987). That section required that the Department of State receive election results from each county canvassing board within seven days after the election, or the votes in that county would be ignored. One county's results did not arrive in the mail until after the deadline, but the county did report the results over the telephone within the seven days. The court found that the results of that county should be included. The certification process was not a ministerial duty involving no judgment on the part of respondent commission. The results were received in time, albeit telephonically. .......OUTCOME: Petitioner candidate's request for a writ of mandamus and temporary injunctive relief directing respondent commission to declare an election winner without regard to one county's votes was denied because that county's election results were received before the deadline, albeit telephonically....." Freeper lazamataz on hearing "..... Bush lawyer stresses that judge would be stepping on the discretion of the office of SoS if he rules for the plaintiff. Bush lawyer shows the Gore people would be extending the deadline to at least Tuesday in clear violation of all FL statutes. Shows that the so-called 'conflicts' are in fact engineered and made-up conflicts, and that the law provides for only grievances based upon criteria set down in law. ...." Freeper mdittmar "..... Bush team says that counties did not try to meet deadline.Took days off,took a day to go over rules,etc. ...." Freeper Lazamataz "..... Bush lawyer (pretty good lawyer) shows the counties have not even begun recounts and keep delaying. The FL SoS would be ABUSING her discretion to rule in their favor under these conditions. For the FL SoS to grant relief these scenarios be to grotesquely distort the scenarios. ...... Bush Lawyer: Far from SoS abusing her discretion, would be abusing her discretion to allow for such fluid recount dates. ...." Freeper tm22721 "..... Bush's attorney suggests that the court's interference with SOS Harris would also be taking jurisdiction over the legislature which created the statute that she is following to the letter. ....." Freeper Lazamataz ".....Fresh-faced kid made two good points: 1) Plaintiff asking you not to enforce a law, but to NOT enforce a law. 2) The plaintiffs do not like the way she ruled, under her discretion. That's not the standard. *YOU* may not like the way she ruled, under her discretion. That's not the standard, either. ....." Freeper Tuxedo "...Yep, there is the Separation of Powers argument. If it comes down to that, it ends here with no further appeals. ...." U.S. Supreme Court (Freeper positive) Syllabus FOSTER, GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA, ET AL . v. LOVE ET AL . CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 96-670. Argued October 6, 1997 - Decided December 2, 1997 ......... The Elections Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, 4, cl. 1, invests the States with responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections, see Storer v. Brown , 415 U.S. 724, 730 , but grants Congress "the power to override state regulations" by establishing uniform rules for federal elections, U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton , 514 U.S. 779, 832 -833. One such congressional rule sets the date of the biennial election for the offices of United States Senator, 2 U.S.C. 1 and Representative, 7, and mandates holding all congressional and presidential elections on a single November day, 2 U. S. C. 1, 7; 3 U.S.C. 1. Since 1978, Louisiana has held in October of a federal election year an "open primary" for congressional offices, in which all candidates, regardless of party, appear on the same ballot and all voters are entitled to vote. If a candidate for a given office receives a majority at the open primary, the candidate "is elected" and no further act is done on federal election day to fill that office. Since this system went into effect, over 80% of the State's contested congressional elections have ended as a matter of law with the open primary. Respondents, Louisiana voters, challenged this primary as a violation of federal law. Finding no conflict between the state and federal statutes, the District Court granted summary judgment to petitioners, the State's Governor and secretary of state. The Fifth Circuit reversed. Held: Louisiana's statute conflicts with federal law to the extent that it is applied to select a congressional candidate in October. Pp. 3-7.

(a) The issue here is a narrow one turning entirely on the meaning of the state and federal statutes. There is no colorable argument that 7 goes beyond the ample limits of the Elections Clause's grant of authority to Congress. In speaking of "the election" of a Senator or Representative, the federal statutes plainly refer to the combined actions of voters and officials meant to make the final selection of an officeholder; and by establishing "the day" on which these actions must take place, the statutes simply regulate the time of the election, a matter on which the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the final say. Pp. 3-4. (b) A contested selection of candidates for a congressional office that is concluded as a matter of law before the federal election day, with no act in law or in fact to take place on the date chosen by Congress, clearly violates 7. Louisiana's claim that its system concerns only the manner, not the time, of an election is at odds with the State's statute, which addresses timing quite as obviously as 7 does. A federal election takes place in Lousiana before federal election day whenever a candidate gets a majority in the open primary. Pp. 4-6. (c) This Court's judgment is buttressed by the fact that Louisiana's open primary has tended to foster both evils identified by Congress as reasons for passing the federal statute: the distortion of the voting process when the results of an early federal election in one State can influence later voting in other States, and the burden on citizens forced to turn out on two different election days to make final selections of federal officers in presidential election years. Pp. 6-7. 90 F. 3d 1026, affirmed. ...... SOUTER , J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court with respect to Parts I, II, and IV, and the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III, in which REHNQUIST , C. J., and STEVENS , O'CONNOR , GINSBURG , and BREYER , JJ., joined. ....." Los Angeles Times 11/16/00 Joe Mozingo "...... These were not your scruffy street protesters. Their hair was trim, their shirts tucked in. They had asked for the time off work. Many had never been to a demonstration. They were Republicans, and they were brimming with anger in Hollywood on Wednesday, protesting delays in declaring the winner of the presidential election and a perceived media bias in favor of Al Gore. About 150 of them came from as far as Rancho Cucamonga and lined the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga boulevards to rally in front of the CNN building. "How many times does Al Gore have to lose?" shouted James Joblon, of Redondo Beach. "...." On hearing in progress MSNBC 11/16/00 "...... Atty. Klock in his argument to Judge Lewis said that if Gore wants to challenge the results he should do so formally, AFTER the results are certified. This is a clear reference to F.S. 102.68 which is how such contests are normally handled. ..." (boatlawyer) Freeper Bushvictoirous "..... Bush Counsel is saying Palm Beach had seven days to do the vote, why did they take three days off? They are given seven days to get as many people as they need to accomplish the goal, and are held under monetary penalty, to finish those recounts by Tuesday 5 p.m. It's their own fault they slacked off, where Volusia County got the job done. SOS had no choice but to hold them accountable for their delinquency, otherwise, the timeline could be endless. This is why the deadline exists. ..." Freeper truthkeeper to "Be objective... how was the case presented by the Gore team? Was it compelling at all? " said "Basically said she was in violation of the judge's order. Claims the judge ordered her to wait until she was in receipt of all the amended returns before she decided. " Freeper Green adds "....that last lawyer arguing for the citizen in another county hit the nail on the head. Said it was unconstitutional to put more rights to the votes uncounted in these counties over the rights of the votes in the county his citizen of Florida lives in. ....." Freeper Lazamataz "..... Judge asking questions: Would canvassing board proceed with recount if they weren't going to matter? If there anything in law that would stop them? (Looking at the delays of canvassing board) Atty Oldazdyrt, Esq. says the SoS ordered it, judge requests to see order, Atty Oldazdyrt, Esq. cannot produce......" Freeper truth_eagle adds ".... The old geezer says PBC stopped because of what the SOS said, and then out of the other side of his mouth said "she's not their boss" and they can do what they want. He's getting caught on this now. ...." Freeper golitely adds ".... I dunno, looks like the Judge is sympathetic with the old guy. Not good for the good guys. ...." Lazamataz "...... Our guy returning to the POINT of this hearing: Did SoS violate an order of the court, and shows SoS were diligent and deliberate. Another one of our guys correcting mistatement by Bois. Looks like Bois might be as good a litigator as Gore is a debator. ....." Freeper Lazamataz "...... Corrected that he referred to due diligance in recounting UP TO AND INCLUDING MONDAY, only. ....." Truthkeeper "..... The Bush attorney's name is MIKE CARVIN. They finally ran it on the screen. He's again

speaking about the lack of diligence on the part of PBC in getting the recount done. Citing 166.7A of the statute: "Acting in a timely manner" for certification of results. ...." New York Post 11/16/00 Cindy Adams "......DONNA BRAZILE, smart-mouthed lady who was Gore's campaign manager: "Al Gore won the popular vote. I did my job. I did get that vote out. Unfortunately, I didn't get to count it." Said a weary Donna....." Network America Ewire 11/14/00 James Condit Jr. "....For the second time death threats have entered the Votescam investigation.The first time was in the early days when the Colliers were working with aMiami Newspaper Maverick named MacKenzie who was helping them expose votescam by Janet Reno and other criminals of officialdom in Miami, Florida in the 1970's and the 1980's. At one point the Collier's were told that if they didn't get out of town, a known hit man would be hired to kill them within a few weeks. Shortly after this, their friend, Donald MacKenzie was gunned down in a parking lot. The Colliers at that point fled to the Washington D.C. area - and only returned to Miami under the protection of friends who safe-housed them when in the area. ........ The second time a death threat has entered the votescam investigation happened in the last few weeks while Christopher Bollyn was writing his recent story about the new voting machines which have two way modems and can be accessed and altered by satellite technology. Mr. Bollyn's story builds on the information discovered by Phil O'Halloran of Relevance magazine, who in turn learned of the votefraud issue thanks to the March 8, 1996 Tom Valentine Radio Show in which Valentine interviewed this writer about the votefraud committed against Buchanan and the people of Dubuque, Iowa by Voter News Service and the Big TV Networks during the 1996 Iowa Caucuses. ...." Freeper ironman ".... Don Evans says they will not seek recount in Iowa. ..." Freeper Dog "..... Different Topic...But ABCRadio just said PBC voted NOT TO CONTINUE the hand recount until the Fla SC rules on the matter.... Carol Roberts demanded them to start the hand recount NOW!!! But the Dem Judge Burton ignored her and recessed the meeting leaving her steaming.. ...." ABC Radio News 11/16/00 Prometheus ".... WITH BUSH TRAILING GORE IN IOWA BY 1/10TH OF 1%, HE DECIDES NOT TO ASK FOR A RECOUNT. DON EVANS ALSO SAID THE ONLY DEADLINE THAT MATTERS IS MIDNIGHT FRIDAY IN FLORIDA....." New York Law Journal 11/16/00 D Wise "..... NEW YORK Democrats have sent their own brigade of 29 volunteer lawyers to help fight the legal ground war in Florida that may well determine whether Al Gore or George W. Bush becomes the next President. The Republicans may also have sent several volunteers to Florida, but their effort has been directed from Washington, D.C. ...At 7 p.m. Saturday night, Morton H. Fry, co-head of New York Lawyers for Gore-Lieberman, recalled he got an urgent call from the Democratic National Committee asking for volunteer lawyers to come to Palm Beach County....." Downside Legacy on THE RECOUNT to 11/16 1:30 CST http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a14374f66d4.htm Additional Breaking News to 11/16/00 11:00 pm CST First a flash back: CNN 10/4/00 Kelly Wallace "....The White House on Wednesday accused Yugoslav President Slobodan M ilosevic of "another stalling tactic," after learning about reports Yugoslavia's constitutional court annulled the results of last month's presidential election. ........ "The court is stacked with his cronies," said an administration official, who did not want to be identified. "If they have in fact invalidated the first round, it would be consistent with a man who knows he has lost and who refuses to recognize the results." .......The official said the White House is aware of the report from Yugoslavia's state news agency that part of the election results have been annulled, but said the administration is still "looking into it." ....... Ever since M ilosevic announced a runoff election, the White House has called for the Yugoslav leader to "respect the will of the Serbian people," and step down. Observers said the vote count showed opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica had won. ......" Associated Press 11/16/00 Rachel La Corte ".....Florida officials count more than 2,500 overseas absentee ballots on Friday, a mere handful of votes out of 6 million cast statewide that could be decisive in settling the presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. To erase Bush's current 300-vote margin, Gore would have to win about 56 percent of these absentee votes that have tilted Republican since 1980. ...... ``However you slice it and dice it, the Gore campaign should not be expecting to gain votes from the overseas ballots,'' said Leo DiBenigno, spokesman for the Bush campaign in Florida. Democrats argue this

year is different. ......Counties have mailed out 23,246 overseas ballots, according to the AP survey. Of those, 14,415 were returned by Election Day, counted and included in the results certified so far. .....Some of the overseas ballots may be judged invalid. Some may be duplicates. Some may lack proper postmarks. And some may include so-called ``overvotes'' and ``undervotes,'' ballots on which there were two or more votes cast for president or none at all. ...." Statesman Journal Salem, Oregon 11/16/00 "..... The Bush campaign threatened legal action Wednesday against Oregon's secretary of state if it doesn't get detailed information about the state's close presidential vote by this evening. Leslie Goodman, spokeswoman for the Bush campaign, said "we are not alleging any impropriety" during the election. However, she said her requests for information about election results "have been thwarted" by county election officials........... The demand for details about the election results in Oregon was made in a letter to Secretary of State Bill Bradbury dated Wednesday. Bradbury's top aide said election officials in Oregon's 36 counties, not the secretary of state, have the details sought by the Bush campaign. ......Goodman said the campaign has been told that Bradbury - a Democrat - has told some counties to treat the GOP request for information like a Freedom of Information Act request, a process she said could take 60 days. .....She said the Bush campaign wants the immediate release of complete records of all voters who filed updated registrations between Oct. 18 and 8 p.m. on election day Nov. 7, and a statewide tally by county of election results including all outstanding ballots as of 6 p.m. Wednesday. ...." Media Reality Check 11/16/00 "...... So Far, National Reporters Haven't Examined the Background of Palm Beach Trio Suing For a Re-Vote No Media Skepticism of Fla. Ballot Challengers ........ Are the plaintiffs demanding an unprecedented re-run of the presidential election in Florida's Palm Beach county really befuddled oldsters who were confused by a two-column ballot? Or are they really sophisticated local activists who assume that their protests against the election's integrity is Al Gore's last, best chance to be awarded the White House? ........A Nexis search of Florida newspapers shows all three plaintiffs - Alberta McCarthy, Lillian Gaines and Andre Fladell - are savvy activists with political experience, not the sort of voters who'd be stymied by a ballot layout. Yet as the plaintiffs at the center of a historic suit, each plans to testify that they personally voted for Patrick Buchanan when they were aiming to vote for Al Gore: ........" MSNBC 11/16/00 "..... Going through county totals, highlighted Duval County, which had 500 overseas ballots to be counted. Duval is overwhelmingly republican. ....." AP 11/16/00 "......Delayed winner calls for both Al Gore and George W. Bush on election night. The delay indicates the time, after polls closed in a state, it took for CNN to declare a winner. For the 26 states and the District of Columbia, calls were made immediately after polls closed. Oregon was not called. Data provided by Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La. Louisiana, Bush by 53 percent to 45 percent -- 21 minutes. Alabama, Bush, 57-42 -- 25 minutes. Virginia, Bush, 52-45 -- 33 minutes. North Carolina, Bush, 56-43 - 39 minutes. Florida, undecided -- 52 minutes for Gore, later retracted. Georgia, Bush, 55-43 -- 59 minutes. Washington, Gore, 50-45 -- 1 hour, 8 minutes. New Mexico, undecided -- 1 hour, 22 minutes for Gore. Pennsylvania, Gore, 51-47 -- 1 hour, 24 minutes. Michigan, Gore, 51-47 -- 1 hour, 24 minutes. Minnesota, Gore, 48-46 -- 1 hour, 25 minutes. Ohio, Bush, 50-46 -- 1 hour, 49 minutes. Colorado, Bush, 51-42 -- 2 hours, 41 minutes. Missouri, Bush, 51-47 -- 2 hours, 47 minutes. Arizona, Bush, 51-44 -- 2 hours, 51 minutes.

Tennessee, Bush, 51-48 -- 3 hours, 3 minutes. Maine, Gore, 49-44 -- 3 hours, 10 minutes. West Virginia, Bush, 52-46 -- 3 hours, 16 minutes. Nevada, Bush, 49-46 -- 3 hours, 31 minutes. Arkansas, Bush, 51-45 -- 3 hours 42 minutes. New Hampshire, Bush, 48-47 -- 5 hours, 7 minutes. Iowa, Gore, 49-48 -- 7 hours. Wisconsin, Gore, 48-48 - 9 hours, 21 minutes. ......" Associated Press 11/16/00 Tom Raum "..... George W. Bush's campaign announced Thursday it will not seek a recount of the presidential vote count in Iowa, a state where Al Gore claimed a narrow victory. Campaign chairman Don Evans announced the decision a few hours before the 5 p.m. deadline for seeking a recount in a state where Bush lost by 4,407 votes out of more than 1.3 million. Drawing a contrast to Gore's efforts to continue a hand recount in contested Florida, Evans said that in Iowa, Bush had decided to ``do his part to ensure the fairness, accuracy and finality of this election.'' ....." Sun-Sentinel 11/16/00 Sean Cavanagh "..... A hand recount of all of Broward County's presidential ballots resumed on Thursday, with elections officials pushing past partisan debates and a decision by Florida's secretary of state to ignore the latest tally. The counting began about 3 p.m. Wednesday and capped another wild day in the battle between supporters of Democrat Al Gore, who pushed for the countywide recount, and Republican George W. Bush, who fought it. ......When the counting ended after 10 p.m., 45 precincts had been counted, adding seven votes to Gore's tally. ....By Thursday, one additional vote had been added. ...." Foxnews 11/16/00 James Baker Freeper Libertarian2000 "..... Source for this was video. Baker reported that the democrats had carefully selected the counties in PBC for the initial test hand count. He pointed out that the three counties went for Gore by huge margins. Specifically, the counties went Gore/Bush by the following margins: 1308/62, 1175/52, 1071/19. The hand recount revealed the Gore gained 33 votes and Bush gained 14 votes. ........ If you add up the totals, the Gore/Bush ratio is 3554/133. By getting 33 new votes out of 3554 cast for him, Gore saw a gain of about 0.1%. Bush however, by getting 14 new votes out of 133 cast for him sees a tremendous gain of over 10%. By looking at these gains as a percentage basis, you find a good reason to not recount. After all, Florida law calls for a hand count of the entire county only is the sample hand count reveals a trend that could reverse the machine count verdict. Anyone have numbers on other counties? All I've seen is PBC......." Online Sunshine 11/16/00 Freeper Marlboro "...... 102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.--If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. ...." Adds "....Why doesn't the Bush legal team use the cited FL statute in their argument against the recounts in selected FL counties? It seems to imply that a close statewide election is no reason to recount votes in a particular county. ....." Florida Supreme Court 11/16/00 "..... We enter the present interim order in this matter. We have considered the Petition and it appears that the relief sought on the question of whether the Canvassing Board may conduct a manual recount of the votes cast for President and Vice President has been answered in the affirmative by the Circuit Courts of Leon and Palm Beach County. At present, this is binding legal authority on this issue and there is no legal impediment to the recounts continuing. Thus, Petitioners are authorized to proceed with the manual recount. WELLS, C.J., and SHAW, HARDING, ANSTEAD, PARIENTE, LEWIS, and QUINCE, JJ., concur. A True Copy Test: ....." Associated Press 11/16/00 Ron Fournier ".....Democrats agonized over sluggish or stalled recount drives in two Florida counties, and the vice president laid the groundwork to keep fighting for public opinion if he fails to pull ahead of the Texas governor by Friday at midnight - a prospect senior advisers said was likely. .......

``The choice really is whether the voters are going to decide this election by having every vote count or whether that process is going to be short-circuited without all the votes being examined,'' Gore said in a radio interview. Bush supports the secretary of state's weekend deadline and wants a declaration of a Florida winner after the last overseas absentee ballots are due Friday at midnight. ...." The New Australian 11/17/00 Gerard Jackson "..... Although I am not an American I take a keen interest in American national politics. What happens in the White House affects us all, even Australians. But more importantly, what happens to the American Constitution affects liberty everywhere. Gore's attempt to overturn, with the willing help of his media storm troopers, Bush's victory subverted the Constitution and struck at liberty in every quarter of the globe. Millions who laboured under tyranny, and many millions more who still do, saw a presidential candidate, the vice president no less, try to destroy what had been honestly won through the ballot box. In doing so he revealed a depraved political character and a lust for power that no democracy that values its liberty should ever tolerate. This should have drawn nothing but scorn and contempt from the mainstream media. Instead, most of them have acted as willing accomplices in his attempted coup d'etat. .... America is no banana republic, at least not yet; she is no Third World dictatorship, at least not yet. What she is, or was, is what Abraham Lincoln wanted her to be - "an example to the world." And now an unprincipled and venal little man who for eight years loyally and unquestionably served the most corrupt and lawless administration in American history is turning Lincoln's dream into travesty, violating the rule of law and corrupting the judicial system. ...." NewsMax 11/16/00 David Bresnahan ".... SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Attorneys for disenfranchised military personnel plan to ask a judge to let them vote late, or allow them to refuse to pay taxes for the next four years. Large numbers of military personnel have complained that they did not receive absentee ballots in time to vote, and now they are taking action in court. ....... "What we would like to do is ask for injunctive relief and ask for these people to have their ballots flown to them immediately and allow them to vote and be counted in this election, regardless of what state they're in," attorney Philip E. Jones told NewsMax.com in a phone interview. ....."It's not a principle of Democrat or Republican. It's the principle of the right to vote. "In the alternative, if the judge doesn't allow that, we're going to ask for injunctive relief in the form of allowing these people not to have to pay their taxes for four years because they've been disenfranchised from the political system by denying them their right to vote for the next four years. That's taxation without representation," said Jones. Jones said he would file the class-action suit on Monday, initiated by three members of the military serving in Japan. Two are from Florida, and one is from Oklahoma. ......" Sun-Sentinel 11/16/00 Sean Cavanagh "..... Gore gets 13 more votes so far in Broward recount By SEAN CAVANAGH Sun-Sentinel Web-posted: 12:43 a.m. Nov. 16, 2000 updated at 3:41 p.m. Al Gore garnered 13 more votes on Thursday as 20,000 of the county's ballots were hand-counted......." MSNBC 11/16/00 "..... **MSNBC just reported that after calling all 67 Florida counties they have determined that there are currently 2,291 overseas ballots outstanding** ....." Fulton County Daily Daily Report 11/15/00 R Robin McDonald "..... Cited in the article are 5 case excerpts of recent 11th Circuit Court of Appeals cases involving voting disputes in the Southeast: VOTE BUYING USA v. McCranie, No. 97-9358 (11th Cir., Mar. 12, 1999). In a case involving fraudulent voting activities, specifically vote buying, surrounding a sheriff's election in Dodge County, Georgia, a 3 judge appeals panel affirmed the right of federal courts to intervene in elections "so long as a single federal candidate is on the ballot." PROTECTING RIGHT TO VOTE USA v. Bowman, No. 79-5685 (5th Cir., Feb. 9, 1981). In a Louisianna vote buying case, a 5th Circuit panel (which at the time encompassed what is now the 11th Circuit and is hence binding precedent), asserted the right of the federal government to intervene to protect the integrity of a person's right to vote and the integrity of that vote in elections "in which presidential electors and members of the US Senate and members of the US House of Representatives are chosen." The 1965 Voting Rights Act "may be constitutionally applied to prohibit any activity that has the potential to affect the integrity and purity of a federal election . . " COUNTING IMPROPER ABSENTEE BALLOTS Roe v. Alabama, Nos. 94-7155 and 94-7138, (11th Cir.,Jan. 4, 1995). A 3 judge appellate panel, including then Chief Judge Tjoflat of Florida, intervened in an Alabama case involving the counting of improper absentee ballots in a close statewide election. The Court noted that "generally, federal courts do not involve themselves in 'garden variety' election disputes." However, the Court also determined that "the

unneccessary delay that would result were we to leave the Plaintiffs to their state court remedy would be particularly insidious . . ." REMANDING CASE TO FEDERAL COURT See Roe, above (11th Cir., April 26, 1995). In a second opinion on Roe, the same panel certified a question to the Supreme Court of Alabama and then remanded the proceedings to the US District Court for a trial on the merits with a list of 17 questions the lower court should address. "The parties should have a speedy trial to determine the practice in Alabama regarding the counting of contested absentee ballots prior to the Nov. 8 election." COUNTING ABSENTEE BALLOTS See Roe, above. (11th Cir. Oct 13, 1995). In a 3rd opinion, the appeals court affirmed the ruling of a lower court that stopped the counting of contested absentee ballots because "it would depreciate the votes" of those voters who cast their ballots for the opposing candidate." ......" FoxNews 11/16/00 Freeper Lizzie "...... About 12:15, Carl Cameron did a revealing interview with the woman (last name Green...don't recall the first name) who ran in a Florida state legislature primary in Palm Beach county in September. Her story has been posted (I don't know how to search for it...) and she lost by 13 votes. After the machine recount, she asked for a hand recount and she was refused, with the PBC Elections board citing to her the Florida law that hand recounts are only justified in a case of fraud or a problem with the counting machines. ..... This is a black woman, Republican, articulate and bright, and she clearly pointed out the partisan-driven double standard at work with the Palm Beach board. I think it would be safe to say she has something of a grudge for Carol Roberts & Co., and I think the Dems would have to kill her to keep her from testifying against them. Carl Cameron is truly on the case down in Florida! ...." Pensacola News Journal 11/16/00 Larry Wheeler David Tortorano "..... Pentagon officials have no evidence that overseas absentee voting by U.S. military personnel or civilians has been delayed or disrupted........ U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough, R- Pensacola, requested that the House Armed Services Committee investigate complaints from some of his active-duty military constituents, who said they couldn't obtain absentee ballots. With Congress in limbo, the panel has yet to act on Scarborough's request.........Internet discussion groups and some online news services have carried reports of missing bags of ballots. Yet little real proof has been forthcoming. ``We're not aware of widespread or organized complaints concerning individuals who couldn't get ballots through,'' said Susan Hansen, a Pentagon public affairs official........ Responding to reports of delayed or missing ballots, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said he was informed that a few absentee ballots were returned from Navy ships involved in the USS Cole recovery operations. ``We're talking maybe a dozen,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Cate Mueller, a Navy spokeswoman...... Once found, they were quickly moved along, she said......``There's been some reporting that there's been 3,000 ballots stuck out at sea. That's not true,'' Mueller said. ``Basically, the great majority of military people who were going to vote have done so.''...... : Q: How many overseas ballots are expected to be sent to Florida from troops stationed overseas? A: No one is completely sure, but there are 27,000 troops who call Florida home, according to the Department of Defense's Federal Voting Assistance Program. In Escambia County, 1,802 ballots - 1,558 to military personnel - were sent to people living overseas. In Santa Rosa County, the total is 687. Santa Rosa does not have a separate tally for the military. Q: Have these overseas ballots been counted yet? A: Some are in, but many are still on their way to election offices. Ballots received by 7 p.m. on Nov. 7 were counted that day, and the totals were included in the overall vote tally. Those arriving after that time will be checked and counted Friday afternoon. The Escambia and Santa Rosa results will be available that evening. ....." C-Span 11/16/00 Freeper report "..... Sen Fred Thompson is doing fabulous on CSpan right NOW! He is citing experts that have had decades of experience with all kinds of ballots, as well as those who make the machines. They are saying the variance we are seeing from the recounts is highly improbable. They also state with certainty that human error is far more likely to occur with manual recounts......." Associated Press 11/16/00 Tom Raum "......George W. Bush's campaign announced Thursday it would not seek a recount of the presidential vote in Iowa, a state where Al Gore claimed a narrow victory. ...... Campaign chairman Don Evans announced the decision a few hours before the 5 p.m. deadline for seeking a recount in a state where Bush lost by 4,047 votes out of more than 1.3 million. Drawing a contrast to Gore's efforts to continue a hand recount in contested Florida, Evans said that in Iowa, Bush had decided to

``do his part to ensure the fairness, accuracy and finality of this election.'' ..... Evans said that Bush's supporters in Iowa had urged the campaign to seek a recount, noting that the margin of victory for the vice president was three-tenths of 1 percent. ......" FNC 11/16/00 Freeper Julliardsux "..... Attorney and 4 others sue in Broward - actions of canvass board in taking hand count are unlawful - wanting to stop count. There is no basis to do handcount - do not take from objective machines and put it to subjective people unless there is error - we proved in this county that the machines worked flawlessly. Hearing tomorrow at 1:30 in city of Plantation, Broward County ...." Associated Press 11/16/00 Anne Gearan ".....Florida's high court gave the go-ahead to manual ballot recounts in the state's disputed presidential election Friday. Within minutes, officials in Palm Beach County announced they would swiftly begin a manual recount - as requested by Gore's campaign. ....." Newsmax 11/15/00 Carl Limbacher "..... As reports of Florida election irregularities continue to spread, a Washington, D.C., legal watchdog group has stepped into the fray. As of Wednesday, Judicial Watch had amassed a small army of 210 volunteers and had won permission from 32 of the state's 67 counties to do its own Florida ballot recount. "What we're doing is a call to action to get volunteers," Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman told the Tallahassee Democrat on Tuesday. "We're very skeptical of both the Democrats and the Republicans." Judicial Watch intends to retain a "big eight" accounting firm to help in its recount effort. Under Florida law, ballots are public records and may therefore be viewed by anyone. Klayman said he wants to begin by Thursday, starting with the most controversial Florida counties....." Newsmax 11/15/00 Carl Limbacher "..... So far, only two counties have refused to grant access to Judicial Watch, Osceola and Volusia, both heavily Democratic. Coincidentally, Volusia was the only county to complete its manual recount by the state's legally mandated 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline. Volusia found enough new Gore ballots to reduce Bush's lead by 98 votes, nearly a quarter of the margin he previously enjoyed. Any county that continues to deny Judicial Watch access to its ballots will be sued, Klayman said. The legal watchdog group is also probing reports that the Clinton-Gore administration may have rushed the naturalization process for immigrants in battleground states like Florida as part of an effort to boost Democrat voter turnout. Under the Florida INS's "Backlog Reduction Program," agency examiners and clerks were rewarded with bonuses and paid time off if they exceeded goals for naturalizing new citizens. "This sounds like another illegal 'import-a-voter' program by the Clinton-Gore administration," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. In 1996, the White House tried to naturalize up to a million new immigrants including 75,000 with criminal records - in time to vote in that year's presidential election.. ...." Freeper gadfly "..... Basically the Fl Supreme Court punted. They said, in essence, there is no decision for us to make. A decision has already been made on the issue in a lower court and that decision is binding. In other words, the Court was declining to comment on an order of a lower court that was not before the Supreme Court. Remember, the current dispute before the Court was which adivsory opinion should the counties follow; that decision is being appealed but is not yet before the Fl Supreme Court. Therefore, the opinion really has no substantive impact; it merely restates what the status quo is currently. ....." Freeper CPLBAUM "...... Agreed. The real case is before Judge Lewis. If he rules that Harris acted within her discretion and not arbitrarily or capriciously - it will be HUGE for W. ...." Freeper structure "...... LOL Dan Abrams says the Fl Supreme Ct ruling is not giving the Gore team what they wanted. Gore wanted to have language from the Supremes that they could use against Harris if she declines to accept the manual recount. Court does not say that recount is proper or reasoned or should be included, or why it is appropriate. LOL. All they're saying is that it can continue. ....." Freeper GodBlessGore ".... Right and the Judge yesterday said they can count dimples, chads, pregnants Bush votes or whatever they wanted to count. Count all you want but it's not going to count in the certified results. When Bush was announced pres. Tues the 7th that should have never been taken from him. It's all been a ploy to decrease his credibility while in power. ....." Freeper MississippiMan ".... PBC canvassing board just met, and if I interpreted the mayhem correctly, said that they will recount everything and include dimpled chads this time. Did I hear that right? Geeeezzz... " Freeper CPLBAUM "..... I watched the entire hearing before Lewis this afternoon. The attorney for Harris and especially the attorney for Bush just rocked. The arbitrary standard / burden of proof required by the dems is a monumental hurdle to overcome...especially when the SOS knew she had to have her ducks in a row before deciding. I must hand it to Team Bush - the lawyers are making ALL the right moves. ....." FoxNews Southflanknorthpawsis "...... Just to add more ridiculousness to the sublime, Fox just announced that Dems are now pressuring Miami-Dade County to reverse themselves and go back to recounting

because they only need X amount of votes, yada, yada, yada. Seriously.....this has to eventually make people hate Al Gore. ....." Freeper StarFan ".....Chris Matthews said Judge Lewis will rule tomorrow at l0:00 a.m. and that should be telling. Big day tomorrow with two courts deciding GWB's fate. ...." Freeper Captain Jack Aubrey "...... Could Harris ignore the judge?? This is a very interesting question. The answer is yes, but not without consequences. If she is under the jurisdiction of the court, then she is obligated to follow the orders of the court until a higher court says otherwise. If she does not follow, she will be held in contempt of court. Assume the Supreme Court of Fl orders that she cannot certify the election results on Saturday, but she does so anyway. Based on her cetification, the electors could meet on December 18 and cast their votes. But when the votes are counted in January, they would be challenged by a Dem congressman. Congress could vote to accept them. Ultimately, SOS Harris could be fined or jailed for contempt [like the current president] but I believe she still has the power to make the certification regardless of what the courts say. Remember Lincoln said that the courts don't have armies when he defied the supreme court on the habeas issue. The bigger question is who is in charge in a democratic republic? The elected executive branch or the courts? ....." Freeper Undecided "....Florida election law allows for the results of an election to be contested even after a winner is declared. "102.168 Contest of election.-(1) Except as provided in s. 102.171, the certification of election or nomination of any person to office, or of the result on any question submitted by referendum, may be contested in the circuit court by any unsuccessful candidate for such office or nomination thereto or by any elector qualified to vote in the election related to such candidacy, or by any taxpayer, respectively. (2) Such contestant shall file a complaint, together with the fees prescribed in chapter 28, with the clerk of the circuit court within 10 days after midnight of the date the last county canvassing board empowered to canvass the returns certifies the results of the election being contested or within 5 days after midnight of the date the last county canvassing board empowered to canvass the returns certifies the results of that particular election following a protest pursuant to s.102.166(1), whichever occurs later." As I said, if they mine enough "legal" Gore votes to show that he would have won, the court will declare him the winner, based upon: "(c) Receipt of a number of illegal votes or rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election." So this "non-ruling" is actually the turning point in this stand off. Barring something miraculous, Gore wins. ....." AP 11/16/00 Anne Gearan ".....Florida's high court gave the go-ahead to manual ballot recounts in the state's disputed presidential election Friday. Within minutes, officials in Palm Beach County announced they would swiftly begin a manual recount -- as requested by Gore's campaign. ......... The court's interim, or preliminary ruling, means it did not rule out further legal challenges to the recounts. ....... The ruling is a victory for Gore, but does not settle whether the recounts may ultimately help his attempt to poll ahead of Bush in the state vote count. Bush has a 300-vote lead, with about 2,600 overseas absentee ballots uncounted. ....." Yahoo News 11/16/00 Reuters ".....A state judge will rule on Friday morning on a Democratic challenge to a decision by Florida's top election official that the state's vote total, which will decide the U.S. presidential election, cannot be amended to include late, hand-counted returns. ....... An administrator at Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee said Judge Terry Lewis would issue a ruling at 10 a.m. EST on Friday, after taking in some supplemental information from lawyers representing Democratic interests on Thursday afternoon. ......" NewsMax 11/16/00 Carl Limbacher "......The media have erroneously made Palm Beach County, Florida the focus of their election crisis coverage, despite the fact that voters in other Florida counties were disenfranchised in far greater numbers. ...... That's the charge leveled by Pat Caddell, one-time pollster to President Jimmy Carter, who appeared on Chris Matthews' "Hardball" Wednesday night. ...... "n Duval County, twice as many people proportionately were knocked out of the election because they had a two page ballot. And by the way, of those 27,000 people knocked out in Duval County, 15,000 were in precincts that George Bush carried by 75 percent or more. "But we don't have any media, or anybody running up to

protect those people. I mean, this has been so disproportionate. I don't blame the Democrats. They have a game, which is: pretend it's all in our court. "But I blame the media for not having more balance in this...." National Review 11/16/00 Orlando Sentinel "..... Kurt Kiser, a former Pinellas County Republican state senator who helped write the 1989 recount law, said legislators recognized that county supervisors of elections might need more time to assure vote tallies are correct in razor-thin races. .......But Kiser and the former Democratic chairman of the House Ethics and Elections Committee, Norm Ostrau of Plantation, said lawmakers meant only to allow manual recounts when vote-counting machines failed. Lawmakers didn`t intend for recounts when voters failed to completely punch the ballot or voted for two candidates, Ostrau said. .....Ostrau, now a Broward County assistant attorney, helped draft his county's case now before the Supreme Court. But he conceded, "I lean more toward the interpretation of the secretary [of state] as to what we intended to do. I feel that we intended that there be an equipment problem before allowing a check." ......." Florida Supreme Court 11/16/00 "...... The Democrats have filed an emergency petition with the Florida Suprem Court in an attempt to disqualify Katherine Harris because of her family contributions to the Bush campaign and her official position in the Bush primary race in New Hampshire......" Freeper mombonn "Brit asking about why hand counts allowed in TX. Answer - most are scanned, don't have to worry about chads. ......" Cheney speech "....... "Our concern is that all this manual counting, is no longer counting, but merely manipulation of the ballots." "The overwhelming counties in Texas use an optical scan, not a punch card ballot....very different situation." "You could go back for example, and talk about what happenned on election night. Network call....discouraged thousands of our voters on the west coast" ....." Freeper A Citizen Reporter "..."What will you do on Sat? if SOS certifies?" It will clearly be our view, using legal procedures in FL, that we would consider we have won the presidency!" (there were a lot more words in there that I missed!) ...." MSNBC 11/16/00 Freeper ConservChristian "...... Just heard Ms Mitchell on the tube talking to some legal pundit. He says judge Lewis won't just rule on the wording of some obscure statute. He will take it "all" into account. What is this crap? "Obscure statute?" These guys are spinning for judicial legislation like mad. The media is trying to make today AL GORE day. "Great day for Gore," Ms Mitchell says. ...... This Gore team is out there trying to use the Supreme Court "direction" to the counties saying that they can keep counting as some kind of precedent. They would probably tell me I could go to work today to. No one wants to talk about the WORDING of the statute tomorrow that will be decided. I don't see how Lewis can get around upholding the SoS actions. Anyone have a different read on this....." MSNBC 11/16/00 Freeper madmaxx "....Brian Williams on MSNBC just reported that the Gore campaign is threatening Katherine Harris with a "Whitewater style" investigation if she acts against Al Gore. ....." adds billhilly "..... An unnamed Gore campaign member who was unnamed. Howard Fineman of Newsweek was also aware of it. ....." adds Ozymandias Ghost "..... Daley was mention as the person who made the comment about the "Whitewater Style Investigation." ......" Freeper Clarity recalls an important meeting "...... Here's a start. The meeting was chaired by the former atty general of Massachusettes. He introduced Peter Knight, who I'm sure you know is Gore's chief of staff and a big money raiser. Knight spoke and then introduced Daley, who spoke about various problems in the Gore campaign. The meeting was for people who had raised big money for Bradley. I was invited by a close friend to attend. There were about a dozen or so in attendance. The meeting lasted about 30 -45 minutes. Some of it was shocking. Some of it was pathetic. All of it was interesting. ......." Clarity "....More tomorrow when I check my notes. His big concern was getting out the vote. Said they were making plans to take Florida. ...." Bush-Cheney 2000! 11/15/00 ".....Statement By Governor George W. Bush Tonight, Secretary Cheney and I thank the many thousands of Americans who have written, or called or emailed to offer prayers and encouragement as we all await the outcome of the election. I'm sure that Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman are receiving similar good wishes and would want to join us in thanking our fellow Americans for their caring and concern. No matter who you voted for in this election, whether you supported Vice President Gore, or whether you supported me, all Americans want a fair and accurate count of the votes in Florida -- a fair and accurate count that measures up to the highest standards and principles outlined in our Constitution and our laws. As we work to conclude this election, we should be guided by three principles:

This process must be fair. This process must be accurate. And this process must be final. ..... Statement By Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris Good evening. On Tuesday evening, I requested those counties contemplating manual vote recounts to submit a written statement to me of the facts and circumstances justifying any belief on their part, that they should be allowed to amend their certified returns previously filed by them, in accordance with law. All three counties, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward, responded by the 2 p.m. deadline today, and I thank them. Copies of their responses have already been distributed. Additionally, Collier County asked about the possibility of an amendment to their return, unrelated to the manual recount issue. A copy of that letter has also been distributed. For the past week I have devoted a substantial amount of my time to issues surrounding the manual vote recounts. After Judge Lewis's decision yesterday morning, my staff and I, along with counsel, developed criteria appropriate to the exercise of my discretion under Florida law. This criteria is clearly set forth in Florida case law. For the past six hours I have applied these criteria in deliberating upon the specific requests of the counties, contemplating manual vote recounts. As a result of these deliberations, I have decided it is my duty under Florida law to exercise my discretion in denying these requested amendments. The reasons given in their requests are insufficient to warrant waiver of the unambiguous filing deadline imposed by the Florida legislature. I have communicated this decision with these counties, in letters detailing the criteria I used in making my judgments and the application of these criteria to the stated circumstances. And copies of these letters are also available. Because it is my determination that no amendments to the official returns now on file at the Department of State are warranted, the state Elections Canvassing Commission, acting in its normal and usual manner, has certified the results of Tuesday's election in Florida, including the presidential election. Copies of that portion of the certification related to the presidential election and the signature pages of the certification are also available. As I've previously indicated, I expect that after the receipt, tabulation and certification of the overseas ballots by the counties, the state Elections Canvassing Commission will finally certify the presidential election in Florida on Saturday. The schedule, of course, is subject to judicial intervention. In that context, I once again will be unable personally to answer questions. However, I have with me our general counsel, Debbie Kearning (ph), and two of our outside counsel, Joe Clock (ph) and Donna Blanton, and I've asked them to remain behind to answer appropriate questions from you. One final comment. I want to reassure the public that my decision in this process has been made carefully, consistently, independently and I believe correctly. I'm very grateful for your patience and your understanding. Thank you and God bless. ..... Statement By Former Secretary of State James Baker November 15, 2000 Five days ago, shortly after election day, I cautioned that there would be no reasonable end to the election process in Florida, if it dissolves into multiple recounts and court cases. That's exactly what's happening. The Gore campaign refused to accept the vote count on election day. They refused to accept the results of a recount of all of Florida's counties. They refused to accept the results of the "test" manual recounts in selected, Democratic counties that produced changes of only a few votes. Indeed, Palm Beach County is now in the process of its fourth vote count. ........ Recent Columns:

The Washington Post Slow-Motion Larceny George F. Will 11/15/00 In his campaign to follow in the presidency a man defined by moral turpitude, Al Gore promised, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Now we know what he meant. Credit him with a promise kept. For the complete article, click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14424-2000Nov13.html ***** Las Vegas Sun Statistics point to more than random error in Florida vote Jace Radke 11/10/00 At one in 49 million, the chances of hitting Megabucks on one spin are slim, but not as slim as the odds that Vice President Al Gore would make up as much ground as he has in the Florida recount, according to a UNLV study. For the complete article, click here: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/archives/2000/nov/10/511018638.html _______________________________________________ 5 Quotes of Note "I'm not like George Bush. If he wins or loses, life goes on. I'll do anything to win." - Al Gore to an aide in 1999 as the campaign was just gearing up "This isn't about some numbers game or just simply counting up the ballots." - Gore campaign senior advisor Ron Klain, 11/09/00 "Under siege from lawyers and political spinners, the Sunshine State signaled yesterday that light may finally be dawning over the longest election night in modern American history, with George W. Bush a step closer to the White House..." - Helene Cooper, John McKinnon and Joni James, "When Will It End?," The Wall Street Journal FoxNews 11/16/00 Freeper Alissa "...... Fox News broke into Shephard Smith's show to announce that PBC has just changed their counting procedure AGAIN to include the dimpled ballots. Cameron (?) stated this is a change of procedure that has been in place for the last 10 years! He was dripping with sarcasm......" Ronald D. Rotunda 11/16/00 Cato Insitute (Ronald D. Rotunda is a visiting senior fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute.) "....Partisan Democrats are emphasizing that only state law governs the recount in Florida. They should know better. A number of federal statutes - as well as the Constitution - limit Florida's power over elections. Vice President Gore wants hand counting of ballots, but only in certain counties - the ones that heavily favor the Democrats. This selective hand counting biases the results and thus violates the equal-protection clause. ....." Ronald D. Rotunda 11/16/00 Cato Insitute "....... Hand counting always increases the number of votes counted, because the human being will accept more ballots than the machine accepts. ... The hand count increases the total for both candidates, but in a way that is statistically proportional to the machine votes

already cast. So it doesn't change the results, it only gives Gov. Bush (who won the machine count) slightly more votes if there is a complete, statewide human hand count........... Because a hand recount enlarges the vote proportionately, forcing hand counts only in Democratic counties guarantees only Democratic gains. That's why the vice president asked for hand counts only in the counties that favor him.. ......." Ronald D. Rotunda 11/16/00 Cato Insitute "...... This selective recount violates the equal-protection clause because it treats two voters differently, depending on the counties they live in. The ballots in the Bush counties are machine-counted and the computer rejects some ballots based on nonpartisan, consistent reasons (e.g., the chad in the punch card has not been pushed through), but the ballots in the Gore counties are hand counted - and so the hand counters accept some ballots as valid, although that exact same ballot would not be counted in the Bush counties. Counting some ballots and not others, depending on where the voters live, violates equal protection. ....... This violation exists even if the human beings who are doing the hand count are nonpartisan, completely objective, error-free, and always consistent. In fact, we know that they are not. For example, even before the selective hand recount, Palm Beach County certified 800 more votes than its precinct-by-precinct canvass reported on election night. That's not fuzzy math; it's impossible math. ....." KFYI News Radio - Phoenix 11/16/00 Charles Goyette "...... News radio host Charles Goyette (4-7 PM Phoenix time) is currently on the radio and is suggesting a great Republican response to the subjective, manipulated recounts going on in Florida: do the Atlas Shrug...WALK AWAY! For those Republicans involved in these manual recounts as observers and examiners, do the honorable thing, disengage yourself from participating in this controlled attempt to STEAL an election. Goyette has said it is the only "reasonable and honorable thing" that those in the trenches can do. Don't play their game!....." Associated Press 11/16/00 Catherine Wilson "......Miami-Dade County may jump into the presidential recount again Friday when its canvassing board reconsiders a Democratic request for a hand count of presidential ballots. The panel previously rejected the request on a 2-1 vote. County Democratic chairman Joseph Geller asked for another chance Wednesday, and the board set a hearing for Friday. Republican attorney Bob Martinez fought the move, charging the request was ``out of line'' and pleading for an end to political maneuvering. .....`` The Etherzone 11/17/00 John Bender "......In defiance of Florida law and against the advice of their own attorney, the Palm Beach County canvassing board resumed hand counting ballots today. This blatantly criminal act shows the depths the Gore team will sink to in order to overturn the election and steal the Presidency from President-elect Bush.Yesterday the State Division of Elections ordered the board to stop their illegal hand count. ......" WorldNetDaily 11/16/00 Jon Dougherty "......On Monday, WorldNetDaily featured a headline describing how Democratic operatives steal elections from Republican opponents. According to sources we spoke with, several elections -- perhaps as many as seven or more -- have been "taken" from victorious GOP candidates over a span of two decades. Worse, the very tactics used to steal those races are now being employed in an attempt to snatch victory away from Gov. George W. Bush in the state of Florida. I've said this before, but it bears repeating: the modern Democratic Party is little more than a bastion for socialists, communist thinkers and usurpers of the Constitution. If you're a Democratic politician and that characterization doesn't fit you, then you ought to switch parties. That makes many Democrats betrayers of the Constitution -- not the least of which includes the vice president, first lady and House minority leader. Consider: Al Gore -- who has sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution -- steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the constitutional election process that left him a loser in the Nov. 7 election. His remedy is to "use the courts to enforce the will of the people," but the "courts" have nothing to say in this; the Constitution is the only legal precedent Americans can use to determine the outcome of a presidential election. And the Constitution is "the will of the people" in this nation -- or, rather, is supposed to be. ....." Secretary Baker speech on Florida Supreme Court Decision Freeper WvHSmom "...... "this decision does nothing more than preserve the status quo" ....." Freeper KeatsforFirstdog "..... Ladies and Gentle, as one who has practised law for many years, you have just witnessed the great art of political spin. ....one line order by the Supreme Court...did not certify results...did not speak to Sec of State or AG's opinion controls manual recounts...court said no legal authority to stop manual recount ......allows status quo ...." Newsmax 11/16/00 "...A federal appeals court has been taking swift action in a legal case that could stop the manual recount under way in several Florida counties. On Wednesday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed to expedite an appeal filed by three residents of Brevard County, Fla., who claim the hand counting of ballots in select Florida counties - all of which have canvassing boards controlled by Democrats is unconstitutional. ..... The three Florida residents are represented by Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based religious freedom law firm affiliated with Jerry Falwell Ministries. Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, and

Jerry Falwell Jr. serve as co-counsel of the organization. The appeal asks the court to immediately halt the manual recounts of ballots arguing the selective recounting undermines the constitutional right of all citizens to have their votes count equally. ........ On Wendesday, the court directed the counties of Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Volusia, along with the secretary of elections, to file briefs by 7 a.m. Thursday. All counties except Miami-Dade responsed to the court's order. In another sign the court is moving expeditiously on this case, the appeals court also agreed to impanel the entire court to hear the appeal, which means that the full 12 members of the court will sit, rather than the typical three-judge panel..... Harvard attorney Lawrence Tribe, representing the Gore campaign, has filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the suit. Already four attorney generals from several states, including Connecticut, Iowa and Oregon, have filed amicus briefs in support of the Liberty Counsel suit. ......." http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/board/agendas/2000-08-16_Agenda.txt 6. CONSIDER SETTLEMENT OF CAROL ROBERTS I recommend the School Board approve the Settlement Agreement accepting Carol Roberts' resignation from her teaching position and her acceptance of employment in a non-instructional position, subject to her new position's job performance evaluation process. FoxNews 11/16/00 Freeper LYNXcry "...... Hannity just announced that now Palm Beach tonight has changed their rule of 10 years ago, to allow dimples just as Broward County did. Also on is Steve Forbes who has said he knows now that Dems are right now compiling information on all of the Florida electors and other electors to put pressure on them.....this means Carville and the smear gang will be out to blackmail any one of them who may have something in their past they do not want known, and they will be persuaded to jump ship to Gore. Forbes said outright..."THEY ARE NOT GOING TO STOP UNTIL THEY STEAL THIS ELECTION"... to me it is apparent that they definitely do NOT want a GOP justice dept in there to investigate all of their crimes. ....." The Times (UK) 11/17/00 Daniel McGrory "...... DEPRIVED of a recount in Florida's biggest county, Democrat leaders are demanding urgent action by America's highest law officers after allegations of widespread fraud in Miami. The allegations of vote tampering, with black supporters of Al Gore said to be among the main victims, have already prompted an investigation by the Justice Department. ....... ...... Gus Garcia, a senior figure in the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, said last night: "Of course our opponents are going to scream foul, but how else can you explain these figures unless there were dirty tricks. We need urgent action because while the courts can pick and choose over whether to allow hand counts, they have to act if they find fraud, and we believe that is what happened in parts of Miami." Officials have discovered that while in the rest of Miami-Dade County under 3per cent of ballot slips were double-punched, in two dozen predominantly black areas between 8 and 11 per cent were fouled, the highest rates recorded in this area. ........ The Democrats allege that some ballots had already been marked before being handed to voters. Once they added their punch hole against Mr Gore's name, the machines tallying the count would spot the other mark on the ballot and just dismiss it as a spoiled vote. Kendrick Meek, a state Senator, said: "The claim that so many people in these areas were stupid and messed up the ballot doesn't ring true. These same people in the same precincts have never made so many mistakes before. And why are the mistakes only on the presidential vote, on what is a simple, single punch card ballot?" The Justice Department in Washington said: "We have received allegations from areas of Miami-Dade which we are investigating. We have also been told there will be further allegations of election irregularities being sent to us." ...." New York Times 11/16/00 William Safire "..... Al Gore is determined to fight to the finish. His strategy is to draw the finish line at a place where he takes the lead. ......Gore tried to avert a quick Bush victory in Florida by demanding a manual recount of the machine recount in selected counties. In response, George W. Bush set aside the traditional Republican preference for states' rights by going to federal court to deny the counties' recounts. But the federal judge denied that Bush request for intervention. ......... At midnight Friday, the overseas absentee ballots will be counted. If Gore picks up some 300 votes and thereby wins the Florida machine-plus-absentee total, Bush should give up and make an immortal concession speech. .....Assume, however, that tomorrow's overseas vote favors Bush. Gore will not concede. He will insist that manual recounting in his strongholds continue and thereby move the finish line further ahead. ....... But Florida Secretary of State Harris says she has duly considered the counties' requests for hand re- recounts, and following the court's guidelines - has non-arbitrarily turned them down. And she could then declare Bush the winner after the overseas count. ........" New York Times 11/16/00 William Safire "..... Then what? The Florida Supreme Court, in a ruling yesterday, tipped its hand about what side it would take. Its Democrats would probably continue to allow the hand rerecounts to go forward, hoping that Gore would come out ahead. ........... The answer for Bush would be to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue that a manual recount would introduce more human error or possible

go to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue that a manual recount would introduce more human error or possible mischief and stretch out the decision for weeks. If the high court disagreed, all would not be lost for Bush: nobody knows what result a statewide manual recount would bring. ...... The Supreme Court (whose unanimous ruling against Nixon on the tapes led to his resignation) would put its imprimatur on the best way to decide who shall occupy the presidency. And the vast majority of Americans would readily accept the decision. ........... Neither the Harris pat, in Cole Porter's phrase, nor the partisan state judges can legitimate our national election. Once the legal game began, the game had to be played out to the end. But it need not be the bitter end. ......." Telegraph/UK 11/17/00 Toby Harnden Ben Fenton "....... WITH George W Bush narrowly ahead in the vote count, Al Gore last night returned to the courts in a final attempt to stop authorities in Florida declaring a winner tomorrow......Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State and a Republican, is due tomorrow evening to certify the final Florida result which will confirm the winner of the race for the White House. ....... With Mr Bush having flatly rejected his rival's offer of a hand recount across Florida in exchange for all legal actions being dropped, Mr Gore was increasingly depending on the legal system to deliver victory. Having seized the initiative with his dramatic television address on Wednesday night, the Vice President argued that legal actions were designed to "short circuit" the democratic process by preventing all votes being properly counted. .........In court papers, the Bush campaign responded: "The entire nation is witnessing the disintegration of a process that was designed to elect America's president." While both sides concentrated on the court battles, their campaigns were also seeking to win in the court of public opinion, which could be vital when the eventual president begins governing. ......" Newsmax 11/16/00 "...... A majority of Americans now say that Texas Governor George W. Bush "should be the next president of the United States based on what they currently know about the election," a new Harris poll has found. ...... Just 40 percent of those surveyed said they now backed Vice President Al Gore, a precitpitous 9 point decline from the 49 percent of the popular vote he won on Election Day. .....Harris also found that most Americans believe George Bush will be elected president "if the votes are counted perfectly, accurately and honestly in Florida." The margin of Bush's edge here is a whopping 20 points -- 52 to 32 percent -- a gap so large that it suggests most Americans would suspect the process was rigged if Gore somehow emerges the winner. .........Harris found that if Gore wins, only "42 percent of voters across the country will believe that the results were arrived at fairly. By contrast," said Harris, "56 percent of the voters will believe that the results have been fairly arrived at if Bush wins the Florida election." ....." The Associated Press, 11/16/00 "....... -Gore asked a Florida judge to require the state to count ballots being hand tallied after the deadline. Gore, who trails George W. Bush by 300 votes in decisive Florida, asked the Tallahassee judge to reverse Harris' decision. Democrats want final vote certification in Florida delayed until all recount totals are in. ......... Gore's legal team filed arguments Thursday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The court agreed Wednesday to consider arguments on Bush's attempt to halt manual recounts. .......An apparent citizen lawsuit was filed in circuit court to stop a hand recount in Broward County, arguing that the canvassing board acted illegally. Subpoenas were served on the three-member canvassing board, ordering them to appear at a hearing Friday. Another citizen lawsuit was filed in Palm Beach County asking a circuit court to order a revote there. ....." The American Partisan 11/16/00 J King "..... The media, collectively, should implode in a fiery ball of righteousness sent from Heaven for their eager collusion in this ongoing mess. Fair-mindedness? Forget it. Even-handed? Hah! Any attempt to portray themselves as such now should be greeted with guffaws of hilarity. Thank God for the Internet - the samizdat of our era. ........ The media went all out for Al Gore before the election. In a pre-calculated conspiracy; they counted Florida for Gore 20 minutes after the polls closed on the East Coast - costing George W. innumerable votes in the Panhandle and the West. The NAACP, egged on by the talking heads, shed the tattered remnants of its once-proud heritage in order to viciously and inaccurately - paint George W. Bush as a racist and a murderer. Bill, Hill and the gang invaded black churches to rail against W from the pulpit. What? No separation of church and state? Ah, that only goes for white people. Jesse Jackson said so. .......... Last Tuesday the vote-fraud division of the DNC was out in full force - certifying votes from non-citizens, keeping the ballots out of the hands of the active duty military, breaking "hanging chads" and pushing rods down the "Gore Hole" in order to double-punch and thereby invalidate votes for other presidential candidates. .....And Gore still lost. Twice. ......" CBSNews 11/16/00 Susan Walsh "...... There's a traffic jam on the High Road. ...... George W. Bush campaign chairman Don Evans announced Thursday that Bush will not request a recount of the presidential vote in Iowa, where Al Gore won by less than 1 percent. .....By conceding Iowa, Bush shows that, unlike Gore, he is willing to die politically for the good of the country. (Without Florida's 25 electoral votes, Bush would have to overturn the results in at least three of the closest states to win the presidency). ....... While Gore talks the talk of closure and conciliation, sources on his campaign say that Bush's rejection of Gore's offer to foreswear litigation in exchange for an agreement to respect a tally involving at least some manual recounts, gives them a certain ... latitude. ..... In fact, sources say, "all options" are back on the table. ..........

Among the tactics of last resort under consideration: suing for a new election in Palm Beach County, and maybe Broward County. As they say in kickball: "Do-over!" ......... So far, the American people have been patient and cool-headed. ........ In a Pew Research poll out this week, almost 68 percent said that if Bush pulls out a narrow victory in Florida, winning the Electoral College, he will have "legitimately won the election." And a CBS News/New York Times survey conducted over the weekend found that 62 percent think the fact that we don't have a winner yet is "not really a problem." ....... "My reading of this is people are patient because the process doesn't seem to be over," says Huddy. For example, Huddy says Americans have been aware that Florida is receiving overseas ballots through Friday. But once "one of these legitimate deadlines passes" she predicts things will become "increasingly partisan" and direct involvement by Gore and Bush will only increase the public's sense of "partisan bickering." ........... "After tomorrow, especially given George W. Bush's speech last night, his supporters will become impatient with the process" because to their way of thinking "it's over," says Huddy. "By Monday, I guess there is going to be greater heat." ........The early polls suggest the Gore team may have some explaining to do if they decided to go all the way with the win-ugly strategy. ....." ABC News 11/16/00 ".......At least Friday's count of Florida's absentee ballots will be the simplest votetallying task in this excruciating election, right? Don't bet on it. Given the litigious nature of the presidential election so far, legal experts and elections officials say Florida election officials may have to deal with challenges to Friday's count of the overseas absentee ballots, creating yet another source of contention in this unresolved vote. ....... Smudgy or absent postmarks could leave local canvassing boards with the power to determine crucial votes in this close election, actions that could be disputed on federal constitutional grounds. Citizens may also question overseas ballots with what are called "protests," leading possibly to manual recounts of certain machine-counted overseas ballots with hanging "chads," for example......." Associated Press 11/16/00 Tom Raum "....Texas Gov. George W. Bush remained on his isolated ranch as subdued advisers shed the exuberance of a week ago when they paraded would-be Cabinet members before cameras. The new reticence reflected both the passage of time and the growing influence of James A. Baker III. ...... Top Bush campaign officials said little on Thursday, leaving details of the vote recount in Florida to the former secretary of state, known for his meticulous attention to detail and careful use of language. .......Baker, a longtime friend of Bush's father and also close to GOP vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney, had not played a visible role in Bush's campaign. But, from Tallahassee, Fla., he is increasingly becoming the voice of the campaign in its current state of limbo. ........In the days immediately after the election, Bush advisers exhibited no reluctance in talking about transition planning for a Bush presidency, saying it was in the national interest. More recently, they've grown silent on the subject. Condoleezza Rice, expected to be the national security adviser in a Bush administration, declined to discuss it on Thursday. She had been one of those presented in a picture-taking session last week with Bush in the governor's mansion here as he discussed potential transition planning. "We are all awaiting the outcome of this election. I think that's appropriate," Rice told a reporter in Washington, D.C., where she was attending a foreign policy conference. She said he had been in frequent contact with Bush to keep him apprised of national security developments, but she would not elaborate. ....." Remarks by Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley National Association of Counties 3/6/00 "...... One of the things Javier Gonzales left out of his very kind introduction was the fact that I am also the longest serving Commerce Secretary this century -- all of 66 days. ......... We are in the midst of a huge job, and, frankly, the most important job government will do this year. The busiest place in America in the next few months will be the Census Bureau. ..... We are in your neighborhoods now. We have opened more than 500 offices. Each office is hiring, and hiring, and hiring -- mostly for part-time jobs lasting up to 10 weeks. Before this is over, we will have about as many people working for Census as work for General Motors. ....... In fact, Carol Roberts from Palm Beach County Florida was a former census employee, and now as a County Commissioner is touring all those condos in Palm Beach getting everybody to participate. Our workers are in high gear. They have started to hand deliver the census package to households in rural areas that are hard to reach. And next week, 100 million residences will get one of these, a census form in the mail. ....." Freeper Alex P Keaton 11/15/00 "...... Something very interesting has come up in my analysis of the precinctby-precinct returns in Palm Beach County. While Bush ran ahead of GOP Senate candidate Bill McCollum in almost all of the state, one of the few counties in which McCollum (who lost) ran ahead of Bush (who won!) was Palm Beach. I believe someone said it was the only candidate in which Gore won that McCollum ran ahead of Bush. In analyzing the returns and plugging them into my trusty spreadsheat, I found that McCollum ran ahead of Bush in 320 of the approximately 531 voting precincts in Palm Beach County. In most of the counties, the difference was modest... but a handful, particularly in overwhelmingly African-American and pro-Gore precincts, McCollum got at least twice as many votes as Bush.

This is where it gets fishy: in Broward county, which is even more solidly Democratic, Bush ran ahead of McCollum by 3,000 votes. In Miami-Dade, Bush ran ahead of McCollum by 25,000. AND IN VIRTUALLY ALL THE ABSENTEE BALLOT COUNTS IN PALM BEACH COUNTY, BUSH RAN AHEAD OF McCOLLUM. The word on the street is that McCollum is hated in South Florida for his role in Impeachment. Why would anyone in a heavily Democratic precinct vote for McCollum but not vote for Bush? Answer: Maybe because Bush's ballots were tampered with and probably purposefully double-punched by DemocRAT poll workers. This is a breakdown of the precincts, where percentage wise, McCollum ran far ahead of Bush. Most of these precincts are in black neighborhoods where Gore got at least 95% of the vote. Precinct Bush McCollum 99 1 9 67 12 45 85 2 7 66 25 73 100 8 22 59 21 52 74D 5 12 82 21 44 I also have a spreadsheet full of statistics for PBC which can be used to analyze for DemocRAT fraud which I can send on request. ....." Washington Times 11/17/00 Donald Lambro "...... Florida voters are willing to wait until tomorrow for the results of the election, but a strong national plurality now thinks that Texas Gov. George W. Bush will be the next president, new polls show. Nearly three-quarters of Florida voters (71 percent) said they are willing to wait until tomorrow -when Secretary of State Katherine Harris has said she will certify the presidential vote count, an NBC/ Wall Street Journal survey found. But little more than a third (36 percent) said they were willing to wait several weeks for a determination of whether Mr. Bush or Vice President Al Gore won Florida ...." New York Times 11/17/00 ".....But interviews with the secretaries of state in New Jersey and Connecticut and the members of the State Board of Elections in New York made two things clear. First, their views of Ms. Harris, the Republican and Bush supporter who has had to juggle party ties and her reading of state election law, tended to be aligned with the positions of their political party. Second, if a controversy like the one in Palm Beach County were to occur in the region, it would most likely happen in New Jersey, where Sussex and Salem Counties still use punch-card ballots and Warren County uses fill-in-the- ovals ballots........... In Connecticut and New York, Democratic election officials said they viewed the continuing uncertainty in Florida as unfortunate but proper, the unavoidable result of doing whatever is necessary to gauge the intent of the state's voters most accurately.......... Republican election officials in New York and elsewhere, on the other hand, uniformly described the contradictory legal rulings and electoral indecision as a breach of the state's legal deadlines for tabulating the presidential vote count and a potential threat to the integrity of future elections. ........Moreover, they said, challenging a machine-counted vote total with a manual recount, as Palm Beach County and other heavily Democratic counties in Florida are seeking to do, is likely to change votes unfairly.......... "You can't take a vote that's been set and just change it afterward," said Helena Moses Donohue, a Republican commissioner on New York's Board of Elections. "They want to sit and hold each one of these cards to the light. They weren't made for that," she said. "If they were uncomfortable with it, why didn't they say something six months ago?"........"The more people winnow away at the integrity of the election," she said, "the more questions you're going to have afterward. You can't let emotions rule this thing. And that's what's happening now."........... Ralph D. Munro, Washington's secretary of state, a Republican, and a member of the National Association of Secretaries of State's elections committee, said Ms. Harris had properly upheld Florida's election laws. "I spoke to Katherine Harris yesterday," Mr. Munro said in a telephone interview from Seattle on Wednesday, "and I asked her three questions: `Are you following the law, are you being fair and are you telling the truth?' She answered yes to all three of those, and that's all

you can do," he said. "I think that her critics are being very unfair."....." New York Times 11/17/00 Clifford Levy ".....A herd of television trucks was massed out front, and court clerks had to trudge to work at 5:30 this morning to process the latest urgently requested documents. Already jolted once this year by the Elin Gonzlez case, the federal appeals court here began today to sort out another clamorous dispute from Florida, the question of whether to allow manual recounts of presidential ballots........... It is unclear whether the appeals court intends to hold a hearing; it could issue a decision based only on court papers, perhaps as soon as Friday............But the court has signaled the importance of the case by having all 12 members of the court consider it, departing from the customary practice of using three-member panels to weigh appeals........... With the manual recounts continuing and the Bush campaign suffering a setback today in the Florida Supreme Court, the decision here could be crucial. If the Bush campaign loses, its only recourse on the federal level would be the United States Supreme Court........ In papers filed with the appeals court, the Bush campaign emphasized the points it made to the lower court, saying that manual recounting of some votes but not others violated constitutional guarantees that all votes be treated equally. "It is difficult to imagine a legal question of greater national significance," the papers said.......... The Florida Democratic Party, which is representing the interests of Vice President Al Gore's campaign, has responded that the federal courts do not have jurisdiction over the case, and should allow state courts in Florida to settle it. The lower federal court in Miami essentially agreed with that view........" New York Times 11/17/00 Clifford Levy "....."This is a slam-dunk easy case," said Prof. Richard D. Freer of Emory Law School here, who described his legal philosophy as similar to the court's. "There is a better chance that Elin Gonzlez will come back and be in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade than that the 11th Circuit will do anything with this. They will affirm what the lower judge said." .......... And at least one lawyer on the Democratic side fretted that a 12- member court could be a bad omen. "What happened in the 11th Circuit is kind of surprising to me," said Bruce S. Rogow, a lawyer for Theresa LePore, the Palm Beach County elections supervisor. "Maybe I'm off base here, but the suggestion that I get here is that the court is somewhat receptive to their arguments."....." New York Times 11/17/00 Eric Schmitt "......House Republicans accused the national television networks today of being biased against Gov. George W. Bush in their election-night coverage, discouraging Republican turnout in conservative strongholds like the Florida Panhandle and Orange County, Calif........ Representative Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican who heads the House Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications, said he would hold hearings early next year and summon network executives to give "a full airing" of how they called winners........... Mr. Tauzin said Congressional investigators had found delays in calling nine states that Mr. Bush won by at least six percentage points but no delays in any state that Vice President Al Gore had carried by the same margin......... "The message that was sent out by the networks by calling the Al Gore states early and delaying the calls on the George W. Bush states, you receive a picture of America believing that Al Gore was sweeping the country, and that George W. Bush was having trouble carrying his states," Mr. Tauzin said. Mr. Tauzin said the information painted "a very disturbing picture, I think, of probable bias." ......." New York Times 11/17/00 Sam Howe Verhovek "......With an eye on the clock in Florida, the Bush campaign today officially abandoned any effort to contest Iowa's seven electoral votes, casting the decision as a highroad way to help ensure the "fairness, accuracy and finality" of the presidential election. There was particular emphasis, of course, on "finality." ......... Obviously, the Bush campaign's decision to give up on Iowa was an easier call than the Gore campaign's decision in Florida, since the latter would involve giving up any chance for the White House. Nonetheless, Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, sought to draw a direct analogy between the two, saying: "We were faced with a deadline. We made a decision that takes the high ground. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in 1960 and 1976 were faced with similar decisions. They made a decision that kept the high ground. The day is quickly approaching for the vice president to make a similar choice." ......" New York Times 11/16/00 Mireya Navarro Lynette Holloway "......Bolstered by a Florida Supreme Court decision that allows manual ballot recounts to go on in the state, Democrats planned to press ahead with their efforts to get a hand count in Miami-Dade County. But Democratic Party lawyers conceded, and some county election officials agreed, that it was far from clear how helpful this undertaking would be to Al Gore's chances of winning the state..........Miami-Dade's three-member canvassing board was expected to meet on Friday afternoon to decide whether to reconsider its decision earlier this week to reject a manual recount of all 653,963 ballots cast in the presidential race. The board voted 2 to 1 on Tuesday not to proceed with the full recount after a hand count of 5,870 ballots in three Miami-Dade precincts gave Mr. Gore an extra six votes, not enough to justify a county- wide hand tally in the view of the board's majority. The tally for George W. Bush did not change......." WorldNetDaily 11/16/00 Craige McMillan "........ Item: WND reports that legal aliens (nonresidents) living in

California and Washington received letters and voting documents urging them to vote -- mailed by the Democratic Party and signed by President Bill Clinton "Voter fraud, again!" by Joseph Farah, Nov. 6). Item: WND reports that tens of thousands of servicemen and women did not receive their ballot in time to vote ( "Will Congress probe military-ballot snafu?" by Jon Dougherty, Nov. 10). Item: The Pensacola News Journal reports an absentee ballot diversion scheme in Florida, uncovered by the son of a federal judge. Two ballots -- thought to have been lost -- turned up to be counted, but the signatures were forged ("Pensacola ballot prompts fraud investigation: Elections supervisor discovers forged ballot," by Scott Streater, Nov. 9). Item: Edward Nelson, president of U.S. Border Control, suggests that illegal immigrants and other nonqualified voters will elect the next U.S. President. "We believe that the national average for non-citizen voting is about 2-4 percent with it spiking up to 10-15 percent in places like Dade County, Florida, and in major cities that have large current immigrant populations," said Mr. Nelson (PRNewswire, "Non-citizens to Choose Next President Says U.S. Border Control," Nov. 9). Item: The Honolulu Advertiser reports that a recent check of voter registrations found "550 Hawaii residents who are not U.S. citizens have registered to vote" ("State election officials said yesterday that they will meet with O'ahu and neighbor island clerks to determine ways to head off illegally registered voters at the polls this year," by Scott Ishikawa and Kevin Dayton, Sept. 7). All of this is in addition to the Clinton administration's documented immigrant fast-track citizenship programs, which have granted citizenship to known criminals, freeing them in their new homeland to prey on innocent Americans who "worked hard and played by the rules." Other applicants who had no business even visiting this country, let alone living here, were rushed through the citizenship maze based on the theory they would, perhaps out of gratitude, vote for the Democratic Party. If we were discussing stock certificates, the masterminds of this fraudulent scheme would be in jail for diluting the holdings of existing shareholders. Is our nation at least as valuable as a publicly traded company? If so, where are the federal officials whose sworn duty is to protect us from this abuse? ............. The Democratic Party revealed its hand when it crafted the "motor-voter" bill, which made registration so easy that we stopped asking for proof of citizenship. Apparently, we didn't want to hurt the feelings of non-residents who longed to participate in American democracy -- perhaps by voting themselves increasing benefits and obtaining representation from those intent on erasing our nation's history and values -- because that's what stood in the way of their hold on power. Republicans failed to recognize that the motor-voter law was designed to be -- as this election demonstrates -- the last nail in their party's coffin. ......." Washington Times 11/17/00 Audrey Hudson "....... Republican lawmakers said yesterday they will investigate whether news-media projections that Vice President Al Gore won Florida deprived Gov. George W. Bush of votes and disenfranchised voters. ...... The congressmen were mainly concerned with the projections' effect in the Florida Panhandle. Voting behavior there from 1988 to 2000 shows the Republican vote rate was 4 percent lower than expected last week, according to an analysis by Yale University Law School senior research scholar John R. Lott Jr. "That 4 percent in the Panhandle equates to nearly 10,000 votes in the counties of the Panhandle," said Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Louisiana Republican, citing the study during a Capitol Hill press conference to highlight the need for an oversight hearing...............As chairman of the Commerce Committee telecommunications subcommittee, Mr. Tauzin said last week he will conduct such hearings as early as December on the premature announcements that Mr. Gore was the Florida victor. "If Mr. Lott's information is verified by actual evidence, perhaps as many as 10,000 Republican voters in the Panhandle were dissuaded from voting because of the early erroneous call of the state for Al Gore when those voters were still going to the polls in the Panhandle of Florida," Mr. Tauzin said.........About 7:50 p.m. EST on Election Day, less than an hour after many of the polls closed in Florida, both CBS and NBC declared Mr. Gore the winner in that state, a decision based largely upon exit polls conducted by Voter News Service. Fox News, CNN and ABC followed shortly although polls in the Panhandle were still open......... Bush backers soon complained, saying early returns showed it was too tight to call. By 10 p.m., most networks reversed and said Florida was still undecided......." New York Times 11/17/00 Raymond Bonner Josh Barbanel ".....Democrats in Duval County prepared meticulously for Election Day. They registered thousands of voters and ferried enough people to the polls in predominantly African-American precincts to give a solid boost to Vice President Al Gore in a county expected to swing reliably into Gov. George W. Bush's column. But the results of Duval County's vote left Democrats here shaking their heads. More than 26,000 ballots were invalidated, the vast majority because

they contained votes for more than one presidential candidate. Nearly 9,000 of the votes were thrown out in the predominantly African-American communities around Jacksonville, where Mr. Gore scored 10-to-1 ratios of victory, according to an analysis of the vote by The New York Times. ......... The percentage of invalidated votes here was far higher than that recorded in Palm Beach County, which has become the focus of national attention and where Democrats have argued that so many people were disenfranchised it may be necessary to let them vote again. Neither Democrats nor Republicans have demanded a hand recount or new election in Duval County. ......" Freeper cantfindagoodscreenname "...... Can someone tell me if the servicemen who are stationed in places that don't get a US postmark (the free ones people have been talking about here tonight) have the ability to get one if they need one? Or do they have no option other than mail it without a postmark? ....." Freeper encm (ss) respons "..... Submarines, destroyers, and other small ships DO NOT have a post office. No Postmark. If you are APO or FPO. Air Post Office or Fleet Post Office and you may not have a post mark on your sent out mail. My wife and familily often recieved mail without a post mark. A retired submarine sailor. ...." Freeper Will E Horton "..... Mr. Daley, and Gore, himself, have made it clear that they would rather the election not turn on "Technicalities". ...... Yet, their thwarting of the military absentee ballots are just that, "Technicalities". ...... If the FLSC rules that SOS abused her discretion in rejecting the handcounts due to a "Technicality", then by their same reasoning Republicans should these County Canvassing Commissions' to include these rejected military overseas ballots. Their decisions are no less or more discretionary than the SOS. These rulings are no less or more based on "technicalities". And, I repeat, even Daley and Gore STRESSED, that votes should not be rejected on "technicalities". ...... The Democrats are applying the standard applicable to absentee ballets entered in a foreign postal system to ballots entered by military personnel at APO and FPO addresses. ...... These ballots remained entirely within the DOMESTIC MAIL SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES from origin to destination. .... This mail was not foreign origin mail and should not be treated differently than any other domestic mail. .....It was all MARKED USPOSTAGE PAID. If anything, that is it's postmark. It was FREE OF CHARGE. Mail which is not charged does not get postmarked as a practice. ........ It is beyond the purview of the agents of the state of Florida to supersede the authority of the United States Postal SErvice. If it isn't supposed to be postmarked, or the USPS decides it doesn't need to be, it is up to Florida to accept that. It is a CONSTITUTIONAL principle. ......... Again, none of the mail from our military personnel who sent it through the military postal system had a foreign origin. It was domestic mail subject to the rules applicable to domestic mail - not foreign mail. ......." Freeper muawiyah "... The rules are: E000 Special Eligibility Standards E080 Absentee Balloting Materials Summary E080 describes the eligibility standards and required markings on envelopes or postcards for mailing absentee balloting materials. 1.0 BASIC STANDARDS Definition 1.1 Balloting materials, consisting of postcard applications, ballots, voting instructions, and envelopes, may be sent through the mail without prepayment of postage to enable persons in the following categories to apply for registration and vote by absentee ballot when absent from the place of voting residence and otherwise eligible to vote as an absentee: a. Members of the Armed Forces in active service and their spouses and dependents. b. Members of the U.S. Merchant Marine and their spouses and dependents. c. U.S. citizens residing outside the territorial limits of the United States and the District of Columbia and their spouses and dependents residing with or accompanying them. Eligibility 1.2 To be mailable without prepayment of postage, the balloting materials must be deposited at a U.S. post

office, an overseas U.S. military post office, or an American Embassy or American Consulate. Between Officials 1.3 Balloting materials may be mailed between state and local election officials, individually or in bulk, without prepayment of postage. Packages of materials mailed in bulk must bear an address label as described in 2.0. Elections Affected 1.4 Materials may be for any general election of electors for President and Vice President, or of senators and representatives in Congress, and other general, primary, and special elections. 2.0 MARKING Envelope 2.1 The envelope used to send balloting material and the envelope supplied for return of the ballots must have printed across the face the words "Official Absentee Balloting Material-First-Class Mail" (or similar language required by state law) in a rectangular box. Immediately below, the words "No Postage Necessary in the U.S. Mail-DMM E080" must be printed. Envelopes previously approved with the citations "DMM 137.3" or "DMM 138" must not be ejected. In the upper right corner of the envelope, in a rectangular box, the words "U.S. Postage Paid, 39 USC 3406," must be printed. An appropriate inscription or blank spaces for the return address of the sender must be shown in the upper left corner (see Exhibit 2.1). Postcard 2.2 The federal voting registration postcard application must be approximately 5 by 8 inches. The design shown in Exhibit 2.1 must be printed on the address side of the card. FIM 2.3 The correct facing identification mark (FIM) as described in S922 must be printed on the address side of envelopes and cards. ...." Freeper Sense "...... The saving grace is that rejected ballots are not opened, by are preserved, so any challenge can re-address the issue to the SOS or the courts with a fairly decent bit of evidence. It is the SOS job to ensure equal application of the rules. ..... The bigger problem comes from accepting ballots in error, becasue once they are in the system, there is no way to get them back out. ......" Reuters 11/18/00 Patricia Wilson "......Riding a roller-coaster of legal rulings in the disputed presidential race, George W. Bush returned to Austin on Friday hoping for a final Florida vote tally that could give him the state and the White House. ....... After a judge dealt a major blow to Vice President Al Gore's chances by rejecting the Democrat's bid to have manual vote recounts included in Florida's official tally, Bush, the Texas governor, made the two-hour drive from his ranch to his official residence to await certification of the state's ballot which was expected to come on Saturday. ....... But less than two hours later, the Florida Supreme court, whose seven members are Democratic appointees, ruled that Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, a Republican, could not certify the results on Saturday, plunging the election outcome back into legal and political uncertainty. A hearing is set for Monday. The day after marks two weeks since Americans voted for their 43rd president. ...... More bad news came late on Friday when a federal appeals court in Atlanta refused to stop manual recounts in heavily Democratic Florida counties that the Bush camp had challenged as selective and subjective. Democrats believe those recounts could hand Gore the presidency. ......." Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... In a victory for Al Gore, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday that Secretary of State Katherine Harris may not certify a winner in the state's presidential election between Gore and George W. Bush ``until further order of this court.'' A hearing was set for Monday. The

court stepped in after Harris announced she intended to certify a winner Saturday following the counting of overseas absentee ballots. Democrats want final vote certification delayed until all hand recounts are completed. The high court ruling superseded a ruling earlier Friday by Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who said Harris may reject hand-counted votes tallied after the state's Nov. 14 deadline. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... Broward County's manual recount of 588,000 ballots continued Friday after a circuit court judge refused a Republican's request to stop it. Judge Leonard Stafford refused to end the recount, saying GOP activist William Scherer had not demonstrated any emergency that would require immediate action. A circuit judge held a hearing Friday on several combined citizen lawsuits seeking a revote in Palm Beach County because of confusion about the ballot. Judge Jorge Labarga said he'll issue a written ruling next week on whether the U.S. and Florida constitutions would even permit a revote. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... More than 1,000 overseas ballots were rejected and 1,400 were accepted. Republicans complained of a coordinated Democratic effort to reject overseas ballots--especially from military personnel. ....... Miami-Dade County, reversing its earlier position, voted Friday to conduct a full manual recount. The Democratic-leaning county will count all 654,000 ballots. Gore picked up six votes after a hand recount of 5,871 ballots in three overwhelmingly Democratic precincts. ...... Broward County resumed hand counting ballots Friday, with work expected to continue through the weekend. Gore gained a net of 36 votes with 121 of 609 precincts completed in the Democratic-leaning county. ......." Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... Democratic observers complained Friday that their Republican counterparts tried to stall the hand recount in Palm Beach County with arbitrary ballot challenges. Roughly 1,800 of the first 16,000 ballots recounted were set aside as questionable to be examined by the county canvassing board. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... ``This election is a matter that must be decided by the will of the people as expressed under the rule of law, law which has meaning as determined in Florida, now by the Florida Supreme Court.''--Gore, outside the official vice president's residence. ......" Freeper GreatOne ".......I had earlier posted about how my two brothers, who are both in the Air Force, had discovered that this year, for the very first time, there would not be any voting halls for them at any military bases, and that anyone wanting to vote would have to go off base, which is very difficult to do in some areas. No media attention about this at all. ....." Freeper laconic ".....These thieving pigs are throwing out 40 percent of the military votes. Let's see if the media shows the same outrage as they did over the Palm Beach bingo players' phony claims of having voted for Buchanan. ....." Freeper JEH_Boston "......... Relative to the military ballots without postmarks.... On the Election page of the SOS, the now famous "STATEMENT OF KATHERINE HARRIS, SECRETARY OF STATE" dated Monday, November 13, 2000 was posted requiring certification by Tuesday in the second through fourth paragraph. The ninth paragraph states: With regard to the status of overseas absentee ballots, they must have been executed as of last Tuesday. They must bear a foreign postmark as provide in Section 101.62(7), and they must be received by the Supervisors of Elections by midnight Friday. They are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday. (My emphasis added) I had noticed this when it first came out but was afraid to ask the question since I had thought it would more effect overseas ballots from the non-military. Has this been addressed here before? If so, what was her meaning. ......" Freeper kcvl 11/17/00 "....... Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ..... Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, apparently sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. ......... Mark Herron was the DemocRAT attorney who represented Pat Buchanan to get him on the Florida ballot. He also represented Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida in a scandal over ethical matters involving 42 trips taken by Chiles. The same Gov. Chiles who appointed almost the entire Florida Supreme Court who will be ruling on the Bush/Gore election matter. Fox guarding the hen house. ......" http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001117/t000110525.html "......... In Broward, even some Republicans were impressed with the Democrats' ferocity. "They're definitely beating us at the spin game," said lawyer

Shari McCartney, part of the Broward Republican legal team. "We're being made out to be the antithesis of the democratic process." .......... Not far away, in an abandoned Payless shoe store, vanloads of AFL-CIO staffers and Gore loyalists from New York, Chicago, Nashville, Philadelphia, San Francisco and elsewhere had disembarked to learn how to observe the ballot count. ........ "Our goal," said one lawyer as he patiently lectured his new charges, "is to preserve the Al Gore vote." The volunteers nodded. "It's very, very important that if you see any kind of mark--a scratch, a dent, a pinprick in Al Gore's column--that you challenge." ........ When someone then asked what they should do if they found a Bush ballot with an indent, the lawyer said: "Keep your lips sealed." It was hardball that the Bostonians and other imported pros understood well. ......." New York Times 11/18/00 RW Apple Jr. "......The Gore campaign has headed off, at least until next week, what it had feared most - an announcement of certified election returns by the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, before the manual recounts in Broward and Palm Beach counties could be completed. Meanwhile, the Bush campaign is a bit closer, though no one can say exactly how much, to achieving what it has been avidly seeking - a judicial determination that Ms. Harris is entitled to exclude the results of the manual recounts from the statewide totals that will decide who carries Florida and wins its 25 decisive electoral votes........... There will be no premature "partying" in Austin this weekend, the prospect of which had concerned Mr. Gore's top man in Florida, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. But by the same token, the jubilation among Congressional Democrats taking part in a conference call when the Florida Supreme Court acted, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Mr. Gore's running mate, appeared to be a few days early.......... Acting on its own initiative and not in response to a petition from any party, the Florida Supreme Court moved quickly to head off the political train wreck that seemed to be impending.......... According to lawyers in the Gore camp, his campaign will argue before the Florida Supreme Court on Monday that Ms. Harris lacks the authority to certify results until the recounts have been completed. That contention will be bolstered, the Gore strategists suggested, if the vice president is gaining votes rapidly enough in the recounts to suggest that he might overtake Mr. Bush.......... The Gore campaign is hoping that the seven Florida justices will decide, in effect, to sweep aside the narrow legal questions and focus on the best way to determine who actually won the election here on Nov. 7............. " New York Times 11/18/00 RW Apple Jr. "......Officials of Mr. Bush's campaign said, his lawyers will argue that the recounts are irrelevant, because Ms. Harris has already decided to exclude them. The Bush campaign is counting on the traditional reluctance to overturn the decision of an elected official, which would amount in this case to ruling that Ms. Harris exercised discretionary powers in an arbitrary way....... Their question comes down to this: Where does the will of the people of Florida reside? In Ms. Harris, an official elected by the people, but also an officer of the Bush campaign? Or in the much counted, much disputed, imperfectly perforated ballots in the strongly Democratic counties of Palm Beach, Broward and now, Dade? The latter county, which includes Miami, decided today on a manual recount........" Yahoo News 11/17/00 Brent Kallestad AP ".....More than 1,000 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out Friday as Republicans complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. ....... In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. ...... Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ............ ``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County, where 107 ballots were rejected. ....... Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter, given to The Associated Press by a Republican source, focused on protesting military ballots, which are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. ....... Republicans circulated a letter dated Friday from Navy Capt. E.M DuCom, deputy director of the military postal service, who said military mail is required to be postmarked. But he added, ``There are instances when time constraints do not allow for proper postmarking/cancellation of the mail. The last flight may be departing the ship and the mail has to get on it.'' ......... Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist working for Bush in Florida, said 110 of 113 write-in ballots, mostly from military forces, were invalidated by officials in Miami-Dade County. He said more than half were thrown out because they had no witness or witness address listed but ``the form doesn't indicate that a witness is necessary.'' ....." Yahoo News 11/17/00 Brent Kallestad AP ".....More than three-quarters of Orange County's 147 overseas absentee ballots were rejected by that county's canvassing board. Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said he was shocked by that number but attributes the 117 rejections to voters failing to keep their records current. However, Republicans handed out an affidavit from the chief postal clerk of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy to counter Democratic challenges to envelopes without postmarks. ........ ``It is not unusual for mail being sent by naval personnel, whether embarked on naval vessels or otherwise, not to have a postmark,'' said Edgardo Rodriguez. ...... In Hillsborough County, 74 of the 135 overseas ballots were

rejected after Democrats raised concerns about postmark or signature problems. Alachua County rejected half of the 56 overseas ballots received. St. Lucie rejected 13 of 14 and Lake County, all five. ....." WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "..... As the legal wrangling over the recounting of presidential ballots continues in the crucial state of Florida, some observers have said state balloting laws may eventually be challenged and that such a challenge would inevitably involve the attorney general -- who is also a presidential elector for the Democratic Party. .....WorldNetDaily confirmed Butterworth's elector status with his office on Friday, but a spokesman for the AG refused to elaborate on questions regarding potential conflicts of interest if the state were sued over its election and balloting laws or over state court interpretations of those laws thus far. ....." WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "....... A sailor aboard the assault ship USS Tarawa has said the Navy's claim that only a half dozen ballots were contained in a number of mailbags recently retrieved from the ship and flown to the U.S. from the Middle East is incorrect. ..... According to Judy Krutsinger, whose brother-in-law is aboard the Tarawa and had contacted her about the numerical discrepancy, "basically he is stating that the Navy's statement about the number of ballots is wrong." ......Though mail delivery seems bad enough, the Tarawa sailor also said he was aware of "several people who got their [absentee] ballot on the day they were due," Krutsinger said. "He said the problem is widespread on [the Tarawa]," making him the second sailor -- besides the Marine officer -- to make that claim in a week regarding the same vessel. ......" * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "....... A military chaplain based at Ft. Stewart, Ga., reported problems getting his ballot. "Had my 79-year-old mother not driven the 30+ miles to the county seat and badgered the elections people, I still may not have gotten it. She overnight expressed it and then it went back overnight express to meet the deadline." He added, "I am not the only one at Ft. Stewart who had trouble with absentee ballots." ......" * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty ".......An Army officer stationed in Bosnia said he requested a ballot three months before the election from San Diego but, just days before the election, he received one from Key West, Fla., instead. He said he didn't vote because he has never lived in Florida and that only about half his soldiers (about 100 out of 200) received their ballots. ....." * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty ".......An Air Force officer affiliated with that branch's voting program said that about three weeks before the election he began receiving calls from military members "and voting officers" who complained that "many Air Force personnel had not received their ballots." The serviceman added that "many had requested ballots in June and July of this year." He estimated that perhaps as many as 20 percent of all military personnel may not have received ballots this year. ......" Boston Herald 11/18/00 Joe Fitzgerald ".....Al Gore isn't losing as much as America is losing. Having squandered any chance to appear magnanimous, our petulant vice president seems perfectly willing to keep the country tied in knots as long as there's a hair to be split, encouraged by lawyers to whom this is all just a game, one glorious opportunity to strut their stuff. ....... A few days after Simpson beat the rap, one of his legal henchmen, Alan Dershowitz, was asked by a talk show caller if he was at all concerned over the damage that case had done to the American psyche. ....... ``An advocate,'' he replied, ``knows but one person in the world, his client, and none other. To save that client by all expedient means, at all hazards and costs to others, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties, and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment or the destruction he may bring upon any other. Nay, even separating the duties of the patriot from those of the advocate and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on, reckless of the consequences, even if his fate should unhappily be to involve his country in confusion for his client's protection.'' ......" NewsMax 11/18/00 Dan Frisa "....... In a blatant and outrageous display of coldhearted hypocrisy, Gore Democrats, specifically counseled and encouraged by the veep's campaign, tonight rejected the votes of more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel, thumbing their noses at Americans serving in defense of the nation. What happened to ensuring that every vote is counted? And what happened to going to extraordinary means to ensure that everyone who intended to vote had their vote recorded? Al Gore finally showed all of America who he really is: a power-hungry lowlife only interested in his own aggrandizement and power, even at the expense of disenfranchising the very defenders of our freedom. ....." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/legaldocs/11180011thcircuit.pdf Freeper ambrose report "... Here is what the 11th Circuit says in its concluding paragraph: Based on a thorough review of events as they now stand, we cannot conclude that Plaintiffs have demonstrated a substantial threat of an irreparable injury that would warrant granting at this time the extraordinary remedy of an injunction pending appeal, and thus 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. Accordingly, the Emergency Motion for Injunction Pending Appeal is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE Washington Post 11/18/00 Jo Becker Pete Slevin "....Republicans in charge of the Florida legislature are preparing a legal strategy to appoint the state's 25 electors themselves if the Florida Supreme Court fails to rule on the matter promptly. ....... "We're going to potentially ignore the state Supreme Court," Tom Feeney, a Republican lawyer who will take over as House speaker on Tuesday, said in an interview today. "It is the state legislature that determines the method of selecting electors. . . . The question is whether or not the Supreme Court of Florida has any role whatsoever. If they try to interfere with our responsibilities, then we still have to fulfill them." ...... Federal law leaves the question of determining the methods for selecting members of the electoral college up to individual states. It provides that if the election fails to produce a slate of electors, "the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such state may direct." ...... But if the courts do not resolve the matter by Dec. 12, the law could allow the Florida legislature to step in and put new procedures in place, including appointing the electors themselves. Republicans control both houses of the legislature. ......" Washington Post 11/18/00 Jo Becker Pete Slevin "....Feeney said he had not discussed the matter with the campaign of Republican candidate George W. Bush or the office of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. ..... He issued a statement later today after the Florida Supreme Court blocked Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying the final results of the election on Saturday, as she had planned. He called the court's decision "premature" and "regrettable," and pointed to the federal law empowering state legislatures to provide the rules for picking electors. "It is my intention to monitor the discord between the judicial and executive branches, and the Florida legislature will play a role should it become necessary," the statement said. ......" Freeper Nick Danger "..... THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Article II. Sect. 1. The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the vice-president, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows. Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress: but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "......A hand count of Palm Beach County ballots continued Friday, its warts exposed to the watching world as Republicans focused their attacks on the ungainly process. ...... By mid-afternoon, only 37 of 538 remaining precincts had been been hand-counted. Only four of those precincts were officially completed, meaning the canvassing board had gone through all of each precinct's "questionable" ballots -- between 200 and 300 each. The votes counted in those four precincts, mainly in Royal Palm Beach and Jupiter, showed George W. Bush picking up four votes over Al Gore when compared with a second electronic recount held Saturday. ....." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "......Of 53absentee ballots received from military installations and foreign countries, 17were thrown out by the board for lack of a postmark, signature, or for some other defect. Vice President Al Gore received 22 votes, Bush 13, and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader got 1 vote. ....." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "...... Tucker Eskew, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Republican observers were "deliberately seeking to draw attention to ballots that are not being treated properly." ...... Eskew has alleged that mishandling by Democrats, some of it purposeful, may have changed some votes by helping dislodge the infamous "chad," or small piece of cardboard that is punched out in the normal voting process. ......... Fatigue, inadequate training and poor lighting made it hard for the counters, Eskew said. One Republican observer corrected five mistakes by ballot counters in an hour, Eskew said. One counter used a ballot to chip nail polish off her finger, Eskew said, and one elderly counter knocked a dozen ballots on the floor, stepping on one and kicking it across the floor it was picked up. ...... "I've witnessed a process that is exactly as we predicted it," said Eskew. ........" AP 11/17/00 ".....a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County....."

AP 11/17/00 ".....Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, apparently sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. . Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter, given to The Associated Press by a Republican source, focused on protesting military ballots, which are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. .." 11/17/00 Freeper TheConservator ". I see a lot of Freepers getting worked up about the possibility that the Florida Supreme Court is going to "hand the election" directly to Gore. Don't worry. It's not going to happen. ...... The Florida Supreme Court will review the Secretary of State's decision to reject further changes to the election results certified by the counties last Tuesday for abuse of discretion. Under the laws of most states, including Florida, an elected official abuses his or her discretion ONLY by taking a position that NO reasonable person could take. .. In conducting its review, the Court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the elected official. As long as the elected official has followed a lawful procedure, considered the facts, and has taken a rational position in response to those facts, the elected official has NOT acted arbitrarily. . In such circumstances, the Court MUST affirm the decision of the elected official. The Court cannot reverse the decision simply because it believes the Secretary reached the wrong result. ." New Australian 11/18/00 Gerard Jackson ".. Last Friday hundreds of overseas votes were rejected, votes that could have sealed Gore's fate. It seems that Democratic activists have coordinated a campaign to destroy any lead that Bush might gain from overseas voters, particularly military personnel. .." Freeper Glock17 "..When I was in the Navy. I sent many letters from the Persian Gulf to my girlfriend (now wife), and had the opportunity to see them later. About half of them didn't have a post mark. Since it was a combat zone, we didn't have to use a stamp. We could just write "Free Mail" on the envelope where the stamp would normally go. This didn't seem to affect whether or not it was postmarked. US Navy ships do have a postmark. It looks just like the normal ones, but instead of having the city's name, it has the ship name. Isn't it an ironic tragedy that those who would die to protect the country are refused the basic right to vote? " New York Times 11/18/00 B Drummond Ayres Jr "The nation's Republican governors contended today that the Gore campaign was "brutally abusing" the good name of Florida's top election official and seriously threatening the foundations of American democracy by continuing to challenge the results of the state's presidential balloting.. The governors, convened here at a golf resort near Tampa for their annual association meeting, argued that while the race was undeniably close, there was no credible evidence of any wrongdoing by Republican election officials, particularly in Florida. In a news conference, they demanded that Vice President Al Gore concede that Gov. George W. Bush had won fair-and-square and retreat from the field. "The Gore campaign needs to cease and desist," declared Gov. Bill Graves of Kansas." New York Times 11/17/00 Richard Perez-Pena "..The tally of overseas absentee ballots by county officials across Florida today yielded rampant confusion, partisan wrangling over which votes to count and which to discard, and widespread uncertainty about the rules on what makes for a valid ballot. Counties applied vastly different standards in deciding whether to throw out ballots. A few county officials openly defied the Florida secretary of state's instructions to accept otherwise-valid ballots from overseas that were postmarked after Election Day. Others freely admitted that they did not understand those instructions. And officials in several counties said they feared that the count was being botched, and that another round of delays and court challenges was likely. "It seems like everybody's been changing the rules to suit their satisfaction," Fred Galey, the Brevard County supervisor of elections, said dryly. "This certainly has been educational." .." MSNBC 11/17/00 Freeper Biblebelter ".. On a Special Edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews, Alan Derschowitz signaled a subtle shift in Democrat strategy. He mentioned that a statewide handcount supervised by independent observers might be a solution coming out of the judiciary proceedings of next week. Gore chief legal strategist David Boies discussed the statewide handcount solution later in the show. Of course this is extralegal solution and can only happen if the judiciary unconstitutioally takes over the elections. The Democratic strategy has clearly shifted from selective handcounts to court administered elections. Evidently, polls must be showing that the current selective handcounts are being perceived as unfair. .." Boardman v. Esteva, supra, 323 So. 2d 259 Freeper Muttley " In Boardman v. Esteva, supra, 323 So. 2d 259, the issue was "whether the absentee voting law requires absolute strict compliance with all its provisions, or whether substantial compliance is sufficient to give validity to the ballot." Boardman, 323 So. 2d at 262. The case involved a contest of the October 3, 1972 election for a seat on the Second District Court of Appeal. The ballots challenged in that case included a number of ballots on which the voter's

affidavit did not indicate the voter's reason for voting absentee, as well as ballots in which the absentee envelopes did not contain a postmark. After analyzing in detail the effect of technical irregularities in the absentee voting law on the integrity of the election, the court determined that, on the facts before it, the challenged irregularities did not warrant the invalidation of the absentee votes because the irregularities did not affect the integrity of the election. However, the Court emphasized that evidence of fraud, gross negligence, or intentional wrongdoing may well have produced a different result: "Notably existent in this dispute is the complete absence of any allegation of fraud, gross negligence or even the hint of intentional wrongdoing, either on the part of the voters or of the election officials." Id. at 263. The court held that trial courts must consider the following factors in determining whether to invalidate absentee ballots: (a) the presence or absence of fraud, gross negligence, or intentional wrongdoing; (b) whether there has been substantial compliance with the essential requirements of the absentee voting law; and (c) whether the irregularities complained of adversely affect the sanctity of the ballot and the integrity of the election. I don't know if statutory law has changed since 1972, but it appears if there is no fraud, ballots without postmarks may be accepted in Florida. .." CNN Website 11/18/00 ".. Sen. John Warner, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed "distress" Friday over reports that absentee ballots used by members of the military might not be counted because they weren't postmarked because of clerical errors. In a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen, Warner, R-Virginia, wrote: "My Senate office, and those of other Senators, are receiving calls and emails from constituents alleging that local elections officials are being asked not to count absentee ballots from overseas military personnel and their families which do not bear postmarks, although those ballots were received in the voter's state by the deadline set by state law. "It is a fact, regrettably, that a number of absentee ballots from overseas U.S. military personnel do not bear a postmark," the senator continued, attributing the omissions to "human error." .." Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff 11/17/00 " The Landmark Legal Foundation has asked the FBI to probe reported threats by campaign aides to Vice President Al Gore against Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. In a statement released late Friday to WABC radio's Sean Hannity, Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin announced: "Landmark Legal Foundation has contacted FBI Director Louis Freeh, requesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation initiate a federal criminal probe into a report that aides to Vice President Al Gore are attempting to intimidate the Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris." "If reported accurately the statements attributed to Gore campaign officials appear to be made for the purpose of intimidating a public official, Katherine Harris, in the execution of her duties.".." Andrew Sullivan 11/17/00 " JUDICIAL ACTIVISM REDUX: I just re-read John Fund's excellent, recent piece in OpinionJournal.com on the Florida Supreme Court at Mickey Kaus's urging. Holy Injunction! No wonder they behaved the way they did yesterday. Their record is one of flagrant dismissal of legislative decisions, outright over-ruling of obvious voter intent, and general contempt for the legislative process. If the law doesn't suit them, they just ignore it! They recently threw out a pro-death penalty ballot initiative on specious grounds. Ward Connerly tried four different wordings for four different anti-race preference initiatives - and the Court struck them all off the ballot as 'misleading' and 'confusing.' Tallahassee's legislators - Democrat and Republican alike - have long since given up on any reasonable relationship with the out-of-control Supremes. The Florida fiasco is shaping up, in other words, to be a text-book case of what has gone wrong with liberalism since the 1960s. ." Jewish World Review 11/17/00 Thomas Sowell ". IT WAS ONLY a few words among the millions that have been spewed out through the media about the presidential election, but they were among the weightiest -- and most chilling -- of these words. A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal mentioned in passing "a quiet intelligence-gathering operation" begun by the Gore camp, "checking into the backgrounds of Republican electors, with an eye toward persuading them to vote for Mr. Gore." .. Those who vote in the electoral college are not legally bound to vote for those whom the voters in their states voted for. But if the Gore operatives are merely trying to "persuade" Bush electors to defect, then why this hush-hush digging into the past of these electors? " newsday.com 11/18/00 Laurie Asseo "..When the Florida Supreme Court next week reviews the secretary of state's refusal to accept hand-counted presidential votes, it will be venturing into an area in which judges only go reluctantly. Courts usually don't like to second-guess government officials' actions, particularly in election cases. . But one constitutional scholar says Florida's highest court might be more willing than a county judge was to require manually counted votes included in the overall total, thereby keeping alive

Democrat Al Gore's hopes of overtaking Republican George W. Bush. " Fox News 11/18/00 rlbedfor "..Bret reported on Fox news that the Gore camp felt that Bush was up more than 800, they would have a hard time overcoming. Hopefully the jerks on the FL SC will think about that and go ahead and let this die. God help us. .." Freeper JeanS ".. Fox also just reported that all absentee ballots are counted and the unoffical tally according to AP is Bush +926. ." NewsMax.com 11/18/00 London Telegraph ".. Kendall Coffey is "is pure Florida." Coffey's background is illuminating. "One night in 1996 when he still reigned as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Mr Coffey decided to unwind from another day of drug busting and corruption hunting at a lapdancing bar near Miami called Lipstik." At the infamous Lipstik lounger, Coffey "ordered a 600 bottle of champagne and retired to a private room with a dancer called Tiffany. Aroused and drunk, he then proceeded to bite her on the arm, leaving her with toothmarks and him in disgrace and out of a job." The Telegraph wonders if "President" Gore might reward him with a treat at the Lipstik lounge. "Though perhaps he might consider to take a mouth guard this time." .." Denver Post 11/18/00 Julia Martinez "Republicans plan to rally at the state Capitol today in support of Texas Gov. George W. Bush as the "legitimate president-elect of the United States," GOP officials said Friday. The rally on the west steps of the Capitol is scheduled for 1 p.m., shortly after Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is expected to announce the results of the overseas ballots in that state. .." MSNBC Television 11/18/00 Freeper Smogger ". Anyone else think that Gore not going to be able to get there even WITH the hand counts? The MSNBC guy said that the thinking around there is that he maybe able to squeeze 170 votes net out of there. I think Gore is in trouble with this hand count deal. I mean once they have been run through the machines twice you don't got too much hanging chad left. He only picked up around 130 or so with Volousia (sp?), and that was out of like 200-300K votes. What is the largest county remaining? Miami-Dade? I'm telling you they need to get 300+ votes from each of the remaining counties. I just don't think they will be able to pull it off. In addition even if the court rules that Harris abused her discretion in the instance of one country what are the odds that they will say that she abused her discretion with reguards to ALL 3 counties. She will probably still be able to throw out the results of at least one country and that will be it for Gore. " The Associated Press 11/18/00 Dan Sewell "The counting of overseas absentee ballots wrapped up Saturday and, as expected, added to George W. Bush's slight lead in Florida. But a surprising number of ballots were thrown out, raising cries of foul play from the Bush campaign. With all 67 counties reporting their overseas results, Bush picked up 1,376 votes and Gore got 750 votes, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Bush now leads by 926 votes in the overall count, including overseas votes and the numbers certified earlier by the Florida secretary of state. . Still, the Bush campaign expressed displeasure at the number of overseas ballots that were disqualified. ``We are distressed at what appears to be a statewide effort on behalf of Al Gore to discredit the votes of military servicemen and women,'' Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said Friday night, after more than 1,400 overseas ballots had been rejected. " The Associated Press 11/18/00 "The presidential election shouldn't be taken out of the hands of American voters and decided by the courts, Rep. Tom Foley, R-Fla., said Saturday. ``This election cannot keep being dragged through the courts because some people don't like the results,'' Foley said in the Republicans' weekly national radio address. ``If it does, the integrity of our presidency - which has already been frayed over the past eight years - will be further weakened and worn.'' ." Landmarl Legal Foundation 11/17/00 Mark Levin ".. Dear Director Freeh: This is a formal complaint requesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiate a federal criminal investigation into a MSNBC report that aides to Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. are apparently attempting to intimidate the Secretary of State of the state of Florida, Katherine Harris. On Thursday, November 16, 2000, MSNBC correspondent Chip Reid reported during the News with Brian Williams evening broadcast as follows: Let me tell you though, Brian, if they do not succeed here there was some interesting, even chilling talk today, I thought from the Gore campaign. I talked with some aides there. One said that if George Bush does win and if he wins with the help of Katherine Harris, and Katherine Harris, they believe will throw more roadblocks in the way and will everything in her power to certify the election in favor of George Bush and do everything in her power to make sure that happens, they said that if George Bush does get into office with her help the investigation into her role in this entire situation will make Whitewater look

like a picnic. So, they are already planning for the possibility that they lose here and this turns into some kind of massive investigation after the fact so they ugliness would continue long after this is over. If reported accurately, the statements attributed to Gore campaign officials appear to be made for the purpose of intimidating a public official (Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris) in the execution of her duties. Landmark asserts that the FBI has federal jurisdiction to undertake an investigation on several bases, among them: the Gore campaign receives federal matching funds; and the Gore campaign participates in interstate commerce. ." MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Marylander " Ashley is on MSNBC 10:08 AM EST 11/18/2000 showing how easy it is to pop chads out of cards by bending. She popped two out on camera. She aslo did this accidently last week while demonstrating the voting machine and diagram with types of chads. I hope someone can use this info" MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Ganymede " Miami-Dade appears to be dragging its feet on the handcount. Earlier in the week, they rejected the idea of a full handcount. Then, they submitted a letter to the SOS offering NO facts or circumstances warranting extension of the certification deadline in order to include the handcounts. Now, although they have decided to go ahead with a full handcount, they aren't expected to begin handcounting until Monday. They will NEVER finish with 650,000 ballots to count. Gore is doomed unless Palm Beach and Broward counties can come through with 1000 votes!.." CNN 11/18/00 "The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said he was "distressed" by reports that absentee ballots from members of the military may not be counted because they lacked postmarks. Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, raised the issue in a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen on Friday. "My Senate office, and those of other Senators, are receiving calls and e-mails from constituents alleging that local elections officials are being asked not to count absentee ballots from overseas military personnel and their families which do not bear postmarks, although those ballots were received in the voter's state by the deadline set by state law," the letter said. "It is a fact, regrettably, that a number of absentee ballots from overseas U.S. military personnel do not bear a postmark," the senator continued, attributing the omissions to "human error." ." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 Stephen Kiehl ".Quietly, without fanfare or publicity, the two sheets of paper slipped from one Capitol office to another on Wednesday night and were signed by three state officials, certifying the results of Florida's longest-running presidential election. Of course, they weren't final. This week nothing is. .." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 Mary Elles Klas "Republican legislators came to the defense of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris Friday, blasting media commentators for making sexist comments about her while GOP officials were urging their ranks to keep quiet. "I'm appalled at the treatment and cheap remarks by those who supposedly have been champions of women's rights," said Rep. Nancy Argenziano, RCrystal River. She and five other Republican women called a news conference to announce their support of Harris. "She has been crudely maligned and received attacks on her performance," said Rep. Evelyn Lynn, R-Daytona Beach. "If women are political leaders they should not be subject to attacks that others might not be." .." FOX news (tv) 11/18/00 Freper TLI " Just saw on FOX News... Dems Caught Red Handed placing Bush votes into Gore Stacks. Implications unknown, but it looks big. " Freeper RepubMommy ".. I just saw this also. OMG, this is SICK!!! Those Democrats are so corrupt, I don't know how esle to say it. .." Fox News Live Freeper Koblenz 11/18/00 " Fox News just interviewed someone named Tucker, a spokesman for the Bush campaign. He said that in one precinct in PBC, there were 6 to 9 Bush ballots placed in the Gore stack. This means, of course, that Bush votes wouldn't not just be counted, but that they'd be counted for Al Gore. Tucker (didn't catch the last name) said that LePore said she was aware of the problem, but had taken no steps to correct. .." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 George Bennett ".. While she was a member of Palm Beach County's Elections Canvassing Board, County Commissioner Carol Roberts solicited campaign contributions last month for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bill Nelson. That's a violation of Florida statutes, Republican attorney J. Reeve Bright claimed Friday. ..Because Nelson's race was on the Nov. 7 ballot and its results were certified by the county canvassing board, Bright accused Roberts of violating the statute that says a canvassing board member cannot be "an active participant in the campaign or candidacy of any candidate who has opposition in the election being canvassed." Roberts' lawyer said Nelson's race isn't being canvassed. "The presidential election is being canvassed -- not the election for the U.S. Senate,"

Richard Slawson said. ." Florida Law 11/18/00 Freeper lowteksh " Florida statute 102.131 is clear not only on irregularities in the vote (the State Canvassing Board is required NOT to count any questionable ballots) but also the standard that should be applied in how a hand examination should take place. It says explicitedly that "The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns." The significance of this is clear: unless a SPECIFIC COUNTY's 1% sample hand count shows that a complete hand recount - by extrapolation - can change the outcome of the election, it should NOT take place regardless of their already suspect interpretations. Broward generated 4 Gore votes in a 1% hand re-canvassing. Dade generated 6 Gore votes in a 1% hand re-canvassing. Since Bush has a 926 vote lead neither were right to pursue the recount on the grounds that they could alter the outcome of the election, and the State Canvassing Board is quite clear on the fact that these decisions should be based solely on a county by county basis and not in an aggregate. This clearly blows a hole in the already questionable reading that Broward and Dade had the right to a hand recount in such circumstances. Palm Beach could say their extrapolation generated a possible 1,900 votes, although I don't have specific breakdowns of their 1% sample to know to what extent they over-analyzed Gore precincts. Here's the complete statute: 102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.-- If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. NewsMax.com 11/18/00 ".. On Friday Vice President Al Gore declared that the disputed presidential election would be decided by "the will of the people as expressed through the rule of law." But as overseas absentee ballots were being tallied all day, it became clear that Florida Democrats decided to enforce the rule of law only as long as it helped the vice president. Though the state official with jurisdiction over Florida election law, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, had ruled that absentee ballots either unpostmarked or postmarked late should be included in the count, Democrat vote counters openly defied her instructions. .." ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/18/00 David Espo " Aides to George W. Bush hailed a count of overseas absentee ballots that padded his lead in Florida Saturday to 926 votes over Al Gore. But they complained that ongoing hand recounts in three counties are "flawed and subject to human error." All eyes were on the state's Supreme Court, which has prohibited the Florida secretary of state from certifying final results without the court's permission. The justices have set oral arguments for Monday. Even as hand recounts resumed Saturday morning in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes said Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, were pleased with the overseas results. With all of Florida's 67 counties reporting unofficial results to The Associated Press, the overseas ballots boosted Bush's statewide lead to 926 votes, including numbers certified earlier by the Florida secretary of state. .." Fox News 11/18/00 Alan Clendenning ".Although Al Gore lost ground to George W. Bush as Florida finished counting overseas ballots, he continued to pick up votes in the manual recount of Democraticleaning Broward County. With 153 of the county's 609 precincts tallied by midday Saturday, Gore had gained 48 votes over official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to official totals. " Federal Voting Assistance Act website - PDF document 11/18/00 Freeper HAL9000 TITLE 39 - POSTAL SERVICE PART IV - MAIL MATTER CHAPTER 34 - ARMED FORCES AND FREE POSTAGE

Sec. 3406. Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (a) Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (individually or in bulk) (1) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage; TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I - CRIMES CHAPTER 29 - ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES Sec. 608. Absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters (a) Whoever knowingly deprives or attempts to deprive any person of a right under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. Bush-Cheney 2000 11/18/00 General Norman Schwarzkopf " Statement by retired General Norman Schwarzkopf regarding the denied overseas absentee ballots: It is a very sad day in our country when the men and women of the armed forces are serving abroad and facing danger on a daily basis in places like Bosnia, Kosovo or on ships like the USS George Washington, yet because of some technicality out of their control they are denied the right to vote for the President of the United States who will be their commander in chief. These men and women do not have the luxury of getting in their cars and going to the post office to mail their ballots. They must depend upon a system that takes their ballot directly from their front line positions on a circuitous route to the ballot box. At the same time because of other perceptions of irregularity other ballots that have already been counted twice and are now being counted a third time. For the sake of fairness alone these armed forces ballots should be allowed to be tallied. .." NewsMax 11/18/00 Stephan Archer " In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Elections Resources Corp. President Paul Nolte said his ballot-counting software, which is used in the Florida counties of MiamiDade, Broward and Palm Beach, is 100 percent accurate and has been put through stringent testing before and after the Florida vote count. "We've counted 100 percent accuracy every time we've gone through certification testing," Nolte said. .." LA Times 11/18/00 Ron Brownstein ". But one senior Bush aide hinted at another line of legal attack this week, when he said the campaign's research had found that 1,100 Florida voters were simultaneously registered in New York state. The Bush campaign presumes most of those voters are Democrats, and if their votes were disallowed, even a Gore lead from the manual recount might be reversed. . Asked whether the discovery of the dual registrants might prompt further litigation to disallow some of those votes, the advisor said, "We'll see." " Freeper MississippiMan ".. Bush spokespeople finally laying out the fraud in detail on CNN right now, talking about all the shenanigans going on in these hand counts.." ALOHA RONNIE "...FoX News Channel just reported that the people of Palm Beach County are getting really upset about what this "Re-Count" Process is costing them. Estimated Cost up till now = $100,000!!!!! ......" Freeper structure ".HE'S CONTRASTING THROWING OUT ABSENTEE MILITARY (through no fault of their own) WITH COUNTING FELONS IN THE VOTE BY DEMS! YES!!!!!! .." Freeper Citizen Soldier ".. He said that if you multiplied the number of felons across Florida it would come to theorically 2,000 felons voting and that one felon who voted even worked at a precinct! "

Freeper rintense "..This has been a MAJOR public relations coup. The nation will not stand for the crap the Gore campaign is pulling in PB and Broward- but I suspect there will be more outrage about the military ballots. And, these military ballots are signed and dated by soldiers! Their intent is clear- crystal clear. The Gore camp has manuvered themselves into a corner of explaining voter intent. This press conference will rock this country and hopefully wake up those who thought a hand count was fair" Freeper whats up "One charge he made was that chads had been taped over the hole on Bush ballots to nullify them. Also, that the famous "78 chads on the floor" that all the networks talked about now had expanded and in all counties was more like 500. Also, that 40(is that the right number?) felons had voted, mostly for Gore. He mentioned how outrageous it was that the military's votes had been nullified while felons' had been counted. " Freeper rintense "..Now to the details you requested. Gov. Racicot outlined the many instances of voter tampering within Palm Beach and Broward counties. He cited sworn statements from both Republican and Democratic observers who state that they have witness specific cases of questionable activites. Racicot also mentioned the military ballots that have been thrown out, and pretty much slammed the dems for disenfranchising the troops they will eventually command, as well as saying that there is something wrong with the process when convicted felons can cast their vote but the hard working people of our military can not be heard because of the Democrats. There you have it. " Freeper torie "..He said the manual recount was subjective, that the subjectivity was being exercised by Democrat controlled boards, that the standards for counting were being changed as things went along, that ballots were being manhandled and used as fans, that a bunch of ballots fell on the floor and were being stepped on, that Bush ballots were found in a Gore stack and that instead of LaPore removing then, she put them in a box without saying a word, and ballots with chads taped over the hole were being counted, that felons voted, that the Gore team had a hit squad dumping on military ballots, even when their intentions were clear, that Miami Dade was using a new program to just sort out the uncounted ballots, and would only recount those (I think), that the counters were overworked, working 15 hour days, and that many of the counters were exhausted elderly people, that the lighting was poor and people were using flashlights, and that post its were found taped on some ballots (I don't know what was done with those). That's the gist of it. Freeper randita "..I'll try a recap. Karen Hughes first. She says that the ballots are allin and have been counted and recounted and Bush was the winner. She then expressed concerns about the continued hand counting and turn the mike over to Gov. Roscoe of Montana, He went through a laundry list of counting irregulaties that are occuring in Palm Beach and Broward counties that are supported by numerous affidavits. he addressed the idea of fairness - that all ballots are observed by a Democrat and Republican. he called this bunk because every challenged ballot is then ruled on by a panel of three who are stacked with Democrats in every county. Then he cited some irregulaties, ballots being put in the wrong piles, chads all over the cloor, chads being taped over Bush spots, people using ballots as fans, stacks of ballots being dropped all over the floor, etc. After that he addressed the military vote. He alleged that the Gore campaign participated in an organized and pre-meditated effort to get as many military ballots disqualified as possible. he explained the difficulty the military has of following basic procedures concerning postmarks and that leeway has always been granted them. He said that Gore has shown contempt for the same men and women he seeks to command. Lastly, he went on to the felons (39, I believe) who have been found to have voted in Broward County. He then made the pointed comment that "Felons votes have been allowed, yet the men and women who serve our country overseas votes have been denied." Then he took some questions from the press and Fox cut away. " NewsMax.com 11/18/00 ". Excerpts from Gov. Racicot's Statement on Florida Vote Fraud Montana Gov. Mark Racicot, a one-time army prosecutor and former attorney general, has detailed charges of massive Democratic Party vote fraud in the Florida recount and absentee ballot tally. Here are excerpts of Gov. Racicot's statement to the press Saturday afternoon in Austin, Texas: "We now have clear and and convincing evidence, in fact, in my judgement it's beyond that, that in Palm Beach County and Broward County the hand counting of the ballots that is ongoing is not only fundamentally flawed, it is becoming completely untrustworthy....." .. "First of all, there's the taping of chads to ballots. We have observers in Florida who have noted and they have completed affidavits that a taped chad has been taped over the hole where the ballot or the notation could be made for a vote for Governor Bush. We have at least two witnesses to this." "And we also know that the election official there, the supervisor, Theresa LaPore, has simply brushed off these concerns and these detections....." "We have found Bush ballots, our observers have found Bush ballots in the Gore piles. Both last night and this morning, Bush ballots were found in a Gore pile to be counted as Gore votes. And a Democratic observer found these and pointed it out." . "And the Democratic observer later apologized to the Republican counterpart, telling him that the stack of ballots was different last night, and in his words 'had been sabotaged.' We have no idea how often this has occured." "Observers picked up a handful of Gore ballots and found several Bush ballots. And instead of pulling those

ballots out, Theresa LaPore stacked all of the ballots and put them in a box without any explanation to the counters...." .. "In Broward County, there's chad on the floor, on the counting tables, on the chairs. There's no reasonable assurance to the voters that the canvassing board has a system in place to ensure the integrity and security of the ballots. The canvassing board ignored a request by Republicans to stop the counting until they could do so." "Election officials, specifically Judge Lee, have simply expressed that the chad should be brushed on the floor...." .. "It's often very, very difficult for those who are aboard ships like the U.S.S. George Washington or the U.S.S. Ticonderoga or the U.S.S. Simpson to vote. Yet throughout Florida thousands of servicemen and women stationed on ships or stationed abroad did their part in our democracy. They cast their votes -- or so they thought." "But last night we learned how far the vice president's campaign will go to win this election. And I'm very sorry to say that the vice president's lawyers have gone to war, in my judgement, against the men and women who serve in our armed forces." "In an effort to win at any cost, the Democrats have launched a statewide effort to throw out as many military ballots as they can. Last night across Florida, they threw out between 900 and 1,100 votes cast by military men and women." "At the same time today's Miami Herald reported that 39 felons, 32 of whom are registered Democrats, three of whom are independents and the remainder Republicans, illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties in the November 7 election." " Fox News Channel 11/18/00 Freeper FL_engineer "..At 1:43pm EST (12:43 CST) FOX NEWS CHANNEL showed a Palm Beach County hand-counter putting his right index finger on a Gore punch and bending the punchcard backwards by 90 degrees. He handed the punchcard to the woman in the black suit, and she did the same. Apparently another successful chad pickup for Al Gore. " MSNBC 11/19/00 Freeper rintense ".. Palm Beach County canvassing board member says that the taped chad was on an absentee ballot where the person voted for Bush, allegedly realized the mistake, taped the chad back onto the ballot, and voted for Gore. .." TOWNHALL.COM 11/18/00 Robert Novak "..If George W. Bush winds up as president, veteran Republican Rep. Connie Morella can expect no favors from the White House. She intends to vote for Al Gore in the unlikely event that a deadlocked Electoral College throws the election to the House of Representatives, breaking the 4-to-4 Republican-Democratic tie in the Maryland House delegation. Bush campaign aides in Austin were incredulous when they read in Wednesday's Baltimore Sun that Morella intended to vote for Gore because her Washington suburban congressional district overwhelmingly supported the vice president. A telephone call was made to Morella's office, and the newspaper account was confirmed. ." ABC News 11/18/00 "Members of George W. Bush's campaign leveled serious accusations against Florida Democrats today, charging that Gore backers have orchestrated a state-wide effort to eliminate overseas ballots and saying the hand-counting underway in two counties is seriously flawed. The charges came despite Gov. George W. Bush's increasing lead over Vice-president Al Gore thanks to absentee ballots from overseas. " Miami Herald 11/18/00 DAVID KIDWELL AND LISA ARTHUR ". At least 39 felons -- mostly Democrats -illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties in the Nov. 7 elections, according to a Herald analysis of absentee votes in those counties. Their convictions range from murder and rape to drunk driving and passing bad checks. One is on the state's registry of sexual offenders. Three were registered under Social Security numbers different from those on their criminal records. One is even a poll worker. ``I've been voting ever since voting has been voting,'' said Cheryl Elaine Jones, 50, of Homestead, who has a 15year-old conviction for dealing cocaine. ``I'm a poll worker. I feel like I'm a one-time felon, and that was years ago. I haven't been in trouble since. I think that all should be thrown out.'' Jones was among 19 felons in Miami-Dade and 20 in Broward who have not had their voting rights reinstated by the Florida Office of Executive Clemency but voted Nov. 7. It is illegal for felons to vote, unless they petition the state to have their rights restored. .: Insight Magazine 11/18/00 Paul Rodriguez " Tucker Eskew, the Bush campaign spokesman in West Palm Beach, Forida, has accused a local elections official of covering up knowledge of misplaced ballots for George Bush being stacked with Al Gore votes. The mistake, found between 8:30 and 8:45 am, found by a four-person tally team caused confusion and tension within the crowed room where ballots are being counted. Apparently, according to Eskew, a county employee at some point this morning -- before the ballots were taken out for spot checks -- told Theresa LePore about a problem involving misplaced ballots. It could not be determined immediatly which stacks of ballots the county employee said she realized were in error. What is clear, however, according to Eskew, is that LePore knew about the errors prior to them being discovered by election volunteers required to sample previous day's ballots before moving on to count fresh ballots. "This is the most serious event in a string of very serious offenses," Eskew charged, adding: "This smacks of a cover up and it needs to be investigated!" Eskew said that the LePore information was given by her directly to a Bush lawyer who serves as an observer; this occurred shortly after the error was discovered

showing 6-7 Bush ballots improperly stacked in a Gore pile of votes. "LePore knoew about this beforehand and didn't tell anyone," Eskew said. "This shows how fatally flawed the process is and raises serious questions of fraud that may have occurred previously that we don't know about." ." The Associated Press 11/18/00 Jackie Hallifax "..Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature will ``play a role should it become necessary'' in picking the state's 25 electors, incoming House Speaker Tom Feeney said Saturday. He said federal law gives the Legislature ``the power, authority and responsibility to intervene'' if the election doesn't produce electors. Feeney said the party was exploring legal strategy to apply that idea to Florida's electoral impasse. If successful, that could give the solidly Republican Legislature power to decide the national election. With only Florida still undecided, Al Gore had 267 electoral votes to George W. Bush's 246, with 270 needed for election. .." Fox News 11/18/00 Freeper Rodger Schultz ".. Has the Florida Supreme Court filed its own amicus curiae brief? Fox News Live with John Gibson reveals that Friday's order from that court, which proscribed a Saturday certification, was in response to .... no plea ... from anyone. It seems these seven impartial jurists were watching TV and were alarmed when a lower court cleared the way for Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, to certify a winner after today's absentee ballot count. Gibson then asked a retired Florida Supreme Justice whether we should be concerned that politics might play a role in the court's future decisions? He assured John that this group is above politics." bloomberg.com 11/17/00 Greg Stohr "The Florida Supreme Court's review of Vice President Al Gore's appeal could mark the end of the longest post-election presidential standoff in more than a century. Or it could simply be the beginning of a lengthy new phase. . Gore's lawyers say their arguments, set for 2 p.m. Monday in Tallahassee, Florida, will focus on two separate sections of Florida election law. The first contention, rejected by a state trial judge this morning, will say Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is abusing her authority by finalizing election results before receiving the results of hand recounts in two heavily Democratic counties. .. The second prong of Gore's appeal will make a broader argument, in effect saying Harris plans to crown the wrong candidate in Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Democrats point to a section that permits suits over the ``rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election.'' .." Capital Hill Blue 11/18/00 AP "Canvassing boards in 66 of 67 counties approved 2,203 ballots and rejected 1,420 ballots, an unofficial survey by The Associated Press shows. The boards rejected more than one-third of the overseas ballots, prompting complaints from Republicans that complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. " County Accepted Rejected Alachua 28 28 Baker 1 2 Bay 59 29 Bradford 2 1 Brevard 73 31 Broward 92 304 Calhoun 1 0 Charlott 4 5 Citrus 44 9 Clay 192 20 Collier 23 43 Columbia 6 1 Dade 103 102 DeSoto 1 3 Dixie 1 0 Duval 478 64 Escambia 154 112 Flagler 5 2 Franklin 1 1 Gadsden 4 1 Gilchris 0 0 Glades 0 0 Gulf 4 0 Hamilton 2 0 Hardee 3 3 Hendry 0 0 Hernando 17 2

Highland 3 1 Hilsboro 62 74 Holmes 1 0 Indianrv 5 3 Jackson ----- ----Jeffrson 0 0 Lafayete 0 0 Lake 0 5 Lee 23 37 Leon 30 19 Levy 6 0 Liberty 0 0 Madison 1 0 Manatee 94 37 Marion 15 15 Martin 3 2 Monroe 8 0 Nassau 6 2 Okaloosa 135 48 Okeechob 1 1 Orange 30 117 Osceola 28 8 Palmbech 36 16 Pasco 19 28 Pinellas 52 23 Polk 22 22 Putnam 16 5 St Johns 25 27 St Lucie 1 13 Sntarosa 45 21 Sarasota 35 25 Seminole 169 60 Sumter 0 0 Suwannee 4 1 Taylor 2 0 Union 0 0 Volusia 22 42 Wakulla 0 0 Walton 5 5 Washngtn 1 0 Totals 2203 1420 ABC News 11/18/00 "..The Bush campaign made serious accusations against the Democrats today, charging Gore backers have orchestrated a statewide effort in Florida to disallow overseas ballots from members of the military, and saying the hand count under way in two counties is now irreparably flawed ,.... Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot told a news conference in Austin, Texas, they have "convincing evidence" that the manual recount is flawed. "We now have clear and compelling evidence from eyewitnesses that this manual recount process is fundamentally flawed and is no longer recounting, but is distorting, reinventing and miscounting the true intentions of the voters of Florida," Hughes said." Wall Street Journal/Letter to the Editor 11/18/00 Gregory Verchota ".. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a chad is not a chad unless it is completely punched out and in the chadbox. The Palm Beach County ballots, now being counted by hand, are properly termed chadless ballots. In truth, potential chads or, if you will, unborn chads still clinging to ballots, are the objects of the Democrats' attentive care. Is it not depressing that Vice President Gore fusses over the unborn chad? . Moreover, Chadbandian (from the Dickens character in Bleak House) describes a canting, unctuous hypocrite. I also suggest that Gore's weeklong power grab may be colorfully described as chadbanditry. Then there is St. Chad, who, after being consecrated bishop of the Northumbrians, was charged by St. Theodore of Canterbury with improper ordination; he humbly resigned, and was subsequently reconsecrated the first bishop of Lichfield by an impressed Theodore. He is acknowledged as the Christianizer of the ancient kingdom of Mercia. .." Florida News Journal 11/18/00 " The counting is ostensibly over, but it was bizarre down to the very end as the Volusia County Canvassing Board -- in full view of party officials, the media, the public and four

sheriff's deputies -- lost track of a ballot. .. Nevertheless, they appeared to complete the odyssey of counting this year's presidential votes Friday night when they tallied the final 65 overseas ballots. They rejected 42, counted 22 and, well, aren't sure about the other. . Although the board finished counting Friday evening, a Volusia County elections official was posted at the elections office in case any overseas ballots were delivered before the midnight deadline. No more arrived. On Friday, under sheriff's deputy guard, the bag of 65 absentee ballots was moved from the elections office across the street to the county administration building in DeLand. . Oddly, after opening 23 envelopes on Friday to count toward the election, the three members of the Canvassing Board could only find 22 ballots. After searching everywhere, the board concluded that one of the envelopes must have been empty, though none remembered opening an empty envelope. "I wasn't even paying attention," said board member Pat Northey, exhausted after the extraordinary 10 days since Election Day. . " New York Times 11/18/00 David Firestone "Gov. George W. Bush's lead in Florida more than tripled today as all absentee ballots from overseas were opened and tallied. But his campaign was unable to claim the victory it had expected, as both sides awaited a hearing on Monday in the Florida Supreme Court. .." New York Times 11/18/00 Richard Berke " WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 Forget, for a moment, the court wrangling and the disputed vote counts. Behind the tedious struggle for legal advantage in Florida is an extraordinarily intense contest for public opinion. Put simply, the strategy of each camp is to portray the other as trying to steal the election. The Democrats have accused the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, of trying to prematurely call the election for Gov. George W. Bush. The Republicans have denounced the hand-counting of votes in selected Democratic precincts as an attempt to rig the results in favor of Vice President Al Gore. ." AP 11/18/00 NY Times "At the Palm Beach County recount, everyone complains. Fingernails are too long, jewelry bumps ballot cards, Post-It notes are improperly stuck on ballot piles. But inside, counters and observers are banned from speaking or making faces. The tedious process drags on and on, and the participants are clearly unhappy. Counters, political party observers, lawyers and the local canvassing commission board slogged through Day Three of examining by hand more than 462,000 punch-card ballots. Scrutinized thus far: about 23 percent of that number. ." Freeper cantfindagoodscreenname "...... Can someone tell me if the servicemen who are stationed in places that don't get a US postmark (the free ones people have been talking about here tonight) have the ability to get one if they need one? Or do they have no option other than mail it without a postmark? ....." Freeper encm (ss) respons "..... Submarines, destroyers, and other small ships DO NOT have a post office. No Postmark. If you are APO or FPO. Air Post Office or Fleet Post Office and you may not have a post mark on your sent out mail. My wife and familily often recieved mail without a post mark. A retired submarine sailor. ...." Freeper Will E Horton "..... Mr. Daley, and Gore, himself, have made it clear that they would rather the election not turn on "Technicalities". ...... Yet, their thwarting of the military absentee ballots are just that, "Technicalities". ...... If the FLSC rules that SOS abused her discretion in rejecting the handcounts due to a "Technicality", then by their same reasoning Republicans should these County Canvassing Commissions' to include these rejected military overseas ballots. Their decisions are no less or more discretionary than the SOS. These rulings are no less or more based on "technicalities". And, I repeat, even Daley and Gore STRESSED, that votes should not be rejected on "technicalities". ...... The Democrats are applying the standard applicable to absentee ballets entered in a foreign postal system to ballots entered by military personnel at APO and FPO addresses. ...... These ballots remained entirely within the DOMESTIC MAIL SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES from origin to destination. .... This mail was not foreign origin mail and should not be treated differently than any other domestic mail. .....It was all MARKED USPOSTAGE PAID. If anything, that is it's postmark. It was FREE OF CHARGE. Mail which is not charged does not get postmarked as a practice. ........ It is beyond the purview of the agents of the state of Florida to supersede the authority of the United States Postal SErvice. If it isn't supposed to be postmarked, or the USPS decides it doesn't need to be, it is up to Florida to accept that. It is a CONSTITUTIONAL principle. ......... Again, none of the mail from our military personnel who sent it through the military postal system had a foreign origin. It was domestic mail subject to the rules applicable to domestic mail - not foreign mail. ......." Freeper muawiyah "... The rules are: E000 Special Eligibility Standards E080 Absentee Balloting Materials

Summary E080 describes the eligibility standards and required markings on envelopes or postcards for mailing absentee balloting materials. 1.0 BASIC STANDARDS Definition 1.1 Balloting materials, consisting of postcard applications, ballots, voting instructions, and envelopes, may be sent through the mail without prepayment of postage to enable persons in the following categories to apply for registration and vote by absentee ballot when absent from the place of voting residence and otherwise eligible to vote as an absentee: a. Members of the Armed Forces in active service and their spouses and dependents. b. Members of the U.S. Merchant Marine and their spouses and dependents. c. U.S. citizens residing outside the territorial limits of the United States and the District of Columbia and their spouses and dependents residing with or accompanying them. Eligibility 1.2 To be mailable without prepayment of postage, the balloting materials must be deposited at a U.S. post office, an overseas U.S. military post office, or an American Embassy or American Consulate. Between Officials 1.3 Balloting materials may be mailed between state and local election officials, individually or in bulk, without prepayment of postage. Packages of materials mailed in bulk must bear an address label as described in 2.0. Elections Affected 1.4 Materials may be for any general election of electors for President and Vice President, or of senators and representatives in Congress, and other general, primary, and special elections. 2.0 MARKING Envelope 2.1 The envelope used to send balloting material and the envelope supplied for return of the ballots must have printed across the face the words "Official Absentee Balloting Material-First-Class Mail" (or similar language required by state law) in a rectangular box. Immediately below, the words "No Postage Necessary in the U.S. Mail-DMM E080" must be printed. Envelopes previously approved with the citations "DMM 137.3" or "DMM 138" must not be ejected. In the upper right corner of the envelope, in a rectangular box, the words "U.S. Postage Paid, 39 USC 3406," must be printed. An appropriate inscription or blank spaces for the return address of the sender must be shown in the upper left corner (see Exhibit 2.1). Postcard 2.2 The federal voting registration postcard application must be approximately 5 by 8 inches. The design shown in Exhibit 2.1 must be printed on the address side of the card. FIM 2.3

The correct facing identification mark (FIM) as described in S922 must be printed on the address side of envelopes and cards. ...." Freeper Sense "...... The saving grace is that rejected ballots are not opened, by are preserved, so any challenge can re-address the issue to the SOS or the courts with a fairly decent bit of evidence. It is the SOS job to ensure equal application of the rules. ..... The bigger problem comes from accepting ballots in error, becasue once they are in the system, there is no way to get them back out. ......" Reuters 11/18/00 Patricia Wilson "......Riding a roller-coaster of legal rulings in the disputed presidential race, George W. Bush returned to Austin on Friday hoping for a final Florida vote tally that could give him the state and the White House. ....... After a judge dealt a major blow to Vice President Al Gore's chances by rejecting the Democrat's bid to have manual vote recounts included in Florida's official tally, Bush, the Texas governor, made the two-hour drive from his ranch to his official residence to await certification of the state's ballot which was expected to come on Saturday. ....... But less than two hours later, the Florida Supreme court, whose seven members are Democratic appointees, ruled that Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, a Republican, could not certify the results on Saturday, plunging the election outcome back into legal and political uncertainty. A hearing is set for Monday. The day after marks two weeks since Americans voted for their 43rd president. ...... More bad news came late on Friday when a federal appeals court in Atlanta refused to stop manual recounts in heavily Democratic Florida counties that the Bush camp had challenged as selective and subjective. Democrats believe those recounts could hand Gore the presidency. ......." Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... In a victory for Al Gore, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday that Secretary of State Katherine Harris may not certify a winner in the state's presidential election between Gore and George W. Bush ``until further order of this court.'' A hearing was set for Monday. The court stepped in after Harris announced she intended to certify a winner Saturday following the counting of overseas absentee ballots. Democrats want final vote certification delayed until all hand recounts are completed. The high court ruling superseded a ruling earlier Friday by Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who said Harris may reject hand-counted votes tallied after the state's Nov. 14 deadline. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... Broward County's manual recount of 588,000 ballots continued Friday after a circuit court judge refused a Republican's request to stop it. Judge Leonard Stafford refused to end the recount, saying GOP activist William Scherer had not demonstrated any emergency that would require immediate action. A circuit judge held a hearing Friday on several combined citizen lawsuits seeking a revote in Palm Beach County because of confusion about the ballot. Judge Jorge Labarga said he'll issue a written ruling next week on whether the U.S. and Florida constitutions would even permit a revote. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... More than 1,000 overseas ballots were rejected and 1,400 were accepted. Republicans complained of a coordinated Democratic effort to reject overseas ballots--especially from military personnel. ....... Miami-Dade County, reversing its earlier position, voted Friday to conduct a full manual recount. The Democratic-leaning county will count all 654,000 ballots. Gore picked up six votes after a hand recount of 5,871 ballots in three overwhelmingly Democratic precincts. ...... Broward County resumed hand counting ballots Friday, with work expected to continue through the weekend. Gore gained a net of 36 votes with 121 of 609 precincts completed in the Democratic-leaning county. ......." Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... Democratic observers complained Friday that their Republican counterparts tried to stall the hand recount in Palm Beach County with arbitrary ballot challenges. Roughly 1,800 of the first 16,000 ballots recounted were set aside as questionable to be examined by the county canvassing board. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... ``This election is a matter that must be decided by the will of the people as expressed under the rule of law, law which has meaning as determined in Florida, now by the Florida Supreme Court.''--Gore, outside the official vice president's residence. ......" Freeper GreatOne ".......I had earlier posted about how my two brothers, who are both in the Air Force, had discovered that this year, for the very first time, there would not be any voting halls for them at any military bases, and that anyone wanting to vote would have to go off base, which is very difficult to do in some areas. No media attention about this at all. ....." Freeper laconic ".....These thieving pigs are throwing out 40 percent of the military votes. Let's see if the media shows the same outrage as they did over the Palm Beach bingo players' phony claims of having voted for Buchanan. ....." Freeper JEH_Boston "......... Relative to the military ballots without postmarks.... On the Election page of the SOS, the now famous "STATEMENT OF KATHERINE HARRIS, SECRETARY OF STATE" dated Monday,

November 13, 2000 was posted requiring certification by Tuesday in the second through fourth paragraph. The ninth paragraph states: With regard to the status of overseas absentee ballots, they must have been executed as of last Tuesday. They must bear a foreign postmark as provide in Section 101.62(7), and they must be received by the Supervisors of Elections by midnight Friday. They are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday. (My emphasis added) I had noticed this when it first came out but was afraid to ask the question since I had thought it would more effect overseas ballots from the non-military. Has this been addressed here before? If so, what was her meaning. ......" Freeper kcvl 11/17/00 "....... Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ..... Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, apparently sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. ......... Mark Herron was the DemocRAT attorney who represented Pat Buchanan to get him on the Florida ballot. He also represented Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida in a scandal over ethical matters involving 42 trips taken by Chiles. The same Gov. Chiles who appointed almost the entire Florida Supreme Court who will be ruling on the Bush/Gore election matter. Fox guarding the hen house. ......" http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001117/t000110525.html "......... In Broward, even some Republicans were impressed with the Democrats' ferocity. "They're definitely beating us at the spin game," said lawyer Shari McCartney, part of the Broward Republican legal team. "We're being made out to be the antithesis of the democratic process." .......... Not far away, in an abandoned Payless shoe store, vanloads of AFL-CIO staffers and Gore loyalists from New York, Chicago, Nashville, Philadelphia, San Francisco and elsewhere had disembarked to learn how to observe the ballot count. ........ "Our goal," said one lawyer as he patiently lectured his new charges, "is to preserve the Al Gore vote." The volunteers nodded. "It's very, very important that if you see any kind of mark--a scratch, a dent, a pinprick in Al Gore's column--that you challenge." ........ When someone then asked what they should do if they found a Bush ballot with an indent, the lawyer said: "Keep your lips sealed." It was hardball that the Bostonians and other imported pros understood well. ......." New York Times 11/18/00 RW Apple Jr. "......The Gore campaign has headed off, at least until next week, what it had feared most - an announcement of certified election returns by the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, before the manual recounts in Broward and Palm Beach counties could be completed. Meanwhile, the Bush campaign is a bit closer, though no one can say exactly how much, to achieving what it has been avidly seeking - a judicial determination that Ms. Harris is entitled to exclude the results of the manual recounts from the statewide totals that will decide who carries Florida and wins its 25 decisive electoral votes........... There will be no premature "partying" in Austin this weekend, the prospect of which had concerned Mr. Gore's top man in Florida, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. But by the same token, the jubilation among Congressional Democrats taking part in a conference call when the Florida Supreme Court acted, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Mr. Gore's running mate, appeared to be a few days early.......... Acting on its own initiative and not in response to a petition from any party, the Florida Supreme Court moved quickly to head off the political train wreck that seemed to be impending.......... According to lawyers in the Gore camp, his campaign will argue before the Florida Supreme Court on Monday that Ms. Harris lacks the authority to certify results until the recounts have been completed. That contention will be bolstered, the Gore strategists suggested, if the vice president is gaining votes rapidly enough in the recounts to suggest that he might overtake Mr. Bush.......... The Gore campaign is hoping that the seven Florida justices will decide, in effect, to sweep aside the narrow legal questions and focus on the best way to determine who actually won the election here on Nov. 7............. " New York Times 11/18/00 RW Apple Jr. "......Officials of Mr. Bush's campaign said, his lawyers will argue that the recounts are irrelevant, because Ms. Harris has already decided to exclude them. The Bush campaign is counting on the traditional reluctance to overturn the decision of an elected official, which would amount in this case to ruling that Ms. Harris exercised discretionary powers in an arbitrary way....... Their question comes down to this: Where does the will of the people of Florida reside? In Ms. Harris, an official elected by the people, but also an officer of the Bush campaign? Or in the much counted, much disputed, imperfectly perforated ballots in the strongly Democratic counties of Palm Beach, Broward and now, Dade? The latter county, which includes Miami, decided today on a manual recount........" Yahoo News 11/17/00 Brent Kallestad AP ".....More than 1,000 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out Friday as Republicans complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. ....... In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military

military personnel. ....... In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. ...... Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ............ ``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County, where 107 ballots were rejected. ....... Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter, given to The Associated Press by a Republican source, focused on protesting military ballots, which are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. ....... Republicans circulated a letter dated Friday from Navy Capt. E.M DuCom, deputy director of the military postal service, who said military mail is required to be postmarked. But he added, ``There are instances when time constraints do not allow for proper postmarking/cancellation of the mail. The last flight may be departing the ship and the mail has to get on it.'' ......... Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist working for Bush in Florida, said 110 of 113 write-in ballots, mostly from military forces, were invalidated by officials in Miami-Dade County. He said more than half were thrown out because they had no witness or witness address listed but ``the form doesn't indicate that a witness is necessary.'' ....." Yahoo News 11/17/00 Brent Kallestad AP ".....More than three-quarters of Orange County's 147 overseas absentee ballots were rejected by that county's canvassing board. Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said he was shocked by that number but attributes the 117 rejections to voters failing to keep their records current. However, Republicans handed out an affidavit from the chief postal clerk of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy to counter Democratic challenges to envelopes without postmarks. ........ ``It is not unusual for mail being sent by naval personnel, whether embarked on naval vessels or otherwise, not to have a postmark,'' said Edgardo Rodriguez. ...... In Hillsborough County, 74 of the 135 overseas ballots were rejected after Democrats raised concerns about postmark or signature problems. Alachua County rejected half of the 56 overseas ballots received. St. Lucie rejected 13 of 14 and Lake County, all five. ....." WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "..... As the legal wrangling over the recounting of presidential ballots continues in the crucial state of Florida, some observers have said state balloting laws may eventually be challenged and that such a challenge would inevitably involve the attorney general -- who is also a presidential elector for the Democratic Party. .....WorldNetDaily confirmed Butterworth's elector status with his office on Friday, but a spokesman for the AG refused to elaborate on questions regarding potential conflicts of interest if the state were sued over its election and balloting laws or over state court interpretations of those laws thus far. ....." WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "....... A sailor aboard the assault ship USS Tarawa has said the Navy's claim that only a half dozen ballots were contained in a number of mailbags recently retrieved from the ship and flown to the U.S. from the Middle East is incorrect. ..... According to Judy Krutsinger, whose brother-in-law is aboard the Tarawa and had contacted her about the numerical discrepancy, "basically he is stating that the Navy's statement about the number of ballots is wrong." ......Though mail delivery seems bad enough, the Tarawa sailor also said he was aware of "several people who got their [absentee] ballot on the day they were due," Krutsinger said. "He said the problem is widespread on [the Tarawa]," making him the second sailor -- besides the Marine officer -- to make that claim in a week regarding the same vessel. ......" * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "....... A military chaplain based at Ft. Stewart, Ga., reported problems getting his ballot. "Had my 79-year-old mother not driven the 30+ miles to the county seat and badgered the elections people, I still may not have gotten it. She overnight expressed it and then it went back overnight express to meet the deadline." He added, "I am not the only one at Ft. Stewart who had trouble with absentee ballots." ......" * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty ".......An Army officer stationed in Bosnia said he requested a ballot three months before the election from San Diego but, just days before the election, he received one from Key West, Fla., instead. He said he didn't vote because he has never lived in Florida and that only about half his soldiers (about 100 out of 200) received their ballots. ....." * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty ".......An Air Force officer affiliated with that branch's voting program said that about three weeks before the election he began receiving calls from military members "and voting officers" who complained that "many Air Force personnel had not received their ballots." The serviceman added that "many had requested ballots in June and July of this year." He estimated that perhaps as many as 20 percent of all military personnel may not have received ballots this year. ......" Boston Herald 11/18/00 Joe Fitzgerald ".....Al Gore isn't losing as much as America is losing. Having squandered any chance to appear magnanimous, our petulant vice president seems perfectly willing to keep the country tied in knots as long as there's a hair to be split, encouraged by lawyers to whom this is all just a

game, one glorious opportunity to strut their stuff. ....... A few days after Simpson beat the rap, one of his legal henchmen, Alan Dershowitz, was asked by a talk show caller if he was at all concerned over the damage that case had done to the American psyche. ....... ``An advocate,'' he replied, ``knows but one person in the world, his client, and none other. To save that client by all expedient means, at all hazards and costs to others, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties, and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment or the destruction he may bring upon any other. Nay, even separating the duties of the patriot from those of the advocate and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on, reckless of the consequences, even if his fate should unhappily be to involve his country in confusion for his client's protection.'' ......" NewsMax 11/18/00 Dan Frisa "....... In a blatant and outrageous display of coldhearted hypocrisy, Gore Democrats, specifically counseled and encouraged by the veep's campaign, tonight rejected the votes of more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel, thumbing their noses at Americans serving in defense of the nation. What happened to ensuring that every vote is counted? And what happened to going to extraordinary means to ensure that everyone who intended to vote had their vote recorded? Al Gore finally showed all of America who he really is: a power-hungry lowlife only interested in his own aggrandizement and power, even at the expense of disenfranchising the very defenders of our freedom. ....." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/legaldocs/11180011thcircuit.pdf Freeper ambrose report "... Here is what the 11th Circuit says in its concluding paragraph: Based on a thorough review of events as they now stand, we cannot conclude that Plaintiffs have demonstrated a substantial threat of an irreparable injury that would warrant granting at this time the extraordinary remedy of an injunction pending appeal, and thus 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. Accordingly, the Emergency Motion for Injunction Pending Appeal is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE Washington Post 11/18/00 Jo Becker Pete Slevin "....Republicans in charge of the Florida legislature are preparing a legal strategy to appoint the state's 25 electors themselves if the Florida Supreme Court fails to rule on the matter promptly. ....... "We're going to potentially ignore the state Supreme Court," Tom Feeney, a Republican lawyer who will take over as House speaker on Tuesday, said in an interview today. "It is the state legislature that determines the method of selecting electors. . . . The question is whether or not the Supreme Court of Florida has any role whatsoever. If they try to interfere with our responsibilities, then we still have to fulfill them." ...... Federal law leaves the question of determining the methods for selecting members of the electoral college up to individual states. It provides that if the election fails to produce a slate of electors, "the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such state may direct." ...... But if the courts do not resolve the matter by Dec. 12, the law could allow the Florida legislature to step in and put new procedures in place, including appointing the electors themselves. Republicans control both houses of the legislature. ......" Washington Post 11/18/00 Jo Becker Pete Slevin "....Feeney said he had not discussed the matter with the campaign of Republican candidate George W. Bush or the office of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. ..... He issued a statement later today after the Florida Supreme Court blocked Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying the final results of the election on Saturday, as she had planned. He called the court's decision "premature" and "regrettable," and pointed to the federal law empowering state legislatures to provide the rules for picking electors. "It is my intention to monitor the discord between the judicial and executive branches, and the Florida legislature will play a role should it become necessary," the statement said. ......" Freeper Nick Danger "..... THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Article II. Sect. 1. The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the vice-president, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows. Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress: but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "......A hand count of Palm Beach County ballots continued Friday, its warts exposed to the watching world as Republicans focused their attacks on the ungainly process. ...... By mid-afternoon, only 37 of 538 remaining precincts had been been hand-counted. Only four of those precincts were officially completed, meaning the canvassing board had gone through all of

each precinct's "questionable" ballots -- between 200 and 300 each. The votes counted in those four precincts, mainly in Royal Palm Beach and Jupiter, showed George W. Bush picking up four votes over Al Gore when compared with a second electronic recount held Saturday. ....." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "......Of 53absentee ballots received from military installations and foreign countries, 17were thrown out by the board for lack of a postmark, signature, or for some other defect. Vice President Al Gore received 22 votes, Bush 13, and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader got 1 vote. ....." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "...... Tucker Eskew, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Republican observers were "deliberately seeking to draw attention to ballots that are not being treated properly." ...... Eskew has alleged that mishandling by Democrats, some of it purposeful, may have changed some votes by helping dislodge the infamous "chad," or small piece of cardboard that is punched out in the normal voting process. ......... Fatigue, inadequate training and poor lighting made it hard for the counters, Eskew said. One Republican observer corrected five mistakes by ballot counters in an hour, Eskew said. One counter used a ballot to chip nail polish off her finger, Eskew said, and one elderly counter knocked a dozen ballots on the floor, stepping on one and kicking it across the floor it was picked up. ...... "I've witnessed a process that is exactly as we predicted it," said Eskew. ........" AP 11/17/00 ".....a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County....." AP 11/17/00 ".....Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, apparently sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. . Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter, given to The Associated Press by a Republican source, focused on protesting military ballots, which are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. .." 11/17/00 Freeper TheConservator ". I see a lot of Freepers getting worked up about the possibility that the Florida Supreme Court is going to "hand the election" directly to Gore. Don't worry. It's not going to happen. ...... The Florida Supreme Court will review the Secretary of State's decision to reject further changes to the election results certified by the counties last Tuesday for abuse of discretion. Under the laws of most states, including Florida, an elected official abuses his or her discretion ONLY by taking a position that NO reasonable person could take. .. In conducting its review, the Court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the elected official. As long as the elected official has followed a lawful procedure, considered the facts, and has taken a rational position in response to those facts, the elected official has NOT acted arbitrarily. . In such circumstances, the Court MUST affirm the decision of the elected official. The Court cannot reverse the decision simply because it believes the Secretary reached the wrong result. ." New Australian 11/18/00 Gerard Jackson ".. Last Friday hundreds of overseas votes were rejected, votes that could have sealed Gore's fate. It seems that Democratic activists have coordinated a campaign to destroy any lead that Bush might gain from overseas voters, particularly military personnel. .." Freeper Glock17 "..When I was in the Navy. I sent many letters from the Persian Gulf to my girlfriend (now wife), and had the opportunity to see them later. About half of them didn't have a post mark. Since it was a combat zone, we didn't have to use a stamp. We could just write "Free Mail" on the envelope where the stamp would normally go. This didn't seem to affect whether or not it was postmarked. US Navy ships do have a postmark. It looks just like the normal ones, but instead of having the city's name, it has the ship name. Isn't it an ironic tragedy that those who would die to protect the country are refused the basic right to vote? " New York Times 11/18/00 B Drummond Ayres Jr "The nation's Republican governors contended today that the Gore campaign was "brutally abusing" the good name of Florida's top election official and seriously threatening the foundations of American democracy by continuing to challenge the results of the state's presidential balloting.. The governors, convened here at a golf resort near Tampa for their annual association meeting, argued that while the race was undeniably close, there was no credible evidence of any wrongdoing by Republican election officials, particularly in Florida. In a news conference, they demanded that Vice President Al Gore concede that Gov. George W. Bush had won fair-and-square and retreat from the field. "The Gore campaign needs to cease and desist," declared Gov. Bill Graves of Kansas."

New York Times 11/17/00 Richard Perez-Pena "..The tally of overseas absentee ballots by county officials across Florida today yielded rampant confusion, partisan wrangling over which votes to count and which to discard, and widespread uncertainty about the rules on what makes for a valid ballot. Counties applied vastly different standards in deciding whether to throw out ballots. A few county officials openly defied the Florida secretary of state's instructions to accept otherwise-valid ballots from overseas that were postmarked after Election Day. Others freely admitted that they did not understand those instructions. And officials in several counties said they feared that the count was being botched, and that another round of delays and court challenges was likely. "It seems like everybody's been changing the rules to suit their satisfaction," Fred Galey, the Brevard County supervisor of elections, said dryly. "This certainly has been educational." .." MSNBC 11/17/00 Freeper Biblebelter ".. On a Special Edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews, Alan Derschowitz signaled a subtle shift in Democrat strategy. He mentioned that a statewide handcount supervised by independent observers might be a solution coming out of the judiciary proceedings of next week. Gore chief legal strategist David Boies discussed the statewide handcount solution later in the show. Of course this is extralegal solution and can only happen if the judiciary unconstitutioally takes over the elections. The Democratic strategy has clearly shifted from selective handcounts to court administered elections. Evidently, polls must be showing that the current selective handcounts are being perceived as unfair. .." Boardman v. Esteva, supra, 323 So. 2d 259 Freeper Muttley " In Boardman v. Esteva, supra, 323 So. 2d 259, the issue was "whether the absentee voting law requires absolute strict compliance with all its provisions, or whether substantial compliance is sufficient to give validity to the ballot." Boardman, 323 So. 2d at 262. The case involved a contest of the October 3, 1972 election for a seat on the Second District Court of Appeal. The ballots challenged in that case included a number of ballots on which the voter's affidavit did not indicate the voter's reason for voting absentee, as well as ballots in which the absentee envelopes did not contain a postmark. After analyzing in detail the effect of technical irregularities in the absentee voting law on the integrity of the election, the court determined that, on the facts before it, the challenged irregularities did not warrant the invalidation of the absentee votes because the irregularities did not affect the integrity of the election. However, the Court emphasized that evidence of fraud, gross negligence, or intentional wrongdoing may well have produced a different result: "Notably existent in this dispute is the complete absence of any allegation of fraud, gross negligence or even the hint of intentional wrongdoing, either on the part of the voters or of the election officials." Id. at 263. The court held that trial courts must consider the following factors in determining whether to invalidate absentee ballots: (a) the presence or absence of fraud, gross negligence, or intentional wrongdoing; (b) whether there has been substantial compliance with the essential requirements of the absentee voting law; and (c) whether the irregularities complained of adversely affect the sanctity of the ballot and the integrity of the election. I don't know if statutory law has changed since 1972, but it appears if there is no fraud, ballots without postmarks may be accepted in Florida. .." CNN Website 11/18/00 ".. Sen. John Warner, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed "distress" Friday over reports that absentee ballots used by members of the military might not be counted because they weren't postmarked because of clerical errors. In a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen, Warner, R-Virginia, wrote: "My Senate office, and those of other Senators, are receiving calls and emails from constituents alleging that local elections officials are being asked not to count absentee ballots from overseas military personnel and their families which do not bear postmarks, although those ballots were received in the voter's state by the deadline set by state law. "It is a fact, regrettably, that a number of absentee ballots from overseas U.S. military personnel do not bear a postmark," the senator continued, attributing the omissions to "human error." .." Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff 11/17/00 " The Landmark Legal Foundation has asked the FBI to probe reported threats by campaign aides to Vice President Al Gore against Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. In a statement released late Friday to WABC radio's Sean Hannity, Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin announced: "Landmark Legal Foundation has contacted FBI Director Louis Freeh, requesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation initiate a federal criminal probe into a report that aides to Vice President Al Gore are attempting to intimidate the Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris." "If reported accurately the statements attributed to Gore campaign officials appear to be made for the purpose of intimidating a public official, Katherine Harris, in the execution of her duties.".." Andrew Sullivan 11/17/00 " JUDICIAL ACTIVISM REDUX: I just re-read John Fund's excellent, recent

piece in OpinionJournal.com on the Florida Supreme Court at Mickey Kaus's urging. Holy Injunction! No wonder they behaved the way they did yesterday. Their record is one of flagrant dismissal of legislative decisions, outright over-ruling of obvious voter intent, and general contempt for the legislative process. If the law doesn't suit them, they just ignore it! They recently threw out a pro-death penalty ballot initiative on specious grounds. Ward Connerly tried four different wordings for four different anti-race preference initiatives - and the Court struck them all off the ballot as 'misleading' and 'confusing.' Tallahassee's legislators - Democrat and Republican alike - have long since given up on any reasonable relationship with the out-of-control Supremes. The Florida fiasco is shaping up, in other words, to be a text-book case of what has gone wrong with liberalism since the 1960s. ." Jewish World Review 11/17/00 Thomas Sowell ". IT WAS ONLY a few words among the millions that have been spewed out through the media about the presidential election, but they were among the weightiest -- and most chilling -- of these words. A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal mentioned in passing "a quiet intelligence-gathering operation" begun by the Gore camp, "checking into the backgrounds of Republican electors, with an eye toward persuading them to vote for Mr. Gore." .. Those who vote in the electoral college are not legally bound to vote for those whom the voters in their states voted for. But if the Gore operatives are merely trying to "persuade" Bush electors to defect, then why this hush-hush digging into the past of these electors? " newsday.com 11/18/00 Laurie Asseo "..When the Florida Supreme Court next week reviews the secretary of state's refusal to accept hand-counted presidential votes, it will be venturing into an area in which judges only go reluctantly. Courts usually don't like to second-guess government officials' actions, particularly in election cases. . But one constitutional scholar says Florida's highest court might be more willing than a county judge was to require manually counted votes included in the overall total, thereby keeping alive Democrat Al Gore's hopes of overtaking Republican George W. Bush. " Fox News 11/18/00 rlbedfor "..Bret reported on Fox news that the Gore camp felt that Bush was up more than 800, they would have a hard time overcoming. Hopefully the jerks on the FL SC will think about that and go ahead and let this die. God help us. .." Freeper JeanS ".. Fox also just reported that all absentee ballots are counted and the unoffical tally according to AP is Bush +926. ." NewsMax.com 11/18/00 London Telegraph ".. Kendall Coffey is "is pure Florida." Coffey's background is illuminating. "One night in 1996 when he still reigned as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Mr Coffey decided to unwind from another day of drug busting and corruption hunting at a lapdancing bar near Miami called Lipstik." At the infamous Lipstik lounger, Coffey "ordered a 600 bottle of champagne and retired to a private room with a dancer called Tiffany. Aroused and drunk, he then proceeded to bite her on the arm, leaving her with toothmarks and him in disgrace and out of a job." The Telegraph wonders if "President" Gore might reward him with a treat at the Lipstik lounge. "Though perhaps he might consider to take a mouth guard this time." .." Denver Post 11/18/00 Julia Martinez "Republicans plan to rally at the state Capitol today in support of Texas Gov. George W. Bush as the "legitimate president-elect of the United States," GOP officials said Friday. The rally on the west steps of the Capitol is scheduled for 1 p.m., shortly after Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is expected to announce the results of the overseas ballots in that state. .." MSNBC Television 11/18/00 Freeper Smogger ". Anyone else think that Gore not going to be able to get there even WITH the hand counts? The MSNBC guy said that the thinking around there is that he maybe able to squeeze 170 votes net out of there. I think Gore is in trouble with this hand count deal. I mean once they have been run through the machines twice you don't got too much hanging chad left. He only picked up around 130 or so with Volousia (sp?), and that was out of like 200-300K votes. What is the largest county remaining? Miami-Dade? I'm telling you they need to get 300+ votes from each of the remaining counties. I just don't think they will be able to pull it off. In addition even if the court rules that Harris abused her discretion in the instance of one country what are the odds that they will say that she abused her discretion with reguards to ALL 3 counties. She will probably still be able to throw out the results of at least one country and that will be it for Gore. " The Associated Press 11/18/00 Dan Sewell "The counting of overseas absentee ballots wrapped up Saturday and, as expected, added to George W. Bush's slight lead in Florida. But a surprising number of ballots were thrown out, raising cries of foul play from the Bush campaign. With all 67 counties reporting their overseas results, Bush picked up 1,376 votes and Gore got 750 votes, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Bush now leads by 926 votes in the overall count, including overseas votes and the numbers certified earlier by the Florida secretary of state. . Still, the Bush campaign expressed displeasure at the number of overseas ballots that were disqualified. ``We are distressed at what appears to be a statewide effort on behalf of Al Gore to discredit the votes of military servicemen and women,'' Bush

campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said Friday night, after more than 1,400 overseas ballots had been rejected. " The Associated Press 11/18/00 "The presidential election shouldn't be taken out of the hands of American voters and decided by the courts, Rep. Tom Foley, R-Fla., said Saturday. ``This election cannot keep being dragged through the courts because some people don't like the results,'' Foley said in the Republicans' weekly national radio address. ``If it does, the integrity of our presidency - which has already been frayed over the past eight years - will be further weakened and worn.'' ." Landmarl Legal Foundation 11/17/00 Mark Levin ".. Dear Director Freeh: This is a formal complaint requesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiate a federal criminal investigation into a MSNBC report that aides to Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. are apparently attempting to intimidate the Secretary of State of the state of Florida, Katherine Harris. On Thursday, November 16, 2000, MSNBC correspondent Chip Reid reported during the News with Brian Williams evening broadcast as follows: Let me tell you though, Brian, if they do not succeed here there was some interesting, even chilling talk today, I thought from the Gore campaign. I talked with some aides there. One said that if George Bush does win and if he wins with the help of Katherine Harris, and Katherine Harris, they believe will throw more roadblocks in the way and will everything in her power to certify the election in favor of George Bush and do everything in her power to make sure that happens, they said that if George Bush does get into office with her help the investigation into her role in this entire situation will make Whitewater look like a picnic. So, they are already planning for the possibility that they lose here and this turns into some kind of massive investigation after the fact so they ugliness would continue long after this is over. If reported accurately, the statements attributed to Gore campaign officials appear to be made for the purpose of intimidating a public official (Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris) in the execution of her duties. Landmark asserts that the FBI has federal jurisdiction to undertake an investigation on several bases, among them: the Gore campaign receives federal matching funds; and the Gore campaign participates in interstate commerce. ." MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Marylander " Ashley is on MSNBC 10:08 AM EST 11/18/2000 showing how easy it is to pop chads out of cards by bending. She popped two out on camera. She aslo did this accidently last week while demonstrating the voting machine and diagram with types of chads. I hope someone can use this info" MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Ganymede " Miami-Dade appears to be dragging its feet on the handcount. Earlier in the week, they rejected the idea of a full handcount. Then, they submitted a letter to the SOS offering NO facts or circumstances warranting extension of the certification deadline in order to include the handcounts. Now, although they have decided to go ahead with a full handcount, they aren't expected to begin handcounting until Monday. They will NEVER finish with 650,000 ballots to count. Gore is doomed unless Palm Beach and Broward counties can come through with 1000 votes!.." CNN 11/18/00 "The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said he was "distressed" by reports that absentee ballots from members of the military may not be counted because they lacked postmarks. Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, raised the issue in a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen on Friday. "My Senate office, and those of other Senators, are receiving calls and e-mails from constituents alleging that local elections officials are being asked not to count absentee ballots from overseas military personnel and their families which do not bear postmarks, although those ballots were received in the voter's state by the deadline set by state law," the letter said. "It is a fact, regrettably, that a number of absentee ballots from overseas U.S. military personnel do not bear a postmark," the senator continued, attributing the omissions to "human error." ." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 Stephen Kiehl ".Quietly, without fanfare or publicity, the two sheets of paper slipped from one Capitol office to another on Wednesday night and were signed by three state officials, certifying the results of Florida's longest-running presidential election. Of course, they weren't final. This week nothing is. .." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 Mary Elles Klas "Republican legislators came to the defense of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris Friday, blasting media commentators for making sexist comments

about her while GOP officials were urging their ranks to keep quiet. "I'm appalled at the treatment and cheap remarks by those who supposedly have been champions of women's rights," said Rep. Nancy Argenziano, RCrystal River. She and five other Republican women called a news conference to announce their support of Harris. "She has been crudely maligned and received attacks on her performance," said Rep. Evelyn Lynn, R-Daytona Beach. "If women are political leaders they should not be subject to attacks that others might not be." .." FOX news (tv) 11/18/00 Freper TLI " Just saw on FOX News... Dems Caught Red Handed placing Bush votes into Gore Stacks. Implications unknown, but it looks big. " Freeper RepubMommy ".. I just saw this also. OMG, this is SICK!!! Those Democrats are so corrupt, I don't know how esle to say it. .." Fox News Live Freeper Koblenz 11/18/00 " Fox News just interviewed someone named Tucker, a spokesman for the Bush campaign. He said that in one precinct in PBC, there were 6 to 9 Bush ballots placed in the Gore stack. This means, of course, that Bush votes wouldn't not just be counted, but that they'd be counted for Al Gore. Tucker (didn't catch the last name) said that LePore said she was aware of the problem, but had taken no steps to correct. .." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 George Bennett ".. While she was a member of Palm Beach County's Elections Canvassing Board, County Commissioner Carol Roberts solicited campaign contributions last month for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bill Nelson. That's a violation of Florida statutes, Republican attorney J. Reeve Bright claimed Friday. ..Because Nelson's race was on the Nov. 7 ballot and its results were certified by the county canvassing board, Bright accused Roberts of violating the statute that says a canvassing board member cannot be "an active participant in the campaign or candidacy of any candidate who has opposition in the election being canvassed." Roberts' lawyer said Nelson's race isn't being canvassed. "The presidential election is being canvassed -- not the election for the U.S. Senate," Richard Slawson said. ." Florida Law 11/18/00 Freeper lowteksh " Florida statute 102.131 is clear not only on irregularities in the vote (the State Canvassing Board is required NOT to count any questionable ballots) but also the standard that should be applied in how a hand examination should take place. It says explicitedly that "The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns." The significance of this is clear: unless a SPECIFIC COUNTY's 1% sample hand count shows that a complete hand recount - by extrapolation - can change the outcome of the election, it should NOT take place regardless of their already suspect interpretations. Broward generated 4 Gore votes in a 1% hand re-canvassing. Dade generated 6 Gore votes in a 1% hand re-canvassing. Since Bush has a 926 vote lead neither were right to pursue the recount on the grounds that they could alter the outcome of the election, and the State Canvassing Board is quite clear on the fact that these decisions should be based solely on a county by county basis and not in an aggregate. This clearly blows a hole in the already questionable reading that Broward and Dade had the right to a hand recount in such circumstances. Palm Beach could say their extrapolation generated a possible 1,900 votes, although I don't have specific breakdowns of their 1% sample to know to what extent they over-analyzed Gore precincts. Here's the complete statute: 102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.-- If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. NewsMax.com 11/18/00 ".. On Friday Vice President Al Gore declared that the disputed presidential election would be decided by "the will of the people as expressed through the rule of law." But as overseas absentee ballots were being tallied all day, it became clear that Florida Democrats decided to enforce the rule of law only as long as it helped the vice president. Though the state official with jurisdiction over Florida election law, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, had ruled that absentee ballots either unpostmarked or postmarked late should be included in the count, Democrat vote counters openly defied her instructions. .."

ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/18/00 David Espo " Aides to George W. Bush hailed a count of overseas absentee ballots that padded his lead in Florida Saturday to 926 votes over Al Gore. But they complained that ongoing hand recounts in three counties are "flawed and subject to human error." All eyes were on the state's Supreme Court, which has prohibited the Florida secretary of state from certifying final results without the court's permission. The justices have set oral arguments for Monday. Even as hand recounts resumed Saturday morning in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes said Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, were pleased with the overseas results. With all of Florida's 67 counties reporting unofficial results to The Associated Press, the overseas ballots boosted Bush's statewide lead to 926 votes, including numbers certified earlier by the Florida secretary of state. .." Fox News 11/18/00 Alan Clendenning ".Although Al Gore lost ground to George W. Bush as Florida finished counting overseas ballots, he continued to pick up votes in the manual recount of Democraticleaning Broward County. With 153 of the county's 609 precincts tallied by midday Saturday, Gore had gained 48 votes over official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to official totals. " Federal Voting Assistance Act website - PDF document 11/18/00 Freeper HAL9000 TITLE 39 - POSTAL SERVICE PART IV - MAIL MATTER CHAPTER 34 - ARMED FORCES AND FREE POSTAGE Sec. 3406. Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (a) Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (individually or in bulk) (1) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage; TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I - CRIMES CHAPTER 29 - ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES Sec. 608. Absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters (a) Whoever knowingly deprives or attempts to deprive any person of a right under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. Bush-Cheney 2000 11/18/00 General Norman Schwarzkopf " Statement by retired General Norman Schwarzkopf regarding the denied overseas absentee ballots: It is a very sad day in our country when the men and women of the armed forces are serving abroad and facing danger on a daily basis in places like Bosnia, Kosovo or on ships like the USS George Washington, yet because of some technicality out of their control they are denied the right to vote for the President of the United States who will be their commander in chief. These men and women do not have the luxury of getting in their cars and going to the post office to mail their ballots. They must depend upon a system that takes their ballot directly from their front line positions on a circuitous route to the ballot box. At the same time because of other perceptions of irregularity other ballots that have already been counted twice and are now being counted a third time. For the sake of fairness alone these armed forces ballots should be allowed to be tallied. .."

NewsMax 11/18/00 Stephan Archer " In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Elections Resources Corp. President Paul Nolte said his ballot-counting software, which is used in the Florida counties of MiamiDade, Broward and Palm Beach, is 100 percent accurate and has been put through stringent testing before and after the Florida vote count. "We've counted 100 percent accuracy every time we've gone through certification testing," Nolte said. .." LA Times 11/18/00 Ron Brownstein ". But one senior Bush aide hinted at another line of legal attack this week, when he said the campaign's research had found that 1,100 Florida voters were simultaneously registered in New York state. The Bush campaign presumes most of those voters are Democrats, and if their votes were disallowed, even a Gore lead from the manual recount might be reversed. . Asked whether the discovery of the dual registrants might prompt further litigation to disallow some of those votes, the advisor said, "We'll see." " Freeper MississippiMan ".. Bush spokespeople finally laying out the fraud in detail on CNN right now, talking about all the shenanigans going on in these hand counts.." ALOHA RONNIE "...FoX News Channel just reported that the people of Palm Beach County are getting really upset about what this "Re-Count" Process is costing them. Estimated Cost up till now = $100,000!!!!! ......" Freeper structure ".HE'S CONTRASTING THROWING OUT ABSENTEE MILITARY (through no fault of their own) WITH COUNTING FELONS IN THE VOTE BY DEMS! YES!!!!!! .." Freeper Citizen Soldier ".. He said that if you multiplied the number of felons across Florida it would come to theorically 2,000 felons voting and that one felon who voted even worked at a precinct! " Freeper rintense "..This has been a MAJOR public relations coup. The nation will not stand for the crap the Gore campaign is pulling in PB and Broward- but I suspect there will be more outrage about the military ballots. And, these military ballots are signed and dated by soldiers! Their intent is clear- crystal clear. The Gore camp has manuvered themselves into a corner of explaining voter intent. This press conference will rock this country and hopefully wake up those who thought a hand count was fair" Freeper whats up "One charge he made was that chads had been taped over the hole on Bush ballots to nullify them. Also, that the famous "78 chads on the floor" that all the networks talked about now had expanded and in all counties was more like 500. Also, that 40(is that the right number?) felons had voted, mostly for Gore. He mentioned how outrageous it was that the military's votes had been nullified while felons' had been counted. " Freeper rintense "..Now to the details you requested. Gov. Racicot outlined the many instances of voter tampering within Palm Beach and Broward counties. He cited sworn statements from both Republican and Democratic observers who state that they have witness specific cases of questionable activites. Racicot also mentioned the military ballots that have been thrown out, and pretty much slammed the dems for disenfranchising the troops they will eventually command, as well as saying that there is something wrong with the process when convicted felons can cast their vote but the hard working people of our military can not be heard because of the Democrats. There you have it. " Freeper torie "..He said the manual recount was subjective, that the subjectivity was being exercised by Democrat controlled boards, that the standards for counting were being changed as things went along, that ballots were being manhandled and used as fans, that a bunch of ballots fell on the floor and were being stepped on, that Bush ballots were found in a Gore stack and that instead of LaPore removing then, she put them in a box without saying a word, and ballots with chads taped over the hole were being counted, that felons voted, that the Gore team had a hit squad dumping on military ballots, even when their intentions were clear, that Miami Dade was using a new program to just sort out the uncounted ballots, and would only recount those (I think), that the counters were overworked, working 15 hour days, and that many of the counters were exhausted elderly people, that the lighting was poor and people were using flashlights, and that post its were found taped on some ballots (I don't know what was done with those). That's the gist of it. Freeper randita "..I'll try a recap. Karen Hughes first. She says that the ballots are allin and have been counted and recounted and Bush was the winner. She then expressed concerns about the continued hand counting and turn the mike over to Gov. Roscoe of Montana, He went through a laundry list of counting irregulaties that are occuring in Palm Beach and Broward counties that are supported by numerous affidavits. he addressed the idea of fairness - that all ballots are observed by a Democrat and Republican. he called this bunk because every challenged ballot is then ruled on by a panel of three who are stacked with Democrats in every county. Then he cited some irregulaties, ballots being put in the wrong piles, chads all over the cloor, chads being taped over Bush spots, people using ballots as fans, stacks of ballots being dropped all over the floor, etc. After that he addressed the military vote. He alleged that the Gore campaign

participated in an organized and pre-meditated effort to get as many military ballots disqualified as possible. he explained the difficulty the military has of following basic procedures concerning postmarks and that leeway has always been granted them. He said that Gore has shown contempt for the same men and women he seeks to command. Lastly, he went on to the felons (39, I believe) who have been found to have voted in Broward County. He then made the pointed comment that "Felons votes have been allowed, yet the men and women who serve our country overseas votes have been denied." Then he took some questions from the press and Fox cut away. " NewsMax.com 11/18/00 ". Excerpts from Gov. Racicot's Statement on Florida Vote Fraud Montana Gov. Mark Racicot, a one-time army prosecutor and former attorney general, has detailed charges of massive Democratic Party vote fraud in the Florida recount and absentee ballot tally. Here are excerpts of Gov. Racicot's statement to the press Saturday afternoon in Austin, Texas: "We now have clear and and convincing evidence, in fact, in my judgement it's beyond that, that in Palm Beach County and Broward County the hand counting of the ballots that is ongoing is not only fundamentally flawed, it is becoming completely untrustworthy....." .. "First of all, there's the taping of chads to ballots. We have observers in Florida who have noted and they have completed affidavits that a taped chad has been taped over the hole where the ballot or the notation could be made for a vote for Governor Bush. We have at least two witnesses to this." "And we also know that the election official there, the supervisor, Theresa LaPore, has simply brushed off these concerns and these detections....." "We have found Bush ballots, our observers have found Bush ballots in the Gore piles. Both last night and this morning, Bush ballots were found in a Gore pile to be counted as Gore votes. And a Democratic observer found these and pointed it out." . "And the Democratic observer later apologized to the Republican counterpart, telling him that the stack of ballots was different last night, and in his words 'had been sabotaged.' We have no idea how often this has occured." "Observers picked up a handful of Gore ballots and found several Bush ballots. And instead of pulling those ballots out, Theresa LaPore stacked all of the ballots and put them in a box without any explanation to the counters...." .. "In Broward County, there's chad on the floor, on the counting tables, on the chairs. There's no reasonable assurance to the voters that the canvassing board has a system in place to ensure the integrity and security of the ballots. The canvassing board ignored a request by Republicans to stop the counting until they could do so." "Election officials, specifically Judge Lee, have simply expressed that the chad should be brushed on the floor...." .. "It's often very, very difficult for those who are aboard ships like the U.S.S. George Washington or the U.S.S. Ticonderoga or the U.S.S. Simpson to vote. Yet throughout Florida thousands of servicemen and women stationed on ships or stationed abroad did their part in our democracy. They cast their votes -- or so they thought." "But last night we learned how far the vice president's campaign will go to win this election. And I'm very sorry to say that the vice president's lawyers have gone to war, in my judgement, against the men and women who serve in our armed forces." "In an effort to win at any cost, the Democrats have launched a statewide effort to throw out as many military ballots as they can. Last night across Florida, they threw out between 900 and 1,100 votes cast by military men and women." "At the same time today's Miami Herald reported that 39 felons, 32 of whom are registered Democrats, three of whom are independents and the remainder Republicans, illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties in the November 7 election." " Fox News Channel 11/18/00 Freeper FL_engineer "..At 1:43pm EST (12:43 CST) FOX NEWS CHANNEL showed a Palm Beach County hand-counter putting his right index finger on a Gore punch and bending the punchcard backwards by 90 degrees. He handed the punchcard to the woman in the black suit, and she did the same. Apparently another successful chad pickup for Al Gore. " MSNBC 11/19/00 Freeper rintense ".. Palm Beach County canvassing board member says that the taped chad was on an absentee ballot where the person voted for Bush, allegedly realized the mistake, taped the chad back onto the ballot, and voted for Gore. .." TOWNHALL.COM 11/18/00 Robert Novak "..If George W. Bush winds up as president, veteran Republican Rep. Connie Morella can expect no favors from the White House. She intends to vote for Al Gore in the unlikely event that a deadlocked Electoral College throws the election to the House of Representatives, breaking the 4-to-4 Republican-Democratic tie in the Maryland House delegation. Bush campaign aides in Austin were incredulous when they read in Wednesday's Baltimore Sun that Morella intended to vote for Gore because her Washington suburban congressional district overwhelmingly supported the vice president. A telephone call was made to Morella's office, and the newspaper account was confirmed. ." ABC News 11/18/00 "Members of George W. Bush's campaign leveled serious accusations against Florida Democrats today, charging that Gore backers have orchestrated a state-wide effort to eliminate overseas ballots and saying the hand-counting underway in two counties is seriously flawed. The charges came despite Gov. George W. Bush's increasing lead over Vice-president Al Gore thanks to absentee ballots from overseas. "

Miami Herald 11/18/00 DAVID KIDWELL AND LISA ARTHUR ". At least 39 felons -- mostly Democrats -illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties in the Nov. 7 elections, according to a Herald analysis of absentee votes in those counties. Their convictions range from murder and rape to drunk driving and passing bad checks. One is on the state's registry of sexual offenders. Three were registered under Social Security numbers different from those on their criminal records. One is even a poll worker. ``I've been voting ever since voting has been voting,'' said Cheryl Elaine Jones, 50, of Homestead, who has a 15year-old conviction for dealing cocaine. ``I'm a poll worker. I feel like I'm a one-time felon, and that was years ago. I haven't been in trouble since. I think that all should be thrown out.'' Jones was among 19 felons in Miami-Dade and 20 in Broward who have not had their voting rights reinstated by the Florida Office of Executive Clemency but voted Nov. 7. It is illegal for felons to vote, unless they petition the state to have their rights restored. .: Insight Magazine 11/18/00 Paul Rodriguez " Tucker Eskew, the Bush campaign spokesman in West Palm Beach, Forida, has accused a local elections official of covering up knowledge of misplaced ballots for George Bush being stacked with Al Gore votes. The mistake, found between 8:30 and 8:45 am, found by a four-person tally team caused confusion and tension within the crowed room where ballots are being counted. Apparently, according to Eskew, a county employee at some point this morning -- before the ballots were taken out for spot checks -- told Theresa LePore about a problem involving misplaced ballots. It could not be determined immediatly which stacks of ballots the county employee said she realized were in error. What is clear, however, according to Eskew, is that LePore knew about the errors prior to them being discovered by election volunteers required to sample previous day's ballots before moving on to count fresh ballots. "This is the most serious event in a string of very serious offenses," Eskew charged, adding: "This smacks of a cover up and it needs to be investigated!" Eskew said that the LePore information was given by her directly to a Bush lawyer who serves as an observer; this occurred shortly after the error was discovered showing 6-7 Bush ballots improperly stacked in a Gore pile of votes. "LePore knoew about this beforehand and didn't tell anyone," Eskew said. "This shows how fatally flawed the process is and raises serious questions of fraud that may have occurred previously that we don't know about." ." The Associated Press 11/18/00 Jackie Hallifax "..Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature will ``play a role should it become necessary'' in picking the state's 25 electors, incoming House Speaker Tom Feeney said Saturday. He said federal law gives the Legislature ``the power, authority and responsibility to intervene'' if the election doesn't produce electors. Feeney said the party was exploring legal strategy to apply that idea to Florida's electoral impasse. If successful, that could give the solidly Republican Legislature power to decide the national election. With only Florida still undecided, Al Gore had 267 electoral votes to George W. Bush's 246, with 270 needed for election. .." Fox News 11/18/00 Freeper Rodger Schultz ".. Has the Florida Supreme Court filed its own amicus curiae brief? Fox News Live with John Gibson reveals that Friday's order from that court, which proscribed a Saturday certification, was in response to .... no plea ... from anyone. It seems these seven impartial jurists were watching TV and were alarmed when a lower court cleared the way for Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, to certify a winner after today's absentee ballot count. Gibson then asked a retired Florida Supreme Justice whether we should be concerned that politics might play a role in the court's future decisions? He assured John that this group is above politics." bloomberg.com 11/17/00 Greg Stohr "The Florida Supreme Court's review of Vice President Al Gore's appeal could mark the end of the longest post-election presidential standoff in more than a century. Or it could simply be the beginning of a lengthy new phase. . Gore's lawyers say their arguments, set for 2 p.m. Monday in Tallahassee, Florida, will focus on two separate sections of Florida election law. The first contention, rejected by a state trial judge this morning, will say Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is abusing her authority by finalizing election results before receiving the results of hand recounts in two heavily Democratic counties. .. The second prong of Gore's appeal will make a broader argument, in effect saying Harris plans to crown the wrong candidate in Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Democrats point to a section that permits suits over the ``rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election.'' .." Capital Hill Blue 11/18/00 AP "Canvassing boards in 66 of 67 counties approved 2,203 ballots and rejected 1,420 ballots, an unofficial survey by The Associated Press shows. The boards rejected more than one-third of the overseas ballots, prompting complaints from Republicans that complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. " County Accepted Rejected Alachua 28 28 Baker 1 2 Bay 59 29

Bradford 2 1 Brevard 73 31 Broward 92 304 Calhoun 1 0 Charlott 4 5 Citrus 44 9 Clay 192 20 Collier 23 43 Columbia 6 1 Dade 103 102 DeSoto 1 3 Dixie 1 0 Duval 478 64 Escambia 154 112 Flagler 5 2 Franklin 1 1 Gadsden 4 1 Gilchris 0 0 Glades 0 0 Gulf 4 0 Hamilton 2 0 Hardee 3 3 Hendry 0 0 Hernando 17 2 Highland 3 1 Hilsboro 62 74 Holmes 1 0 Indianrv 5 3 Jackson ----- ----Jeffrson 0 0 Lafayete 0 0 Lake 0 5 Lee 23 37 Leon 30 19 Levy 6 0 Liberty 0 0 Madison 1 0 Manatee 94 37 Marion 15 15 Martin 3 2 Monroe 8 0 Nassau 6 2 Okaloosa 135 48 Okeechob 1 1 Orange 30 117 Osceola 28 8 Palmbech 36 16 Pasco 19 28 Pinellas 52 23 Polk 22 22 Putnam 16 5 St Johns 25 27 St Lucie 1 13 Sntarosa 45 21 Sarasota 35 25 Seminole 169 60 Sumter 0 0 Suwannee 4 1 Taylor 2 0 Union 0 0 Volusia 22 42 Wakulla 0 0 Walton 5 5 Washngtn 1 0

Washngtn 1 0 Totals 2203 1420 ABC News 11/18/00 "..The Bush campaign made serious accusations against the Democrats today, charging Gore backers have orchestrated a statewide effort in Florida to disallow overseas ballots from members of the military, and saying the hand count under way in two counties is now irreparably flawed ,.... Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot told a news conference in Austin, Texas, they have "convincing evidence" that the manual recount is flawed. "We now have clear and compelling evidence from eyewitnesses that this manual recount process is fundamentally flawed and is no longer recounting, but is distorting, reinventing and miscounting the true intentions of the voters of Florida," Hughes said." Wall Street Journal/Letter to the Editor 11/18/00 Gregory Verchota ".. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a chad is not a chad unless it is completely punched out and in the chadbox. The Palm Beach County ballots, now being counted by hand, are properly termed chadless ballots. In truth, potential chads or, if you will, unborn chads still clinging to ballots, are the objects of the Democrats' attentive care. Is it not depressing that Vice President Gore fusses over the unborn chad? . Moreover, Chadbandian (from the Dickens character in Bleak House) describes a canting, unctuous hypocrite. I also suggest that Gore's weeklong power grab may be colorfully described as chadbanditry. Then there is St. Chad, who, after being consecrated bishop of the Northumbrians, was charged by St. Theodore of Canterbury with improper ordination; he humbly resigned, and was subsequently reconsecrated the first bishop of Lichfield by an impressed Theodore. He is acknowledged as the Christianizer of the ancient kingdom of Mercia. .." Florida News Journal 11/18/00 " The counting is ostensibly over, but it was bizarre down to the very end as the Volusia County Canvassing Board -- in full view of party officials, the media, the public and four sheriff's deputies -- lost track of a ballot. .. Nevertheless, they appeared to complete the odyssey of counting this year's presidential votes Friday night when they tallied the final 65 overseas ballots. They rejected 42, counted 22 and, well, aren't sure about the other. . Although the board finished counting Friday evening, a Volusia County elections official was posted at the elections office in case any overseas ballots were delivered before the midnight deadline. No more arrived. On Friday, under sheriff's deputy guard, the bag of 65 absentee ballots was moved from the elections office across the street to the county administration building in DeLand. . Oddly, after opening 23 envelopes on Friday to count toward the election, the three members of the Canvassing Board could only find 22 ballots. After searching everywhere, the board concluded that one of the envelopes must have been empty, though none remembered opening an empty envelope. "I wasn't even paying attention," said board member Pat Northey, exhausted after the extraordinary 10 days since Election Day. . " New York Times 11/18/00 David Firestone "Gov. George W. Bush's lead in Florida more than tripled today as all absentee ballots from overseas were opened and tallied. But his campaign was unable to claim the victory it had expected, as both sides awaited a hearing on Monday in the Florida Supreme Court. .." New York Times 11/18/00 Richard Berke " WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 Forget, for a moment, the court wrangling and the disputed vote counts. Behind the tedious struggle for legal advantage in Florida is an extraordinarily intense contest for public opinion. Put simply, the strategy of each camp is to portray the other as trying to steal the election. The Democrats have accused the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, of trying to prematurely call the election for Gov. George W. Bush. The Republicans have denounced the hand-counting of votes in selected Democratic precincts as an attempt to rig the results in favor of Vice President Al Gore. ." AP 11/18/00 NY Times "At the Palm Beach County recount, everyone complains. Fingernails are too long, jewelry bumps ballot cards, Post-It notes are improperly stuck on ballot piles. But inside, counters and observers are banned from speaking or making faces. The tedious process drags on and on, and the participants are clearly unhappy. Counters, political party observers, lawyers and the local canvassing commission board slogged through Day Three of examining by hand more than 462,000 punch-card ballots. Scrutinized thus far: about 23 percent of that number. ." Freeper cantfindagoodscreenname "...... Can someone tell me if the servicemen who are stationed in places that don't get a US postmark (the free ones people have been talking about here tonight) have the ability to get one if they need one? Or do they have no option other than mail it without a postmark? ....." Freeper encm (ss) respons "..... Submarines, destroyers, and other small ships DO NOT have a post office. No Postmark. If you are APO or FPO. Air Post Office or Fleet Post Office and you may not have a post mark on your sent out mail. My wife and familily often recieved mail without a post mark. A retired submarine sailor. ...."

Freeper Will E Horton "..... Mr. Daley, and Gore, himself, have made it clear that they would rather the election not turn on "Technicalities". ...... Yet, their thwarting of the military absentee ballots are just that, "Technicalities". ...... If the FLSC rules that SOS abused her discretion in rejecting the handcounts due to a "Technicality", then by their same reasoning Republicans should these County Canvassing Commissions' to include these rejected military overseas ballots. Their decisions are no less or more discretionary than the SOS. These rulings are no less or more based on "technicalities". And, I repeat, even Daley and Gore STRESSED, that votes should not be rejected on "technicalities". ...... The Democrats are applying the standard applicable to absentee ballets entered in a foreign postal system to ballots entered by military personnel at APO and FPO addresses. ...... These ballots remained entirely within the DOMESTIC MAIL SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES from origin to destination. .... This mail was not foreign origin mail and should not be treated differently than any other domestic mail. .....It was all MARKED USPOSTAGE PAID. If anything, that is it's postmark. It was FREE OF CHARGE. Mail which is not charged does not get postmarked as a practice. ........ It is beyond the purview of the agents of the state of Florida to supersede the authority of the United States Postal SErvice. If it isn't supposed to be postmarked, or the USPS decides it doesn't need to be, it is up to Florida to accept that. It is a CONSTITUTIONAL principle. ......... Again, none of the mail from our military personnel who sent it through the military postal system had a foreign origin. It was domestic mail subject to the rules applicable to domestic mail - not foreign mail. ......." Freeper muawiyah "... The rules are: E000 Special Eligibility Standards E080 Absentee Balloting Materials Summary E080 describes the eligibility standards and required markings on envelopes or postcards for mailing absentee balloting materials. 1.0 BASIC STANDARDS Definition 1.1 Balloting materials, consisting of postcard applications, ballots, voting instructions, and envelopes, may be sent through the mail without prepayment of postage to enable persons in the following categories to apply for registration and vote by absentee ballot when absent from the place of voting residence and otherwise eligible to vote as an absentee: a. Members of the Armed Forces in active service and their spouses and dependents. b. Members of the U.S. Merchant Marine and their spouses and dependents. c. U.S. citizens residing outside the territorial limits of the United States and the District of Columbia and their spouses and dependents residing with or accompanying them. Eligibility 1.2 To be mailable without prepayment of postage, the balloting materials must be deposited at a U.S. post office, an overseas U.S. military post office, or an American Embassy or American Consulate. Between Officials 1.3 Balloting materials may be mailed between state and local election officials, individually or in bulk, without prepayment of postage. Packages of materials mailed in bulk must bear an address label as described in 2.0. Elections Affected 1.4 Materials may be for any general election of electors for President and Vice President, or of senators and representatives in Congress, and other general, primary, and special elections.

2.0 MARKING Envelope 2.1 The envelope used to send balloting material and the envelope supplied for return of the ballots must have printed across the face the words "Official Absentee Balloting Material-First-Class Mail" (or similar language required by state law) in a rectangular box. Immediately below, the words "No Postage Necessary in the U.S. Mail-DMM E080" must be printed. Envelopes previously approved with the citations "DMM 137.3" or "DMM 138" must not be ejected. In the upper right corner of the envelope, in a rectangular box, the words "U.S. Postage Paid, 39 USC 3406," must be printed. An appropriate inscription or blank spaces for the return address of the sender must be shown in the upper left corner (see Exhibit 2.1). Postcard 2.2 The federal voting registration postcard application must be approximately 5 by 8 inches. The design shown in Exhibit 2.1 must be printed on the address side of the card. FIM 2.3 The correct facing identification mark (FIM) as described in S922 must be printed on the address side of envelopes and cards. ...." Freeper Sense "...... The saving grace is that rejected ballots are not opened, by are preserved, so any challenge can re-address the issue to the SOS or the courts with a fairly decent bit of evidence. It is the SOS job to ensure equal application of the rules. ..... The bigger problem comes from accepting ballots in error, becasue once they are in the system, there is no way to get them back out. ......" Reuters 11/18/00 Patricia Wilson "......Riding a roller-coaster of legal rulings in the disputed presidential race, George W. Bush returned to Austin on Friday hoping for a final Florida vote tally that could give him the state and the White House. ....... After a judge dealt a major blow to Vice President Al Gore's chances by rejecting the Democrat's bid to have manual vote recounts included in Florida's official tally, Bush, the Texas governor, made the two-hour drive from his ranch to his official residence to await certification of the state's ballot which was expected to come on Saturday. ....... But less than two hours later, the Florida Supreme court, whose seven members are Democratic appointees, ruled that Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, a Republican, could not certify the results on Saturday, plunging the election outcome back into legal and political uncertainty. A hearing is set for Monday. The day after marks two weeks since Americans voted for their 43rd president. ...... More bad news came late on Friday when a federal appeals court in Atlanta refused to stop manual recounts in heavily Democratic Florida counties that the Bush camp had challenged as selective and subjective. Democrats believe those recounts could hand Gore the presidency. ......." Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... In a victory for Al Gore, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday that Secretary of State Katherine Harris may not certify a winner in the state's presidential election between Gore and George W. Bush ``until further order of this court.'' A hearing was set for Monday. The court stepped in after Harris announced she intended to certify a winner Saturday following the counting of overseas absentee ballots. Democrats want final vote certification delayed until all hand recounts are completed. The high court ruling superseded a ruling earlier Friday by Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who said Harris may reject hand-counted votes tallied after the state's Nov. 14 deadline. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... Broward County's manual recount of 588,000 ballots continued Friday after a circuit court judge refused a Republican's request to stop it. Judge Leonard Stafford refused to end the recount, saying GOP activist William Scherer had not demonstrated any emergency that would require immediate action. A circuit judge held a hearing Friday on several combined citizen lawsuits seeking a revote in Palm Beach County because of confusion about the ballot. Judge Jorge Labarga said he'll issue a written ruling next week on whether the U.S. and Florida constitutions would even permit a revote. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... More than 1,000 overseas ballots were rejected and 1,400 were accepted. Republicans complained of a coordinated Democratic effort to reject overseas ballots--especially from military personnel. ....... Miami-Dade County, reversing its earlier position, voted Friday to conduct a full manual recount. The Democratic-leaning county will count all 654,000 ballots. Gore picked up six votes after

a hand recount of 5,871 ballots in three overwhelmingly Democratic precincts. ...... Broward County resumed hand counting ballots Friday, with work expected to continue through the weekend. Gore gained a net of 36 votes with 121 of 609 precincts completed in the Democratic-leaning county. ......." Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... Democratic observers complained Friday that their Republican counterparts tried to stall the hand recount in Palm Beach County with arbitrary ballot challenges. Roughly 1,800 of the first 16,000 ballots recounted were set aside as questionable to be examined by the county canvassing board. ......" Associated Press 11/17/00 "...... ``This election is a matter that must be decided by the will of the people as expressed under the rule of law, law which has meaning as determined in Florida, now by the Florida Supreme Court.''--Gore, outside the official vice president's residence. ......" Freeper GreatOne ".......I had earlier posted about how my two brothers, who are both in the Air Force, had discovered that this year, for the very first time, there would not be any voting halls for them at any military bases, and that anyone wanting to vote would have to go off base, which is very difficult to do in some areas. No media attention about this at all. ....." Freeper laconic ".....These thieving pigs are throwing out 40 percent of the military votes. Let's see if the media shows the same outrage as they did over the Palm Beach bingo players' phony claims of having voted for Buchanan. ....." Freeper JEH_Boston "......... Relative to the military ballots without postmarks.... On the Election page of the SOS, the now famous "STATEMENT OF KATHERINE HARRIS, SECRETARY OF STATE" dated Monday, November 13, 2000 was posted requiring certification by Tuesday in the second through fourth paragraph. The ninth paragraph states: With regard to the status of overseas absentee ballots, they must have been executed as of last Tuesday. They must bear a foreign postmark as provide in Section 101.62(7), and they must be received by the Supervisors of Elections by midnight Friday. They are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday. (My emphasis added) I had noticed this when it first came out but was afraid to ask the question since I had thought it would more effect overseas ballots from the non-military. Has this been addressed here before? If so, what was her meaning. ......" Freeper kcvl 11/17/00 "....... Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ..... Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, apparently sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. ......... Mark Herron was the DemocRAT attorney who represented Pat Buchanan to get him on the Florida ballot. He also represented Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida in a scandal over ethical matters involving 42 trips taken by Chiles. The same Gov. Chiles who appointed almost the entire Florida Supreme Court who will be ruling on the Bush/Gore election matter. Fox guarding the hen house. ......" http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001117/t000110525.html "......... In Broward, even some Republicans were impressed with the Democrats' ferocity. "They're definitely beating us at the spin game," said lawyer Shari McCartney, part of the Broward Republican legal team. "We're being made out to be the antithesis of the democratic process." .......... Not far away, in an abandoned Payless shoe store, vanloads of AFL-CIO staffers and Gore loyalists from New York, Chicago, Nashville, Philadelphia, San Francisco and elsewhere had disembarked to learn how to observe the ballot count. ........ "Our goal," said one lawyer as he patiently lectured his new charges, "is to preserve the Al Gore vote." The volunteers nodded. "It's very, very important that if you see any kind of mark--a scratch, a dent, a pinprick in Al Gore's column--that you challenge." ........ When someone then asked what they should do if they found a Bush ballot with an indent, the lawyer said: "Keep your lips sealed." It was hardball that the Bostonians and other imported pros understood well. ......." New York Times 11/18/00 RW Apple Jr. "......The Gore campaign has headed off, at least until next week, what it had feared most - an announcement of certified election returns by the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, before the manual recounts in Broward and Palm Beach counties could be completed. Meanwhile, the Bush campaign is a bit closer, though no one can say exactly how much, to achieving what it has been avidly seeking - a judicial determination that Ms. Harris is entitled to exclude the results of the manual recounts from the statewide totals that will decide who carries Florida and wins its 25 decisive electoral votes........... There will be no premature "partying" in Austin this weekend, the prospect of which

had concerned Mr. Gore's top man in Florida, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. But by the same token, the jubilation among Congressional Democrats taking part in a conference call when the Florida Supreme Court acted, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Mr. Gore's running mate, appeared to be a few days early.......... Acting on its own initiative and not in response to a petition from any party, the Florida Supreme Court moved quickly to head off the political train wreck that seemed to be impending.......... According to lawyers in the Gore camp, his campaign will argue before the Florida Supreme Court on Monday that Ms. Harris lacks the authority to certify results until the recounts have been completed. That contention will be bolstered, the Gore strategists suggested, if the vice president is gaining votes rapidly enough in the recounts to suggest that he might overtake Mr. Bush.......... The Gore campaign is hoping that the seven Florida justices will decide, in effect, to sweep aside the narrow legal questions and focus on the best way to determine who actually won the election here on Nov. 7............. " New York Times 11/18/00 RW Apple Jr. "......Officials of Mr. Bush's campaign said, his lawyers will argue that the recounts are irrelevant, because Ms. Harris has already decided to exclude them. The Bush campaign is counting on the traditional reluctance to overturn the decision of an elected official, which would amount in this case to ruling that Ms. Harris exercised discretionary powers in an arbitrary way....... Their question comes down to this: Where does the will of the people of Florida reside? In Ms. Harris, an official elected by the people, but also an officer of the Bush campaign? Or in the much counted, much disputed, imperfectly perforated ballots in the strongly Democratic counties of Palm Beach, Broward and now, Dade? The latter county, which includes Miami, decided today on a manual recount........" Yahoo News 11/17/00 Brent Kallestad AP ".....More than 1,000 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out Friday as Republicans complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. ....... In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. ...... Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ............ ``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County, where 107 ballots were rejected. ....... Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter, given to The Associated Press by a Republican source, focused on protesting military ballots, which are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. ....... Republicans circulated a letter dated Friday from Navy Capt. E.M DuCom, deputy director of the military postal service, who said military mail is required to be postmarked. But he added, ``There are instances when time constraints do not allow for proper postmarking/cancellation of the mail. The last flight may be departing the ship and the mail has to get on it.'' ......... Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist working for Bush in Florida, said 110 of 113 write-in ballots, mostly from military forces, were invalidated by officials in Miami-Dade County. He said more than half were thrown out because they had no witness or witness address listed but ``the form doesn't indicate that a witness is necessary.'' ....." Yahoo News 11/17/00 Brent Kallestad AP ".....More than three-quarters of Orange County's 147 overseas absentee ballots were rejected by that county's canvassing board. Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said he was shocked by that number but attributes the 117 rejections to voters failing to keep their records current. However, Republicans handed out an affidavit from the chief postal clerk of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy to counter Democratic challenges to envelopes without postmarks. ........ ``It is not unusual for mail being sent by naval personnel, whether embarked on naval vessels or otherwise, not to have a postmark,'' said Edgardo Rodriguez. ...... In Hillsborough County, 74 of the 135 overseas ballots were rejected after Democrats raised concerns about postmark or signature problems. Alachua County rejected half of the 56 overseas ballots received. St. Lucie rejected 13 of 14 and Lake County, all five. ....." WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "..... As the legal wrangling over the recounting of presidential ballots continues in the crucial state of Florida, some observers have said state balloting laws may eventually be challenged and that such a challenge would inevitably involve the attorney general -- who is also a presidential elector for the Democratic Party. .....WorldNetDaily confirmed Butterworth's elector status with his office on Friday, but a spokesman for the AG refused to elaborate on questions regarding potential conflicts of interest if the state were sued over its election and balloting laws or over state court interpretations of those laws thus far. ....." WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "....... A sailor aboard the assault ship USS Tarawa has said the Navy's claim that only a half dozen ballots were contained in a number of mailbags recently retrieved from the ship and flown to the U.S. from the Middle East is incorrect. ..... According to Judy Krutsinger, whose brother-in-law is aboard the Tarawa and had contacted her about the numerical discrepancy, "basically he is stating that the Navy's statement about the number of ballots is wrong." ......Though mail delivery seems bad

enough, the Tarawa sailor also said he was aware of "several people who got their [absentee] ballot on the day they were due," Krutsinger said. "He said the problem is widespread on [the Tarawa]," making him the second sailor -- besides the Marine officer -- to make that claim in a week regarding the same vessel. ......" * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty "....... A military chaplain based at Ft. Stewart, Ga., reported problems getting his ballot. "Had my 79-year-old mother not driven the 30+ miles to the county seat and badgered the elections people, I still may not have gotten it. She overnight expressed it and then it went back overnight express to meet the deadline." He added, "I am not the only one at Ft. Stewart who had trouble with absentee ballots." ......" * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty ".......An Army officer stationed in Bosnia said he requested a ballot three months before the election from San Diego but, just days before the election, he received one from Key West, Fla., instead. He said he didn't vote because he has never lived in Florida and that only about half his soldiers (about 100 out of 200) received their ballots. ....." * WorldNetDaily 11/18/00 Jon Dougherty ".......An Air Force officer affiliated with that branch's voting program said that about three weeks before the election he began receiving calls from military members "and voting officers" who complained that "many Air Force personnel had not received their ballots." The serviceman added that "many had requested ballots in June and July of this year." He estimated that perhaps as many as 20 percent of all military personnel may not have received ballots this year. ......" Boston Herald 11/18/00 Joe Fitzgerald ".....Al Gore isn't losing as much as America is losing. Having squandered any chance to appear magnanimous, our petulant vice president seems perfectly willing to keep the country tied in knots as long as there's a hair to be split, encouraged by lawyers to whom this is all just a game, one glorious opportunity to strut their stuff. ....... A few days after Simpson beat the rap, one of his legal henchmen, Alan Dershowitz, was asked by a talk show caller if he was at all concerned over the damage that case had done to the American psyche. ....... ``An advocate,'' he replied, ``knows but one person in the world, his client, and none other. To save that client by all expedient means, at all hazards and costs to others, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties, and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment or the destruction he may bring upon any other. Nay, even separating the duties of the patriot from those of the advocate and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on, reckless of the consequences, even if his fate should unhappily be to involve his country in confusion for his client's protection.'' ......" NewsMax 11/18/00 Dan Frisa "....... In a blatant and outrageous display of coldhearted hypocrisy, Gore Democrats, specifically counseled and encouraged by the veep's campaign, tonight rejected the votes of more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel, thumbing their noses at Americans serving in defense of the nation. What happened to ensuring that every vote is counted? And what happened to going to extraordinary means to ensure that everyone who intended to vote had their vote recorded? Al Gore finally showed all of America who he really is: a power-hungry lowlife only interested in his own aggrandizement and power, even at the expense of disenfranchising the very defenders of our freedom. ....." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/legaldocs/11180011thcircuit.pdf Freeper ambrose report "... Here is what the 11th Circuit says in its concluding paragraph: Based on a thorough review of events as they now stand, we cannot conclude that Plaintiffs have demonstrated a substantial threat of an irreparable injury that would warrant granting at this time the extraordinary remedy of an injunction pending appeal, and thus 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. Accordingly, the Emergency Motion for Injunction Pending Appeal is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE Washington Post 11/18/00 Jo Becker Pete Slevin "....Republicans in charge of the Florida legislature are preparing a legal strategy to appoint the state's 25 electors themselves if the Florida Supreme Court fails to rule on the matter promptly. ....... "We're going to potentially ignore the state Supreme Court," Tom Feeney, a Republican lawyer who will take over as House speaker on Tuesday, said in an interview today. "It is the state legislature that determines the method of selecting electors. . . . The question is whether or not the Supreme Court of Florida has any role whatsoever. If they try to interfere with our responsibilities, then we still have to fulfill them." ...... Federal law leaves the question of determining the methods for selecting members of the electoral college up to individual states. It provides that if the election fails to produce a slate of electors, "the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such state may direct." ...... But if the courts do not resolve the matter by Dec. 12, the law could allow the Florida legislature to step in and put new procedures in place, including appointing the electors themselves.

Republicans control both houses of the legislature. ......" Washington Post 11/18/00 Jo Becker Pete Slevin "....Feeney said he had not discussed the matter with the campaign of Republican candidate George W. Bush or the office of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. ..... He issued a statement later today after the Florida Supreme Court blocked Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying the final results of the election on Saturday, as she had planned. He called the court's decision "premature" and "regrettable," and pointed to the federal law empowering state legislatures to provide the rules for picking electors. "It is my intention to monitor the discord between the judicial and executive branches, and the Florida legislature will play a role should it become necessary," the statement said. ......" Freeper Nick Danger "..... THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Article II. Sect. 1. The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the vice-president, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows. Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress: but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. <P> Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "......A hand count of Palm Beach County ballots continued Friday, its warts exposed to the watching world as Republicans focused their attacks on the ungainly process. ...... By mid-afternoon, only 37 of 538 remaining precincts had been been hand-counted. Only four of those precincts were officially completed, meaning the canvassing board had gone through all of each precinct's "questionable" ballots -- between 200 and 300 each. The votes counted in those four precincts, mainly in Royal Palm Beach and Jupiter, showed George W. Bush picking up four votes over Al Gore when compared with a second electronic recount held Saturday. ....." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "......Of 53absentee ballots received from military installations and foreign countries, 17were thrown out by the board for lack of a postmark, signature, or for some other defect. Vice President Al Gore received 22 votes, Bush 13, and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader got 1 vote. ....." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/17/00 Jeff Shields Jodie Needle "...... Tucker Eskew, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Republican observers were "deliberately seeking to draw attention to ballots that are not being treated properly." ...... Eskew has alleged that mishandling by Democrats, some of it purposeful, may have changed some votes by helping dislodge the infamous "chad," or small piece of cardboard that is punched out in the normal voting process. ......... Fatigue, inadequate training and poor lighting made it hard for the counters, Eskew said. One Republican observer corrected five mistakes by ballot counters in an hour, Eskew said. One counter used a ballot to chip nail polish off her finger, Eskew said, and one elderly counter knocked a dozen ballots on the floor, stepping on one and kicking it across the floor it was picked up. ...... "I've witnessed a process that is exactly as we predicted it," said Eskew. ........" AP 11/17/00 ".....a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County....." AP 11/17/00 ".....Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, apparently sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter, given to The Associated Press by a Republican source, focused on protesting military ballots, which are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. ...." TheConservator 11/17/00 ".....I see a lot of Freepers getting worked up about the possibility that the Florida Supreme Court is going to "hand the election" directly to Gore. Don't worry. It's not going to happen. The Florida Supreme Court will review the Secretary of State's decision to reject further changes to the election results certified by the counties last Tuesday for abuse of discretion. Under the laws of most states, including Florida, an elected official abuses his or her discretion ONLY by taking a position that NO reasonable person could take. ........ In conducting its review, the Court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the elected official. As long as the elected official has followed a lawful procedure, considered the facts, and has taken a

rational position in response to those facts, the elected official has NOT acted arbitrarily. ...... In such circumstances, the Court MUST affirm the decision of the elected official. The Court cannot reverse the decision simply because it believes the Secretary reached the wrong result. ...." TheConservator 11/17/00 ".....Think remedy. The Court can find that the Secretary of State acted arbitrarily. The Court can tell the Secretary of State that she must go back and rethink her decision. But the Court CANNOT tell the Secretary of State what particular result she must reach. Within the guidelines laid down by the Court, the Secretary will still have the right to exercise the discretion conferred on her by statute. ...... This means Secretary of State Harris will have at least two options. First, she can simply set forth new or additional reasons for refusing to accept the late-filed results and/or hand recounts that the Court did not squarely address in its decsion or that(even if only arguably) comport with the law and standards set forth in the Court's decision. She announces her new reasons, reaffirms her earlier decision, and certifies the results of the election. Bush wins. ........ Or, she just does nothing. She simply refuses to certify any results. Under Federal law, if the State of Florida fails to choose its electors by the day designated in its laws, the state legislature is then empowered to do so: ........ 3 U.S.C. Section 2. The Florida legislature could invoke this provision any time after Saturday. Because the Florida legislature is overwhelmingly republican, the result would be a foregone conclusion. Moreover, the legislature's decision would NOT be subject to any judicial review. The result is clear--Bush wins. ......" Yahoo News/Reuters 11/17/00 David Lawsky ".....Palm Beach County is examining its 460,000 presidential ballots one at a time and announced the first results late Friday afternoon. ``Out of 3,200 votes, Bush had a gain of one vote,'' Burton said. His announcement covered only a fraction of the 32,000 votes counted over 15 hours by more than two dozen teams. The others can be added to the tally only after the board examines disputed punch-card ballots, which were pimpled or partially punched by voters. ........ The board also began its examination of 52 ballots that were supposed to be from overseas. It spent 15 minutes arguing over the first eight ballots, trying to determine whether they were valid. ...... Meanwhile, a judge in West Palm Beach was deciding whether he could legally order a new vote in the Florida county to correct problems the hand recount cannot solve -- the notorious ''butterfly ballot'' that led thousands of people to spoil their ballots with double punches or votes for the wrong candidate. ....... Circuit Court Judge Jorge LaBarga will rule on Monday morning, and if he decides he has authority to order a new election in the southeast Florida county at the center of the presidential thriller, he will set testimony for a later date. ......But an attorney for the Bush campaign, Barry Richard, said LaBarga had no authority to order a revote. ``I know of no place in Florida statute where a court is provided with such broad powers,'' Richard said. ....." Freeper Tempest "...In Dade County, 204 of 307 overseas ballots were rejected and in Broward County, 304 were tossed out while 92 were accepted. In Palm Beach County, 36 votes were accepted and 17 rejected. source: http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/18/president.election/index.html ....." New Australian 11/18/00 Gerard Jackson ".....Last Friday hundreds of overseas votes were rejected, votes that could have sealed Gore's fate. It seems that Democratic activists have coordinated a campaign to destroy any lead that Bush might gain from overseas voters, particularly military personnel. ........ Duval County threw out 107 votes, in other areas nearly of the ballots were rejected, including those from the military which is know to be pro-Republican. Orange County threw out 117 vote out of 147. This is an unheard of 80 percent rejection rate. That most of these votes were from the military can only raise suspicions. (Surely lightning cannot be striking that often in these counties?) .......... Seminole County threw out overseas ballots for postmark 'reasons'. Joe Egan, a local attorney representing the Democratic Party was reported as being particularly active in looking for postmarks anything sufficiently dubious to invalidate the ballot. His behavior is said to have been "pushy if not obnoxious". Alachua County rejected 50 percent of its overseas ballots while St Lucie rejected 13 out of 14. Lake County did better and went for a 100 percent rejection rate. Although there were only five votes every vote needs to be properly accounted for. This does not seem to be happening ........." New Australian 11/18/00 Gerard Jackson "..... To try and justify this extraordinary rejection rate, officials in Duval County, for example, claimed that the envelopes carried no postmark. But this defies the fact that votes by naval personnel would not carry postmarks if they were cast on naval vessels. This was confirmed by Edgardo Rodriguez, chief postal clerk of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, who signed an affidavit stating that: "It is not unusual for mail being sent by naval personnel, whether embarked on naval vessels or otherwise, not to have a postmark." .......... " Freeper Glock17 ".....When I was in the Navy. I sent many letters from the Persian Gulf to my girlfriend (now wife), and had the opportunity to see them later. About half of them didn't have a post mark. Since it was a combat zone, we didn't have to use a stamp. We could just write "Free Mail" on the envelope where the stamp would normally go. This didn't seem to affect whether or not it was postmarked. US Navy ships do have a postmark. It looks just like the normal ones, but instead of having the city's name, it has the ship

name. Isn't it an ironic tragedy that those who would die to protect the country are refused the basic right to vote? ....." Freeper mtrott "......The story I read said the election canvass members in one county were openly defying SOS Harris' instructions regarding these ballots. This is the result of these judges inserting themselves into the election by making rulings that control Harris. This undermines her legal authority and standing, giving these dems the notion that she is irrelevant. She is the SOS and these people are ignoring her. This disrespect for duly elected officials portends anarchy if not reversed......" Freeper BlueOx "....FOX ran a story just a short bit ago that John WArner has contacted COHEN!! ... bet Warner is HOPPING MAD!! ...." FoxNewsTV Freeper report "......A man who voted in Boca Raton was just interviewed on FoxNewsTV regarding an attempt to get him to vote absentee after the election with a Cuban-government post marked ballot (regressed to pre-November 7th). I only caught the end of the interview. He said something about a "pushy salesman" type man, and how he didn't think this was right, and how the Florida counties should disregard ANY absentee ballot from Cuba. Does anyone have any further information on this DNCCommunist organized vote fraud? ......" New York Times 11/18/00 B Drummond Ayres, Jr. "......The nation's Republican governors contended today that the Gore campaign was "brutally abusing" the good name of Florida's top election official and seriously threatening the foundations of American democracy by continuing to challenge the results of the state's presidential balloting. ....... "The Gore campaign needs to cease and desist," declared Gov. Bill Graves of Kansas. Mr. Graves then accused the Gore campaign of engaging in "character assassination to somehow undermine the public's confidence in the election process," with the effort, he said, aimed mainly at Florida's secretary of state, Katherine Harris, whom the Democrats say is behaving in a partisan manner........" New York Times 11/18/00 B Drummond Ayres, Jr. "......In accusing the Gore campaign of "character assassination," Governor Graves said that while Ms. Harris was a Republican and a leader of the Bush forces in Florida, she was unbiased when it came to vote counts. He insisted that she was guilty of nothing except a fair-minded effort to "uphold her state's laws." ...... "I'm terribly troubled," Mr. Graves said. Governor Schafer said he, too, was "very concerned" about the attacks on Ms. Harris "because she stood up for the law." "They have been brutally abusing her," Mr. Schafer went on. "I find it very disquieting that the Gore campaign would do that to get where it wants to go." ....... Governor Taft said that "as a fellow public official," he was "affronted by the partisan attacks on Ms. Harris." Governor Janklow called the Gore challenge "an outrage, incredible" and asserted that the attacks on Ms. Harris were "unimaginable.".... "This whole thing runs a grave risk to democracy," Mr. Janklow concluded....." New York Times 11/17/00 Richard Perez-Pena "......The tally of overseas absentee ballots by county officials across Florida today yielded rampant confusion, partisan wrangling over which votes to count and which to discard, and widespread uncertainty about the rules on what makes for a valid ballot. Counties applied vastly different standards in deciding whether to throw out ballots. A few county officials openly defied the Florida secretary of state's instructions to accept otherwise-valid ballots from overseas that were postmarked after Election Day. Others freely admitted that they did not understand those instructions. And officials in several counties said they feared that the count was being botched, and that another round of delays and court challenges was likely. .......... There was particular confusion over the rules for postmarks on the ballots, and many county officials complained of contradictory - and possibly incorrect - instructions from Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican and a Bush ally whom Democrats have already accused of bias in her handling of the overall count. ....... New York Times 11/17/00 Richard Perez-Pena "......State law says that ballots from other countries must be postmarked. But Ms. Harris issued a statement earlier this week saying that they did not have to be postmarked by Election Day, as long as they were signed and dated by Election Day. In other words, a ballot that was filled out on Election Day but mailed the next day would still be valid. Election officials in several counties, however, said today that they had always understood that ballots postmarked after Election Day were invalid, and that they had rejected such ballots in previous elections. Democratic officials in several of those counties said Ms. Harris wanted the maximum number of overseas votes counted in the belief that they would benefit Mr. Bush. ........ Canvassing boards in counties carried by Mr. Gore invalidated ballots at a far higher rate than those in counties carried by Mr. Bush, in part because Republican-dominated counties accepted ballots postmarked after the election or with no postmarks, while Democratic counties rejected them. Among counties with large numbers of overseas votes, for instance, Broward, Miami- Dade and Orange, which voted for Mr. Gore, threw out more than 80 percent of the ballots, while Escambia, Clay and Okaloosa, which went for Mr. Bush, threw out about 40 percent. ......... In Miami-Dade County, the canvassing board rejected 209 out of 312 votes, to almost no objection from either party. Once again, many

of the votes were invalidated because they were postmarked after Election Day or had no postmark. Officials said they were aware of Ms. Harris's instructions, but disregarded them. ....." MSNBC 11/17/00 ".......On a Special Edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews, Alan Derschowitz signaled a subtle shift in Democrat strategy. He mentioned that a statewide handcount supervised by independent observers might be a solution coming out of the judiciary proceedings of next week. Gore chief legal strategist David Boies discussed the statewide handcount solution later in the show. Of course this is extralegal solution and can only happen if the judiciary unconstitutioally takes over the elections. The Democratic strategy has clearly shifted from selective handcounts to court administered elections. Evidently, polls must be showing that the current selective handcounts are being perceived as unfair. ....." Freeper FlameThrower "...... As a Vietnam veteran I have been outraged by the disenfranchisement of military overseas voters in Florida. I refer to the cynical effort mounted by the Democrats to challenge these ballots. Along with the Kangaroo Count it invalidates the results entirely. I encourage the Florida Secretary of State, if she is prevented from doing her duty, to declare that fraud, bad faith and political manipulation have been so rampant in the Florida vote that no valid result can be certified. The Courts can render all the opinions they want about Florida law, but they cannot force a constitutional officer to certify results she pronounces uncertifiable. ....... By doing this, she would throw it to the legislature to select Florida's electors. ......" Boardman v. Esteva, supra, 323 So. 2d 259 1972 Freeper Muttley "......In Boardman v. Esteva, supra, 323 So. 2d 259, the issue was "whether the absentee voting law requires absolute strict compliance with all its provisions, or whether substantial compliance is sufficient to give validity to the ballot." Boardman, 323 So. 2d at 262. The case involved a contest of the October 3, 1972 election for a seat on the Second District Court of Appeal. The ballots challenged in that case included a number of ballots on which the voter's affidavit did not indicate the voter's reason for voting absentee, as well as ballots in which the absentee envelopes did not contain a postmark. After analyzing in detail the effect of technical irregularities in the absentee voting law on the integrity of the election, the court determined that, on the facts before it, the challenged irregularities did not warrant the invalidation of the absentee votes because the irregularities did not affect the integrity of the election. However, the Court emphasized that evidence of fraud, gross negligence, or intentional wrongdoing may well have produced a different result: "Notably existent in this dispute is the complete absence of any allegation of fraud, gross negligence or even the hint of intentional wrongdoing, either on the part of the voters or of the election officials." Id. at 263. The court held that trial courts must consider the following factors in determining whether to invalidate absentee ballots: (a) the presence or absence of fraud, gross negligence, or intentional wrongdoing; (b) whether there has been substantial compliance with the essential requirements of the absentee voting law; and (c) whether the irregularities complained of adversely affect the sanctity of the ballot and the integrity of the election. I don't know if statutory law has changed since 1972, but it appears if there is no fraud, ballots without postmarks may be accepted in Florida. ......" CNN Website 11/18/00 "......Sen. John Warner, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed "distress" Friday over reports that absentee ballots used by members of the military might not be counted because they weren't postmarked because of clerical errors. In a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen, Warner, R-Virginia, wrote: "My Senate office, and those of other Senators, are receiving calls and emails from constituents alleging that local elections officials are being asked not to count absentee ballots from overseas military personnel and their families which do not bear postmarks, although those ballots were received in the voter's state by the deadline set by state law.......... "It is a fact, regrettably, that a number of absentee ballots from overseas U.S. military personnel do not bear a postmark," the senator continued, attributing the omissions to "human error." ......." Andrew Sullivan 11/17/00 ".....I just re-read John Fund's excellent, recent piece in OpinionJournal.com on the Florida Supreme Court at Mickey Kaus's urging. Holy Injunction! No wonder they behaved the way they did yesterday. Their record is one of flagrant dismissal of legislative decisions, outright over-ruling of obvious voter intent, and general contempt for the legislative process. If the law doesn't suit them, they just ignore it! They recently threw out a pro-death penalty ballot initiative on specious grounds. Ward Connerly tried four different wordings for four different anti-race preference initiatives - and the Court struck them all off the ballot as 'misleading' and 'confusing.' Tallahassee's legislators - Democrat and Republican alike - have long since given up on any reasonable relationship with the out-of-control Supremes. ...."

Jewish World Review 11/17/00 Thomas Sowell "..... IT WAS ONLY a few words among the millions that have been spewed out through the media about the presidential election, but they were among the weightiest -and most chilling -- of these words. A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal mentioned in passing "a quiet intelligence-gathering operation" begun by the Gore camp, "checking into the backgrounds of Republican electors, with an eye toward persuading them to vote for Mr. Gore." .......... Those who vote in the electoral college are not legally bound to vote for those whom the voters in their states voted for. But if the Gore operatives are merely trying to "persuade" Bush electors to defect, then why this hush-hush digging into the past of these electors? .......... All this is going on while the Gore spokesmen are saying on TV at every opportunity that "every vote should count." But a Bush voter's vote will not count if his elector who actually votes in the electoral college decides to vote for Gore, rather than have some scandal from his past made public. ....... This is only the latest in the desperate and ugly tactics used by the Gore camp, in order to take the presidency by all means necessary. Nor is this a new tactic for the Clinton/Gore administration. ........." Jewish World Review 11/17/00 Thomas Sowell "..... The "politics of personal destruction," which Bill Clinton has publicly deplored, has been his method of operation for years, going all the way back to his days as governor of Arkansas. Al Gore has now taken over the techniques of his mentor, with his operatives' innuendoes about Ralph Nader's sex life on the eve of the election and their digging up George W. Bush's minor brush with the law 24 years ago. ........ More is involved here than "dirty tricks" or the character flaws of those who engage in them. ........ These corrupt ways of operating are a danger to the very nature of American government. If you can steal an election by blackmailing members of the electoral college, then democracy becomes a farce. ...... Constitutional checks and balances mean nothing if you can blackmail anyone who would expose your illegal actions and ruin a few of them just to show that you mean business. ......" http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/decision2000/lat_absentee001117.htm 11/17/00 ".... Those requirements, however, are not as stringent as those recommended in a 1998 report on voter fraud issued by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The report was completed in the wake of the 1997 Miami mayoral election that was overturned because of rampant absentee voting fraud. ...... The study said such election fraud is a danger to "the integrity of our democracy in all elections." It recommended stricter procedures for distributing absentee ballots and a reinstatement of an old Florida law that required all absentee ballots to have two or more witnesses or be notarized. ........" newsday.com 11/18/00 Laurie Asseo ".....When the Florida Supreme Court next week reviews the secretary of state's refusal to accept hand-counted presidential votes, it will be venturing into an area in which judges only go reluctantly. Courts usually don't like to second-guess government officials' actions, particularly in election cases. .......... But one constitutional scholar says Florida's highest court might be more willing than a county judge was to require manually counted votes included in the overall total, thereby keeping alive Democrat Al Gore's hopes of overtaking Republican George W. Bush. ........ Courts generally do not overrule government officials' decisions in areas where the law gives them discretion, unless those decisions amount to abuse of that discretion. ......... ''It's a very important aspect of judicial restraint,'' said Pepperdine University law professor Douglas Kmiec. ........ After Leon County Judge Terry Lewis decided Friday not to require Harris to accept hand-counted vote totals, a Florida appeals court took just hours to boot the case up to the state's highest court. A ruling by the Florida Supreme Court would not necessarily end all legal challenges to the election results. After the final vote is certified, the losing side can still file a new court challenge on grounds that enough valid votes were rejected to put the results in doubt. Also, some Palm Beach County voters have gone to court to challenge that county's ''butterfly'' ballot, saying it was too confusing. ........." Freeper AFA-Michigan "....... I agree, based on some experience, that the Florida Sec. of State should simply proceed with certifying the election results on Saturday. The separation of powers principle, dating back to the U.S. Supreme Court's Marbury v. Madison decision (1802?), establishes that the three branches of government are EQUAL...meaning that the state judicial branch cannot order the state executive branch to do (or not do) anything. ......... " Bushnews@georgebush.com (Bush-Cheney 2000) "....... Today, a Florida judge supported FL Secretary of State Katherine Harris' decision to reject hand-counted votes submitted after the November 14 statewide county certification deadline. The judge, a Democrat, found Harris had exercised proper discretion. Governor Bush believes the way to conclude this election, in a fair, accurate and final way, is for the state of Florida to count the remaining overseas ballots, add them to the certified vote, and announce the results, as required by the Florida law. ........ Florida citizens are ready for and will accept the result, according to the two new polls. According to a new Mason-Dixon poll, 71% of Floridians believe waiting to declare a winner by the end of this weekend is ACCEPTABLE, while 60% believe waiting several weeks to declare a winner is TOO LONG TO WAIT. ........ Further, according to a new NBC/WSJ poll, 81% will accept George W. Bush as

winner based on the overseas absentee ballots count plus the current machine tally." ........"Meanwhile, the Gore campaign says they want a full, fair and accurate count, but today, the LA Times reports on how they hope to achieve their real objectives... SEASONED DEMOCRATIC ARMY HITS THE SHORES OF FLORIDA excerpts from the Los Angeles Times: "To scrounge for every last vote, Gore has flooded Fort Lauderdale with tough, seasoned Democrats, the sort who are used to keeping wafflers in line and to count and recount votes until they know exactly what it will take to outdo their opponents. Many of the hired hands speak with a Boston brogue... "Not far away, in an abandoned Payless shoe store, vanloads of AFL-CIO staffers and Gore loyalists from New York, Chicago, Nashville, Philadelphia, San Francisco and elsewhere had disembarked to learn how to observe the ballot count. "Our goal, said one lawyer as he patiently lectured his new charges, 'is to pereserve the Al Gore vote.' The volunteers nodded. 'It's very, very important that if you see any kind of mar-a scratch, a dent, a pinprick in Al Gore's column - that you challenge.' When someone then asked what they should do if the found a Bush ballot with an indent, the lawyer said 'Keep your lips sealed.' It was hardball that the Bostonians and other imported pros understood well." http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/decision2000/lat_dems001117.htm Fox News Freeper rbedfor 11/18/00 ".....Bret reported on Fox news that the Gore camp felt that Bush was up more than 800, they would have a hard time overcoming. Hopefully the jerks on the FL SC will think about that and go ahead and let this die. God help us. ....." Freeper JeanS adds ".....Fox also just reported that all absentee ballots are counted and the unoffical tally according to AP is Bush +926. ....." AP via TBO 11/18/00 Laura Meckler "......Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala will become president of the University of Miami in 2001 after eight years in President Clinton's Cabinet, an administration official said Saturday. ....." NewsMax.com 11/18/00 London Telegraph "........The London Telegraph is wondering if Kendall Coffey, Al Gore's lead attorney in his effort to over turn the election results, is just part of of Fla.'s growing weirdness. ......... But the London paper says no one takes the cake more than Miami lawyer Kendall Coffey, who earlier this year was supposedly defending Elian Gonzalez from the Clinton-Gore-Reno abduction. Kendall Coffey is "is pure Florida." Coffey's background is illuminating. ........ "One night in 1996 when he still reigned as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Mr Coffey decided to unwind from another day of drug busting and corruption hunting at a lapdancing bar near Miami called Lipstik." ...... At the infamous Lipstik lounger, Coffey "ordered a 600 bottle of champagne and retired to a private room with a dancer called Tiffany. Aroused and drunk, he then proceeded to bite her on the arm, leaving her with toothmarks and him in disgrace and out of a job." ......... The Telegraph wonders if "President" Gore might reward him with a treat at the Lipstik lounge. "Though perhaps he might consider to take a mouth guard this time." ....." MSNBC Television 11/18/00 Freeper Smogger "...... Anyone else think that Gore not going to be able to get there even WITH the hand counts? The MSNBC guy said that the thinking around there is that he maybe able to squeeze 170 votes net out of there. I think Gore is in trouble with this hand count deal. I mean once they have been run through the machines twice you don't got too much hanging chad left. He only picked up around 130 or so with Volousia (sp?), and that was out of like 200-300K votes. What is the largest county remaining? Miami-Dade? I'm telling you they need to get 300+ votes from each of the remaining counties. I just don't think they will be able to pull it off. In addition even if the court rules that Harris abused her discretion in the instance of one country what are the odds that they will say that she abused her discretion with reguards to ALL 3 counties. She will probably still be able to throw out the results of at least one country and that will be it for Gore. ....... That's the ONLY reason I think that they offered to recount the entire state. I bet you they are already thinking that those three counties are not going to be enough. They NEED to bring in MORE counties. I'll tell you one thing if the hand counts don't turn up enough votes for Gore I think that the American people will turn on him for what it already perceived as a tactic to delay the inevitable. ....." The Associated Press 11/18/00 Dan Sewell ".....The counting of overseas absentee ballots wrapped up Saturday and, as expected, added to George W. Bush's slight lead in Florida. But a surprising number of ballots were thrown out, raising cries of foul play from the Bush campaign. ........ With all 67 counties reporting their overseas results, Bush picked up 1,376 votes and Gore got 750 votes, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Bush now leads by 926 votes in the overall count, including overseas votes and the numbers certified earlier by the Florida secretary of state. ....... Still, the Bush campaign expressed

displeasure at the number of overseas ballots that were disqualified. ``We are distressed at what appears to be a statewide effort on behalf of Al Gore to discredit the votes of military servicemen and women,'' Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said Friday night, after more than 1,400 overseas ballots had been rejected. ......... While Republicans complained of a coordinated effort by Democrats aimed against ballots from military personnel - which the GOP claimed would favor Bush - the Gore campaign decried GOP ``misinformation and conspiracy theories.'' ``It was local, elected Florida elections officials who decided whether or not to accept these ballots,'' Gore spokeswoman Jenny Backus said. ``It's also somewhat disingenuous for the Republican Party to talk about some kind of Democratic conspiracy when both sides had observers out in the field.'' ......." The Associated Press 11/18/00 Dan Sewell ".....``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander in chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County, where 107 ballots were rejected. Thomas Spencer, a Miami attorney for Bush, said the GOP legal team would weigh whether to sue this weekend. ``One of the problems with those ballots is it is so difficult under Florida and federal law that you almost have to be a rocket scientist to comply,'' he said. ........" The Associated Press 11/18/00 "......The presidential election shouldn't be taken out of the hands of American voters and decided by the courts, Rep. Tom Foley, R-Fla., said Saturday. ``This election cannot keep being dragged through the courts because some people don't like the results,'' Foley said in the Republicans' weekly national radio address. ``If it does, the integrity of our presidency - which has already been frayed over the past eight years - will be further weakened and worn.'' ....... ``We are a great nation. We cannot allow the highest office in the land - indeed the most powerful office in the world - to be undermined by one person's boundless political ambitions,'' Foley said. ``Every one of us must demand that the political operatives and lawyers put America first.'' ......" UPI 11/18/00 ".....The counting of absentee ballots from overseas has boosted the lead of Texas Gov. George W. Bush over Vice President Gore from 300 to 893 votes in the race for Florida's electoral votes........ The deadline for receiving absentee ballots from overseas passed Friday night, and as of Saturday morning, Florida's Secretary of State had counted 1,869 additional votes. Of those, Bush gained 1,203 votes, and Gore gained 610. Bush's total vote count in the state now stands at 2,911,695; Gore's total is 2,910,802............ The court set a deadline of 2 p.m. Saturday for initial briefs to be filed in the case by the Bush and Gore camps. The court will hear oral arguments beginning at 2 p.m. Monday......" MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Marylander ".....Ashley is on MSNBC 10:08 AM EST 11/18/2000 showing how easy it is to pop chads out of cards by bending. She popped two out on camera. She aslo did this accidently last week while demonstrating the voting machine and diagram with types of chads. I hope someone can use this info......" NSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Ganymede "......Miami-Dade appears to be dragging its feet on the handcount. Earlier in the week, they rejected the idea of a full handcount. Then, they submitted a letter to the SOS offering NO facts or circumstances warranting extension of the certification deadline in order to include the handcounts. Now, although they have decided to go ahead with a full handcount, they aren't expected to begin handcounting until Monday. They will NEVER finish with 650,000 ballots to count. Gore is doomed unless Palm Beach and Broward counties can come through with 1000 votes! ....." CNN 11/18/00 ".....The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said he was "distressed" by reports that absentee ballots from members of the military may not be counted because they lacked postmarks. Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, raised the issue in a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen on Friday. ...... "As Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, I am deeply distressed that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines may lose their votes through no fault of their own," said Warner's letter. The Pentagon had no immediate response to the letter and Cohen is currently traveling in the Persian Gulf region. ..... Military postal regulations require that a postmark be affixed. "Fundamental principles of equity, long established in our jurisprudence, should be invoked to ensure that the ballots of our overseas military personnel are counted despite the absence of a postmark, or some other technicality," Warner wrote. ..... The issue was also raised in a separate letter from Navy Captain E.M. DuCom -- who is deputy director of the Military Postal Service Agency -- to a Palm Beach, Florida, law firm. "There are instances when time constraints do not allow for proper postmarking/cancellation of the mail," DuCom wrote. ...... DuCom added that he has "personally received mail through the MPS (Military Postal System) with no postmarking." ...." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 Stephen Kiehl ".....Quietly, without fanfare or publicity, the two sheets of paper slipped from one Capitol office to another on Wednesday night and were signed by three state officials, certifying the results of Florida's longest-running presidential election. Of course, they weren't final. This week nothing is. ...... But the world didn't know what had happened until later that night, when Secretary

of State Katherine Harris held a news conference and announced, "The State Elections Canvassing Commission, acting in its normal and usual manner, has certified the results of last Tuesday's election in Florida, including the Presidential election." ...... Huh? How could something so important -- and so close (Texas Gov. George W. Bush led Vice President Al Gore by a mere 300 votes out of nearly 6 million cast) -been done so privately? The answer: Because state law says so. ...... Wednesday's certification was final, Harris said, pending the overseas absentee ballots that each county had to receive by Friday. That's all Harris was waiting on, and she has asked the counties to report to her those results by noon today. But there's no law to require that. ...... " THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 Mary Ellen Klas "......Republican legislators came to the defense of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris Friday, blasting media commentators for making sexist comments about her while GOP officials were urging their ranks to keep quiet. "I'm appalled at the treatment and cheap remarks by those who supposedly have been champions of women's rights," said Rep. Nancy Argenziano, RCrystal River. ...... She and five other Republican women called a news conference to announce their support of Harris. "She has been crudely maligned and received attacks on her performance," said Rep. Evelyn Lynn, R-Daytona Beach. "If women are political leaders they should not be subject to attacks that others might not be." ......The women legislators blasted media commentators for labeling Harris with sexist names, commenting on her makeup and clothes and assuming she is incapable of handling the job. ...... I have received hundreds of calls and e-mails in support of Secretary Harris," said Rep. Bev Kilmer, RMarianna. "These media attacks on her are totally unfounded and inappropriate. She is doing her job exactly as required by law." ....." FOX news (tv) 11/18/00 Freeper TLI "....Just saw on FOX News... Dems Caught Red Handed placing Bush votes into Gore Stacks. Implications unknown, but it looks big. ....." Freeper RepubMommy adds "....I just saw this also. OMG, this is SICK!!! Those Democrats are so corrupt, I don't know how esle to say it. ......" Freeper Ivote2 ".... Apparently last night someone put a stack of Bush votes into a pile of ballots to be counted for Gore. She realized her mistake and in the morning reported it to LePore. (Sorry if I misspelled her name.) She knew about it but did not correct this mistake. ...... Seems to me that a witness is present to say there was a mistake and it was not corrected when reported. This will be hard to spin the other way. ..." Fox News Live 11/18/00 "......Fox News just interviewed someone named Tucker, a spokesman for the Bush campaign. He said that in one precinct in PBC, there were 6 to 9 Bush ballots placed in the Gore stack. This means, of course, that Bush votes wouldn't not just be counted, but that they'd be counted for Al Gore. ...... Tucker (didn't catch the last name) said that LePore said she was aware of the problem, but had taken no steps to correct. ....." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/18/00 George Bennett "......While she was a member of Palm Beach County's Elections Canvassing Board, County Commissioner Carol Roberts solicited campaign contributions last month for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bill Nelson. That's a violation of Florida statutes, Republican attorney J. Reeve Bright claimed Friday. ........ Because Nelson's race was on the Nov. 7 ballot and its results were certified by the county canvassing board, Bright accused Roberts of violating the statute that says a canvassing board member cannot be "an active participant in the campaign or candidacy of any candidate who has opposition in the election being canvassed." Roberts' lawyer said Nelson's race isn't being canvassed. ..... "The presidential election is being canvassed -- not the election for the U.S. Senate," Richard Slawson said. ......" Freeper sdkhaki "..... The roar of protest over the rejected military ballots has to dominate the news cycle this weekend........ Here's the e-mail I just sent to my Congressman. I urge everyone to do the same. In Florida over 1000 overseas military members have been disenfranchised because of an ORGANZIED effort by the Gore campaign to disqualify overseas absentee ballots. As a 17 year Navy Chief Petty Officer I am OUTRAGED that a potential Commander in Chief would sink so low as to disregard the will of military professionals such as those brave Americans who died on the USS Cole. You have been an outspoken supporter of the military during your career and I am proud to call you my Congressman. I urge you to look into this travesty in Florida, particularly in light of FEDERAL law which provides special rights to military members overseas when casting absentee ballots........" Florida Law 11/18/00 "......Florida statute 102.131 is clear not only on irregularities in the vote (the State Canvassing Board is required NOT to count any questionable ballots) but also the standard that should be applied in how a hand examination should take place. It says explicitedly that "The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns." ....... The significance of this is clear: unless a SPECIFIC COUNTY's 1% sample hand count shows that a complete hand recount - by extrapolation - can change the outcome of the election, it should NOT take place regardless of their already suspect interpretations. ...... Broward generated 4 Gore votes in a 1% hand re-

canvassing. Dade generated 6 Gore votes in a 1% hand re-canvassing. Since Bush has a 926 vote lead neither were right to pursue the recount on the grounds that they could alter the outcome of the election, and the State Canvassing Board is quite clear on the fact that these decisions should be based solely on a county by county basis and not in an aggregate. ......." Here's the complete statute: 102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.-- If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. NewsMax.com 11/18/00 Carl Limbacher "......On Friday Vice President Al Gore declared that the disputed presidential election would be decided by "the will of the people as expressed through the rule of law." But as overseas absentee ballots were being tallied all day, it became clear that Florida Democrats decided to enforce the rule of law only as long as it helped the vice president. ........ Though the state official with jurisdiction over Florida election law, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, had ruled that absentee ballots either unpostmarked or postmarked late should be included in the count, Democrat vote counters openly defied her instructions. ....... "Here in Leon County, the three member canvassing board, controlled by Democrats, rejected several ballots postmarked after the election," reported Saturday's New York Times, "insisting that Ms. Harris had misinterpreted the law and that they would ignore her instructions." ...... The unpostmarked absentee ballots are mostly from U.S. military installations around the world, where soldiers send their mail for free, which means there's no postmark. ......As many as 1,000 military absentee ballots were tossed out by Democrat vote counters on Friday, according to Saturday's New York Post, most of which were expected to go for Bush. ......"The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of men and women he will be commanding," Florida GOP lawyer Jim Post told the paper. ....." ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/18/00 David Espo "......Aides to George W. Bush hailed a count of overseas absentee ballots that padded his lead in Florida Saturday to 926 votes over Al Gore. But they complained that ongoing hand recounts in three counties are "flawed and subject to human error." ...... All eyes were on the state's Supreme Court, which has prohibited the Florida secretary of state from certifying final results without the court's permission. The justices have set oral arguments for Monday. ...... Overall, Bush picked up 1,376 votes from the overseas ballots and Gore got 750. "Florida's votes have now been counted and recounted, and in some counties recounted three or four times, and virtually all of the overseas ballots have been counted," Hughes said in a written statement. "We are hopeful that once the Florida Supreme Court has heard arguments in this case, the laws of Florida will prevail and the election will be certified." ...... "As our observers report numerous problems with that count, we continue to be concerned that the manual recount of ballots that have already been machine counted several times is flawed and subject to human error," she said. ....... Controversy was a constant companion. More than a thousand absentee ballots were thrown out Friday, and Republicans accused Democrats of mounting an organized effort to nullify votes cast by members of the armed forces. ....... Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, speaking on behalf of the Bush camp, said the court had "issued an order that neither side requested. Nevertheless, its action is not an order on the merits of the case." ......... "She welcomes guidance from the highest court. The monkey isn't on her back anymore," said her spokesman, Joe Klock. ...... " ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/18/00 AP David Espo ".....While Republicans complained of a coordinated effort by Democrats aimed against ballots from military personnel, the Gore campaign decried GOP "misinformation and conspiracy theories" and said the Republicans had their own army out for the county-by-county battle. ...... "It was local, elected Florida elections officials who decided whether or not to accept these ballots," Gore spokeswoman Jenny Backus said. "It's also somewhat disingenuous for the Republican Party to talk about some kind of Democratic conspiracy when both sides had observers out in the field." ...... In some counties, half or nearly all the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. In Hillsborough County, 74 of the 135 overseas ballots were rejected after Democrats raised concerns about postmark or signature problems. Alachua County rejected half of the 56 overseas ballots received. St. Lucie rejected 13 of 14 and Lake County, all five. ....... " Free Republic Threads 11/18/00 Freeper FrostFire ".......

To: supremecourt@flcourts.org FACT: Florida law on absentee ballots states: postmarked "or" signed and witnessed by election day. FACT: TITLE 39 - POSTAL SERVICE PART IV - MAIL MATTER CHAPTER 34 - ARMED FORCES AND FREE POSTAGE Sec. 3406. Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas ... (1) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage; FACT: Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter focused on protesting military ballots, which were assumed to heavily favor Bush, and included a section on military postmarks....... Herron, who served on the Ethics Commission from 1984 to 1988 and was its chairman in his final two years on the nine-member panel, is one of the capital's best-known lobbyists and civil lawyers. ....... He has helped write many of the state's election laws and his past clients before the Ethics Commission include ex-Senate President Jim Scott, State Rep. Alzo Reddick, former Parole Commissioner Gary Latham and former Florida State University athletics director Bob Goin. FACT: TITLE 39 - POSTAL SERVICE PART IV - MAIL MATTER CHAPTER 34 - ARMED FORCES AND FREE POSTAGE Sec. 3406. Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (a) Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (individually or in bulk) (1) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage; TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I - CRIMES CHAPTER 29 - ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES Sec. 608. Absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters (a) Whoever knowingly deprives or attempts to deprive any person of a right under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both....... MOTION: In accordance with this law, we demand prosecution of Attorney, Mark Herron, as the head of a criminal conspiracy to deprive US Servicemen and Women of their constitutional right to vote in the elction of those who would command them. We also demand an immediate investigation into those people who knowingly conspired with this attorney to reject the lawful votes of this nation's Military Personel out of hand. Evidence consists of a five page memo in the hands of Democratic election officials, and now retrieved by the Republican officials overseeing the ballot count. It is our understanding that Attorney, Mark Herron held face to face seminars with vote counters to teach them how to reject Military ballots in a way that would be perceived as legal so there should be no shortage of witnesses. FACT: Secretary of State Katherine Harris followed Florida law by imposing a vote certification deadline on Florida's counties. Democrat judges, by judicial fiat, ignored and wrongly interpreted the law as passed by the Florida legislature. Now heavily Democrat counties are counting votes past the legal deadline thanks to a green light granted to them by affiliated judges. FACT: TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I - CRIMES CHAPTER 29 - ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES Sec. 608. Absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters (a) Whoever knowingly deprives or attempts to deprive any person of a right under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. REMARKS: QUESTION:--since it's organized that makes this a criminal conspiracy, and because it involves the military and the mail system this removes it from the state court system and makes it a federal matter. Systematic attempt to deny the rights of voters etc. Sue for immediate relief with the 11th? The lawyer promoting this has opened the door to federal review of this matter. Later a civil class action lawsuit on behalf of aggrieved parties with the FLA Democratic party and this lawyer as the Defendant? FACT: Sec. 608. Absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters (a) Whoever knowingly deprives or attempts to deprive any person of a right under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act

shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. FACT: The USPS Domestic Mail Manual contains the Motor Voter provisions regarding what an absentee ballot envelope has to look like and how it will be marked....... IT ALSO provides that this MAIL travels free of postage....... The only mail that gets a postmark is that bearing adhesive stamps. Mail that is entered under permit, mail with a postage meter, mail with a precancel stamp (same as permit) DOES NOT GET POSTMARKED....... Florida law, also, does not require a POSTMARK. It requires that the ballots be RECEIVED BY, which is the difference. FACT: In any case, Florida law does not prevail on this issue since the US Constitution has already granted that authority to the US Federal Government, and in turn, that is assigned to the United States Postal Service, (The "post offices, post roads" clause.) REMARKS: Certainly people in Florida have some sort of law concerning people who go around agitating election officials to violate the law. I think there is a federal voting rights law or two regarding this - passed in 1963 and 1964!....." Fox News 11/18/00 Alan Clendenning "......Although Al Gore lost ground to George W. Bush as Florida finished counting overseas ballots, he continued to pick up votes in the manual recount of Democraticleaning Broward County. With 153 of the county's 609 precincts tallied by midday Saturday, Gore had gained 48 votes over official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to official totals. ....... Secretary of State Katherine Harris has said she won't accept any manual recount totals, but the Florida Supreme Court ruled Friday that she cannot certify election results until it holds a hearing Monday. ....... Scherer says the manual recount requires the county's three-member canvassing board to make subjective decisions about whether voters' intended to vote for Gore or Bush. Allowing it to continue violates state law, he said. Democratic Party attorney Leonard Samuels rejected the argument, saying the canvassing board has standards for determining whether a vote should count. ........ "For some reason they are petrified about the canvassing board doing their job,'' Samuels said. "He's right - we are petrified,'' Scherer said. "This (process) scares us to death. This scares the nation.'' Later Friday, second Circuit Court Judge John Miller told the board to reconsider its decision not to count ballots unless two of the four corners of a chad - the bit of paper from the hole in a punchout ballot are completely detached. He said the board should consider ballots where the chads were only dimpled, or pushed out. ....." Federal Voting Assistance Act website - PDF document 11/18/00 U.S. Congress "..... TITLE 39 - POSTAL SERVICE PART IV - MAIL MATTER CHAPTER 34 - ARMED FORCES AND FREE POSTAGE Sec. 3406. Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (a) Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (individually or in bulk) (1) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage; TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I - CRIMES CHAPTER 29 - ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES Sec. 608. Absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters (a) Whoever knowingly deprives or attempts to deprive any person of a right under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act shall be fined in accordance with this title or

imprisoned not more than five years, or both. Bush-Cheney 2000 11/18/00 General Norman Schwarzkopf "........Statement by retired General Norman Schwarzkopf regarding the denied overseas absentee ballots: It is a very sad day in our country when the men and women of the armed forces are serving abroad and facing danger on a daily basis in places like Bosnia, Kosovo or on ships like the USS George Washington, yet because of some technicality out of their control they are denied the right to vote for the President of the United States who will be their commander in chief. These men and women do not have the luxury of getting in their cars and going to the post office to mail their ballots. They must depend upon a system that takes their ballot directly from their front line positions on a circuitous route to the ballot box. At the same time because of other perceptions of irregularity other ballots that have already been counted twice and are now being counted a third time. For the sake of fairness alone these armed forces ballots should be allowed to be tallied. ....." Freeper Citizen Soldier 11/18/00 "....CNN just read it on the air, Mindy Tucker from the Bush camp, just pointed out that she thought it was an effort by the DNC to disqualify the effort and pointed out the 5- page memo from the DNC on how to disqualify a ballot that was sent out. This lady has guts!!!! ....." NewsMax 11/18/00 Stephan Archer ".......In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Elections Resources Corp. President Paul Nolte said his ballot-counting software, which is used in the Florida counties of MiamiDade, Broward and Palm Beach, is 100 percent accurate and has been put through stringent testing before and after the Florida vote count. "We've counted 100 percent accuracy every time we've gone through certification testing," Nolte said. ....... Certification testing is the strict standard by which the state allows hardware and software to be used in the elections process. In Florida, the acceptable margin of error is one for every million votes counted. Before the actual counting of ballots begins, a logic and accuracy test is conducted. During the test, a sample deck of ballots with a predetermined result is run through the machine. Only if the machine and software pass the test will they both be used. After the official ballots are counted, the same sample deck is run through the machine again to make sure the accuracy rating is the same as before the official count. ........"What they're doing is sandwiching the actual ballot count in between two logic and accuracy tests that produce a known result," Nolte explained. ...." LA Times 11/18/00 Ron Brownstein "......But one senior Bush aide hinted at another line of legal attack this week, when he said the campaign's research had found that 1,100 Florida voters were simultaneously registered in New York state. The Bush campaign presumes most of those voters are Democrats, and if their votes were disallowed, even a Gore lead from the manual recount might be reversed. ...... Asked whether the discovery of the dual registrants might prompt further litigation to disallow some of those votes, the advisor said, "We'll see." ......" Bush Campaign Press Conference 11/18/00 MississippiMan "...... Bush spokespeople finally laying out the fraud in detail on CNN right now, talking about all the shenanigans going on in these hand counts....." Freeper ALOHA RONNIE adds "......FoX News Channel just reported that the people of Palm Beach County are getting really upset about what this "Re-Count" Process is costing them. Estimated Cost up till now = $100,000!!!!! ....." Freeper structure ".....HE'S CONTRASTING THROWING OUT ABSENTEE MILITARY (through no fault of their own) WITH COUNTING FELONS IN THE VOTE BY DEMS! YES!!!!!! ....." Freeper Citizen Soldier adds ".....He said that if you multiplied the number of felons across Florida it would come to theorically 2,000 felons voting and that one felon who voted even worked at a precinct! ....." Freeper Ssteamer ".....I had started to watch the press conference @2:10 on CBS but once the speaker started bringing out some serious truths on the documented fraud going on the commentator cut him off and talked his own game! Not one major channel on antenna stations carried the continuing release, found ONE radio station still carrying it and it was shut down also. How is the average american not equipped with cable or dish ever going to be able to hear the Republican side!! ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS all can shove it. Ssteamer ......" Freeper sinkspur ".....THE GORE CAMP WILL COUNT THE VOTES OF 39 FELONS, BUT NOT THE VOTES OF OUR MEN AND WOMEN IN UNIFORM. This will be one of the talking points for the shouting head shows tomorrow morning. The Bush camp is capturing the PR high ground here, with the 930 vote lead now official. How do the Gore people respond to this military absentee ballot issue? ....."

Freeper rintense ".....This has been a MAJOR public relations coup. The nation will not stand for the crap the Gore campaign is pulling in PB and Broward- but I suspect there will be more outrage about the military ballots. And, these military ballots are signed and dated by soldiers! Their intent is clear- crystal clear. The Gore camp has manuvered themselves into a corner of explaining voter intent. This press conference will rock this country and hopefully wake up those who thought a hand count was fair......" Freeper tm22721 "....IMHO this allows SOS Harris to reject hand counts on the basis of fraud. ...." Freeper what's up "...... One charge he made was that chads had been taped over the hole on Bush ballots to nullify them. Also, that the famous "78 chads on the floor" that all the networks talked about now had expanded and in all counties was more like 500. Also, that 40(is that the right number?) felons had voted, mostly for Gore. He mentioned how outrageous it was that the military's votes had been nullified while felons' had been counted. ....." Freeper TheLurkerX ".....Theresa LePore was caught putting Bush ballots in Gore's stack, and this was brought up by a democrat. When they were questioned about why the Bush ballots were mixed in, they were put in a box by her, with no explanation. ....." Freeper rintense "......Gov. Racicot outlined the many instances of voter tampering within Palm Beach and Broward counties. He cited sworn statements from both Republican and Democratic observers who state that they have witness specific cases of questionable activites. Racicot also mentioned the military ballots that have been thrown out, and pretty much slammed the dems for disenfranchising the troops they will eventually command, as well as saying that there is something wrong with the process when convicted felons can cast their vote but the hard working people of our military can not be heard because of the Democrats. There you have it. ....." Freeper jwalsh07 "......The most devestating point he made was that they know that 39 felons voted in Miami Dade and yet the Democrats threw out about a 1000 soldiers votes based on technicalities. He also said that chads are multiplying daily at prodigious rates. He also said they have evidence of chads being taped over W punch holes so the machine would not count them. ....." Freeper Timesink "......NBC News appears to be going all-out for the Democrats. On NBC, Chip Reid said flat-out that what the Dems were doing to the military absentee ballots was competely legal and normal. On MSNBC, Norah O'Donnell essentially said, flat-out, if these charges are true, where's the videotape? As if there are close-up zoom camera on every single person in those counting rooms every single second, 24/7. ....." Freeper torie ".....He said the manual recount was subjective, that the subjectivity was being exercised by Democrat controlled boards, that the standards for counting were being changed as things went along, that ballots were being manhandled and used as fans, that a bunch of ballots fell on the floor and were being stepped on, that Bush ballots were found in a Gore stack and that instead of LaPore removing then, she put them in a box without saying a word, and ballots with chads taped over the hole were being counted, that felons voted, that the Gore team had a hit squad dumping on military ballots, even when their intentions were clear, that Miami Dade was using a new program to just sort out the uncounted ballots, and would only recount those (I think), that the counters were overworked, working 15 hour days, and that many of the counters were exhausted elderly people, that the lighting was poor and people were using flashlights, and that post its were found taped on some ballots (I don't know what was done with those). That's the gist of it. ......" Freeper randog ".....Holy s--t! Fox news just had an interview with two congressmen (California and Missouri) and had the words ELECTION FRAUD? on the screen the whole time!!!! The dem congressman (CA) got his @ss handed to him by both the Missouri congressman and the Fox reporterette!! She kept saying that the whole thing looks rotten!! ....." Freeper M Thatcher "..... CNN people called it a "racheting up of the rhetoric" MSNBC called them "vicious" charges. Said about 47 times to remember that the guy was a Republican. That the people signing affidavits are Republican. Also, repeated (without actually investigating) that Democrats "will swear" that none of these things happened. Pellucid-eyed Nora O'Donnell was jumping out of her chair retorting that if these things were true "they should be on tape." (Implying that they're NOT on tape.) All cable media people framed this as "positioning" in preparation for court arguments. ......" Freeper Yakboy "........It makes sense that they waited this long. They wanted to see how things played out on Friday with the courts, but all the time down here in Palm Beach County they've been gathering 'evidence' of Democrats tampering with the vote after the fact. Carol Roberts, the guy with the Vote-O-Matic in his car and all those darned CHADS... They've got evidence on tape, they have eye-witnesses and even a few

turncoats from inside the RATS party who are willing to speak out (no doubt to save themselves from jail time later.) This is all legitemate ammo for the courts and to argue to let the last counts stand or toss out the counties they are ready to prove have corrupted the vote. Now we'll see what evasive action the RATs can takes on this volley. I'm waiting to see what color of rouge and eye-liner Al Gore will be wearing during his next press conference. When he's lost the Florida vote, maybe he can get a job down in Miami at the 'Birdcage' or something. ......" Freeper HeilToTheChiefNOT! "....Another FACT that I heard MSNBC report maybe ONCE. That the Gore dems had their currently huge team of lawyers ready to go in the backstage before November 7th,2000! ....." Freeper maxter "......I watched Fox until it was over. Then turned to CNN. Did you see their newscaster's face? He was absolutely livid. His eyes narrowed and his lips got tight. If his demeanor is any indicator, we hit pay dirt. The message was heard loud and clear. Couldn't spin that one. No way......" Freeper relee ".....On MSNBC, Suzanne Malvaux in Palm Beach said that Mark Wallace, Republican attorney, just had a press conference, not televised, leveling a number of charges. Bush votes in Gore pile. Chads taped back onto Bush ballots. Ballots just laying around on tables. ......" Freeper JasonC ".....The Montana big gun, so far anyway, is not getting onto the wire service copy. There are stories out on the press conference, but they only quote Karen Hughes and they only say "We now have clear and compelling evidence from eyewitnesses that this manual recount process is fundamentally flawed and is no longer recounting, but is distorting, reinventing and miscounting the true intentions of the voters of Florida". They do not mention the evidence, they name no names, no times, not specific incidents. There is nothing about felons on the wire service reports, at all. ........ You people have to tell us this stuff, believe me. Sans TV and watching it real time, we will not get an accurate picture. I tried to use CNN online for their live coverage, and got nothing but a "web congestion" buffering message, no actual feed. ...." Freeper 6ppc "......Fox just interviewed one of the eyewitnesses. He related three different instances where Bush votes mysteriously wound up in the Gore pile. He was specifically asked if any Gore votes ever wound up in the Bush pile, and he said in every case it was BUSH votes in the GORE pile! ....." and "....FOX - The eyewitness also said that Teresa Lapore tried to put Bush and Gore votes in the same box with no divider. That this was 24 man hours work and she would have ruined it. ....." Freeper Torie "..... Burton (who is the one guy on the PB Board I trust), just said on Fox news that the taped ballot also had hole "5" punched, and that there were a couple of other taped ballots. I appears to be a non story. He also said that if there is just a dimple for president, and the other holes are cleanly punched, the ballot is NOT counted, but if the ballot is dimple city, it is (which seems fair). I hope that what he is saying is true. ....." Foxnews.com: 11/18/00 "...... More than 1,100 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out Friday as Republicans complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ......... Herron said in an interview his five-page letter "went to the folks we had in the field that were out there monitoring absentee ballots, just like the other side was out there. Our memo was intended to express the law of the state of Florida as we understand it and provide direction and guidance to the people who were in the field. "I'm not the only one that did this," he added. "Everybody got the opportunity to argue their case in front of the canvassing boards." ......... Republicans circulated a letter dated Friday from Navy Capt. E.M DuCom, deputy director of the military postal service, who said military mail is required to be postmarked. But he added, "There are instances when time constraints do not allow for proper postmarking/cancellation of the mail. The last flight may be departing the ship and the mail has to get on it." .......... Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist working for Bush in Florida, said 110 of 113 write-in ballots, mostly from military forces, were invalidated by officials in Miami-Dade County. He said more than half were thrown out because they had no witness or witness address listed but "the form doesn't indicate that a witness is necessary." ........." Freeper snopercod "....do the military ballots have names on them? They have to have names on them so they can be identified as a "qualified" absentee voter in that precinct. From Florida Statutes Title IX, Chapter 101.62 Request for absentee ballots.-(c) With respect to marked ballots mailed by absent qualified electors overseas, only those ballots mailed with an APO, FPO, or foreign postmark shall be considered valid....." Freeper randita "....Tearing into the Gore campaign for denying the military votes. This is hardball like I've never seen hardball before!!! I am absolutely amazed and impressed. ....."

Freeper truthkeeper "......"This is a process that is COMPLETELY untrustworthy." I wish I could see these reporters' faces while he's speaking. Bet their jaws are dropping now! Now this guy is speaking about the military ballots. "Last night, we learned how far the VP's campaign will go to win this election. The VP's lawyers have gone to war against the men and women who serve in our armed forces." Goes on to say how they're throwing out the votes. He's destroying Gore! Yahoo...TALKING ABOUT FELONS ILLEGALLY CASTING BALLOTS RIGHT NOW! Murder...Rape...one of the felons was even a poll worker! ........Asks, "How can felons be allowed to vote while the men and women in our armed forces cannot?" I am SPEECHLESS! ...." Freeper randita "....I'll try a recap. Karen Hughes first. She says that the ballots are allin and have been counted and recounted and Bush was the winner. She then expressed concerns about the continued hand counting and turn the mike over to Gov. Roscoe of Montana, He went through a laundry list of counting irregulaties that are occuring in Palm Beach and Broward counties that are supported by numerous affidavits. he addressed the idea of fairness - that all ballots are observed by a Democrat and Republican. he called this bunk because every challenged ballot is then ruled on by a panel of three who are stacked with Democrats in every county. Then he cited some irregulaties, ballots being put in the wrong piles, chads all over the cloor, chads being taped over Bush spots, people using ballots as fans, stacks of ballots being dropped all over the floor, etc. After that he addressed the military vote. He alleged that the Gore campaign participated in an organized and pre-meditated effort to get as many military ballots disqualified as possible. he explained the difficulty the military has of following basic procedures concerning postmarks and that leeway has always been granted them. He said that Gore has shown contempt for the same men and women he seeks to command. Lastly, he went on to the felons (39, I believe) who have been found to have voted in Broward County. He then made the pointed comment that "Felons votes have been allowed, yet the men and women who serve our country overseas votes have been denied." Then he took some questions from the press and Fox cut away. ....." Freeper DJ88 "....CNN ACTUALLY SAID THAT THE GORE LAWYERS HAVE DECLARED WAR ON THE MILITARY??? BIG ONE!!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!! ...." Freeper truthkeeper "....Bush camp using the words "sabotage" and "monkey business." Brian Wilson of Fox says they have not yet sworn out a criminal complaint, but that they MAY do so. The Gore campaign tells Rita Cosby the Bush camp is "nervous and desperate about the recounts." Who wants to bet this is ALL you'll hear from Gore about this? ......" Freeper Bounceback "........We have finally reached the turning point. What is past is prologue to what now unfolds. The recount is tainted by substantial fraud. I suspect the fraud is much more vast and pervasive than we have been led to believe. I also suspect that the Montana Governor's statement this afternoon is the warning shot over the bow. The Bush people have been biding their time, documenting the fraud. I suspect that calls are being made right now to Mr. Gore's people, to this effect: concede or we go public. Mr. Gore must consider now not merely his personal situation, but the very survival of his party. One does not disenfranchise the American soldier and sailor with impunity. ......... You must remember that the Bush people are the same ones who orchestrated Desert Storm. You will remember the media slant during Desert Shield: that the Iraquis were the fourth largest army in the world; that their 'republican guards' were invincible, etc. Then, in a flash, it was all over and Desert Storm took its place ahead of Agincourt. One out not trifle with the people who orchestrated Desert Storm. .......... The only way to end the present fiasco is with a concession. And the concession is coming. Possibly before Monday, but by Monday afternoon. It will be made by Mr. Gore "for the good of the nation." ......" NewsMax.com 11/18/00 "......Montana Gov. Mark Racicot, a one-time army prosecutor and former attorney general, has detailed charges of massive Democratic Party vote fraud in the Florida recount and absentee ballot tally. Here are excerpts of Gov. Racicot's statement to the press Saturday afternoon in Austin, Texas: "We now have clear and and convincing evidence, in fact, in my judgement it's beyond that, that in Palm Beach County and Broward County the hand counting of the ballots that is ongoing is not only fundamentally flawed, it is becoming completely untrustworthy....." "First of all, there's the taping of chads to ballots. We have observers in Florida who have noted and they have completed affidavits that a taped chad has been taped over the hole where the ballot or the notation could be made for a vote for Governor Bush. We have at least two witnesses to this." "And we also know that the election official there, the supervisor, Theresa LaPore, has simply brushed off these concerns and these detections....." "We have found Bush ballots, our observers have found Bush ballots in the Gore piles. Both last night and this morning, Bush ballots were found in a Gore pile to be counted as Gore votes. And a Democratic

observer found these and pointed it out." "And the Democratic observer later apologized to the Republican counterpart, telling him that the stack of ballots was different last night, and in his words 'had been sabotaged.' We have no idea how often this has occured." "Observers picked up a handful of Gore ballots and found several Bush ballots. And instead of pulling those ballots out, Theresa LaPore stacked all of the ballots and put them in a box without any explanation to the counters...." "We have instances where ballots have post-it notes stuck on them over that portion of the ballot where you would make your choice for president...." "In Broward county, we have Democrat observers who are observing one day and they're ballot inspectors for the county on the next day....." "We have affidavits from Florida residents serving as Republican observers stating that there is confusion, multiple touching and passing of the ballots between inspectors, moving precinct ballots from one table to the next after the ballots were already counted...." "In Broward County, there's chad on the floor, on the counting tables, on the chairs. There's no reasonable assurance to the voters that the canvassing board has a system in place to ensure the integrity and security of the ballots. The canvassing board ignored a request by Republicans to stop the counting until they could do so." "Election officials, specifically Judge Lee, have simply expressed that the chad should be brushed on the floor...." "It's often very, very difficult for those who are aboard ships like the U.S.S. George Washington or the U.S.S. Ticonderoga or the U.S.S. Simpson to vote. Yet throughout Florida thousands of servicemen and women stationed on ships or stationed abroad did their part in our democracy. They cast their votes -- or so they thought." "But last night we learned how far the vice president's campaign will go to win this election. And I'm very sorry to say that the vice president's lawyers have gone to war, in my judgement, against the men and women who serve in our armed forces." "In an effort to win at any cost, the Democrats have launched a statewide effort to throw out as many military ballots as they can. Last night across Florida, they threw out between 900 and 1,100 votes cast by military men and women." "In Duval County, for example, 44 votes, mostly military, were thrown out. The man who would be their commander-in-chief is fighting to take away the votes from the people that he would command." "At the same time today's Miami Herald reported that 39 felons, 32 of whom are registered Democrats, three of whom are independents and the remainder Republicans, illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties in the November 7 election." ...." Fox News Channel 11/18/00 Freeper FL_engineer ".....At 1:43pm EST (12:43 CST) FOX NEWS CHANNEL showed a Palm Beach County hand-counter putting his right index finger on a Gore punch and bending the punchcard backwards by 90 degrees. He handed the punchcard to the woman in the black suit, and she did the same. Apparently another successful chad pickup for Al Gore. ....." Freeper reort "....Fox news just showed a segment where a vote counter said that after they had placed all of the votes into the different piles, they held the pile up to the light, and... there was Bush vote sitting in the middle of the Gore pile........ He said this was NOT an isolated incident, as it happened time and time again. In fact, he said one time, there were three ballots in the Gore pile that belonged in the Bush pile......" MSNBC 11/19/00 Freeper rintense ".....Palm Beach County canvassing board member says that the taped chad was on an absentee ballot where the person voted for Bush, allegedly realized the mistake, taped the chad back onto the ballot, and voted for Gore. ......... WHAT? Can someone explain to me how an absentee ballot has chads? I thought all absentee ballots were bubble filled or otherwise. And wouldn't that count as double-punched and therefore be disqualified? ......." Freeper rintense ".......Hahahaha! No way. Why in the world would any state have punch hole ballots for absentee voters? He has got to be wrong- or obviously dazed and confused. ......" Freeper Stentor ".....Can

someone explain to me ... how this thing was not rejected immediately. Putting tape through machinery must do wonders for its accuracy. ....." TOWNHALL.COM 11/18/00 Robert Novak "......If George W. Bush winds up as president, veteran Republican Rep. Connie Morella can expect no favors from the White House. She intends to vote for Al Gore in the unlikely event that a deadlocked Electoral College throws the election to the House of Representatives, breaking the 4-to-4 Republican-Democratic tie in the Maryland House delegation. ....... Bush campaign aides in Austin were incredulous when they read in Wednesday's Baltimore Sun that Morella intended to vote for Gore because her Washington suburban congressional district overwhelmingly supported the vice president. A telephone call was made to Morella's office, and the newspaper account was confirmed. ......." ABC News 11/18/00 ".......Members of George W. Bush's campaign leveled serious accusations against Florida Democrats today, charging that Gore backers have orchestrated a state-wide effort to eliminate overseas ballots and saying the hand-counting underway in two counties is seriously flawed. The charges came despite Gov. George W. Bush's increasing lead over Vice-president Al Gore thanks to absentee ballots from overseas. ........ Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot said during a press conference in Austin they have "convincing evidence" that the manual recount is flawed. ...." Miami Herald 11/18/00 David Kidwell Lisa Arthur "......At least 39 felons -- mostly Democrats -- illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties in the Nov. 7 elections, according to a Herald analysis of absentee votes in those counties. Their convictions range from murder and rape to drunk driving and passing bad checks. One is on the state's registry of sexual offenders. Three were registered under Social Security numbers different from those on their criminal records. One is even a poll worker. ``I've been voting ever since voting has been voting,'' said Cheryl Elaine Jones, 50, of Homestead, who has a 15-year-old conviction for dealing cocaine. ``I'm a poll worker. I feel like I'm a one-time felon, and that was years ago. I haven't been in trouble since. I think that all should be thrown out.'' Jones was among 19 felons in MiamiDade and 20 in Broward who have not had their voting rights reinstated by the Florida Office of Executive Clemency but voted Nov. 7. It is illegal for felons to vote, unless they petition the state to have their rights restored. ......" Florida Law-MSNBC 11/18/00 lowteksh "...... The Bush campaign is setting an excellent predicate for having the recounts thrown out as "irregular returns" as provided for under the Florida state law: 102.131 Returns before canvassing commission.-- If any returns shall appear to be irregular or false so that the Elections Canvassing Commission is unable to determine the true vote for any office, nomination, constitutional amendment, or other measure presented to the electors, the commission shall so certify and shall not include the returns in its determination, canvass, and declaration. The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns. The Department of State shall file in its office all the returns, together with other documents and papers received by it or the commission. The commission shall canvass the returns for presidential electors and representatives to Congress separately from their canvass of returns for state officers. Insight Magazine 11/18/00 Paul M. Rodriguez "......Tucker Eskew, the Bush campaign spokesman in West Palm Beach, Forida, has accused a local elections official of covering up knowledge of misplaced ballots for George Bush being stacked with Al Gore votes. ........ The mistake, found between 8:30 and 8:45 am, found by a four-person tally team caused confusion and tension within the crowed room where ballots are being counted. ........ Apparently, according to Eskew, a county employee at some point this morning -- before the ballots were taken out for spot checks -- told Theresa LePore about a problem involving misplaced ballots. It could not be determined immediatly which stacks of ballots the county employee said she realized were in error. ...... What is clear, however, according to Eskew, is that LePore knew about the errors prior to them being discovered by election volunteers required to sample previous day's ballots before moving on to count fresh ballots. "This is the most serious event in a string of very serious offenses," Eskew charged, adding: "This smacks of a cover up and it needs to be investigated!" Eskew said that the LePore information was given by her directly to a Bush lawyer who serves as an observer; this occurred shortly after the error was discovered showing 6-7 Bush ballots improperly stacked in a Gore pile of votes. "LePore knoew about this beforehand and didn't tell anyone," Eskew said. "This shows how fatally flawed the process is and raises serious questions of fraud that may have occurred previously that we don't know about." ......." The Associated Press 11/18/00 Jackie Hallifax "......Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature will ``play a role should it become necessary'' in picking the state's 25 electors, incoming House Speaker Tom Feeney said Saturday. ....... He said federal law gives the Legislature ``the power, authority and responsibility to intervene'' if the election doesn't produce electors. Feeney said the party was exploring legal strategy to apply that idea to Florida's electoral impasse.........The Florida Supreme Court blocked Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying the election Saturday and scheduled oral arguments for Monday. Feeney

called the court's order on Friday premature and regrettable and said he would ``monitor the discord between the judicial and executive branches.'' He questioned whether the court should take a role in picking the electors: ``We're going to potentially ignore the state Supreme Court,'' he said. But, he added, ``We are in uncharted territory.'' ........." Fox News 11/18/00 Rodger Schultz "..... Has the Florida Supreme Court filed its own amicus curiae brief? Fox News Live with John Gibson reveals that Friday's order from that court, which proscribed a Saturday certification, was in response to .... no plea ... from anyone. It seems these seven impartial jurists were watching TV and were alarmed when a lower court cleared the way for Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, to certify a winner after today's absentee ballot count. Gibson then asked a retired Florida Supreme Justice whether we should be concerned that politics might play a role in the court's future decisions? He assured John that this group is above politics......." Freeper FL_engineer "......This afternoon, at 2:45pm EST the Fox News Channel showed an interview with Republican Observer Jim Williams. Among many other serious allegations, Mr. Williams was quoted: "This morning, the Democratic observer told me they weren't going to call as many objections today as they had yesterday. They basically were going to let swinging chads go, and that instead of calling a dimpled chad or pregnant chad, if it had the slightest indentation, they were going to hold it up to the light, and if they couldnt see any light through it, they were going to let it go. " (IMHO) ........." AP 11/18/00 Alan Clendenning "......Al Gore picked up more votes in Democratic-leaning Broward County on Saturday, while Republicans expressed concern about a published report that at least 39 felons cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. With 200 of Broward County's 609 precincts hand counted by late afternoon, Gore had gained 45 votes over official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to official totals...." bloomberg.com 11/17/00 Greg Stohr ".......The Florida Supreme Court's review of Vice President Al Gore's appeal could mark the end of the longest post-election presidential standoff in more than a century. Or it could simply be the beginning of a lengthy new phase. ........ Gore's lawyers say their arguments, set for 2 p.m. Monday in Tallahassee, Florida, will focus on two separate sections of Florida election law. The first contention, rejected by a state trial judge this morning, will say Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is abusing her authority by finalizing election results before receiving the results of hand recounts in two heavily Democratic counties. ...... The second prong of Gore's appeal will make a broader argument, in effect saying Harris plans to crown the wrong candidate in Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Democrats point to a section that permits suits over the ``rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election.'' ........ It's an argument the Gore lawyers haven't made in a courtroom yet, largely because Harris hasn't certified the final results. And therein, say some legal experts, lies the problem. ........ " bloomberg.com 11/17/00 Greg Stohr ".......Gore lawyer David Boies said today that the campaign will invoke the Florida Supreme Court's ``original jurisdiction,'' under which the justices can rule on cases without first letting a lower court sift through the evidence. ........ Some election lawyers around the state are skeptical. ``Anybody who thinks the Supreme Court is going to take original jurisdiction of this has no concept,'' said Donald W. Weidner, a lawyer who argued an election case decided by the justices in 1998. ........ " bloomberg.com 11/17/00 Greg Stohr "....... If the Gore camp contests the final result, Republicans will respond by challenging not just the recounts themselves but also the way in which each ballot was evaluated, Weidner said. That would raise a host of factual questions that would be better suited for a trial judge than the state's highest court, he said. The upshot could be weeks of proceedings, with the judge and court staff sifting through the ballots themselves and deciding whether to count ballots with ``hanging'' or ``dimpled'' chads. ``Ultimately the judge is going to have to decide on each ballot,'' said Weidner, who sat through a similar process in 1996 when his client Gus Beckstrom unsuccessfully ran for Volusia County sheriff. .......... There's also a second procedural problem with the Gore argument. Because the Supreme Court today ordered Harris not to certify the returns, the Bush campaign can argue that a challenge to the results is premature. ......" Capital Hill Blue 11/18/00 AP "......Number of overseas ballots accepted and rejected in the presidential race in Florida by elections officials in the state's 67 counties. ....... County Accepted Rejected Alachua 28 28 Baker 1 2

Bay 59 29 Bradford 2 1 Brevard 73 31 Broward 92 304 Calhoun 1 0 Charlott 4 5 Citrus 44 9 Clay 192 20 Collier 23 43 Columbia 6 1 Dade 103 102 DeSoto 1 3 Dixie 1 0 Duval 478 64 Escambia 154 112 Flagler 5 2 Franklin 1 1 Gadsden 4 1 Gilchris 0 0 Glades 0 0 Gulf 4 0 Hamilton 2 0 Hardee 3 3 Hendry 0 0 Hernando 17 2 Highland 3 1 Hilsboro 62 74 Holmes 1 0 Indianrv 5 3 Jackson ----- ----Jeffrson 0 0 Lafayete 0 0 Lake 0 5 Lee 23 37

Leon 30 19 Levy 6 0 Liberty 0 0 Madison 1 0 Manatee 94 37 Marion 15 15 Martin 3 2 Monroe 8 0 Nassau 6 2 Okaloosa 135 48 Okeechob 1 1 Orange 30 117 Osceola 28 8 Palmbech 36 16 Pasco 19 28 Pinellas 52 23 Polk 22 22 Putnam 16 5 St Johns 25 27 St Lucie 1 13 Sntarosa 45 21 Sarasota 35 25 Seminole 169 60 Sumter 0 0 Suwannee 4 1 Taylor 2 0 Union 0 0 Volusia 22 42 Wakulla 0 0 Walton 5 5 Washngtn 1 0 Totals 2203 1420 ABC News 11/18/00 ".....The Bush campaign made serious accusations against the Democrats today, charging Gore backers have orchestrated a statewide effort in Florida to disallow overseas ballots from members of the military, and saying the hand count under way in two counties is now irreparably flawed .... Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot told a news conference in Austin, Texas,

Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot told a news conference in Austin, Texas, they have "convincing evidence" that the manual recount is flawed. ...... "We now have clear and compelling evidence from eyewitnesses that this manual recount process is fundamentally flawed and is no longer recounting, but is distorting, reinventing and miscounting the true intentions of the voters of Florida," Hughes said........They cited several examples of alleged irregularities in Palm Beach and Broward counties, such as the ballots being used as fans, and "Post-It" notes affixed to ballots......" Wall Street Journal/Letter to the Editor 11/17/00 Gregory Verchota ".....According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a chad is not a chad unless it is completely punched out and in the chadbox. The Palm Beach County ballots, now being counted by hand, are properly termed chadless ballots. In truth, potential chads or, if you will, unborn chads still clinging to ballots, are the objects of the Democrats' attentive care. Is it not depressing that Vice President Gore fusses over the unborn chad? ........" Newsmax 11/18/00 Dan Frisa "......In what can only be described as a blatant and outrageous display of coldblooded hypocrisy, Gore Democrats - specifically counseled and directed by the veep's campaign tonight rejected the votes of some 1,000 U.S. military personnel, thumbing their noses at Americans serving in defense of the nation. ....... As all of Florida's sixty-seven counties gathered last night to tally overseas absentee ballots, Gore campaign-trained operatives descended on each location with explicit instructions for disqualifying - on techicalities - as many military ballots as possible. ........ This is so over-the-top as to be barely comprehensible! ....... What happened to ensuring that every vote is counted? ....... And what happened to going to extraordinary means to ensure that everyone who intended to vote had their vote recorded? .........After tying up the Florida election results in court for more than ten days in an effort to manufacture enough 'newly-found' Gore votes by using any means necessary, including perverting the law and long-established procedures, Democrats have now done a complete about-face by bending over backwards to prevent military votes from being counted. Al Gore finally showed all of America who he really is: a power-hungry lowlife whose only interest is his own aggrandizement and lust for power, even at the expense of disenfranchising the very defenders of our freedom. ......" NY Times 11/18/00 AP ".....Republicans demanded a recount slowdown Saturday in Palm Beach County after ballots were found with chads -- or tiny pieces of paper -- that were reaffixed with pieces of tape. ..... Jeff Kahrs, a Republican observing the counting, said he saw at least three ballots where the chads in the column for George W. Bush had been taped. ``The pieces of Scotch tape had been carefully cut with scissors and were meant to cover a precise amount of space on the ballot,'' he said. ``Obviously the ballots have been tampered.'' ``It was clear to me that the Bush hole had been voted and that a chad had been put back over the hole with Scotch tape,'' said Republican observer Elise Kenderian. .......... County Judge Charles Burton, a Democrat and chairman of the canvassing board, downplayed the three absentee ballots that had been found with tape. All were ruled overvotes and not counted. ``I really do not want to get into this,'' he told reporters. He suggested a voter may have made a mistake and tried to fix it before mailing the ballot. ``Is that ballot fraud? Absolutely not,'' he said......." MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Patriot "...... Senator Warner just said that Gore should speak up about the ballots! Sen. Looks really upset about this election. He wrote a letter to SoD Cohen concerning the balllots and is calling to a stop to this recount after recount! ....." KSFO San Francisco "....... Just in from the Barbara Simpson show on KSFO in San Francisco (Michael Savages's flagship station). A group of protests, pro-Bush, were in front of the San Francisco Chronicle chanting and got on the air with Barbara. It seems that the Chronicle had a sign in the window telling the protestors "You're all fascists." This is so typical of the left, isn't it?...." CNN 11/18/00 Freeper J.B. "..... I just want to call attention to the breakout of integrity and plain talking that Bill Bennett is doing on the CNN Capital Gang. He is doing what Bob Novak cannot and he is defending himself and his positions and saying it as he sees it, which is fraud, fraud, fraud. He's been attacked hard as a partisan and for making ad hominem attacks and he's fought back in kind. The bullies have a man of absolute integrity who just can't take it anymore dishing it back in their faces. I salute William Bennett....." Freeper ftrader "...... Boy, Mark Shields is being vicious as Bennett brings out the truth. Even wimpy Margaret Carlson is backing up the idea that the military votes SHOULD ALL COUNT. However, Shields is attacking Novak because he deigned to bring up the 6-page letter the Dems sent to all their lawyer observers to this process to point out HOW to disqualify them! Just because the letter came from a Republican. He was attacking Novak NOT because the letter might be true, but that it came from Republican sources. These shills are disgusting. ....." AP 11/18/00 Karin Meadows ".....Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher called the Democratic lawyer for Palm Beach County's elections supervisor to try to get the attorney to use his influence to assure a manual recount would be conducted there, the lawyer says. ....... Christopher, who is leading the Gore

campaign's recount effort in Florida, made the phone call Thursday morning to Bruce Rogow, who represents elections supervisor Theresa LePore. ``It was an effort to have me persuade my client to vote in favor of starting the manual recount on Thursday. I told him no. I told him we'd have to wait,'' Rogow said. ........``I thought everyone got the message that the best thing to do was let me be a lawyer and not a politician,'' he said. ....." AP 11/18/00 Aprachel La Corte ".....Miami-Dade County's plan to put more than 650,000 punch-card ballots through a machine before starting a hand recount raised Republicans' ire Saturday, and the specter of another lawsuit in the drawn-out presidential election. ....... Republicans objected to the plan by the county canvassing board to put 654,000 punch-card ballots through a machine that would segregate ballots that do not have a distinguishable hole punched for a presidential candidate. ........ Some Republicans were particularly upset about the prospect of the board using pink duplicate ballots in place of ballots called into question. ''They've gone from counting votes, to looking for votes, to now they're going to manufacturing votes,'' charged Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., who arrived in Florida during the day. ........''We have problems with the system itself,'' Republican attorney Miguel De Grandy told the board Saturday. ''We maintain the position this recount should not be occurring. But if it is, we should see each and every ballot.'' ......De Grandy said he would advise the Republican Party to seek a court order to stop the machine separation of the ballots. GOP officials have said the more times a ballot is run through a machine or handled, the greater the chance of damage being done to them. ....." MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper LYNXCry "..... On Hardball...even Matthews is outraged about the military ballots not counting...he has done one and a half hours on it now.. Pat Caddell , said "If Gore is behind this AND I BELIEVE HE IS...then its all over for him"... and Pat is a Dem pollster. Earlier...Congressman Steve Bouyer said he is heading to Florida at 7 tomorrow morning to head up an investigation into this whole matter. The Dems are spinning like crazy, backpeddling and trying to smooth this over,but it is not working.... Now even Norah O'Donnell, usually very liberal is saying "the numbers of ballots thrown out is enormous and outrageous"....The tide is turning I believe..." "....MOST notable is "Where is Gore today on this???".....is he behind the scenes trying to convince democrats that he has to keep fighting,,,,is there some dems that are telling him its all over..that the extent of the fraud is coming to the surface and they need to quit NOW before it all comes out. My God, even Congresmman Alcee Hastings is saying this military thing is not right. Like I said, I think the fact that Gore has not made an appearance today to rebutt the charges made by Bush about fraud.....speaks volumes. Normally he can't wait to get in front of the camera. And something worth noting that speaks volumes also,,,TWICE today Begala has said this military thing is not right, the votes should count. What is going on??? ....." Newsday 11/18/00 P Dan Sewell ".....A Republican governor said Saturday George W. Bush's margin among voters who sent ballots from overseas should have been larger than reported, saying the GOP is considering a lawsuit because large numbers of absentee ballots were thrown out. ........ Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, appearing at a news conference that Republicans held in Austin, Texas, told reporters that ''the vice president's lawyers have gone to war in my judgment against the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces.'' ......." Newsday 11/18/00 P Dan Sewell "..... Racicot said Bush's lawyers could still file a legal challenge to the rejected military ballots. ''We are presently in the process of examining our remedies,'' he said. '' ... We haven't made our final judgment.'' .......Rep. Tillie Fowler, a Republican who represents part of the Jacksonville area, stood outside the Memorial Wall to Duval County's war dead and read the names of local military people whose ballots were thrown out because of Democratic challenges. ''There was an organized Democratic effort throughout this state in every single county to get military ballots thrown out,'' said Fowler. ......" Newsday 11/18/00 P Dan Sewell "..... The final absentee totals were handed out without comment, just after 1 p.m., by a state aide. That was in contrast to a ceremony planned Saturday afternoon in the Florida Cabinet meeting room in which Secretary of State Katherine Harris would have officially certified the victor in the battle for Florida's 25 electoral votes. The Florida Supreme Court on Friday blocked Harris from certifying the results and scheduled oral arguments for Monday. ........." Newsday 11/18/00 P Dan Sewell "..... ''Both sides had observers there and it's a very bipartisan process,'' Hattaway said. He said he knew of no Democratic strategy to challenge the overseas ballots. Warner, now chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, wrote Defense Secretary William S. Cohen about military ballots rejected for lacking postmarks. ........ Warner wrote that the missing postmarks were the ''duty not of the voter but of the military postal clerk,'' adding that ''human error, as well as time and operational constraints, results in some mail not being postmarked.'' ........ County observers argued over how to interpret a pre-election memo by Harris that said overseas ballots ''must be received by the supervisors of elections by midnight Friday. They are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to last Tuesday

(Nov. 7).'' ...... Scott McMillen, an Orlando attorney representing the Democrats in the Seminole County vote, said some ballots were accepted without any postmark at all. ''I think the state law is pretty clear,'' McMillen said Saturday. ''I didn't see a trend for or against military ballots by the Democrats. What I saw was some people trying to follow the rules exactly and some people saying that the canvassing board could interpret the rules to let in the maximum number of ballots.'' ....." Freeper cornelis "........ The U.S. Code is pretty clear too: TITLE 39 - POSTAL SERVICE PART IV - MAIL MATTER CHAPTER 34 - ARMED FORCES AND FREE POSTAGE Sec. 3406. Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (a) Balloting materials under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (individually or in bulk) - (1) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage; TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I - CRIMES CHAPTER 29 - ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES Sec. 608. Absent uniformed services voters and overseas voters (a) Whoever knowingly deprives or attempts to deprive any person of a right under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. ....." AP 11/18/00 ".......Just when it seemed the discussion of chad could get no stranger a Republican observer is accusing a Democrat of eating some of the tiny pieces of ballot paper. ....... Jim Rowland, a Republican observing the Broward County recount, said about 10 chads were piled on a table after counters had finished a batch of ballots. ''The Democratic floor manager looked at the pile and asked 'What are these?''' Rowland said. He said he told the coordinating observer that they were waiting to put the chads into an envelope, and then it happened. ''He licked his finger and put it in the pile. I said, 'Sir! No! Don't do that!' But he put it in his mouth and then he swept the rest up and put some in his pocket,'' Rowland said. Rowland did not get the name of the Democratic observer and said he did not report the incident to the canvassing board. He said the observer told him, ''Well, they're not the property of the Republican party.'' ........" MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper EarlyBird "...... Watch Hardball now. All guests, including Pat Caddell, Alcee Hastings, and yes, even Paul Begala believe the Dems went too far with the Overseas Ballot cancellation strategy. ..... Can you say BACKFIRE? " Freeper rintense adds "....... Totally agree. Here we have a case of defining and defending voter intent. These military ballots have 100% crystal clear voter intent! Plus, the signature and date can verify them. But then you have PBC, where the courts ruled they can objectively (yeah right, subjectively) determine voter intent by analyzing a chad?!?!?! Something is seriously wrong in the state of Florida, and Al Gore's campaign will have a lot of explaining to do. I just can not see Gore being commander in chief of our armed forces. He purposely discounted their votes for his own personal gain. And they wonder why the military is for Bush......." Freeper structure "..... Pat Caddell is saying how come we care about the old people in Palm Beach and not the rest of the people in Florida whose ballots got cast out by larger percentages? Hey I love this----it's better than impeachment. Everybody is saying Gore is a lowlife before he ever gets a chance to inhabit the Oval Office ROFL ....." Wall Street Journal 11/17/00 ".....The operative guide here is not election law but tort law, specifically plaintiff lawyers' class-action lawsuit. Earlier this week the American Trial Lawyers Association, now an informal subsidiary of the Democratic Party, put out an e-mail asking 500 of their members to volunteer for the Florida campaign. It shows. Keep this in mind in the immediate aftermath of the state Supreme Court's order late yesterday allowing Florida's counties to go ahead with manual recounts, particularly because the order does not stipulate whether the Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, will ultimately have to accept that count. Because if we know anything about the trial lawyers it's that they view the law as mainly a pick-ax to chop down the opposition and get what they want. ........ Accordingly they have approached the contest not as though it were a question of discerning the proper meaning and enforcement of the Florida constitution, but a classaction on behalf of voters who have been swindled by some dark power. Which is also why, 10 days after the Floridians cast their ballots, Al Gore has placed his hopes for the White House in the National Law Journal's 1999 Man of the Year: plaintiffs attorney David Boies......." NewsMax 11/18/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Explosive charges of Democratic vote fraud leveled Saturday afternoon by Montana Republican Governor Mark Racicot were corrobarted hours later by Jennifer Garcia, a Palm Beach County recount observer who gave her eyewitness account to MSNBC host Forest Sawyer: ........

GARCIA: I've seen tape on the back of ballots covering up holes where the Bush hole would have been punched. On several occasions the counter on the Democrat side placed a ballot which we had designated as a Bush ballot in the Gore pile. And actually the first time that happened the Democrat observer who was with me pointed it out and we had to stop the counter and have them put it into the Bush pile. And it happened on four other occasions. SAWYER: So you've seen a total of what -- about six problems so far? GARCIA: Six just with them putting them in the wrong pile. We've seen tape. We've seen ballots that had markings all over them, ballots that just looked as if they'd been folded and not in good shape. SAWYER: Now, are you seeing this only on the Democratic side or are you seeing some problems on the Republican side as well? GARCIA: We've seen ballots with markings on them on the Republican and Democrat side. But most of the problems were with ballots that did have the Bush hole punched. SAWYER: That is to say that they were trying to prevent them from being counted? GARCIA: Well, I would say that when a ballot is designated as a Bush ballot and it's placed in the Gore ballot pile, once that ballot is placed in that pile it gets counted as a Gore ballot. It never gets looked at again. So I would definitely count that as a problem. And it never happened where a Gore ballot was placed in the Bush ballot pile or any other pile. SAWYER: There are suggestions now, as you know, coming from the Bush camp and other Republicans that this is not a simple matter human error or mistake or problems of confusion but this is, shall we say, a matter of motivation. That they want to do this. GARCIA: Well, based on my experience, what I'm seeing is a Democrat ballot counter placing a Bush ballot into a Gore pile, being told and the mistake happening on several occasions. And it's not as if I'm the only person pointing out the mistake, when the Democrat observer is pointing this out and is concerned about accuracy of the count -- I would say that that is not just a chance and human error happens. However, when it's five or six occasions within 45 minutes of counting ballots, I'd say it's a huge problem. ......" Freepr salbam "....... THIS MILITARY THING IS REALLY BLOWING UP IN THE DEMS FACES!!!!! Begala and Alcyee Hastings D-FL backtracking big time. Pat Caddell - honest democrat - is saying its not enough to have military votes reinstated - he wants to know why they were thrown out and an investigation to know if Gore was involved in and aware of plan to disqualify as many military votes as possible. If the Republicans keep pushing this one it is a big PR winner in showing Gore as the hypocrite that he is - GO PAT CADDELL!! ......" Andrew Sullivan 11/18/00 ".......The reason the Secretary of State of Florida did not certify today that George W Bush has won Florida's 25 electoral college votes is because the Supreme Court of Florida, on its own motion, enjoined a state official from doing so. Is this a common occurrence? Very rarely, the Court might feel the need to address the actions of state officials in the enforcement of legal judgments, or as a result of a particular ruling in a case brought before it. But on its own motion, before the case has even been heard? One faithful legal reader did a Lexis search to see what the last occasion was when the Florida court acted this way. The result? Not one other instance - in a search that goes back to 1907. These are groundbreaking legal times. And I have a feeling the unprecedented rulings from Tallahassee have only just begun. ......" Freeper copycat "....... The military ballots have ALREADY BEEN REJECTED. It is too late for candidates by personal fiat to "allow" their inclusion now. ...." Orlando Sentinel 11/18/00 Rene stutzman "....... A lawsuit asking that all 15,000 absentee ballots in Seminole County be thrown out went nowhere Saturday, despite a hearing that drew more than a dozen unhappy absentee voters. They were joined outside the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford, Fla., by more protesters, who waved signs mocking Vice President Al Gore and complained that the lawsuit was a stunt, designed to benefit Gore........ Bush received 10,006 absentee votes in Seminole, compared to 5,209 for Gore........Circuit Judge Debra Nelson heard an hour's worth of arguments during a rare Saturday session, then announced she would decide by Monday morning whether to toss out the suit. She gave no hint as to which way she might rule, however, she did set aside a full day -- Nov. 27 -- for another round of arguments........At issue is whether Seminole's supervisor of elections, Sandy Goard, a Republican, broke the law when she allowed the GOP to add missing voter identification numbers to about 4,700 absentee

ballot requests.......Ken Wright, attorney for the state GOP, called the dispute a "hail Mary lawsuit."...... In every other county in Florida, election supervisors either decided those requests were valid or had staff members write in the missing numbers, he said........Goard did nothing wrong, he said, and the GOP had a right to be in her office because it's a public place......." Volusia Country Government 11/17/00 Freeper dano1 "...... The manual recount tally sheet for Precinct # 634 has a hand-written note stating "The seal on bag for Precinct 634 is not secured. Retaped to bag and torn". According to the tally sheet the bag contained 387 votes for Gore and 11 votes for Bush. (This is over 97% for Gore.)...." Newsmax 11/18/00 Freeper Francochio "...... Miami police caught Florida Democrat State Representative Slosberg with a Votamatic in his automobile. He had told the Election Authorities that he had NOT taken it. A Votamatic punches ballots according to a preset pattern and it's legitimate use is to check voting machine accuracy during normal maintenance.......... Its illegitimate use, of course, is to punch extra ballots for the candidate of your choice. Oddly enough, Slosberg won his seat in a very close election that had his opponent in crying "foul." It was settled by a hand count, and given to Slosberg........" AP 11/17/00 Terry Spencer "......Al Gore picked up more votes in Democratic-leaning Broward County on Saturday, while Republicans expressed concern about a published report that at least 39 felons cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. ....... At the end of Saturday's count, with 259 of Broward County's 609 precincts hand counted, Gore had gained 79 votes over official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to official totals. ........ ''Anytime someone votes illegally, it's troubling, particularly when we are talking about convicted felons,'' Ray Sullivan said. ......To find the felony voters, the Herald compared a list of all absentee voters in both counties to a Department of Corrections database, then verified each conviction in court records and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement database. The convictions ranged from murder and rape to drunken driving and passing bad checks. ...... The Bush campaign planned to ask the canvassing board to conduct an investigation to identify and disqualify votes cast by felons, Sullivan said. Bush advisers also were consulting with lawyers to determine whether they would ask board members to suspend the hand count while the investigation is conducted. ........" 11/18/00 UPI "......Republican Montana Gov. Marc Racicot blasted Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore Saturday, charging the vice president was attempting to take votes away from military personnel overseas......... "The vice president's lawyers have gone to war, in my judgment, against the men and women who serve in our armed forces. In an effort to win at any cost, the Democrats have launched a statewide effort to throw out as many military ballots as they can," Racicot said.......... "In Duval County, 44 votes, mostly military, were thrown out. The man who would be their commander-in-chief is fighting to take away votes from the people who he would command," the Montana governor said......... " AFP 11/19/00 "...... The war of words went nuclear Saturday in the battle for the White House as Republican George W. Bush accused Democrat Al Gore of subverting the will of the US military in order to gain power. ........ In a stunning rhetorical blast bordering on a charge of treason, the Bush campaign said Gore had "gone to war" against soldiers stationed abroad through a Democratic scheme to throw their votes out in Florida. ...... "We are concerned that a targeted effort by the Democratic Party sought to throw out as many as a third of the overseas absentee ballots" received in Florida, Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes said in Austin, Texas. ......... Many of those, she added, were "the votes of the men and women of our United States Armed Forces who are serving the cause of freedom throughout the world. "No one who aspires to be commander in chief should seek to unfairly deny the votes of the men and women he would seek to command," Hughes said in political broadside directed squarely at Gore. ......" AFP 11/19/00 "...... Racicot charged that on Friday alone at least 900 ballots from Florida voters serving in the US military were thrown out for questionable reasons in many of the state's counties on orders from Gore supporters. "These judgments are being made by Democrat panels in those individual counties," he said. ......... "It's a near-nuclear escalation of the partisan conflict that is going to make any rebuilding difficult," said Allan Lichtman, professor and presidential historian at American University in Washington. ......... " Freeper structure "...... Matthews is taking on this issue with hammer and tongs. Now Luntz (pollster) is saying the public is fed up with all this lawyering and all this time...sees the recounts as not resolving the question of who won. Public needs the election to be OVER and out of the courts. ....." Freeper Earlybird "...... Everyone on the show was appalled at the MOAB cancellation strategy. Some of the Dem shrills (Begala, Hastings) were trying to link it to the recounts/revotes, as in: Well, we'll recount the

MOAB's if you recount the already recounted ballots of Palm Beach, Miami/Dade, Broward.... you know. Nevertheless, it was unanimous that the Dem strategy of disenfranchising the military overseas was over the line. We're talking major backtracking on the part of the Dems......" New York Times 11/19/00 Richard Perez-Pena ".......Gov. George W. Bush's campaign accused Democrats of conspiring to knock out as many ballots as possible from members of the military, who were expected to have voted mostly for Mr. Bush. The campaign issued a statement from retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who had campaigned for Mr. Bush, calling it "a very sad day in our country" when service members find that "because of some technicality out of their control they are denied the right to vote for the president of the United States, who will be their commander in chief." ........... Democratic officials said that they were insisting on abiding by the rule that all ballots bear postmarks, and that the ballots most likely to lack postmarks were military ballots. But they denied that they were trying to systematically disenfranchise military voters........ Those officials across the state complained of unclear instructions from Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state, and her office, contributing to differing interpretations of the law. In particular, there was widespread disagreement over the rules on postmarks, which was also the subject of the partisan charges and countercharges. .......... In heavily Republican counties, county canvassing boards reviewing the ballots on Friday often decided to include military ballots that had no postmarks. In mostly Democratic counties, canvassing boards tended to throw out those ballots. Ballots could usually be identified as military or civilian by their envelopes, without being opened.......... That discrepancy contributed to - but did not fully explain - a stark difference in the count: In counties carried by Mr. Bush, 29 percent of the overseas ballots were ruled invalid, but in counties carried by Mr. Gore, the figure was 60 percent. In Duval County, carried by Mr. Bush, the canvassing board rejected 64 of 542, or 12 percent. The second-largest number of ballots was in Broward County, a Gore stronghold, where the canvassing board threw out 304 of 396, or 77 percent......" New York Times 11/19/00 Richard Perez-Pena ".......Florida law states that an overseas ballot must have a postmark, either from a foreign country's postal service, or from a United States military post office. But the military often fails to postmark mail. A federal law says that the military must mail service members' ballots from abroad "expeditiously and free of postage." Republicans contend that without any postage, there is often no postmark, so the intent of the federal law is that military ballots without postmarks must be considered valid....... The Bush campaign obtained and gave to reporters a copy of instructions the Democratic Party had sent to its observers and canvassing board members, reinforcing the need for a postmark and drawing particular attention to the possibility that they might be missing on military ballots. The Democrats, in turn, obtained and distributed the Republicans' instructions to their observers, reminding them of the federal law and instructing them in defending military ballots.......... " Volusia Freeper abner ".....Actually if you go through all of the cumbersome .pdf files there were at least 22 bags that were tampered with. I believe that even the bags that were tampered with were recounted as though they were fine. I am hoping to get an answer to that question soon. I also expect Dom to talk about this on his show on Monday. Or at least I hope he does. ....." Rush Limbaugh 11/17/00 "...... I want to show you something written by Paul "The Forehead" Begala in a column posted on the MSNBC website. It's about the map of the United States that shows which candidate each county voted for. The blue on the map is for Gore and the red is for Bush. In terms of geography, it looks like Bush carried 75% of this country. It's overwhelming when you look at it. ...... Now, here's what Begala wrote about this geographically decisive Bush win: "But if you look closely at that map you see a more complex picture. You see the state where James Byrd was lynch-dragged behind a pickup truck until his body came apart - it's red. You see the state where Matthew Shepard was crucified on a split-rail fence for the crime of being gay - it's red. You see the state where right-wing extremists blew up a federal office building and murdered scores of federal employees - it's red. "The state where an Army private who was thought to be gay was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, and the state where neo-Nazi skinheads murdered two African-Americans because of their skin color, and the state where Bob Jones University spews its anti-Catholic bigotry: they're all red too." ......" FoxNews 11/18/00 Neil Cavuto and Bob Beckel "..... What I've done, I've done with my own dollar, and [the Gore campaign has] nothing to do - as a matter of fact, the Gore campaign didn't want me to do it. Too bad. I'll do it anyway. I'm putting together a statistical analysis of Florida and three political scientists will approve of the numbers and we will try to get it to Republican electors. ....." Ft Worth Star Telegram 11/19/00 Mark Davis "..... Ten lessons, impressions and snapshots from another amazing week in history:

* If push came to shove, Al Gore forces could fan out across America to find electors to subvert the vote of their states. Twenty-six states do not require electors to vote for their pledged candidate. .... * It should be stunning to every American that people would expect to be taken seriously while asserting that a hand recount is more accurate than a machine recount. The National Bureau of Standards warned us more than a decade ago that the punch-out system is highly suspect, and particularly unfriendly to manual recounts. Many states still use that system because of its low cost. * The vast majority of Texas uses a system that involves completing an arrow in ink, or filling in a circle. We are essentially chad-free. This means that our law providing for manual recounts is sensible in cases of fraud or machine malfunction. In Florida, there is no allegation of fraud or machine malfunction, removing all basis for manual recount. The suggestion that the Texas law means that Bush should support manual recounts in Florida is ridiculous. * The media take a beating for liberal political bias, and they deserve it. ... * Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La, is walking a fine line with his probes into media projections on election night. The good news is that he is on the right side of that line. No lawmaker should ever seek oversight over editorial content, but he is completely right to ask how Gore states were projected quickly and many Bush states more slowly, and to suggest a uniform coast-to-coast voting day -- say, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the West and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the East. * When Gore made his overture of a face-to-face meeting while accepting hand recounts, his media cheering section danced to the tune loyally....... * Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is a Bush campaign co-chairwoman and contributor, and much has been made of this. But other than partisan suspicion, there is no basis whatsoever to say that she has been motivated by anything other than following the law as she has repeatedly fended off the absurdity of manual recounts past the deadline. * If we get rid of everyone in this process who has a vested interest or preference, manatees will have to work the precincts. Palm Beach County's election supervisor, Carol Roberts, is a vocal, partisan Gore supporter, but complaints about her actions have not been as protracted as those against Harris. * Did Florida even get all the overseas absentee ballots? Men and women in the service have been bombarding stateside Web sites with emails containing two disturbing plot twists: Many never got their ballots to fill out in the first place, and many ballots were mailed back with fourth-class, bulk-mail postage. * Continuing a hand count after hand count results are ruled invalid is potential poison. ....." Dallas Morning News 11/19/00 David Jackson "......Braced by a fattened, 930-vote lead in Florida, George W. Bush's campaign loosed a frontal assault Saturday on the only thing standing between him and the presidency: the hand-counting of votes in three Democrat-dominated Florida counties. ...... Monday, lawyers for Al Gore and Mr. Bush will argue before the Florida Supreme Court about whether the recounts should be included in the final statewide tally. That tally will determine who becomes president. ........ Two South Florida counties, Palm Beach and Broward, are recounting ballots by hand, and Miami-Dade plans to join them Monday morning after another machine count Sunday. Miami-Dade officials said they may need until Dec. 1 to recount all 650,000 ballots. ....... So far, based on partial hand recounts, Mr. Gore has not heavily cut into the Bush lead, but Democrats say they are counting on making gains as more Democratic precincts are tallied. Also, they are hopeful of getting more support among the three counties' 28,000 ballots that votecounting machines initially ignored as no-votes. ........" Dallas Morning News 11/19/00 David Jackson "......Republicans also expressed concern about a Miami Herald report that at least 39 felons - 32 of them Democrats - cast absentee ballots in Broward and MiamiDade counties. Felons are barred from voting in Florida. "How can felons be allowed to vote, while the men and women in our armed forces cannot?" Mr. Racicot said. ....... Jane Carroll, the Broward County supervisor of elections, did not dispute the report but said, "I can't do anything about the ones who have already voted." ......" Dallas Morning News 11/19/00 David Jackson "......Predictably, in an election in which the controversies seem to outnumber the ballots, the count spawned instant acrimony. Bush supporters accused Democrats of systematically trying to exclude the ballots of military personnel, who are generally thought to lean toward voting Republican. "Last night across Florida, they threw out between 900 and 1,100 votes cast by military men and women," Mr. Racicot said. Many of the ballots reportedly were rejected because they lacked

postmarks to show that they had been mailed by the Nov. 7 deadline. ........ As the counting - and the complaints - ground on in Florida, a couple of hundred Bush backers paraded around the Governor's Mansion in Austin in a cold, steady rain Saturday, chanting, "President Bush" and "no more Gore." A handful of Mr. Gore's supporters marched around the mansion in support of their candidate. ......" Dallas Morning News 11/19/00 David Jackson "......Monday's Supreme Court showdown was set in motion when Ms. Harris said she would not accept manual recounts that were not completed by last Tuesday, as specified by state law. She and her attorneys argued that late submissions are justified only by allegations of fraud, mechanical failure or "acts of God" that make it impossible for counties to report on time. ......." Union Leader 11/19/00 Bernadette Malone Connolly "...... These people can't say Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris' name without the prefixes "heiress" or "Republican." They almost never mention that Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth - who improperly pressured counties to do a hand count of ballots - is a Democrat, co-chairman of the Gore campaign in Florida, and one of Gore's 25 electors in the state. Or that the whiny Carol Roberts of Palm Beach's canvassing board was a Gore fundraiser........ Every time a judge remained neutral on an issue, the media quickly labeled it a "major blow to the Bush campaign." When a judge ruled in favor of Bush on Friday, all the media would talk about was Gore's plans for an appeal. This got tiresome very quickly. Why won't these "news" reporters just tell us the facts, as the news section of a newspaper does, and leave the opinions for the broadcast equivalent of an editorial page like this one? ......" Washington Times 11/17/00 Jackie Mason Raoul Felder ".......We live in an age of specialization. If you have a pain in your foot, you go to a foot specialist - different ones depending on if it's your right or left foot. If you have a pain in the neck, you go to a neck specialist. And talking about pains in the neck, if you lose an election, you call in William Daley............. When the Democrats thought that nefarious activities might have lost them the original vote count, or the first recount of the first vote, or the second recount of the first vote, or the first recount of the second vote, depending on how you look at it, they called in a specialist: Mr. Daley............Mr. Daley appeared on every television screen in America claiming that Al Gore was the real winner and that the Democrats were the victims of chicanery, or incompetence - or worse. ........ Generally a man must be trained in the art of crooked elections. Mr. Daley, however, comes to his expertise genetically. ...." Drudge 11/18/00 Robert Novak "......A Democratic judge U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, who rejected the Bush campaign's call for an injunction against manual counts of Florida ballots, was a modest but consistent contributor to Democratic candidates -- including Al Gore -- prior to going on the federal bench in 1997. A member of a Miami law firm that included future Attorney General Janet Reno, Middlebrooks contributed $260 in 1979 to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's unsuccessful campaign for president. His 26 subsequent contributions over the next 17 years included support for failed presidential campaigns of Sen. Joseph Biden (1988) and Sen. Bob Kerrey (1992). Middlebrooks gave $250 to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential candidacy and $500 to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign. His record shows one Republican donation: $250 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1996, a year before the Republicancontrolled Senate confirmed President Clinton's nomination of Middlebrooks as a federal judge. ......" MSNBC 11/18/00 Freeper Regulus "..... Chris Mathews: Pat Caddell, ... what's the public reaction going to be over the next couple of days to the news that there's a suppression of the count of overseas service men and service woman? Pat Caddell: We have now crossed the line... This will be the decisive moment for this country... We're talking about taking ballots away from men and women providing the protection with their lives that allows us to have this election... If this is true, it's all over, I'm telling you this... If he [the Vice President], if they [democratic operatives] organized - which I believe they did, and if the evidence is very clear - to move in and challenge those ballots to try to keep Bush's total down and if they threw out the ballots... When Norah [MSNBC reporter Norah O'Donnell] was reporting about the Gore campaign ready to go to

nuclear war option, I was stunned about what she was reporting, because it was going to be scorched earth to win this. And I'll tell you, people who are going to conduct scorched earth did this... This is the problem when our politics loses its principle. New York Post 11/18/00 Steve Dunleavy "...... One observer showed me seven chads that had been dislodged in a half-hour period from a ballot that he picked up from the floor. "We saw one woman using a ballot card to chip polish off her nails," said Tucker Eskew, a Republican on the Bush team. ....... Soon after midnight, an elderly gentleman accidentally knocked over a stack of a dozen ballots on the floor. "Someone accidentally trod on one of the ballots. I don't know what that does to a ballot," said Eskew. ....... Eskew said the ballots on the floor were picked up and shuffled like cards. ....... Country Commissioner Mary McCarty said one observer actually picked 12 chads off the floor. How they got there, no one knows. ...... The chads have gone through three recounts of nonpartisan machines and are now being handled in various ways by humans, most of whom have no training and some of whom have eyesight as bad as mine. "We had warned all along that this was going to happen," said Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who has been monitoring this mess. ...... "There is no standard for the three different counties doing the hand count and the conditions inside are dark and extremely subjective to the human element." ...... If two counters disagree on a ballot, then it goes to the observers. ......And then it's turned over to the three-person canvassing board, who all are Democrats, then to lawyers on both sides. In one precinct, where 1,800 ballots were counted, there were 281 objections to who should get the vote or whether the vote was valid. ..... In the end, the lawyers broke the 281 objections down to three. And after all this rubbish, it showed a net gain for Bush of one vote. ....... At another precinct, 1,376 votes were counted with 263 objections, but in the end there was no gain for either side. ......What the hell is going on? Why are fortunes being spent and why are ambitious Democratic judges and small-town Democratic demagogues leading this proud country by its nose? It is a controversy fueled by a Gore-ite county commissioner named Carol Roberts. ....." New York Times 11/18/00 ".....Amid charges of chaos and chad eating, a recount in two crucial Florida counties has not, so far, produced the results that campaign workers for Vice President Al Gore had hoped....... In Palm Beach County, the vote recount crawled on with a gain of 12 votes for Gov. George W. Bush. Mr. Gore had hoped to pick up a significant number of votes in this Democratic stronghold. In Broward County, where Mr. Gore has picked up 79 votes, the recount proceeded more or less smoothly, despite one Republican observer's charge of what people here are calling "chad eating."...... George S. Lemieux, vice chairman of the Broward County Republican Party, charged on Friday that a Republican observer saw a Democratic observer "putting chads in his mouth."....... Mr. Lemieux said that he had heard rumors that Democrats were telling counters to conceal the chads, and that that was why the Democratic observer was eating them. Republicans were counting the chads in Broward County. On Wednesday, they found 78 in the counting room; on Thursday they found 270; and on Friday, 142. "We walk around and we find them on the floor, tables and chairs," Mr. Lemieux said. That has Republicans charging that the handling of the ballots actually alters the way the ballots are counted......." New York Times 11/18/00 "..... Meanwhile, Democrats here hoped that the hand recount in Broward and Palm Beach Counties - and a recount that is scheduled to begin Mondayin Miami-Dade County - will chip away at Mr. Bush's lead. But the process, which Republicans have described as chaos, is going painfully slow for the people watching it around the nation. Republicans say some volunteers are, either by accident or on purpose, dislodging the chads. Republican monitors actually have gathered some chads off the counting room floor as evidence that the ballots are being mishandled........ "We've got people fanning these ballots like cards," said Tucker Eskew, a spokesman for the Republican Party. "It is a scene that does not inspire much confdence." ......" New York Times 11/18/00 ".....Miguel A. DeGrandy, a lawyer for the Republican Party, requested that Republican observers inspect each ballot before it was inserted into the machine. He said he was concerned that chads would fall off when the ballots are inserted. But elections officials denied the request, saying that, in any handling of the ballots, the chads could fall off......... Late tonight, The Associated Press reported, the Republicans asked a judge in the 11th Judicial Circuit to bar the use of the machine. ......." Republican Executive Committee 11/19/0 Freeper Guenevere "......The person giving this account is someone I know & worked with at my local Republican headquarters. He is in a position of authority & he & his wife are reliable & credible.....but I have deleted their names. I live in Florida. ...... It is 11:30 PM and I have just returned from the count of absentee ballots, that started at 4PM. Gore had five attorneys there, these sole objective was to disenfranchise the military absentee voter. Most of these attorneys were from the ****(name of law firm deleted--it's local)

They challenged each and every vote. Their sole intent was to disqualify each and every absentee voter. They constantly challenged Military Votes that were clearly legitimate but they were able to disqualify them on a technicality. I have never been so frustrated in all my life as I was to see these people fight to prevent our active duty Military from voting. They succeeded in a number of cases denying the vote to these fine Men and Women. They did this in all counties around the State.... in Orange County they succeeded in getting 117 of the 137 absentee ballots cast out. This was a deliberate all out assault on the Armed Forces solely to sustain the Draft Dodger and his flunky. These people must have a hard time looking at themselves in a mirror, to deliberately prevent these people from voting. The errors were technical and beyond the power of the voter. They denied a number of votes postmarked Queens NY, ballots that were clearly ordered from overseas, clearly returned from overseas, and verified by the Post Office that DOD uses the... Queens post office to handle overseas mail, were denied because it didn't say AP. , They denied military votes postmarked out of Jacksonville, Knowing full well it came from ships at sea and was flown into Jacksonville. Their intent and direction was clearly to invalidate the Military Vote at all costs. This is what you can expect from a Gore administration a further trampling on the Military and more trampling on your rights. I take personal offense at their actions, and am completely appalled by this action. The attorneys there treated it all as a joke, and when my wife protested their actions she was told she didn't understand.. I don't honestly know what if anything we can do, I am open to suggestions especially from attorneys. Our Supervisor of Elections did a superb job of fighting to keep these ballots in the count but lost on a 2 to 1 vote twice. Fred is to be commended for his efforts I am still so furious I could go on all night but I better quit count went as follows... Bush 54 Gore 17 Nadir 1 Buchanan 1 Over 30 votes were disqualified ,....." Freeper Yaya123 on the 5 page memo "...... MTP Tim Russert is holding it up for Lieberman to explain. Lieberman says, "I haven't read it, first time I've seen it, and I spoke with people in the campaign, last night, and uh they told me it was a memo setting out the law. and republicans had a similliar memo." ....." This Week w/ Sam and Cokie Freeper Amelia "..... Lieberman says they want EVERY vote counted fully, fairly & accurately, but REFUSES to say if he & Gore will concede if final count shows Bush ahead. Sam asks him multiple times. ....." Freeper Amelia "...... Racicot says they are committed to a machine count, because no tired partisan ppl

making the judgements on whether votes should count. Cokie says appears they are finding problems & FL law provides for manual recounts. ...... Racicot, no indications system not operating properly. Also, problems not being resolved - evidence mounting every day...was sent 283 chads from Broward Co. yesterday. Should legislature appoint electors? SHOULD have been certified when it was supposed to have been. Would hate to take to legislature. Some contemplation of recounts in other states, but no judgements made. ....." "..... Fred Thompson up now...Dems saying will take til December. Allegations of voter fraud at local level, may go to Fed. Court. Dogs of War have been released in FL. With punch ballots, error rate very high with ppl doing best they can. Some Dems were urging Gore to concede with count behind, if hand counts show Bush behind should he concede? Thompson says up to Bush but handcounting punchcards very subjective & source of error. Thompson says we've already missed the opportunity for the rule of law to apply - deadline was Tue for regular vote & Sat. for absentees, but Gore campaign has insisted on subjective process [and extending deadlines] ...." Thompson: allowing felons to vote, throwing millitary votes out....Dems apparently want every vote to count unless you're in the military! Cokie then cuts him off. ....." Roundtable: Is gore trying to steal election? Will says that who is the appropriate official? the Dem election board? Steph: no matter who wins, margin of error greater than margin of error, yes many irregularities in PBC. Must either recount or revote whole state. Cokie: can't hold a different election. Recounting doesn't take into acct FL law which says must be asked for w/i 72 hrs. no matter who is elected, partisans on both sides will disagree. steph: Gore doesn't seem to be getting enuf votes in PBC recount. Will: 4th graders no prob. with Butterfly ballot Sam: "Ask not what your chad can do for you, ask what your chad can do for your country." ...." "..... What might SC do? Much debate here...options. Asking court for a single standard - but then would have to go back. Steph: GORE CAMP CONCEDES THAT UNLESS YOU COUNT THE DIMPLED BALLOTS, THEY CANT GET THERE. Will: Dem brief very harsh, esp. on Harris. Only one reference to what is being litigated, which is Harris didn't abuse her discretion. ...." Freeper okiedust ".... I watched both MTP and Foxnews Sunday. Both of them asked Mr. Lieberman if HE had made any calls? Now why would they both ask that? Do you think maybe he did and they wanted to get him on record denying it? Could it be? Perhaps it is not a strange question to ask, what is strange is that he was asked this on both shows. Do we have a deep throat anywhere? ....." Freeper Gramps ".....Timmy reads Schwarzkopf letter and asks Lieberman if he would support counting the votes. Lieberman says he doesn't have the ability to change FL law but would support the idea, generally. ....." Freeper Doom2001 ".... Lieber: Dodging questions. Elections officials in other FLA counties "fear" being sued!!!!! ...." Freeper Lizzy W "..... Unbelievable. Loserman just said, "The VP and I would never do anything to burden our military people abroad." Gimme a freaking break...has he heard of Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, on and on and on. His respons to the demoRAT propaganda letter was remarkably similar to his bs denial of never having seen the NAALCP / Byrd commercial......" Freeper Amelia "..... Is there a thread for THIS WEEK? Lieberman denies trying to steal election, want every vote counted, Americans more interested in FAIR than QUICK. Sam says, Your officials did tell people what to do to disqualify military ballots. LIEberman says it was local officials. Sam says 60% of absentee ballots were thrown out in counties carried by Gore, only 29% in counties carried by Bush. ....... Loserman still says it was local officials making decision...he & Gore would NEVER support an effort to throw out military ballots... Come on Sam, mention the 5 page memo! ....." Freeper Timeout "...... Russert just hit Loserman between the eyes. Loserman whining about the count being fair because there's a rep from each party there. KABOOM...Russert: However, the final arbiter is the canvas board made up of two dems and one independent...any close call goes to Gore. Is this Fair? WHINE, WHINE, WHINE. ....." Freeper Cjacobs "..... Tim hit a home run. 2 Democrats per every one Republican voting to determine a ballot is stacked against the Republicans. Then read Tom Delay's letter about "stealing the election". Great job, Tim....." Freeper Leto "..... On Fox News Loserman tried to tie the military ballots to a "full and fair count" want to give "benefit od doubt" to ALL ballots wants dimpled chad ect. THis is the new spin. Pressed by Snow, unfamiliar with Fl law ect, wouldn't even commit to dropping lawsuits after had recount in 3 counties. ....." Freeper Ole Okie ".... Juan Williams is frothing at the mouth. We just can't count oversees ballots that are not filled out properly, says Juan. Tony rejoins that the disputed chads weren't filled out properly, either. Juan says that's an entirely different matter. What a bunch of losers - Juan and Mara. ......" Freeper airsteides ".....LIEberman denied knowing about the five-page memo, just like he denied knowing

about the NAACP ad a couple of weeks ago. Who does he think he's fooling? ....." Freeper upstatenyrepublican ".... Finally something is being reported in our favor by the news media. It is all over the networks this morning as well as Fox. I think that the Republicans should get the names of the servicemen whose ballots were tossed, and investigate the situation. What about the 4th class mail coming out of Florida? Can we prove that? Is there any law saying the ballots are to be mailed 1st class or something? These soldiers who never got their ballots or got them so late have also been disenfranchised. ....." New York Post 11/19/00 Steve Dunleavy "......."We have just discovered what we believe to be the most troubling case so far," said Tucker Eskew, Bush spokesman. He was talking about what happened between 8:30 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. yesterday. "Yesterday, we took a handful of ballots at random out of the ballot box under full view of Democrat observers. We quickly found six votes for Bush in the Gore stack," Eskew said. ...... Republican lawyers immediately approached Theresa LePore and told her what they had found - her response knocked them for a loop. "Oh, I have heard something about that," Eskew quoted her as saying. ........ According to Eskew, a young woman counter had called a county worker and said she thought she might have miscounted. "We now know the county worker dutifully reported this to LePore. For some reason unknown to us, LePore did not utter a word to our side," Eskew said. "It was just dumb luck that we found a bad count at random. ........ "One can't escape a perception of an accidental mistake compounded by the effect of what looks like a cover-up." "Those ballots are now being counted for the fifth time because how many of those mistakes are being made?" Eskew said. LePore was unavailable for comment, and Democratic Party lawyers said they were "unaware of the incident." ......" New York Post 11/19/00 Steve Dunleavy ".......Carol Roberts, the county commissioner on the canvassing board and the gasoline behind this maelstrom of mania, appears to have told a few fibs about her partisan activities. ....... She has admitted that she has a Gore-Lieberman bumper sticker on her car. And she does admit to going to a fund-raiser for Gore and Lieberman but denies any campaigning for the Democrats. ....... And yet, I have in my possession a letter dated Oct. 2, 2000, signed by Carol Roberts, which is addressed to developer E. Llwyd Ecclestone. It reads in part: "I have been given the distinct honor of co-hosting a fundraiser for United States Senate candidate Bill Nelson on Oct. 15 . . . I would very much appreciate your firm's participation in this event by either contributing or raising $1,000." Democrat Bill Nelson won the Senate seat. ..... And it goes on. ....." New York Post 11/19/00 Steve Dunleavy "....... Democrats in Seminole County are trying to throw out 15,000 votes, 10,000 of which went to Bush, because they say absentee-ballot requests - not ballots, mind you, but requests - were wrongly numbered. ......" NewsMax 11/19/00 Christopher Ruddy "....... Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris needs to comply with Florida state law and certify Gov. George W. Bush the winner of the Florida election, without delay. If she doesn't, I fear that Bush has lost his best chance to gain the presidency, which he fairly and squarely won. .... Time and delay favor Gore. ..... The notoriously partisan Democratic Florida Supreme Court understands this point...... This is why the court issued an injunction Friday to stop the certification of Bush this weekend. ....." New York Post 11/19/00 Steve Dunleavy "......... Then came word that Gore campaign operatives, armed with a detailed how-to memo from Democratic lawyer Mark Herron, were working furiously to trash military absentee ballots - presumably because these votes were deemed more likely to be for George W. Bush than for Al Gore. ........ Mission accomplished: Several hundred service ballots were trashed, mostly because of missing postmarks. But overseas military mail is regularly postmarked differently from domestic correspondence. The Gore campaign knows this. That's why the Herron memo was written - to guide Democratic poll-watchers intent on identifying and tossing out military ballots. ......" New York Post 11/19/00 Steve Dunleavy "....... If the Bush campaign had instructed its poll-watchers on how best to identify and disenfranchise African-American voters, a national emergency would have been declared. Rightly so. Does anyone doubt what Al Gore Jr. would have had to say about that? So why is Gore silent about the despicable conduct of Herron & Co.? Because he is intent on becoming president. And because Herron was working for him. Reports of voting irregularities mounted yesterday as court-sanctioned hand counts continued in heavily Democratic Florida counties. In Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to The Miami Herald, at least 39 felons were illegally permitted to vote. And GOP poll-watchers reported all manner of irregularities - from taped-in-place chads to ballots dropped on the floor and walked upon. All of this is as bold as a broad-daylight bank robbery. ....." Florida Statutes and Florida Administrative Code 11/19/00 Freeper Wisconsin "...... There appears to be a conflict between the Florida Statute and the Florida Admin Code regarding military ballots. The statute provides: ......... (c) With respect to marked ballots mailed by absent qualified electors overseas, only those

ballots mailed with an APO, FPO, or foreign postmark shall be considered valid. .......... This would justify rejecting the military ballots not postmarked. However The Admin Code provides: ........(7) With respect to the presidential preference primary and the general election, any absentee ballot cast for a federal office by an overseas elector which is postmarked or signed and dated no later than the date of the Federal election shall be counted if received no later than 10 days from the date of the Federal election as long as such absentee ballot is otherwise proper. Overseas electors shall be informed by the supervisors of elections of the provisions of this rule, i.e., the ten day extension provision for the presidential preference primary and the general election, and the provision for voting for the second primary. ........ This would mean that counting unpostmarked military ballots would be legal. Normally a statute trumps an administrative rule. However, I gather that this admin rule was the result of litgation that Florida settled, and thus possibly overrules that statute. Anyone know the history? ......" Republican Executive Committee 11/19/00 Freeper Guenevere "...... Late last night, this was sent to me by email. The person giving this account is someone I know & worked with at my local Republican headquarters. He is in a position of authority & he & his wife are reliable & credible.....but I have deleted their names. I live in Florida. It is 11:30 PM and I have just returned from the count of absentee ballots, that started at 4PM. Gore had five attorneys there, these sole objective was to disenfranchise the military absentee voter. Most of these attorneys were from the ****(name of law firm deleted--it's local) They challenged each and every vote. Their sole intent was to disqualify each and every absentee voter. They constantly challenged Military Votes that were clearly legitimate but they were able to disqualify them on a technicality. I have never been so frustrated in all my life as I was to see these people fight to prevent our active duty Military from voting. They succeeded in a number of cases denying the vote to these fine Men and Women. They did this in all counties around the State.... in Orange County they succeeded in getting 117 of the 137 absentee ballots cast out. This was a deliberate all out assault on the Armed Forces solely to sustain the Draft Dodger and his flunky. These people must have a hard time looking at themselves in a mirror, to deliberately prevent these people from voting. The errors were technical and beyond the power of the voter. They denied a number of votes postmarked Queens NY, ballots that were clearly ordered from overseas, clearly returned from overseas, and verified by the Post Office that DOD uses the... Queens post office to handle overseas mail, were denied because it didn't say AP. , They denied military votes postmarked out of Jacksonville, Knowing full well it came from ships at sea and was flown into Jacksonville. Their intent and direction was clearly to invalidate the Military Vote at all costs. This is what you can expect from a Gore administration a further trampling on the Military and more trampling on your rights. I take personal offense at their actions, and am completely appalled by this action. The attorneys there treated it all as a joke, and when my wife protested their actions she was told she didn't understand.. I don't honestly know what if anything we can do, I am open to suggestions especially from attorneys.

Our Supervisor of Elections did a superb job of fighting to keep these ballots in the count but lost on a 2 to 1 vote twice. Fred is to be commended for his efforts I am still so furious I could go on all night but I better quit count went as follows... Bush 54 Gore 17 Nadir 1 Buchanan 1 Over 30 votes were disqualified ....." The Stars & Stripes 11/19/00 Tony Pugh peter Wallsten "....Republicans also took issue with the decision to discard 1,400 overseas ballots, many of which were believed to have come from military personnel who were generally expected to vote for Bush......... There is something obviously that is terribly, terribly wrong with what has been occurring," said Montana Gov. Mark Racicot, a Republican and former Army and civilian prosecutor who harshly criticized the manual recounts under way in Broward and Palm Beach counties. "This is a process that is completely untrustworthy."....... ...." The Stars & Stripes 11/19/00 Tony Pugh peter Wallsten ".... Citing sworn affidavits from Republican observers, he painted a picture of the recounts as an unsupervised free- for-all where poorly trained and overworked counters toil for hours in dimly lit rooms. Racicot said the work of fatigued elderly counters was particularly questionable. He said other workers improperly handled ballots, using them as fans and even taping chads over holes that were punched for Bush........ In one incident, Racicot claimed a Democratic observer found Bush ballots had been improperly placed in a Gore pile.......... Gore campaign officials would not respond to the specifics of Racicot's allegations, instead dismissing them as a partisan attack......." The Stars & Stripes 11/19/00 Tony Pugh peter Wallsten "....Opening another line of attack, Racicot referred to a study by The Miami Herald that found at least 39 felons - most of them Democrats - illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Florida is one of 14 states than prohibits felons from voting. Democratic leaders have attacked the laws as being discriminatory to blacks......... He compared that to the rejected absentee ballots presumed to have come from servicemen and servicewomen on active duty abroad........ How can felons be allowed to vote while the men and women in our armed forces cannot?" Racicot said. "That's simply not right." "The man who would be their commander-in-chief is fighting to take away the votes from the people that he would command," Racicot said........ More than 1,400 overseas ballots were rejected because of improper signatures or the lack of a foreign postmark. In some counties, a majority of the absentee ballots were thrown out. Orange County rejected 117 of 147 absentee ballots, while 74 of 135 were tossed out in Hillsborough County......." The Stars & Stripes 11/19/00 Tony Pugh peter Wallsten ".... In accusing Gore's campaign of favoring felons over military personnel, Bush's aides suggested that the vice president is trying to win at any cost. ........ The argument resonated with veterans and military families and was a hot email topic over the weekend. Famed warriors like retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf issued statements of dismay and urged that all absentee ballots from military personnel be counted........" New York Post 11/19/00 George Will "...... * The day after the election, in the panhandle county of Gadsden, Florida's most Democratic county, the predominantly Democratic canvassing board met - illegally - in private to examine 2,124 ballots that had been rejected because of multiple votes for the same office. They gave Al Gore 170 more votes. ...... After the election, a Democratic lawyer in Israel urged Floridians who still had unmailed absentee ballots to get those ballots to Florida by the Nov. 17 deadline even though the ballots would not have been postmarked by Election Day, as required. He said that the requirement might be waived because during Israel's troubles the State Department warned Americans to protect themselves from terrorism by avoiding congested places - and post offices can be congested......" Freeper irish guard "..... Lieberman is on all the shows. The Democrats know that Daley and Christopher have failed in the public court of opinion and desperately need a more credible spokesman. He still refuses to acknowledge that if they lose the manual recount that they will give up. ...." Miami Herald 11/20/00 Paul Brinkley-Rogers Tyler Bridges "...... Forty percent of the more than 3,500 overseas ballots in Florida were thrown out last week for technical reasons, and elections observers are

wondering whether the state's election laws are fair, especially to military personnel. ......... Republican leaders said Saturday they may file suit to have hundreds of military ballots restored to the count total, arguing that the military voter's intent should prevail over Florida's requirement that the ballots be postmarked before Election Day. Military mail is sometimes sent free, and is not postmarked. ....... A furious Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, speaking on behalf of the Bush campaign, said canvassing boards that rejected ballots without postmarks disenfranchised ``our men and women in uniform.'' He also cited a story published Saturday in The Herald. In that story, The Herald reported that at least 39 felons -- mostly Democrats -illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and Miami-Dade counties during the election. Their convictions ranged from murder and rape to drunk driving and passing bad checks. One is on the state's registry of sexual offenders. ......." The Stars & Stripes 11/19/00 Tony Pugh peter Wallsten ".... ``My dad was in the military for 22 years,'' said Rick Mullaney, a member of the all-GOP canvassing board in Duval, which rejected 42 ballots from GIs that bore no postmarks. ``I'm appreciative of all the efforts of the military, but Florida statute is clear. . . We need to do better, but unless there is a postmark, I don't think we can record the vote.'' It was clear during the argumentative hours it took for all sides to agree on how to count ballots in Duval that the GOP knew in advance of the postmark problem. Jacksonville City Attorney Rick Mullaney said he had spoken three times with state elections staffers about postmarks and was told the board should follow the statute. ......" Miami Herald 11/19/00 William Yardley "...... PENSACOLA -- In a town full of soldiers and former soldiers -full of patriots, residents here would say -- the rejection of 112 overseas ballots has left some feeling betrayed. Among them is Wanda Brown, whose tale reflects the complexities overseas voters face, and how simple mistakes can cost them their votes. Brown cast one of the 272 overseas ballots delivered to Escambia County's supervisor of elections by the Friday deadline. .......... But rather than mail it from Caracas, Venezuela, where her husband, Glynn, had been stationed for a year with the State Department, she gave it to him to mail from Gulf Breeze, the nearby Santa Rosa County town where the couple had moved in August. ........ " Florida Department of Law Enforcement Website 11/19/00 ".......Special agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have seized more than 200 voting-related items from a Miami man's home in connection with their widening probe into absentee ballot fraud........ Special agents served a search warrant late Monday at the home of Alberto Russi of 426 S.W. 26th Road. During the search, special agents took into evidence more than 100 absentee ballots intended for use in Thursday's Miami mayoral runoff election........ "The number of ballots and other items seized is significant," said Doyle Jourdan, regional director of FDLE. "We will be analyzing the materials taken in the search and we will make the ballots available to the Dade Supervisor of Elections Office to determine the validity of each one." Investigators said some of the confiscated ballots had been punched; others were sealed and signed. Some of the ballot envelopes bore the signature of Russi, they said....... Special agents also seized 21 voter registration cards from Russi's home. The cards were for people registered to vote; however, fewer than half of the cards had been signed. Some of the confiscated cards also listed Russi's Southwest 26th Road address. .......Also taken in the search were 50 blank applications for voter registration, along with approximately 40 third-party absentee ballot application forms. These third-party forms are used by registered voters who give a third party the authority to pick up their absentee ballots from the Supervisor of Elections Office. Several of those thirdparty forms contained "cut and paste" signatures, according to investigators......" FoxNews 11/19/00 Freeper tbeatty "...... George Mason Professor is awsome. William Lash III. Keep eye one him. He's African American, Conservative. Pretty much told the Dems their lawsuit is frivolous. He cited a 1972 Appeals court ruling that said the Constitution assumes that people will take care to ensure they voted correctly commensurate with the solemnity of the occasion. ........ " Freeper nyc5000 "...... Section 1S-2.013 of Florida Statues states the following: (7) With respect to the presidential preference primary and the general election, any absentee ballot cast for a federal office by an overseas elector which is postmarked OR signed and dated no later than the date of the Federal election shall be counted if received no later than 10 days from the date of the Federal election as long as such absentee ballot is otherwise proper. Overseas electors shall be informed by the supervisors of elections of the provisions of this rule, i.e., the ten day extension provision for the presidential preference primary and the general election, and the provision for voting for the second primary. ....." Drudge Report 11/19/00 ".....Late last week, Gore campaign chairman Bill Daley and former Secretary of State Warren Christopher quietly informed the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, that if Gore couldn't win on the hand recounts, the campaign would fold its tent, sources told TIME......... They cautioned that 'the principals aren't there yet' -- Gore and Joe Lieberman weren't yet ready to go along-- 'but they will be.'...... To buy time, Gephardt organized a Friday-afternoon conference

call for Lieberman and House Democrats. About 120 phoned in to hear Liebermanis pep talk. At 4 p.m., as he was making his case to the members, Gore strategist Bob Shrum broke in with some startling news: the Florida Supreme Court had forbidden Harris to certify the vote on Saturday. ..... The court wanted to hear arguments from both sides on Monday. Lieberman responded: "All right!"...." Pensacola News Journal 11/18/00 Amie Streater Louis Cooper "...... Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush held his lead in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties Friday after a confusing, often heated count of overseas absentee ballots. Bush picked up an additional 145 votes and Gore received 46 in the two-county area in this excruciatingly close race that will help decide who wins Florida's 25 Electoral College votes - and the presidency. ...... In the Nov. 7 election, local voters picked Bush over Gore by a more than 2to-1 margin. ........ In Santa Rosa, 57 ballots were rejected for various reasons. Most contentious were 12 ballots with no postmark. Although state law requires absentee ballots to be postmarked no later than Election Day, GOP attorneys argued federal law allows overseas military personnel to send their ballots without postage. ........ "You're dealing with a federal right to vote,'' Republican attorney Ed Fleming said. "There's nobody in this room that deserves the right to vote more than our service members overseas.'' ......... The Santa Rosa Canvassing Board, however, agreed to count the ballots, and Democrats filed protests for each, along with several others on various grounds. ........ " Miami Herald 11/19/00 Steve Bousquet John Dorschner "....... In his Hollywood home, Al Gore's Florida campaign chairman, Bob Butterworth, watched late-night returns on TV. He was astounded to get a phone call from Tennessee saying that Gore was about to concede. ``Don't do it,'' Butterworth begged. ........ " Pensacola News Journal 11/18/00 Amie Streater Louis Cooper "......At 10:13 p.m., VNS notified subscribers: ``WE'RE RETRACTING OUR CALL IN FL BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE OUR PREVIOUS CONFIDENCE.'' The networks quickly withdrew their Florida predictions. The polling service knew something was wrong with its data, but the service won't reveal what. There had been a statistical problem in the Jacksonville count, but that in itself hadn't led to the wrong call. ``I really can't say at this point,'' VNS's Lee C. Shapiro said. ``We've undertaken an investigation. We'll present the findings to our members when we're done.'' ......" Pensacola News Journal 11/18/00 Amie Streater Louis Cooper "...... In Hollywood, Attorney General Butterworth was disturbed when his friend Charles Burson, a former Tennessee attorney general and Gore's chief of staff, called to say that Gore was thinking of conceding. ``Well, I don't know, Charles,'' Butterworth told him. ``Their lead is down to about 50,000 now. Why don't we wait and see what happens?'' ......... Butterworth knew that many votes in Miami-Dade and Broward were not yet counted, and he knew from experience that South Florida could turn the tables. In 1986, he had won the attorney general's job after a last-minute wave of votes in Broward. A few minutes later, Butterworth begged Burson not to throw in the towel -- to no avail. ........ " Pensacola News Journal 11/18/00 Amie Streater Louis Cooper "...... In Hollywood, Butterworth received a call saying that a TV station wanted to interview him. ``I didn't get a chance to shave or change a shirt or anything. There was a knock on the door, . . . and there were four TV cameras and three TV trucks.'' ........ The attorney general realized he had to get back to Tallahassee. Before going, he talked with Jeb Bush, who was also getting ready to fly there. They agreed to hold a news conference to present a bipartisan front for the sake of the state's image. ......``We thought it would be good for the state and for the country for both of us to stand up there and say where we're at, and that everything we're doing is very open and we owe a responsibility to the country and we're going to be very deliberate about what we're doing,'' Butterworth said. It was one of the few moments of statesmanship between two men who sensed that a presidency -- as well as Florida's image -- was at stake. ......" Pensacola News Journal 11/18/00 Amie Streater Louis Cooper "......The Bush campaign had made no preparations for a contested race, but Joe Sandler, the Democratic National Committee's counsel, had set up in advance a complete battle plan in which in his team knew in detail the election laws of each state, including deadlines for requesting hand recounts. ...... " Pensacola News Journal 11/18/00 Amie Streater Louis Cooper "...... THUR., NOV. 9 ....... In county courts, eight lawsuits were filed, and a judge ordered Palm Beach officials not to certify results until he held a hearing the following Tuesday. ......... In Tallahassee, both sides were assembling their legal teams. An awestruck Butterworth entered Christopher's suite at the Governor's Inn hotel in Tallahassee for a brief morning meeting with Christopher and William Daley, the chairman of Gore's campaign. Butterworth wanted both Gore advisors to know that he had to resign as titular head of Gore's campaign in Florida because of the conflict it would cause with his responsibilities as the state's chief legal officer. ......... After studying the state statutes, Gore's team requested hand recounts in Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade. Following the law, officials in Volusia and Palm Beach agreed to do a trial manual count of 1 percent of the county, to see if a full recount was needed. In a preliminary round of recounts and new votes, news services were

reporting at the end of the day that Bush's lead had shrunk to 229 votes. ......" Orange County (Calif) Register 11/19/00 Richard Cassidy Freeper Stagerite "...... The Florida Supreme Court might shame America by delaying the legitimate and lawful award of Florida's 25 electoral votes to Bush until such time as democratically controlled counties can find enough "dimpled" chads to imply that Gore won the Florida election -- or bring eternal shame upon themselves for perverting the rule of law and putting Gore in the White House. ......" Abcnews.com 11/19/00 AP "......Miami-Dade County began mechanically sorting 654,000 punch-card ballots Sunday after a judge rejected a Republican request to keep the ballots out of a machine. Moments before the sorting was to begin Sunday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Margarita Esquiroz rejected the request by backers of Texas Gov. George W. Bush to stop the process of using machines to separate the clearly punched ballots from those in question. "We"re gratified by the ruling," said Kendall Coffey, a lawyer for the Democrats. "She believes the matter is in the hands of the (Florida) Supreme Court." Late Saturday, local Republicans asked her to stop the county from using the machines. "The more a paper ballot is mechanically or manually handled, the less reliable it is," said attorney Bob Martinez, representing the Miami-Dade Republican Party. The machine sorting started just after 10 a.m. EST and was to last about eight hours. ........ Some Republicans were particularly upset about the prospect of the board using pink duplicate ballots in place of ballots called into question. "They"ve gone from counting votes, to looking for votes, to now they"re going to manufacturing votes," charged Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y. ....... County spokesman Mayco Villafana said the board has not set any standards for what will be done with the undervote ballots. He said board members will decide on a ballot-by-ballot case whether to consider using duplicates. If any ballot is contested by either Republicans or Democrats, the board has the option to preserve the original ballot and replace it with a duplicate that would be counted as the board deemed the original one would, Villafana said. "The canvassing board can take that card, replace it with a pink duplicate, and anyone can tell that it is a duplicate card and that there is an original," he said. Sweeney said the process calls into question the integrity of the ballot. "They"re creating a new ballot," he said. "That"s an outrage." ......" Boston Herald 11/19/00 Andrew Miga "...... Al Gore, despite key legal victories, still must score a tricky onetwo punch in the Florida Supreme Court and the disputed manual vote recounts to finally capture the White House.. ......... ``We really need to thread the needle here, but compared to where we were last week, this feels like the driver's seat,'' said one Democratic congressman close to the Gore campaign. ..... Gore forces first must win a critical Supreme Court decision ordering the hand recounts to be included in final state results. ........ Gore attorneys will argue that Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris has no legal authority to certify the final results until the hand recounts in three counties are done. Democrats hope that recount figures will show him gaining rapidly to boost his case; however, his performance thus far has been somewhat sluggish. ........ Many analysts believe the high court, staunchly Democratic with an activist bent, will side with Gore - but jurists tend to have a hands-off view when it comes to second-guessing the authority of state courts and elected officials. ....... If Gore loses, he is likely to launch an immediate appeal that could wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Should Gore prevail in Florida's high court, he would find himself in a desperate battle for extra votes as the recounts in three Democratic-dominated states intensify. ...... ``The recount is the X-factor here,'' said one Democratic strategist close to the Gore campaign. ``We think the votes are there, but no one knows with any degree of certainty.'' ......" ......" Boston Herald 11/19/00 Andrew Miga "...... Bush aides are covering all their strategic bases as they plot their final moves in the tumultuous Florida election - even weighing a possible push for a statewide hand recount if they lose the Supreme Court case on whether such manual tallies can be included in final results. ......... Such a strategic reversal would be breathtaking, but not out of the question. ....... Despite fighting so hard against recounts as patently unfair and rife with abuses, Bush aides insist that pressing for a full manual recount across Florida would not be hypocritical. ........ Attorneys for Bush could assert that although they believe hand recounts are badly flawed, the fairest solution would be to count votes again all across the state instead of just selected Democratic-run counties. Statewide standards for judging ballots would have to be imposed instead of the current patchwork of rules, Kaufman said........ " Boston Globe 11/19/00 Mary Leonard "......One of the federal lawsuits aimed at stopping the Florida recount was generated by an Indiana attorney with close ties to religious conservatives, antiabortion activists, and the GOP congressional leadership. James Bopp Jr. also is the nemesis of proponents of stricter campaign finance laws. Bopp pledged Friday to return to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ''definitely, within hours,'' if the Florida Supreme Court rules this week that the secretary of state must include

''definitely, within hours,'' if the Florida Supreme Court rules this week that the secretary of state must include hand-recounted ballots in her certified tally of the presidential election vote. ''This thing has been changing hour by hour, minute by minute, and if the situation changes, we can renew our appeal,'' Bopp said, adding that he saw nothing in Friday's court rulings to bar him. ''We will be right back, asking for an injunction.'' ......." MSNBC 11/19/00 Freeper Smogger "..... MSNBC just reported these numbers. This is with 301 precincts out of 609 complete. I think that the Democrats have to be discouraged. They simply are not getting enough votes out of this handcount while taking a lot of criticism for it. I think if the handcounts go forward and Gore still looses it will be the worst case scenario for them. ......" Freeper jlogajan "..... The failure rate is now 0.00088 per vote. That gives Gore a net 184 vote gain in Broward. And 322 net gain in all three counties (Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade.) ...." Sun-Sentinel 11/19/00 Terry Spencer ".....Republicans accused the Broward County canvassing board of bowing to political pressure Sunday after the board reversed a decision to disqualify ballots with dimple or one corner chads. The board had been throwing out any ballots that did not have two corners poked out of the chad -- the tiny pieces of paper in a punch-card ballot. ........ ``The Gore campaign now wants to lower the bar because it needs more votes,'' said Ed Pozzuoli, chairman of the county's Republican Party. Pozzuoli said it was unfair for the board to change the rules in the middle of the recount. With 277 of the county's 609 precincts counted by midday Sunday, Gore had gained 85 votes over the official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to the official totals. ....... Since the start of the hand counting of the 588,000 ballots, the counters have set aside questionable ballots in an envelope just in cast they needed to be reviewed. The board said Sunday it would consider the ballots with dimple, pregnant chads or otherwise questionable chads after its appellate attorney, Andrew J. Meyers, said the two-corner standard would not hold up in court. ......" CNN 11/19/00 Mike Ahlers John Zarrella ".....Democratic party attorneys Saturday protested a decision by the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board to exclude from its recount about 150 ballots with dimpled chads from one of the county's precincts. ....... The three-member all-Democratic canvassing board decided last week to count only those votes where the chad was perforated from the ballot, and to exclude votes where the chad was "dimpled," or punched but not perforated. Dennis Newman, an attorney for the Democratic Party, complained the board tossed out 150 dimpled ballots from precinct 162E. ......" UPI 11/19/00 Pamela Hess ".....RIADH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 19 (UPI) - Defense Secretary William Cohen called it "tragic" that many U.S. service members' votes were thrown out in the Florida election for lack of post marks and is looking into what legally can be done to get them into the count........ "I think this is very unfortunate. The last thing we want to do is make it harder for those who are wearing our uniform and serving overseas to be able to cast a ballot," Cohen said at a press conference in Kuwait. "I will look into the matter and see what can be done, but I am not sure that anything legally can be done at this point given the rules that are in effect."........ Cohen told reporters traveling with him through his eight-day tour of the Middle East he thought it was tragic the votes are not being counted. Cohen said he is checking with his general counsel to see what options areopen to the Defense Department......" CNN 11/19/00 Freeper tank_sherman "...... Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) & Medal of Honor Winner just stated on CNN that military votes "that do not conform to the state laws of Florida [lack of postmark] should be rejected." Can we ask that his medal be revoked? His shocking remarks reflect great discredit on himself, his state and his party. I can only assume that Sore Loserman Has promised him a plum Cabinet position......" Washington Weekly 11/20/00 J Peter Mulhern "...... In all the confusion surrounding the Florida vote count nearly everyone agrees on one thing. The Florida Supreme Court will have the last word on who won. This is a truism that isn't true. ........ Everybody, regardless of party affiliation, acts as if the fate of the nation turns on the next decision from the Florida Supreme Court. That court, for the record, has a majority of Democrats. It is not noted for its fidelity to the law. ....... The idea that everyone must defer to seven partisan politicians just because they are used to being addressed as "your honor" is 100% balderdash. ....... The statutory obligation of the Secretary of State to disregard any vote tallies received after 5:00 p.m. on the Tuesday after Election Day is beyond rational dispute. The relevant statute is unambiguous. Any court that ruled the Secretary of State could not ignore late vote tallies would be committing a lawless act. The authorities in Florida owe a duty to the law not to the courts. If the courts tell them to ignore the law they must instead ignore the courts. ....." Filings for the FSC decision Freeper Eric Esot ".... My favorite so far - The Preliminary Statement by Katherine Harris ........ The Democrats' perspective is that the Election Code has to be read as mandating that each voter's intent, irrespective of whether the voter has properly punched or marked his or her ballot must take precedence over statutory deadlines, the constitutional construction of statues, and the discretion and operative duties of executive officers. To do this, the Democrats advocate, in effect, the fashioning of a

presumably common law right to manually recount votes, the creation of superclasses of voters in three counties whose votes are entitled to special consideration and multiple counts (as opposed to the voters of the other 64 counties), and the creation by this Court of administrative guidelines to determine how a human ought interpret machine ballots - the expanding universe of chad issues. All of this is set against issues cropping-up by the day, such as the impact of felons who were permitted to vote, claimed irregularities in the actual manual counting in the two counties currently underway, and the disenfranchisement of overseas voters, to mention just a few, as of the moment of filling. But, of course, the number of these issues expands by the day and by the hour. ......" Associated Press 11/19/00 Karin Meadows "......The judge supervising the recount in Palm Beach County pleaded Sunday with counters and observers to be nice to one another, after a fracas broke out when a counter accidentally put a ballot in the wrong stack. ``You would have thought she'd killed 14 people,'' said County Judge Charles Burton, a Democrat and chair of the canvassing board. ....... Tensions have been running high in the counting room since the manual recount began Thursday evening. Observers have repeatedly complained about the mishandling of ballots, saying counters have improperly touched them, put yellow stickers on them, even chipped fingernail polish with one. ....... " Freeper j.cam "....... When a Bush adman placed the word "rats" (either accidentally or purposefully) on 1/30th of a second's worth of film, the activist liberal media pinned the blame on Bush himself. The story had legs for two and a half days. However, when a Gore lawyer sends a memo to Democratic county bosses in Florida on how to disqualify military voters, and then the the Democrats disqualify the voters, the media hardly mentions the memo, and the media never pins the blame on Gore. ............. For example, on This Week with liberal activists Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson, they did a piece on the Military ballots, but never mentioned the incriminating memo . At the end of their piece, they quoted the Gore campaign stating that the irregularities happened in mostly Republican areas. .......If this memo were sent by the Bush campaign, that would be the end of Bush. Just look what the media did with a 24 year old DUI story. That had legs for three days. To keep it in the news, they kept asking how this proof that Bush had a DUI 24 years ago would affect Bush. Meanwhile, they don't do the same with this memo. Instead, they bury it. ......" Freeper Palm Beach Post 11/19/00 John Pacenti Brian Crowley George Bennett "....... Now this is some serious number crunching. With Republican George W. Bush's lead over Democrat Al Gore ballooning to 930 votes Saturday, the drool from the digit munching puddled among experts and party officials as they tried to guess whether hand recounts could change the outcome. ....... "It's possible but doesn't seem likely," that Gore can erase Bush's lead, said Bruce Hansen, a economics professor at the University of Wisconsin. ...... Hansen, a non-partisan working with two other statisticians who are feeding numbers to the Democrats, said he finds that Gore should gain a little more than 600 votes after recounts in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. That number is extrapolated from sample counts taken in each county last week, and could swing one way or another by as much as 200, he said. Either way, Bush is the winner. ... "The only hope for reversing the ballot would be the fact of the dimples," Hansen said. "It would be bizarre if the president would be selected on such a strange thing." ....." New York Times 11/19/00 "..... Extract from today's THE NEW YORK TIMES editorial, the newspaper that endorsed Al Gore and Joe Lieberman: "...One fact made clear by the combat between the campaigns is that Governor Bush and Vice President Al Gore are as strikingly different in temperament and managerial style as they appeared to be in the campaign. In Washington, Mr. Gore was deeply engaged in legal strategy and in public relations efforts aimed at buying time. In Texas, Mr. Bush was at his ranch, seemingly content to let lawyers and advisers direct the effort to have Ms. Harris disallow hand-counted ballots in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties and certify a count more favorable to Mr. Bush. ......" New Australian 11/20/00 James Henry "...... The sheer magnitude of the Gore machine's corruption has been exposed by the rejection of military ballots by Democratic counters led by Democratic lawyers behaving like commissars. Men and women in America's armed services are being systematically disenfranchised on the altar of Gore's lust for power. ....... Seventeen seamen died on the USS Cole when terrorists rammed a dingy fully of high explosives into its side. Seventeen Americans gave their lives for their country, These seventeen heroes were brought home with Old Glory draped over their caskets. And what was their reward? To have their comrades in arms stripped of their votes by a Party that even plans to wage war against the Boy Scouts of America. ......" Palm Beach Post 11/19/00 Brian Crowley ".....Failure to include hand-counted ballots from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties in the final statewide vote total could call into question the legitimacy of the next U.S. president throughout the world, Vice President Al Gore's lawyers argued Saturday. ...... The result, they wrote in legal papers filed with the Florida Supreme Court, would be confusion that "would likely

generate considerable instability that, in turn, would produce irreparable injury." ....... The nation's election drama moves to the high court at 2 p.m. Monday when the seven justices will hear arguments on whether the hand counting of ballots should continue and be included in the statewide vote total. ...... With the fate of Florida's 25 electoral votes and the presidency quite possibly in its hands, the court, generally considered somewhat liberal, is expected to act quickly after the two-hour hearing. ...... One reason Harris had given for not allowing the hand recounts was her belief that a county wanting to do that had to prove there was a machine malfunction. Gore's lawyers said, "This view, articulated in the midst of litigation, in the heat of political controversy, and contrary to the practice in this state for more than 150 years, is not entitled to any deference." .......... Later in the 62-page brief, the lawyers say that Harris' actions have been "Kafkaesque. She has tried time and time again to direct the counties to stop counting, and then, once these directives have been set aside by the courts, she has sought to reject these votes because of the counties' failure in obedience to her directives to complete the counts on a timely basis." ......" AP 11/19/00 ".......Democrats asked Florida's high court Sunday to set a generous standard for deciding what voters really meant when they punched ballots in the disputed presidential election. Republicans argued it was unfair ``to keep the state and the nation on hold'' any longer. ........ Lawyers for Al Gore (news - web sites) argued that previous state court rulings have established the rules for discerning the will of the voter in close elections. ......... Democrats want the Florida Supreme Court to establish a standard to approve or reject ballots in the three counties where recounts are under way or scheduled. ``For more than 80 years it has been settled Florida law that a ballot must be counted if the voter's intent is apparent from an examination of the ballot,'' Gore's lawyers wrote. ......" Tampa Tribune 11/19/00 "...... "Republican state lawmakers here are homing in on an obscure, never-used federal statute that, they contend, could offer them a decisive hand in choosing Florida's precious 25 electors if the normal voting process somehow leaves the outcome unclear........ Tom Feeney a state representative said, "if the courts don't allow the executive branch to do their duty, then at some point we would have to review our constitutional responsibilities, at this point we are watching and waiting......." Johnny Byrd, a Republican state representative from Plant City, added, "if the SOS is still under an injunction at noon on Tuesday, at that point it's just a question of when to pull the trigger." The trigger refered to is Title 3, Section 2 of the U.S. code. "Whenever any state has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the Legislature of such state may direct." ......" Freeper VA Advogado "........ Tuesday is the day the Florida legislature meets to organize for the next year. Its at that time when they can pass a resolution to set the date for the special session where they would pick the electors. Conceivably, they could even pick the electors Tuesday without a special session. ....." 11/19/00 AP "......A Fox Network news anchor was arrested and accused of hitting another journalist with his car in an apparent dispute over a parking space. Witnesses told police that Shepard Smith, who hosts "The Fox Report," ran his car into Maureen Walsh, a journalist for a local cable company, when she tried to save a rare open parking spot for co-workers at the Capitol complex where the media are covering the Florida recount......" Bush FSC Brief 11/19/00 "....... The drafting background and legislative history of Section 102.112 strongly supports the conclusion that the Secretary of State is required to ignore results from counties that miss the seven-day deadline. On May 31, 1989, the Florida House passed a bill, Fla. HB 1362 (1989), that added the new section 102.112, which includes the provision that [i]f the returns are not received by the department by 5 p.m. on the 7 th day after an election and such returns may be ignored and the results on file at that time may be certified by the department. 1989 Senate Journal, p. 819. The Senate bill incorporated the new Section 102.112 but also amended the last sentence of the then-existing section 102.111 to read as follows: If the county returns are not received by the Department of State by 5 p.m. of the thirteenth day following an election, all missing counties may be omitted, and the results shown by the returns on file certified. (emphasis added). Id. Thus, the Senate bill as proposed would have explicitly and unambiguously repealed the mandatory requirement to ignore late returns and replace it with a discretionary option. ........ On June 2, 1989, however, the House took up the bill again. House Amendment to Senate Amendment, 1989 House Journal, p. 1320. The House agreed to the Senate bills modifications to Section 102.112, but rejected the Senates modifications to the last sentence of Section 102.111. The bill was then reconsidered by the Senate that same day, and the Senate agreed to the House version. Chapter 89-338 30 at 2162, Laws of Florida. .......... The House and the Senate thus both specifically considered a modification to Section 102.111 that would have weakened the requirement that the Secretary of State shall . . . ignore[] returns from counties that have failed to meet the seven-day deadline. That is the exact reading of the statute urged by Petitioners in this case. It was rejected by the Florida Legislature and should be rejected by this Court. ...."

Patrick Henry News 11/19/00 Gary Aldrich ".......But in the eyes of the ugly, mean, intolerant liberals -especially those in the media -- Katherine Harris is the enemy who now must be "killed." They have set out to do just that. .......... I, too have been in their cross-hairs, and their wholesale assault on me caused deep trauma, especially to my family and friends. In 1996, when my book came out there wasn't much I could do to stop it. I depended on others to help me out, but there were damn few who were brave enough to come to my aid. I will be forever grateful to those few who did. ............ Now, I'm in a position to help others, and I do it with great joy! Please read this article by Robin Givhan, which appeared in the Style Section of our Washington Post, on Saturday, November 19, 2000. After you have read this, please send me one of two responses -- "A" or "B" -- and I will be guided by what you send me. Remember, whatever I write will reach thousands, and many are in the media, so this could have an impact. A. Gary, let her have it right between her four-eyes, or B. No, leave it alone -- don't dissect Givhan like the ugly toad that she is. I will abide by whatever reactions you have, and I will let you have the vote totals. I will be the only one to count them, so don't send me any PG chads. PS, if you know anything at all about this Givhan woman, please send it immediately so that I can include it in my building file. I intend to follow this ugly woman's career and life as only a former FBI agent can. Someday, she will get what she deserves -- hopefully sooner than later. And now the Givhan article -- a study in the politics of personal destruction: The Eyelashes Have It By Robin Givhan Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 18, 2000; Page C01 The first time the country got a good look at Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, it was in the wee hours of the morning on Nov. 8. Television viewers were bleary-eyed, and the realization that the election was spiraling into a Kabuki drama of chads, butterflies and boils hadn't sunk in. Harris sat hunched in a Shakespeare T-shirt. She looked tired and tousled and like a forty-something woman who hadn't gotten enough sleep. And viewers accepted that without comment because they recognized and could understand the image: honest human imperfection. By the time perplexed Americans got another gander of her, she was suited up for business. Her cascade of auburn hair did a lazy Veronica Lake dip over one eye. Her lips were overdrawn with berry-red lipstick--the creamy sort that smears all over a coffee cup and leaves smudges on shirt collars. Her skin had been plastered and powdered to the texture of pre-war walls in need of a skim coat. And her eyes, rimmed in liner and frosted with blue shadow, bore the telltale homogenous spikes of false eyelashes. Caterpillars seemed to rise and fall with every bat of her eyelid, with every downward glance to double-check--before reading-her most recent "determination." Hers were not the delicate individual lashes that can be used to fill out sparse hairs and give the eyes a lush canopy. Instead, they were the lashes of Tammy Faye Bakker Messner or Peggy Moffitt, the '60s model famed for her mod style and huge lashes. They were cartoon lashes. Lashes destined for a "Saturday Night Live" skit. The cruel took to calling her the dragon lady, and it quickly became clear that her 15 minutes of fame would be spent as the butt of jokes from late-night comics, morning talk show hosts and the Internet millions. By the time folks finished deriding her makeup, they couldn't stop the momentum. They went on to the clothes. Hate the suit. Hate the buttons. Hate you. Who knows what thoughts and concerns are whizzing through Harris's mind, but if body language reveals anything, it is that this woman is extraordinarily tense. No surprise there. In virtually every photograph, her mouth is set in a jagged line. Harris is trapped in a torment of historical proportion. And it shows on her face. For her close-up, Harris did what any reasonable person would. Wisely recognizing that television lights wash out features, she looked in the mirror and began to apply makeup. And apply makeup. And apply makeup. Until she looked as if she were wearing a mask. Harris virtually created a character that she could present to the world. Would anyone even recognize her on the street? Has that been her plan all along?

present to the world. Would anyone even recognize her on the street? Has that been her plan all along? University of Massachusetts history professor Kathy Peiss once noted that when women first gained easy access to makeup, it was used as a powerful tool to define and create a public face. Indeed, there is a genre of women who would never consider leaving their homes without putting on their face. (A sub-genre of them even wear makeup to the gym.) It was only after World War II that cosmetics were seen as suspect, as the enemy. Now, "cosmetics are like lightning rods for people's animus," Peiss said. The American public doesn't like falsehoods, and Harris is clearly presenting herself in a fake manner. One of the reasons Harris is so easy to mock is because she, to be honest, seems to have applied her makeup with a trowel. At this moment that so desperately needs diplomacy, understatement and calm, one wonders how this Republican woman, who can't even use restraint when she's wielding a mascara wand, will manage to use it and make sound decisions in this game of partisan one-upmanship. Besides, she looks bad--not by the hand of God but by her own. She took fashion--which speaks in riddles, hyperbole and half-truths--at its word, imbibing all of those references to the '70s and '80s, taking styling cues from Versace ads in which models are made up as if by a mortician's assistant, believing the magazines when they said that blue eye shadow was back. She failed to think for herself. Why should anyone trust her? True, a lot of the male players in this drama don't look so terrific, either. The difference, however, is that their jowls, potbellies and unruly hair are not self-applied every morning. If they look rumpled and haggard, one could excuse it with the belief that they were up all night debating their next move in the game of political chess. Harris looks harsh thanks to face time at the looking glass. In a strange way, Harris is the perfect accidental star in this surreal drama. And perhaps, one day, under the hot glow of the TV lights--or after some desperate voter unleashes a bucket of water--the lipstick, that eye shadow and those glued-on lashes will all melt from the searing ego and rancor in Tallahassee. And everyone can finally go home FoxNews 11/19/00 "..... Fox News is airing that Broward Country just changed their standards an hour ago! More liberal in favor of Gore! What is wrong with this picture? ...." Freeper Ptariot Newsmax 11/19/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Amid reports that hand recounts in four heavily Democratic Florida counties were not yielding enough new votes for Al Gore, election officials in populous Broward county decided Sunday to loosen the rules in favor of the vice president. ........ "The (election) board said Sunday that it would consider the ballots with dimple, pregnant chads or otherwise questionable chads," reported the Associated Press about the rule switch. Previously Broward County had counted ballots only where at least two corners of the ballot chad had been dislodged. ....... The decision to liberalize the rules came after Circuit Court Judge John Miller warned Friday that he would order the change himself "if they did not examine the ballot to see if a voter's intent could be determined." ......" Palm Beach Post 11/19/00 "....... Here are excerpts from briefs filed Saturday by Vice President Al Gore and others in the presidential election case. Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Texas Gov. George W. Bush have until today to submit their briefs. The Florida Supreme Court will hold a hearing Monday: .....Attorney General Bob Butterworth ......... "Under the law `an error in vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election' as revealed by a sample review authorizes a manual recount of all ballots. The legislatively mandated procedure for conducting the manual recount includes a requirement `to determine a voter's intent.' The division's interpretation would convert the term vote tabulation to vote tabulation system. The difference is significant. The word `tabulate' means to `condense and list.' As used in the law, `an error in the vote tabulation' means merely an error in the listing of the vote results. Converting the term to vote tabulation system changes its meaning completely, from a mere listing of votes to a description of the mechanical methods that are used to count votes." .......... Palm Beach County ....... "The issue presented in this petition involves two conflicting legal opinions issued by the secretary of state's office and the attorney general, on the same issue. This court has the ultimate power to direct state officers in the conduct of their duties. See Article V, 3(b)(8), Fla. Const. The dispute squarely presented by this case -- whether the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board may proceed with a manual recount of the ballots cast for president of the United States -- has assumed statewide, and indeed national, significance, because it affects the ultimate tally of votes certified by Florida voters to the electoral college, in an election in which the results literally hinge upon the outcome in Florida." Broward County ......... "Even if the secretary's interpretation of electoral process was accurate, it must still yield when strict enforcement would override the expressed will of a substantial number of Florida voters. The first clause in the Florida Constitution states that `All political power is inherent in the people.' Art. I, 1, Fla. Const. No statutory process can deprive the people of this inherent power." ......." Orange County Register 11/19/00 "......But even if the hand count is ordered to continue, it seems to us that

Americans need to have a very clear picture of unsavory and ongoing Democratic tactics in Florida......... As of Saturday evening, Gov. Bush's lead rose to 930 votes because of new absentee votes that have been counted. But as many as 1,100 military absentee ballots may not have been counted because of alleged irregularities, such as not having a postmark. .......... The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday, "Some Republicans were accusing the Democrats of an orchestrated plan to target military ballots. They cited a letter, a copy of which was provided to the AP, that was sent to Democratic attorneys this week by a Tallahassee lawyer involved in Democratic lawsuits in Florida, giving tips on how to protest overseas ballots." Florida should follow whatever practice it has in the past in counting overseas ballots..........." Orange County Register 11/19/00 "......In September, a precedent was set in Palm Beach that manual recounts are not automatic. Reported the Palm Beach Post Friday, "Back in September...state House candidate Beverly Green asked for a hand recount after losing a GOP primary by 14 votes. Tough luck, the board said. Green had to settle for a machine recount, which added one vote to her total. "So Green saw red this week when the canvassing board met ... and board member Carol Roberts, a Democratic county commissioner, said she was ready to go to jail to make sure the county's 462,657 ballots were hand-counted in the presidential race. 'Partisan politics,' claimed Green. 'She [Roberts] wants to see Gore win...It was only 2,049 votes [in the state House recount]. Now they want to count half a million?'"....." Orange County Register 11/19/00 "......The hand-counting process has shown its flaws. The Palm Beach Post reported Saturday, "One Republican observer complains that two counters are running their fingers down the presidential column. He calls for assistance from the third member of the canvassing board, County Commissioner Carol Roberts. She tells the counter to hold the card up clearly so all can see its front and back. 'They are still bending and twisting and grabbing the presidential line each time, the man soon complains again.'" ......." Orange County Register 11/19/00 "......Mr. Gore also needs to rein in the rhetoric of his partisans, beginning with former Clinton adviser Paul Begala. Referring to maps of America showing states Gov. Bush won in red and states Mr. Gore won in blue, Mr. Begala noted in his Internet column that most of the counties were red, then added, "But if you look closely at that map you see a more complex picture. You see the state where James Byrd was lynched-dragged behind a pickup truck until his body came apart - it's red. You see the state where Matthew Shepard was crucified on a split-rail fence for the crime of being gay - it's red." Several more examples followed. This is awful - it's the worst kind of demonizing and beyond making any sort of rational sense. It all comes atop an earlier round of Democratic tactics - such as calling Florida voters to plant doubts in their mind about how they voted; seeking information on electors - and the whole lot is nothing more than junkyard dog politicking. ...." Palm Beach Post 11/19/00 Michael Van Sickler "...... . Republicans charged Saturday that Democrats conspired with state canvassing boards to disqualify hundreds of absentee ballots from overseas military bases. The accusations came the same day that Florida finished its count of more than 3,200 overseas ballots, giving Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush 1,380 votes to 750 for Vice President Al Gore. ....... Bush's net gain of 630 votes -- 63.3 percent of the overseas ballots counted after Election Day -- did little to impress Republicans, who instead cried foul about the almost 1,400 ballots thrown out, about 43 percent. Friday night, "we learned that the vice president's lawyers have gone to war with our men and women in the military," said Montana Gov. Marc Racicot during a bellicose Saturday news conference in Austin, Texas, during which he also charged that Democrats tampered with votes in hand recounts........." Austin American-Statesman 11/19/00 Charles Holmes Jena Heath "......As George W. Bush tripled his lead in Florida, his campaign Saturday fired another volley against the use of hand recounts in three Democraticleaning counties. Meanwhile, officials predicted a final vote tally may not come until early next month -further delaying when the country will learn who the next president will be.......... But in a new effort to discredit the entire process, the campaign put forward Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a Republican who is monitoring the counting on behalf of the Bush camp. Racicot outlined a litany of complaints against the recount process, and said that two witnesses saw ballots that had been tampered with to obscure votes for Bush and that Bush ballots had been mixed in with those for Gore. He also listed notations made on ballots, elderly ballot counters working long hours with improper lighting, inadequate instruction or training for ballot counters and Democrats working both as inspectors and ballot counters. ``When the American people learn about these things, they're going to ask themselves what in the name of God is going on here?'' Racicot said. ......... A statistical analysis conducted for the Democratic Party indicates that all three counties may fail to boost Gore past Bush, The Miami Herald reported. The party hired statisticians from Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Wisconsin. Their analysis showed Gore would pick up only about 500 votes from South Florida hand recounts, the Herald reported. ......... Officials in Miami-Dade County, the state's most populous county, said they won't finish manually recounting ballots before Dec. 1. Election board officials on Saturday decided to begin hand

recounts of 653,952 ballots on Monday. Two dozen teams of two county employees will check ballots 12 hours a day, barring a Thanksgiving Day break, said David Leahy, Miami-Dade's supervisor of elections. ``It's a massive undertaking,'' Leahy said. ``We never have done anything remotely close to this.'' Miami-Dade's recount will begin as the two other heavily Democratic South Florida counties -- Broward and Palm Beach -- near the end of their own recounts. Broward officials expect to finish Monday; Palm Beach is expected to finish Wednesday. ....... Republicans have vowed to challenge the Miami-Dade recount in court. Already, more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed over the disputed election results in Florida. ....... Republicans complained that the board had set no guidelines for determining voters' intent, leading to a heated exchange between lawyers for the Republican and Democratic parties. ........ " Chicago Sun-Times 11/19/00 "....... . Irresponsible judicial meddling in the democratic electoral process-that's the only way to describe the behavior of the Florida Supreme Court. To order election officials not to certify the Nov. 7 results was bad enough; that was even more than Al Gore's camp had asked for. But the court's leisurely schedule for considering this time-sensitive dispute means Democratic partisans will be able to complete their trolling for votes for Gore in the hand recounts in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County and elsewhere. In fact, the court's order made a point of saying that nothing in its injunction should stop any recount. .....In effect, the court has usurped the authority of Secretary of State Katherine Harris and other Florida election officials to run the state's election. If the court felt it necessary to halt the state certification of the election pending a hearing, why not also halt the recounts pending that hearing? It's hard to find a nonpartisan answer to that question......" Palm Beach Post 11/19/00 John Pacenti "......Republicans demanded Saturday that Miami-Dade County stop the state's newest hand recount of presidential votes before it even started, alleging election officials were trying to rig the process in favor of Democrat Al Gore. "I'm beyond disappointed. I'm to the point of being shocked," said attorney Miguel De Grandy, an attorney for Republican candidate George W. Bush. "It's obvious the cards are already dealt." .......... And with that the presidential tossup boiled over in Democraticleaning Miami-Dade, the temporary home of Elian Gonzalez where cutthroat politics and voter fraud come with the territory. ...... De Grandy's argument can now be added to the other Republican complaints that fraud is ongoing at hand recounts in Palm Beach and Broward counties, both heavily Democratic. On Saturday, Republican Gov. Marc Racicot of Montana said on CNN there was evidence of Bush votes being counted for Gore, and other shenanigans. He also said felons voted illegally in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. .........." CBSNews 11/19/00 "......Florida's highest court is the next stop in the legal and political battle for the White House between George W. Bush and Al Gore. ...... Monday's 2 p.m. Eastern hearing before the Florida Supreme Court follows a weekend of hand recount of ballots in two heavily Democratic counties in the Sunshine State - Palm Beach, Broward - as well as Miami-Dade's plans to start its own countywide manual recount on Sunday. ...... Once lawyers for the two campaigns argue their case, Florida's top court will have to decide whether the Sunshine State's top elections official - GOP Secretary of State Katherine Harris must accept the hand recount tallies from those three counties. The Gore camp says that she must, citing the "will of the people." Bush's team counters that the deadline for vote returns has already passed. ......... Monday's hearing before the Florida Supreme Court stems from its unanimous ruling on Friday that barred Harris until further notice from rejecting the hand recounts and certifying Bush the winner in the state. ........Democrats want the court to establish a standard to approve or reject ballots in the three counties where recounts are under way or scheduled. ...... " Phone interview with Dr James Hirsen "...... . Just as he did last weekend, constitutional law professor Dr. James Hirsen of Trinity Law School graciously shared his time with me today. Here are the highlights: "If the GOP has the will, George Bush will be the next president" - the GOP has new spirit that he did not see during impeachment...an example is Bill Bennett fighting off Mark Shields and Al Hunt and use the words "steal" and "thuggery" - in coordination with counsel for the legislature, Hirsen would advise Harris to certify - the military ballots has become a huge PR nightmare for the Democrats which the GOP needs to keep exploiting - it is possible that the Florida Supreme Court would uphold the lower decision and Katherine Harris might be allowed to certify without the hand recounts ...... - there is a really big problem for the Florida supremes...they are in a fishbowl and the eyes of the world are on them...there are two Florida statutes which should control and allow Harris to certify - she should have been allowed to do it already...there are being put into a position by the Dems of taking on legislative action ...they are being asked to change a legislative deadline set in law and to even determine the rules for counting...do they dare "turn their back on the law"...in this case, "they can't just twist the law; they will have to rewrite it" ......." Reuters 11/19/00 ".......An advisor to Vice President Al Gore said Sunday he thought the Democrats' legal challenge in the presidential election race would end with the Florida Supreme Court, not be pressed into federal court. ``I believe it will end here,'' said the legal advisor who briefed reporters on condition of

anonymity. He spoke after both sides filed final papers ahead of Monday's crucial hearing before the Florida Supreme Court. The court was to decide whether votes being tallied by hand in certain Florida counties should continue or be halted as Republican George W. Bush insists. Whoever wins Florida's 25 electoral votes will be the next U.S. president. Both Gore and Bush have kept open the possibility of pressing the legal battle into federal court after the Florida Supreme Court rules. ....." CNN 11/18/00 ".......Palm Beach County, Florida, officials said they expected at least 50 percent of about 462,000 presidential ballots cast in the predominantly Democratic county to be hand recounted by the end of today. Early this morning, county officials said 202 out of 531 precincts -- or about 38 percent -- have completed their hand recounts, which may or may not be included in Florida's final presidential tally. .......Officials tell CNN the precinct recount there has shown little change from Election Day results. ........" Freeper Reagan80 ".....Even more recently...Broward has 309 precincts counted, (22 more than this article) with only 4 more votes for Sore/Loserman... Gore +92 in Wonderland.... " Freeper Zap brannigan "...... MSNBC just reported that 338 of 609 Broward precincts counted and Gore is up 90. Projected out he would get 162 total. The bad news is that the dimpled ballots have been set aside and WILL BE ADDED later to the toal unless there is a court ruling not to. They didn't say how many had been et aside. ....." Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "...... Last I heard they had counted 1700 dimpled ballots on hold for algor, with 1/3 of the recount done. ......" NPR CBS Radio Freeper Poincare "....... Tonight on Weekend All Things Considered it was announced that the "Bush Camp" had challenged large amounts of overseas absentee ballots sent in by military personnel. They then played excerpts from Dole's Sunday morning talk show interview which made it look like he was for suppressing the military vote. Then followed excerpts from Lieberman talking about how important those votes were and that nobody should deny our fighting men and women blah blah blah. I also heard a short statement on a CBS new broadcast last night to the effect that the GOP was challenging military ballots. This is not just spin, it is the BIG LIE in action. ....." Freeper FrostFire ",.....Rep, Steve Buyer is in Fla. Arrived this morning. Was just on John Gibson live with a copy of the memo in hand. he said it was a step by step distortion if the federal voer statutes and a distortioon of the Constitution, It was commissioned by the gore campaign and delivered to all the democrat officials in all 67 counties in FLA for the express purpose of discarding military votes, ....." Freeper Mississippiman 11/19/00 FoxNews "....... Racicot talking about the midstream rules changes going on this weekend. Saying that Gore fears now that they'll lose even after the recounts are in. Also again mentioned the military ballots. Calls dimple-counting a "guessing game." 9 people in 3 counties making these decisions, with 8 of those being Democrats. Using the phrasing "manufacture Gore votes." ......" Wrko radio Boston 11/19/00 Freeper bansheeBill "...... Conyers is on Boston Talk radio, NOW, and taking calls...click on source to get to wrko's site to listen, and try to call in.Freep him!......" "...... The show's host, newsman Ben Parker, tried to get Conyer's to stay on for one more segment, but as Conyers was getting a hard time from callers, and not getting answers from the show's host that were to his liking he said: "Well, considering you won't answer my question, I'll have to say goodbye." ........" Freeper Biblebelter "...... The only significant Dem that I have seen on television today is Loserman. He could not spin it. It is unspinnable. The Dems are out of sight and crossing their fingers hoping the Florida Supremes will save their bacon. On Friday that looked likely. But I have a feeling that these Supremes are getting cold feet in attempting to overturn an election with the Gore team as an accomplice. The Gore team has dug a big hole today with the military ballots, changing the rules in Broward and Dade. They are shutting out the press in Dade tommorrow......" Freeper randita "...... It is enlightening that the only elected Democrats (besides Lieberman who has to go out there) you see out defending Gore are Barney Frank, Robert Wexler, that Deutsch hack and Conyers. They can't even get Dungheap Harkin out there, let alone anyone of stature like Gephardt, Daschle, or even Bob Kerrey. This and the fact that Daley and Christopher had to go to D.C. last week to suprress the mutiny tell me that Al Gore's chances are not long for this world. I think they're holding out for the FL SC decision. If that goes our way, I expect the grey suits will pull the plug. ......" MSNBC 11/19/00 "..... Right now on MSNBC there's a young lady counter disclosing how she has witnessed taped over Bush votes and the Gore hole punched. News conference shortly......" Freeper zeebee "....... New info today:Projections suggest Gore would fall short so they want to change the rules. Calls accepting dimples a "guessing game" by 9 democrats and 1 Repub. Mentions rerunning M-D ballots thru machine and

then new cards would be manufactured once the guess is made RE questionable ballots. Press is being left out Not alleging fraud, but changing standards "bears upon the integrity of the process"..... Says the difference betwen FL and TX is that in TX it is already the law, ballots were judged one way from the beginning, in FL they are being very "opportunistic." ......" Freeper Miss_Liberty "...... They ARE going to count dimpled chads now...my post above says not...sorry! They have changed the standard once again to get more votes for Gore and they will now count the dimpled chads. Pretty soon they'll be counting blank pieces of paper as Gore votes! ......" Freeper FrostFire "...... Steve Buyer is the head of the Armed Services Oversight committee. He arrived in FLA this morning, has secured a copy of the Herron memo. He showed it on the air and says it is full of distortiond that made it easy for ballot counters to discard military absentee ballots. He said it was commissioned by abd sent to all the 67 Dem county heads in Fla and used to not count the military vote on illegal technicalities. He laid it right in their laps and right to the gore campaign. The canvassing board will not allow the media to observe or listen to the count in MiamiDade ......." Freeper Elkiejg ".....Barring press from the room in Miami-Dade - I almost jumped through the roof on that one. In Florida IT'S AGAINST THE LAW - THE FLORIDA SUNSHINE LAW - to hold any government meetings that are closed to the public. I'm a Florida resident who worked for City government. Believe me, they take this law VERY seriously here!! Tried to call Gov. Jeb Bush, messages are full so sent him an email. Called new State Speaker Tom Feeney and left message as to this situation. Those people down there should know better - but if it's the Gore mobs from out of state trying to call the shots, they just misfired. ......" Freeper B.A. Conservative "........ I think the Fla SC has no intention of overturning the trial court judge, Terry Lewis. He found as a matter of fact: "The limited issue before me on this motion is whether the Secretary of State has violated my order of November 14, 2000. The Plaintiffs assert that she has acted arbitrarily in deciding to ignore amended returns from counties conducting manual recounts. I disagree. As noted in my previous order, Florida law grants to the Secretary, as the chief elections officer, broad discretionary authority to accept or reject late filed returns. The purpose and intent of my order was to ensure that she in fact properly exercised her discretion rather than automatically reject returns that came in after the statutory deadline. On the limited evidence presented it appears that the Secretary has exercised her reasoned judgment to determine what relevant factors and criteria should be considered, applied them to the facts and circumstances pertinent to the individual counties involved and made her decision. ................ I think the Court is saving face for Al Gore. By stalling off the certification, they have allowed the counts to progress far enough toward completion to show that Al Gore has gained ground. It doesn't matter to the media or to Demokrats that it is through vote fraud. The Court will uphold the trial judge's findings and rule against Gore. The canvassing boards will vote to discontinue counting. Harris will certify the election and Bush will get Florida's electoral votes making him President Elect. Gore will concede the election while claiming that he would have won, but for Bush's and the Republicans conspiring to steal the election from him. He will also claim that if the counts had been allowed to continue, that he would have won the election. His gracious concession speech and his ridiculous claim will preserve his ability to be the front runner for the Democratic nomination in 2004. Hillary's name will be placed in nomination. I am looking forward to the 2004 Democratic convention. It could prove to be a bigger circus than this election. As Rush says, Liberals are at their craziest when they are out of power. In just a few more days they will be out of power. It won't be long now. Help is on the way! ......." JerryMander.com 11/18/00 Prof Jerry Mander "...... Al, you blew it today. All the lawyers in the world, all the recounts, all the chads, don't mean a thing now-- because you blew it today. .......... Over 24 hours have passed with the news all over the airwaves of the selective refusal to count overseas absentee military ballots in Florida. Over one third of the votes of men and women who risk their lives overseas for us have been rejected. They were rejected using tactics written out and distributed by your campaign staff. ............ For ten days now you've been trying to 'mine' for votes in Democrat counties, and there were suspicions that the latest round of recounts might not be fair and objective. We now know that incidents of apparent cheating are supported by eyewitness affidavits. What we suspected, we now know. What were suspicions, is now evidence. ........... For ten days you have been saying that this is all about 'fairness' and 'accuracy' and 'listening to the voice of the people'. You've said it, and your mouthpieces have repeated it again and again and again. Even if we didn't believe you, it was simply passed off as 'partisan politics' to have voiced questions about your motives. But now we know. ........... We know that, in spite of the fact that you say you say that you care about a fair vote, you've been silent for more than 24 hours. We've known, and you've known, that our active duty military personnel have been capriciously and unconscionably denied their votes......" ABC Evening News 11/19/00 "...... It was announced a bit ago that my highly liberal Senator, Paul Wellstone was encouraging Florida counties to give the benefit of the doubt on the military ballots. He doesn't consider

this, however, a break from the ranks of the Democrats. Anyone else hear this? I did a search and it didn't look like it was posted yet. ....." National Review Online 11/17/00 Arnold Steinberg "....... The nation's quintessential dirty trickster is helping to oversee the recount of ballots in Florida. ......... In fact, this guy once went so far over the line that he was suspended by the California Democratic party for misconduct. However, since results for some are more important than ethics, he was soon reinstated. ........ And now, just when you thought it was safe to count the ballots in Florida, he's back............ He is California's Bob Mulholland, political adviser to the California Democratic party. According to Rick Orlov, one of this state's most Highly regarded political reporters, Mulholland now leads "a hardened team of California political activists dispatched to Florida to help oversee the recounting of ballots in four counties." ......" Akerman Senterfitt Law Firm Freeper Marcella 11/19/00 "...... Many of you sent emails to Mark Herron, the attorney that sent a letter to Florida Democrats advising them how to reject military ballots. Some of you may have emailed his law firm, Akerman Senterfitt in Tallahassee. Think that thread also suggested going to the location of the firm and demostrating. I GOT AN EMAIL THIS MORNING FROM AN ATTORNEY AT THAT LAW FIRM. MARK HERRON IS NO LONGER WITH THAT FIRM. HE SUBMITTED HIS RESIGNATION AND IT WAS ACCEPTED. WE NEED TO GET THE WORD OUT THAT HE IS NO LONGER CONNECTED TO THAT LAW FIRM! WE DON'T WANT THAT FIRM TO MISTAKENLY SUFFER! ......" Freeper dano1 11/19/00 "....... As I posted on a different thread, there seem to be a lot of problems with Volusia county precincts. For example, precinct #611 looks really suspect. First of all the seal was broken. Secondly, the percentage of Bush votes is 20% lower than another polling place which was in the same building. (In other words, Precinct #622 in the same building had an unbroken seal and went 28% for Bush, versus precinct #611 which voted in the same building, and a broken seal on the ballot bag and was only 23% for Bush.) Third, there were 10 "Questionable" votes all for Gore, whereas the other polling place in the same building had no Questional votes. Fourth, the first staff member who signed also signed in precinct #634, 1.5 miles away- why was she in two places? Fifth, the handwriting on the two signatures appears to be different. So in all, there's 5 reasons why tally sheet 611 looks suspect. .....Has anyone put this Volusia county data on an Excel spreadsheet yet? There is a statistical test which could be done to prove FRAUD if it occured. This would involve running some simple statistical analyses comparing the precincts which had broken seals versus those which did not. One thing that would be really important to check is whether "Questionable" ballots were more common in bags with broken seals as compared bags with intact seals. If everything was on the up and up, we should see no statistical correlation between where the broken seal occured and where the ballots counted as Questionable line occured. However if more questionable ballots are found in the bags with broken seals, that would be quite difficult to explain except by vote tampering. A major factor here is the way the Volusia tally sheet is laid out. On the left hand side there is no place to write down the subtotal. That's a big problem. It leaves the door open for someone to come back later on and write in a new number on the "Questionable" line, without changing the previous Gore or Bush totals. These "Questionable" ballots could later be counted for Gore. Or, using another strategy, if a zero had been originally place on the "Questionable" line, someone could come back later and place a "1" in front of the zero, converting it to a "10". The suspect tally sheet from precinct #621 had 10 questionable ballots, all credited to Gore. By comparison, precinct #622, which apparently voted in the same building as #621 and did not have a broken seal, had no ballots counted as questionable. Has anyone put the Volusia data on an Excel spreadsheet yet? We should see if the questionable ballot count correlated with the broken seal problem. CNN 11/19/00 Freeper Endeavor "...... CNN's black woman anchor (I'm not being racist, I'm just trying to identify her & don't know her name) said about 10 minutes ago, as a lead in to a video segment, that hand counts are very accurate. Then they cut away to the segment and the voice-over started with something like "the Republicans are misleading the public when they say that hand counts are not accurate." I was so shocked that I nearly fell off the couch. I also immediately hit the remote to change the channel. If this is not a blatant example of media bias, what is?! This really ticks me off. ....."

AP 11/20/00 "......Republicans accused the Broward County canvassing board of bowing to political pressure Sunday after the board reversed a decision to disqualify ballots with dimple or one corner chads. The board had been throwing out any ballots that did not have two corners poked out of the chad -- the tiny pieces of paper in a punch-card ballot. ''The Gore campaign now wants to lower the bar because it needs more votes,'' said Ed Pozzuoli, chairman of the county's Republican Party. Pozzuoli said it was unfair ........." AP 11/19/00 Rachel La Corte "......Miami-Dade County used machines Sunday to begin sorting 654,000 punch-card ballots, separating those with clear punch holes from ballots in question. The process, using the same machines that counted ballots after the Nov. 7 presidential election, was intended to reduce the amount of time needed for the full hand recount that begins Monday. The machines culled undervotes -when a ballot contains no vote for a candidate in a particular race or when no vote could be detected -- from 502 of the 614 precincts. Officials wanted the ballot sorting so counters don't have to use their discretion to determine whether a questionable vote should be counted. ...... Canvassing board members want to be the only ones judging questionable ballots. The county had about 10,750 undervotes. Officials planned to start the hand count and the remainder of the sorting at 8 a.m. Monday. ......" CNN 11/19/00 "......As vote counting proceeded in three Florida counties, attorneys for Democrat Al Gore's presidential campaign asked the Florida Supreme Court to set the standards for "determining the voter's intent" during the recounting of ballots. The issue only becomes essential if the Florida court allows hand counts to continue at all. The Democrat's filing Sunday afternoon was in reply to George W. Bush's written arguments explaining why Republicans want the state Supreme Court to stop hand recounts from being included in the final tally. Oral arguments will be heard in Tallahassee on Monday. ......" The Arizona Republic 11/19/00 The Editors "..... The votes in Florida have now all been counted and recounted. By an excruciatingly narrow margin, George W. Bush has more votes than Al Gore. And that should be it. Bush should be declared Florida's winner, and with its 25 electoral college votes, the next president of the United States. Al Gore should withdraw his legal challenges to the vote. .......... Florida officials finished counting overseas absentee ballots yesterday. But on Friday, the Florida Supreme Court enjoined the Florida secretary of state from certifying as official these results. It scheduled a hearing for Monday on the legalities of the hand counts still going on in two heavily Democratic counties............. Gore should pull the plug on that legal proceeding and spare the country the injustice that a reversal of the outcome would now constitute. ........ The only way Gore can now become president would be as the result of both an act of judicial activism and an unfair and inaccurate count of the ballots. ......" TERRY SPENCER 11/19/00 AP ".....Republicans accused the Broward County canvassing board of bowing to political pressure Sunday after the board reversed a decision to disqualify ballots with dimple or one corner chads. The board had been throwing out any ballots that did not have two corners poked out of the chad -- the tiny pieces of paper in a punch-card ballot. ''The Gore campaign now wants to lower the bar because it needs more votes,'' said Ed Pozzuoli, chairman of the county's Republican Party........... Pozzuoli said it was unfair for the board to change the rules in the middle of the recount. With 351 of the county's 609 precincts counted by Sunday evening, Gore had gained 90 votes over the official tallies sent to the secretary of state on Tuesday. It remained uncertain if any of the manually recounted votes would be added to the official totals.......... ''Any semblance of a standard of fairness in the hand-counting process in Broward County has been abandoned,'' said Bush campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan. ''Instead, they're going to get a subjective reading of the votes by a majority Democratic board.''......." Electronic Telegraph 11/20/00 Stephen Robinson Tony Harnden "........ Democratic tellers were advised to block ballots if there was no clearly legible postmark on the envelope, which is frequently the case when letters are posted from military bases. Normally, these ballots pass unchallenged. ...... Opinions are now hardening and many Republicans are seething at the Gore campaign's tactics. ........ Thus far, Democrats have remained loyal to Mr Gore, publicly backing his decision to fight the election through the courts. But there is a growing sense of unease behind the scenes and a feeling that Mr Gore's interests in winning the White House may diverge from the Democratic party's interests in remaining respectable in the eyes of the electorate. ............ The disclosure that the party tried to stop soldiers voting while apparently encouraging convicted criminals to do so could help turn public opinion against a sustained legal campaign from the Gore team. With the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, there is a general desire to have the matter settled rapidly. ......" UPI 11/19/00 Paul Singer "......Even before the Florida Supreme Court has begun to consider the dispute over manual recounts going on in three Southern counties, the Secretary of State has asked the court to rearrange the schedule for Monday's oral argument to give her office equal time with the campaigns of Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. .......... In a motion submitted Sunday, lawyers for Secretary of State Katherine Harris objected to the court's decision to divide the oral argument in half, allowing one hour to each side. The attorneys said Harris is not a member of either of the two "sides" and is

instead a neutral arbiter required to enforce state electoral law. .......Harris' attorneys offer the alternative of splitting the 120 minutes of oral argument into three 40 minute blocks, with Harris speaking last. .......Democrats have already objected to the proposal, which Harris offered to the Gore camp in a letter Saturday. ......." MSNBC 11/19/00 "......In some counties, half or nearly all the foreign ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. ........ Herron said he was retained by the DNC on Election Night. "I'm not the only one that did this," he said. "Everybody got the opportunity to argue their case in front of the canvassing boards." Asked about the high number of ballots thrown out, Herron replied: "I don't know what the numbers would be. It was our position in a neutral way, these were standards everywhere." .......... Democrats, meanwhile, went ahead with legal action to challenge absentee votes that were accepted in Seminole County. Harry Jacobs, a lawyer and local Democratic activist, alleges that Republican workers added information that led to the approval of about 4,700 absentee ballot requests. Jacobs said that if those voters' ballots cannot be identified, all absentee ballots cast in the county should be thrown out. The lawsuit says Bush received 10,006 absentee votes in Seminole, compared with 5,209 for Gore. A judge on Saturday delayed a hearing in the matter until Nov. 27, granting a request by GOP attorneys who said they need more time to respond......." Drudge 11/19/00 "......NOW THIS IS A MAN OF STRENGTH WITH A COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF WHO HE IS & FAITH IN HIS GOD. BUSH CHILLS AT RANCH AS DEADLINE NEARS; NOT WATCHING TV NEWS As lawyers fight and judges rule and the nation waits for Florida to pick a winner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush has been holed up some 90 miles northwest of the governor's mansion in Austin plunging into the pages of a new biography of Joe DiMaggio and keeping his TV off -- avoiding all cable and broadcast news! "He has no cable or satellite television and only a few local channels, and he rarely turns to those," NEW YORK TIMES Bush-watcher Frank Bruni will report in Friday editions. No FOX NEWS. No CNN. No MSNBC confusion or Dan Rather delusion. Forgetting Tom Brokaw's excitement; passing on Peter Jennings indictments. ....." UPI 11/19/00 Kathy Gambrell ".......Also at the center of debate were two memos. One supposedly was circulated by a Democratic consultant that suggested using technicalities such as late postmarks and improperly placed signatures as a way to disqualify military absentee ballots. A second memo supposedly from Republicans explained how poll workers could defend ballots in question.......... On NBC's "Meet the Press," commentator Tim Russert asked Lieberman about the Democratic memo allegedly written by an attorney assisting the Gore campaign. "Let me just say that the vice president and I would never authorize and would not tolerate a campaign that was aimed specifically at invalidating absentee votes from members of our armed services, and I've been assured that there were more absentee ballots from non-military voters that were ultimately disqualified," Lieberman said. .........Lieberman stopped short of saying he would ask Florida counties to review ballots from armed services personnel and waive irregularities or technicalities that would disqualify them such as late postmarks or misplaces signatures. ......" CounterCoup 11/18/00 Freeper Leper ".......From: Julie Date: Sun Nov 19, 2000 10:10pm Subject: Re: Re: just try this "revote"............... They should get recounts because the voting was a mess. Why is a revote unconstitutional? And even if it is? Who cares? Why this obsession with constitutionality every step we take. That's why we have all the gun wackos running around...and all these innocent kids getting blown away every day here in LA...because of our constitution...that outdated, ridiculous document...I agree with whoever said...."the founding fathers would be laughing their heads off if they came back today and witnessed the obsession we have with sticking to this document they devised so long ago". They were obviously anticipating a far more intelligent populace...able to think for themselves and recognize when a law has outlived its usefulness...of course many of these people are the same nuts who want to stick religiously (no pun intended) to the absurd laws in the bible...a book written quite some time ago... the underlying sentiments of both the constitution and the bible are still true today but the literal interpretation of both is absurd. ....." UPI 11/19/00 Paul Singer "........Lawyers for George W. Bush launched their legal defense on Sunday of the Republican presidential nominee's narrow lead over Democrat Al Gore in the race for Florida's electoral votes, which by all accounts will determine the next president of the United States. .......... The essence of the Republican argument before the Florida Supreme Court is that Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was within her rights when she ruled Wednesday that hand recounts of ballots in three heavily Democratic Florida counties will not be accepted in the state's final vote count. .......... Sunday afternoon, Democrats issues a response to the Republican motion, reiterating their claim that the hand counts should go forward and asking the court to also address what standards should be applied in judging ballots that are not clearly punched. ...... The Republican brief filed Sunday said Harris acted under a state law that required her to cut off election returns Nov. 14 at 5 p.m. Petitioned by several counties to hold the deadline open while they

complete recounts, Harris said Florida law allowed for such an extension only if there was a technical problem with the machine counts that generated the initial returns. Republicans argued in their brief that no "extraordinary circumstances" existed to justify extending the deadline, and that Harris' decision was a "reasoned and reasonable" exercise of her authority. ............. A Democratic legal adviser said Saturday that Harris's actions had been "Kafkaesque" because she first issued opinions telling counties not to conduct recounts -- which led the counties to pause before continuing -- and then later refused the recounts on the grounds that they were late. .......But the Bush reply Sunday said, "The (Florida) statutory structure all but dictated that the Secretary of State conduct herself exactly as she has throughout the course of events since the election." Harris' conduct was "reasoned and reasonable," the brief said. ......" MSNBC 11/20/00 Freeper Yossarian "..... If you get a chance to catch a repeat of Sunday Hardball, you will be amazed and saddened at the Frank Luntz group in Palm Beach. Luntz has conservatives and liberals divided into two groups, and physically seperated, for good reason. The two sides are ANGRY at each other. Of course, the conservatives are well reasoned, and the liberals are dim, but both are furious. It is like the Jerry Springer show, but with the fate of the country at stake. The only plus is that most people on both sides want the military ballots counted. The libs don't understand what it is the Gore campaign is trying to do, but most respect the military none-the-less. I now worry very much that there will be ugly scenes, in Florida at least, before things get better......" Freeper Timeout "....... Rahm keeps equating the military ballots to the Palm Beach biddies. Scorborough's having none of; it. He point blank asked Rahm if he could defend the Gore camp trying to block military ballots...asked him several times (in a loud voice). Rahm couldn't answer. Nailed! ......" Drudge 11/15/00 Mark Herron "..... The 5-page memo as obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT: Date: November 15, 2000 To: FDP Lawyer From: Mark Herron Subject: Overseas Absentee Ballot Review and Protest State and Federal law provides for the counting of "absentee qualified electors overseas" ballots for 10 days after the day of the election or until November 17, 2000. Sections 101.62(7)(a), Florida Statutes defines as "absentee qualified elector overseas" to mean members of the Armed Forces while in the service, members of the merchant marine of the United States and other citizens of the United States, who are permanent residents of the states and are temporarily residing outside of the territories of the United States and the Districts of Columbia. These "absent qualified electors overseas" must also be qualified and registered as provided by law. You are being asked to review these overseas absentee ballots to make a determination whether acceptance by the supervisor of elections and/or the county canvassing board is legal under Florida law. A challenge to these ballots must be made prior to the time that the ballot is removed from the mailing envelope. The specific statutory requirement for processing the canvass of an absentee ballot including of overseas absentee ballot, are set forth in Section 101.52(2) (c)2. Florida Statutes: If any elector or candidate present believes that an absentee ballot is illegal due to a defect apparent on the voter's certificate, he or she may at anytime before the ballot is removed from the envelope, file with the canvassing board a protest against the canvcass of the ballot specifying the precinct, the ballot, and the reason he or she believes the ballot to be illegal. A cahllenge based upon a defect in the voters certificate may not be accepted after the ballot has been removed from the mailing envelope. The form of the voter's certificates on the absentee ballot is set forth in section 101.64(1), Florida Statutes. By statutory provisions, only overseas absentee ballots mailed with an APO, PPO, or foreign postmark shall be considered a ballot. See Section 101.62(7)(c). Florida Statutes. In reviewing these ballots you should focus on the following: 1. Request for overseas ballots: Determine that the voter affirmatively requested an overseas ballot, and that the signature on the request for an overseas ballot matches the signature of the elector on the registration books to determine that the elector who requested the overseas ballot is the elector registered. See Section 101.62(4)(a), Florida Statutes.

2. The voter's signature: The ballot envelope must be signed by the voter. The signature of the elector as the voter's certificate should be compared with the signature of the elector of the signature on the registration books to determine that the elector who voted by ballot is the elector registered. See Section 101.68(c)x, Florida Statutes. 3. The ballot is properly witnessed: The absentee ballot envelope must be witnessed by a notary or an attesting witness over the age of eighteen years. You may note that these requirements vary from the statutory language from the Section 101.68(2)(c)1, Florida Statutes. Certain statutory requirements in that section were not proclaimed by the Justice Department pursuant to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Sec. DE 98-13. 4. The ballot is postmarked: With respect to absentee ballots mailed by absolute qualified electors overseas only those ballots mailed with an APO, PPO, or foreign postmark shall be considered valid. See Section101.62(7)(c), Florida Statutes. This statutory provision varies from rule 15-2.013(7), Florida Administrative Code, which provides overseas absentee ballots may be accepted if "postmarked or signed and dated no later than the date of the federal election." 5. The elector has not already voted (duplicate ballot). In some instances, an absent qualified elector overseas may have received two absentee ballots and previously submitted another ballot. No elector is entitled to vote twice. (Please insert appropriate Fl. xxx.) To assist your review, we have attached the following: 1. A review Federal Postal regulations relating to FPO's and PPO's. 2. A protest form to be completed with respect to each absentee ballot challenged. 3. Overseas Ballot Summary of Definitions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Revised Overseas Ballot Summary of Definitions There are 3 different types of overseas ballots that are valid for return at the counties provided they are postmarked on or before November 7th. 1. Federal Write-In ballot Must be an overseas voter and must be eligible to vote and be registered under State law. Must have affirmatively requested an absentee ballot in writing and completely filled out request (including signature) Must comply with State laws applying to regular absentee ballots (such as registration requirements, notification requirements, etc.) Ballot contains only Federal races, and is considered to be a "backup" system if the regular state absentee ballot fails to arrive. The intent of the voter in casting the ballot should govern. In other words, minor variations in spelling candidate or party names should be disregarded in ballot counting so long as the intention of the voter can be ascertained. Must be postmarked as an APO, FPO, or MPO in a foreign country or at a foreign post office. 2. Florida Advance Ballot Sent out in advance of a regular General Election ballot with state and Federal candidates listed. Must be an overseas voter and must be eligible to vote and be registered under State law. Must comply with State laws applying to regular absentee ballots (such as registration requirements, notarization requirements, etc.) Must have affirmatively requested an absentee ballot in writing and completely filled out request (including signature)

Sent prior to the second (or October) primary elections to all permanent overseas registered voters. Must comply with all State laws regarding signatures, witness requirements, etc. Must be postmarked at the APO, FPO or MPO in a foreign country or at a foreign post office. 3. Regular Overseas Ballot Sent after the second (or October) primary elections to all permanent overseas registered voters and voters requesting an overseas ballot from the county. Must be an overseas voter and must be eligible to vote and be registered under State law. Must comply with State laws applying to regular absentee ballots (such as registration requirements, notarization requirements, etc.) Must have affirmatively requested an absentee ballot in writing and completely filled out request (including signature) Full ballot with all candidates listed. Likely would take precedence over any advance or federal ballot also returned. Must comply with all State laws regarding signatures, witness requirements, etc. Ballot is designed by the county. Must be postmarked at an APO, FPO, or MPO in a foreign country or at a foreign post office. Below are the definitions for points of origin and postmark that are valid for military overseas ballots: 1. APO (Army Post Office) -- A branch of the designated USPS civilian post office, which falls under the jurisdiction of the postmaster of either New York City or San Francisco, that serves either Army or Airforce personnel. 2. FPO (Fleet Post Office) -- A branch of the designated USPS civilian post office, which falls under the jurisdiction of the postmaster of either New York City or San Francisco, that serves Coast Guard, Navy, or Marine Corps personnel. 3. MPO (Military Post Office) -- A branch of a U.S. civil post office, operated by the Army, Navy, Airforce, or Marine Corps to serve military personnel overseas or aboard ships. 4. Military Post Office Cancellation -- A postmark that contains the post office name, state, ZIP Cope, and month, day, and year that the mail xxx was cancelled. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Protest of Overseas Absentee Ballot As provided in Section 101.68(2)(c)(2), Florida Statutes. I, as an elector in __________ County, Florida, hereby protest against the canvass of the overseas absentee ballot described below: County: ____________________________________________________ Precinct: __________________________________________________ The Ballot: ________________________________________________ Name of Voter: _____________________________________________ Address of Voter: __________________________________________ Reason for rejection: ______________________________________ ___ Lack of voter signature ___ Lack of affirmative request for absentee ballot

___ Request for absentee ballot not fully filled out ___ Signature on absentee ballot request does not match signature on registration card or on ballot ___ Voter signature on envelope does not match signature on registration card ___ Inadequate witness certification ___ Late postmark (indicate date of actual postmark) ___ Domestic postmark (including Peurto Rico, Guam, etc.) ___ No postmark ___ Voter had previously voted in this election ___ Other Signature of Person Filing Protest Print Name 11/15/00 Associated Press 11/19/00 Anne Gearan "...... Democrats asked Florida's high court Sunday to set a generous standard for deciding what voters really meant when they punched ballots in the disputed presidential election. Republicans argued there was not ''a scintilla of evidence'' the recounts couldn't be finished by the deadline set by the state. ............ Lawyers for Democrat Al Gore argued that previous state court rulings have established the rules for discerning the will of the voter in close elections. Democrats want the Florida Supreme Court to establish a standard to approve or reject ballots in the three counties where hand recounts are under way or scheduled. ''For more than 80 years it has been settled Florida law that a ballot must be counted if the voter's intent is apparent from an examination of the ballot,'' Gore's lawyers wrote. ...... Gore's filing cited the law that provides for manual recounts in close elections, noting that if votecheckers cannot determine the winner on a particular ballot, the local elections board should ''determine the voter's intent.'' The problem comes when those elections boards decide how to do that - with some boards opting for stricter standards than others, Gore's lawyers said. ....... The issue only becomes essential if the Florida court allows hand counts to continue at all. ......." Freeper PhiKapMom 's email 11/19/00 "......... FREEPER HELP NEEDED -- Encourage Tallahassee TV stations to tell the Florida Statute 102.131 story -- "GORE County" Recounts May Be Illegal? Here are the contact links for Tallahassee TV stations. Most use Web-based mail so you will have to drill-down to their "Comments" or "Suggestions" options. If anyone has similar links for Tallahassee Talk Show hosts and Newspapers it may be useful to get those out there as well. Flood them with the truth ... perhaps someone will take a sip and get a clue! http://www.floridalink.com/thenews/florida_tv_stations.htm Tallahasee - WCTV CBS 06 -- http://www.wtwc40.com/ Tallahasee - WTXL ABC 27 -- http://www.wtxl.com/ Tallahasee - WTWC NBC 40 -- http://www.wtwc40.com/ Tallahasee - WTLH FOX 49 -- fox49@fox49.com "The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns." --- 102.131 For clarity, let's parse the phrases ... "The Elections Canvassing Commission ..." First, the implied but un-stated qualifying word here is "State". Thus the phrase becomes "The STATE Elections Canvassing Commission ..." Thus ...

Thus ... "... to look beyond the county returns." Does this mean the collective total of the county returns (statewide total)? OR Each individual county return? Consider ... Does this say that the State may not probe down to the municipal or other sub-county level within a given county to determine if (at that sub-county level) a recount might result in a changed result? The language here seems to demand that the State must look at individual counties rather than the sum of the county results ... else forbidding a look at sub-county results would serve no purpose. The Statute reads as though the intent was to prevent the State from nullifying recounts by demonstrating no likelihood of a result-change at sub-county levels (something easier to do than when limited to county-wide results). This reading, if correct, is grounds for all of the "Gore counties" being disallowed hand recounts since their result FOR GORE is unlikely to change. Florida Statute 102.131 appears to state that only counties where a manual recount may change the results WITHIN THAT COUNTY may hold an extraordinary manual recount. ......" New York Times 11/19/00 Jon Dougherty "....... A Republican congressman has called attention to what he says is a double standard being employed by the Palm Beach County canvassing board because it rejected a hand count in a close state primary just eight weeks ago.......... According to Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., Palm Beach canvassing officials -- led by elections supervisor Theresa LaPore -- refused to allow a recount requested by Beverly Green, a candidate for a seat in the Florida House, after a machine count indicated she lost by just 14 votes......... The ballot used in that race was the very same butterfly ballot claimed by the Gore campaign and Palm Beach officials as "confusing" to thousands of voters who cast ballots in the Nov. 7 election.......... After a second machine recount brought that margin down to 11 votes, there was some movement made toward Green requesting a manual recount. However, LaPore indicated, according to a report in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, that a request by Green would be rejected because "it wasn't that close."...........LaPore added, "A manual count is historically [conducted] when it's single digits" that divide candidates.........."This board just eight weeks ago said that a margin of 11 votes wasn't close," Weldon said in a statement, "but now they are saying a difference of over 116,000 votes in Palm Beach County between Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore is simply too close and merits a hand recount..........."It's clear to me that this board is driven by partisan politics whose only goal is to invent new votes for Al Gore," Weldon added. "Their own record clearly demonstrates this."..............., Also noteworthy, Weldon said, was that in past hand recounts, the Palm Beach canvassing board required that at least two corners of the paper chad -- the small square piece of paper punched out on punch card ballots -- be separated for the vote to count. "The county has now decided that no corner of the chad needs to be broken," said the statement. "If the chad is indented at all, they will count it as a vote for Mr. Gore." ......" Michigan Community Newspapers 11/23/00 Jim Rarey "...... THAT'S IT! THE LINE HAS BEEN CROSSED! As the nation was observing Veterans' Day on Nov. 11th, the Gore campaign was distributing a five page memo with instructions to local Democrat election officials in Florida on how to disqualify as many military absentee ballots as possible from overseas troops. ............. The instruction falsely stated that absence of a "postmark" on military ballots was grounds to throw them out. In some counties half or nearly all of the military ballots were disqualified. Orange county, for instance rejected 117 of 147 overseas ballots. .......... This writer was shipped as a replacement radio operator in 1951 to an Army Signal Corps battalion that had suffered 90% casualties when the Communist Chinese troops entered the Korean conflict. It has been extremely difficult to refrain from criticizing, in this column, the Clinton/Gore administration as it climbed into bed with the Communist generals involved in that slaughter. But with the new revelations of the past week, a line has been crossed. ............For partisan political advantage, the Gore campaign is willing to throw out the votes of those who are enduring sacrifice (some with families on food stamps) and putting their lives on the line to protect our right to vote. Gore operatives were convinced the military overseas vote would heavily favor Bush, so they decided to pull out all the stops and pressure local Democrats to arbitrarily invalidate military ballots. The outrage at these acts should cross party lines. If Al Gore manages to win the vote in Florida, and thus the presidency, with this cowardly tactic (as well as other vote manipulations going on in

the manual recount) impeachment proceedings should be instituted as soon as he takes office on January 20, 2001 ........" Freeper RightWinger "....I can't believe it! On the Fox News Channel, a few minutes ago, I heard Susan Estrich predict that the Fla. Supreme Court will uphold the SoS Harris' decision not to count the hand recounts. She also predicts that the US Supreme Court will not touch this issue. WOW! ...." NewsMax 11/19/00 Carl Limbacher "....... A Republican observer charged last week that he personally witnessed Palm Beach County canvassing board member Carol Roberts tampering with ballots during the crucial presidential election recount tally -- but his account has been almost competely ignored by the mainstream press. Though a handful of newspapers reported on Thursday that GOP lawyer James Higgins filed a letter with the canvassing board based on complaints from observers who said Roberts had conducted herself in a biased manner, none of the witnesses were actually quoted. ......... "In one, (Higgins) said, a man named James Kelly, whom he didn't identify, saw her bend two ballots at a 90-degree angle....," reported the New York Post. A Nexis-Lexis search turned up no other references to James Kelly last week. Kelly, it turns out, is actually a Bush-Cheney delegate from Maryland who was sent to Florida to monitor the recount. The very morning that reports of the Higgins letter first surfaced, Kelly detailed his charges to WCBM-Baltimore radio host Tom Marr. ....." Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 Cleta Mitchell ".......In case you're bewildered by the machinations of the Gore campaign-turned-law-... let there be no doubt that the goings on in Florida are perfectly in keeping with the way Democrats normally think and behave. Lawsuits are a key part of the Democrats' political strategy, so nothing about Florida should surprise anyone who has spent time in the Democratic Party. Until 1995, I was a Democrat......" Palm Beach Post 11/19/00 Sean Cavanagh ".......Five days into hand recounts, Broward County's elections panel moved to loosen its rules on what ballots can be recorded as votes -- unless Florida's highest court forbids that change. The switch was proposed on Sunday, midway through the county's hand tally of 588,000 ballots, which began last week. But Broward County's three-member canvassing board agreed to wait to see if Florida's Supreme Court addresses the potentially crucial issue in a hearing today, before putting the new, broader guidelines into effect. And the board members said the new policy would force them to review only a limited number of ballots--rather than starting the entire recount again. ............ The proposal delighted Democrats and horrified Republicans, who claimed board members were crumbling under pressure to rustle up more votes for Al Gore in heavily Democratic Broward. ...... "The Democrats are not happy with the small numbers coming out of Broward County for Vice President Al Gore, so now they're trying to change the standards," said Ed Pozzuoli, the county's GOP chairman. "They're putting on a fullcourt press to try to change the process mid-stream, and that's blatantly unfair."....." Frank J. Murray 11/20/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES "....... Vice President Al Gore appears to have staked the presidency and his future political career on today's all-or-nothing legal strategy of attacking Florida's state government and its lower courts........... His legal briefs to Florida's seven Supreme Court justices each of whom reached the court with backing by Democratic governors - did not appear to raise a federal issue that would allow appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court should his argument be rejected........... Instead, the vice president and his huge legal team pinned everything on the single question of whether Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris broke state laws by excluding late recounts from certified election totals, and by issuing binding opinions that ruled out hand recounts......" Frank J. Murray 11/20/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".......The secretary of state told the court yesterday that she followed state law to the letter - and to the hour - and asked the justices to uphold Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis' orders approving her key decisions and to clear the way for the state Elections Canvassing Commission to certify the final vote and award Florida's 25 electoral votes to Mr. Bush. That result would make him president. "[We] respectfully request that this court affirm the orders of Judge Lewis, lift the temporary stay imposed by this court, and permit the commission to certify the votes of the people of Florida," Mrs. Harris said in papers filed yesterday by her attorneys......." Frank J. Murray 11/20/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".......Mr. Bush's response defended Mrs. Harris' actions in great detail and blamed the wholesale attack on her on the fact that Democrats were "disappointed" with those decisions......... "The unprecedented events that have brought us to this point are obviously of the highest public interest," said his brief to the state Supreme Court. "Extraordinary times call, however, for courts to adhere steadfastly to the rule of law." ......... " Frank J. Murray 11/20/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".......Republicans have supported efforts to stop recounts in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. They attacked them in a federal court lawsuit

contending that counting just those three Democratic counties would violate the U.S. Constitution requirements for "equal protection" and "due process.".......... A federal judge in Miami and a 12-judge appeals court in Atlanta refused to intervene, ruling that state courts had all the powers required to decide the issue and order any necessary remedies. The appeals court suggested that Mr. Bush might have grounds for an appeal later.......... r. Bush's attorneys took exactly the opposite tack, arguing that Mrs. Harris' opinion was correct and that she would have violated the election law had she extended last Tuesday's 5 p.m. deadline for anything short of a hurricane or other natural disaster. "Under the laws of Florida, there is no possible result here but for this court to affirm," the Bush brief said........ Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida's highest court does not have jurisdiction over every issue. Many controlling precedents in election law were handed down by intermediate appeals courts. Last week, the state Supreme Court asserted that trial court rulings were binding law........." Washington Post 11/20/00 Eric Pianin Juliet Eilperin "....... Growing GOP anger about the recount in Florida could make it much more difficult - if not impossible - for Vice President Gore to forge consensus on Capitol Hill even if he were to gain the presidency, according to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. ......... Already, some prominent Republicans, including former Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.), have mentioned the possibility of a boycott of the inauguration if Gore is elected president over George W. Bush. And House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has circulated a staff memorandum to congressional Republicans pointing out that the House and Senate can reject a state's electoral votes if they decide that the votes are tainted.......... Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said in an interview that he and other Democrats are concerned about the growing intensity of Republican outrage over Gore's tactics-and what that might mean for the future if Gore is elected. .........A Senate Democratic leader added, "The depth of resentment and the extraordinary hostility the Republicans already have demonstrated towards the vice president is far greater than the somewhat mild opposition that Democrats have expressed about Bush." ......." Washington Times 11/20/00 Bill Sammon "......Joseph I. Lieberman distanced himself yesterday from the Democratic effort to throw out hundreds of absentee ballots cast by military members stationed overseas, but he would not join the demand that those votes be counted........ Nor would Mr. Lieberman, a senator from Connecticut and the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, rule out further lawsuits if he and his running mate, Al Gore, lose their case before the Florida Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments here this afternoon on whether to allow the state of Florida to certify a 930-vote victory by Texas Gov. George W. Bush that would give him the state's 25 electoral votes and make him the president-elect........... "I checked with our campaign last night when I heard about this because I was upset about it," Mr. Lieberman said on CBS' "Face the Nation." ....... "I've been told that the directions to our personnel from our campaign were pretty much the same as the Republican people had, which is: Just make sure the law is followed. That's all." .......... But on Saturday, Montana Gov. Marc Racicot called the Democratic effort nothing short of war against America's fighting men and women overseas. Yesterday, the Republican pointed out that the Defense Department openly admits it does not always affix postmarks to the mail of soldiers and sailors in far-flung theaters. "They had nothing to do with whether or not these ballots were postmarked or not," Mr. Racicot said on "Fox News Sunday." "They've signed the ballots or dated the ballots [and] those votes ought to count."........ Mr. Lieberman said while the "benefit of the doubt" should be given to absentee military voters, "it's got to be done by the law." At the same time, he emphasized that every effort should be made to divine the intentions of voters in three Democratic counties who failed to vote for a presidential candidate - or voted for two........" LA Times 11/19/00 Elizabeth Shogren "......The Democrats' top donor is disappointed in Vice President Al Gore's conduct since the presidential election and believes that the candidate bears responsibility for the stalemate because he failed to give Americans a "compelling reason" to choose him. ...... And Peter Buttenwieser, whose $1.3 million in donations put him at the top of the list of individual donors to the election--Democrat or Republican--is apparently not alone. While much of the Democratic establishment has been presenting a united front during the Florida recount, several of Gore's biggest contributors and fundraisers are quietly or openly expressing dissatisfaction with him, blaming him for the murky outcome. Among Republicans, donors are apparently still united in supporting Texas Gov. George W. Bush's call to end the voting and declare a victory. "I think it's time to bring it to a conclusion," said Howard Leach, a veteran GOP major donor and a San Francisco investment banker......." New York Post 11/20/00 Deborah Orin Vincent Morris "..... Al Gore's team took a hard line on Florida military overseas ballots yesterday and refused to withdraw Democratic challenges that got the votes of hundreds of U.S. troops tossed out - many over technicalities. ...... "No. All the vote-counting should be done according to the law," said Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway after about 1,400 overseas ballots were rejected, mostly in Democrat-controlled counties. .....Many military ballots arrived without a postmark, which is often true of military mail, and were challenged on that basis - after Democrats sent out a memo on challenging ballots that focused on postmarks. Angry protests from Republicans mounted, and even President Clinton's

Pentagon chief, William Cohen, voiced concern that troops overseas were kept from voting on technicalities. .... New York Post 11/20/00 Daivd Seifman "...... The Broward County canvassing board dropped a bombshell yesterday, changing its rules to include dimpled ballots in its recount - a switch that ignited swift fury from the Bush camp. ...... The unanimous action by the three-member board reversed a decision made just the day before to keep the disputed ballots segregated pending a court decision. ..... Unless a court orders us not to do so, we will look at the clear intent of the voters, declared board member Suzanne Gunzberger, a Democrat. .....And, as board chairman Robert Lee had candidly acknowledged Saturday, in all likelihood the majority of those will go to Al Gore. ......" New York Post 11/20/00 Steve Dunleavy "......AL GORE was certainly a man of his word when he said: "I'll do anything to win." .....The remarkable comment, reported in Newsweek, brought predictable Bronx cheers from Republican brass. ....... "True, he will do anything, say anything, to win," said Scott McClellan, Bush campaign spokesman. "He has just confirmed what we have been saying all along, simple as that." ..... But it wasn't all that simple to disabled U.S. Navy veteran Ralph Wilson, 48. "I'm very angry," said Wilson, of the Coalition Center for Independent Living of Jupiter, Fla. ...... "I just wonder if any of those votes came from aboard the USS Cole," said Wilson, who suffers from a degenerative nerve ailment. ......." New York Post 11/20/00 Rod Dreher ".... What to make of this sick left-wing fantasy? You want to remind him that Protestant fundamentalism is no match for the anti-Catholic bigotry found in the corridors of media and academic power, particularly in Manhattan and Hollywood. ....... You want to point out the state where defenseless women this summer had to run a racialized gantlet of male molesters in a public park - it's blue. The state where almost all of America's pornographic films are produced? Blue. The state where taxpayers funded a seminar that taught kinky gay-sex techniques to public schoolchildren in the name of diversity - it's blue, too. ......, But what's the point? There are good and bad people in every state of the union. To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, the line between good and evil doesn't run along state borders, but through the human heart. ......What Begala's contemptible column really discloses is how the cultural left, particularly its elites concentrated on the coasts, views the rest of America. Flyover Country is a violent wasteland inhabited by murderous bigots, religious crackpots and other Republicans. ....." New York Post 11/20/00 Nelson Lund "..... IF the Florida Supreme Court declares that selected and subjective hand recounts should be included in the tally of that state's vote for presidential electors, the nation will be told that we must now all bow before the "rule of law." Such propaganda should be skeptically received. The rule of law is not synonymous with the rule of courts, and the courts may not get the last word on what the law is. ...... A little historical perspective is needed here, for the courts themselves have recently been busy promoting the false idea that they are the supreme interpreters of the law. In 1992, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the American people understand that it has the authority to "speak before all others for their constitutional ideals." ........ This was both presumptuous and degrading. The justices are not appointed to speak for our ideals, and they have no authority to twist the Constitution so that it fits their ideals. When a court misinterprets the law, especially for its own political purposes, respect for the rule of law requires resistance to the court's opinions, not pious acquiescence. ....." New York Post "...... The immediate question going before the court is simple enough: Will Florida Democrats be permitted to continue turning over electoral rocks in counties they control until they have grubbed up enough votes to send Al Gore Jr. to the White House? This is no small matter, obviously. But it pales in comparison to the larger issue to be decided by the seven jurists. ....... That is, does the law in Florida - and, by extension, the United States of America - apply to everybody? Or are some animals more equal than others? ...... After Friday night's count of Florida's overseas absentee ballots - and the shameful trashing of the military - George W. Bush was left with a 930-vote edge. This gave Al Gore a target. ...... On cue, the Democratic-controlled elections board in Broward County yesterday yet again changed the definition of what constitutes a valid ballot - yet again doing its level best to boost Gore's total vote count. .......Previously, "dimpled" ballots, and ballots containing "one-corner chads" were to be disqualified. ........." New York Post 11/20/00 "..... The transformation of Joe Lieberman from conscience of the United States Senate to Al Gore's Al Gore is not yet complete. Almost, but not quite. Asked on national television yesterday about the disenfranchisement of overseas military voters - an outrage undertaken Friday night on behalf of the tattered Gore-Lieberman ticket - the man who would be vice-president said: "We ought to do everything we can to count the votes of our military personnel overseas . . ." It's not quite clear who Lieberman meant by "we." Does he mean Al Gore? Does he mean himself? How about the hitmen instructed by Democratic operative Mark Herron to search out and destroy military absentee ballots - which they did with undisguised zest, disenfranchising hundreds of soldiers, sailors and airmen? All of the above? ...." Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 "....... Al Gore has finally found his controlling legal authority. He's counting on

the Democratic judges of Florida to win him an election he couldn't win on his own. And they just might be up to the job. One ominous sign was the Florida Supreme Court's amazing decision on Friday, at 4:30 p.m., to block Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying a George W. Bush victory by 930 votes with all overseas ballots counted.......The seven Solomons issued their injunction without even being asked; the Gore team hadn't filed its brief yet. This by itself is unheard of, barring fraud, which no one alleges here. The court said it wanted "to maintain the status quo," yet it allowed hand recounts in Democratic precincts to continue. So the only status quo being maintained is the part helping Mr. Gore.... The court's injunction also achieved the rare trifecta of overruling all three branches of Florida government at once. It overrode an elected executive officer, Ms. Harris, who was implementing deadlines enacted by an elected legislature. And it overrode Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, who had twice upheld Ms. Harris's use of her discretion......." St Petersburg Times 11/19/00 Edie Gross ".....Eleven days after the ballots were cast, enough questions remain about how the Pinellas County elections office managed to miscount 2,372 ballots that the State Attorney's Office has been asked to join the fray. .......The board -- consisting of County Judge Patrick Caddell, County Commissioner Sallie Parks and Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark -- voted to ask State Attorney Bernie McCabe to referee a dispute between the board and the chairman of the local Republican Party. GOP Chairman Paul Bedinghaus accused the board of misleading the public about how the miscounts occurred on Nov. 7. ......... The elections office plans to turn over written minutes from each of the canvassing board's meetings in the past two weeks to the State Attorney's Office on Monday so investigators can look for any inconsistencies in the board's statements to the public. McCabe said Saturday he was not sure whether his office would get involved. ........ Bedinghaus said he was not calling for a criminal investigation when he blasted elections officials; he just wants to know what happened in the ballot counting room on election night. Somehow, 937 ballots were counted twice, and another 1,435 ballots were not counted at all. The mistake was discovered the next day during the mandatory statewide recount. When corrected, Gore gained 417 votes in Pinellas County while Bush lost 61. ....." Washington Times 11/20/00 George Archibald "...... The White House has ordered the General Services Administration not to turn over keys of the presidential transition office to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, even if he is declared the winner in Florida. ....... Federal law requires the GSA administrator to "ascertain" the apparent winner in a presidential election and sign forms allowing the winner to begin obligating $5.3 million in appropriated funds for the presidential transition through Jan. 20. .......But the White House has ordered GSA and other federal agencies not to proceed with any transition activities "until the time when the election is decided," presumably by the Electoral College on Dec. 18. ....." FoxNews 11/13/00 Yankee "...... Jim Angle just reported that the commies realize that they have a huge public relations problem, now that the Herron memo about rejecting the G.I. vote has been publicly circulated. Gore surrogate, FL. Senator Bob Graham now says "we must bend over backwards to include the votes of our service men and women" Angle says Lieberman's mealy-mouthed explanations on the Sunday Talk programs, fell flat...." St Louis Post-Dispatch 11/20/00 "......Lawyers for Gov. George W. Bush contended Sunday that Florida law set a clear deadline of last Tuesday for counties to submit all vote tallies except overseas absentee ballots, and they asked the Florida Supreme Court to let the state reject any manual recounts conducted after that date. ...... In a 56-page brief that focused narrowly on the specific language of Florida's election statutes, Bush's legal team argued that the state Legislature had fully understood that a manual recount could take longer than the seven-day deadline and had nonetheless come down squarely on the side of a clear cutoff, one week after Election Day. ...... "If a county board believes that a manual recount is important to ensure an accurate vote count in a closely contested election, it has a statutory duty to appoint enough counting teams to get the job done by the deadline," said the Republican brief, submitted for a hearing by the court today. ........"If a board is unable or unwilling to do so, it should not exercise its unfettered discretion to embark on a manual recount." ....." Washington Times 11/20/00 "...... From Al Gore down, the Democratic campaign to overturn the Florida election has been consistent in its expression of the purest of principles - every vote should count. These assertions have been designed to obscure the most contaminated of procedures: namely, the selective, subjective and chaotic hand-count in several of Florida's Democratic counties orchestrated to re-evaluate previously invalidated ballots as new votes for Mr. Gore........... Furthermore, the Gore campaign does not mean all the votes. There is no other conclusion to draw after observing the Gore troops waging war on the ground - let alone in the courts - for almost two weeks now. We have had the O.J. Simpson "Dream Team's" Alan Dershowitz and the vaunted Warren Christopher lobbying for hand counts; Jesse Jackson in the streets; the legions of Gore operatives, characterized by the Los Angeles Times as a "seasoned Democratic army," parachuting into the state to "help" with the recount. ...."

New York Times 11/20/00 Robert Pear "......The complexities of absentee voting appear to have confounded many members of the armed forces who were stationed abroad and tried to send ballots to Florida to participate in the presidential election, experts on military voting said today. Many absentee ballots were set aside by local election officials in Florida because the ballots did not carry postmarks or for other reasons, like improper registration of the voter........... But absentee ballots sent through the military mail system do not require postage stamps, so in many cases they are not postmarked unless the sender requests a postmark........ " Court Briefs 11/20/00 Freeper Oddither "...... After reading the Briefs from the attorneys, I was amazed at the lack of law sited by the Goron attorneys. IMHO, when you cant rely on the law, I guess you make the Judge feel sorry for you. On the other hand, the attorneys for JW and SOS had not only the law to fall back on, they had many many court cases. ...... Below are the pages I found interesting. 8 We note, moreover, that each county has officially reported its results to the Secretary, and that the Commission has officially certified the results pending the inclusion of the results of overseas absentee ballots. Thus, the "official return of "election" includes all the official results certified, including the results of the manual recount in Volusia County. See 101.5614(8), Fla. Stat. Petitioners claim (Pet'r. Br at 34) that this statute's reference to the inclusion of the results of the manual recounts means that it is "improper to exclude such votes and certify the election before the manual recount is completed." That argument is wrong. Indeed, the fact that the Volusia County manual recount is included in the results here belies the notion that there is any tension between both certifying and conducting manual recounts within the statutory time period. 14 Petitioners, did not either view manual recounts as essential to accurately determining the vote count or treat the endless pursuit of time-consuming manual recounts as more important than the finality and equal treatment insured by having a uniform deadline. The essential premise of Petitioners' entire argument (Petr. Br. at 30) is that there is an overriding "public policy" in favor of accurately counting "validly cast" ballots and that the Florida legislature designated manual recounts as the methodology for an accurate count. We, of course, fully agree that the will of the people should be done. But it is entirely clear that the Florida legislature did not view manual recounts as a necessary ingredient in determining the will of the people. The legislature did not provide the slightest hint that whatever improved accuracy might be obtained in a manual recount overrides the values of finality and uniformity created by an even-handed deadline. If the Florida legislature had elevated manual recounts to the exalted status Petitioners imagine, it would not have made the use of this methodology wholly discretionary, and it would not have ensured that it would be performed only in parts of the State. Rather, it would have compelled this process throughout the State in close elections to ensure the "correct" winner. The legislature's failure to do so, in contrast to the automatic statewide machine recount in elections with a .5 percent margin, see 102.141(4), Fla. Stat., demonstrates that the legislature does not share Petitioners' devotion to this particular vote methodology. 15 Similarly, if the legislature believed that counting votes by some method other than a hand count was equivalent to "rejecting ballots that are conceded to have been validly cast" (Petr. Br. at 30), it would not have consigned 63 of Florida's 67 counties to this onerous fate. But the legislature, unlike Petitioners, understood that manual recounts accept all "validly cast" ballots (and reject all improperly cast ballots) only if they are conducted perfectly. Unless manual recounts are the one human activity uniquely immune from error, stress, and incorrect subjective judgment -- particularly in a highly-charged partisan environment -then manual recounts will also reject validly cast ballots, or include improper ones. Indeed, by asking the Court to substitute the returns derived from the hand count for those returns already certified by the county boards on Tuesday, it is Petitioners who are seeking to reject the compilation of "ballots" presumed by Florida law to be "validly cast." See 102.155, Fla. Stat.; Boardman v. Esteva, 323 So.2d 259, 267 (Fla. 1975). Moreover, there is neither any finding by the legislature, nor a scintilla of evidence in the record, nor any other factual basis, for this Court to conclude that hand recounts are more accurate than the returns certified on Tuesday. If the Florida legislature believed that the "accuracy" of manual recounts was more important than the finality and uniformity created by the mandatory statutory deadline, it would not have imposed a mandatory deadline on all counties, including those conducting mandatory recounts, and required personal fines for board members who missed the deadline, including those conducting manual recounts. 17 ...their vote after 7:00 p.m. in Florida have not been "denied" the right to vote when they are excluded from

the polling place. No matter how compelling the reason for the voters' tardiness, or how diligently he or she sought to meet the deadline, lateness will not be excused, because all voters must abide by the same rules. Similarly, no matter how important the counties believe it is to recount votes, the Secretary has not denied them that opportunity by enforcing the deadline -- the failure to comply is of their own doing. Moreover, although the injunction they request is entirely open-ended and their brief does not hint at any endpoint, we must assume that even Petitioners agree that some deadline at some point is appropriate prior to the Inauguration itself. That being so, they are simply asking the Court to substitute a judicially-created deadline for the date selected by the legislature. But, the judiciary is without authority to do such a thing absent a determination that the legislative judgment violates the Florida Constitution or federal law. In short, Petitioners seek to turn the process of statutory interpretation on its head. They hypothesize an absolutely overriding "public policy" -- manual recounts are the only way to ensure accurate vote tallies -- contrary to the statute's language and structure, then invoke this public policy to rewrite any statutory provisions that are contrary to the hypothesized policy. Thus, to implement Petitioners' desired policy of manual recounts at all costs, the Court is asked to (1) replace the mandatory 20 Court may not require such a partisan, skewed recount in the name of "accuracy" particularly in the face of explicit statutory requirements foreclosing such a "remedy." Petitioners' argument, in the end, boils down to the dramatic proposition that a manual recount in selected heavily Democratic counties might affect the outcome of the election, and that the Secretary of State must extend the deadline to ensure that the "will" of the voters is done. This argument is speculative as a matter of fact, and inconsistent with the statute.8 The simple point is that the law sets as a predicate for even undertaking a full manual recount that "an error in the vote tabulation could affect the outcome of the election." 102.166(5), Fla. Stat. Because the outcome must always be in doubt if a manual recount is proceeding, Petitioners' case again reduces to the proposition that Section 102.166's manual recount provisions supersede the rest of the lawful processes for determining the outcome of elections. The statutory provisions involved operate comfortably, however, and are certainly not in the irreconciliable conflict that would be required to find an implied repeal of 44 This scheme, as applied, violates the United States Constitution in three respects. First, it dilutes the votes of Florida voters, both within and without the counties that are manually counted, by counting their votes differently based upon where they reside, in violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., O'Brien v. Skinner, 414 U.S. 524 (1974). Second, because the manual recount statute prescribes no meaningful standards for officials conducting such recounts, it permits the invasion of the liberty interest in voting in an arbitrary and capricious manner. See, e.g., Roe v. Alabama, 43 F.3d 574, 580 (11 th Cir. 1995). Finally, because the right to vote directly implicates the right of association under the First Amendment, Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 30 (1968), it falls squarely within the principle that state actors cannot exercise unconstrained discretion over the implementation of laws that touch upon First Amendment rights. See City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing, 486 U.S. 750, 763 (1988). For these reasons, allowing the manual recounts to proceed would violate the United States Constitution. Emory Law Library 11/20/00 Freeper rlbedfor ".....Roe v. Alabama United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. No. 95-6814. Larry ROE, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, v. STATE OF ALABAMA, James Bennett, Alabama Secretary of State, et al., Defendants-Appellees, CrossAppellants, Clarence T. Hellums, Jr., on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Defendant-Appellant, CrossAppellee. Oct. 13, 1995.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. (No. CV-94-0885-AH-S), Alex T. Howard, Jr., Judge. Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, ANDERSON and BARKETT, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: In this case, Larry Roe, on behalf of himself and others who voted in Alabama's November 8, 1994, general election (the "Roe Class"), claims that the State of Alabama is attempting to dilute the votes that the Roe Class cast in that election, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This dilution will occur, the Roe Class contends, if Alabama's election officials comply with the order of a state trial court, issued in Odom v. Bennett, No. 94-2434-R (Montgomery County Cir.Ct.1994), requiring them to include in their vote totals absentee ballots (the "contested ballots") that do not conform to Ala.Code 1710-7 in that they were not enclosed in an envelope bearing the signatures of the voter and either a notary public or two witnesses. Instead, these ballots were enclosed in envelopes bearing only the voters' signatures. On December 5, 1994, the district court, concluding that the Odom court's order, if implemented, would retroactively amend the State's election code and "dilute the ballot box," entered a preliminary injunction ordering the Alabama Secretary of State (defendant James Bennett) to certify the election results without counting the contested ballots. The Secretary of State (and the other state defendants in the case) and John Davis, who had cast a contested ballot and was a plaintiff in Odom v. Bennett, immediately appealed the injunction. Following oral argument, we affirmed the preliminary injunction in part (including the district court's conclusion that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits of their constitutional claim), vacated it in part, and certified to the Supreme Court of Alabama the question whether an absentee ballot enclosed in an envelope that does not bear the signature of either a notary public or two witnesses meets the requirement of Ala.Code 17-10-7. Roe v. Alabama, 43 F.3d 574 (11th Cir.1995) (Roe I ). In effect, our decision permitted those elected to all offices except the offices of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama and Treasurer of Alabama to be sworn in. Thus, the elections to those two offices are the ones involved in this case.[1] On March 14, 1995, the Alabama Supreme Court answered the question in the affirmative; the signature of the voter alone, if accompanied by the voter's residence address and reason for voting absentee, satisfies the statute's requirements. Roe v. Mobile County Appointment Bd., No. 1940461, 1995 WL 121871, --So.2d ---- (Ala. March 14, 1995). In addition to answering the certified question, the court indicated that, in the past, the election officials in some of Alabama's sixty- seven counties had counted ballots such as those that are contested in this case. After receiving the Alabama Supreme Court's response to our question, we remanded the case to the district court and instructed it to determine whether, prior to and at the time of the November 8, 1994, general election, the practice in Alabama had been to reject or, conversely, to count absentee ballots whose envelope did not include the signature of either a notary public or two witnesses.[2] Roe v. Alabama, 52 F.3d 300 (11th Cir.1995) (Roe II ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 276, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (1995). Following the receipt of our mandate, and after extensive discovery, the district court and the parties met in pretrial conference and narrowed the issues to be tried. The court, with the consent of all parties, also certified the Roe Class and, after Clarence T. Hellums was substituted for the deceased John Davis, the court certified the Hellums Class (consisting of voters who had cast contested ballots). The Hellums Class then filed two cross claims against the state defendants. The first claim alleged that, by not counting the contested ballots, the state defendants would disenfranchise the Hellums Class in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; the second claim alleged that the State defendants would deny the Class the equal protection of the laws if they counted contested ballots in some counties but not in others (where the Class members had voted). The claims of the Roe and Hellums classes thus turned on the same question: whether it had been the practice in Alabama prior to and in the November 8 election to count ballots such as the contested ballots. If the practice had been not to count such ballots, the Roe Class would prevail; if the practice had been to count them, the Hellums Class would prevail. The trial of the case took three days. Introduced into evidence, in addition to the stipulated facts, were the answers to interrogatories that had been propounded, in a format agreed to by the parties, to the election officials in all of Alabama's sixty- seven counties, and the testimony of forty- eight witnesses (thirty- eight of whom testified in person, ten by deposition), including the Secretary of State and a former Attorney General (who had issued the definitive opinion concerning the proper interpretation of Ala.Code 17-10-7).[3] On the basis of that evidence, the district court found that the practice in Alabama prior to the November 8, 1994 election, had been uniformly to exclude ballots enclosed in envelopes that did not bear the signature of either a notary public or two witnesses as required by a literal reading of Ala.Code 17-10-7.[4]

either a notary public or two witnesses as required by a literal reading of Ala.Code 17-10-7.[4] Given this finding of fact, which the state defendants did not contest, the district court concluded that the Roe Class and plaintiff Hooper were entitled to relief; to include the contested ballots in the vote totals would depreciate the votes of the members of the Roe Class and deprive plaintiff Hooper of the office of Chief Justice of Alabama. The same finding of fact also required the court to reject the claims of the Hellums Class; eliminating the contested ballots from the vote totals would not operate to deny the members of that class due process or the equal protection of the laws. Accordingly, the district court entered a final judgment that, among other things, ordered the Secretary of State to certify the results of the elections of chief justice and treasurer. The Hellums Class now appeals the district court's final judgment. It also moves this court to stay the district court's judgment pending the disposition of its appeal. We granted a temporary stay of the final judgment to enable the parties to brief the motion to stay. Because the granting of a stay would turn on the likelihood of the Hellums Class prevailing on the merits of its appeal, see Garcia-Mir v. Meese, 781 F.2d 1450 (11th Cir.1986); 11th Cir.R. 27-1(b)(1), we directed the parties to brief the merits as well. They have done so, and we have heard argument thereon. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the Hellums Class cannot prevail on appeal. Accordingly, we deny its motion to stay and affirm the judgment of the district court. First, the district court's findings of fact are not clearly erroneous; rather, its findings are supported overwhelmingly by the evidence. With the exception of Washington County, there has been no practice to count ballots that bear only the signature of the voter. Indeed, the practice has been to require, in the words of Ala.Code 17-10-7, in addition to the voter's signature, the signature of either a notary public or two witnesses.[5] The district court barred the requested discovery because (as the court stated in the addendum to its final judgment) to permit the Hellums Class to inspect the approximately 100,000 envelopes would prolong the proceedings and delay interminably the disposition of the case. The Hellums Class made no showing that it was likely that a significant number of nonconforming envelopes would be uncovered; moreover, the testimony of the election officials before the court, considered as a whole, demonstrated no likelihood that a significant number of nonconforming ballots existed. Finally, we note that John Davis, in the complaint he and Michael Odom filed in Odom v. Bennett, alleged that the election officials in all of Alabama's 67 counties were rejecting the contested ballots on the instructions of the Secretary of State. The Secretary's instructions were in keeping with the opinion the Alabama Attorney General issued in 1980 (which emphasized that absentee ballots must bear the signature of either a notary public or two witnesses) and the Alabama Election Handbook (written by the Alabama Law Institute) and the Alabama Voter's Guide, both of which were issued by every Secretary of State thereafter. In sum, we find no merit in the Hellums Class' argument that the district court abused its discretion in denying the Class the discovery in question. Given this practice, we fail to see how the State's refusal to count the contested ballots could deny the Hellums Class due process of law, the Class' first cross claim. The Class' second cross claim fails because refusing to count the contested ballots could not deny them equal protection of the law. The fact that a small number of contested ballots (forty- nine) slipped through is of no consequence. The Hellums Class' fall- back position, as outlined to us in oral argument, is that neither class states a claim cognizable under the United States Constitution. In other words, we should revisit Roe I and Roe II, which, in affirming the district court's preliminary injunction, held that Roe had presented a claim under the Constitution.[6] We doubt that this point is an essential element of the Roe Class' claim. The Roe Class included those who voted (as well as those who would have voted but for the burden of executing a proper affidavit); their claim is that their votes would be diluted if the contested ballots were counted. Assuming, however, that the element in question is essential to the Roe Class' claim, we conclude that the Hellums Class effectively stipulated that the element had been established. At the pretrial conference, in submitting the issues to be tried, counsel for the Hellums Class said nothing that would indicate that the Roe Class had to produce a witness who would say that he would have voted absentee but for the burden of finding a notary or two witnesses. This silence must be viewed against the background fact that this court in its footnote 15 had taken judicial notice of the fact. None of the triable issues delineated at the pretrial conference concerned this point. Moreover, at trial, the Hellums Class said nothing when the Roe Class did not present the testimony it now claims is missing. When, at the conclusion of the trial, the court invited counsel to submit oral argument or memoranda addressing the findings of fact and conclusions of law the court should reach, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a), the Hellums Class stood silent. Under the circumstances, we conclude that the

Hellums Class waived any argument they may have had that the Roe Class had to establish the element in question. Roe I and Roe II establish law which is binding upon this panel. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc). Although the law established by the prior panel was announced in a preliminary injunction posture, nevertheless the principle of law adopted was clear. The facts established on remand in the district court were stronger in favor of the Roe Class than the prior panel could have expected. We therefore adhere to our prior conclusion that Roe has presented a claim for relief. Assuming that to be true, the Hellums Class contends that, as a matter of comity, we should decline to exercise our jurisdiction so as not to interfere with Alabama's election process. If we dismissed the case, the Hellums Class represents, the Class would immediately move the Montgomery County Circuit Court, once again, to order the county election officials to amend their vote totals to include the contested ballots and the Secretary of State to include them in the election results for the office of chief justice. Whether the Montgomery County Circuit Court has jurisdiction to grant the Hellums Class such relief is, as we noted in Roe I, highly doubtful. Roe I, 43 F.3d at 582. See Ala.Code 17-15-6.[7] No jurisdiction exists in or shall be exercised by any judge, court or officer exercising chancery powers to entertain any proceeding for ascertaining the legality, conduct or results of any election, except so far as authority to do so shall be specially and specifically enumerated and set down by statute; and any injunction, process or order from any judge, court or officer in the exercise of chancery powers, whereby the results of any election are sought to be inquired into, questioned, or affected ... save as may be specially and specifically enumerated and set down by statute, shall be null and void and shall not be enforced by any officer or obeyed by any officer or obeyed by any person.... The Alabama Attorney General, appearing on behalf of the Secretary of State and the election officials of the State's sixty- seven counties (the Odom defendants), citing section 17-15-6, has moved the Montgomery County Circuit Court to dismiss Odom v. Bennett for want of subject matter jurisdiction. But, putting this issue aside, directing the district court to dismiss this case would, as we observed in Roe I, leave the Roe Class without an adequate forum for the vindication of its federal constitutional claims. Roe I, 43 F.3d at 582. Finally, the Hellums Class urges us to give effect to the Supreme Court of Alabama's answer to the question we certified in Roe I: that the envelopes enclosing absentee ballots need not bear the signature of either a notary public or two witnesses. What the Hellums Class ignores is that the Alabama Supreme Court, in answering our question, construed an Alabama statute; the court did not, and was not called upon to, decide whether the counting of the contested ballots cast in the November 8, 1994, general election-in the face of Ala.Code 17-10-4 and in the face of a uniform state- wide practice of excluding such ballots[8]-infringed the Roe Class' constitutional rights. See Griffin v. Burns, 570 F.2d 1065 (1st Cir.1978). In conclusion, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. The State defendants, who have not appealed and who stand ready to comply with the district court's injunction, are directed to comply with that injunction forthwith. Because this litigation is now at an end, we direct the Clerk to issue the mandate instanter. Freeper rlbedfor ".....The Sec. Of State Bennett was on the radio today. He said they threw out some ballots because they did not conform to the law. Eventually the 11th overturned the AL State Supreme court and allowed Bennett to certify the election based on the strict letter of the law. Read it for yourself. Bennett also said he had talked to Harris and told her to stick to the law. ....." The American Spectator 11/20/00 Wlady Pleszczynski "..... Twice last week Al Gore emerged opportunistically before cameras in an effort to gain the upper hand in his endless quest to seize the presidency. He and his team continue to voice regret that George W. Bush didn't accept the peace offerings he supposedly proposed. Instead, Bush took to the cameras shortly after Gore's second appearance to quickly reject Gore's so-called proposals. Commentators suggested Bush was being defensive when he did so. None noted that Gore's offers were transparently dubious to begin with. If he were serious about having Bush join him in some gesture of reconciliation, he would have made his overture to Bush privately. But that would required Gore to appear genuine, which is the last thing anyone can expect of him. The American Spectator 11/20/00 Byron York "..... Does the situation look grim for the Republicans who will argue the case for George W. Bush before the Florida Supreme Court today? In a word, yes. Yes, because the Court took it upon itself to stop the Secretary of State's legally-mandated certification of a winner -- Bush -- which was to have taken place Saturday. Yes, because all the justices were appointed by Democrats. And yes, because Chief Justice Charles T. Wells actually contributed to the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1992. ......"

Sun-Sentinel 11/20/00 Russ Bynum AP ".....Broward County edged toward completing its hand recount of presidential votes as Republicans complained Monday that the majority-Democrat canvassing board changed the rules for counting ballots to favor Al Gore over George W. Bush. Ballots from 461 of the county's 609 precincts had been recounted by late morning Monday. Democrat Gore had gained 108 votes over last week's official tallies, although it remained unknown whether the hand-counted results will be added to those numbers. ......... As the counting resumed Monday, GOP officials grumbled about what they called an abrupt change in the rules approved by the canvassing board Sunday. The board had been setting aside any ballots that did not have two corners poked out of the chad -- the tiny pieces of paper in a punch-card ballot. ....... But all three board members agreed Sunday to re-evaluate ballots with a dimple, just one corner of the chad poked out, or other questionable chads after they finish the initial recount. .......The board voted to re-examine the questionable ballots after its attorney said the two-corner standard would not hold up in court. On Friday, Circuit Judge John Miller told the board to reconsider its decision and warned he would order them to do so if they did not examine the ballots to see if a voter's intent could be determined. ......On Monday, Miller recused himself from the recounting case at the request of Republicans. They claimed his Friday directions to the board -- which he made before an evidentiary hearing was held -- showed he was predisposed to rule for the Democrats. They also said he made inappropriate remarks about a cartoon lambasting Secretary of State Katherine Harris and referred to one of her decisions as a "CYA" type of move -- to cover herself. His chambers confirmed he had taken himself off the case. ......" CNSNews 11/20/00 Justin Torres "......Bowing to pressure from military rights advocates, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth directed the state's 67 counties Monday to count absentee overseas ballots that bear no postmark. Republicans had complained that more than 1,400 military ballots were thrown out of Friday's counting because of difficulties with the postmark; overseas absentee ballots, many of them from military personnel, have broken overwhelmingly for Texas Gov. George W. Bush. ........ Butterworth directed county canvassing boards to count overseas ballots if there is a postmark no later than the Election Day or "if the ballot is signed and dated no later than the date of the election."....." National Review 11/20/00 Richard Lowry ".....David Boies's message to the Florida Supreme Court in his initial presentation this afternoon was clear: Make it up yourself. Boies repeatedly cited the court's "broad equitable power," which is just legalese for invoking the sheer legislative and executive power of an activist court. In a possibly encouraging sign, the justices questioned Boies skeptically. They focused on the fact that there has to be some deadline for counting the votes, or all of Florida's voters would be disenfranchised when the state misses the federal deadline for electors voting. The subtext here was that the legislature has already addressed this question by writing a deadline into law. A justice also wondered where the court is supposed to look in the law for setting a standard for chads across the state, which Democrats are asking it to do. You can look at the laws of other states, Boies suggested lamely. Boies also argued that the court could order a statewide recount, even though no one is asking for one. Boies is the exemplar of modern liberalism's dependence on judicial law-making - perhaps never quite so starkly as this afternoon. ....." CNN 11/20/00"...... As of 4:05 p.m., Broward has completed counting 518 of its 609 precincts, giving Democrat Al Gore an unofficial net gain of 118 votes. ...." AP 11/20/00 Anne Gearan ".....With the race for the presidency in the balance, Florida's Supreme Court peppered lawyers with questions Monday on the legality of manual recounts under way in selected Democratic-leaning counties. ``We have a longstanding policy ... that says the real interests here are the voters,'' declared Chief Justice Charles T. Wells, who asked repeatedly how long the state had to certify a winner and still have its voice heard when the Electoral College meets to pick a president. ...... The candidate who gains those 25 electoral votes - either George W. Bush or Al Gore - stands to become the nation's 43rd chief executive. ...... The proceedings were carried live on the major television networks, providing Americans with a brief lesson in constitutional and election law. There was no indication when the justices might rule. ....... Democrats said Dec. 12 was the answer to Wells' oft-asked question, six days before the Electoral College meets. But Joe Klock, representing Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, said she was bound by a state law that required her to certify a winner by seven days after the Nov. 7 election. ......At the same time, asked by Justice Harry Lee Anstead whether the seven-day limit was absolute, Klock conceded, ``Of course it's not absolute.'' ......" AP 11/20/00 Marcy Gordon "......Al Gore has gained a net three votes in Palm Beach County so far in a hand recount of ballots, according to a partial tally with one-fifth of the job done. Gore's slim gain so far in the Democratic-leaning county came after 103 of 531 precincts were hand counted since Thursday night. The

Democratic-leaning county came after 103 of 531 precincts were hand counted since Thursday night. The Democrat is hoping to gain votes from the manual recount in order to erase a 930-vote lead Republican George W. Bush holds in the official statewide tally. ........Palm Beach voters cast 462,350 ballots in the Nov. 7 election. About 30,000 were thrown out during the initial machine counts, including about 10,000 ballots on which no vote was registered by the machines. Those so-called ``undervotes'' are the ballots getting the closest scrutiny during the hand recounts - and causing the most objections. .......Democratic lawyer Dennis Newman, overseeing the Palm Beach recount, said there were 276 dimpled ballots for Gore and 73 dimpled ballots for Bush that weren't counted. ...." NewsMax 11/20/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Former Sen. Bob Dole is pulling no punches when it comes to describing what Al Gore is attempting to do with this election. Interviewed by telephone today by Don Imus, Dole began by saying that he just got off the phone with former President Bush, W.'s father. ...... He described the elder Bush as being "a nervous wreck." Dole was angry that Gore lost Florida but simply wants to recount votes until he wins. ........". AP 11/20/00 Tom Raum ".....As one of the closest presidential elections in history hangs in the balance, George W. Bush and Al Gore concentrated on seven ``votes'' that could decide the outcome - those of the justices of the Florida Supreme Court. ...... The stakes - both legal and political - were enormous in Monday's courtroom showdown. ...... The federal judiciary already has shown a disinclination to inject itself into the dispute. An appeals court in Atlanta last Friday rejected Bush's request for an immediate end to ballot recounts Gore has requested in Democratic-leaning counties, saying it saw no reason to step in. And the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court would review the Florida decision is somewhere between ``nil'' and ``remote,'' suggested New York University law professor Stephen Gillers. ``It's nil if the state court rules against Gore. I don't think he'll appeal. His brief didn't introduce any federal issues. If the state court rules against Bush, I think the Bush team will wait to see what the recount is likely to show before taking an appeal to the Supreme Court,'' Gillers said. ......" Daily Variety, reuters "....One clear by-product of this totally screwed up election is that people have become even more cynical about the media, and with good reason. We've learned that all the networks were basing their voter projections on the same pathetic puddle of data. We've learned that the bozo who first called the election for Bush on the Fox News Channel was essentially working for the Bush campaign. We've read that the networks promise they'll do things differently next time, but no one quite believes that either. ....." AP 11/20/00 Chad Roedemeier "......While the Florida Supreme Court considers whether hand recounts of ballots will matter in that state's disputed presidential election, Republican George W. Bush pushed ahead Monday on a second legal track: federal appeals to stop the counts. ....... Bush supporters proposed that the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta hear oral arguments as early as next Monday in two separate but related cases aimed at stopping the ballot recounts. ....... Bush has joined one case from U.S. District Court in Orlando, Fla., that names state and county elections officials as defendants. Plaintiffs want the cases combined to ensure that the appeals court considers not only stopping the recounts but also preventing Florida from certifying election results that include hand counts already completed. ...... Meanwhile, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor came to Bush's defense Monday, filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. appeals court in which he argued that allowing the recount would violate established precedent. Pryor compared the current dispute to a 1994 election for chief justice in Alabama, part of the 11th Circuit, that also had a razor-thin victory margin, disputed ballots and a protracted legal challenge. In the case, in which Republican Perry Hooper led Sonny Hornsby by 262 votes, the appeals court did not allow the counting of some 2,000 absentee ballots that had not been properly witnessed or notarized. The court held that ``changing the rules for counting absentee ballots after the election was fundamentally unfair,'' Pryor said. ....." Newsmax 11/20/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Florida's incoming House Speaker Tom Feeney has already made contingency plans to resolve the presidential election stalemate by Dec. 12, the state's legal deadline for appointing electors, in a way that could trump Florida's Supreme Court. In briefing notes to his staff obtained by the Palm Beach Post on Monday, the top Republican said the legislature "has a moral duty to the people of Florida to ensure that they are represented in the Electoral College." ...... The Feeney memo also noted that legislators could "provide for a lawful substitute appointment (of electors) upon the failure of existing process." ....... If Florida's election is not finalized by the December 12 deadline, the legislature can decide to appoint electors -- or go unrepresented altogether in the national Electoral College. ......The Supreme Court is expected to rule that hand recounts currently under way in four heavily Democratic counties should be included in the state's final vote tally, a verdict eagerly anticipated by Gore and the Democrats. ......... But Republicans may decide to take their case to the U.S. Surpreme Court, leaving Florida's electors in legal limbo for weeks longer. ...... Feeney's paper states that "one or more new laws could be enacted in special session, convened by the (House) speaker and (Senate) president any time after the legislature convenes for its organizational session on November 21, 2000." ....."

FoxNews 11/20/00 Freeper Biblebelter "..... Representative Buyer was in Florida investigating the suppression of military ballots for a congressional oversight committee. He was very guarded in his comments. He did say that Florida had violated Federal Law in 1980 concerning absentee ballots. I believe he said they were operating under a provisional order or something to that effect. Does anyone think that he might be on to something that might amount to a criminal violation of law or even a conspiracy to violate that law. By mentioning the provisional order led me to believe that Florida had possibly a higher responsibility to fulfill the requirements of the law. ....." National Review 11/20/00 Kate O'Beirne ".......One justice wondered whether the secretary of state would refuse to count a county's votes if they weren't submitted in time owing to the gross negligence of its local canvassing board. Uh-oh. The justices appear to value "fairness" over restraint. ...... Questions that revealed the justices' discomfort with the strict deadline were most effectively addressed by attorney Barry Richard, a former state deputy attorney general appearing on behalf of Governor Bush, when he made a strong separation-of-powers argument. Richard emphatically argued that the statutory scheme (whether the court likes it or not) is within the authority of the legislature, and the Secretary of State's enforcement of the statute must be upheld unless "clearly erroneous." In contrast, David Boies argued that the court should "reconcile" the statutes because this is such an important election, and set a new deadline based on a date that wouldn't jeopardize the appointment of electors. ......" Freeper Yankee "....I just saw a GOP election law expert on MSNBC, Cleta Wilson I believe her name is. She said that the Bush team laid a predicate in their argument today to enable a move to the Federal courts if need be. Federal law requires that a states system or scheme of holding an election for the purpose of determining the selection of Electoral College electors, must be in place before the election is held. ....... If the Florida Supreme Court were to lay out "new law" in effect, by changing the process at this time, they would be in violation of Federal law, and would give the Bush side an entree to the Federal Courts to obtain relief. I haven't heard this particular case made by any other legal expert. ....." Bush-Cheney 2000! 11/20/00 "..... * From the beginning of this long process, Governor Bush has said that this election must be concluded fairly and accurately. * We have already had one count of the votes. Governor Bush won it - almost two weeks ago. * We have now had a second, statewide recount of the votes. Governor Bush won it as well. * And now this weekend, even after a concerted effort by Al Gore's campaign to reject the votes of as many members of our armed forces as they could, Governor Bush margin of victory increased. * Yet the Democrats continue to try to reverse the results of this election by conducting subjective hand recounts in the most Democratic counties in the state of Florida. * Yesterday, I stood before you to say that we have seen clear and compelling evidence that the manual recount is flawed, inaccurate, and untrustworthy. * Last night and today, new information has come to light that further demonstrates the inherent flaws in this subjective and unreliable process. * The New York Times reported today that statisticians working with Florida Democrats were asked to determine how many votes they could expect from the three Democrat counties conducting manual recounts. According to their analysis of current recount procedures, Al Gore would fall short of overcoming Governor Bush's lead in the statewide vote. * Recognizing they are not extracting the votes Al Gore needs, Gore supporters now want to change the rules half way through the process by lowering standards in Broward and Dade counties. To reverse the results of this election, Al Gore's supporters are less interested in accuracy and more interested in changing the rules to generate the votes they need to win. * The Gore campaign fears they will lose even the manual recount without what's called dimpled ballots. A dimpled ballot is a paper ballot whose hole is not punched at all, but appears to be pressed. If a voter did touch that punch mark, they may have paused, or pondered, or passed their pen on top of the punch mark, but they took no action. It is an entirely a guessing game to determine whether a dimple shows a clear intent to vote for a particular candidate, and those guesses are being made by Democrat dominated panels. * Yesterday the Broward County canvassing board decided not to lower their standards by counting these dimpled ballots.

* Today, however, Broward County officials reversed themselves and said they will now count these unpunched, dimpled ballots. * Judge Lee - one of the canvassing board members - said that if they could count the questionable ballots with the new standard, they would be largely Gore votes. * Make no mistake about what's going on here - when Vice-President Gore's Broward County supporters saw Governor Bush's gain in the overseas ballots, they changed the rules so they could manufacture additional Gore votes. This is wrong. This is flawed. This process is not worthy of our democracy. * In Miami Dade County, as many of you already know, the canvassing board reversed an earlier decision not to conduct a manual recount. But before conducting a full manual recount, the Board voted to run all the ballots back through a counting machine -- not to count -- but to "segregate" undervotes and overvotes from normal ballots. They're on a hunt for these dimpled ballots and they want to find them as fast as they can. * The clear strategy of the Gore campaign in Miami Dade is to quickly gain votes by divining the intent of voters whose intent is impossible to divine. * Once they divine this intent, Miami-Dade officials say they will punch holes through new cards and run those cards through a machine. An entirely new ballot never touched by a voter will be created, punched out, and included in the overall vote count. In an effort to win for Al Gore, these officials will go so far as to manufacture completely new voting cards. * This is as wrong as wrong can be. * Perhaps because of how far they are willing to go to deny victory to Governor Bush, Miami-Dade officials voted this morning to keep the press out of the room where the voting will be done. They'll let the press peer through an obstructed window out of earshot, but they won't let the press in the room to hear, see, and understand what's really going on. If ever our nation needed a free press to keep a vigilant eye on the process, the time is now. ....." Chicago Sun-Times 11/20/00 Robert Novak ".....It was 4:30 a.m. in Jacksonville, Fla., Saturday when two Democratic lawyers pumped their fists in the air and congratulated each other. The local canvassing board had just thrown out overseas absentee ballots of 44 U.S. service personnel. Their defect: no postmarks. ......The board disenfranchising the service personnel was controlled by Republicans, an irony reflective of the fight for Florida. Befuddled Republicans were acting like good bureaucrats, following the letter of the law. Delighted Democrats were part of a coolly crafted scheme to win Florida--and the presidency. While granting maximum latitude in divining intentions of Democratic senior citizens on the south Florida Gold Coast, the predominantly Republican votes of young men and women serving their country abroad would be scrutinized with no latitude. ......" Daily Ledger Hoosier Finds Someone Took Her Florida Vote 11/10/00 "......"Angela Hatem has lived in Indiana for five years. The Indianapolis woman is a registered voter here and cast her ballot Tuesday for Al Gore. "Records show she also voted Tuesday in Homestead, Fla. Homestead is about 30 miles south of Miami in Dade County - one of the four Florida counties facing a hand recount of ballots. ...... "Hatem - who works in Fishers - lived in Homestead until she came to Indiana to attend Marian College. She registered to vote here two or three years ago. "When her sister Katrina went to vote Tuesday in Florida, she noticed Angela Hatem's name - right above her's on the voting registry - had been signed. ......"It appears someone voted in Angela's place. ...... "'She (Katrina) told them I couldn't have voted because I was in Indiana,' Angela said. 'I don't know what they did, but it's kind of disturbing.' ...... "Hatem is bothered by the fact that a vote in her name could have gone to a candidate she doesn't support, especially in such a close race. ......" The Los Angeles Times 11/20/00 Elizabeth Shogren ".....The Democrats' top donor is disappointed in Vice President Al Gore's conduct since the presidential election and believes that the candidate bears responsibility for the stalemate because he failed to give Americans a "compelling reason" to choose him. And Peter Buttenwieser, whose $1.3 million in donations put him at the top of the list of individual donors to the election--Democrat or Republican--is apparently not alone. While much of the Democratic establishment has been presenting a united front during the Florida recount, several of Gore's biggest contributors and fund-raisers are quietly or openly expressing dissatisfaction with him, blaming him for the murky outcome. ...... Among Republicans, donors are apparently still united in supporting Texas Gov. George W. Bush's call to end the voting and declare a victory. "I think it's time to bring it to a conclusion," said Howard Leach, a veteran GOP major donor and a San Francisco investment banker. ....." Sun-Sentinel 11/20/00 Megan O'Matz ".....Miriam Oliphant, the incoming Broward County supervisor of elections, stopped by the Voting Equipment Center in Fort Lauderdale last Monday to watch a hand recount

of three precincts in the presidential race. She saw workers holding ballots up to the light, moving them back and forth and checking for "hanging chads," or bits of cardboard dangling from punch holes. The absurd, antiquated process stunned her. "I said: 'Oh my gosh. This has to change.'" ...." NY Post 11/20/00 Dan Mangan and Steve Dunleavy "......Al Gore is facing long odds - statistically speaking to make up the 930-vote gap between him and George W. Bush in the Florida hand recount on which he has pinned his hopes. "It's unlikely," Bruce Hansen, economics professor at the University of Wisconsin, said of Gore's chances of picking up enough votes to win the presidency. Hansen said Gore could win an extremely narrow victory - perhaps as close as a single vote - if he gets lucky, under statistical projections. ......As of yesterday, Hansen was projecting that a recount in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties would boost the vice president by anywhere from a low of 533 votes to a high of 934 votes. ....Both the top and low ends of the range each have only about a 2.5 percent chance of occurring under the projections, he said. ...." Associated Press 11/20/00 Jonathan Salant ".......George W. Bush has raised $4.6 million to pay his campaign's Florida legal fees as the recount in the Sunshine State continues. Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said Monday that the campaign has received more than 15,900 contributions, with an average donation of $290. ....... ``A lot of people out there understand what an important effort this is,'' Tucker said. ``They are also becoming increasingly frustrated by what they're seeing in Florida with these hand counts. They want to give us the resources to make sure that this is a fair, accurate and final count.'' ........ The Gore campaign is not limiting the size of its donations but also plans to report the names of its contributors. Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said the campaign met its initial $3 million target and has not raised any more money since then. ....." AP 11/20/00 Karin Meadows "......Al Gore netted three votes from a hand recount of ballots in Palm Beach County, according to a partial tally with one-fifth of the job done. Gore's slim gain so far in the Democraticleaning county came after 103 of 531 precincts were hand counted since Thursday night. ....." UPI 11/20/00 Mark Benjamin "....Lawyers for Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush appealed to the Florida Supreme Court Monday to decide what to do with hundreds of "dimpled" ballots that could potentially have an impact on the outcome of the presidential election. If the court orders Florida counties to count those ballots, it could mean hundreds of additional votes for Gore who lags behind Bush by less than a thousand votes...... Bush attorneys told the court Monday that counting the ballots now would constitute changing the rules of the election. Gore attorneys said a ballot with a dimple shows voter "intent" and should be counted....." Associated Press 11/20/00 Bob Anez ".....It is not by chance that Montana Gov. Marc Racicot has emerged as a chief spokesman for George W. Bush's campaign in the Florida recount battle. When he began urging Bush 3 1/2 years ago to run for president, Racicot wanted his involvement to send ripples through the national political pond. He wanted to give the West a greater voice in the federal government's policy decisions. ...... ``It seems very logical to me that if Montanans want to be involved in making those decisions, we should seek every opportunity to be engaged in that process,'' Racicot said earlier this year. ``I want to have the ability to represent my state in a different way through this electoral process.'' ......." The Associated Press 11/20/00 Russ Bynum "....... Broward County elections supervisor Jane Carroll, the only Republican on the county's three-member canvassing board, quit Monday, saying she could not handle the long days. Carroll, who was elected in 1968 and intended to retire from her elections supervisor post at the end of this term, said her resignation was effective at the end of Monday - which will put a halt to the hand counting here unless she's quickly replaced. ......... Canvassing board members were meeting with their attorneys to determine how to replace Carroll, who was going on vacation Tuesday. ...... Ballots from 515 of the county's 609 precincts had been recounted by Monday. Al Gore had gained a net 119 votes over last week's official tallies, though it remained unknown whether the hand-counted results will be added to those numbers because of legal wrangling. Republican George W. Bush holds a 930-vote lead over Gore in the official state tally. ........ Since the manual recounting began, workers have set aside questionable ballots with partially removed or dimpled chads - the tiny pieces of paper in the perforated punchcard ballots. To be considered valid ballots, they all must be reviewed by the three-member canvassing board. ....... It was not immediately known how many ballots would be subject to such a review, but the initial results from machine tabulations last week showed more than 6,000 ``undervotes,'' or ballots with unclear selections. ......" Freeper PresidentFelon "....... The FSC Justices know that any change of election law done ex post facto will leave them open to challenge in the Federal Courts. Federal law specifically enjoins any judicial body from altering elections laws in place at the time of the vote. If the FSC does anything to change or modify election laws outlined in the Florida Codes they welcome constitutional challenge. If it gets to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, or the Supreme Court, the FSC will be slapped down unceremoniously............ Florida election

deadlines were created with the awareness that there needed to be time available for a political party to contest the selection of electors, which can only be done AFTER cerification. If the FSC alters the existing legal deadline for certification, they then endanger the constitutionally prescribed right of one party to contest the election.......... IMHO, the Florida Supreme Court cannot alter existing deadlines for cerification of the vote without eventually losing on appeal. They will simply stall and delay their decision until the Gore recounts push him over the top. Then they will rule that since the vote has not yet been certified there is no reason the The Secretary of State cannot include the recounts in her numbers.......... If the Florida Supreme Courts appears to be stalling, the Secretary of State should then follow existing Florida Law and certify the results she now has. This may open a huge can of legal and political worms but there will be no time to ajudicate all these statuatory concerns before the national certification deadline, thereby throwing the selection of electors to the GOP controlled Florida Legislature............. The FSC is in a real box. I believe it was a Mr. Richards that was most effective today. After he lectured the court on current Florida Law, and their responsibility to uphold the law, the previously fiesty group of Democrat Judges was much more subdued........God Save GWB, PF....." Freeper Clarity "......Part of her job is to certify the election returns to the 3 member Election Canvassing Commission. It then has independent de novo power to discard any returns that are "false or irregular" and to "declare" the winner. Now, if she doesn't certify the returns, or the 3 member Commission doesn't, then the legislature can act. Why she doesn't ignore the FL SC is beyond me. It has no authority to extend the deadline or to bar her performance of her duties. She is a statewide elected office holder. This get more surreal every hour......." Freeper GI Jane "...... Did you notice that as soon as Boies tried to slip in something that was not in the record of the lower court which brought them to the current court, the Chief Justice sort of scolded him? It was toward the end and Boies said the republicans are being obstructive in Broward County. The Chief Wig immediately said, "Mr. Boies those are not facts on the record of this case...." The Telegraph 11/20/00 Ben Fenton "...... REPUBLICAN leaders in Washington are preparing the ground for a bitter battle with Al Gore should he be declared the winner of the ballot in Florida and so win the state's crucial 25 electoral college votes. ......... Former senator Bob Dole, who lost to Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential election, has said he had even heard rumours of a boycott of a Gore inauguration by Republican members of Congress if the Democrat wins. ........... Tom DeLay, the chief whip of the party in the House of Representatives, has sent his colleagues a memo which reminds them that the constitution allows both houses of Congress to reject Florida's votes if majorities in the two chambers agree the ballot was tainted. ......... The emerging picture is that Democrats would be far more willing to work with a George W Bush as President at the end of the fraught election process than Republicans would with Al Gore in the White House. "Mr Bush could walk into meetings with congressional leaders with no history or baggage, but Gore has a history," Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, said. ....." Associated Press 11/20/00 "......Angered by a Democratic phone campaign, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush fired off an e-mail saying supporters of Al Gore were trying to "destroy our state,'' according to computer messages made public Monday. Bush's message a week ago prompted his staff to consider compiling a list of tactics being used by Gore's supporters in the battle against George W. Bush, according to the e-mail traffic obtained under the state's Sunshine Law. However, spokeswoman Kati Baur said Monday that the governor's office didn't take any further action. ......... Word filtered in to the governor from a Bush supporter on Nov. 13 that many voters were getting calls that their ballots had been discarded and that they should contact the Florida governor to find out why. In Palm Beach County, 19,000 ballots were disqualified and hundreds of voters said they mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan while trying to vote for Gore. .......... "Is there any way this can be stopped?'' the Bush supporter wrote in an e-mail to the Bush campaign and the Florida governor, the presidential candidate's younger brother. "I keep getting phone'' calls "saying 'your vote along with 19,000 others was thrown out.''' ......"This is a concerted effort to divide and destroy our state,'' the governor wrote to Baur, his communications director, at 11 o'clock that night. ......" Independent News 11/21/00 David Usborne "...... Anxiety is growing among senior Democrats that Al Gore may soon go past the point when he can realistically take Florida, and the White House, and that he risks making himself appear a loser. ....... Mr Gore will face intense pressure from within his own party to concede the presidential race if hand recounts now under way in three Florida counties are either declared void by the courts or if they fail to produce enough fresh votes to push him into the lead in the state. ....... Aides to the Vice-President continue to say he is ready to pursue further legal avenues in the event that the hand counts do not favour him. Action may include appealing to the US Supreme Court. But if he did, he would be abandoned evenby some of his most staunch supporters. ......"

Independent News 11/21/00 David Usborne "......Some loyalists apparently believe the game is already lost. "It's over, finished," said Willie Brown, the Democratic Mayor of San Francisco. "That wasn't the case four days ago. Back then he was winning the public relations battle, but no more." ........ Not only elected Democrats are beginning to stir. Even some of the Vice-President's most generous donors are showing signs of turning sour, criticising him for bungling the election in the first place and then failing to play the statesman in the ensuing Florida mess......... No one has been more cutting than Peter Buttenwieser, the heir to a New York financial fortune, whose $1.3m in donations made him the number one donor to the Democrat campaign. .... Another backer, Marvin Lender, a retired bagel magnate, also sent word that he did not want Mr Gore to fight for the last vote or the last judge. ........ The same message is coming from Democrat members of Congress, many of whom are beginning to see more fruit in four years of bashing Mr Bush as President than trying to support an enfeebled President Gore. Even Charles Rangel of New York, who is on the liberal wing of the party, urged the campaign to draw some line where the legal combat would end. ........ " AP 11/20/00 Freeper hawaiian "....... Here are the latest recount numbers, from the AP. I've also added 4 numbers on each county. The first is the number of votes Gore has netted. The second number is the total number of precincts counted so far. The third number is the total number of precincts in the county. The final number, on the right, is the percentage of new Gore votes per precinct. Dade - (33/41/614) - .717 Boward (116/544/609)- .213 Palm Beach (3/103/531) - .29% TOTAL (152/688/1754) - .221 The reality is, SOMETHING fishy is going on behind those closed doors in Dade. There's no reason why the public is being shut out of its own process. ....." AP 11/20/00 ".....Republicans accused the Miami-Dade County canvassing board of ``manufacturing'' votes for Democrat Al Gore as the hand recount of 654,000 presidential ballots began Monday. ....... Democrats dismissed the claims as desperate spin. Going beyond earlier allegations that the hand-counting process was unfair or subject to tampering, Republicans said Monday the operation was ``rigged.'' ......... ``Unfortunately Miami-Dade has become ground zero for producing a manufactured vote,'' said Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., who called the elections officials roaming the counting room ``pit bosses.'' ........ Gore had gained 34 votes after 62 of 614 precincts were counted. .....Republicans claimed board members were twisting and turning ballots to determine voter intent, looking for votes that weren't there........ ``This thing is rigged,'' said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio. ``It is a joke on our democracy.'' ......" Yahoo News 11/21/00 "...... Two weeks after the still-undecided presidential election, US television networks are reeling from the aftershocks of the "worst error" in television history and continue to defend themselves against charges of bias. ........ On November 7, major cable and network news channels fell into the pitfall of early predictions and were forced not once but three times to retract and correct their projections. .....An early award of Florida's 25 electoral votes to Vice President Al Gore was withdrawn. An award of those same votes to Texas Governor George W. Bush was recanted. But most egregiously, the award of the 43rd presidency of the United States to Bush, was also corrected, after Florida was deemed too close to call. .......... According to the Republican camp, the errors can only be attributed to an innate preference by journalists for the Democratic candidate. The Republicans claim that the quick and erroneous award of Florida to the vice president before polls in the west were closed made Republican supporters stay home, believing the race had been decided. ....... The networks are as quick to issue denials of bias as they were to report early exit poll results on November 7. Independent election-night review committees were being set up post-haste. ......." AP 11/20/00 "....BROWARD COUNTY: ......... Teams of counters, watched by observers from each party, tally votes from ballots with clearly marked votes or chads that have at least two corners detached. The county's three-member canvassing board must review any ballots that are questioned by the counters and determine if the votes are valid. Ballots with two or more votes, known as ''overvotes,'' are thrown out. ........ All ballots with dimpled chads or just one corner of the chad detached are set aside to be reviewed by the canvassing board after all other ballots are counted. The board originally said it would not consider votes with anything less than two corners of the chad detached. However, it reversed its decision after lawyers said that standard may not hold up in court. ....." AP 11/20/00 "....BROWARD COUNTY: .........PALM BEACH COUNTY: ........Teams of two counters tally ballots with clear votes. They are monitored by observers from each party. If an observer or counter

questions a ballot, it is set aside for review by the full canvassing board. When the recount process began, the board decided it would count any vote where the corners of the chad were punched. The board then decided to use the ''sunlight test'' that would count a vote if light came through the indentation. Later, that method was found to be flawed and the board returned to disqualifying votes not punched through. ......." AP 11/20/00 "....BROWARD COUNTY: .........MIAMI-DADE COUNTY: Elections officials sift through the county's ballots to segregate the ''undervotes,'' ballots that do not have clear selections. Those ballots are reviewed by the canvassing board. Counting teams are instructed to look only at ballots that have clearly punched holes or chads that have at least two corners poked out. Any ballot that does not fit those criteria is passed to the canvassing board for review. The board said it will accept the ballots if the voter's intent is clear. ......" Freeper WL-Law "........Bois acknowledged finally, upon repeated challenges from the judges, that his argument was flawed in that not certifying (as he had urged) the election (and closing the 'protest period') impinges on the necessary "contest period", whereby the certified loser can raise his complaints about, i.e., fraud or other material error. Bois contends, however, that the remedy is to allow the "contest period" to begin following a "soft" certification from the SOS, with orders from the FLSC that the manual vote manufacturing can continue with guarantees that those votes will be counted. ............ This begs the question -- what "WINNER" of an election would ever say "I want a re-count!" None! So OF COURSE you need to certify the vote count to determine the presumptive winner and loser so that the LOSER can press (if he so desires) his case for redress -- in this case Gore. ........But under Bois' scheme he would have Bush hold back from requesting recounts (believing he's the winner) while the 'contest period' expires, all the while timing the miraculous chad count to declare, once Bush's options are extinguished -- voila! -- Gore the winner. .............This is an absurd argument on it's face, and it's disengenuousness has to be called out. Certification can't be "soft" -- it has to be linked to finality in the vote count, as an initial matter. The challenger can then make a predicate argument as to why the votes as counted are unfair. If Gore asks for his counties to be re-counted, and then if Gore's recount shows an result-changing outcome, THEN Bush should be able to seek that ALL counties be recounted. This would preserve common sense and procedural fairness. ......" MSNBC 11/20/00 Freeper Yankee "...... I just saw a GOP election law expert on MSNBC, Cleta Mitchell. She said that the Bush team laid a predicate in their argument today to enable a move to the Federal courts if need be. Federal law requires that a states system or scheme of holding an election for the purpose of determining the selection of Electoral College electors, must be in place before the election is held. If the Florida Supreme Court were to lay out "new law" in effect, by changing the process at this time, they would be in violation of Federal law, and would give the Bush side an entree to the Federal Courts to obtain relief. I haven't heard this particular case made by any other legal expert....." Freeper SheRebel ".....From pages 42-43 of Bush Supreme Court Brief: "In the present context, federal law also places additional constraints on courts that require them strictly to adhere to the legislature's prescribed manner for conducting an election to choose the State's presidential electors. Under 3 U.S.C. 5, a State is required to select its electors "by laws enacted prior to" election day. See 3 U.S.C. 5 (emphasis added). The purpose of the statute is to ensure that neither the Legislature, nor the Executive, nor the courts can change the applicable rules once the voters have gone to the polls. Florida law on November 7, 2000, unambiguously required county canvassing boards to count, and recount if necessary, and manually recount if they chose, within the time prescribed by law. Under Section 102.112 the Secretary of State was given discretion sometimes not to ignore late results. But no provision of state law in effect prior to the election, however, granted courts equitable power to disregard both the deadline and the Secretary's exercise of reasoned discretion.15" ....." AP 11/20/00 Brent Kallestad "......Three days after Democrats challenged hundreds of overseas military ballots, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, an ally of Al Gore, urged local officials Monday to reconsider their actions in rejecting those ballots. The non-binding letter from Butterworth also called on county election officials to seek a ''clarifying opinion'' from Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris on the issue. ........ Butterworth's letter confronted Harris with a similar issue, but this time on a matter where the Bush campaign said their vote would swell if more overseas military ballots were counted. ''No man or woman in military service to this nation should have his or her vote rejected solely due to the absence of a postmark,'' Butterworth said in the letter to the state's 67 county elections supervisors and other canvassing board members. He has no statutory power to have the presidential votes counted, but his letter said they ''should count.'' ......... The state does not plan to reopen the issue since the overseas vote has been counted and certified by the 67 county elections supervisors, a top elections official said. ..... ''The state

counted and certified by the 67 county elections supervisors, a top elections official said. ..... ''The state canvassing commission is forbidden by law to look beyond those returns,'' state Division of Elections Director Clay Roberts said. ........In Orange County, senior deputy elections supervisor Margaret Dunn said their attorney advised them to ignore Butterworth's letter. ''It carries no legal weight,'' she said. ......" National Review 11/20/00 Rich Lowry "....Klock and Carvin were on their strongest ground when they argued that the certification is not necessarily an end point, but a beginning - it is what allows the "contest period," all the disagreements about what should and shouldn't count, to start. And, they further argued, the only reason the Gore campaign is opposing certification is political - it just doesn't like the official-sounding nature of the word. David Boies seemed essentially to concede this point during his rebuttal. ......... " National Review 11/20/00 Rich Lowry "....So, a compromise for the court seems clear: allow the Secretary of State to certify the results, but also allow the hand recounts to continue, their ultimate admissibility to be decided in the contest phase. This would satisfy no one really, and just kick the can down the road. But this actually is a decision that might make sense (and probably would be better than almost any other decision the court is likely to make). On the one hand, there is no reason to prevent Katherine Harris from certifying. On the other, there doesn't seem to be any law against hand recounts. Counties can hire workers to continue them as long as they like. (In a similar way, there's no law against hiring workers to perpetually do handstands.) The question is whether these hand counts will ultimately be permitted in the final tally, and who makes that decision. ........ It is pretty clear what the court's bias is. But it at least seems to have some reluctance about imposing its own will on the process. Here is where the Bushies' argument on separation of powers seemed particularly strong. The court would in effect squash both the legislative and executive branches in Florida if it mandates its favored result. The justices continued to ask Boies about what authority they have to set their own deadline for the hand recounts, and various other standards. And Boies's answer continued to be the same: Make it up. "Reconcile the entire statutory scheme," Boies said. The presidential election may hinge on whether or not this court realizes that that is not their job. ......." National Review 11/20/00 Rich Lowry "..... Well, over the weekend the Bush campaign finally woke up. It began to behave as though it realized that the fight over Florida isn't a question of legal niceties, but a fullfledged political battle. And so, the Bushies scored their first significant victory. Their case that the Gore campaign had systematically tried to exclude military ballots was the first really emotional argument they have advanced in the current controversy. It was such a strong one that even though the rules technically may provide for the exclusion of those ballots (although Robert Alt and Elaine Donnelly argue otherwise on NRO today), the Gore campaign couldn't sustain its position. Joe Lieberman's defensive and apologetic remarks about the military ballots yesterday represented the first crack, and Attorney General Bob Butterworth's letter today recommending that the ballots without postmarks still be counted was the decisive one. ......." Associated Press 11/20/00 Russ Bynum "....Broward County elections supervisor Jane Carroll, the only Republican on the county's three-member canvassing board, quit Monday, saying she could not handle the long days. Carroll, who was elected in 1968 and intended to retire from her elections supervisor post at the end of this term, said her resignation was effective at the end of Monday - which will put a halt to the hand counting here unless she's quickly replaced. "I've given this a lot of thought," said Carroll, 70. "Physically I cannot continue 15-hour days. I have to think of my health. I don't feel well. I can handle a few 24 hour days, some 15 hour days, but not in a row." Canvassing board members were meeting with their attorneys to determine how to replace Carroll, who was going on vacation Tuesday. .......Carroll's departure effectively puts a halt to the review of all questionable ballots in the Democratic-leaning Broward, since the full threeperson canvassing board is required to look at them. She does not have to be replaced by a Republican. ....... The other two members of the canvassing board are Circuit Judge Robert W. Lee, a Democrat, and Suzanne Gunzburger, a Democrat and chair of the seven-member county commission who will nominate another commissioner to replace Carroll. It wasn't clear how quickly this could happen. ....... Possible replacements could include another member of the county commission - all seven of whom are Democrats or a county judge. ....." MSNBC 11/15/00 Pete Williams ".....The Florida Supreme Court stood at center stage in Wednesday's legal battle and it's destined to stay there in the days to come. These justices are well-respected by Democrats and Republicans now, but this court has a checkered past. ........ Six of the seven were put on the bench by Florida's last two Democratic governors. The seventh, Peggy Quince, was jointly appointed by outgoing Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles and Republican Governor-elect Jeb Bush. ...... Until the early 70s, Florida Supreme Court justices were elected. Scandal forced a change, after some on the court were accused of favoritism in exchange for campaign contributions. A young Janet Reno worked on the state commission that changed those rules. That hasn't ended political debate about the court, though. Earlier this year, Republicans in the Florida legislature accused the justices of needlessly dragging out appeals in death penalty cases. ........ What about the court's record in acting on voting cases? Legal scholars say it's traditionally reluctant to second-guess local officials over how to conduct their own elections. ......... Just two

years ago the court refused to order a new election in a dispute over absentee ballots. The court ruled that the key question isn't whether rules are followed; it's whether the election expressed the will of the voters. But that leaves open the issue of exactly how to determine the will of the voters - whether by machine count or later hand count.. ......" CNN 11/20/00 Freeper what's up "...... In a nutshell John Warner said: Why, when both Al Gore and Joe Lieberman had served on the Armed Services Committee with him, had neither of them stepped up to the plate and speak out on the military ballot issue. Why did it have to be Butterworth who finally said something while Gore/Lieberman were silent? ...... Warner also said that the stock market was down, and that it was dangerous for America to be divided because an enemy might choose this time to strike; both points Tom Harkin tried to refute but looked weak. Haven't seen Warner so energized before...hope it continues....." United States Code 11/20/00 "..... Sec. 5. Determination of controversy as to appointment of electors ........ If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned. The Telegraph (U.K.) 11/21/00 Janet Daley "...... BY the time you read this, you may have a clearer idea of who will be the next American president. Then again, you may not. The Democratic judges of the Florida supreme court may have decided that chads swept into a corner in Palm Beach should be pasted back into whatever holes Al Gore's observers have mystically intuited that they belong. ........ Or they may not. But even if the court comes down definitively on the side of the Vice-President's army of lawyers, Mr Gore may not - after all this fuss - gain enough votes via his infinite recount programme to beat George W Bush (what sweet poetic justice that would be). ......" The Telegraph (U.K.) 11/21/00 Janet Daley "...... But if he does manage to squeak ahead, then Mr Bush's camp will intensify its clamour about a couple of thousand military votes that have been ruled out of play in Florida. The disfranchising of Our Boys Overseas is apparently playing very badly at home, especially as they have been debarred on a technicality far less serious than the Palm Beach residents' tendency to vote for two people as president. ....." The Telegraph (U.K.) 11/21/00 Janet Daley "...... Well, to a great extent, that depends on who wins. Mr Gore is now one of the most heartily disliked, relentlessly partisan politicians in Washington. If he becomes president after a zillion recounts, he will well and truly have earned the hatred of every Republican in both houses of Congress. His collision with the Republican majorities in the upper and lower branches of the legislature will give a new dimension to the word "gridlock". The tribal hatreds of the Clinton era will continue to be played out with teeth-clenched determination. In the country at large, he is unlikely to fare better: to put it mildly, Mr Gore is not lovable. He is, at least in public performance, one of the most charmless men I have ever seen run for high political office. I cannot imagine anyone less able to unite the disgruntled factions of the country into a forgiving whole. Pomposity and an almost total lack of intuitive human sensitivity are rarely assets in politics. Under these circumstances, they would be fatal. ....." MSNBC 11/10/00 Freeper freebirdman "...... Hardballs Chris Mathews is blasting those dimple ballots, stated there is no way a presidency should be decided on a half swing that didn't even break the paper. Says unbelievable!! Now the Media is finally getting it?! ...." CNN 10/20/00 Susan Candiotti ".....The three-member canvassing board in Broward County, Florida, announced Sunday they had rejected more than half the 400 absentee overseas ballots cast in the November 7 presidential election Of the 246 ballots tossed in the county, 119, the largest single amount, were postmarked after Election Day, the three-member canvassing board said. Others were disqualified because they lacked the signature of a witness, were mailed by a voter whose ballot already had been cast or were mailed by unregistered voters. ........ Some also were rejected because they had no witness address, carried no postmark or did not come from overseas. ....... Board members also voted unanimously Sunday to change the standard used during an ongoing manual recount of votes to include "dimpled" and "one-corner" ballots. .....The board, however, decided to continue segregating those ballots as the count goes on. By separating the ballots, the county can readily calculate the tally should the Florida Supreme Court intervene and force it to return to the "two-corner" standard. ......"

CNN 10/20/00 Susan Candiotti "...Broward Republican Party chairman Ed Pozzuoli said he was upset with the board's decision but hoped the high court would rule that the "two-corner" standard applied. "The numbers are not there for Vice President Gore, so now they're finding ways to change their standard," said BushCheney campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan. "This is like changing the rules in the third quarter of a football game. It is outrageous." Rep. Peter Deutsch, a Florida Democrat, however, said, "This is not about Al Gore; this is not about George Bush; this is about a fair and accurate vote." ......... " 11/20/00 Pilot's wife says husband disappointed his vote wasn't counted News-Journal wire services JACKSONVILLE - The wife of a Navy pilot said her husband was disappointed his absentee ballot was thrown out because it did not have a postmark. ....... Abby Krug's husband, Lt. Chad Krug, is stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. She learned late Saturday that his vote was one of the 44 overseas ballots which had been tossed out by the Duval County canvassing board. Krug passed that information along to her husband when they spoke briefly on Sunday. ...... "My husband is risking his life for our right to vote," Krug said in a news conference outside her Jacksonville apartment. "He did not have a say in whether or not his ballot received a postmark," she said, adding that he had mailed it from the aircraft carrier, which is now in the Adriatic Sea. ....." The Hindu 11/19/00 Christopher Hitchens "...... SITTING with Albert Gore Junior in his Senate office in the spring of 1992, I noticed four photographs displayed on his wall. They were of Cordell Hull, Rachel Carson, Chico Mendes and Davy Crockett. This gave a certain range of options: a professional politician, an environmentalist author, a Trotskyist union organiser in Brazil, and a bandit. To deconstruct a little: Cordell Hull came from mid-Tennessee to be Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of State and co-architect of an internationalist American foreign policy. Rachel Carson's New Yorker essays, on the "Silent Spring" created by promiscuous use of pesticides, were germinal in the formation of the environmental movement. Chico Mendes was the heroic union organiser who was murdered in Amazonia for his efforts to save both the rainforest and the Indians. Davy Crockett was... well, actually, he was a hardbitten Indian-killer who, on losing an election race in his home state, announced: "The people of Tennessee can go to hell. I'm going to Texas." ......" Akerman Senterfitt Law Firm 11/20/00 Freeper Marcella "..... Mark Herron is the attorney that prepared the five pages of instructions to use to challenge military ballots. Some of you went to his lawn firm web site and sent emails to him. Some of you talked about demonstrating at his law firm in Tallahassee. ....... I have had email correspondence with attorney Fred Dudley, a partner of that law firm. MARK HERRON RESIGNED FROM THAT LAW FIRM TWO WEEKS AGO. A majority of the law partners objected to Herron working for Gore/Liberman. ........ Fred Dudley is a Republican and served in the Florida House of Representatives for 4 years and in the Florida Senate for 12 yrs. He ran unsuccessfully against Democrat Attorney General Butterworth two years ago. He serves as an idenpendent attorney for Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris. I have suggested to Fred Dudley that Mark Herron's name should be removed from their web site as quickly as possible. Marcella ...." Hardball MSNBC 11/20/00 Freper dictatorMA "..... Both Chris and Joe Degenova agree this court is poised to play the role of all three branches of govt and HAND this election to Al Gore.. if true, can this be good in terms of the likelyhood of the us court of appeals stepping in to show the country what real judges behave like? .......Ed Rendell is smiling because he KNOWS how many dimpled chads they have in the bag to be pulled out when they need em.. ...." Associated Press 11/20/00 Anne Gearan "......Florida Supreme Court justices seemed anxious to find a way out of the state's presidential election jam Monday that would let disputed manual recounts continue -- as long as the delay wouldn't jeopardize the state in the Electoral College vote. ....... The central questions hanging over the state election -- should ballots be recounted? How? For how long? -- landed in Florida's high court nearly two weeks after the Nov. 7 vote. ........ The hearing dealt only glancingly with major issues that both sides have been fighting about so hard in other courts and in public statements. ........ In this case the court is being asked to rule whether the manual recounts requested by Democrats should continue, how the counts should be done and whether those results should be included in the final state tally. ........ After the hearing, Gore advisers said privately they were pleased by the tone of the justices' questions and the fact that recounts could continue at least for now. ....... Carvin, buffeted by questions from Justice Barbara Pariente, appeared to suggest a GOP fallback position if the court rules against Bush. The law, he said in the hearing, "makes it clear that the federal courts -- federal law will not allow this court or the Florida Legislature to change the rules of the election after the election has taken place." ......... Over and over, he [Wells] asked at what point the state would risk missing the chance to cast its 25 electoral votes. Sometimes, he punctuated the question with outstretched arms. ......." Associated Press 11/20/00 Anne Gearan "......Wells' questions at one point sketched a scenario in which

recounts would continue, perhaps into December. ......... Democrats said Dec. 12 was when Florida needed to have its results final, six days before the Electoral College meets. But Joe Klock, representing Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, said she was bound by a state law that required her to certify all ballots except for overseas absentees by seven days after the Nov. 7 election. At the same time, asked by Justice Harry Lee Anstead whether the seven-day limit was absolute, Klock conceded, "Of course it's not absolute." ......." Associated Press 11/20/00 Anne Gearan "......At one point on Monday, Wells seemed to suggest that Harris might be permitted to certify a winner soon, so Democrats would have time to challenge the next step in the process -- appointment of the state's electors -- and still resolve the dispute before the Electoral College meets. Boies rebutted that Republicans would jump on any certification as evidence that the election was settled and "over with." ......" Associated Press 11/20/00 Anne Gearan "...... Erwin Chemerinsky, professor of constitutional law at the University of Southern California, predicted the court will allow hand counts for a short period with a firm deadline attached. "I think they will rule that she can't certify the election until the hand counts are done but they can set up a reasonable schedule." ......." Florida Consitution (Article III Section 17) 1885 amended 1968 "..... SECTION 17. Impeachment.-(a) The governor, lieutenant governor, members of the cabinet, justices of the supreme court, judges of district courts of appeal, judges of circuit courts, and judges of county courts shall be liable to impeachment for misdemeanor in office. The house of representatives by two-thirds vote shall have the power to impeach an officer. The speaker of the house of representatives shall have power at any time to appoint a committee to investigate charges against any officer subject to impeachment. (b) An officer impeached by the house of representatives shall be disqualified from performing any official duties until acquitted by the senate, and, unless impeached, the governor may by appointment fill the office until completion of the trial. (c) All impeachments by the house of representatives shall be tried by the senate. The chief justice of the supreme court, or another justice designated by the chief justice, shall preside at the trial, except in a trial of the chief justice, in which case the governor shall preside. The senate shall determine the time for the trial of any impeachment and may sit for the trial whether the house of representatives be in session or not. The time fixed for trial shall not be more than six months after the impeachment. During an impeachment trial senators shall be upon their oath or affirmation. No officer shall be convicted without the concurrence of twothirds of the members of the senate present. Judgment of conviction in cases of impeachment shall remove the offender from office and, in the discretion of the senate, may include disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust or profit. Conviction or acquittal shall not affect the civil or criminal responsibility of the officer. History.--Am. S.J.R. 459, 1987; adopted 1988; Am. proposed by Constitution Revision Commission, Revision No. 13, 1998, filed with the Secretary of State May 5, 1998; adopted 1998. Freeper Will E. Horton "....Actually, they're going to have to be very careful. The rules in place prior to the election are the rules which govern. This is in accordance with federal law. It follows that the rules in place prior to the election must be interpreted using case law prior to the election. In other words, any significant changes (to deadlines, recount rules, statewide recount possibilities) will invite an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. We will win there. ....." NewsMax.com 11/21/00 Carl Limbacher ".. There's no question that the Gore campaign tried to suppress the overseas military vote, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News Monday night. Gingrich made the charge on FNC's Hannity & Colmes during a heated exchange over whether a five page memo of intructions authored by Gore aide Mark Herron was merely an attempt to comply with election law governing absentee ballots: ..GINGRICH: I really don't believe they put out a five page memo designed to instruct people on how to stop military ballots -- except that they wanted to stop military ballots. Alan, I know you're an idealist and you believe in your fellow liberals, but doesn't it strike you as strange that they would specifically target the military ballot? You don't see five pages on how to inspect votes from Israel that they assume were Americans in Israel who were going to vote for Lieberman. .." AP 11/21/00 " About 104,000 voters picked more than one candidate in the presidential election and about 59,000 voters did not select a candidate, an unofficial survey by The Associated Press found. The AP surveyed Florida 67 elections supervisors to determine the number of overvotes and undervotes. In all, about 180,000 ballots cast in Florida on Nov. 7 went uncounted in the presidential election, the AP survey found"

Freeper Bandon ".. Oh, cool. This lets us drive a stake through the heart of the idea that the over vote in PBC was abnormally high. The over vote and under vote should be independent variables; at least, i can think of no reason why circumstances that would cause an abormal over vote would also cause a statistically similar abnormal undervote. Specifically, if people in PBC were confused by the butterfly ballot, the ratio of over vote to under vote in that county should be significantly higher than the ratio statewide. And here are the numbers: Ratio of ov to uv statewide: 1.76:1 Ratio of ov to uv in PBC: 1.81:1 So much for that! .." The Associated Press 11/21/00 David Royse "As workers go back over ballots that weren't counted on Election Night, sorting them by hand into ``possibly for Gore'' and ``possibly for Bush'' piles, Gore's stacks are growing faster. And - the Supreme Court permitting - they are the stacks that could decide the election. There were about 27,000 of these ``undervotes'' in three South Florida counties, ballots on which no vote for president was registered by machines the first time around. Some experts on voter behavior say the undervoted ballots with their ``dimples'' or ``hanging chads'' are found more in Democratic areas. The reasons are tough to pinpoint, but experts speculate more Democratic voters would be inexperienced or advanced in age. " The Associated Press 11/21/00 Vickie Chachere "..At first dimpled chads in Broward County didn't count, and now they might. In Palm Beach County, ballot counters looked for a glimmer of sunlight through a pinsize hole, and then ditched that method. . In Florida's contentious recount of presidential votes, the means and manner in which a vote is analyzed are in flux. The indecision on what counts as a vote has fueled criticism of the process and prompted allegations of vote tampering and manipulation. Florida law prescribes no methods or standards for assessing votes in a manual recount, leaving it up to the discretion of each county's canvassing boards. Now, given the dilemma in which Florida's elections officials find themselves, there is a movement to change that. ." Freeper WL-law 11/20/00 " In the dialogue between Boies and the justices regarding the SOS right-tocertify the election according to the statutory scheme, Boies was asked the following: "Is this not something that the legislature tried to do in setting these time limits, when the votes should be in?" Mr. Harris said. "I don't think that's what they have done," Mr. Boies said. He added that the intention of the legislature was not to bring "down the curtain a mere week after the election." "What is the time limit?" Mr. Harding persisted. But Mr. Boies could not answer. The Achilles Heel of Boies' argument -- he argues that the Court should recognize a (patently false) distinction between "certification" and "final certification" to suggest the creation of a 2-tiered certification process. The fact that this was never intended in the statute is underscored by the fact that there is no second "deadline" anywhere in the statute, and under questioning Boies couldn't point to one or even suggest one. That's because HE MADE IT UP! " New York Times 11/21/00 Don Van Natta Jr. "Disappointed by the results so far of the hand recounts, Democrats have set aside hundreds of ballots with no holes punched for a presidential candidate in the hope that they can persuade the canvassing boards or the courts that an indentation next to Vice President Al Gore's name should be counted as a vote for him.. Democrats want the canvassing boards in MiamiDade and Palm Beach Counties to use a broader standard to count the so-called dimpled ballots as votes for either Mr. Gore or Gov. George W. Bush. The Democrats have already succeeded in persuading the Broward canvassing board to consider approximately 1,200 such ballots......." Washington Times 11/21/00 Wesley Pruden " Memo from Al Gore to America's fighting men and women, filed from Tallahassee: Get lost. Memo from Bill Clinton to America's fighting men and women, filed from Hanoi: Drop dead. . The unfolding drama in Florida has mostly hidden the president in Vietnam from public view, for which we can all be thankful. There was no business in Vietnam for this man to do. But Bill Clinton was determined to visit Vietnam with pomp and circumstance, there to shed his last shred of decency and shame. This is the man who dodged the draft that sent others to die in his place, rallied the enemies of his country on foreign soil and came home to tell lies about it for the next 30 years. His very presence in Vietnam, which American sacrifice had rendered holy ground, was the final insult to his country. ." NYTIMES 11/21/00 R W Apple Jr. "The Florida justices are appointed but subsequently face retention elections, and they know a little about the practicalities of politics. So they seemed to be searching for some way to reconcile competing imperatives: how to ensure that the vote of every Floridian would be counted, to

the degree possible, without taking so long that the final result would come too late to be reflected in the Electoral College. .. They seemed, in other words, to be groping toward a timetable of their own devising that would allow the disputed manual recounting of votes to proceed but still permit the legal underbrush to be cleared away in time for Florida to participate fully in national political decision-making. .." AP 11/21/00 Chad Roedemeier "While the Florida Supreme Court considers whether hand recounts of ballots will matter in that state's disputed presidential election, Republican George W. Bush pushed ahead Monday on a second legal track: federal appeals to stop the counts. Bush supporters proposed that the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta hear oral arguments as early as next Monday in two separate but related cases aimed at stopping the ballot recounts. The court refused last Friday to grant an emergency order stopping the counts in some Florida counties, but left the door open for the issue to be argued later. Complicating the issue is whether the appeals court will consider the cases separately or together. In unusual twist, the Bush camp is arguing against itself on whether the cases should be combined. " Insight Magazine 11/20/00 Paul Rodriguez ". "We're doing what we have been told to do," a West Palm Beach County elections official tells Insight. "I don't know why we have to go through this but that's the way it is." One of the officials, a woman who was joined by the county attorney and about seven others, told us that the counters are working hard to do a good job and to do so without favor. She and colleagues dismissed Republican arguments that the process was tilted in favor of Democrats and they argued that with the swarm of observers and press present there was no room for hanky-panky. ...... When asked what the counts are showing, the elections' officer and attorney both said something interesting: The tallies from the hand counts are virtually identical to the machine counts the county had conducted earlier. That said, the officials pointed out that there is one stack of ballots that has yet to be counted. These are the contested, or so-called set-aside, ballots that have been challenged by either Republican or Democratic observers. There are thousands of them and they could prove critical. ." Freeper maranatha "Atty Barry Richards was being questioned tonight by C. Matthews and was asked about the court trying to set standards for handcounting. .Richards replied "We have issues that predate that issue. We have things here that must be decided before you even reach the question of the manner...Question one: was there any basis for the manual recount to begin with?; and question two: even if there was, did anyone other than the Secretary of State have the right to decide if they could be submitted late?" " Andrew Cain 11/21/00 ". In a new CBS News poll, 46 percent of respondents said the uncertainty is "hurting the country." . On Sunday, three prominent Democrats - Sen. John B. Breaux of Louisiana, Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia - urged Mr. Gore to abide by the Florida Supreme Court's ruling on whether to allow or prohibit hand recounts in three counties." Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES 11/21/00 " For nearly 2 and 1/2 hours, the seven justices played the role of devil's advocate by peppering each side with questions that seemed to take the viewpoint of the opposition. After grilling the Democrats for an hour, the justices turned on the Republicans with equal vigor..Lawyers soon discovered that their carefully crafted speeches would go unheard as justice after justice repeatedly interrupted them with pointed queries. The lawyers were then abruptly dismissed, in most cases without the benefit of even the briefest closing arguments. It was impossible to divine the intentions of the justices, all of whom were appointed by Democrats. The court, which has a reputation of being liberal and activist, was asked by the Gore campaign to broadly assert itself in settling the election - a role the Florida legislature has heretofore left to Florida's secretary of state." Washington Times 11/21/00 Rowan Scarborough "....... When vote counters arrived Friday in heavily Republican Duval County, five lawyers from the Al Gore camp stood poised to contest virtually every military ballot waiting to be opened......... During a 19-hour process that ended Saturday at 4:30 a.m., the Gore team challenged the authenticity of signatures, dates and addresses. They got one Navy lieutenant's ballot thrown out. The officer wrote on the envelope he could not get a postmark on his ship before sending it to Florida........ "The big story here is this was a systematic, heavy-handed effort by the Democrats to eliminate absentee military ballots," said Jim Post, a Republican attorney who fought the Gore challenges. "That was clear from the beginning of the day." Mr. Post said he has never seen such a concerted campaign to disqualify overseas ballots......... But Doug Hattaway, a Gore spokesman, denied there was any such strategy. "Both sides had observers there, and it's a very bipartisan process," Mr. Hattaway told the Associated Press...........The Gore legal offensive drew a sharp rebuke yesterday from the nation's two largest and best-known veterans groups, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars....... The final tally showed 1,527 overseas absentee ballots got tossed, while 2,199 survived, of which Mr. Bush garnered about 65 percent......Mr. Post and another Republican lawyer in Duval, Tom Bishop, said they were amazed at the range of technicalities Democratic lawyers cited to discard military votes. At one point on Friday, the Democrats had the election board compare ballot signatures with signatures on file. The

Democrats then claimed some signatures were fraudulent because every t was not crossed or every i dotted, Mr. Post said........ Mr. Post said that when the canvassing board agreed to keep out ballots, "the Democrats squealed with joy."......... Mr. Post said he did not challenge any military ballots in Duval nor did Republicans lawyers in other counties......." Sun-Sentinel 11/20/00 Sean Cavanagh "...... Carroll had served the board as its only Republican, and her criticism of Broward's hand recount process was shared by supporters of GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush. She will be replaced by Broward Circuit Judge Robert A. Rosenberg, who was appointed after a flurry of phone calls and legal questions over who was eligible by law to fill the post. ........ Rosenberg's party affiliation could not be confirmed, but he was appointed to the bench last year by Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican. In 1996, he was tapped for a Broward circuit judge position by Lawton Chiles, a Democrat. ......... Rosenberg ran unopposed for re-election this year. His campaign treasurer, Fort Lauderdale attorney Georgette Sosa Douglass, led the Republican get-out-the-vote efforts in Broward County and joined George W. Bush as a plaintiff in seeking an injunction to prevent the recounts in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. ......... After six days of counting all Broward's ballots by hand, Democrat Al Gore had gained 116 more votes on Bush, with 544 of the county's 609 precincts counted. The count will continue for at least one more day. ........ By all accounts, Rosenberg's appointment to the canvassing board could be crucial. After they finish counting precincts and absentee votes, board members are expected to begin judging "undervotes," or partially punched or dimpled ballots, which so far have been set aside and not counted. ......... In heavily Democratic Broward, those ballots could yield many new votes for Gore -- as long as board members do not reject them. On Monday, Lee estimated that there were "well over a thousand" of the undervotes to count. ......." NewsMax 11/20/00 Carl Limbacher "...... On Sunday, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that neither he nor Vice President Al Gore sanctioned efforts to stop military absentee ballots from being counted, implying that Tallahassee lawyer Mark Herron, who authored the Gore campaign's five-page memo on how to strike military ballots, was acting on his own. ...... But reports reviewed by NewsMax.com show that Herron was anything but a loose cannon - and was actually one of the first Florida lawyers the Gore campaign turned to on election night. ....... "By 4 a.m. last Wednesday [Nov. 8], with the presidential election too close to call and Florida the key to the race, Tallahassee lawyer Mark Herron got a call from the Democratic National Committee," reported the St. Petersburg Times on Friday, the day before controversery over Herron's memo erupted. "They wanted him on Vice President Al Gore's team." ......... "In the past, in fact, Herron was general counsel to the Democratic Party in Florida," reported the Broward Daily Business Review on Nov. 14. According to the Review, Herron "was known for his politically charged legal work." ....... Indeed, Herron was so committed to the Gore effort that he sacrificed his job, resigning from the law firm Akerman Senterfitt two days before he issued his anti-military memo. The law firm wanted to steer clear of the presidential dispute, ......." Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 John Fund "...... The choice before Florida's high court is clear. Barry Richard, a Democratic lawyer who represents the Bush campaign, told the court that the Florida Legislature and Constitution both give the power to certify elections to the secretary of state, Katherine Harris, and not to the courts: "In order for us to do anything else, this court would have to disregard the most fundamental principles of separation of powers and step into the shoes of both the legislative and executive branches to rewrite these statutes." ........ Mr. Richards said that the court would have to overturn specific laws to impose its will on the election timetable and certification process and thereby begin micromanaging the election process. It would have to "read a statute that says that returns must be filed by a date and time certain as though it said may be filed, to read a statute that says that the secretary of state may accept late filed returns as though it says must accept late filed returns, to disregard a statute that says the secretary of state's opinion as to election matters is binding upon all those officers and agents within the election system." ......" Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 John Fund "...... In contrast, superlitigator David Boies, lead attorney for the Gore campaign, stressed to the court that it has "broad equitable power" to impose its will. When Justice Barbara Pariente asked "under what authority can we set deadlines for the election process," Mr. Boies soothingly explained that all the court had to do was to "reconcile the entire statutory scheme." In other words, make up its own laws to supplant those passed by the legislature and administered by the executive branch of Florida. ....... Or at least some of the laws. Some deadlines are apparently more worthy of respect than others. No one before the court suggested yesterday that the court abandon the 10-day limit for the receipt of overseas ballots or the Dec. 12 deadline for Florida to choose its electors. Rather the statute the court appeared most tempted to rewrite was the one that required Ms. Harris to reject election returns from the counties that weren't delivered within a week of the election. ......" Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 John Fund "...... Even in making this case, it didn't get much help from Mr. Gore's allies. When Paul Hancock, a lawyer speaking for Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, said it

was physically impossible to certify all election results within the seven days mandated, Justice Pariente asked for evidence. Mr. Hancock lamely replied: "I don't know that there's any evidence in the record. I think it's intuitive." ......." Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 John Fund "...... Should the Florida court decide to trample on the doctrine of separation of powers, it may provoke the federal courts to do something they are normally loath to do: intervene in state election matters. Says Barbara Olson, a constitutional lawyer who is married to Bush lawyer Ted Olson: "The federal courts certainly will pay attention to a state that rewrites its laws after an election for the national office of president of the United States." ......... Even without a national election, federal courts have often intervened in state election disputes--especially in states covered by the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act, as Florida is. In 1995 the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta--the circuit that includes Florida--heard a case that has remarkable similarities to today's mess in the Sunshine State. The 11th Circuit upheld a federal district judge's order that the Alabama Supreme Court had overstepped its boundaries in awarding disputed votes in a photo-finish election. ......." Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 John Fund "...... "Constitutionally, the case is very significant," says Bill Pryor, Alabama's attorney general, who worked on the case as a deputy attorney general at the time. "It held that a state cannot change its election rules even for a local contest after the people have voted." ......... Chief Justice Hooper agrees his case resembles the current controversy before the Florida Supreme Court. "I have spoken to a number of federal judges and I get the sense that they all know about my case," he told the Associated Press. He said a key issue in his race was whether the counting of certain contested ballots would dilute the vote of people who turned in correct ballots. ......Should the Florida Supreme Court, as expected, impose its own timetable and standards for counting votes on the presidential race, you can expect the Florida Legislature, controlled by Republicans and long at loggerheads with the court, to consider holding a special session and choosing a slate of electors to resolve the standoff between the Supreme Court and secretary of state, who may not feel fully bound by the court's incursion into her constitutional powers. In addition, lawyers for the Bush campaign believe that the 11th Circuit's actions in the 1995 Alabama case give them a strong argument to ask for similar review in Florida. ......." UPI 11/20/00 Kathy Gambrell "..... Indiana Republican Steve Buyer reviewed ballots after reports surfaced last week that nearly 40 percent of the overseas ballots were disqualified for late postmarks and absent signatures. The overseas ballots were expected to tip the scale in the still unresolved presidential race between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore........ The Military Personnel Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee has jurisdiction over personnel policy issues. Buyer arrived in Florida Sunday after sending a letter to each of the armed service chiefs asking them to review how each handles overseas military ballots. ..... A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense maintained that overseas service personnel had no problems getting their ballots sent to the United Stated and that the Federal Voting Assistance Program educates all Americans living or visiting outside the country on how to submit their ballots for elections in their home state.......... " UPI 11/20/00 Mitchell Prothero "....The chairman of the House committee with responsibility for overseeing the presidential election promised Monday that the GOP will respect any state-certified outcome in the battle for Florida's electoral votes......... But the likelihood that the dispute could eventually involve Congress has left key members scrambling to research Electoral College disputes and prepare for the possibility the battle will move to the joint session of Congress which ratifies the decision of the Electoral College. The college meets Dec 18, and the joint session will convene Jan 5.......... Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the House Administration Committee, said that while he expects the dispute to resolve itself in Florida, he has ordered his committee staff to research the issue......... Regardless, Thomas denied that the GOP leadership in either house of Congress would act to challenge certified electors from Florida should they vote for Gore........." CBS Radio news 11/21/00 Freeper t-shirt "...CBS reported at 10:00 am Eastern 7:00 am Pacific that Republicans are complaining of widescale vote fraud and "vote maufacturing in Miami. They also reported Gore had moved up 46 votes after only a small portion of votes were counted. The mentioned that Republican were trying to get it stopped. I will post a wire story as soon as I find one here. ....... I was listening to WCBM radio and the host Tom Marr is also talking about vote fraud in Florida. He was talking about Jennifer Gonzalez I believe who witnessed some of the widescale vote fraud and she talked about to Brian Williams on MSNBC. ...." AP 11/21/00 "....Circuit Judge David Tobin rejected Republican requestios to set standards for ballot review and to search garbage cans for chads in Florida's most populous county. "It's not my job to manage it. I don't see anything I can do it anyhow," he(Judge Tobin) said Tuesday,"I'm not going to manage the minutiae of each ballot being counted. That's not my job." ......"

FoxNews 11/21/00 ".... FOXNews just reported that Katherine Harris, Florida Sec. of State was present at the swearing in this morning of the Legislature. They reported that she received a standing ovation from those assembled there. The Chief Justice was also there to do the swearing in, but they did not say whether or not he stood. ..." The Palm Beach Post 11/21/00 Scott Shepard ".....Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth, amid protests from veterans organizations Monday, urged local election officials to count presidential absentee ballots from military personnel abroad that had been rejected because they lacked postmarks. ...... In a letter to all 67 county elections supervisors, Butterworth said the votes "should count," though he has no statutory power to compel the local officials to act. ........ But late Monday, Florida's elections director, Clay Roberts, suggested that no new military ballots would be added to the state total. He said the overseas vote count has already been certified by the the state's county elections supervisors. "The state canvassing commission is forbidden by law to look beyond those returns," Roberts said. .....Texas Gov. George W. Bush's campaign welcomed Butterworth's action, but questioned what impact, if any, the letter would have on the historic vote counting in Florida. ...... "I'm certainly glad he (Butterworth) agrees with us," said Mindy Tucker, spokeswoman for the Republican nominee. "But I don't know that it will have any practical effect." ........ Spokesman Ari Fleischer was more blunt. "This is a belated attempt at damage control by Al Gore's supporters who have already inflicted damage on America's military men and women. . . . They accomplished their mission and now they're running for cover......" The Palm Beach Post 11/21/00 ".....In the waning days of Campaign 2000, the joke making the rounds in Florida was that Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman had spent enough time in the Sunshine State to cast his ballot there. ....... So when television networks awarded the state -- and with it the presidency -- to George W. Bush on election night, Lieberman was flabbergasted. Shock quickly turned to defiance, and in the nearly two weeks since then, Al Gore's running mate has been one of the most forceful proponents inside the Democratic Party for a full recount and perhaps beyond. ....." PRNewsWire 11/21/00 ".....An attorney for the Libertarian Party of Florida today filed a motion with the Florida Supreme Court to intervene in the consolidated recount case which is now before the court. The motion asks the court to prevent certification of recounts on the grounds that they are irredeemably tainted by the fact that Libertarian election observers were not permitted to observe the recount as required by state law. The Supervisors of Elections in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Volusia Counties did not notify all candidates on the ballot of the recount nor did they permit representatives of all candidates on the ballot to observe the recount. Such notification and observers are required by Florida law. ......" The American Spectator 11/21/00 Byron York "..... Do we really need to spend much time discussing the Florida Supreme Court? During two and a half hours of oral argument Monday, the seven Democratic justices made clear they were fixin' to write themselves some new election law. Chief Justice Charles T. Wells -- the one who contributed $750 to Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992 -- spent much of the session asking several different versions of this question: How much extra time can I give Al Gore before Florida misses the deadline for certifying its electors to the Electoral College? Not exactly an encouraging line of argument for Republicans. ......There seems to be little doubt that the Court will rule in Gore's favor on the issue of whether Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris acted properly when she attempted to enforce a legal deadline for certifying election results. But of course, the Court has already blown away the deadline, so the damage is done. For Republicans, the real danger in the Court's deliberation lies in what the Justices might do about the controversy over ballot-counting standards in Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade counties. And that boils down to one question: Do dimpled chads count? ......" The Palm Beach Post 11/21/00 Brian Crowley "......Florida's seven Supreme Court justices asked nearly 150 questions during more than two hours in an effort Monday to find one answer -- what should Florida do about electing the next president? When the answer will come is anyone's guess, but the court hinted it could come quickly by repeatedly expressing concerns about the Dec. 12 federal deadline for Florida to name its 25 Electoral College members. Moments after the 2 p.m. start of the nationally televised hearing, Chief Justice Charles T. Wells wanted to know, "What's the date -- the outside date -- that we're looking at and which puts Florida's votes in jeopardy?" ......" The Palm Beach Post 11/21/00 Joel Engelhardt "..... With 12 percent of Palm Beach County's ballots recounted, the news for Vice President Al Gore is not encouraging. He has picked up precisely one vote, according to the latest tallies released Monday. ....... Hoping to reverse the tide, Democrats began a new offensive to force the county's canvassing board to count dimples -- those ballots that are indented but not punched all the way through. ......Hours after Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga denied a plea by Democratic voters to force a countywide revote for president, lawyers for the Democrats went to court

again. They found Labarga just before court closed for the day and asked him for an emergency hearing. Their contention: The great majority of those dimpled ballots the canvassing board keeps throwing out are really legitimate Gore votes. ......Republicans say the little dimples are the Democrats' last resort, yet one more attempt to change the rules in the middle of the game to give them the result they want. ....." The Palm Beach Post 11/21/00 Brian Crowley "...... Monday's request for an emergency hearing accuses the canvassing board of applying a "narrow, incorrect standard" in rejecting most dimpled votes. In one precinct, 119 dimpled votes for Gore didn't count, the motion said. ...... In all, through Sunday, Democrats say, 277 dimpled ballots for Gore and 73 for Bush didn't count. ..... They even lost 11 votes in Precinct 162E that were counted twice by hand: once Nov. 11 during a sample hand count and again in the ongoing hand count. ......" The Palm Beach Post 11/21/00 Brian Crowley "......Labarga had ruled Wednesday that any ballot with a partially punched or hanging chad cannot be excluded just on that basis but must be examined to determine the "true intention of the voter." The canvassing board took that to mean it must review those ballots for evidence that the voter had trouble punching holes, not just for president, but in other races. ....... Otherwise, the board has no evidence of the voter's intent, canvassing board Chairman Charles Burton said. "We have applied a very consistent standard to these ballots. We're simply trying to stick to that standard," Burton said Monday. ......" The Palm Beach Post 11/21/00 Brian Crowley "...... The 11-vote drop in Precinct 162E is evidence of the variety of results a hand count can produce, Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew said. The Democrats, he said, are rule-shopping. "Are you proceeding to get an accurate count or a count you like?" he said. "Their actions are aimed at a different total, not a more accurate result." ......" Fl Supreme Court 11/21/00 ".....Case Nos. SC00-2346, SC00-2348 & SC00-2349 The Emergency Application and Motion to Intervene or in the Alternative To Be Heard as Amicus Curiae filed by The Libertarian Party of Florida is hereby denied. WELLS, C.J., and SHAW, HARDING, ANSTEAD, PARIENTE, LEWIS and QUINCE, JJ., concur. Thomas D. Hall Clerk, Supreme Court ....." UPI 11/21/00 "....Circuit Judge David L. Tobin ruled in response to a Republican lawsuit Tuesday he cannot stop the hand count in Miami-Dade County, Fla., or instruct the counters on how do it. He said the state Supreme Court had the matter under consideration and "anything I do here would be improper." ...." Newsmax 11/21/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Yet a third election observer has gone public with claims that there's something rotten with Palm Beach County's presidential election hand recount, making it more difficult for the Florida State Supreme Court to validate the process without appearing blatantly partisan. This time it's Bob Brooks, a Republican observer from Arkansas, who gave his account Monday to WABC-NY radio host Sean Hannity. ...... HANNITY: What else are you seeing? What irregularities are you seeing? BROOKS: Today the counter that I was working with was making a lot of errors. For example, Bush votes were being stacked in the Gore pile. ... I saw her within a period of 74 minutes make six major errors. HANNITY: Does it ever work in reverse? It always seems these mistakes always go in one direction, only to help Gore. BROOKS: I did see her make one mistake on a Gore ballot but there were four mistakes made on Bush ballots. We were looking at, over a period of about three hours, we looked at 1,100 ballots and I saw six major mistakes. Well, that adds up over time. ...." MSNBC 11/21/00 "..... MSNBC just reported that Gore is up 69 votes after recounts in 77 of 614 precincts in Dade County. They added, however, that the majority of the precincts that have reported so far are HEAVILY Democratic. They also went on to say that out of the remaining 537 precincts that have yet to report returns there are some 200+ precincts that went for George W. Bush. There is no way to extrapolate out the current gains (which would come to 552). This is very similar to Broward where, at one time, it looked like there could be as many as 250 votes for Gore. Now Broward looks to contribute half as many votes......" CBSNews 11/21/00 Freeper t-shirt "..... As Workers go back over the ballots that weren't counted on election night, sorting them by hand into "possibly for Gore" and "possibly for Bush" piles, Gore's stacks are growing faster. ....... And - the Supreme Court permitting they are stacks that could decide the election. Ther are 27,000 of these "undervotes" in three South Florida counties, ballots registered by machines the first time

around. ......" Associated Press 11/21/00 Linda Deutsch ".....George W. Bush's lawyers told Florida Supreme Court justices Tuesday they have no authority to set rules on which presidential ballots can or cannot be counted. The legal brief also said that if the justices do plan to make such a ruling, they should give the Bush team a new chance to argue against it. ..... Whatever the court decides, it ``is without power'' to say which ballots are legitimate, the Bush team said. ``This is an intensely fact-bound question, and there is no existing Florida law on this question,'' the filing said. ``It would thus be particularly inappropriate to decide this question in this legal and evidentiary vacuum. At a minimum, if the court does proceed, we request an opportunity to be heard on this question.'' ......" Rep Spence US Congress 11/21/00 "...... Today, U.S. Representative Floyd Spence, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, issued the following statement on the disqualification of military absentee ballots in Florida: .... "I am deeply concerned about the significant number of absentee ballots from military personnel that are being disqualified in Florida. From all accounts, many of these ballots are being challenged due to circumstances beyond the control of the individual military voter and may, in part, result from sloppy Department of Defense procedures. "I am especially disturbed by the apparent attempt to orchestrate a campaign in Florida to disallow absentee military votes during the election. The right to vote is one of our most cherished privileges in a free society. I find it outrageous that anyone associated with a major political party would engage in a targeted effort to deny this right to the very men and women in uniform who may be called upon to risk their lives to protect it for all citizens. I was pleased to learn that the Attorney General of the State of Florida has now called for those absentee ballots to be counted. That is the only fair and just course of action. ........ "The House Armed Services Committee is currently engaged in a thorough review of these incidents to identify more precisely the circumstances surrounding the manner in which military ballots were handled during the election. Congressman Steve Buyer, Chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, is currently in Florida to conduct a preliminary investigation to ensure compliance with existing federal law. I have also asked the General Accounting Office to conduct a review of the military absentee ballots that have been rejected by local election officials to ensure that the Committee has a thorough understanding of the circumstances that caused the ballots to be disqualified and whether those judgments were consistent with federal law. The unique and demanding nature of military service requires that every precaution be taken to ensure that service members are afforded the right to vote and that their votes are properly counted by appropriate local jurisdictions." ....." Florida Supreme Court 11/21/00 Gore's lawyers ".....Today's submission by Governor Bush asks this Court to delay the resolution of the issue of the appropriate standard to be employed in manual recounts - while at the same time complaining that the Secretary of State's certification should proceed immediately because any delay may prejudice adequate time for a contest........ The issue of the appropriate standard was squarely raised by Petitioner Broward County Canvassing Board in its brief filed on November 18, 2000 (the day before Governor Bush filed his brief). That brief specifically discussed the "two-corner" rule then applied by the Canvassing Board and Circuit Judge Miller's oral rejection of that rule as "too restrictive" because "the totality of the ballot must be considered to determine the will of the voter behind each ballot."....." FoxNews 11/21/00 "...... According to Fox News Democrats are suing the PBC Canvassing Board to force them to count dimpled ballots. Presently the Canvassing board is only counting dimpled ballots where there are more then just dimples for President. The hearing will be a 9:30 tomorrow morning. ..... Latest numbers (from Fox News): In PBC (?? Complete): 3 votes net gain for Gore 557 dimpled Gore ballots TOSSED 260 dimpled Bush ballots TOSSED In Broward(90-95% Complete): 115 votes net gain for Gore 1000 Questionable ballots being held (i.e. dimples) Miami-Dade (10% Complete):

69 votes net gain for Gore They are counting dimples in Miami-Dade (God help us) AP 11/21/00 Linda Deutsch ".....George W. Bush's legal team filed a surprise brief with the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday questioning the justices' authority in a crucial part of the historic presidential case they are considering. Al Gore's attorneys said it looked as if the Republicans were stalling and they filed an immediate response, urging the court to go ahead with its decision and to set standards on disputed manual vote recounts. ....... The Bush lawyers contended the court was "without power" to set standards for the counting of ballots by county canvassing boards. ......... The issue of what rules should be applied to such things as "dimpled ballots" - or those with indentations but not punched through - was raised in oral arguments Monday and also was addressed in the response brief to the court from Gore's lawyers. Republican Bush's legal team said it was too late, that the issue should have been raised earlier. In a phone press conference Tuesday afternoon, Bush lawyer Michael Carvin said he did not respond on the issue when it was raised in a Democratic brief on Sunday because he was tied up preparing his oral argument. "I didn't think anyone would take this very seriously," he said. ........ Bush's lawyers suggested that the court should not even address the issue of a voter's intent when punching a ballot. "This is an intensely fact-bound question, and there is no existing Florida law on this question. It would thus be particularly inappropriate to decide this question in this legal and evidentiary vacuum. At a minimum, if the court does proceed, we request an opportunity to be heard on this question," the Bush lawyers argued. ....... The Gore lawyers responded: "The issue is one of law appropriate for determination by this court. ... It does not present factual issues." ........ " AP 11/21/00 Linda Deutsch ".....The Bush brief said there was "an extremely tight timeframe for consideration of these issues," suggesting officials had already missed the last deadline for certifying the election in time to allow it to be contested properly. ........ Bush's lawyers said state law requires a 22-to-27 day period for candidates to contest certified results, meaning the state should have certified the vote by Monday of this week "at the very latest." ...... Some experts suggested the court could choose not to rule at all. The scenario they posed was that if the continuing recounts weighed in favor of Bush, then Gore might concede the election before the court issued its ruling. ......"The court is concerned about issuing a ruling that might be perceived as partisan," Hasen said, noting that the justices are Democratic appointees......... Loyola University law School Professor Laurie Levenson outlined three possibilities. AP 11/21/00 Linda Deutsch ".....The justices could: ..... - Lift their own injunction and allow Secretary of State Katherine Harris to certify the election results without further recounts - but with the potential for the Democrats to challenge the certification. - Allow recounts to continue according to a specific schedule ensuring that Florida's 25 electoral votes would be submitted by the Dec. 12 deadline. - Set up a schedule and specific standards for counting questioned votes such as the "dimpled" ballots. ......" AP 11/21/00 Linda Deutsch ".....If Harris certified a Bush victory, the Gore camp could contest it under a state law that allows an election to be challenged if a number of legal votes were rejected "sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election." The catch in that plan, said Hasen, is that for Gore to challenge the election, he must have access to the results of the completed hand recounts - which may not be finished until December in some counties. ....." FoxNews 11/21/00 Jeffry McMurray ".....Despite political uproar, few election officials in Florida's 67 counties found any reason Tuesday to reconsider overseas absentee ballots rejected for lack of a postmark, as the state's Democratic attorney general has urged. "We did exactly what he told us we should have done, so there's no reason for us to go back and do it again,'' said David Leahy, elections supervisor in Miami-Dade County, the state's most populous. "In terms of what we did, we were in full conformity with this letter.'' ........ Many Democrats this week joined the GOP call for officials to count the votes of soldiers abroad. Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., asked Tuesday for congressional hearings on the issue. ...... But a spot check of a number of Florida counties, including those with major military installations, found no movement toward reconsidering the overseas ballots. ........ The Republican-appointed director of state elections has said those ballots cannot be lawfully counted now, and there was little evidence that counties would do so in spite of that prohibition. ....." Associated Press 11/21/00 David Royse ".....Al Gore needs the dimples. With Gore trailing George W. Bush by 930 votes, Democrats are pressuring election officials in three South Florida counties to count ``dimpled'' chad ballots as valid votes......... They are not being counted in Broward or Palm Beach counties. And in

Miami-Dade County, some are being counted, some aren't, depending on whether the local canvassing board members can determine the voters' intent. Broward is setting the dimpled ballots aside for later consideration. A Palm Beach County judge plans to take up the dimple issue Wednesday. ....... As the Florida Supreme Court deliberated Tuesday over whether to accept any hand recount results, it also was dealing with a parallel legal fight over what standards should apply to dimpled ballots. The Gore team raised that issue before the court, but the Bush team was trying to keep it out of the legal fight altogether, arguing the Supreme Court lacks the power to set such standards statewide........ If dimples are counted in Florida, the question becomes: Will enough of the dimples look enough like Gore votes for the vice president to erase his vote deficit? ...... Dennis Newman, a Democratic lawyer, said that in Palm Beach County, with 176 out of 531 precincts counted, there were 557 dimpled ballots in Gore's stack, and 260 for Bush. County officials have not provided their own dimple numbers........ Courts have been reluctant to rule on dimpled ballots' acceptability because sometimes they hint at the voter's intent and sometimes they don't. For example, sometimes ``it was the voter who put the stylus down, drew back and changed their mind'' and punched the hole for the other candidate, Wolf said. In such cases, a dimple shouldn't count. ...... But if no other hold is punched, a dimple is as good an indication of a voter's intent as anything, deHaven Smith said, particularly if the person voted a straight ticket in all other races. ..... ``Why would they vote for everything else and not the president?'' deHaven Smith said. ....." Associated Press 11/21/00 Catherine Wilson ".....Miami-Dade's election supervisor said Tuesday the county was on track to finish its hand recount of some 654,000 presidential ballots by Dec. 1. ''We seem to be fairly on target with that. There's just no way really to speed it up,'' supervisor David Leahy said. ''I think we're going to be here to Dec. 1.'' Earlier in the day, Circuit Judge David Tobin rejected a Republican request to set standards for the election board to use when evaluating ballots in Florida's most populous county. ....... ''It's not my job to manage it. I don't see how I can do it anyhow,'' Tobin said. ''I'm not going to manage the minutiae of each ballot being counted. That's not my job.'' ........ Election workers resumed the hand count on Tuesday, with Democrat Al Gore picking up 69 votes since counting began Monday. Workers had completed 77 of the 614 precincts by midday Tuesday. ....." Associated Press 11/21/00 Catherine Wilson ".....Republicans claimed board members were twisting and turning the ballots, looking for votes that weren't there. Republicans also have been accused of challenging many ballots to delay the process. ''They have a right to challenge anything,'' Leahy said. ''As to their motive, I'm not going to comment.'' Several Republican observers said they are seeing fewer hanging chads on ballots -- an indication to them that movement and tampering have altered the originals. ........ Meanwhile, Leahy said the county would not revisit the overseas ballots from military posts, as Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth suggested on Monday. Leahy said ballots rejected by the board for lack of a postmark or date could not be opened by law. ......No party has asked for reconsideration of the overseas count or presented any law telling the board to change what it did, he said. ....." New York Post 11/21/00 Cindy Adams "...... What you do not know: Governor Brother Jeb has been battling his state's Supreme Court a year and a half. All seven justices were appointed by Democratic governors. Two months ago he intensified his grievances by saying the court does not respect the will of the voters. Tensions grew and Republican state lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to strip some of its powers and appoint two new members. ........ Theoretically, justices are above petty emotions. But if the GOP has, in fact, made them mad, the GOP might wish, at this time, they hadn't. ........ Four current members joined in the opinion arising from 1998's Volusia County dispute over absentee ballots in a sheriff's election between two Republicans. They ruled that all voters be heard and that elections are valid even if election officials have acted only in "substantial compliance" as opposed to "strict compliance" (whatever that means). ....." Associated Press 11/21/00 Curt Anderson "......The networks' mistaken early calls Election Night that Al Gore - and later George W. Bush - had won Florida were due in part to flawed exit polls in the Tampa area and a ``significant computer error'' in Volusia County's election agency, the CBS News chief told Congress. CBS News President Andrew Heyward said in a letter to Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House Commerce Committee's telecommunications panel, that his network's initial call for Gore at 7:50 p.m. EST on Nov. 7 was based on Voter News Service exit polls and actual vote data, interpreted through tested statistical models. ........ But at about 9:20 p.m., Heyward said in the letter released Tuesday, CBS found that exit poll results in the Tampa area had overstated Gore's lead and that tabulated votes in Duval County were probably wrong. That call was retracted at 9:54 p.m. ..... When the networks then erroneously called Florida for George W. Bush a few hours later, Heyward said, ``another series of confusions took place - including what at this juncture appears to be a very significant computer error made by the Volusia County Elections Department which led to another series of bad calls by the television networks and newspapers across the nation.'' That mistake has been traced to a faulty government computer disk. ......"

Associated Press 11/21/00 Karen Gullo ".....Tourists chanted ``President! President!'' when George W. Bush left the state Capitol Tuesday. He playfully put his hands on the crewcut of a small boy and said, ``It gives me good luck to rub your head.'' And perhaps he was feeling lucky. The Texas governor was working on transition business among other matters, aides said, and he showed up at his Capitol office accompanied by adviser Andy Card, who would likely be his choice for White House chief of staff if he wins. With the campaign waiting for word from the Florida Supreme Court about whether recounts could continue, the Bush camp talked about planning for a new government for the first time in several days. ...... Spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush continues to do ``quiet transition work'' while keeping a constant eye on developments in Florida, where he leads Vice President Al Gore by 930 votes in the last official count, not including the recounts. ....." CNN 11/21/00 Freeper A_Niceguy_In_Ca ".... In another development that could slow further action in Palm Beach, county commissioners met Tuesday to vote on an alternate for canvassing board member Carol Roberts, a Democrat, who is leaving for a three-week vacation. Roberts' planned departure was significant because she has been an outspoken supporter of efforts to have manual recounts included in the final election tally....... At the last minute, she decided to stay on through the completion of the count. In its Tuesday meeting, the board had selected a Republican -- county Commissioner Warren Nuell -- as her replacement....." Miami Daily Business Review 2/18/00 Mary Hladky "...... "As the state's top arbiter of laws and lower court decisions that can dramatically impact people's lives, the Florida Supreme Court is perpetually on the hot seat. But right now, the court is facing something quite different than the predictable post-decision criticism from the losing side. The court is under attack, and its independence is threatened." ..."I think there is a level of discomfort" between the governor and Legislature, and the court, he said. "From my perspective, I think the court has taken too many liberties and have overstepped their bounds. It is not their role to make the law." ....." MSNBC 11/21/00 Patriot "...MSNBC justed stated that the 11th Circuit Court Requires Briefs by 7am Monday for their hearing on the uncounted votes being unconstitutional in Florida! ...." CBS 11/21/00 ".....A Florida judge has set a hearing on charges seeking to discard all 15,000 absentee ballots cast in Seminole County, a move that could determine the result of the presidential election. On Monday, Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson agreed to hear the case on Nov. 27, saying she wanted to allow a week for the parties to gather evidence. ...... Republican George W. Bush won the east central Florida county, in part because he won 10,006 absentee votes to Gore's 5,209. Throwing out Seminole's absentee ballots would overturn Bush's lead of 930 votes out of 6 million cast in Florida, a state either man needs to win the presidency. ........ A Seminole County man, Democrat Harry Jacobs, sued to disqualify the absentee ballots. He alleged that the county's election supervisor, a Republican, broke the law by allowing Republican party volunteers to fill in missing data on about 4,700 absentee ballot requests that might otherwise would have been rejected as incomplete. Applicants were supposed to list their voter identification numbers on the absentee ballot request forms, but many did not and the party workers filled them in at the election supervisor's office, Jacobs' lawsuit alleged. .......Jacobs insists that the fact that Republicans were allowed to fix the ballot applications violated state law. But he says he was more bothered by the fact that Goard didn't extend the same opportunity for Democratic requests that also contained mistakes. ..... Eight voters who cast absentee ballots joined the lawsuit, and their attorneys urged Nelson to dismiss the case during a brief hearing on Saturday. Nelson ruled on Monday that the case could proceed. ....." Filing by Barry Richard for Bush in Florida Supreme Court 11/21/00 "...... Petitioner Al Gore, Jr., and Florida Democratic Party filed a Reply Brief at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 19, 2000, which raised for the first time entirely new issues regarding the setting of standards for the counting of ballots by County Canvassing Boards. This issue is not raised in either of the cases in the consolidated appeal. No factual record exists on this issue, and we have had no opportunity to respond to this question. The Court is without power to decide this question of ballot standards because there is no case before them raising the question. Moreover, this is an intensely fact-bound question, and there is no existing Florida law on this question. It would thus be particularly inappropriate to decide this question in this legal and evidentiary vacuum. At a minimum, if the Court does proceed, we request an opportunity to be heard on this question. In addition, as the Court's repeated inquiries during oral argument made clear, there is an extremely tight timeframe for consideration of these issues. As the Court recognized, the State of Florida must conclusively select its electors by December 12, 2000, or risk not having its electors participate in the election of President. See 3 U.S.C. 5. Florida law provides by right that an unsuccessful candidate may contest the certification of election. Section 102.168, Florida Statutes, provides that such contestant shall have 10 days

after the last county canvassing board certifies its election result or 5 days after the last county canvassing board certifies the results of a particular election following a protest. Section 102.168(6), Florida Statutes, further provides that the defendant to such contest shall have 10 days after the complaint has been served to file an answer admitting or denying the allegations on which the contestant relies. There is then a statutory provision for an evidentiary hearing with the taking of testimony, 102.168(7), Fla. Stat., and any ruling by the circuit judge would be subject to appeal. Even on an expedited basis, it is difficult to believe that such legal proceedings could take less than at least 7 days. Thus, Florida statutory law at the very minimum provides for a 22 to 27 day period for contesting an election. Counting back from December 12, 2000, this would require that the certification of election be completed by November 20, 2000, at the very latest. _____________________________ CNN 11/21/00 "......Bush campaign surrogates continued to accuse Democrats of plotting to disenfranchise military voters Tuesday after Florida's attorney general recommended county officials review overseas absentee ballots disqualified for missing postmarks.......... A Tuesday news conference by Indiana Rep. Steve Buyer and New York Rep. John Sweeney launched the latest round of emotionally laden charges by Republicans upset that a large number of absentee ballots from overseas -- presumably from servicemembers stationed abroad -- were excluded from the uncertified final count in Florida's presidential recount. ...... Sweeney said Vice President Al Gore's campaign was "actively and directly attempting to disenfranchise the brave men and women who are defending freedom." ...... "It would be very difficult to serve as commander-in-chief when you try to disenfranchise those very men and women, and it's a very sad day for America," Sweeney said. ......Harris offered no comment. But Clay Roberts, head of the Division of Elections, said state officials were "forbidden by law to look beyond" the returns submitted by the counties. ...... " Florida Attorney General Web Page Freeper Xbob "......Section 16.01(3), F.S., does not authorize the Attorney General to render opinions to private individuals or entities, whether their requests are submitted directly or through governmental officials. In addition, an opinion request must relate to the requesting officer's own official duties. An Attorney General Opinion will not, therefore, be issued when the requesting party is not among the officers specified in s. 16.01(3), F.S., or when an officer falling within s. 16.01(3), F.S., asks a question not relating to his or her own official duties. ......... In order not to intrude upon the constitutional prerogative of the judicial branch, opinions are not rendered on questions pending before the courts or on questions requiring a determination of the constitutionality of an existing statute or ordinance. ....... Opinions are not issued on questions requiring an interpretation only of local codes, ordinances or charters rather than the provisions of state law. Such requests will be referred to the attorney for the local government in question. In addition, when an opinion request is received on a question falling within statutory jurisdiction of some other state agency, the request will either be transferred to that agency or the requesting party will be advised to contact the other agency. For example, questions concerning the Code of Ethics for Public Officers and Employees are answered by the Florida Commission on Ethics; questions arising under the Florida Election Code should be directed to the Division of Elections in the Department of State. ....." CNN 11/21/00 Freeper Spook86 ".....In a Florida press conference, Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry essentially blamed military members for problems with those infamous absentee ballots. In the military, Kerry observed, "failure to get the word is no excuse." Kerry claimed that many of the spoiled military ballots lacked the required voter identification, witness signatures, and postmarks. Senator Kerry also claimed that equal concern should be given to "an 85-year-old in Palm Beach County" who couldn't punch through the ballot. ...." WorldNetDaily 11/21/00 Jon Dougherty "...... The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has asked Secretary of Defense William Cohen to help ensure that all military absentee ballots be counted in the state of Florida, even as Americans, military members, veterans and other lawmakers express outrage over the disqualification of those ballots in some Florida counties. ....... Following the disqualification of 1,400 military ballots from overseas military members by a few county canvassing boards in Florida, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., in a letter sent Friday to Cohen, called the dismissal of these ballots a "matter of grave concern." "Our service men and women around the world are protecting the very freedom that allowed our nation to proceed with the election on Nov. 7," Warner wrote. "Yet it now appears that some of those service personnel may be denied the right to have their votes count in that election." ...... Specifically, Warner has called on Cohen to observe the provisions of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, 42 USC, 1973ff (et al) under Subchapter I-G, ....... Under those provisions, Warner said -- which express "a strong federal policy to facilitate absentee voting by military personnel" deployed overseas during an election -- "states are required to permit such personnel to use absentee registration procedures and to vote by absentee ballot in federal elections." ........ Warner said the provisions point out that absentee registration and voting procedures include, "if necessary, the use of a uniform federal ballot,"

and that "such ballots are to be carried in the mail 'expeditiously and free of postage.'" He added that those ballots "may be mailed at post offices established outside the United States, including ... the military postal system (39 USC -- 3406). ....... Since before the Nov. 7 election, many U.S. military personnel have complained that they did not receive their ballots, even though they had requested them in plenty of time and through the proper channels. .........After WorldNetDaily's initial stories, Florida Rep. Joe Scarborough called for a congressional probe into whether "something was done to inhibit [the military's] ability to vote." Also, a San Antonio, Texas-based law firm is preparing to file suit in federal court in the western district of Texas on behalf of military personnel who claim they requested absentee ballots for local and national elections but did not receive them. "As Secretary of Defense," Warner said, "you have the principal responsibility for implementing the provisions of the Act. ......." WorldNetDaily 11/21/00 Jon Dougherty "......Nationally, there is growing anger and resentment towards the Gore campaign, Democratic operatives in Florida and some canvassing boards in the Sunshine State for rejecting the military ballots. "All hell is busting loose among the citizenry of my town as to the treatment of our sons and daughters in uniform," one writer from Bulverde, Texas, e-mailed to WorldNetDaily. "They had better right this wrong for the sake of all of us and our country." ........ Other Republican legislators have been less inclined to believe, as Warner does, that military postal clerks simply forgot to postmark ballots in particular. On Saturday, Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., issued a statement calling for "serious and detailed consideration" of the military ballot issue. ..... "I personally plan to pursue every avenue possible to highlight this unjust situation and see that culprits responsible for this scandal are dealt with at the highest level," he said. "This matter cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged." .......Bachus added, "Given the concerted Democrat Party effort to throw out as many military absentee ballots as possible in the current Florida vote count ... certainly no decent American would challenge the inalienable right of our soldiers, sailors and airmen to have their voices heard in the choice of their next commander in chief." ........ " NIST/CPSR 2/12/93 Roy Saltman "...... 3.1 Vote-Casting. Proper accounting for all computer-readable ballots is an internal control issue, and inaccurate computer reading of the voters' choices is an engineering issue, involving both hardware and software. Among ballot types, the pre-scored punch card (of the "votomatic" type) continues to be selected for use in jurisdictions including about 40% of U.S. voters, yet its capability to very accurately record voter's choices, as well as its capability for reproducing those choices in a recount, is in serious doubt. The problem is the pre-scoring which may, through incorrect punching or rough handling, cause extra chad to fall out, or cause hanging chad to be forced back into the ballot card, thereby misstating the voter's choices to the computer. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended the elimination of pre-scored ballot cards in 1988, but this recommendation carried no mandatory requirement, and very little elimination of pre-scored ballot cards has occurred. NIST's recommendation was not a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), but even if it were, such standards may not be applicable to Federal elections at this time. Whether or not minimum performance requirements, such as accuracy requirements for ballot reading, should be mandatory is a policy issue that needs investigation............. There has been additional concern expressed about the human factor in the use of the "votomatic" type card. A lawsuit filed in St. Louis in 1990, and a recent review of Atlanta ballots have raised the possibility that more undervotes and overvotes occur with these ballots in precincts populated by the less-educated than in other precincts. The unusual voting patterns seen in the Mack v. McKay 1988 Florida U.S. Senate contest (and commented on publicly by knowledgeable observers) in which these ballot card types were used may indicate a similar problem. It would seem that research into this issue could be valuable, and this research could either concentrate on this specific problem, or be concerned generally with the human factor in the use of various configurations of voting equipment. However, there is no Federal program to sponsor or focus such research. ......" FoxNews 11/21/00 Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "...... Fox News Network's Jim Angle reports that Gore's defense team disagrees with the Florida Attorney Generals memo directing local election boards to reconsider the guidelines for counting military ballots. He also stated that Team Gore in Florida aparently disagrees with Joe Lieberman's comments over the weekend, and Sen. Gramms (D-FL) statement that election officials should, "bend over backward" to count our servicemen's votes. ......." Adds the Freeper ".....My comment is the Democrats are losing the PR/Political war and may be fragmenting over this issue. I flipped channels and CNN had a guy from NPR that said top democrats are divided and Gore is losing the battle for public sentiment that began with the military ballot flap. Expect Algore to make a statement today to cover his arse...he seems to be out of sight unless he's losing the confidence of the American public. ....." Freeper hawaiian "....The media better pin Gore's butt to the wall on this. The fact is, he DOESN'T WANT THE MILITARY'S VOTES COUNTED. PERIOD. DON'T LET HIM SPIN HIS WAY OUT OF THIS!!!! ....." Freeper hcmama ".....Just saw it! Jim Angle said Butterworth and Bob Graham were only speaking for

themselves and that the Go/Lie position was that the vote should stand as it is. ......Algore is a scum-sucking dog. ....." The Palm Beach Post 3/17/99 George Bennett Mary Lou Pickel "......If there's a lesson to be learned from the recounted, protested and manually re-recounted Delray Beach city commission race, it's that every vote counts - as long as the ballot is properly punched...... When questions arise about the thoroughness with which voters poke the tiny perforated rectangles on their ballots, the objective science of counting votes gives way to subjective human judgments of voter intentions........ In the end, Palm Beach County's elections canvassing board awarded Michael Wright a one-vote victory over Barbara Brown in the Delray Beach race. Wright had been five votes ahead on election night, March 9, and three votes ahead after a machine recount the next day......... The Delray Beach vote illustrates the human factor present even in a large, automated voting system such as the one used by Palm Beach County......... To arrive at those numbers, elections workers in some cases had to scrutinize the perforated boxes - which measure oneeighth of an inch by one-sixteenth of an inch - to try to determine whether a voter meant to punch the rectangle all the way through or perhaps began punching it and then reconsidered........ If a ballot was punched enough to allow light to shine through it, the ballot was counted, LePore said. "We were trying to be very consistent on everything," LePore said......... In precinct 171A, the city's Rainberry Bay neighborhood, each candidate picked up a vote when LePore and Perez decided that, although voters had failed to punch out the appropriate rectangles, holes had been punched near the candidates' numbers, signalling an intent to vote for one candidate or the other........ At each of the county's voting machines, a sign instructs voters to look at the back of their ballot card after voting to make sure all holes are clearly punched. "Pull off any partially punched 'chips' that might be hanging," the instructions say......"The voter has to take some responsibility" for marking the ballot correctly, LePore said....." National Review 11/21/00 John Hood ".....During oral argument before the Florida supreme court about the election-certification deadline and the propriety of hand counting, GOP attorney Michael Carvin was pressed hard by two justices on the question of selective hand counts in Democratic counties. The remedy, they suggested to Carvin, for selective hand counting would seem to be a statewide count, which Bush could have initiated. "Was there something that prevented your client from requesting recounts in the other counties?" they asked. ...... .......... But Carvin's answer to the Florida justices offers insight into what the campaign may really be up to. He warned that "federal law will not allow this court or the Florida legislature to change the rules of the election after the election has taken place.". ........ I'm betting, however, that the Bush forces have carefully studied a five-year-old decision by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which meets in Atlanta and governs Florida. It's called Roe v. State of Alabama, and may end up rivaling another Roe case in notoriety. ....." National Review 11/21/00 John Hood ".....Here's what happened in a nutshell. Two 1994 statewide elections in Alabama - for state treasurer and, ironically, for chief justice of the state supreme court - were extremely close. In deciding the winners, the issue of how to handle absentee ballots arose. Alabama had a statute on the books that allowed absentee ballots to be included in certified election results only if they were enclosed in an envelope bearing the signatures of 1) the voter and 2) either a notary public or two witnesses. But Democratic election officials attempted to count absentee ballots in the 1994 election that had only the signature of the voter on the envelope. It appeared likely that counting these ballots would confirm a small lead by the Democratic candidate for treasurer and possibly overturn a Republican victory in the chief justice race. ......... Democrats prevailed in the state courts. A state trial court ordered the contested absentee ballots to be counted. But plaintiff Larry Roe, representing voters in the November election, went to federal district court arguing that counting the questionable ballots would dilute the legitimate votes cast in the election and thus would violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ....... Not surprisingly, the high court in Alabama - which, like the Florida court, had a reputation for liberalism - decided that it was okay to count the ballots despite their lack of appropriate signatures. The decision was based in part on the argument that some of Alabama's 67 counties had counted such ballots in the past. Fortunately, the 11th Circuit didn't accept the state court's response at face value, and ordered the federal district court to determine the facts. After a three-day trial and the testimony of 48 witnesses, the district court ruled that in all but one county, the practice prior to the November 1994 election had been uniformly to exclude the ballots. The Alabama supreme court's finding to the contrary had been based on affidavits from local elections officials who subsequently offered very different testimony in federal court. In October 1995, the 11th Circuit upheld the district court's ruling and ordered the contested ballots excluded from the totals (except for those in the one county that had previously counted them, but it didn't change the result). Relevant to the presidential tussle in Florida is the clear lesson of the Roe case: that states cannot effectively change the process of counting votes after an election, which the state courts in Alabama tried to do. Moreover, the 11th Circuit specifically rejected the claim that Alabama's vote-counting procedures did not invite federal scrutiny because they didn't involve federal constitutional issues. The appeals court, which

would have jurisdiction in Florida litigation, recognized that Fourteenth Amendment issues were present when a state attempted to change retroactively its electoral process. ...." Miami Herald 11/21/00 Mark Silva ".....Even if Al Gore wins a victory before the Florida Supreme Court and manual vote tallies in South Florida are allowed to continue, it may not matter. ...... Vote totals announced by canvassing boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties, after several days of counting, show scant Gore gains. That has raised questions about whether the hand recount will produce enough votes to push Gore past George W. Bush's current lead of 930 votes. ........ Democrats are pinning their hopes on new totals from Miami-Dade County, which began its count Monday, and on convincing the election canvassing board in Palm Beach to adopt a more liberal interpretation of what should be counted as a vote. ....... Privately, Democrats say Gore's hope rests with a broad interpretation of what ballots can be recounted. ``The most important issue for Gore is, will the Supreme Court provide a standard?'' said a prominent Florida Democrat, who has told the candidate the same thing. ``The whole key to the election rests on the ballots that have been set aside'' for possible consideration later. ``If it's just a straight recount and there is no guidance to count a variety of ballots, then it's clear Gore does not have enough.'' ......" Miami Herald 11/21/00 Mark Silva "..... Democrats contend that counters have passed over hundreds of ``dimpled'' ballots that, if counted, would favor Gore. Lawyer Dennis Newman cited 276 dimpled ballots for Gore and 73 for Bush. Democrats are seeking a judge's order to force the county to count these. ....... The canvassing board overseeing the recount says it is following a consistent standard: If a ballot has multiple instances of dimpling, it counts it. If only the presidential vote is dimpled, it doesn't. ......." Miami Herald 11/21/00 Mark Silva "..... In Broward, with ballots from 544 of 609 precincts recounted, Gore had gained a net 117 votes over last week's official tallies. County elections officials have decided to revisit ``undervotes'' -- those that appeared to have no vote in the presidential race -- not included in the full manual recount. The hundreds of undervote ballots, including those with dimpled chads, could increase Gore's lead in Broward. ....." Miami Herald 11/21/00 Mark Silva "..... In Miami-Dade, Gore had picked up a net 46 votes by early Monday evening, with 67 of 614 precincts counted. Dade officials are counting so-called dimpled ballots as votes, and said both Miami Herald 11/21/00 Mark Silva "..... Privately, Gore partisans acknowledge concern about how the ballots are handled. ``For a while, it looked fine,'' Scher said. ``Maybe there were votes there that were being withheld. But now it's starting to look like this is looking for needles in a haystack. It's not going to happen.'' ...... ``It seems to me if the Florida Supreme Court really wants to contribute to this process, they will look for a graceful way to end this,'' Scher said. ``They can read the numbers.'' ....." Wall Street Journal 11/20/00 Cleta Mitchel Freeper angkor "..... We are very fortunate in DC Metro to have Cleta's guest appearances on WMAL radio during drivetime. Yesterday (after the FSC debacle) Cleta noted that (a) the selective recount of APO ballots is a felony under the U.S. Code, and that (b) changing the rules of the game also is a violation of federal election statutes. ....." 11/20/00 Cleta Mitchell ".......In case you're bewildered by the machinations of the Gore campaign-turnedlaw-firm, let there be no doubt that the goings on in Florida are perfectly in keeping with the way Democrats normally think and behave. Lawsuits are a key part of the Democrats' political strategy, so nothing about Florida should surprise anyone who has spent time in the Democratic Party. ...... Until 1995, I was a Democrat. I've been a Democrat elected official, a party official and an active party member, so I know how Democrats think. ........ Rule 1: If we don't win, we don't eat. ....... The fundamental motivation for Democrats is their understanding that winning control of government is tied to paychecks, jobs, government grants, public money for private groups and companies, government contracts, union bargaining advantages, rules by which trial lawyers bring lawsuits, and on and on. ...... Rule 2: State courts are "home" to Democrats. ....... There is a reason why, of the more than two dozen lawsuits filed in Florida by various Democrats, virtually all have been filed in state courts. Democrats are at home in the state courts. It is where the judges are elected, often on partisan ballots. And the trial lawyers are the most ardent in overseeing who fills and keeps judicial positions. Trial lawyers normally hate federal court, where rules are more strict and standards much higher, and where attorneys can be, and often are, punished for filing frivolous lawsuits. ...... Rule 3, the "golden rule": He who makes the rules wins the gold. ......... The post-election fight in Florida is the best evidence in my lifetime of the absolute supremacy of the rules-as-gold principle. Democrats understand impressively well that the rules, the regulations, the procedures and the processes will almost always dictate the outcome. In a nutshell, rules provide victories--or defeats. Because the statutory process in Florida did not provide the result the Democrats wanted, they knew it was imperative to change the rules

after the election....... Changing the rules is why the Gore campaign dispatched lawyers and organizers to Florida in the early morning hours of election night--because the rules had to be rewritten under public pressure, either through executive or judicial decisions, in order for Al Gore to prevail. ...... Changing the rules required a massive public relations effort by the Gore campaign to discredit the rules and procedures under which elections are normally conducted in the state of Florida. Changing the rules was the objective in the Gore campaign's vilification of Katherine Harris, the Republican secretary of state, for enforcing the existing laws and rules. ......." Drudge Report 11/21/00 UPI "......A Texas lawyer said Tuesday he planned to file a lawsuit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court alleging hundreds in the military were denied their right to vote Nov. 7 because of widespread voter fraud. San Antonio attorney Phillip E. Jones said he would carry the lawsuit to Washington to file it directly with the nation's highest court "because it's so important." The U.S. Supreme Court will accept such cases if time is a factor and the government is a defendant, he said. "There have been large groups of military personnel who either didn't get their ballots when they ordered them in a timely fashion, or had their ballot intercepted and altered," he said. Jones said his class action lawsuit would be filed by Wednesday on behalf of 350 named plaintiffs, including members of all branches of the service stationed in the United States and abroad. But he said there is a "good possibility" that tens of thousands of people are affected, including "a large percentage claiming legal residence in the state of Florida, which could paint a whole new picture for this election." .......... Many in the military stationed abroad or at bases in the United States list Florida or Texas as their state of legal residence because neither has a state income tax. ....."We will ask the court, if they're going to hold up the votes in Florida anyway, that these people be allowed to have their registered voter cards sent to them by air mail, fill 'em out, and airmail them back, and they can include those in the final count," Jones said. ......." New York Post 11/21/00 Rod Dreher "......WHILE all eyes are on Tallahassee, Susan Estes is at home in Wichita, Kan., quietly nursing her newborn and preparing to cast her Electoral College ballot next month for George W. Bush. She's also "going to be a lot more careful about who I open my door to." Why? Because yesterday, the Republican mom found out that her name, address and phone number have been posted on a Web site encouraging people to contact her about changing her vote to Al Gore. "It does make me a little nervous, but I am a strong supporter of government in the sunshine, so I guess if I'm going to be willing to put myself out in public, I suppose I bargained for this," said Estes, who was until recently chairman of her county's GOP. Still, she and her two little ones have been made vulnerable to any lunatic who has access to the Internet and a desire to keep Bush out of the White House. ..." 11th Circuit 11/22/00 Freeper CWW "..... Contrary to popular belief, the Bush 11th Circuit case is not dead. It is very much alive. In fact, several states have filed amicus briefs over the past several days. Please read the Amicus Brief by Bill Pryor, the AG for Alabama. AG Pryor is responsible for most of the caselaw of the 11th Circuit regarding elections and counting ballots. You will be very encouraged by his brief. Pryor is a rising star in the Republican Party and is a legal wizard. He's also a very good friend and collegue. Here's the web site: http://www.ago.state.al.us/documents/flbrief2.pdf ...." UPI 11/21/00 ".....The Supreme Court of Florida Tuesday unanimously ruled that the Florida Secretary of State must include the esults of manual ballot recounts in the state's total presidential tally, boosting the chances of Vice President Al Gore to overcome the slim lead held by Gov. George W. Bush in the state that will likely decide the presidential election outcome........ The recounts now taking place will be accepted until 9 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 27........ "The right of the people to cast their vote is the paramount concern overriding all others," the court said......... Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, offered his reaction to the ruling. "I am concerned that every election board is controlled by Democrats. This is not just a local issue. This involves the president of the United States, this involves the constitution, this involves the future of our country... I can live with whatever happens. By gosh, there are a lot of constitutional matters involved and some new ones that were raised tonight."........ " Freeper sdkhaki "..... Miami-Dade is counting chads. Palm Beach and Broward are not. Both want to desparately. If they don't then Gore runs the risk of coming up short.......If they change their standards they will play right into Bush's federal appeals court case. See the amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by the Alabama AG....... If the 3 counties use different standards it adds an extra level of disparity between how votes are counted which helps his 14th Amendment argument........And of course there is the question of whether counting dimples is a new standard in Miami-Dade or a special brew just to help Algore. Standby...if Bush stays the course he still might have the upper hand. ...." MSNBC 11/21/00 Freeper kdemar "...... Tim Russert expects the Florida Legislature to respond following tonites ruling. He thinks that there is a chance that they will end this election themselves. This opinion was also echoed by MSNBC's election law expert. If the legislature becomes involved they do have the power

choose electors for the state. ...." AP 11/21/00 Ron Fournier "..... Election workers plowed over ballots into the night Tuesday, freed by the state Supreme Court to recount votes at the behest of Al Gore, who is trying to overtake George W. Bush in Florida and seize the White House in one of the nation's closest presidential elections. ...... ''So keep on counting,'' Palm Beach county elections chief Charles Burton told his weary troops. ....... In an unanimous opinion, the seven justices, all appointed by Democratic judges, said: ''An accurate vote count is one of the essential foundations of our democracy.'' The work of people, they said, is more just than machines. ''Twenty five years ago this court commented that the will of the people, not the hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions, should be our guiding principle in elections,'' read the court ruling. ........ ''We'll be able to meet the deadline,'' Burton said as televisions in the West Palm Beach counting room showed the Supreme Court spokesman releasing the decision, but the audio was turned off. Workers continued to hand count the ballots. Broward County officials said they would forge ahead with the counting, maybe even working on Thanksgiving to meet the new deadline. .......The ruling did not set standards for country election officials to determine the validity of ballots -- a key issue as Gore scrambles for each and every vote. He wants county official to have wide latitude. ......... While calling a 1990 Illinois Supreme Court decision that endorses the counting of partially punched chads ''particularly apt,'' the Florida court passed up the chance to set up its own standard for deciding which ballots must be allowed. .......''We decline to rule more expansively,'' the court concluded, ''for to do so would result in this court substantially rewriting the code. We leave that matter to the sound discretion of the body best equipped to address it -- the legislature.'' ......" AP 11/21/00 Ron Fournier "..... The justices said they were hesitant to rewrite the Florida Election Code on the issue of manual recounts and instead sought ''a fair and expeditious resolution'' of the immediate issue -a deadline for filing recounts. ....... Democrats welcomed the decision, but privately worried that Republicans would slow down the recount process to make it difficult for Gore to overtake Bush before the deadline. ....." AP 11/21/00 Ron Fournier ".....In advance of the ruling, Republican lawyers prepared to take an emergency appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court in case the Florida court rules against them. ...... Gore had picked up 266 votes in recounts by late Tuesday, which if approved by the courts and added to official state totals would shave Bush's lead to 664 votes out of 6 million cast. Bush has held his own in at least one of the counties, raising fears among Democrats that they will not overtake the Texas governor unless every possible ballot is counted. ....." AP 11/21/00 Ron Fournier ".....Democrats want three county canvassing boards to count hundreds of punch-card ballots with no holes poked out for the presidential race, giving Gore or Bush a vote when an indentation is found next to their name. With the Texas Republican clinging to a 930-vote lead, the vice president's advisers said they almost certainly can't win Florida and the White House unless county officials discern the intent of voters whose ballots were not properly punched. ......... In Broward County, where up to 2,000 questionable ballots were set aside for review later, officials asked the Supreme Court to set a uniform standard for validating ballots. ''It is imperative that it be resolved immediately,'' the brief said. Both sides acknowledged Tuesday that Gore stands to pick up hundreds of votes -- perhaps as many as 1,500 with the most liberal approval standards. The three counties conducting recounts are predominantly Democratic, and voters from Gore's party historically cast more faulty ballots than their GOP counterparts. ......" AP 11/21/00 Ron Fournier "..... A senior Bush adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in advance of the ruling that Republicans were likely to sue to reinstate rejected absentee ballots from military outposts if the Supreme Court allows recounts to go forward. Democrats waged a county-by-county campaign to toss out the absentee votes, a majority of which were Republican, but rolled back on their objections to the military ballots after coming under heavy criticism. ........" FoxNews 11/21/00 Freeper CarolAnn "..... The discression of Sec. of State, Katherine Harris is still intact. According to the Supreme Court: The Secretary may ignore such returns only if their inclusion will compromise the integrity of the electoral process in either of two ways: (1) by precluding a candidate, elector, or taxpayer from contesting the certification of election pursuant to section 102.168; or (2)........... #1 is paramount. According to Florida law (per FoxNews), a candidate must be left 22-27 days to contest the election. That deadline passed on Monday. Could this mean they are still counting in vain? Your opinion? ....." Freeper thorstein "......The provisions of the opinion which grant extra time to file amended returns are prefaced by a statement that such provisions are necessary to ensure resolution of the "questions presented here." A footnote to this statement explains that the court inquired as to whether the candidates were interested in the court considering recounts in additional counties and states that neither party requested such opportunity. The footnote would be meaningless if it did not mean that recounts could not be considered in other counties if the deadlines had passed. The only relevant parties to the case are Broward

and Palm Beach, and not Miami-Dade (see footnote 3). The decision goes on to say that "such" amended returns must be filed by the Nov. 26 deadline (i.e., only the returns at issue in the case). Remember that during oral arguments at least one of the justices specifically mentioned that dade had not started recounting within the original required time period. ....." PRNewswire 11/21/00 "......House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) issued the following statement tonight concerning the Florida State Supreme Court's decision on the presidential election recount: "The decision of the Florida Supreme Court amounts to a blatant and extraordinary abuse of judicial power. "The people of Florida elect a legislature to write laws and an executive branch to implement those laws. With this decision, a collection of liberal activists has arbitrarily swept away thoughtfully designed statutes ensuring free and fair elections and replaced them with their own political opinions. "The Court's action is intrusive, anti-democratic, and contemptuous of self-government. ........ "The Florida Supreme Court seems to believe that it is supreme with respect to all the institutions of Florida state government and, therefore, may summarily disregard the prerogatives of the executive and legislative branches. This view is as arrogant as it is mistaken. ..... "I hope this misguided ruling will be vigorously challenged." ...." The Law CJ Barr 11/21/00 Freeper FlameThrower "..... This decision by the Florida Supreme Court is actually good news -- if the Republicans have the nerve to play this game to the end........ It would have been better news had the Court stepped up to its responsibilities and ruled responsibly. But they did not. Even a cursory read of the tortured logic and hair splitting in their opinion leaves one certain that the decision was reached first and the justification cobbled together later. ........ But of all the bad outcomes that one had to expect from this arrogant and dim-witted Court, this one is about as good as it gets. Out of sheer stupidity they have, in trying to deliver the State to Gore, handed the Republicans a sure victory. ........Florida is Bush's if the Republicans have the nerve to take it! Title 3 -- Chapter 1 is the controlling legal authority in this matter. Section 5 was a real problem for any effort to trump the Florida Courts in the State legislature or the U.S. Congress. Sec. 5. Determination of controversy as to appointment of electors If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned. It is unlikely that the Florida Supreme Court knows this Section, for they have just rendered it ineffective in this election. And they did so even more starkly than they had to. They held the deadline open until, effectively, 27 November 2000. Title 3 -- Chapter 1 -- Section 5 requires two things: that the electors be certified by 12 December and that the contest process be as set forth by legislation enacted prior to the election. In their magnificent thick headedness, the Florida Supreme Court has set up a new scheme that cannot satisfy both requirements. Section 5 no longer applies to Florida's electors in this election. Sec. 2. Failure to make choice on prescribed day Whenever any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct.

of such State may direct. Before the Court intervened, Section 5 trumped Section 2. Now section 2 applies. The legislature of Florida can act without hindrance. And, in fact, they must act. The process for determining electors has been compromised. No electors have been selected. And no electors can be selected under the legislatively determined scheme because there is not sufficient time to do the contest process. If the court had ordered the Secretary of State to certify results yesterday and allowed the manual recount to come in during the contest phase, as I feared, it would have been difficult to undo the harm. But not only did they extend the deadline, they specifically extended the injunction against certification! By doing this, they have made legislative intervention necessary and almost inevitable. Almost, because Republicans generally lack the will to fight. Let us hope Florida Republicans have learned how over the last two weeks. Associated Press 11/21/00 David Royse ".....The Florida Supreme Court declined to directly rule on whether to count ballots that aren't fully punched. But the justices pointed election officials to an Illinois ruling that such ballots could be counted if the voters' intention could be determined with ``reasonable certainty.'' ........ The seven justices called the 1990 Illinois Supreme Court decision ``particularly apt in this case'' even as they declined Tuesday night to set their own standard for Florida. ``We decline to rule more expansively,'' the court said, ``for to do so would result in this court substantially rewriting the code. We leave that matter to the sound discretion of the body best equipped to address it - the Legislature.'' ........ The Florida justices cited extensively from the Illinois case, something Al Gore's supporters will likely tout. ....... With Gore trailing George W. Bush by 930 votes, Democrats are pressuring election officials in three South Florida counties to count ``dimpled'' chad ballots as valid votes. Dimpled ballots are those on which a punch card has a bump, as if someone meant or tried to punch out the perforation to indicate a choice for president. ......" Associated Press 11/21/00 David Royse ".....Dennis Newman, a Democratic lawyer, said that in Palm Beach County, with 176 out of 531 precincts counted, 557 dimpled ballots were in Gore's stack and 260 in Bush's. ...... So far, dimpled ballots have not been considered in the county's recount figures, despite Democrats' objections. Palm Beach has worked since 1990 under a rule saying that at least one corner of the chad must be dislodged for a ballot to count. A hearing is scheduled Wednesday in Palm Beach Circuit Court on a motion by Democrats seeking to force the canvassing board to consider dimpled ballots. ....... On Tuesday alone, Palm Beach County set aside 1,979 questionable ballots, including dimpled ones, for further review. ..... In Broward County, 1,000 to 2,000 questionable ballots were set aside in the manual count of all 609 precincts. Canvassing board members did not plan to review those ballots until 45,000 absentee votes were recounted. .......In Miami-Dade, the canvassing board was reviewing approximately 10,750 ``undervoted'' ballots on which no vote was registered by the machines. Board members didn't want the regular counting teams to use their discretion in determining what constituted a vote. ....." FoxNews 11/21/00 O'Reilly Factor Freeper kdemar "...... Rep Joe Scarborough from Florida has just said on the O'Reily Factor that he spoke to the Speaker of the house in the Florida legislature, who expects action to be taken by the legislature very soon. In Rep. Scarboroughs words "the legislature will declare war against the activist Florida Supreme Court". Mr. Scarborough states that the speaker still thinks that Gov. Bush will when without legislative intervention, but said that presure is mounting tonite for such invervention in response to tonites high court ruling. ....." UPI 11/21/00 ".....Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore on Tuesday night hailed the Florida Supreme Court decision to include recounts in the final state tally as a victory for democracy, called for a meeting with Republican George W. Bush to demonstrate unity to the country, and said he would disavow any attempts to sway electors from switching votes in the Electoral College........ "The Florida Supreme Court has now spoken and we will move forward now with a full, fair and accurate count of the ballots in question. I don't know what those ballots will show. I don't know whether Governor Bush or I will prevail. But we do know that our democracy is the winner tonight........"Now that we know the process will continue, I once again urge that Governor Bush and I meet to demonstrate the essential unity that keeps America strong and free. Together, let us testify to the truth that our country is more important than victory......."Both Governor Bush and I should urge all our supporters to refrain from any comments, including comments on this evening's decision by the Florida Supreme Court, that could make it harder for us to come together as one nation when the process is completed........" James Baker 11/21/00 Freeper Bcrago66 "...... "One should not be surprised if the Florida Legislature steps in and reaffirms the original rules." Bakers is also denouncinf the switching, subjective handcounting standards, leading to "dimpled chads." Finally, a Republican with some guts!! If this is a war, I am glad that we have begum to fight! ......" CBS Radio 11/21/00 Freeper Wil H ".....So says James Baker. Can we expect the legislature to act tomorrow and correct the injustices bought upon us tonight?? Let's all pray for that. ...."

Freeper richwolo "...James Baker is fending of the whiner's questions quite well. I guess GWB has given him the free rein to fight. ....." Freeper LadyLiberty ".... He's fighting mad like me!!! These justices practically excoriated Secretary Harris in their written opinion, chastising her for not using proper or moral discretion. This is a kangaroo court if ever there was one! ..." UPI 11/22/00 Kathy Gambrell "......Former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker denounced late Tuesday the Florida Supreme Court ruling that hand-counted presidential election ballots must be included in the state's final tally, saying that Texas Gov. George Bush may seek relief in the state legislature....... "At Monday's oral argument before the Florida Supreme Court, Justice Harding asked a key question about Florida's electoral laws and standards: 'Is it right to change the rules in the middle of the game?' The Florida Supreme Court and some Democratic county electoral boards have now decided to do just that," said Baker, a lead spokesman for the Republican presidential candidate............ He said the U.S. Constitution provides a detailed statutory system governing election law and strikes a balance in permitting recounts with meeting deadlines for certifying ballots. "Today the Florida Supreme Court rewrote the legislature's statutory system, assumed the responsibility of the executive branch and sidestepped the opinion of the trial court as a finder of fact," Baker said....... "In addition, the Gore campaign is working to try to change the counting rules and standards in the three counties still manually recounting, so as to overcome Governor Bush's continuing lead after all the counts and recounts," said Baker......" UPI 11/22/00 Kathy Gambrell James Baker said "...... In keeping with Section 4 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution, Florida's legislature enacted a detailed statutory system for voting, recounting, and certifying results of elections.......... This statutory system reflects careful decisions about the separation of powers among various branches of government. It also strikes a balance between Florida's interests in achieving finality and in permitting multiple recounts by various methods......... Today, Florida's Supreme Court rewrote the legislature's statutory system, assumed the responsibilities of the Executive branch, and side-stepped the opinion of the trial court as the finder of fact. Two weeks after the election, that Court has changed the rules and invented a new system for counting the election results....... One should not now be surprised if the Florida Legislature seeks to affirm the original rules......" UPI 11/22/00 Kathy Gambrell James Baker said "......So they now argue that a punch card vote should count even if there appears to be only an indentation. This of course is the infamous "dimpled chad." At least one of the Democrat-controlled county election boards has already decided to use this new standard, and the others are considering it. No hole in the ballot is necessary. Not even one loose corner is necessary. Not even seeing any light through the ballot is necessary. Even if a voter decided not to make a choice because he or she could not decide between two closely competitive candidates, the Democratic county elections boards can divine a choice based on an apparent indentation...... This new standard for manual recounts directly contradicts a guideline issued November 2, 1990, by Ms. Theresa LaPore, the Democratic Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County. In that statement, Ms. LaPore wrote, and I quote: "But a chad that is fully attached, bearing only an indentation, should not be counted as a vote."......" UPI 11/22/00 Kathy Gambrell James Baker said "...... All of this is unfair and unacceptable. It is not fair to change the election laws of Florida by judicial fiat after the election has been held. It is not fair to change the rules and standards governing the counting or recounting of votes after it appears that one side has concluded that is the only way to get the votes it needs. It is also not fair to refuse to count even once the ballots of many of our servicemen and women overseas. It is simply not fair, ladies and gentlemen, to change the rules either in the middle of the game, or after the game has been played........ Therefore, we intend to examine and consider whatever remedies we may have to correct this unjust result......." FoxNews 11/21/00 Freeper Yankee "...... There was a report on Fox News on 11/15 that Oscaloosa County was in possession of 680 ballots, which they had excluded from their count, because the voters had technically double voted. Each ballot had George Bush selected as well as the Write In section selected, and the name George Bush written in. ..... At the time, the original statutory deadline had passed. .......However, tonights ruling by the Supreme court clearly states: Accordingly, in order to allow maximum time for contests pursuant to section 102.168, amended certifications must be filed with the Elections Canvassing Commission by 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 26, 2000 and the Secretary of State and the Elections Canvassing Commission shall accept any such amended certifications received by 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 26, 2000, provided that the office of the Secretary of State, Division of Elections is open in order to allow receipt thereof. If the office is not open for this special purpose on Sunday, November 26, 2000, then any amended certifications shall be accepted until 9 a.m. on Monday, November 27, 2000. IMHO this ruling should permit Oscaloosa and any other county to amend it's returns. It is absolutely clear beyond a shadow of a doubt what the voters intentions were on these ballots. ....."

Freeper bigred44 in reply to "Does the legislature have authority over the court? " he said "....Absolutely! The Courts can only override the legislature if a statute is determined to be unconstitutional. They just ruled that the SoS misinterpreted the statute. The legislature can reinterpret the statute and shove it up their robes! ....." Associated Press 11/22/00 Dara Kam ".....Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature emerged Tuesday night as a potential avenue of appeal after the state's Supreme Court dealt George W. Bush a major setback. Former Secretary of State James Baker III, representing Bush's cause in Florida, raised the prospect as he condemned the court's ruling. He said the Bush camp wasn't asking for a special session yet, but he hinted such action was being considered. ``I would not be surprised to see the Legislature perhaps take some action to get back to the original statutory provisions,'' Baker said. ........ An influential lawmaker concurred. ``Our power has been challenged, not just for this election,'' said Sen. Daniel Webster, the former speaker of the Florida House who now represents Orlando in the Senate. ``If they can make this arbitrary ruling on this statute, they can make it for anything. They have clearly gone beyond their power and by doing that have jeopardized all laws.'' ......... In doing so, he said, ``it's up to the Legislature to determine a new way to determine electors, not the court.'' ...... Webster said the Legislature, under powers given it by federal election law, could intervene and choose another method of selecting the state's 25 electors, presumably blocking a Gore slate if he won with the recounted votes. ...... Florida's Legislature convened Tuesday morning for an organizational session, then adjourned. In hindsight, Webster said the chamber shouldn't have adjourned. Because it did, a special session will be necessary, he said. ...... In order to call a special session, both chambers would either have to approve it by two-thirds, or get a proclamation from the governor - Bush's brother, Jeb Bush. ..." Freeper justshe 11/21/00 "....Ann Coulter on Fox News said this: Harris is either going to break the legislative law ---- or the FSC imposed law. But either way.....NOT certifying NOW is breaking the law. And in Coulter's opinion...Harris should defy the FSC because there are less consequences to defying THEIR law then there is for defying the legislative law. Sounds good to me. ....." From Freeper doug from upland "..... The 2000 Florida Statutes Title III LEGISLATIVE BRANCH; COMMISSIONS Chapter 11 Legislative Organization, Procedures, And Staffing View re Chapter 11.011 Special session; convened by Legislature.-(1) The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, by joint proclamation duly filed with the Department of State, may convene the Legislature in special session pursuant to the authority of s. 3, Art. III of the State Constitution. (2) The Legislature may also be convened in special session in the following manner: When 20 percent of the members of the Legislature shall execute in writing and file with the Department of State their certificates that conditions warrant the convening of the Legislature into special session, the Department of State shall, within 7 days after receiving the requisite number of such certificates, poll the members of the Legislature, and upon the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the members of both houses, shall forthwith fix the day and hour for the convening of such special session. Notice thereof shall be given each member by registered mail within 7 days after receiving the requisite number of said certificates. The time for convening of said session shall not be less than 14 days nor more than 21 days from the date of mailing said notices. In pursuance of said certificates, affirmative vote of the membership, and notice, the Legislature shall convene in special session. Should the Department of State fail to receive the requisite number of said certificates requesting the convening of a special session of the Legislature within a period of 60 days after receipt of the first of said certificates, all certificates previously filed shall be rendered null and void and no special session shall be called, and said certificates shall not be used at any future time for the convening of the Legislature. (3) During any special session convened pursuant to this section, only such legislative business may be transacted as is within the purview of the purpose or purposes stated in the proclamation, the certificates filed with the Secretary of State, or in a communication from the Governor or as is introduced by consent of two-thirds of the membership of each house. Newsmax 11/22/00 "......Around the world, American servicemen are lashing out at Al Gore and the

Democratic Party for challenging 39 percent of the overseas absentee ballots cast by military personnel. Tuesday's Washington Post quotes military personnel as being disgusted, angry and disappointed that their votes might not count. ......"Everybody's talking about it," an Army paratrooper stationed in Italy told the newspaper. "We got ripped off." ......The newspaper also spoke with political and military experts, one of whom said that if Gore were elected president, he would "start with the worst civil-military relations of any president in recent memory." "Unless he takes extraordinary steps, such as speaking out personally, saying unambiguously that it is wrong to do this, I think his goose is cooked," said Peter Feaver, a Duke University expert on politics and the military. ...." Freeper Smedley "...... While the Fla S. Ct has stated that recounts MUST be accepted up until Nov 26th.... ....the Fla S. Ct has ruled in its opinion (p. 38, par 2; see also p.36) that the SoS can ignore handcount returns only if "their inclusion will compromise the integrity in one of two ways: (1) by precluding a candidate, elector or taxpayer from from contesting the certification of the election pursuant to section 102.168; or (2) by precluding Florida voters from participating fully in the Federal electoral process." According to 102.168, this process requires at least 20 days minimum! That means results must be turned in TODAY! Obviously, the Fla S. Ct. is either too stupid to do the math (fuzzy math?) or they are too stupid to rewrite the law? ......" Office of Congressman Joe Scarborough 11/20/00 Freeper Hamilton2 "....I just received this e-mail. "Tonight, the Florida Supreme Court declared war on the rule of law in Florida. Seven radical Democratic lawyers have chosen to ignore the clear intent of Florida's legislative and executive branches." "The will of democratically elected officials has been usurped by a transparently partisan court." "If it is political war they want, it is political war they should get." ......" NY Times 11/22/00 Dirk Johnson "..... "Gore should get up and say, `We made a good run, but it's over,' " Mr. Ramos said. "And we would all think a lot more of him." Hours before the Florida Supreme Court decided that hand recounts could proceed in three heavily Democratic South Florida counties, some of Mr. Gore's supporters, interviewed on their way to work here, seemed to be losing faith in his quest for the White House. ...... Among more than two-dozen Gore supporters, a majority said the vice president was tarnishing his image by continuing to wage a fight for the presidency more than two weeks after Election Day. To be sure, some Democratic voters say the presidency is surely worth a fight. But for many of the dispirited Gore supporters, the turning point came when the vice president turned to the courts to challenge the Florida vote count, a move some scorned as the ultimate litigious gambit in a lawyer-weary nation. For others, the wrangling has simply dragged on too long, stalling an election process that, however imperfect, must deliver a quick resolution. And for some Democrats, it is largely a matter of practical politics. A victory by Mr. Gore, they fear, would by Pyrrhic. As Lillian Atkins, a 33-year-old accountant and a Democrat, put it, "Gore looks like a loser even if he wins."...." CNN - - Politics online 11/21/00 Brooks Jackson "Dimpled ballots. Democrats are saying Florida ballots should be counted where punch cards merely show an indentation. Republicans say it's simply not enough. Texas law specifically allows for counting dimpled ballots if "an indentation on the chad ... is present and indicates a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote." . They count them in other states -including Republican candidate Gov. George W. Bush's state of Texas. Tony Sirvello supervises elections in Harris County -- the largest in Texas -- where punch card ballots like those in the disputed Florida counties have been in use since 1982. "Since we introduced punch cards in Harris county in 1982, I've probably done approximately 50 recounts," says Sirvello, the county administrator of elections. "At the beginning, some of those were electronic. In the last 15 years, most of those have been manual recounts. And in most of those manual recounts, we have counted what the media is calling 'dimpled chads.'" . " WashTimes 11/22/00 Rowan Scarborough ".. The Florida Supreme Court last night may have delivered the White House to Vice President Al Gore. It is unlikely any federal court will overturn the justices' decision to let arduous hand recounts continue in South Florida, legal scholars say. .. Democrats, backed by hundreds of trial lawyers, now have five days to find the 931 votes they need in three Democratic-friendly counties to capture Florida's 25 electoral votes and give Mr. Gore the presidency"The campaign of Republican George W. Bush has considered making a direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the state's highest court rejected its request to stop the recounts. But law professors have said throughout the postelection saga in Florida that federal courts consistently refuse to take cases involving state election laws. The battle for Florida's electoral votes is regulated by state law. .." MSNBC website 11/22/00 Jay Severin " HE MAY NOT be a tiger in the polling places, but Al Gore is unbeatable in the courts. The stunning decision by the Florida State Supreme Court - a total victory for Gore, and a total wipeout for Bush - puts Al Gore right back in the game, and in the lead. ...... In a single day, the Gore team has again gone from deliberating concession strategies to preparing a victory speech. And the Bush "transition" team is figuring out how and whether they can stay in this contest. "

Pensacola News Journal 11/22/00 Brett Norman " No sooner had the state Supreme Court released its decision Tuesday night than U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Pensacola, fired off a statement that a partisan court had declared war on the rule of law in Florida. ``Seven radical Democratic lawyers have chosen to ignore the clear intent of Florida's legislative and executive branches,'' Scarborough said. ``If it's political war they want, it is political war they should get.'' In the wake of the ruling, Scarborough appeared live on ``Hannity and Colmes,'' a Fox News commentary, and lambasted the decision as a wholesale rewrite of Florida's election laws. ``They have declared war against the Florida Legislature, and I would not be surprised to see the Legislature fire back,'' Scarborough said on the show." CNN 11/22/00 ".. Just watched on CNN. A man has been accused of stealing ballots. Police have him surrounded with crime scene tape. He is refusing to open his jacket. The whole scene is in chaos. First Miami. Next the country ." Freeper Rokke Freeper Ligeia ". MSNBC is reporting all hell is breaking loose in Miami-Dade with republicans chanting and banging on doors to see the ballots. They have been locked out and it is being covered! .." CNN 11/22/00 Freeper mn-bush-man ".. CNN just reported that a Demoncrap lawyer is currently surrounded by police outside the counting location after a Republican observer tipped off police that he had smuggled a ballot out of the counting room and that it was in his coat - thus far, the man has refused to allow the police to search his jacket - he says he has a right not to be searched! Stay tuned!! .." Freeper zeebee ".This happened on the 19th floor where the press is being excluded from observing the counting. Police have sealed off the area with crime scene tape .." Freeper Terry Mross ". It's no joke. The board voted to count the dimples in a smaller room with no windows and won't let the republican observers in. They're out in the hall beating on the walls and chanting "Cheaters! Cheaters!" and "Let us see the ballots!" A riot is about to break out. I bet this hurts Jesse's feelings because these people are not even being paid. .." KFYI 11/22/00 Freeper Wil H ".. A member of the Florida House was interviewed on KFYI and gaver the following information. It is becoming "more of a probability than a possibility" that an emergency session will be called. He inndicated that a challenge to dimpled ballots would likely be made, arguing that any full punch on the card shows a voters's ability to correctly vote and a dimple should not therefore imply an intent to vote. Florida house is 77 -43 Republican, the Senate, which is more moderate is 25-15 Republican. He also said they were tabulating the wild inconsistencies going on in the recount. Said that, if called, an emergency session could pull the full house together in a very short period of time, "a few Hours" .." Yahoo 11/22/00 " Republicans responded with a protest and sit-in in the lobby of the county Elections Division. ``Let us see the ballots,'' they shouted, and ``Bush won twice,'' a reference to Election Day totals and a recount conducted in the first few days after Nov. 7. More than a dozen police officers surrounded Geller and led him inside the building to safety. He said later he had a ``training ballot'' used to show people how to count votes. .``It is clearly marked 'training ballot.' I wouldn't have taken something from elections officials that I wasn't supposed to have in front of a room full of screaming Republicans,'' he said. ." AP 11/22/00 David Espo ".. Democrats forced a speedup in the counting of disputed ballots in Miami-Dade County on Wednesday in hopes of boosting Al Gore's vote totals in Florida's contested presidential election, triggering a furious protest by George W. Bush's supporters. The furor broke out as Bush's running mate Dick Cheney was hospitalized in Washington for chest pains. ..The developments occurred against the backdrop of a Florida Supreme Court ruling late Tuesday night that said manual recounts could continue until Sunday in the state that stands to pick the next president. ``This is something if it were not so tragic - if we were not witnessing, in effect, the stealing of a presidential election - it would be laughable,'' said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, whose district includes part of Miami-Dade County. .. Protesters yelled for police to arrest a Democratic attorney, Joe Geller, accusing him of walking out of the tabulation room with a ballot in his back pocket. " Palm Beach Post 11/22/00 Joel Engelhardt ". Amid the swarm of the world press outside the county Emergency Operations Center, Dennis Newman leads the charge to find new votes for Al Gore in the dimples of the Palm Beach County ballot. .. Voters caused those dimples. Dimples should count. Four years ago, in a similar election spat, Newman took a much different stand. Employing his best legal tactics on behalf of a Democrat holding a slight lead in a primary race for Congress, Newman scoffed at the idea of counting the tiny indentations as votes. ........." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/22/00 Brian Crowley "..Florida's Supreme Court, convinced that Secretary of State Katherine Harris ignored the rights of voters, essentially took over the presidential election Tuesday, allowed the hand-counting in three South Florida counties to continue and the results to be turned in by 5

p.m. Sunday. ...... The ruling also was a serious rebuke to the decisions by Harris, a Republican and Bush supporter, whom Democrats believe was working with Bush to prevent the hand counts in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. "To disenfranchise electors . . . as the Secretary in the present case proposes, is unreasonable, unnecessary and violates long-standing law," the Court wrote in its opinion. .. Less than two hours after the decision, Gore said he was grateful. He said the canvassing boards should go forward "with a full, fair and accurate count of the ballots in question," and that the court "wisely set a deadline for the conclusion of the count." .. He also renewed his call to meet with Bush and added, "We should continue to urge our supporters to tone down the rhetoric." . Former Secretary of State James Baker, speaking for Bush, accused the Supreme Court of "changing the rules in the middle of the game." . He also indicated that he "would not be surprised" if the Florida Legislature took action against the Supreme Court decision. Baker flatly refused to rule out further federal court challenges. "They have in affect rewritten the electoral laws of Florida after the election was held," he said. "I'm not assigning political motives. . . . I think the opinion clearly overreaches. I think they did more than interpret the law." .." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/22/00 Brian Crowley "In a further setback for Bush, the court also gave support to counting so-called "dimple ballots." The justices quoted extensively from a 1990 Illinois Supreme Court case that said, "These voters should not be disenfranchised where their intent may be ascertained with reasonable certainty, simply because the chad they punched did not completely dislodge from the ballot. Such a failure may be attributable to the fault of the election authorities, for failing to provide properly perforated paper, or it may be the result of the voter's disability or inadvertence. ...... "Whatever the reason, where the intention of the voter can be fairly and satisfactorily ascertained, that intention should be given effect." .. That Illinois ruling squared neatly with the Florida high court's major concern, expressed in its 43-page opinion, that "an accurate vote count is one of the essential foundations of our democracy." ......" THE PALM BEACH POST 11/22/00 Brian Crowley " David Boies, Gore's lead attorney, said he sees little chance of Bush succeeding in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. "I believe any appeal would be denied," he said. Boies also said he wants Palm Beach County to use the "dimple standard" as is being done in Broward and Miami-Dade. .. "Florida law talks about the voter's intent. . . . It is the intent of the voter, not how the voter manifests that intent," he said. " WFSH radio Niceville/Valparaiso/Destin Florida 11/22/00 ".. News bulletin on a local radio station (WFSH) in Niceville/Valparaiso/Destin, Florida: the Okaloosa County Election Canvassing Board is holding an emergency meeting at 2:00 this afternoon to reconsider some of the military ballots thrown out last weekend and to consider looking at "overvotes". . We had several hundred people in the county who were so eager to vote for Bush that they selected him twice, once by marking the ballot, and a second time by writing in his name. I think these ballots were not counted (at least up to now). My take on this is that they would normally not reopen these matters, but that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling may have provided them some legal justification to do so. The Court's sanctimonious language about the right to vote may come back to haunt them. If they refuse to allow amended returns from Republican counties where the intent of the voter is clear, they will be even more clearly exposed as the political hacks they are. This may also provide additional grounds for appeal. I don't know whether this is an orchestrated effort in a number of counties, or a lone wolf action. .." MSNBC Freeper hawaiian ".. Just reported on MSNBC. Commentator: "Looks like Bush will win it based on this and on Barry Richards' strong argument against dimpled chads." ." CNN 11/22/00 Mike Bechner Freeper summer " Mike Bechner (I think that's his name) just spoke to the CNN report in Talahassee, and here is a brief summary of what he said members of the GOP legislature are telling him: (1) The GOP is "extremely angry" about last night's decision, and they say these judges are "stealing" the election; (2) Plan #1 of the GOP-controled FL Legislature is to begin a session on December 8th, and to stay in session until the close of December 12th, to determine the procedures for choosing the electors for FL; (3) Plan #2 is to go directly to the US Supreme Court -- following a case precedent set in FL in 1992, where a low court's decision was overturned, by the US Supreme Court, and the US SUpreme Court ruled: [get ready folks] That lower court had no business interferring in FL election, as all election laws are the business of the FL legislature, and ONLY the FL legislature. Also, the legislature is planning to return to Tallahassee this Sunday. " Also: Mike Bechner explained the reason the GOP wants to go first to the US Supreme Court, is so that when the FL legislature then DOES choose the 25 electors, the FL legislature can do so without being sued and having the matter then wind up in the US Supreme Court. " Freeper dormee "..Bush is kicking butt! He is speaking about Cheney, the Florida Supreme Court over

stepping their bounds, and wishing the American people a Happy Thanksgiving. He believes that if a FAIR AND ACCURATE COUNT is conducted, he will win the election. He is calling on Algore to stand with him in insisting that the overseas Military ballots all get counted. .." Freeper YaYa123 "..Common ground....the military absentee vote!!! He has called on the Florida Legislature to act!!! HALLYLOOYAYA!!! .." Freeper spectre ". He is calling for Gore, the Vice-President, to support him in the call to count the military ballots. Doing a great job looking and acting Presidential. .." Palm Beach County Hearing on Dimpled Chads (MSNBC.com Video) 11/22/00 Freeper OKC-Mark ".Judge Burton testified that there are multiple instances where counted Vote ballots have Dimpled Chads in addition to the one counted (i.e., clear punch out and simultaneous dimpled chad is still counted as a vote). . If a Dimpled Chad on an Under Vote ballot is defined as a Vote, then a review of all ballots should be required to identify any Votes that also have dimples on other presidential candidates thus making them Over Vote Ballots that should cause them to be thrown out." Freeper TomB ".. I noticed that line of questioning. The Republican atty. seems to be setting up a situation which could invalidate alot of those "dimpled" ballots. The Democrat lawyer, I noticed, later tried to get the judge to agree to allow dimpled overvotes. .." Freeper rep-always "I am a police detective here in Miami Dade. They are calling some of us to downtown. Apparantly the protests are on. I just heard Congressman Diaz Balart and Rudy Garcia speak on spanish radio for people to peaceably head downtown and stop this injustice. .." Washington Post 11/22/00 Rowan Scarborough ".. The Florida Supreme Court last night may have delivered the White House to Vice President Al Gore. It is unlikely any federal court will overturn the justices' decision to let arduous hand recounts continue in South Florida, legal scholars say ." MSNBC - Dade Co. Board 11/22/00 Freeper Vortex " Watching MSNBC live hearing in front of Dade Co. Canvassing board. They are considering calling the whole thing off. They have concerns that they may not be able to even count the unders by Sunday deadline !!!! .." Freeper Amicus Republicae ".. I posted this elsewhere. The fact is, Miami-Dade is not covered by the Supreme Court's order. Footnote 3 of the opinion reads as follows: "We have not discussed the events in Miami-Dade County because Miami-Dade is not a party nor has it sought to intervene in this case." In other words, the opinion only extends to Volusia and Palm Beach Counties. Harris can thus refuse to accept an amended certification from Miami-Dade. Otherwise, Harris would have to accept an amended certification from every county that chose to submit one. That is not to say, however, that Miami-Dade could not obtain an injunction to order her to accept the amended certification. But, that would give the Republicans time to bring separate actions contesting the manner in which the manual recount was conducted or, in the alternative, intervene in the case brought by Miami-Dade against Harris. " Freeper tommytrifecta MSNBC "..I as type this I'm listening to the Chairman of the canvass board expressing doubts about ablity to complete Any kind of recount on time, they are also worried that they told the supreme court that they intended to do a full recount and now the day after a favorable ruling they now have questioned their ability to do even a 10K undervote recount.< Also sounds as if the demonstations that took place earlier in the day has definatley shook them. Now citizens are questioning the legality of only a partial count since the board itself said a week ago that a count of that type would be illegal " Denver Post 11/22/00 Chuck Green "..The mantra from Al Gore's spin camp has been relentless: Every vote must count. And that is a commendable chorus, I suppose - unless the vote comes from an American military grunt serving duty where his mail isn't graced with an appropriate postmark, rather than a lucky Army recruiter who posts his ballot from Highlands Ranch. Then, according to the Goreman's spin camp, not every grunt's vote is equal. .. And so, on close inspection, it has become obvious that not every vote must count. It depends on who casts the vote, how the vote is cast, how many chads the vote hangs from and most important of all - who the vote is for. Some votes count - and some don't. .." UPI 11/22/00 Paul Singer "..In the wake of the Florida Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that counties may submit amended vote tallies in the razor-close presidential election, Texas Gov. George W. Bush got an additional 14-vote cushion from Collier County Wednesday. According to a spokesman in the office of the Collier County Election Supervisor, the county discovered 25 absentee ballots that had not been counted when the initial results were submitted Nov. 14 to the secretary of state. The county tallied the votes at the same time they counted the overseas absentee ballots, but the 25 votes were discounted by the secretary of state The Secretary of State's office Wednesday agreed to accept those 25 votes in light of the court's ruling that counties may submit amended results until 5 p.m. Sunday"

THE PALM BEACH POST 11/22/00 Joel Engelhardt and Noah Bierman, Palm Beach Post Staff Writers "..Palm Beach County's ballot counters say they can meet the 5 p.m. Sunday deadline imposed by the Florida Supreme Court Tuesday night. They were happy to learn their toilsome efforts won't be wasted. And they were relieved that the new deadline won't take away their Thanksgiving holiday. . "We're making pretty good progress," said County Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the three-member canvassing board. "We will put in whatever (time) is necessary." "It's certainly nice to have the highest court in the state be unanimous and say you're doing the right thing," Burton said. . The other major question remained the rejection of dimples, the ballot chads that are indented but not pushed all the way through. The Supreme Court did not directly clear that question; it did, however, quote a 1990 Illinois Supreme Court ruling that said "Voters should not be disenfranchised where their intent may be ascertained with reasonable certainty, simply because the chad they punched did not completely dislodge from the ballot." .. Democrats said they've seen 557 dimpled votes for Gore and 260 for Bush -- all of which the canvassing board has rejected, counting the ballots as no vote at all. ." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/22/00 Joel Engelhardt and Noah Bierman, Palm Beach Post Staff Writers "..Sen. Bob Kerry, D.-Neb., stopped by to counter Republican hits on Democrats for objecting to some military overseas absentee ballots. .. Kerry came at Gore's request, stopping also in Miami-Dade County. He delivered this take on George W. Bush's behavior since Election Day: "He's acting like 'I won and there's no need to go any further' and that's just not the case," Kerry said. " Freeper hellinahandcart ".Also sounds as if the demonstations that took place earlier in the day has definatley shook them. Now citizens are questioning the legality of only a partial count since the board itself said a week ago that a count of that type would be illegal I saw the protestors; I am only sorry they didn't succeed in beating the doors down on camera! I don't believe I have EVER felt so proud of a group of people before.. As for the partial count--the canvassing board took those ballots behind closed doors for over an hour, and God only knows what transpired. A substitution could have been made, with a specially-prepared stack of ballots, for all we know. Those ballots are tainted now. As I watch now, it looks like they may not do the hand count after all; at least the suit in the middle of the canvassing board is sounding that way." MSNBC Freeper Vortex " DADE STOPS ALL COUNTS!!!! Certifies vote!!! ." Freeper Vermonter " Unamimous vote to NOT do a recount! .." Freeper PeterB ".They are notifying the SoS that the they are going the certify the second machine recount. .." Freeper kattracks ".. Cheney had a stent incerted into a small side vessel. There is no evidence of any damage to the heart muscle. After a short hospital stay he will be able to resume a totally normal life. the proceedure lasted approx. 2 hours and he was not under anesthesia. Pure speculation as to whether anything serious could have happened if he had not sought treatment. Remarkably, (doctor's words) there has been minimal change since tests in 1996. .." INDIANA LEGISLATIVE SOURCEBOOK 11/22/00 Freeper XBob "(TUES) MSNBC still can't pronounce his name correctly, but U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer (R) will nevertheless meet with veterans today in Dade County to talk about how their absentee ballots were counted. Rep. Buyer was featured in a live news conference on CNN and MSNBC talking about concerted efforts to disqualify military overseas voters. He says "it appears that a campaign sought to target the military overseas voter, and that is wrong." He is also concerned that Florida laws are being applied instead of federal requirements here. Buyer, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, finds the state requirement for a postmark to be "very disturbing" in light of federal laws and military procedures. "Military personnel cannot control the means by which their ballots are delivered" and should not be disfranchised by how they are ultimately delivered, he says. Rep. Buyer says that he contacted the office of his old friend U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) to get him to urge the canvassing boards to include the military absentees, but got no response." AP-- abcnews.com 11/22/00 "..Doctors operated on Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney on Wednesday to insert a stent inside a heart artery that had narrowed and was causing his chest pain. " The Wall Street Journal 11/22/00 John Fund ".. During this week's oral arguments before the Florida Supreme Court, Justice Major Harding asked about the state's recount of votes: "Is it right to change the rules in the middle of the game?" Sadly, on Tuesday the Florida Supreme Court decided it was. ..Forty years of judicial activism have taken their toll on America's vaunted system of justice. Courts have increasingly become lawmaking bodies rather than interpreters of the law. Now the president of the United States may be chosen on the basis of this kind of judicial overreaching. What is to be done? .." National Review 11/22/00 Larry Kudlow ".. The liberal Florida Supremes have now hijacked the executive branch and impounded the legislative branch of the state of Florida's government. They were able to produce a quick turnaround decision on the Florida vote count, merely by taking David Boies's testimony

produce a quick turnaround decision on the Florida vote count, merely by taking David Boies's testimony and affixing their unanimous signatures at the bottom of it. This, of course, allowed them to get all their holiday shopping done last weekend and still produce a decision. In the spirit of the new Left of the 1960s and early 1970s, the Florida Supremes have taken over the campus administration building, and declared a new liberation government. Next thing you know, they'll be raising tax rates on the top 1 percent of Floridian income earners. .." Freeper cosmo ".Rush pointed out that Gopre said he would abide by the ruling of the supreme court. This ruling has led to Dade not doing the ecount. Glore must abide by it. ." Fox TV News Freeper structure ". 11th Circuit in Atlanta has agreed to hear Bush suit on selective recounts. Date for filing: Nov 27. Gore reply deadline: Nov 28. On the 27th, the court will rule on whether or not they will hear oral arguments. If they rule to hear oral arguments, they will do so at 1pm on Nov 29. ." Rush Radio Show 11/22/00 ".. Rush said that Miami-Dade was about to have to start counting the heavily Cuban areas that voted mostly republican and thats when they stopped and decided to count the undervotes and thats when the Cuban folks and Freepers went ballistic and than they decided to stop the counts completely Rush had a caller who also said the reason why he thought the FLSC set the deadline on Sunday was so the legislature would not have had time to get into session before then. ." CBS Marketwatch 11/22/00 Julie Rannazzisi "..The major averages were swept off their lows Wednesday following a Florida county's decision to halt all manual recounts, a big victory for Republican candidate George W. Bush. The Dow Jones Industrials Average ($DJ: news, msgs) fell 30 points, or 0.3 percent, to 10,462. The biggest downside was seen in shares of Philip Morris, Citigroup, Home Depot and Honeywell. Countering the fall was a 7.8 percent jump in shares of Coca-Cola (KO: news, msgs) after the beverage giant pulled its offer to buy Quaker Oats. Read the full story. The Nasdaq Composite ($COMPQ: news, msgs) dropped 61 points, or 2.2 percent, to 2,809 while the Nasdaq 100 Index fell 36 points, or 1.3 percent, to 2,750. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($SPX: news, msgs) dropped 0.8 percent while the Russell 2000 Index ($RUT: news, msgs) of small-capitalization stocks lost 2.1 percent" AP National 11/22/00 ".. In a stunning turnabout, officials in Florida's Miami-Dade County on Wednesday abruptly called off a manual recount of presidential ballots, dealing a sharp blow to Al Gore's efforts to overtake George W. Bush in the state's contested election. ''I do not believe we have the ability to conduct a full, accurate recount'' under the Sunday deadline fixed by the state Supreme Court on Tuesday night, said Lawrence King, chairman of the three-member canvassing board. .." FoxNews 11/22/00 "..Top Republican lawmakers in the Florida Legislature and the U.S. Congress are looking for ways to override the Sunshine State's Supreme Court decision to allow the inclusion of hand recounts in the final certification of the state's presidential election. In Tallahassee, Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney is reviewing state and federal laws to determine what options are available. Feeney, a Republican, told Fox News Wednesday that he is considering several options. "We are looking at ignoring the state Supreme Court," he said. ...... In Washington, lawmakers are already in battle mode. .. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, has written and begun distributing a letter to fellow Republicans in the House and Senate reminding them that if one senator and one representative object to an elector or slate of electors from a state, a majority vote can reject them. Wednesday morning, aides told Fox News that DeLay is preparing to declare the Supreme Court decision an "arbitrary abuse of power by liberal activist judges to replace Florida's laws and lawmakers with their own opinions." ... This follows a statement last Friday in which DeLay said, "The Democratic Party is prosecuting a war to reverse the results of a fair, free election by any means necessary." .." ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/22/00 " While his legal team considered a possible challenge to the nation's highest court, Republican George W. Bush contended Wednesday the Florida Supreme Court overreached, using the bench to rewrite election law by allowing hand recounts to continue. "Make no mistake," the Texas governor said in a nationally televised statement. "The court rewrote the law." "It changed the result and it did so after the election was over." ." MSNBC 11/22/00 Freeper Bushvictorious " Breaking on MSNBC. Seeking inclusion of overseas military ballots in 14 counties. Greg Jarrett says this is outstanding strategy. After all the lipservice about supporting the military this week, there's no way the Gores can go into court and fight against this. ..That would be a fatal mistake for the Gore campaign to publicly declare war on the military vote. But I guess if it will decide the election...who knows .." Original 11/22/00 Luis Gonzalez " Remember Elian. . How do you feel when your world comes crashing down around you? How do you express the incredible pain of betrayal? How do you rage against a behemoth? I knew there was something terribly wrong as soon as I heard the telephone, it was too early on a Saturday and everyone knew not to wake the children. The message was short and the voice

strained, I don't remember exactly who called, it may have been my brother, it may have been my father, but I remember the message. "They took him, they took Elian." It was a matter of fact statement delivered in a passionless voice. I ran downstairs and turned on the television, and the images there are ones I know I will never forget. It made me nauseous to watch the endless loop of tape, but I watched it through eyes swollen with tears. I screamed silent screams and with clenched fists threw punches at nothing, I wanted to hurt the morning like the morning had hurt me. " Original 11/22/00 Luis Gonzalez " Then I heard the news reporter say the words that brought me to the streets of Little Havana on April 29. I heard him talk about the "defeat" of the Cuban exile community in Miami, there was a hint of a smile on his face and the pain and rage took on a new form. They became a fire. ...... What went on in the streets of Little Havana the Saturday after the raid went largely unreported. There was no live coverage. .. The same media that a week before had stood on twenty-four hour alert reporting the most minute development on one of the most controversial news stories of the year, was conspicuous in its absence. It didn't really matter, it was expected. Two hundred thousand citizens walked Calle Ocho to make a statement. Young and old together like never before. .." Original 11/22/00 Luis Gonzalez " I was awfully proud of my people that day, as I was throughout the entire Elian Gonzalez saga. We brothers, we parents and grandparents. We sons and daughters of the people who gave it all up in the name of Freedom, honored them that day. We marched for the tens of thousands who chose to brave the treacherous straits, and died rather than living without Freedom. We marched for the millions still behind. We marched for the ones buried here and there who will never witness a Cuba free from oppression, the ones who didn't witness the shame brought to America by the Clinton administration. We marched for the right of even the youngest among us to live free. .And a little child lead the way. We stood, two hundred thousand strong, under a clear blue American sky. On that day we drew a line in the sands of History. We stand behind that line today. We are poised and ready for our moment to seize the day, waiting for our opportunity to answer the unjust charges brought against us by the administration and the media. Ready to show the world who we are. " Original 11/22/00 Luis Gonzalez "Next Tuesday, in the first Presidential election of the Millennium my community will rally, and in numbers that will surprise even the best informed pollsters. We will make our voices heard in this, our new home, and like the Americans we are we will make our choice known. Our choice will be the answer to those forces who labeled us as zealots. In the name of America and Freedom we welcome that label. .On election day, as the sun sweeps across our nation.............look for us on the front lines. We stand ready, and we will not falter. We welcome that opportunity. .And we will, overwhelmingly, vote for George W. Bush. .A boy of eleven once loved the dream of America in a land where everything America stood for was officially hated. Today, the man who once was that boy loves the realization of the dream. ..On election day, my thoughts will be the same as they were the day I walked with unlikely patriots on a street in Little Havana. .." Fox News Channel 11/22/00 Freeper Smogger "Breaking developments: 1. Bush authorizes appeal of Florida Supreme Court decision to U.S. Supreme Court. 2. 11th Circut Court of Appeals agrees to hear 14th amendment issue from Bush and voters in Republican counties of Florida. 3. Bush prepares to file suit over military ballots. 4. Miami-Dade votes unanimously to HALT recounts. 5. Judge prepares to rule on dimpled ballots. AP 11/22/00 "..George W. Bush authorized his lawyers Wednesday to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to shut down Florida's ballot recounts in the fiercely competitive presidential race, The Associated Press has learned. The appeal was expected to be lodged later Wednesday, said two Republican officials familiar with the internal deliberations. Bush made the decision after meetings Wednesday with staff and lawyers. " Freeper DontMessWithTexas "As an attorney, I would say that Bush has a real strong argument in front of the Supremes. They clearly have jurisdiction because the have alleged violation of the 14th Amend. The court would hear this as a possible vote dilution case. In other words, the hacks at the FSC effectively gave the voters in PBC, Broward, and Dade more pull in the election, diluting the effect of the votes cast, but not counted in other counties. In addition, the appeal cites violation of Federal law, which forbids the changing of election rules after the fact, which is what the FSC did. .. This could be interesting folks. Gore has ticked off Bush and Jim Baker. Sadaam knows that when you tick off Baker, he can open up one seriously harge can of whoop ass. Bush has also shown that he is willing to scorch with the best of them. . If the recounts do not produce enough votes for Gore, this will still be relevant because it can be used to shut down any additional attempts by the Gorites and the FSC to steal this election. At the same time, by getting a ruling that requires the inclusion of military ballots, they can rub salt in Algore's wounds. By the time this

is done, Bush will not only be POTUS, but Algore will be publiclly ostracized for his attempted coup d'etat, the FSC might just be taken to the woodshed and bunny slapped for their shenanigans, and our men and women in uniform will be able to drive the nail in Al's coffin. The FlLegis. can come in after this all settles down and rewrite the election laws centralizing the review process in the State. To boot, the Legis can cut the budget of the FSC as a token of their appreciation. " RealClear Politics 11/22/00 ".. Gore Unofficial Hand Recount Totals County Precincts Pick Up Broward 609 of 609 + 106 Palm Beach 104 of 531 + 3 Miami-Dade Cancelled N/A Total Pick Up + 109 .." Freeper jlogajan ".CNN is reporting 56 for Gore in Broward with absentee votes being recounted. Don't know if that is final. ." San Jacinto adds "According to TV news reports the "final" tally in Broward is +56 Gore. 1000 to 2000 Questionable ballots left to deal with. .." Freeper Zap Brannigan "..I've seen 2,000 for PBC. Interestingly, Burton argued that the PBC Board does NOT want to count them unless a ballot has dimples for multiple candidates. A lone dimple on a presidential chad won't count according to Burton. The trial judge will review the PBC Board using abuse of discretion criteria, thus, PBC will probably win and Gore lose on this issue. ." Reuters 11/22/00 "..CNN television said on Wednesday that the Bush campaign will lodge an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Florida high court decision allowing hand recounted votes to be included in the final tally of presidential ballots in Florida. "George W. Bush is authorizing his lawyers to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to shut down all hand recounts of Florida ballots," said CNN. .." AP 11/22/00 Terry Spencer " PLANTATION, Fla. (AP) - Broward County election officials agreed Wednesday to sacrifice part of their Thanksgiving holiday to finish a hand recount before a state Supreme Court deadline. The canvassing board decided it can't stop working just "because we wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving instead of finishing what should be done," said Suzanne Gunzburger, a Democrat and member of the Broward County Canvassing Board. .Broward County appeared to be the first of the three counties to complete the process as workers finished recounting all 588,000 ballots from 609 precincts and most of the absentee ballots. The three-member canvassing commission is going through the remaining absentee and questionable ballots. The state Supreme Court has given counties until Sunday to report their recount figures. .." AP 11/22/00 "A former smoker who is beating his lung cancer won a big legal victory from the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled a lower appeals court was wrong to strike down his $750,000 jury award. The Wednesday decision was on a 5-0 vote, with two of the court's justices not participating in the case.. ..." Foxnews via Drudge 11/22/00 " In a major victory for Al Gore's presidential campaign, a Florida circuit judge ruled Wednesday afternoon that Palm Beach County must consider dimpled chad in its manual recount. Democrats had asked Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga to force the county elections board to use a broader definition of a valid ballot. The dimpled ballots could help Gore gain hundreds of votes in the critical recount. . Labarga's ruling means that Palm Beach County's canvassing board, which has two Democratic members, must consider up to 2,000 questionable ballots that had been set aside while the judge considered the case. Bush, who holds a 930-vote lead over Gore statewide, is battling in court to halt the hand recounts as error-prone. .." 11/22/00 State Rep. Randy Ball Freeper Thanatos "..Representative Ball shares the outrage of the thousands of citizens from Florida House District 29 and from across the nation who have called and written in the aftermath of the Florida Supreme Court's stunning declaration that the Florida Secretary of State may not follow the law and establish a reasonable ballot certification deadline. By ignoring the lawfully imposed deadline established by Katherine Harris, the Supreme Court has allowed Democrat Elections Officials in three south Florida counties to mine the mountain of previously discarded ballots until the election process has been subverted and Al Gore wins the presidential election. It is especially troubling but very clear that the criteria for accepting or rejecting ballots is changing hourly and is guided by no discernable rule or law. Even as I type this release, lawyers are making fantastic suggestions in court that ballot counters should be given the authority to try to deduce the "intent" of the voter in cases where no hole was properly punched or where more than one candidate was selected in the same race. .." Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "..MSNBC reports the same thing - - BAD NEWS FOR GORE. The announcement was carried live by all the networks but was very unclear. They are all scrambling to get clairification on the matter...MSNBC got it right first. 200 that the board can determine "intent", the other 2,000 stay in the trash... " Freeper Dog "This was no Gore victory....this Judge Punted it back..to the canvassing Board ..and told them its up to you guys..LOL .."

Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "..MSNBC - More detail. What the Democrats were looking for was to count every single dimple on the PBC ballots. That is NOT what the PBC board has done. As Judge Burton said in court today, they look at the entire ballot and if the voter "dimpled" on several selections, he interpreted that as "intent". If the only "dimple" was on the Presidential election...they count NOT decern "intent". This looks like a victory for Bush as only about 200 of eligible "multi-dimple" ballots are in play. .." MSNBC 11/21/00 Freeper Terry Mross ".Feeney said one million hits on florida website...200,000 emails....faxes, phone calls, urging them to do their duty to stop this "farce" going on...said attorney is advising them on their constitutional duty...relax, they are on the job! ." Reuters 11/22/00 "In a big blow to Democrat Al Gore as he chases down Republican George W. Bush's lead in Florida, Miami-Dade County election officials completely called off on Wednesday a recount of presidential ballots. County election officials said there was no time to meet a Sunday deadline for the recount result to be in that was set on Tuesday by the state's top court, and so the county would stick with its result from an earlier machine recount. ." Reuters via ABCNews.com Politics Wire 11/22/00 "As every football coach tells his players, "you gotta want it." Right now, the players and fans on Republican George W. Bush"s team seem hungrier, angrier, more passionate and more desperate for victory in the U.S. presidential election than the forces arrayed behind Democrat Al Gore. "I want Gore to win but if he loses I"m fine with that. But my Republican friends are very hungry and don"t even want to hear about the possibility of their guy losing," said Chris Lapetina, a Democratic political consultant. "For the average person on the street who voted for Gore, it wouldn"t be the end of the world if Bush won. Republicans don"t feel the same way," he said. .." CNN Talk Back 11/22/00 " Folks, sentiment has definately swung toward conservatives on the issue of the Florida vote. Democrats are being savaged over this issue. Of all places CNN, USA Communist Central was the scene of yet another drubbing of the vilest of the vile, Lanny (HUHA) Davis. A mid-fifties looking lady just explained to the cameras broadcasting this to the nation, that everyone across this nation receives instructions on how to vote, and it isn't the rest of the nation's citizens responsibility to feel sorry for Palm Beach voters who couldn't follow the rules. This comment received a resounding round of applause. Then Lanny Davis countered that this lady obviously doesn't have a good understanding of the chad issue. With this the audience resoundly booed Davis, who had to appologize and retract the comment. Even the announcer remaked that Davis had gone over the line. .." Freeper Grig ".. I saw it (well actually heard it, I'm getting the online audio feed). It was awsome! Right at the end of the show two guys talked about how they were coaches for sports teams and you do *not* change the rules in the middle of the game. ." Freeper YaYa123 ".. Lanny Davis blew his cover today. When he blasted a female member of the audience, a civilian, not another spinning head, with a personal insult...in short....saying she didn't know what she was talking about....the audience did react. This, as nothing else has, demonstrates the panic, pressure, frustration Team Gore is feeling. Lanny Davis screwed up big time, got off message, in front of a camera. Take heart Freepers!! This is the first time in the last 8 years when The Republican Party, elected Republican officials, and people like us, have been united. The first time we've taken to the streets in total, unified outrage against Clinton/Gore. We are rattling Lanny Davis....let's don't rest till he's behind his desk in the fetal position, sucking his thumb and screaming for his mommy! .." Freeper shagbark ".This is not hyperbole. In precinct 154G of Palm Beach County there are 825 registered Democrats and 654 Repubs. The vote comes out 2024 Gore vs. 195 Bush. Can Someone contact the Bush camp or the RNC and get those Registered Republicans to tell us how they voted? I would really like to know if any of their votes got thrown out and replaced with " dimpled ballots ". .." FOX NEWS 11/22/00 ".. Palm Beach net gain: Gore +2 Broward net gain: Gore +137 (all precincts have beeen counted) .." Freeper Trust but Verify on The Factor 11/22/00 ".. Did anyone see the expert on the SCOTUS, his name was Lash and he's from George Mason University discussing the merits of the case submitted by Bush today? Very, very encouraging! Here's the gist of it as I understood it: The SCOTUS WILL accept the case based on national interest. The court will likely rule that Florida law cannot trump Constitutional law. There is apparently plenty of case law to point to in this judgement. ." AP - Palm Beach Post 11/22/00 Freeper Marcy Gordon ".. Quoting from the AP story found here: "Election officials released results from 217 of 531 precincts Wednesday night, and Republican Bush had gained another 14 votes on Gore over his bare lead in official vote totals released last week." So, Bush now has a +14 advantage in Palm Beach after 217/531! If you also consider the Broward numbers (not including the approximate 2000 questionable ballots), this means that Gore has gained only +123 combined. For those who are wondering, the latest Broward numbers are +137 Gore after 609/609 precincts and 49,715/50,000

absentee ballots have been counted. .." O'Reilly 11/22/00 Freeper tm22721 " O'Reilly just interviewed a FLA State Senator who indicated that the FLA legislature's best option was to petition the SCOTUS to re-affirm their right to select the electors. This would throw out the FLA SC ruling yesterday that extended the November 14th deadline to November 26th. The FLA legislature would not take this action until after the 26th. This means that if Gore is certified on the 26th by the FLA SOS, then the SCOTUS could throw out that certification !! " WEAR TV 3 Pensacola 11/22/00 Freeper jpthomas ".. Transcript of 6:00 pm local TV news item, ABC affiliate station, Pensacola, Florida FIRST TONIGHT... FLORIDA REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO STATE COURT OVER THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. THEY HOPE TO FORCE 13 FLORIDA COUNTIES TO INCLUDE MORE OVERSEAS ABSENTEE BALLOTS IN THEIR TOTALS. . THOSE COUNTIES INCLUDE ESCAMBIA, SANTA ROSA, AND OKALOOSA... WHERE MORE THAN 200 BALLOTS WERE DISQUALIFIED FRIDAY NIGHT. AS CHANNEL THREE'S DAVID DELIMAN REPORTS... LOCAL CANVASSING BOARDS ARE ALREADY STARTING A SECOND LOOK AT THE ABSENTEES. Judge: "Does he want to look at every envelope as we open it?" Attorney: "Yes, your honor, actually we have found a number of them that had no postmark or a late postmark." THE CONFLICT INVOLVING OVERSEAS ABSENTEES SPARKED LEGAL DEBATES ACROSS FLORIDA FRIDAY NIGHT. EACH COUNTY'S CANVASSING BOARD DECIDED WHICH ONES TO KEEP.. AND WHICH ONES TO THROW OUT. Doug Wilkes/Santa Rosa County Supv. of Elections: "The 56 ballots that were rejected were rejected for various reasons. Some of those reasons being that they were not registered here. Obviously, we're not going to count that vote." BALLOTS WERE ALSO DISQUALIFIED IF THEY WERE POSTMARKED AFTER NOVEMBER 7TH... IF THE VOTER SENT TWO BALLOTS, IF THE SIGNATURES DID NOT MATCH THOSE ON FILE, OR IF A WITNESS DID NOT SIGN IT. BUT THE BALLOTS THAT CAUSED THE MOST CONTROVERSY WERE THE ONES POSTMARKED INSIDE THE UNITED STATES. Tom Gilliam/Escambia Republican Party: "Our concern is that some of the ballots were transported by the military, with no postmark, were brought into the U.S and were then postmarked by the United States Post Office, and that act of postmarking the envelopes invalidated the ballots." THAT'S WHY REPUBLICANS ARE CALLING ON ELECTIONS OFFICIALS TO TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT THE REJECTED BALLOTS. BUT DEMOCRATS SAY BOTH SIDES HAD A CHANCE TO ARGUE THEIR CASES LAST WEEK. Juanita Scott/Escambia County Democratic Party: "The canvassing board made a decision based on these arguments based on the advice of their counsel and made a decision accordingly, so I thought that was fair." CANVASSING BOARDS WILL REVIEW THE OVERSEAS BALLOTS BEFORE SUNDAY'S DEADLINE... BUT ELECTIONS OFFICIALS DON'T EXPECT THE RESULTS TO CHANGE VERY MUCH. OKALOOSA'S CANVASSING BOARD REVIEWED THE REJECTED ABSENTEE BALLOTS THIS AFTERNOON. ESCAMBIA AND SANTA ROSA COUNTY ARE BOTH MEETING SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT ONE. ." CNN "Crossfire" 11/22/00 Freeper GovtMustChange ". Harold Ford (D-TN) was startled to see U. S. Citizens in the streets and the Miami-Dade Elections Offices today. I do not believe that Members of Congress thought that our Citizens would take to the streets in protest of Government / BureaucRATic actions. Mr. Ford was obviously frightened of that spectacle. He and other Members of Congress had better get used to hearing the people speak! " Freeper Patriot ".. The Democrats are waking the sleeping giant! " AP 11/22/00 Walter R Mears "The fierce divisions of a presidential election campaign are supposed to have calmed well before Thanksgiving -- but instead, they are escalating. .. Normally restrained lawmakers couldn't take it anymore. ``This cannot stand!'' Senate GOP leader Trent Lott said. .. Al Gore's campaign set about suing election canvassers in Miami, trying to undo their unanimous decision Wednesday to stop counting disallowed ballots in heavily Democratic territory the vice president had figured would boost his count The Supreme Court ruling led to a bitter Republican outcry. Michigan Gov. John Engler, conservative author Bill Bennett and Florida Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said Gore was trying to steal the election. ."

Freeper Birdlady "..Interesting point brought up on local talk-radio this morning.... A guy had been in Fla not too long ago. His group was working in a warehouse where about 150 voting machines were being stored. Of course they ended up "playing" with the machines, and it seems that if more than one ballot was inserted, the first one was "punched"..the second one had a hanging chad, while the third one had a "dimple"....amazing.... Makes one wonder how many ballots were handed to those deemed to be voting the "politically correct" way.....hmmmmmmmm???... " CNN 11/22/00 Freeper Gummit GOPer "..Charles Burton, Palm Beach Canvassing board held a news conference. The Very Best Quote, when asked about the various under-punched holes: There are all kinds of different questionable ballots, some we "have to scratch our heads wondering how they got there." No comment. ;-) " Freeper ftrader "He said that, in his opinion, the way that they have been doing it, ALL ALONG, was in keeping with the judge's ruling. He said this Friday the lawyers would come in and discuss with them THEIR views on the judges ruling, to their panel. He then reiterated that he was sure that their "look at the dimple in relation to the whole ballot" was within the judge's ruling. He and Teresa Lapore [sp] NEED to stand firm. They have a reasoned argument on their side. .." Chicago Suntimes 11/22/00 ".. Court's ruling lets sorry show go on November 22, 2000 Florida's Supreme Court has let the political circus go on. By permitting manual recounts with their changing rules to continue through the weekend, the Democratic-appointed justices handed a major victory to Al Gore. What they did to the integrity of the presidential election remains to be seen. ..The ruling wasn't a major surprise. The activist court had, without even being asked by Gore attorneys, halted certification of the Nov. 7 vote while letting the manual recounts continue. The questioning of lawyers for George W. Bush on Monday was clearly more hostile than that of Gore's attorneys. In an ominous note for Bush, the court cited an Illinois Supreme Court decision that allowed dimpled ballots in a suburban Chicago legislative race 10 years ago. .." FoxNews 11/22/00 Freeper Timmy " He said under the dimpled chad rules the counties (Broward and Palm Beach) are using, even the Democrats admit they will be some 285 votes short, BEST CASE! .." MSNBC 11/22/00 Brian Williams Freeper lowteksh ".. Just reported on MSNBC that the Dems have lost an appeal to force Miami-Dade to recount. One down, two to go... " "Brian Williams: We just learned since we've been on the air tonight that Democrats have lost an appeal to, in effect, make Miami-Dade go ahead and count those by hand ballots. The county says they can't in time and apparently they still won't. " MSNBC 11/22/00 Freepr bootyist-monk ".. Jim Warren of the Chicago Tribune just reported on MSNBC with Chris Matthews that the FSC got it wrong in their reference to the Illinois Suit that they reference in their decision and the dimpled ballots cannot be counted according to the lawsuit. Said it is breaking big on their website and in tomorrow's edition" Freeper pollyg107 ".. As I understood it, it was Gore's lawyers, rather than the Florida Supreme Court, that "got it wrong". The Florida Supreme Court didn't say dimpled ballots had to count, although it did cite the Illinois case relied on so heavily by Gore. Jim Warren said that they had interviewed an Illinois judge who was involved in that case. He was awakened in the middle of the night by Gore lawyer Boies, who solicited him to sign an affidavit stating that the Illinois decision required the counting of dimpled ballots. As Don Imus stated this morning, a close reading of that Illinois decision reveals that the court actually affirmed the trial judge's decision in the Illinois case NOT to count dimpled ballots. This just shows that not only is Gore a liar, his lawyers are liars as well. Lawyers have a very strong ethical obligation not to mislead the court in that way. " Freeper bootyist-monk ".If Boise misled the court, as he clearly did, then this thing is over. The FSC is not going to like being made a fool of, even if they are idiots. ." Freeper angkor ".Fox News interviewed two attorneys from the Illionois case, they both said the FSC misinterpreted the ruling there. The FSC is obviously a lazy bunch of DemoRat hacks. .." Freeper MegaDittoDaddy ".SAW IT TOO ON PMSNBC!!! PAT CADELL SAYS IF THAT BOARD IN BROWARD GETS THIS INFO TOMORROW THAT THEY WERE LIED TO BY BOIES! WATCH OUT!!! GET THIS INFO OUT TO THOSE WHO NEED TO KNOW!!! .." Freeper lavrenti ".Obviously did not read the decision, only the affidavit. A LEXIS search could have turned up the actual opinion but they took Boies at his word and wasted no time in elaborating their POV from that. This is bad for the Gore camp on three fronts: First, this puts Boies, a very important NYC-based attorney, in the ethical hot-seat over obtaining a false affidavit and passing it on to a court as a legitimate document

without at least getting the darn thing vetted; two, it makes the Gore legal team look like corrupt idiots, not just run-of-the-mill Clintonian cretins, but the kind of trashy morons you find in films like Blue Velvet; three, it makes the FSC look STUPID to even their "friends." .." Freepr Smedley ".. THIS IS A RULE 11 VIOLATION The Fed. R. Civ. P. 28 U.S.C. 11 states in part that lawyers who lie or pull the wool over the court's eyes and such rot (I am paraphrasing) can have civil sanctions levied against them. I am sure Fla has an equiv statute! Bush lawyers need to ask for penalties -raise a big stink about how Gore lawyers lied in court! " Chicago Tribune 11/22/00 Freeper zeebee " It was said very quickly live on Hardball. The reporter from Chicago Tribune exposed 2 blockbusters: 1. The original IL decision that Boise depended on in reality stated that no dimpled ballots should be considered. 2. 2 Gore Lawyers called another lawyer and asked him to sign an affidavit to lie about the case. He did and now he says he misspoke. " Freeper apokof2 "..I JUST SAW CHICAGO TRIBUNE REPORTER ALSO. HE SAID THAT THIS IS GOING TO THE BIG BREAKING STORY TOMMORROW FOR CHICAGO TRIBUNE .." Florida 2nd Circuit Court 11/22/00 Freeper sdkhaki "..Bush is suing the following counties...Bay, Brevard, Clay, Collier, Duval, Escambia, Manatee, Hillsborough, Okaloosa, Pasco, Orange, Polk and Santa Rosa. These are heavy military concentration areas. Interestingly enough, Gore has not filed any briefs regarding this case. Surely someone who wants every military vote counted would happily join Bush in this effort. <\sarcasm> " Chicago Tribune 11/23/00 Jan Crawford Greenburg Dan Mihalopoulos "Gore's lawyers focused on the Illinois ruling because the Florida Supreme Court quoted it at length Tuesday night in its decision to allow manual recounts in selected counties to continue. The lawyers suggested that the mention of the Illinois case was a sweeping directive to count controversial "dimpled" ballots, in which ballots were indented but not punched through. But that Illinois case should not give Democrats any confidence that dented ballots will be counted in Gore's favor. That's because the Illinois court actually affirmed a trial judge's order to exclude dented ballots, since he had decided he could not reasonably determine the voters' will by examining the ballots. In fact, in the Illinois case, the dented ballots were not counted at all. . In the Illinois case, the court ruled that a trial judge must look at all the disputed ballots to determine the will of the voters. That's what the Democrats picked up on, stressing that the Florida court approvingly quoted its Illinois equivalent: "Voters should not be disenfranchised where their intent may be ascertained with reasonable certainty, simply because the chad they punched did not completely dislodge from the ballot." .." Chicago Tribune 11/23/00 Jan Crawford Greenburg Dan Mihalopoulos " Late Tuesday, the Gore legal team pressed the issue further, asking a Cook County attorney involved in the Illinois case to sign an affidavit saying that dented ballots were ultimately approved in the Illinois case. The affidavit the attorney signed Wednesday apparently was mistaken in its assertion that such ballots were counted. ...... In fact, in its ruling the Illinois Supreme Court approved the procedures that Cook County Circuit Judge Francis Barth used four days earlier when he refused to accept any dented ballots, even those with, as he said, "definite" or "distinct" dents. Instead, Barth counted most of the ballots that had been perforated enough for light to shine through them, even if the paper tag known as a chad had not fallen out. In rejecting the dented ballots, Barth looked at the condition of the rest of the ballot. If the voter had clearly punched out chads in other contests, he said, the voter knew he had to punch a hole for his vote to count. As such, he said he couldn't make the logical leap that a dent should count as a punch in another race. .. In evaluating the ballots, Barth relied on guidelines in a 4-day-old Illinois Supreme Court order. The high court told Barth to look at the ballots not counted by machines because the chad was not completely dislodged. It then said he should determine whether the voter's intent "can be reasonably ascertained" and, if so, to count the vote. " Chicago Tribune 11/23/00 Jan Crawford Greenburg Dan Mihalopoulos "At one point, Barth noted that lawyers were arguing dents to the point that "fibers were disturbed." But that wasn't enough in one ballot, particularly since the voter had successfully punched the ballot for other candidates, he ruled. Of the 27 disputed ballots the state Supreme Court ordered Barth to examine, he rejected nine dented ballots because, as he said, the dents were insufficient to prove the voter's intent. .. He rejected four others with pinholes that were misaligned, accepted three "hanging chads," in which the perforation was partially attached, and approved five ballots punctured by pinholes. Six disputed ballots were withdrawn. Barth raised practical reasons why he couldn't reasonably ascertain the will of the voter in a ballot that had a dent for one candidate, but clear punches for other candidates in other races. "Can a voter make a dent in the ballot and yet change [his] mind, and decide not to vote for that candidate?" Barth asked attorney Michael Lavelle, lawyer for Republican Penny Pullen, at the hearing. "Yes. I wouldn't say that's not impossible,"

Lavelle responded. "That's quite possible." ......: Chicago Tribune 11/23/00 Jan Crawford Greenburg Dan Mihalopoulos "Late Tuesday night, Gore's top lawyers enlisted Lavelle's aid in the vice president's legal battle. He said attorneys David Boies and Mitchell Berger, a Florida lawyer, awoke him with a phone call shortly before midnight to find out whether he would swear that he remembered the trial judge counting indented ballots. Lavelle, a former chairman of the state and Chicago elections boards, said he signed two identical affidavits early Wednesday and faxed them to Berger, who had told him he needed the papers to file in two county courts. In the affidavits, he said that to the best of his recollection, he believed the judge counted indented ballots, giving Pullen the victory. " Texas Election Code Statutes 11/22/00 ". Liberals have recently called hypocrisy while citing a Texas Law which provides standards for manual recounts in Texas. A quick search of the statutes reveals that the part of the law they are citing WAS NOT signed by Bush and was already law when Bush took office. While it is true that Bush signed an amendment to the election law in 1997, this amendment pertained only to the use of a manual recount and modified only the procedural statutes on recounts found in a completely different section from the manual recount standards. Basically it said that in the 14 counties with punch card systems, a manual recount will be conducted if (1) 2 or more parties are requesting a recount and (2) those parties cannot agree upon what kind of recount to do. Otherwise, a machine recount is done by default. .. Anyhow, the Texas statute cited by the liberals states: 127.130. Manual Counting (a) Electronic system ballots that are not to be counted automatically and the write-in votes not counted at the polling places shall be counted manually at the central counting station. (b) If the automatic counting of electronic system ballots becomes impracticable for any reason, the manager may direct that the ballots be counted manually at the central counting station. (c) The procedure for manual counting is the same as that for regular paper ballots to the extent practicable. The manager is responsible for the manual counting of ballots at the central counting station. (d) Subject to Subsection (e), in any manual count conducted under this code, a vote on a ballot on which a voter indicates a vote by punching a hole in the ballot may not be counted unless: (1) at least two corners of the chad are detached; (2) light is visible through the hole; (3) an indentation on the chad from the stylus or other object is present and indicates a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote; or (4) the chad reflects by other means a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter to vote. (e) Subsection (d) does not supersede any clearly ascertainable intent of the voter The liberals do not include all the facts of this part of the statute they so frequently cite. This uniform code for conducting a manual recount was LAST AMENDED in 1993 and took effect September 1, 1993 - almost a year and a half before Bush took office. The code itself was further enacted January 1, 1986. In BOTH cases, the laws were passed under Democrat legislatures with Democrat Governors. Ann Richards was governor in 1993 and Mark White was Governor in 1986. Both are Democrats. As is typical, the dems have NO EXCUSE for this blatant factual error as it is documented plain as day in the Elections Code. The statute on manual recounts is documented in the following way: Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986. Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 728, 52, eff. Sept. 1, 1993. Let Al, Bugsy, and Boies know that they got caught lying again. And this time, there's no excuse. .." New York Times 11/23/00 "..Following are excerpts from two filings in the United States Supreme Court by the Bush campaign and others, the first seeking expedited handing of an appeal of a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and the second the appeal itself:..Motion to Expedite Consideration ......... The selective manual recount process has unquestionably damaged ballot integrity.

Representative of the county respondents have admitted that the more the ballots are handled, the more chads will fall off, making it more likely that the ballot recount (and any future recount under constitutional standards) will produce different numbers from this cause alone. Observers of the manual recounts have consistently reported that ballots have been bent, prodded, poked and aggressively handled. Ballots have been twisted, crumpled, creased, and dropped; same have been stained with ink with pens, and crushed. In some instances, the ballots were even used as fans.. Unsurprisingly, this aggressive mishandling of ballots, especially after two or more machine counts of the ballots, dislodged large numbers of chads, which littered the floors of the recount rooms. When observers at tempted to memorialize the presence of dislodged chads, Democratic officials and county employees attempted to sweep away the chads rather than have the physical degradation documented The manual recount process is chaotic, hanging and uncertain. Differing and sometimes self-contradictory guidelines were issued and then retracted. Other rules were not communicated to the ballot counters. The inevitable result was a complete lack of uniformity across the four counties and within the counties...." New York Times 11/23/00 "..As Respondent Florida Democratic Party conceded in its Answer Brief in the Florida Supreme Court, "Different canvassing boards are using different standards. In fact, the Florida Democratic Party (F.D.P.) has sued to insure this divergence occurs. .. Other signs of politically driven decision- making proliferate. For example, the Broward County Canvassing Boards originally decided not to authorize a county wide manual recount, but then reversed that decision in a 2-1 vote after extensive political lobbying. Media reports have widely recounted the erratic nature of the various canvassing boards and their decisions whether to proceed with manual re counts. The on-again, off-again process further illustrates the unchecked nature of the County Respondents' discretion, and demonstrates that the recounts do not provide a stable, fair, deliberate and objective counting of ballots. . . . " New York Times 11/23/00 Richard Perez-Pena "..Gov. George W. Bush sued election officials in 13 Florida counties today for rejecting the absentee ballots of members of the military serving abroad, capitalizing on an issue that has been a public relations boon to the Republicans and that could determine the fate of hundreds of votes for the presidency. Republicans have said that on Friday night, when the count of overseas absentee ballots took place, Democrats made a systematic effort to disqualify as many military votes as possible, a charge repeated by Mr. Bush's lawsuit, filed in State Circuit Court here. Overseas votes generally heavily favor the Republican candidate, and Mr. Bush took 62 percent of those that were allowed.." National Review, Orlando Sentinel 11/22/00 Freeper GulliverSwift "..To hear the Democrats talk, one would think spoiled ballots happen only in Palm Beach County. Well, not quite. According to a survey published by the Orlando Sentinel, spoiled ballots are a "fact of life" in presidential elections. In a listing of all 67 counties in Florida, the Sentinel shows that there were 179,855 blank or spoiled ballots (either optical, punch card, or paper/hand) out of 6,137,938 ballots cast. The chart shows how many ballots were for Gov. Bush and how many were for Vice President Gore, what type of ballot they used, and where the ballots were processed. The chart also shows what percentage of ballots in that county were spoiled (most counties had spoilage rates under 2 percent). But, with the exception of just one county (Gadsden), the counties with the highest percentage of spoiled ballots were majority Bush counties. Repeat: Were majority Bush counties. While Palm Beach County, had a spoilage rate of just over 6 percent; many other counties had rates of 8 and 9 percent. Why aren't we hearing about those counties? Ask Bill Daley. ." CNN, FoxNews 11/23/00 Freeper Mississippiman " CNN and Fox are cutting in and out of live coverage of the review of the dimpled ballots in Broward County. They're stealing it right before our eyes and we're apparently powerless to stop it. Ballot after ballot is two Democrats agreeing that it's a vote for Gore while the one Republican protests and is ignored. They're counting dimples for Gore because the other votes on the ballot were for Democrats, as if nobody could've possibly voted for Democrats elsewhere and then not voted for Gore. They just held up a ballot and said something like, "Well, it looks like this person started to vote for Bush, but there's no clear intent. No vote." .." FOX news Fredeper elchilo ".. Just got a glimpse in FOX news of live counting of disputed ballots in Broward This is how it goes (as seen on TV)Three members, while looking at a ballot, guy on the left says "I don't see a vote there", guy in the middle: "yeah I kind of agree", woman on the right: "I disagree, there is a Gore vote there", back to guy in the middle: "oh, I see, ok vote for Gore". Repeat this same scenario six times; that's what they showed in 5 mins. " Freeper Singapore_Yank " It was amazing to watch! They just looked at one ballot with about a dozen clean punches but only a dimple for Gore. The woman on the panel said she thought it was a vote for Gore. The guy on the other side said he didn't think so and then the guy in the middle went along with the woman and gave it to Gore. What is going on in this country? A person can have the strength to make clean

punches on their ballot, but not for president? Give me a break! .." World Net Daily 11/21/00 Bill OReilly " Wait a minute. Am I getting this right? The Florida Supreme Court believes that disputed ballots in three counties handpicked by the Gore campaign should decide who the next president is? The votes of more than 100 million Americans are being put aside and the votes of a few thousand Floridians are the ones that will be decisive? This can't be happening, can it? My God, it is happening! All over America people are confused. How can ballots already counted by a non-biased machine be suddenly pivotal? The decision of the Florida Supreme Court to allow a hand count is staggering in its unfairness to all Americans because in every county in the USA, ballots are discarded for a variety of reasons. And those ballots do not count. Only the rejected ballots in the three South Florida Democratic counties are the exception. " Huntsville Times 11/22/00 Brett Davis "..Florida's Supreme Court overreached in ruling that recounted ballots should be added to Vice President Al Gore's presidential tally, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, said Wednesday. The former Alabama attorney general told reporters that suddenly changing the rules on which ballots can be counted in some Florida counties amounts to ''stuffing the ballot box'' in Gore's favor. ''I think that the Bush team needs to fight it every step of the way, and I'll be with them,'' Sessions said. Sessions was involved in the 1994 dispute over absentee ballots that helped decide the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice race. ......, Republican Perry Hooper eked out a narrow victory over Democrat Sonny Hornsby, but only after 2,000 absentee ballots weren't counted because they weren't signed by a notary or two witnesses. Sessions had argued that the ballots, most of which favored Hornsby, shouldn't be counted. . " CNN.com 11/23/00 John Zeralla and Chris Black & Others ".. Florida appeals court refuses to order MiamiDade to recount ballots ***PARTIAL HAND RECOUNT RETURNS County Net change Broward Gore +137 Palm Beach Gore +2 Total Gore +139 CNN 11/23/00 "Al Gore's hopes of winning the U.S. presidential race have suffered a setback after a court refused a request to force a Florida county to resume a manual recount of votes. Gore's camp immediately said it planned to appeal Wednesday's ruling on the count in Miami-Dade County. The development came as Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush filed petitions asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt hand recounting of votes in three Florida counties. .." The Naples Daily News 11/23/00 Michael Peltier, Tallahassee Correspondent ".While Democrats and Republicans hammer away at each other over the Florida Supreme Court's controversial ruling allowing the ballot recount, Collier County resident Matt Butler continues to press his own case outside the glare of TV lights. . Compared to Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Butler is arguably the least visible of the participants in what has been an internationally tracked battle over hand-counted ballots and Florida's precious 25 electoral votes. Yet the 43-year-old retired trucking company owner said Wednesday he still believes the state's system allowing manual recounts in some cases is unconstitutional and should be struck down. More importantly, he's backing up his assertions with legal challenges that are pending before the state's highest court and may find their way to federal court. "I'm not optimistic but I'm going forward," Butler said. "I just spoke to my attorneys and they seem adamant that we go ahead." ..In a nutshell, Butler said he believes Florida's election law is unconstitutional because it allows votes in some counties to be recounted without allowing all voters a chance to have their ballots recounted. .." NewsMax.com 11/23/00 " The Chicago Tribune reports in today's Thanksgiving edition that a critical Illinois court ruling cited by the Fla. Supreme Court may not have set the precedent Al Gore's lawyers claimed. During arguments before the Fla. Supreme Court, Al Gore's attorneys claimed that an Illinois Supreme Court ruling "was a sweeping directive to count controversial 'dimpled' ballots, in which ballots were indented but not punched through," the paper reported. But the Tribune reported that the "Illinois case should not give Democrats any confidence that dented ballots will be counted in Gore's favor. That's because the Illinois court actually affirmed a trial judge's order to exclude dented ballots, since he had decided he could not reasonably determine the voters' will by examining the ballots." .The Illinois case was referenced in Tuesday night's opinion offered by the Supreme Court, and has been trumpeted by the Gore team as a model for Fla. counties engaged in the manual recount. ." AP 11/23/00 ""A federal district judge on Wednesday denied a plaintiffs' request to send a lawsuit challenging Republican running mate Dick Cheney's status as a Wyoming resident directly to an appellate panel or the U.S. Supreme Court." The suit was filed by Fort Worth lawyer Bill Berenson. To find out more about Bill Berenson, check out his web page at >www.lawyers.com/ber... According to the article, Cheney

changed his voter registration to Wyoming on July 21. .." Reuters 11/23/00 ".Democrats will make a last effort on Friday to convince Palm Beach County that it should hand count more "dimpled" or partially punched ballots for Al Gore, as a Sunday deadline for submitting the vote tallies closes in. A Palm Beach County court decision on Wednesday fell short of the clear order Democrats had sought requiring the counting of virtually all dimpled punchcard ballots cast in the Nov. 7 presidential election. Later, the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board said more than two dozen teams of counters had finished manually recounting the county"s 462,000 presidential ballots. The nation"s Thanksgiving holiday all but closed down activity in Palm Beach County on Thursday, but the board planned to meet Friday at 9 a.m. on Friday to review thousands of questionable ballots. " 11/23/00 Garland Favorito 11/23/00 ". On Tuesday night, November 21, 2000 the Supreme Court of Florida issued what may be the most historic decision of any state Supreme Court in America. The Court ordered that the Florida Secretary of State must accept amended returns after the deadline imposed by Florida law. The order conflicted with federal law, was in direct contradiction with Florida law and even overturned two Florida Court rulings. The state and federal laws are specifically intended to avoid voter fraud. . To issue such an order the court first had to intercede in pending cases to take jurisdiction away from the First District Court of Appeal. The appeals by the Gore campaign and the Volusia County Canvassing Board challenged the Secretary of State's discretion as to whether or not to accept amended returns from the counties after the 7-day deadline from the November 7 election date as imposed by Florida law. .." KFYI 11/26/00 Will H " The Florida Supreme court have agreed to hear arguments as to why Dade County should count the disputed ballots This is asinine,they will have to rule against their own earlier ruling to achieve this. The republicans should take the opportunity to also slap them down over their totally false conclusions that they drew from the Illinois Supreme court case precedent that they cited. .." THE PALM BEACH POST 11/23/00 Mary Ellen Klas S.V. Date ". Published: Thursday, November 23, 2000 Author: PALM BEACH Accusing the state's high court of hijacking Florida's presidential election, top Republican state legislators Wednesday began to think up ways of snatching it back for Texas Gov. George W. Bush. In a statement broadcast on national television, new House Speaker Tom Feeney said the court's ruling showed "an extreme lack of respect" for the legislative process, and the seven justices have potentially brought Florida to the brink of a "constitutional crisis." .. "The judicial branch has clearly overstepped their powers," Feeney said. "The Florida Legislature intends to uphold the Constitution." He refrained from specifying what he is prepared to do but his top deputy, Rep. Mike Fasano, the House Republican leader, said legislators are considering challenging the court's ruling before the nation's high court. " ASSOCIATED PRESS 11/23/00 Russ Bynum "Al Gore picked up votes Thursday in Broward County as election officials spent the Thanksgiving holiday reviewing questionable ballots in the presidential recount. As of early Thursday, the review had resulted in a gain of 76 votes for Democrat Al Gore. All 609 precincts and absentee ballots in Broward have already been recounted. Including those ballots, Gore had picked up a total of 213 votes in the county. The board met in County Judge Robert W. Lee's courtroom in Fort Lauderdale to finish the recount. Working at a long table with party observers and media looking on, election officials spent roughly a minute examining each ballot. "The canvassing board is taking each ballot one-byone," said Gore attorney Charles Lichtman. "They're examining the ballots closely, holding them up. We think the process is moving very smoothly and moving very fairly." " Freeper Symix " CNN Headlines News keep saying that the military votes were not accepted because of the letter Katherine Harris sent prohibiting late or not post-marked returns. Now it was said so many times here on FreeRublic that in her letter she specifically instructed the counties to accept oversee military votes and that they chose to ignore her and to follow the Gore's lawyers demands. What is the truth? CNN Headline News run unopposed - they just anounce things as if they were gospel - too often I hear an obvious bias and slanted opinions discussed as head lines." Freeper PhiKapMom ".. The truth is that Kathyrn Harris sent a memo to all Florida counties telling them under an agreement with the Federal Government, that military overseas ballots did not have to have postmarks. They never even bothered to look at the interior envelope to check for the date the ballot was witnessed. They also tossed aside ballots that were postmarked in the US after coming from overseas. IMHO this was an orchestrated effort on the part of Clinton/Gore and CNN is still trolling for them. I was involved in notifying military personnel from one Florida county that had their ballots rejected from not having a postmark, to being postmarked in Guam (Guam citizens cannot vote but these ballots were from Air Force personnel at Andersen AFB, Guam), to one of the more bizarre disquailfications -- overseas ballots

from Hawaii which were disqualified even through the elections board sent these ballots to Hawaii as a mistake. We had one Marine assigned to an embassy not have his vote counted while four diplomats assigned to that same embassy did -- four votes for Gore. CNN is lying as usual, Harris did sent out a memo with instructions to count this ballots, county boards of elections were quoted as saying that she couldn't tell them what to do (I got that from someone who was present when these military ballots were rejected), and finally the insult of accepting overseas ballots from civilians and the diplomatic corps but not the military. CNN can go jump! .." New York Post 11/23/00 Steve Dunleavy ".THERE is dark anger in the hearts of good men and women in a place where the sun is supposed to be shining all the time. Andrew Colesanti, a former bodyguard in New York for Leona Helmsley, held aloft a sign with simulated blood: "Bush Or Revolution." "I never in a million years thought I'd be out here holding up a sign like this," said Colesanti. "Anger? That's an understatement. The thought of revolution is terrible, but I speak to many people from all walks of life all across the country and it is not far from their minds. . "Gore is dividing this country with his crazy Clintonlike ambition and lies. He and his friend Clinton have done enough dividing. It's about time real people are heard." Matt Hall, a car salesman: "Sadly, there is a potential for normal, serious and good people taking to the streets. ." Washington Post 11/23/00 David Broder "..As rivals Al Gore and George W. Bush pursue aggressive legal tactics to capture the disputed Florida votes that will make one of them president, nervousness is growing among their fellow partisans about the risks they may be running. . The qualms being expressed by some supporters of the vice president and the Texas governor are not likely to affect the full-court press both are applying to secure every advantage before the Sunday evening deadline set by the Florida Supreme Court for completing the hand recount of votes in selected counties. .." NewsMax and RNC 11/23/00 Jim Nicholson ".. Al Gore is attempting to reverse the outcome of the election by any means necessary. That includes tampering with the Electoral College itself. Democrat operatives have begun clandestine background checks on Republican electors already certified from the 29 states George W. Bush won on November 7. They are looking for ways to persuade -- or intimidate -- Republican electors into changing their votes. With Florida's 25 electoral votes, George W. Bush has a total of 271 electoral votes. (270 are needed to win.) That means a shift of three would give Al Gore a majority -and there are people in Gore's camp who seem to think private investigators can sway enough votes to win This is outrageous. Already Al Gore has flooded Florida with lawyers, attempting to win in court what he lost at the ballot box. He is pushing for partisan, rigged recounts in Democrat controlled counties. He is demanding that Florida's election laws be junked so Democrat judges can impose a brand new, ad hoc system to accommodate the Democrats' frantic legal maneuvers. " The Weekly Standard 11/27/00 John Podhoretz " In the person of Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris, the Gore camp and its followers have merged the two key villains of the impeachment battle into one. For the purposes of Gore's postelection spin, Florida's top elections official has been made into an amalgam of Kenneth Starr and Linda Tripp. Harris has been subjected to the same sort of political and personal vilification-though, if anything, the onslaught against her has been far more concentrated. There is no evidence Harris has done anything to deserve this but faithfully execute the laws governing ballot recounts in her state. Too bad for her those laws have proved an impediment to Al Gore's ambition. ." AP 11/23/00 John Heilprin " Vice President Al Gore's lawyers said Thursday he will contest election results from Florida's Miami-Dade County and won't concede defeat in the presidential election, even if George W. Bush remains ahead in votes that are certified Sunday night. The announcement came after the Florida Supreme Court refused to order Miami-Dade County officials to resume handcounting presidential election ballots. " Orlando Sentinel 11/23/00 John Kennedy & Gweneth Shaw "..Angry Republican lawmakers in Florida worked feverishly Wednesday to sidestep or block the state Supreme Court`s presidential ballot ruling, claiming justices crossed a constitutional line and jumped into legal turf reserved for legislators. Led by House Speaker Tom Feeney of Oviedo and Sen. Daniel Webster of Ocoee, lawmakers began floating several ideas that would give the Republican-dominated Legislature a key role in deciding the presidential election in Florida.. One move being considered would allow the Legislature to choose the state`s 25 electors, assuring a victory for George W. Bush. A final strategy likely will emerge by Sunday -- the deadline justices set for hand recounts to be completed in key South Florida counties.The reaction by leading Republicans on Wednesday capped a longstanding feud between the conservative Legislature and the state`s high court.The friction sparked a flurry of legislation last spring aimed at giving lawmakers and Republican Gov. Jeb Bush more authority over the court. In the end, the effort failed.Still, nothing has compared with the outrage Republicans showed Wednesday at the court`s decision that could tip the

election toward Democrat Al Gore" AP 11/23/00 " Miami-Dade County: The canvassing board voted unanimously to stop the county's hand recount Wednesday. Previously, with 135 of 614 precincts recounted, Al Gore had gained 157 votes. But the county no longer plans to ask the state to include that figure in its final returns. Broward County: With all 609 precincts and absentees recounted, Gore has a net gain of 225 votes. That figure includes 88 votes from an ongoing review of up to 2,000 questionable ballots. The canvassing board has reviewed 314 of those ballots and is to resume counting Friday. Palm Beach County: With results released from 217 of 637 precincts recounted, George W. Bush gained 14 votes. Associated Press 11/23/00 Laurie Asseo "Al Gore asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to deny George W. Bush's request that the nation's highest court bar the use of hand-counted presidential election ballots in Florida. In papers filed on Thanksgiving night, Gore's lawyers called Bush's request a ''bald attempt to federalize a state court dispute'' and interfering in the Florida election. " MSNBC 11/23/00 Alex Johnson and Miguel Llanos ".Al Gore's lawyers said Thursday that they will contest election results in Miami-Dade "and perhaps other counties" - no matter who Florida says won its decisive 25 electoral votes. The strategy, outlined after the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Miami-Dade officials could cancel a manual recount of the county's ballots, means the presidency could remain undecided for weeks. ......... MEANWHILE, AS MOST of America took Thanksgiving off, Broward County election officials were back recounting votes. Palm Beach County took Thursday off but will resume its recount Friday morning. " MSNBC 11/23/00 Alex Johnson and Miguel Llanos "Klain said Gore decided not to appeal the Florida Supreme Court's ruling Thursday in favor of Miami-Dade County because the justices gave the campaign enough leeway to stay in state courts. The Gore campaign has criticized Bush for asking federal courts to get involved in a state election process. Klain said that when it ordered Harris earlier Tuesday to accept the late, amended returns from the three counties, the state Supreme Court set the deadline for Sunday expressly to give each side enough time to contest the certified results. ......" Florida Today 11/23/00 Jeff Schweers "Hours after it was named in a lawsuit filed by George W. Bush, the mostly Republican Brevard County election canvassing board reversed itself and broke the seals on 20 disputed overseas ballots Wednesday night and recorded their votes. The result: an additional 14 votes for Bush and six for Al Gore, giving the Republican Texas governor a net gain of eight votes over the Democratic vice president in this hotly contested and closely monitored election. "I'm relieved," said Cynthia Handley, a Republican Party elector from Brevard who wanted to make sure all overseas military personnel got their vote recorded. "This is a step in the right direction." .The job was completed without canvassing board member and County Commissioner Sue Carlson, who complained of heart palpitations and called paramedics to examine her. They took her to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne for further tests after doing an electrocardiogram. .." Freeper Publius "..According to "Anochka", the Democratic big money boys pulled the plug on Gore several days ago and handed out marching orders to their friends in the Establishment Media to encourage him to give up before he embarrasses the party beyond redemption. They are holding their ammo for 2002. ." The American Partisan 11/23/00 J King ".For thirty years, we have grit our teeth and gone about our business. Business which provides the American people with food and goods. Business which provides the elites with tax dollars for their ridiculous programs, their six figure salaries and their comfortable lifetime pensions. For thirty years, we've watched. We've watched while they've trashed our religious beliefs, mocked our patriotism and derided our culture. Watched while they've lied and distorted our nation's history. Watched while they've chained us with the yoke of burdensome governmental regulations. Watched while they've closed off our access to our wild areas. .. We are watching no more. We will not stand by idly while Al Gore and his army of taxpayer funded lawyers attempts to gain for Gore what he couldn't gain on his own - despite the massive vote fraud attempted countrywide by the Democrats. Our guy won, fair and square and he has maintained his lead throughout this circus. If Gore's too psychotic to accept defeat, I suggest that Tipper get an increase in the Prozac prescription. I'll pay for the white coat. We citizens will not tolerate this illegal and immoral attempt at a Gore Coup d'etat. We will not sanction it - not here, not in America. Not here - where our forefathers, seeking religious freedom, carved a nation out of the wilderness. Not here where a bloody band of freezing men without shoes defeated the world's foremost army. Not here - where brothers fought and reconciled over states rights and slavery. Not here - where Iowa farm boys who became Marines went to Iwo Jima and raised our flag in victory. ..In 1941, upon hearing of the success of the

surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Admiral Yamaguchi commented, "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant." He was prescient. Better watch out, Al & Co. The giant is stirring again. .." Jacksonville Times-Union 11/23/00 Derek Kinner " George W. Bush could extend his 930-vote lead over Al Gore by 51 votes if the Nassau County election canvassing board decides Friday to use Nov. 7 totals instead of the results of an automatic recount. State elections officials have said Nassau County can use presidential results from election night rather than the automatic recount because elections officials did not recount about 200 ballots. ..King has scheduled a meeting of the county's election canvassing board for 8:30 a.m. Friday to vote on which results to use. At least two of the three board members must approve the change. " MSNBC 11/23/00 Freeper ChadGore ".Al Gore: The day after election day November 8, 2000 "As everyone in America knows, this race has come down to the state of Florida. And without being certain of the results in Florida, we simply cannot be certain of the results of this national election. I want to add that Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman are fully prepared to concede and support Gov. George W. Bush if and when he is officially elected president. But this race is still too close to call and until the recount is concluded and the results in Florida become official, our campaign continues." Gore, in his very first public speach before the american people after election day, took a deep breath, looked down into the shallow depths of his soul, and LIED THROUGH HIS TEETH ! 15 days later: TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Nov. 23 - Al Gore's lawyers said Thursday that they will contest election results in Miami-Dade "and perhaps other counties" - no matter who Florida says won its decisive 25 electoral votes. New York Post 11/23/00 Steve Dunleavy ".. THERE is dark anger in the hearts of good men and women in a place where the sun is supposed to be shining all the time. Andrew Colesanti, a former bodyguard in New York for Leona Helmsley, held aloft a sign with simulated blood: "Bush Or Revolution." "I never in a million years thought I'd be out here holding up a sign like this," said Colesanti. "Anger? That's an understatement. The thought of revolution is terrible, but I speak to many people from all walks of life all across the country and it is not far from their minds. . "Gore is dividing this country with his crazy Clinton-like ambition and lies. He and his friend Clinton have done enough dividing. It's about time real people are heard. Matt Hall, a car salesman: "Sadly, there is a potential for normal, serious and good people taking to the streets. "Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, father of Bill Daley, chairman of Gore's campaign, stole the election in the dark of night in 1960. "Al Gore, in his arrogance thinking we are all fools, is doing it in broad daylight. "Yes, the people who don't speak up are very, very angry. " New York Post 11/23/00 Steve Dunleavy ".. And Bill Daley, Gore's coat holder, claims that this explosion has nothing to do with the ulcers on Wall Street. David Malpass, international analyst for Bear Stearns, said it without prejudice, but dramatic simplicity: "We have seen Nasdaq down 19 percent since the day after the election." Early yesterday, there was a mini-riot as rumors swept the counting house that ballots were being fiddled. Yells, curses, pushing and shoving. That's how it all begins. " New York Post 11/23/00 Steve Dunleavy "..But it isn't strange. Yesterday, the state Democratic Party was in federal court before Judge Jorge LaBarga demanding the Democratic canvassing board in Palm Beach County expand their count of the "pregnant chad" ballots. Democrats suing Democrats. Does anyone know how to play this game? "Now we have counts and recounts and recounts. The Democrats are voting, the Democrats are counting and the Democrats are suing each other. Who is running this vote for the president of the U.S.A.?" ......" CNSNews.com 11/23/00 Susan Jones "..The Florida Supreme Court, in a rare Thanksgiving Day order, denied an emergency petition filed Thursday by the Al Gore's attorneys, who wanted the justices to order Miami-Dade County to resume its manual ballot counting.. Shortly after 2:30 p.m. Thursday, court spokesman Craig Waters read an order of the court. "The court has considered the petition...and the writ [of mandamus] is denied without prejudice...No motion for rehearing will be allowed." Waters said the order was signed by all seven justices, who had scattered for the Thanksgiving holiday and had to be rounded up by phone and fax. The quick ruling is a blow to the Gore campaign, which insists that Miami-Dade County should continue its on-again, off-again vote recount." CNSNews.com 11/23/00 Susan Jones "..Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway told CNN earlier Thursday, "We think that the Supreme Court didn't intend for its opinion Tuesday night to serve as an excuse not to count the votes." Hattaway said the court intended for the counties "to make the maximum effort, meet their responsibilities."...... Mindy Tucker noted, "On Thursday night Al Gore thanked the canvassing boards for their hard work and praised the Supreme Court decision. Since then, he has sued one of these canvassing boards and asked the Supreme Court to change their minds. He apparently wants to extend the deadline

again. The Supreme Court has already extended this deadline 12 days...I guess he just wants to keep extending it until he gets these votes counted enough times so that it changes the result of the election."" Washington Times/AP 11/22/00 Frazier Moore "..While ballot recounts continued Wednesday, ABC News announced guidelines meant to avert the sort of faulty projections it made with other networks giving Al Gore, then George W. Bush, Florida's 25 electoral votes in the presidential race.. Citing Election Night's two blown calls - both of them ultimately retracted - the announcement lists changes that include projecting a winner in a race only after all of the polls in the affected state, rather than just a majority, have closed. It also specifies that ABC's own independent analysis must bear out the data provided by Voter News Service before a call is made.." Freeper not-an-ostrich "..Charles Gibson just reported on ABC News that instead of a spontanteous rally cry by Republican recount workers in Miami-Dade yesterday when recount was moved to different floor what really happened was an organized and pre-planned disruption by Bush campaign workers. Anyone who can join a protest at any of the Florida locations over the next 3 days do so. Enlist troops. Form your platoons. Arm with signs. Give them spontanteous!!! " Reuters/ABC News 11/23/00 "A senior Democrat said on Thursday the party was confident Al Gore could still win the White House despite a setback dealt it earlier in the day by the Florida Supreme Court, which rejected a bid to squeeze more votes out of a recount in Miami-Dade county. . Ron Klain, a member of the Democratic National Committee, told reporters in a telephone conference call that the Gore campaign believed it could win enough extra votes in two other counties -- Broward and Palm Beach -- to overtake Republican George W. Bush"s 930-vote lead in the state. .." Freeper niceguy "..I was in the counting room and outside when they left. The Dem Judges would NOT and could not describe in words what, in their minds, makes a valid vote. . They used words like "voter intend" but would not describe what standards they used to derive "voter intent". .. I cornered one of the three judges as he was talking with the media. He was surrounded by cameras. When I pressed him on how HE defined "clear intend" he could not answer the question, he started sweating and stumbling for words. I kept nailing him on the same question. He then backed away from the media cameras and slithered into an elevator as he disappeared. I got him good on this in front of live cameras. Will it get aired? " As Good as It Gets 11/23/00 William Safire "With a tie vote - and that's what we have, no matter what the final count - who's to decide who won the national election? Not the Florida secretary of state on her own say-so, despite the plain language of the law, because she's a partisan Republican. .. Not the Democratic Seven of Florida's Supreme Court, who face retention elections and are demonstrable ideological partisans. . And not Florida's elected state representatives, largely Republican, whom the Bush forces have invited to overrule the activist state judges or to send a separate set of Bush electors to the Electoral College. A national election that ends in a tie deserves a national decision made by national officials. The third of the nation in the political middle will accept that as fairly decided. .. The national officials in the judicial branch who should help decide are the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court. The national officials in the legislative branch given the power by the Constitution to make the final decision are the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives casting 50 state votes. " Freeper nd76 ".. In view of the developments surrounding David Boies misrepresentation to the Florida Supreme Court as to the Illinois appellate precedent dealing with punch card ballots, and in view of the imminent development that Algore will soon have his 931 votes and take the lead in Florida, The Florida State Canvassing Commission (Katherine Harris, Bob Crawford and the state Director of Elections) needs to come forth immediately with a statement that "dimpled ballots" may not be counted as a vote for any candidate, and that any attempt by a county canvassing board to count such ballots will be construed as fraud, thereby resulting in our refusal to accept your amended totals. " Freeper Ken K adds ".They need to indicate that the FSC referred to the Illinois case and clearly state the standards that Illinois defined. And that is the standard that will be accepted for certification - otherwise the tallies submitted will be rejected. .." AP (via Netscape News) 11/23/00 " From the brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday by Al Gore's lawyers, responding to George W. Bush's request that the justices bar the use of hand-counted ballots in Florida:.. One petition, which seeks review of the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court ... rests on intemperate and insupportable mischaracterizations of that court's decision as usurping the role of the state legislature. In fact, the Florida Supreme Court played a familiar and quintessentially judicial role: it interpreted Florida law... Only on the most compelling showing of a constitutional violation should a federal court interfere with this task, uniquely delegated by the Constitution to the state government... This court's involvement here will not add ``legitimacy'' to the outcome of the election ... This court's interference with the

normal process by which questions of state law are resolved, and indeed, with the ongoing processes by which the president and vice president of the United States are chosen, would only diminish the legitimacy of the outcome of the election. That is particularly true given that it is difficult to imagine how this court could intervene in the still-ongoing state proceedings so rapidly and clearly as not to deflect and derail the election process in untoward and unprecedented directions...The Florida Supreme Court's routine interpretation of its statutory scheme does not 'change the rules' in any way that implicates federal law... Permitting our state courts to interpret their laws - in ways that will, by definition, disappoint one or another litigant - of course does not violate the federal Constitution...When the state undertakes procedures to ensure that qualified voters' votes are counted, the previously counted votes are not, of course, 'diluted.' And, as this court has previously recognized, manual recount procedures, like those that are included in Florida law, are a completely ordinary mechanism for ensuring the accuracy of vote counts in close elections... It is precisely in a case such as this, where the Constitution specifically delegates authority to the states - and where the attention of the nation is focused on the proceedings - that this court's obligation is at its peak to preserve the principles of federalism that it has articulated and enforced." Freeper Harris "..This federal election and the issue of choosing electors, i.e. certification of election for choosing presidential election is a federal issue of such importance that the U.S. Supreme Court should do its duty and resolve it. Also look at Article II of U.S. Constitution. State Legislatures rather than state courts are designated by the U.S. Constitution as the choosers of Electors. Now the Florida Supreme Court can let every county in Florida count votes, oranges, or chads all the Florida taxpayers want, but as to any counting's effect on certification of an election for purposes of choosing Electors that is really none of the Florida Supreme Court's business. Perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court will so educate Florida's DNC Supreme Court on the law and judicial restraint. .." Associated Press 11/23/00 Laurie Asseo "..Al Gore asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to deny George W. Bush's request that the nation's highest court bar the use of hand-counted presidential election ballots in Florida. . In papers filed on Thanksgiving night, Gore's lawyers called Bush's request a ''bald attempt to federalize a state court dispute'' and interfering in the Florida election. . ''This court's interference with the normal processes by which questions of state law are resolved, and ... with the ongoing processes by which the president and vice-president of the United States are chosen, would only diminish the legitimacy of the outcome of the election,'' Gore's lawyers argued. . Gore's brief to the nation's high court said Bush was asking the justices ''to interfere with a task that has been expressly delegated to the state of Florida,'' the choosing of presidential electors. . The justices could announce as early as Friday whether they will grant review to the two appeals filed by Bush on Wednesday. .Separately the Bush campaign also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bypass a federal appeals court and review a federal judge's decision last week not to block the recount. Gore's legal response called the Bush arguments ''insubstantial'' and added, ''This court's involvement here will not add 'legitimacy' to the outcome of the election.'' .. ''It is difficult to imagine how this court could intervene in the still-ongoing state proceedings so rapidly and clearly as not to deflect and derail the election process in untoward and unprecedented directions,'' Gore's lawyers maintained. . Earlier Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court justices conferred by conference call, interrupting their Thanksgiving holiday,to consider the Democrats request to order the continued manual recount in Miami-Dade County. ''The writ is denied without prejudice. No motion for rehearing is allowed,'' the court said in a statement read by spokesman Craig Waters. The court's action means the lawyers can refile on different legal grounds or can take their case to another court. ......... ''The outcome of the election for the presidency of the United States may hang in the balance,'' the Bush lawyers said in urging the high court to take up what it said is essentially a state issue. Gore's brief had suggested that the court consider giving that county an extension of time if a full recount could not be completed by the deadline. ''If no action is taken,'' the brief said, ''the Miami-Dade Board would be allowed to achieve what this court, just two days ago, held that the secretary of state could not do: reject the ballots of thousands of Floridians for reasons of mere administrative convenience.'' The 29-page Gore brief alleged that that board members were intimidated by an escalating campaign of intimidation, which began with personal attacks at board members and election personnel. " New York Daily News 11/23/00 Scott Shifrel ".Florida's Republican leaders said yesterday they may call a special session of the Legislature to select presidential electors. The morning after the state Supreme Court gave Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties until Sunday night to finish hand-counting votes, Fasano raised the possibility that Secretary of State Katherine Harris would not certify election returns before Dec. 12, when Florida's electors must be chosen for the state's votes to count" New York Daily News 11/23/00 Scott Shifrel ". If the Florida State Legislature has its way, it could be W. by a nose. The leaders said they were looking at whether to invoke a clause in the U.S. Constitution that allows legislatures to decide "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct" how to pick the electors who cast the state's ballots in the Electoral College. Democratic legislators were angry but powerless to stop such a move. "Two days ago, I never thought it would come to this," said House Minority Leader Lois

Frankel of West Palm Beach. She conceded that with the GOP holding a 77-to-33 majority in the House and a 45-to-15 edge in the state Senate, Democrats would have very little chance of stopping such a move. Republicans also were talking yesterday about appealing the state ruling to a federal court, most likely the U.S. Supreme Court.. "We are not talking about an election, we are talking about whether the Legislature sets policy in this state," said state Sen. Daniel Webster, a Republican from Orlando and former House speaker. "We need to assert ourselves as the policymakers." Democratic attorney David Boies clearly bristled at the suggestion. "This is an electoral process, not a legislative one," he said" Freeper bigeasy "Why isnt anyone talking about Boises lies to the FSC? ." Freeper Ken "I believe Governor Rocicot (sp?) and a Republican attorney raised this issue at one of the hand counts today. Not sure which county. Now we know that the Bush people are on to it. You can bet Jim Baker is fully aware of the HUGE blunder the Gore team has commited. .." New York Times 11/23/00 Richard Berke "..As Vice President Al Gore confronts a ticking clock and mounting political and mathematical obstacles, officials in his campaign and in the Democratic Party say they are increasingly doubtful that he will come up with the votes necessary in Florida to overcome Gov. George W. Bush's slim advantage and become president. ...... They said they were especially disheartened by the latest legal setback, the refusal today of the Florida Supreme Court to force officials in Miami-Dade County to resume a hand count of ballots. ...... Yet, if anything, some Gore campaign officials insisted that they would not back down, because of their unyielding view that more voters had intended to back the vice president. They repeated their rallying cry that Mr. Gore won the national popular vote, and that he believes he has the moral authority to keep his candidacy alive. " New York Times 11/23/00 Richard Berke "..Ronald A. Klain, Mr. Gore's top legal adviser, said in an interview that by Monday, the campaign intended to file suit challenging the results in Miami-Dade County as "failing to reflect a full, fair and accurate tally of the votes."..In plowing forward, the Gore campaign would be at odds with many influential Democrats some of whom expressed optimism only a day or two ago who are now weighing whether it would be worth the political risk for Mr. Gore to pursue other legal options should he not have enough votes by 5 p.m. Sunday, the deadline ordered by the Florida Supreme Court for the inclusion of hand-counted ballots in the overall vote tally. .. Yet many officials in the campaign and in the Democratic Party said today that given the latest turns, a victory by the vice president would be quite difficult to assemble. In fact, Gore officials acknowledged that they were planning to contest the results in Miami-Dade County only because they were increasingly doubtful that they would have sufficient votes to overcome Governor Bush's slight lead by Sunday. Senator Robert G. Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, said it was "very unlikely" that Mr. Gore would amass the needed votes. "The math is getting difficult," he said. ......After surveying the possibilities for piling up votes, another Democratic official deeply involved in the process said: "What's our chance of winning at this point? Ten percent is an optimistic number. I don't think we're out of the game. It's not a situation you would design, though." " New York Times 11/23/00 Richard Berke "..Even without a manual recount in Miami-Dade County, Gore officials expressed hope that the vice president's numbers would creep up with the recounts of stacks of contested ballots in Palm Beach and Broward Counties. But in Palm Beach, election officials set their own rules about how they would evaluate ballots, and many Democrats expressed concern that the standards there would not be sufficiently broad for Mr. Gore to capture enough votes. ..The predicament Mr. Gore faces in persisting with new legal challenges is that unlike the Republicans, who seem to be in lock step behind Mr. Bush for an all-out fight, many Democrats say they would not have the will to keep pressing forward. Some said they feared Mr. Gore would do damage to himself and risk being branded a sore loser. ." Washington Post 11/24/00 ". I voted for Al Gore . I now think that under current circumstances he would not be the right man for the presidency. If I could, I would withdraw my vote. .." Washington Times 11/23/00 Steve Miller "..Election canvassing board members in Broward County started their review yesterday of up to 2,000 contested ballots, and by the end of the day, Vice President Al Gore had picked up a net 88 votes The canvassing board arrived at that number after making their way through 314 of those ballots.Broward's recount of the questionable ballots raised Mr. Gore's net gain in the county to 225 votes as of last night beyond the numbers the state certified last week, which bodes well for the vice president in his bid to overcome the initial state victory and current 930-vote lead of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.......... Counters there [Palm Beach] were released from duty Wednesday evening, although the canvassing board has not reported results from two-thirds of the county's 531 precincts. Democrats have challenged the exclusion of 785 dimpled ballots that they say were votes cast for Mr. Gore, while Republicans have contested 479 such ballots they say were cast for Mr. Bush. These are in addition to up to 10,000 Palm Beach County ballots that are to be considered by the canvassing board starting today [Broward] Panel members pondered each ballot, holding it up to the overhead lights, glancing at it from

angles and holding it up again. Some took six seconds, others more, although as one Democratic observer noted, "There are very few contested ballots in there." " Freeper Bob Williams ".. For several days, I have been very curious about the election results from Palm Beach county. The gain that Gore received from two machine recounts in that county was just way out of line with Bush's gain in that county and the gains for either candidate in almost every other county. Now, I am aware of many other threads that discuss the concept of poking items through the ballots to change the votes, but is there any other data that is even more straightforward and obvious? That is what I looked into. The answer: Yes! I will quote from several different sources during this explanation in order to provide supporting evidence for my claims. If my claims are true, this could be very important in determining the outcome of this election. The bottom line is that I believe there is strong evidence that at least 300 or more ballots were added to the total Palm Beach ballot numbers after November 7, 2000! Evidence: From the Palm Beach county elections web site, we can see that 461,988 total ballots were cast on November 7, 2000. In addition, an article in the Sun Sentinel on November 13, 2000 verifies this number to be accurate. Of those 461,988 ballots, Bush received 152,846, Gore received 268,945, Nader received 5564, Buchanan received 3407 and all others received 1524. Therefore, there was a total of 432,286 votes cast for President. By taking the 432,286 Presidential votes from the 461,988 ballots cast, we find that there was a total of 29,702 ballots that were either "over-" or "under-" votes. It has been widely discussed that there were 19,120 over-votes or double-punched ballots in Palm Beach county (see this AP article as an example which also includes a Carol Roberts quote referring to that figure). That leaves us with 10,582 ballots which is the exact number that was reported in this article for the number of under-votes in Palm Beach county. So, around the date of November 7, 2000, we have documented proof accounting for the exact number of ballots that Palm Beach county reported as cast. So, what happened next? In the days following the election, articles began to appear discussing the manual recount that would occur and stating that 462,350 ballots would need to be counted! As an example, check this article which also still uses the 19,120 figure for over-votes. Even more interesting is this article where it states: "Palm Beach voters cast 462,350 ballots in the Nov. 7 election. About 30,000 ballots were thrown out during the initial machine counts, including about 10,000 ballots on which no vote was registered by the machines." We know this to be blatantly false! This paragraph is very important in that it uses the 462,350 but also uses values for the ballots that were thrown out that are inflated by 300 or more ballots. Between November 7, 2000 and now, Palm Beach county has increased its total ballot count by 367! Now, I was very careful to research and make certain that I could not find any article explaining this data such as missing ballots that were found, etc. I did not remember any such story and have followed this election very closely for weeks. However, I did conduct another complete search of over 190 articles by searching for "palm beach" here. No article offered any explanation at all for this change. Many of you are aware of other counties such as Volusia, Polk and Pinellas where the machine recount numbers were questionable. However, you can at least find articles for each of these counties that offers some type of excuse or reason for the chance. No such article exists for Palm Beach county! Therefore, I am convinced that this was a deliberate attempt by someone to insert over 300 ballots into the mix that were most likely all for Gore. I am sure that it would not be difficult to come up with several very plausible scenarios in which this happened. For instance, there have been numerous articles about a Palm Beach county man being caught with a voting machine in the trunk of his car in the days immediately following the election. I am also quite certain that such a small number could have gone unnoticed by many caught in the middle of this in Florida. However, we now all know that 300 to 400 votes could easily decide who the next President will be!

will be! I think that this goes a long way toward explaining the 787 to 105 advantage that Gore had over Bush in the two machine recounts that have been completed. In fact, I am not sure that the actual number of ballots inserted may not be found to be closer to 500 to 600. I had heard a reporter mention 462,500 ballots recently, but cannot find that number in print anywhere. This also explains why even though 900 votes were added to the total number of Presidential votes after the two machine recounts in Palm Beach county, the number of under-votes being reported by the media is still around 10,000 (see quote above). Why? 10,582 minus 900 is 9682 (it is safe to assume that "new" votes should only be able to come from under-votes not over-votes) but add back in the 367 described here and you have 10,049! So, 300 or more Gore votes added after the election is one of the only logical explanations for all of the data that we have before us! Plus, I believe that this type of discussion is direct enough that it can be explained to most people and they will follow the logic. ." Washington Times 11/24/00 Frank Murray "..Vice President Al Gore last night challenged Texas Gov. George W. Bush's extraordinary plea that the U.S. Supreme Court step into Florida's chaotic vote count and assure that the legitimate winner becomes president of the United States. . Mr. Bush now will file a reply, perhaps today, to support his request that the court intervene. . Attorneys for the Texas governor invoked the high court's rarely applied Rule 11, governing cases "of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require immediate determination in this court." .. They asked the Supreme Court to grant "certiorari before judgment" without waiting for a Nov. 29 federal appeals court hearing in Atlanta to end what they called a "circus.".." Washington Times 11/24/00 Frank Murray "..Unusually vivid language attacked Tuesday's Florida Supreme Court ruling as a "lawless exercise of judicial power" and unconstitutional action "which appears designed to thwart the will of the electorate." It flatly contradicted the state justices' explicit footnote saying no federal constitutional issues were involved in that case, which, if true, would bar U.S. Supreme Court review of that ruling.. "A state court cannot evade this court's review by failing to discuss federal questions in its opinion," and it is up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if the U.S. Constitution was violated, the petition said." Washington Times 11/24/00 Frank Murray "..In asking the U.S. Supreme Court for speedy action on the double-barreled appeal, lead attorney Theodore B. Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, proposed a full hearing with oral arguments on Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 5.. A decision to take the case could come as early as Monday or Tuesday, when the court recess ends. .. Fast or slow, there was no assurance the necessary four justices would be persuaded to vote to hear the case, however, to say nothing of the five votes needed to win.." Washington Times 11/24/00 Frank Murray "..To overcome that hurdle, Mr. Olson a veteran Supreme Court litigator and former assistant U.S. attorney general explained at great length in both of his petitions why the Florida ruling and the unfinished federal court claim of constitutional violations are within U.S. Supreme Court jurisdiction. Federal courts may not review state court interpretation of state law, but Mr. Olson said the state decision itself violated a federal law requiring that any state laws governing appointment of presidential electors be on the books before Election Day.......... Setting aside Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris' decision to certify only votes received by 5 p.m. Nov. 14, as directed by state law, violated Title 3, Section 5 of federal law establishing Electoral College procedure, he said.........." Washington Times 11/24/00 Frank Murray "..The appeal from the state high court ruling also asked the justices to decide whether appointing electors under such procedures is consistent with the Constitution's language giving each state's legislature, not its courts, the power to prescribe how electors are appointed.." Washington Times 11/24/00 Frank Murray "..Its third provision attacked the "arbitrary, standardless, and selective manual recounts," which vary from county to county, saying they violate the First Amendment and 14th Amendment's "equal protection or due process clauses."......... The lawyers linked the two appeals by explaining how the federal case arose as a way of stopping selective recounts in three overwhelmingly Democratic counties, with rules for which ballots would be tallied changing from hour to hour." Guardian Unlimited/U.K. 11/24/00 Duncan campbell "During the long presidential campaign, Al Gore's energetic and innovative media team fired off around a dozen emails a day to journalists covering the election. Now the guns are silent. And while the main reason is obviously that the campaign is over, there is a feeling that Gore's backers are gradually losing the stomach for the fight. .Maureen Dowd, who with Gail Collins has been providing some of the wittiest commentaries in the New York Times on the Florida events, summed up Mr Gore's problem in a column this week: "Al Gore wants the presidency more than the Democrats do. And the Republicans want the presidency more than W does. ......"Mr Gore is more rabid than

his campaign team and party. Mr Bush's campaign team and party are more rabid than him. Each side will do what it takes. But the Bushes prefer to let the help get their hands dirty." ......" Guardian Unlimited/U.K. 11/24/00 Duncan campbell "The Democrats are worried that the continuing fight shows Mr Gore as a bad loser. They know they could be punished in the Congressional elections in two years time if Mr Gore wins the vote but loses the argument. They know, too, that if Mr Bush wins, the Democrats chances of taking seats in those elections will be substantially increased as an electorate seeks to right the imbalance. They fear the worst possible scenario: that Mr Gore loses both the presidency and the argument. " Guardian Unlimited/U.K. 11/24/00 Duncan campbell "The financial markets have been giving their own verdicts on Mr Gore's chances. When it emerged that he would not get the Miami-Dade recounts, shares in tobacco, pharmaceuticals and Microsoft - industries or organisations that all believe they would benefit from a Bush victory - suddenly rose. ........." Washington Times 11/24/00 Bill Sammon "The Florida Supreme Court yesterday rejected an emergency petition from Vice President Al Gore to force Miami-Dade County to resume a hand count of votes that might have boosted the vice president into the lead in Florida over Texas Gov. George W. Bush. But the Gore camp vowed to fight the ruling by formally contesting statewide results after the election is certified Sunday Mr. Gore, who previously had promised the post-election squabbling would take "days, not weeks," is likely to test the patience of congressional Democrats like Louisiana Sen. John B. Breaux, who has called for closure after Sunday's certification. The vice president also risks further alienating Americans in general.But Mr. Gore concluded he had little choice after yesterday's devastating setback in Florida Supreme Court. .."We will certainly contest," said Gore adviser Ron Klain. "We've got thousands and thousands of ballots of people who went to the polls and voted and have a right to have their votes counted.".. The Gore strategy is to pre-emptively discredit the certification by painting Mrs. Harris as a partisan because she was co-chairman of the Bush campaign in Florida. The vice president personally decided to spread word yesterday of his plans to contest the election in order to disabuse the U.S. public of any expectation for closure this weekend." Washington Times 11/24/00 Bill Sammon "The Bush team, which filed its lawsuit Wednesday, argued that Tuesday's ruling by the Florida Supreme Court violated the separation of-powers doctrine by usurping the legislative role and rewriting state election law. The Florida Supreme Court blocked Mrs. Harris from certifying the election results last weekend, despite a Florida law that requires her to do so. The Bush team also argued that it is unconstitutional for election officials to troll for previously undetected votes via hand counts in only a handful of selected Democratic counties. That dilutes the impact of voters in counties where ballots were tallied only by machines, thereby creating unequal representation, they said. Bush attorneys also cited a federal law that bars election rules from being changed in midstream." New York Times 11/24/00 Todd Purdum " In announcing that they would contest election results in Miami-Dade County (and perhaps elsewhere) in court, as allowed under Florida law, Mr. Gore's lawyers risked making Mr. Gore look, at least in legal terms, like the one thing he had struggled for days not to be seen as: a sore loser. But the Gore team's announcement today suggests that campaign officials now think that outcome [more votes than Bush] is highly unlikely, and it marked a crucial shift in the increasingly bitter battle for the White House. Of course, Mr. Gore and his lawyers may yet pull back, if fellow partisans seem to lack the stomach for a dragged-out court fight. They will not have to make a final decision until Monday at the earliest because no contest can take place until the results are certified That means Mr. Gore could well be challenging Mr. Bush's right to the White House at a time when Florida's election officials have almost certainly already declared Mr. Bush the winner of the state's 25 electoral votes, and presumably the presidency. .. Under the contest procedures, a court could order various remedies, the Gore lawyers noted, including compulsory recounts under supervision of a special master, which would take more time. Ever since Election Day, some of Mr. Gore's local lawyers here had urged that he let Florida's election officials declare an official winner, and then challenge the result in court if he had grounds to. But they said Mr. Gore had personally rejected such a course on the ground that it would look unsporting. ........." New York Times 11/24/00 Todd Purdum ""We'll see how they play it, but I think the Republicans might well say that `Even this court reached its limit,' " said Richard D. Friedman, a law professor at the University of Michigan, who teaches constitutional law. "Many people, I think, felt that the court reached a reasonable result in its decision Tuesday, by allowing extra time for the recounts, but that they went overboard in their approach, and ran roughshod over the Florida election statute and the secretary of state's discretion." " Wall St Journal 11/24/00 John Fund "If victory in Florida's battle of the ballots goes to the candidate whose tactics are more brazen, it will be Al Gore in a landslide. It may seem like ages ago, but remember the

"butterfly ballot"? Jesse Jackson led rallies against it, Warren Christopher called it "illegal," and there were demands for a revote. All that has been largely forgotten by Team Gore--they've moved on to declaring the right to vote includes the right to indent. .. The "butterfly ballot" protest truly ended last week, when Palm Beach Judge Jorge Labarga threw out a suit demanding a revote. The judge noted that "it's not legally possible to have a revote or a new election." He cited Supreme Court rulings and other case law holding that presidential elections must be held on a single day throughout the country. Team Gore's lawyers must have known that; the "butterfly ballot" outcry was largely a smoke screen to divert attention while they concocted a strategy for winning hand recounts. .." New York Post 11/24/00 ".. So it comes down to this: The next president of the United States may be chosen by - lawyers. Not voters. Not the Electoral College. But lawyers. Lots of them. And, yes, judges. And partisans. And all the moneyed interests behind them. " New York Post 11/24/00 Andrea Peyser ".. MORE than two weeks after this endless election began, a process rumored to result in the inauguration of an actual president, I've decided to change my vote. ......Too bad. On Nov. 7, before our great American election system was revealed to be as easily corruptible as a White House intern, I cast my ballot for Al "Will of the People" Gore. More than two weeks, scores of dubious lawsuits, hundreds of sleazy lawyers and thousands of dimpled chads later, I regret that decision. Now, I want to change my vote to Bush. Al Gore should understand. After all, it is my will. ......" New York Post 11/24/00 Steve Dunleavy ".. "If George Bush wins or loses, life goes on. I will do anything to win." THOSE were the words of Al Gore to Newsweek that prove he is less than a man and less than a politician. George W. Bush does not jump the highest bar of presidential caliber, but at least he does not tell lies. Where is John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, now? But we have to play with the cards that have been dealt us. And George W. Bush is a superior human to Al Gore. . I'm not quite sure who is sharpest or smartest. I know who is more devious. . In this joyous family weekend of Thanksgiving, we should give at least one giving thought to Al Gore. He has single-handedly divided this country in the most dramatic way since the Vietnam War. And if you want to make a stretch, since the Civil War. " New York Post 11/24/00 Gregg Birnbaum. Kenneth Lovett and Devlin Barrett ".. Al Gore won't concede the election if Florida declares George W. Bush the winner of the state's 25 electoral votes on Sunday, the vice president's campaign spokeswoman said yesterday. Gore was braced to see the election certified in Bush's favor Sunday night after Florida's Supreme Court shot down his request to force hand recounts in MiamiDade County. If certification takes place, the vice president's camp has vowed to continue the fight with new legal challenges in Florida's lower courts. .. Gore's team also filed papers last night with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to deny Bush's request to throw out any hand counts. ... Democrats insisted they could still win Florida with the recounts in Palm Beach and Broward counties - and said they would not abandon the fight for Miami-Dade County. . Broward County recounters, the only ones working on Thanksgiving, gave Gore 88 more votes yesterday before stopping for the night. .. So 16 days after the election, Bush's lead of 930 votes in Florida has been whittled down to 713 by hand tabulations - if those recounts are ultimately accepted. .." Washington Times 11/24/00 Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough ".If Vice President Al Gore is elected president, the new commander-in-chief will inherit an armed forces angry over his campaign's operation to contest virtually every overseas military ballot on the most technical of technicalities in Florida. The campaign dispatched scores of trial lawyers to Florida's 67 counties to challenge more than 3,000 mailed ballots that lay unopened since the Nov. 7 election. The lawyers made canvassing officials compare on-file and ballot signatures. They also challenged the addresses of signature witnesses. Any envelope that lacked a stamped postmark was also challenged, even though federal law says one is not required. ..Some military members are hopping mad, saying overseas voting is difficult enough without a team of Democratic trial lawyers scrutinizing each ballot for any possible flaw. ..Some are also incensed at Sen. Bob Kerrey, Nebraska Democrat. The Medal of Honor winner traveled to Florida on Mr. Gore's behalf and chastised military members for not filling out ballots correctly. Service members say they cannot always obtain the required postmark. .." WorldNetDaily 11/24/00 Julie Foster ". The scientific telephone sampling of 1,000 voters taken last weekend found that 48.8 percent of respondents believed the Democratic Party was more culpable in alleged voter fraud, while only 15.7 percent believed the Republicans were. Ironically, more of the respondents had voted for Al Gore for president than for George Bush. Of those sampled, 48.1 percent had cast their ballots for Gore and 46.5 percent had supported Bush. A whopping 66 percent of those sampled said they believe government files and databases are abused in political campaigns, while only 12.7 percent said they were not.."

Florida Today 11/23/00 Jeff Schweerz "..Hours after it was named in a lawsuit filed by George W. Bush, the mostly Republican Brevard County election canvassing board reversed itself and broke the seals on 20 disputed overseas ballots Wednesday night and recorded their votes. .. The result: an additional 14 votes for Bush and six for Al Gore, giving the Republican Texas governor a net gain of eight votes over the Democratic vice president in this hotly contested and closely monitored election. ." Wall Street Journal 11/24/00 Michael W. McConnell, University of Utah College of Law ". One sentence of the Florida Supreme Court's decision on hand recounts tells it all: "The will of the people, not a hypertechnical reliance upon statutory provisions, should be our guiding principle." That is like saying, of a disputed umpire call in the World Series: "Athletic superiority, not a hyper-technical reliance upon the rules of baseball, should be our guiding principle." In our system, the will of the people is manifested through procedures specified in advance. When those rules are changed in mid-stream, something has gone terribly wrong" Detroit News 11/24/00 Jerry Schwartz AP "..When Florida's Supreme Court breathed life into Al Gore's quest for the White House, the response from some Republicans was immediate: What do you expect from six Democratic justices and an independent, all appointed by Democratic governors? It's an understandable reaction, says Roger Pilon, vice-president for legal affairs at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington. Usually, a judge who has some connection to a case will step aside. But that wasn't an option in the Republican suit to stop hand recounts. "Obviously, they can't" step aside, Pilon said. "Or everyone would recuse themselves, and there would be no one left to judge." " Good Morning America 11/24/00 Freeper LS " Trying to cast aspersions on the spontaneous FREEPER and other GOP demonstrations in Florida, the new spin out of the media this morning (under "news") is that these protests were "staged" by the GOP. FREEPERS, I am outraged. You deserve credit! Having read the threads and the planning, I know that these are occurring around the country, all organized by the internet. Isn't it amazing that none of Jesse Jackson's "rallies" are "staged," or that the "million moron march" wasn't "staged?" Hit em again, HARDER. .." Freeper LantzALot " Well, they really got me p*$$ed. Had to jump over and send CNN this message. You have been carrying a news item about "GOP" protesters, strongly implying that they have been organized and paid for by the Republican Party. Can't CNN ever set it's bias aside? Who organizes those "grassroots" Demonstrations you love so well when they support the Democratic agenda? What you are seeing is, in fact, a TRUE grassroots demonstration, coordinated by independent individuals who subscribe to a conservative web page, and who have finally seen enough of the squalid demonstrations organized by the left. The "Sore Loserman" posters were the creation of this group, and the cost of producing them was borne by individual members in each area you will see them. We have seen how you and the other politically biased networks love to give air time to mobs, and have decided that while you're at it, you should have the opportunity to see that there is another side to the question. Why are these demonstrations by people who usually stay home to themselves finally showing up? A hint: beware the wrath of a peaceful man. I sorely wanted to give the name of FR, but didn't want to set off a leftist campaign to swamp us. ." Freeper spectre "..CNN is over the top with their glaring pimping for Gore. This morning, the interview by Bill (what's his last name?)..with the Bush attorney was clearly biased. "ORGANIZED demonstrations" is the talking point of the day. Jessee Jackson couldn't pay his light bill without the fees from ORGANIZED demonstrations..give us a break CNN. " Freeper YaYa123 "BOB DOLE HAS HIT THE STREETS IN FLORIDA when Bob Dole becomes a demonstrator...when he has had enough...when the old guard of the GOP has joined us on the front lines....you know we can win!!! Take that Team Gore!!! .." Orlando Sentinet 11/25/00 Renee Stutzman "..The judge presiding over the presidential absentee ballot case in Seminole County had absentee ballot problems of her own in her campaign this summer. A campaign worker said Friday that he filled in voter-identification numbers on about 3,000 absentee ballot requests that originated with the campaign of Circuit Judge Debra Nelson. That is similar to what happened in the absentee ballot lawsuit before her. In the lawsuit filed Nov. 17, two GOP operatives are accused of setting up shop in the Seminole County supervisor of elections` office and adding voter-ID numbers to about 4,700 absentee requests, salvaging them after Elections Supervisor Sandy Goard declared them invalid " Orlando Sentinet 11/25/00 Renee Stutzman ".. The difference between what happened in Nelson`s campaign and what happened in Goard`s office is location. In Nelson`s case, a campaign worker, James Daly III of Longwood, added the numbers while sitting at his dining-room table in Longwood and at a weekend home in Titusville. It was only after he had finished that the forms were delivered to the supervisor of elections.. In the other case, the changes were made at Goard`s office..Nelson, 46, disclosed

within the first minute of the first hearing in the Jacobs case that she had used absentee ballots in her campaign. However, she did not say anything about a campaign worker writing in voter-ID numbers. "I don`t know anything about them," she said Friday. Her campaign manager, Bob Lewis, said he did not tell her about the glitch because it wasn`t important.. Lewis said the campaign sent out about 60,000 letters with absentee request forms attached. However, because of a computer error, none of the return cards included the voter-ID number.Voters sent back about 3,000 absentee requests. The campaign collected them in a post office box. Daly then wrote in the numbers, he said. Under the law, only a voter, a member of the immediate family or guardian may request an absentee ballot. Adding the number "I don`t believe violated the spirit of the law at all," Lewis said of the Nelson campaign" Providence Journal 11/24/00 Mackubin Thomas Owens "..Consider the Gore campaign performance since Election Day. He and his acolytes made baseless charges of illegality against the popular vote canvass conducted in some Florida counties. When it looked as though Mr. Bush might win the popular vote and Mr. Gore would win the most electoral votes, the Gore campaign touted the Electoral College. But when the actual outcome was the reverse, the Gore people sought to delegitimize the Electoral College by stressing the vice president's advantage in the overall popular vote. Indeed, they have gone so far as to suggest that since Mr. Gore appears to have received a nationwide plurality of the popular vote, he deserves Florida's electoral votes, the Constitution notwithstanding. .." Providence Journal 11/24/00 Mackubin Thomas Owens "..They engaged in character assassination against Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state, because of her decision to act in conformity with the electoral laws of her state. Apparently oblivious to the irony implicit in his description, Gore spokesman Chris Lehane called Ms. Harris a "partisan hack" who was behaving like a "Soviet commissar." He was outdone by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, formerly of O.J.'s "dream team," who called her a "crook" who "laundered money." ." Providence Journal 11/24/00 Mackubin Thomas Owens ".. They issued a call to their most loyal allies, the trial lawyers, to send volunteers to help litigate Florida's election procedures. While insisting on a hand count of machine ballots in heavily Democratic precincts, despite the fact that such an approach is at best subjective, and at worst open to fraud, they issued a memo to their operatives instructing them how to challenge absentee overseas ballots from military personnel. Over 1,500 such ballots were disqualified. " Providence Journal 11/24/00 Mackubin Thomas Owens ".. They engaged in demagoguery and race baiting, stirring up banana republic-style chaos in the streets of Palm Beach and Tallahassee. Jesse Jackson, the always reliable demagogue, rallied the troops in the streets with the charge that Republicans were practicing Jim Crow tactics to deny blacks their right to vote. Donna Brazile, Gore's campaign manager, went Jackson one better by claiming, without providing any evidence, that "in disproportionately black areas [in Florida], people faced dogs, guns and were required to have three forms of ID." Union members were bused in to put muscle behind the street theater. " Providence Journal 11/24/00 Mackubin Thomas Owens "..Finally, Democrats are preparing to pressure electors to change their votes in the Electoral College, should it come to that. Democrats have already approached two of South Carolina's eight Republican electors. And The Wall Street Journal reports that a Democratic consultant has been "checking into the background of Republican electors, toward persuading a handful of them to vote for Mr. Gore." .." San Diego Union Tribune 11/24/00 Joseph Perkins "..But there is no doubt that, in the wake of this electoral debacle, certain institutions and principles in this country have suffered irreparable damage. Among them: San Diego Union Tribune 11/24/00 Joseph Perkins "..The legal profession. Lawyers were held in low repute by most Americans even before this presidential election. Now they will be absolutely reviled. ..Indeed, no sooner had the polls closed in Florida before the pro-Democrat American Bar Association sent out an e-mail to its membership asking for 500 volunteers to go to Florida to help the Gore campaign use every legal maneuver possible to overturn the result of the Election Day vote tally, and the machine recount. ..." San Diego Union Tribune 11/24/00 Joseph Perkins "..The media. The corrupting influence that the media has on the electoral process has been made abundantly clear during this election. Indeed, the networks were guilty of the most egregious offense by prematurely, and incorrectly, projecting Gore as the winner in Florida before the polls had closed in the Sunshine State. ..In so doing, they almost certainly depressed Republican votes, as the party faithful probably felt no reason to go to the polls since a Florida defeat meant that George W. Bush would not be elected. ."

San Diego Union Tribune 11/24/00 Joseph Perkins ".. The state of Florida. The nation's fourth mostpopulous state has made the United States the laughing stock of the world. How dare the United States presume to oversee elections in other countries, to adjudge whether another country's leaders have been freely and fairly elected, when Florida has been unable to declare a winner of its electoral votes after two weeks and multiple vote counts. And there is not one official in Florida having anything do with the election, with the recounts, who doesn't have an obvious conflict of interest. " San Diego Union Tribune 11/24/00 Joseph Perkins "..The 14th Amendment. The Constitution guarantees "equal protection of the laws." County election officials in Florida, with the blessing this week of the state's high court, have turned this principle on its head. Indeed, by allowing Democratic officials to select four overwhelmingly Democratic counties (out of Florida's 67) to conduct a hand recount, the state of Florida has declared that certain of its residents, its voters, enjoy more-than-equal protection of the laws. ..This is why the outcome of the Florida vote count should be taken out of the hands of obviously partisan county election officials, out of the hands of obviously biased state judges and justices (most of whom play an active part in Democrat party politics), and into the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. For when state officials or state jurists abrogate the U.S. Constitution -- as they surely have in Florida -- it is imperative that the nation's highest court intervene. .." Freeper Trailer Trash 11/24/00 " IT'S WORKING FOLKS!!!!!!!! GO GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MSNBC is calling you folks on the street in Florida a mob brought in in a bus. Their 2 lead reporters are hiding on some football field or golf course CNN 30 seconds ago just called y'all a bunch brought in by a tour bus. How incredibly ironic.... Then the CNN babe went to that idiot Rep. Deutch ( I don't know if it's spelt right, and I don't care) and the crowd started screaming and blowing whistles until CNN had to cut them off. Now we are watching a orderly and energized crowd screaming with glee and listening to Dole. Deutch is being drowned out with the second interview now!!! They are watching you CNN. On the ships in the Gulf, and through the satellite dishes in Bosnia. God bless you folks... Never surrender. .." Freeper tacticalogic " I found the entire quote from a dogpile search. It is indeed by Adm. Yamamoto. "I fear all we have done is waken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." I think that pretty well describes the situation at hand." Freeper Howie ".. "The Lefties must be scratching there heads at these protesters" My wife insists on listening to Charlie Gibson (Good Morning America) so I heard him and Stephie this morning with their villification of protestors, it was PANIC CITY! .." Freeper Clintons a Rapist ".. Even Bob Dole's running amuck now. We cannot be stopped! Time to ratchet up the rhetoric another notch! .." Freeper truthkeeper ".I hear security had to escort Deutsch away. I guess that crowd is sick of him...I know I am! .." Freeper Howlin "Evidently Boise is going to have a news conference in about an hour to explain to the country how the Republicans are -- gasp -- bussing in protesters to Palm Beach and that they SCARED the Miami-Dade canvass board into quitting their count. Must be their argument for making Miami-Dade start counting again. IMO, Boise is too cute by half. ." Freeper isthisnickcool "..Geraldine Ferraro is on TV inferring that the Rep. demonstrators are a mob and that Deutch Bag had to be escorted away. That he was in danger. " Freeper Trailer Trash "..Bob Dole is truly pissed. And by god, my respect for him has multiplied 10 fold this morning. " Freeper DugwayDuke "CNN and MSNBC just carried a rally outside Broward county with a Republican from Ill and others. Forgot his name, Steve something or other, had to reboot, shot memory, need to take notes I guess. Said "Swinging chads and pregnant chads can vote but Sgt Chad on the DMZ in Korea can't." Bob Dole just spoke in support of military voters. Lots of signs including "Let Our Military Vote". . CNN then shifted scenes to a democratic congressman also outside courthouse. First, CNN noted that the police were present since the protestors had been disrupting their interviews. The dem launched on the protestors at Miami Dade condemning them for disrupting proceedures. At about that time lots of "protestors" showed up with bunches of signs and were blowing whistles, chanting, waving signs. IOW, dems getting a taste of own medicine. Perhaps just as important CNN infobabe noted that they recognized many from the protests at Miami Dade. Now, CNN is reporting on protestors at Miami Dade. Lots of closeup screen shots. Lots of women wearing Sore Loserman, Got Chad, etc, t-shirts. I think the chant is "save our vote, now".

 CNN now showing Palm Beach canvassing boards with live talk. CNN Now intervewing Burt Oldelson (from ILL, think this was the guy whose affadavit was quoted in FL SC) stating that Ill supreme court ruled that the judge was correct in ruling chads don't count. Says process shown in Palm Beach is consistent with Ill procedures. Says standard should be dimples don't count if other votes cleanly punched. Completely blowing away democrat arguments. .." Realclearpolitics.com 11/24/00 Freeper efoley ".. Go to the RealClearPolitics.com website to see that Bush has picked up 52 votes from Nassau County! The canvassing board must have just voted to use the Nov. 7 vote totals instead of the machine recount. ." Oregon Live 11/24/00 Dave Underhill " As a lifelong Democrat, I had such strong misgivings about Al Gore's integrity that I did not vote for him. His behavior during the past two weeks only strengthens my view that he is not fit to be president. . Since the election, his political hacks have strong-armed local elections officials; high-paid lawyers have distorted the definition of what a vote is; and campaign operatives have worked to nullify some 40 percent of the ballots from overseas military personnel. The goal is clear: Steal enough votes to win the election. The longterm result is equally clear -- the crippling of our political process through media spin, legal manipulation and outright fraud. While I agree with many of his policies, Gore's past and current behavior lead me to the conclusion that the character of his presidency would be that of "no legal controlling authority." We've had eight years of that already. We don't need any more. DAVE UNDERHILL Southeast Portland ." FoxNews 11/24/00 Freeper Libertarian4bush "On Fox News just now, Carol Roberts claimde she saw a vote where Judge Burton clearly stated there was none. He said you couldn't see anything, yet Roberts claims seeing light coming through. The Dem observer, of course, lodged an objection when Burton told Roberts to place it in the undervote pile. I'm not even sure she can be tursted to SORT these things! This is an OUTRAGE! She sees Gore votes EVERYWHERE! .." MSNBC 11/24/00 Freepr TBBT " I've been watching the recount in PBC over MSNBC's live feed. They just got done with a stack from what I gathered was a single precinct. Gore picked up 75 out of 211 counted. .." Freeper VadeRetro ".Extrapolate that over 8000 and Gore waltzes in. But will that happen by Sunday and would it stand at any rate? ." Drudge 11/24/00 " ***ClintonGore's top fundraiser Terry McAuliffe has been bragging to reporters in the past 24 hours that Gore has enough ballots in Palm Beach and Broward Counties alone to win... ..**ClintonGore's top fundraiser Terry McAuliffe says Gore has enough ballots in Palm Beach and Broward Counties alone to win... MORE... There are 8,000 contested ballots remaining to examined by the threemember Palm Beach canvassing board.... "We've got the votes," McAuliffe bragged to reporters in the past 24 hours... The impression that Gore will not have the votes to catch Bush without Miami-Dade is false, McAuliffe whispered to one reporter... MORE...** Freeper riley1992 ".Thought you might care to see this... CNN reporting that the Gore campaign is saying that some of these protestors should be investigated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ." Freeper ".They didn't seem to have a problem with bussing 50+ loads of school children to a concert/Algore rally in Grand Rapids, MI on a school day a while back. Original thread here: http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a39de35212f1a.htm Washington Post Ombudsman Column 11/21/00 Michael Getler " "At this moment that so desperately needs diplomacy, understatement and calm, one wonders how this Republican woman, who can't even use retraint when weilding a mascara wand, will manage to use it and make sound decisions in this game of partisan one-upmanship." That sentence appeared on the front page of the Style section last Saturday in an article by Post fashion reporter Robin Givhan about Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris. In case you missed it, here are excerpts from what Ms. Givhan told us about Ms. Harris: "Her skin has been plastered and powdered to the texture of pre-war walls...She looked as if she were wearing a mask...The American Public doesn't like falsehoods, and Harris is clearly presenting herself in a fake manner...Why should anyone trust her?" Ms. Givhan's treatment of Ms. Harris, in the view of many Post readers--including this ombudsman--was a classic example of the arrogance of journalists that undermines people's confidence in the media. " CNS Commentary 11/24/00 John Nowacki " Throughout the presidential campaign, Al Gore and various liberal groups tried to make an issue out of judicial appointments. Emphasizing the importance of results over process, they ridiculed the notion that judges should be "strict constructionists," following the law instead of making it. . It was an issue that didn't really take hold, and most people never really understood the

difference between a judicial activist and a restrained judge.On Tuesday night, however, the American people witnessed the work of an activist court firsthand and learned just how threatening judicial activism can be to our freedom.." FoxNews 11/24/00 Freeper Leroy S Mort " Just on Fox. Looks like we have the Gore protesters outnumbered 20-1. Reporter interviewed one of the few Gorebites who claimed that our side was PAID to appear at Broward and bussed in on "Republican busses". Said their side was so small because "we have jobs and have to work!" ." Freepr stboz "..Fox reporter just said the crowd was growing in Broward. Watch out for RAT agents provacateur. They will want to spark something they can blame on conservatives. We need cameras on scene. ." Freeper David Pascoe " Ft. Lauderdale, Broward County, 12:5PM, 11/24/00 About 400 Republicans turned out at Broward County Courthouse to hear Bob Dole and Gov. Mark Ricocicot speak to the media and assembled crowd, demanding that the thrown out military votes be counted. As the demonstrators chanted "No more Gore," The local and national media was out in force to conduct interviews. The crowd was polite and quite while Dole and the Governor spoke, but when the media attempted to interview local Democrats, the crowd pressed in and drowned the interviews out with chanting. Apparently Democrats were not much interested, since there were no more than a dozen or so pro Gore signs. Altogether it was a good showing, and all local Repubs should be encouraged to show up at the court house and make their voices be heard, as the demonstration appears to be growing in size and continuing. A few Democrats complained that local Republicans were attempting to intimidate the canvassing board, to which Repubs shouted, "Damn, right." .." FoxNews 11/24/00 Freeper The Sons of Liberty ".. Griffin Bell, Former Attorney General under Jimmy Carter, and a life-long democrat, is on Fox News now confirming that the Illinois case cited by Sore Loserman's lawyers said that indeed the case said that dimpled ballots don't count! Gore's lawyers purgered themselves before the Florida Supreme Court. You'd think the Florida Supreme Court would've looked up the case and not just relied upon the brief from Gore's lawyers!.." Newsmax 11/23/00 Carl Limbacher "Though the presidency of the United States may now be awarded to the candidate who garnered the most dimpled chads in Florida, the practice of counting unpunched ballots has been rejected by nearly every other county in America. .. "Vice President Al Gore's effort to convince Florida election officials to count indented or 'dimpled' ballots as votes for him runs contrary to the practice in almost all jurisdictions that use the punch card system," the Washington Post reports on its Friday front page. . The Post cited R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, who said that with the exception of Texas, "no election official has counted a dimpled chad as a vote." The Election Center is a non-partisan group that trains and certifies election supervisors. "Instead they tend to turn the question over to a judge," said Lewis, "and historically courts around the country have said dimpled ballots aren't clear enough for them." ." FoxNews 11/20/00 Florida Supreme Court Freeper t-shirt ".Transcript of Monday's Florida Supreme Court hearing: Clerk: Ladies and gentlemen, the Florida Supreme Court. Please be seated. Quince: So if that's the case, would it be your would you be telling this court that any mark made by the voter would be evidence of that voter's intent and should be counted as such? Boies: I think so, Your Honor, and that is really what, for example, the Delahunt decision that we cite in our papers from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, or the Illinois cases that we cited, or a number of the other cases that we cited have expressly held. That question has never been before this court directly, but that has been dealt with in the cases from other jurisdictions that we've cited that we would hope the court would find persuasive. In addition, we cited, perhaps for obvious reasons, the statute from Texas, which provided statutory guidelines for defining that. " Wallaby provides the details http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a1ca2f45788.htm Pullen v Mulligan [Supreme Court of Illinois Case on Hanging Chads and Dimples] PENNY PULLEN, Appellant and Cross-Appellee, v. ROSEMARY MULLIGAN, Appellee and Cross-Appellant No. 70496

Supreme Court of Illinois 138 Ill. 2d 21; 561 N.E.2d 585; 1990 Ill. September 21, 1990, Filed We first consider whether the trial court erred in refusing to visually inspect the disputed ballots. The trial court denied the appellant's motion to inspect the ballots, holding that a voter must completely dislodge the chad from the ballot before that vote may be counted. As authority for its conclusion, the trial court relied upon a series of cases holding that the only appropriate way for a voter to mark a paper ballot is to make a cross (x) in the appropriate space on the ballot. .. Although these definitional provisions suggest that voters must punch their ballots to cast their votes, they do not require voters to completely dislodge the [***79] chad before their votes may be counted. Although the legislature certainly has the power to provide a mandatory standard for marking punch card ballots, as it did for the marking of paper ballots, no such standard has been set out in the Election Code. We would be usurping the power of the legislature if we were to infer such a standard in the Election Code and then conclude that the legislature intended such standard to be given a mandatory construction. . Having decided all of the issues raised by the parties, including the contention that partially punctured ballots should have been inspected and counted where proper, we determined that each candidate had an equal number of votes. We ordered the cause remanded to the trial court. This court directed the trial court to visually inspect each of the ballots not counted by the automatic tabulating equipment and to determine whether the voter's intent to cast a vote for either the appellant or the appellee could be ascertained. The trial court was further ordered to file a report of its findings with this court so we could review the trial court's determination.. The trial court's written order was [***92] filed with this court on September 18, 1990. According to the order, the trial court visually inspected a total of 27 ballots and determined that seven ballots showed the voters' intent to vote for Pullen and one ballot showed the voter's intent to vote for Mulligan. The voter's intent could not be ascertained from visual inspection of the remaining 19 ballots. Objections to the trial court's determinations as to particular ballots were filed by the appellee and the appellant. (The appellee objects in part to the trial court's judging one of these 19 ballots an overvote. It will not be necessary to address this, as any decision as to it would be without consequence to the election result.) This court has reviewed the disputed ballots and the trial court's finding as to each [**614] ballot in light of these objections. The objection of the appellee that to be counted the chad should be fully punched out or that at least there should be a hanging chad on the back side of the ballot would set too rigid a standard for determining [*86] whether the voter intended to vote for the particular candidate. Many voters could be disfranchised without their fault if, for example, ballots with [***93] only perforations on the chad could not be regarded as indicating the voter's intent to vote. From our examination of the ballots, we consider that the procedures used by the trial court were not improper to ascertain whether the voter intended to vote for the appellant or the appellee or whether this could not be determined. The appellee's objection that the only workable way to ascertain the intent of the voter from a punch card ballot is to find that the chad has been removed, so that the machine can count it, is legally unconvincing. This is shown by our discussion above under "Partially Punctured Ballots." We need not consider the objections of the appellant in light of the disposition we make of this appeal. The trial court determined that seven ballots reflect the voter's intent to vote for Pullen, one ballot reflects the voter's intent to vote for Mulligan and the remaining 19 ballots should be disregarded, because the voter's intent cannot reasonably be ascertained. Accordingly, the vote tallies for each candidate must be adjusted to reflect a gain of 7 votes for Pullen and a gain of 1 vote for Mulligan. Freeper rolling_stone ".. From another link, clarification of Chicago Tribune Story This is from pg 25 of Gore's Initial Brief filed with the Fla. Supreme Ct. Haven't checked the subsequent briefs yet. As this Court has long recognized, the Board must examine each ballot for all evidence of the voters intent and make its determination based on the totality of the circumstances. See Darby v. State, 73 Fla. 922, 75 So. 411 (1917). This is consistent with the principle, well-established throughout the states, that if a voter has marked a ballot in a manner that cannot be read by a machine, but the voters intent can be discerned from the ballot, that ballot must be counted. Delahunt v. Johnston, 423 Mass. 731, 733-34, 671 N.E.2d 141, 1243 (1996) (the mere "presence of a discernible impression made by a stylus" is "a clear

indication of a voters intent" even if the chad remains entirely in place on the punchcard); Pullen v. Mulligan, 138 Ill.2d 21, 80, 561 N.E.2d 585, 611 (1990); Hickey v. Alaska, 588 P2d. 273, 274 (Alaska 1978). ." Freeper piasa " From the IL Suprem Court case: From our examination of the ballots, we consider that the procedures used by the trial court were not improper to ascertain whether the voter intended to vote for the appellant or the appellee or whether this could not be determined. The appellee's objection that the only workable way to ascertain the intent of the voter from a punch card ballot is to find that the chad has been removed, so that the machine can count it, is legally unconvincing. This is shown by our discussion above under "Partially Punctured Ballots." We need not consider the objections of the appellant in light of the From the Tribune article: But that Illinois case should not give Democrats any confidence that dented ballots will be counted in Gore's favor. That's because the Illinois court actually affirmed a trial judge's order to exclude dented ballots, since he had decided he could not reasonably determine the voters' will by examining the ballots. In fact, in the Illinois case, the dented ballots were not counted at all. "The judge did not count ballots that were indented because he could not determine the voters' intent," said attorney Burton Odelson, who represented challenger Rosemary Mulligan in the 1990 case. "From the beginning, I knew everybody [in Florida] was interpreting this case wrong and reading into it what they wanted to read into it." This is the point... the Supreme Court of Illinois allowed the exclusion of dimpled ballots to stand- it only addressed the issue of excluding perforated chads. " Associated Press 11/24/00 ".. Excerpts from court papers filed Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris: -----The Florida Supreme Court's November 21 decision has made a number of changes in Florida's election laws, setting aside some provisions, and implementing others. It has also recognized equitable principals that take precedence over statutory provisions and the exercise of discretion by the Secretary. ------- First, the requirement that tabulation of election results be completed within seven days has been eliminated. In its place there is a new, judicially-created time limitation that allows at least 19 days. ... ------- Second, local canvassing boards may now file amended returns after the statutory deadline, even if they had properly filed returns before the deadline. ... Before the November 21 decision, there was no provision in Florida statutory law that allowed returns to be amended, much less amended after statutory time limitation for final certification and declaration of the winner has passed. ... ------- Third, the Florida Elections Canvassing Commission is now precluded from certifying election results on the seventh day following the election, as previously required under Florida Statutes. ... ------- Fourth, the time frame for an elections contest, the only procedure available to individual voters to challenge the outcome of the election, is now drastically shorter ... Now, any contest cannot begin until the recounts are completed and the results certified. ... ------- Finally, but perhaps most importantly, manual recounting may now be used in a significantly broader way than previously available. Prior to November 21, in the absence of a judicial decree rendered in an election

contest action, manual recounting was allowed on in the case of mechanical, software or other similar failure in the automated vote tabulation. ... The Supreme Court of Florida has now recognized that these rights are equitably required and grounded in Florida law. -----Under Florida Statutes section 102.166 (5) a manual recount was a last-resort remedy to be used in areas with automated tabulation systems only when there was no way to mechanically tabulate the ballots. When a sample manual recount indicated a problem with the vote tabulation system, the local canvassing board first attempted to correct the error and recount the system under subsection (5)(a). If the error could not be corrected, a board was allowed (sic) request the Department of State to verify the tabulation system under subsection (5)(b). Finally, if the system could not be corrected or verified to work properly, then as a last resort, the board would have manually recounted the ballots under subsection (5)(c). There was never any indication that Florida Statutes section 102.166(5) allowed voter errors caused by improperly marked or punched ballots to be selectively corrected. The statute was enacted to provide a remedy when a vote tabulation system failed to read properly marked ballots, not to provide local canvassing boards the unbridled discretion to choose the method of tabulating votes on an ad hoc basis after an election was completed. -----As a result of the Supreme Court of Florida's decision, the Secretary, the Commission and Florida's 67 local elections canvassing boards will now treat the election certification process quite differently than they would have previously: -- Where the Secretary would have previously rejected late filed election returns, she is now required to accept those returns, as long as the late filing does not violate the judicially created test of being ''so late that their inclusion will preclude a candidate from contesting the certification or preclude Florida's voters from participating fully in the federal electoral process.'' -- Where the Elections Canvassing Commission would have certified the statewide election on November 17 on the certified returns filed by all of Florida's 67 counties, the Commission must now wait on the results of manual recounts conducted in selected areas, delaying final certification until at least November 26 that must include amendments to the November 14 filing other than overseas ballots. -- Where local canvassing boards were previously precluded from conducting manual recounts in the absence of error in the vote tabulation system, they will now conduct recounts in almost any circumstance. -- Where each local canvassing board would have submitted only one final set of returns, the local canvassing boards may now conduct a series of recounts and amend prior certification for some time after the deadline to certify has passed, and, -- Where a uniform system of automated counting was previously in place, Florida's votes, including votes for the electoral college, will now be decided based on standards developed by individual local canvassing boards in selected areas of the state. ......" On absentee military overseas ballot case: Freeper GI Jane ". Did you notice, the judge is very shaky about hearing this case. He intimated it was in the wrong venue. The lawyer had to tell the judge it was the correct venue by giving a lengthy dissertation. ." Freeper KeatsforFirstDog ".. agreed...Escambia (by phone), Clay (present), and most of the counties present or telephonically there are pro-Bush, heavily military counties Gore lawyer saying proper method for counting thrown-out military ballot is under Section 168 for contesting an election; saying Bush should file a contest after certification if he wants those military ballots counted .." Freeper KellyAdmirer ".. Bush team is arguing for a declaratory judgment of their rights under the statute. They claim, therefor, that this is not an election contest, because Bush is not disputing any ballots that have been cast or votes that have already been counted. It's an interesting argument. I like the Judge's name, Ralph Smith. I bet he spends his weekends fishing in the bayous. .." Freeper FrostFire "Quoting Federal Statute. Federal takes precedence. G-d, I love you guys. .."

Freeper KellyAdmirer ".. Bush lawyer pointing out a conflict between a Florida state statute that says a postmark is required, and an Attorney General letter (such letters are not binding but state the State's guidance on how to interpret the statute) that says "postmarked OR signed and dated by the election date." The AG letter is several years old, from before Butterworth. Bush lawyer arguing that the AG letter controls here because military mail will not usually have a postmark. .." Freeper StarFan ".. Will try to type what I hear. Attny for bush said you don't need postmark if ballot is signed and dated (BTW that is what the statute says). Judge asking what the statute is. Can you hand deliver a ballot? Yes, rule was adopted because servicemen may just put in mailbag and it may be postmarked in US or may not. That's why rule was adopted saying either postmarked or signed and dated no later than date of election will be counted. .." Freeper StarFan ".. Judge -- when would it have to be received by supervisor of election. November 17th. Now he is asking how that squares with the statute. Has this guy been sleeping?? The Bush attny should mention that the statute clearly states it must be received l0 days after date of election. I recall reading that clearly. .." Freeper FrostFire ".Now he wants to know if anyone on the Cole tried to cast a ballot. Ohmigosh ." Freeper ET ".Now the judge wants proof that a military person tried to submit a ballot and it was refused! *sigh* ." Freeper KeatsforFirstDog "..Good grief? Did this judge even attend law school? If so, he must have failed Constitutional Law. He doesn't care if military persons in Kosovo don't get counted because "the US is not at war." .." Freeper KellyAdmirer ".. Judge says (paraphrased) "Well, you can't rely on an AG letter that contradicts the statute." Wants to know if there is a federal statute that permits counting of ballots 10 days after an election. He is just raising these questions briefly, to make sure they are in the record, and then moving on, which I take to be a good sign. Judges who do that generally don't have real concerns about stuff they treat like that. I am wondering if this Judge owns a television or follows the news at all. I actually kind of like, though, that unlike some of the FSC Justices like Pariente, he does not seem to have been indoctrinated by Democrat spin about Texas law and so forth and is approaching this as if he were a blank slate. That, imho, is the proper attitude of a Judge. .." Freeper mom_in_Georgia ".Bush lawyer entering memo from dem attorney to all canvassing boards. Yesentered in the record ." Freeper CT ". NEWS FLASH! LOCAL RADIO IN PORTLAND OREGON (KEX - RUSH'S STATION)IS REPORTING PROTESTERS IN TWO DOWNTOWN LOCATIONS. NO WORD ON PARTY AFFILIATION, BUT SOUNDS LIKE THEY ARE BLOCKING TRAFFIC. .." Freeper katykelly "..Local radio news just reported 4 retired Air Force vets are flying their flags upside down . Grand Junction , Colorado . ." Liberman Press Conference Freeper Arthur McGowan ".Holy Joe is whining right now! He's troubled by the demonstrations in Dade! Well, at least we know he won't be doing anything about, since he's "troubled" about it.." Freeper Howlin "..OHMIGAWD........he is accusing the demonstrators of hijacking this election. I am totally stunned. " Freeper lsucat ""These demonstrations are a disservice to our democracy." He is losing his mind!!!!!!!!! ." Freeper veronica "..Parroting the Gore rhetoric. Accusing the Repubs of inciting riots and demonstrations. LOL. I guess only Democrats like Al Sharpton and Jesse Hymietown Jackson are allowed to demonstrate LOL. " Freeper spectre ".You've unleased Jesse Jackson and his mob on Florida, and now you are crying foul! HOW DARE YOU..you desperate hypocrite!!! ." Freeper StarFan ". US SUPREME COURT TO HEAR BUSH'S APPEAL. YIPEEE .." Freeper AndyJackson "I heard that 90 of 100 Constitutional law scholars [sic] would have decided this case the same way that the FL SC decided it. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason for the SC to hear this case. They will simply have to side with Gore on this. ..Do you hear that Mr. Chief Justice. You are wasting precious judicial resources on this matter, which is already well settled [the old saw from radical leftist attornies whenever they are on the losing side of a case]. Why don't you just stay home, digest your turkey,

and rest. We will call you on 20 Jan when we need you to to swear in Gore. That is your constitutional duty and the only legitimate constitutional duty for a conservative judge who doesn't understand that the constitution is a living breathing document, who doesn't understand that it says what Jesse and Bugsy say it says. Till then, happy holidays. " Freeper otterpond "..All the pundits and lawyers were so arrogant in their statements that this would not happen. WRONG AGAIN!!!!! " Freeper kattracks "..USSC will hear case that Fla SC interfered with Federal law concrning the electors by changing dates. They refused to hear the case before the 11th circuit now, "without prejudice" which means they may hear it at a later date. .." Freeper KellyAdmirer "..Boies now saying, in his usual "I knew it all along" manner, that this is no surprise. He says the Court, though, will affirm the Florida Supreme Court. If I know my lawyers, he is secretly happy as heck that he gets to argue before the Supreme Court, not because he thinks his side will necessarily win, but because that is a high honor for any lawyer and always an occasion to treasure. " CNN 11/24/00 Freeper firstbasekid1 " The news anchor asked the reporter who are those people making all that noise, she said freerepublic.com on the air. THis is bad, why would CNN do a thing other them to flood fr with liberals. Jim, you may want ot suspend new acciunt sign up for awhile. .." FoxNews 11/24/00 Freeper spig larson ".. FNC anchors and reporters are being journalists, unlike the norm on other media organs. Reporter (missed name) reported on Dvaid Brois (sp?) saying he was not surprise about SCOUS taking Bush case, yet reporter also added that this was 180 degrees from Brois' statement when the FSC gave their ruling. He said there was nothing what so ever for Bush to appeal! .." Freeper Cicero "No, the Supreme Court would not have taken it unless they had serious doubts about the conduct of the FSC. Why should they subject themselves to political harrassment and possible damage in the media if they agreed with the FSC's recount decision? Them only came in because the FSC came in first and screwed it up. The odds are very good that the USSC will reverse the FSC and state that SoS Harris should have been allowed to certify last Friday and that, since she was prevented from doing so, she should certify now on the basis of the vote-count submissions from the Canvassing Committees as of the legal deadline last Friday at 5:00pm. " AP 11/24/00 LaurieAsseo " The Supreme Court weighed intervention in Florida's contested presidential election on Friday as George W. Bush gained ground in a recount of military absentee ballots and Al Gore picked up support from a recanvass of votes cast on election day. Republican running mate Dick Cheney won his release from the hospital, two days after suffering what doctors described as a very mild heart attack -- his fourth. Cheney said there were "no restrictions'' placed on him that would rule out assuming the vice presidency. Bush's lead, pegged at 930 votes a week ago, shrunk to 724 votes at mid-day as recanvasses proceeded in several counties working against a state Supreme Court deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday. ..Secretary of State Katherine Harris' office served notice she would certify an official statewide winner roughly an hour later. " Freeper StarFan "Fellow on CNN just told Boise that if he was in his position, there is room for concern. The USSC doesn't ordinarily take a case where a State Supreme Court has unanimously ruled UNLESS THEY FEEL THERE IS AN ERROR. This gets better each minute. .." " Who is the attorney (former judge?) who co-hosts with Greta Van Sustern? HE said this directly to Boise and added that he wouldn't be comfortable if he were in the gore camp. Also, Frankel on CNN is quite amazed as well, paraphrasing pretty much what the co-host was saying earlier. The odds of the USSC were not in GWB favor and all said he was reaching for the moon. Many dead panned faces on the pundits after hearing this news. Just think about it simply. A Florida Supreme Court rules on their State's statute. They don't interpret the statute but legislate a new ruling (delay in certification) from the bench causing the Legislature to possibly hold a special session. Bush complains it isn't fair to bypass SOS and Legislature. Now comes the USSC willing to listen to GWB's complaint. If it didn't have much merit they would have told him to take it up with the Circuit Court of Appeals. Instead, they are willing to hear it. " Drudge " The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a list of soldiers, sailors and other military personnel who had their votes disqualified by teams of Democratic lawyers guided by a five-page memo in Florida's election fiasco. Present here is a partial list of the more than 40% of overseas ballots that were rejected on technicalities in Florida. The votes of these Americans in the military did not count:

Carlson, Stacy Rae -- Oak Harbor, WA Clement, Phillip Randall -- VS 38 UNIT 25474 Horsefield, Michael James -- Oak Harbor, WA Karmey, Thomas C. -- USS George Washington Kerlin, Matthew Douglas -- PSC 557 Livingstone, Laurence Lee -- HCS Squadron 11 DET 2 UNIT 25158 Padilla, Jacob Anthony -- USNS SPICA-T AFS 9 Barragan, Raul -- VP 10 Unit 60165 Monger, Paul O. -- VF 154 UNIT 25431 Muckenthaler, Paul Lawrence -- VQ-2 Box 445 UNIT 50082 Pederson, Gregory Paul -- Oak Harbor, WA Moore, Edna A. -- PSC 80m Box 20206 Lim, Seunghye -- American Embassy Seoul - Korea Ostrander, Bill L. Jr. -- SAES CMR 451Bpx 34 Barrow, Tom Lee II -- Virginia Beach, VA Chartier, Dennis Wayne -- PSC 825 Box 488 Chartier, Ann M. -- PSC 825 Box 488 Buff, Ann Margaret -- Hagatna, GU Clines, Christopher Alllen -- USS La Salle AGF-3 S-2 DIV Gerber, Adam, C. -- HQSVCHN (G-6) #RD FSSG/UNIT 38406 Absentee Ballot hearing Freeper elchilo CSPAN 11/24/00 "... he has already said that in the absence of evidence that the canvassing boards broke the law, that the court does not normally send orders asking people to follow the law. FoxNews 11/24/00 Freeper rintense ". Gore Lawyer spoke to a Fox news reporter about the SCOTUS decision to hear the case. Demonstrators in the background, all Bush-Cheney supporters, were very loud, and Boies acknowledged he could not hear the reporter because they were too loud. He then added that the protestors were bussed in from Miami (to Broward I assume) and have "tampled and intimidated the MiamiDade canvassing board to stop counting." He said that he knows for a fact that one canvassing board member said he quit becuase of the intimidation. He ultimately said that if the SCOTUS decides the hand count is not legal they will concede. " Freeper artw ".. FoxNews: David Boies has paraded in front of the cameras two "experts" on the votomatic. They are claiming that dimples can be caused by worn voting machines. THIS IS IT! David Boies is setting us up for a Gore victory this weekend based on dimple counts in Broward County. It is going to happen. .." AP 11/24/00 Freeper hawaiian ".--Bay County: Bush had a net gain of two votes after the canvassing board decided to accept 12 previously rejected overseas ballots. -Brevard County: Bush had a net gain of eight votes after the canvassing board met this week and decided to accept 20 previously rejected overseas ballots. -Broward County: With all 609 precincts and absentees recounted, plus 1,206 of an estimated 1,800 questionable ballots reviewed, Gore has a net gain of 369 votes. In other words, Gore picked up a net gain of 232 votes from the ongoing review of questionable ballots. -Clay County: Bush picked up a net gain of 12 votes when the canvassing board decided to accept 14 of 17 previously rejected overseas ballots. In Duval County, the canvassing board voted to accept 68 of 81 previously rejected overseas ballots. Bush had a net gain of of 20 votes - 44 for Bush, 24 for Gore. . -Miami-Dade County: The canvassing board voted unanimously to stop the county's hand recount Wednesday. Previously, with 135 of 614 precincts recounted, Al Gore had gained 157 votes. . Earlier, a sample hand count of three precincts gave Gore a net increase of six votes, and county officials have asked those votes be included in certification. -Nassau County: The canvassing board unanimously decided to use the Nov. 7 vote totals instead of the results of a machine recount that inadvertently missed about 200 presidential ballots. The action resulted in a net gain for 52 votes for Bush.

-Okaloosa County: Bush picked up two votes after the canvassing board met earlier this week and decided to accept two previously rejected overseas ballots. -Palm Beach County: With results released from 243 of 637 precincts recounted, Bush gained 8 votes. AP 11/24/00 Laurie Asseo "The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to intervene in the Florida presidential recount, saying Friday it will hear one of George W. Bush's appeals that seeks to bar hand-counted ballots in the disputed election. In a stunning development and a victory for Bush, the nation's highest court said it will hear arguments Dec. 1 on whether to overturn the Florida Supreme Court's decision that allowed manually recounted votes to be added to Florida's vote total. ''The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted,'' the court's order said. . The justices rejected a second challenge filed by Bush, papers that sought to appeal a federal judge's ruling that let the hand recounts go forward. The justices said they would consider whether the Florida Supreme Court erred in limiting the secretary of state's discretion to certify election results. . The justices also said they would consider the following question: ''What would be the consequences of this court's finding that the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida does not comply with'' a federal law requiring states to resolve controversies regarding the appointment of electors under laws enacted before election day. Because Bush did not seek an emergency order to immediately halt the manual recounts, the re-counts and Sunday's scheduled certification apparently can continue while the court prepares to hear the case. .The justices ordered both sides to file initial briefs by next Tuesday afternoon and responses by next Thursday. The court said it will hear an hour and a half of arguments at 10 a.m. EDT on Friday, Dec. 1. .." Freeper Bisesi "..On all the channels as I write this, the democraps are holding a press conference that is OBVIOUSLY getting the PUBLIC ready for Gore winning with the dimpled chad vote. This is there FIRST PR step in that direction to prepare us thru the media for the winning of this election by ALGORE. It is SO obvious to me it is chilling. .." Freeper alancarp "..Quoting from the Fl. Supreme Court order, page 40: "The stay order entered on November 17, 2000 [preventing certification], by this Court shall remain in effect until the expiration of the time for accepting amended certifications set forth in this opinion. The certificates made and signed by the Elections Canvassing Commission pursuant to section 102.121 shall include the amended returns accepted through the dates set forth in this opinion." So there it is: the Secretary of State was ordered to include amended returns. It doesn't say to do so for only the hand-count counties, but it certainly takes the statutory authority out of her hands. In my opinion, Secretary Harris has only a couple of options: (1) Make a new certification without comment, including all new totals submitted; (2) Make a new certification under protest, citing that she is doing so specifically only because of court direction, and that if the Fla. Legislature or other court action intervenes, she will rescind the certification in favor of the former numbers. (3) Declare that the Fla. Supreme Court did not remove her statutory authority to be discerning about votes counts received, and certify the amended counts she believes to be fair and correct; or (4) Defy the court entirely and refuse to certify again, instead certifying the Nov. 18th figures. She risks a contempt of court citation that would almost certainly be issued on Monday. .." Freeper GI Jane "Page 40 of 43 [emphasis added] Accordingly, in order to allow maximum time for contests pursuant to section 102.168, amended certifications must be filed with the Elections Canvassing Commission by 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 26, 2000 and the Secretary of State and the Elections Canvassing Commission shall accept any such amended certifications received by 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 26, 2000, provided that the office of the Secretary of State, Division of Elections is open in order to allow receipt thereof. If the office is not open for this special purpose on Sunday, November 26, 2000, then any amended certifications shall be accepted until 9 a.m. on Monday, November 27, 2000. The stay order entered on November 17, 2000, by this Court shall remain in effect until the expiration of the time for accepting amended certifications set forth in this opinion. The certificates made and signed by the Elections Canvassing Commission pursuant to section 102.121 shall include the amended returns accepted through the dates set forth in this opinion. It is so ordered. No motion for rehearing will be allowed. WELLS, C.J., and SHAW, HARDING, ANSTEAD, PARIENTE, LEWIS and QUINCE, JJ., concur. CNN 11/24/00 ".. Fla. Speaker Feeney is on CNN saying that he will join in the case now pending in the US Supreme Court. .." Freeper Bryan24 ".. The Florida State Legislature is joining the Bush suit before the SCOTUS. The are claiming separation of powers violation. Also setting up special committee to monitor election results. Read between the lines as getting ready to make changes so they can sertify the

electors themselves. .." AP 11/24/00 ".Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., D-Ohio, who plans to vote to re-elect GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert, fears Florida recounts will take the presidential election from Republican George W. Bush.''I am saying that I believe George W. Bush, by the narrowest of margins, has been elected and I believe he's going to get the shaft and I believe the machinations are underway to steal the election,'' Traficant said Wednesday on radio station WTAM in Cleveland" Freeper Lazamataz " Florida House and Senate will join to testify before US SCOTUS, and will create a panel to discuss Florida Election fairness and law, and will retain law professor Einer Elhague (Sp?) to represent them and advise." US Supreme Court Web Site 11/24/00 " 1. Whether post-election judicial limitations on the discretion granted by the legislature to state executive officials to certify election results, and/or post-election judicially created standards for the determination of con-troversies concerning the appointment of presidential electors, violate the Due Process Clause or 3 U.S.C. 5, which requires that a State resolve controversies relating to the appointment of electors under "laws enacted prior to" election day. 2. Whether the state courts decision, which cannot be reconciled with state statutes enacted before the elec-tion was held, is inconsistent with Article II, Section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution, which provides that electors shall be appointed by each State "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." 3. Whether the use of arbitrary, standardless, and selective manual recounts that threaten to overturn the results of the election for President of the United States violates the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses, or the First Amendment. ----------------------------------The court will hear questions 1 and 2 but not 3 Here is the link http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/00836-1a.fdf Freeper DSH ".. It's my understanding that question three was denied "without prejudice" because it still sits before the 11th Circuit. Yes, that's my understanding as well. Frankly, having been involved in cases before both the U.S. Supreme Court and the 11th Circuit, I think I'd prefer to have this question decided, in the first instance, by the 11th Circuit, en banc, anyway. .." MSNBC 11/24/00 Freeper Eagle733 ". Get a load of this. Did you just see, on MSNBC, Gore's animated fantasy progaganda video of the feeble minded stylis and the miraculous unbreakable chad?!!! They inserted this phony video during Jackie Winchester's (Palm Beach elec. supv.) address during an Al Gore campaign team news conference. Unbelievable! Now their incorporating this lie into Madison Avenue style graphic animation. Kinda reminded me of the silly and stupid TV commercial of the Gillette double edged razor animation, showing the scientific wisker shaving theroy. " ABCNews 11/24/00 "In an apparent exercise of spontaneous public outrage, demonstrators surged through the county office building in Miami-Dade County Wednesday, demanding an end to the hand recount there. The shouting demonstrators, accusing Democratic election officials of taking the count behind closed doors, contributed to one election supervisors vote to end the hand recount. "If what Id envisioned worked out and there were no objections, wed be up there now counting," election supervisor David Leahy said.. But that demonstration, ABCNEWS has learned, was neither spontaneous, nor local. It was an organized Republican Party protest, run by 75 party operatives out of a headquarters in a motor home in Miami, and six Democratic Congressmen have written a letter to the Justice Department urging it "to investigate what may be an egregious effort to undermine" the right of voters in Dade County.. In a statement this afternoon, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joe Lieberman said he believed the demonstrations intended to stop the recounting of the votes"These demonstrations were clearly designed to intimidate and to prevent a simple count of votes from going forward," Lieberman said. "This is a time to honor the rule of law, not surrender to the rule of the mob."" FoxNews 11/24/00 Freeper beGlad ".. Gov. Engler and the lawyer who tried the Illinois case sited in the Florida election just did an interview on Fox news. Engler said he said in the counting room for 2 hours and none of the votes he saw would ever be counted in his state. The attorney said he couldn't stay in the room as long as the governor because he found it so frustrating. .. Very interesting because it was the lawyer in the case!" MSNBC 11/24/00 Freeper G Larry " Paul "Biglia" just told Olie North that the Republican Demonstrators in Miami Dade, were "kicking and trampling" people to intimidate them, which is what led them to stop the

recount. Sure Paul, and you're so sharp that you're the first one to break this story. Add this to Paul's long list of shameless lies regarding this election. .." Freeper go star go ".. This is their new talking point. I suppose they want people to be beaten in the streets. MSNBC 11/24/00 Freeper lowtech " The following is the relevant text of Florida Speaker of the House Tom Feeney's statement to the press...please note that all paragraph breaks as well as the spelling of all names are best efforts on my part: During [Thanksgiving Day] I did have the chance to speak to [Florida Senate] president McKay, and, uh, we have been reflecting on the situation that has affected Florida and our voters since November 7, 2000. Senate president John McKay and I, as the elected leaders of the Florida legislature have agreed upon taking certain steps to insure the protection of Florida's election results. Today, as Florida Speaker of the House, I have agreed to join the president of the Florida Senate, to attempt to participate in the Supreme Court proceedings pertaining to the question of whether or not the Florida Supreme Court exceeded its Constitutional authority in re-writing laws and in directing the conduct of executive officers. .. The legislature's participation is intended to make the United States Supreme Court aware of the legislature's concerns and possible consequences that may flow from the state judicial actions to date. In that regard, we are in receipt of a verified letter from the Division of Elections reporting the results from the general election, the mandatory state-wide recount and the final results including the overseas absentee ballots under section 102.111 of the Florida statutes. As I have been stating for some two weeks now, the legislature has a direct delegation of authority under the United States Constitution. It doesn't go to the state of Florida, it doesn't go to the Florida Supreme Court. In 1892, the United States Supreme Court construing section one of article two of the Constitution of the United States, held that this clause confers, and I quote "plainery power to the state legislatures in the manner of the appointment of electors." It went on to favorably quote a United States Senate report, and I quote, "The appointment of these electors is thus placed ABSOLUTELY and wholly with the legislatures of the several states." In our view, the action of the Florida Supreme Court, changed the rules and standards established by the legislature prior to the election. We're encouraged that the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear certain questions arising out of the Florida Supreme Court's ruling last Tuesday, especially the question presented by the US justices regarding the likely consequences of a decision in the case. It is our hope that this will assist the Supreme Court in reaching a judgment that does not damage the ability of the people of Florida to be adequately represented in the electoral college on December 18. In addition, the Florida House has also joined the Florida Senate in forming a joint legislative oversight committee on electoral certification, accuracy and fairness. You'll be receiving the names of the appointees either later tonight or early tomorrow morning I believe. This committee will be responsible for investigating and insuring that Florida voters will be included in the final nationwide election results. " FoxNews 11/24/00 Freeper Rokke " Just listening to a Fox News reporter on the scene at PBC, he says they've made it through 700 ballots so far today and have 5300 left. Do the math. They can't finish in time. " Freeper Kate in Palo Alto ". I saw it too. They are doing 100 ballots/hour. The canvassing board says they will finish on time. Don't know how. .." Freeper lowteksh " I've been scratching my head since I heard there were 6000 ballots to review wondering how they even imagined they would get through these. If they work 14 hours today and tomorrow and 10 hours on Sunday going up to the 5PM deadling that gives them approximately 136,800 seconds to review 6,000 ballots (with no breaks or time to tally). That comes out to approximately 22 seconds per ballot. They're almost spending that much time with the tallies! Remember this section of Florida law 102.166, subsection 5, subsection c, governing what must occur if a county agrees to a manual recount: "Manually recount all ballots." They don't get done in time, none of them count in the final tally. .." Freeper Timmy " We don't know the status because they haven't released it. The Bush +14 is from before they started. It HAS changed, we just don't know how much. Also, Burton says they can just turn in what they get to. I assume they disqualify the rest. Seems shaky to me, considering the law says they must ALL be recounted. ." New York Times 11/25/00 Michael Cooper "Lawyers for Gov. George W. Bush asked a judge today to direct more than a dozen Florida counties to reinstate the absentee ballots of overseas military voters that

were disqualified because they lacked postmarks, dates and proper signatures, and even some that came from unregistered voters.. But the judge, L. Ralph Smith of Leon County Circuit Court, gave them little hope. "Without any proof that any of these canvassing boards have not complied with the law, the court is very hard-pressed to grant any relief, because the court just doesn't enter orders telling elected officials to comply with the law," Judge Smith said.He said he would consider further arguments on Saturday before issuing a written ruling.Mr. Bush's lawyers argued that the administrative rule should be given precedence over the state law, contrary to the usual practice, because it was written in response to a federal suit challenging Florida election laws And he argued that absentee ballots from unregistered voters in the military should be counted, citing a federal law that recommends that states waive registration for military voters but does not require such a waiver" New York Times 11/25/00 Lynette Holloway "Heckled by hundreds of Republican demonstrators outside the Broward County Courthouse, election officials today reached the halfway point in their manual count of about 1,800 disputed ballots. With 1,206 ballots counted by this evening, Vice President Al Gore picked up 144 more votes, giving him a net gain of about 369 ballots in the county since the recount began. The Republicans brought in well-known politicians, including Bob Dole, the former presidential candidate and senator from Kansas, and Gov. John Engler of Michigan, to sit at the table with the Democratic board members. Broward County Chief Judge Dale Ross also paid a visit to observe the proceedings. ...... The three-member canvassing board worked slowly in the morning. The lone Republican, Judge Robert Rosenberg of County Court, seemed to take the most time inspecting the ballots, objecting to counting punch-card ballots with indentations rather than perforations. The intense scrutiny frustrated Democratic lawyers " New York Times 11/25/00 Lynette Holloway "About 150 protesters some carrying "Sore-Loserman" signs that resembled the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign posters gathered outside the courthouse to protest what they called unfair standards. The demonstrators, many of whom said they had come from around the country to serve as recount observers, stood about 80 feet from a couple of dozen Democratic demonstrators who arrived after hearing about the gathering. . Some of the Republicans jeered and scuffled with Democratic politicians who were on hand to observe the proceeding. Representative Peter Deutsch, Democrat of Florida, was surrounded by so many protesters at one point that sheriff's deputies had to escort him awayMr. Deutsch said the demonstrators were being paid by the Republicans. While the demonstrators denied that, many said their hotel rooms and some meals were being paid for by the Republican PartyMr. Deutsch said he sent a letter to Assistant Attorney General Bill Lann Lee to ask for a Justice Department investigation of whether an angry crowd of Republican protesters on Wednesday influenced the Miami- Dade County Canvassing Board's decision to end the recount there. "It's important to show our outrage to a system that is out of control," said Brad Blakeman, a Republican lawyer from New York City. "There are no uniform rules. People are making up rules as they go along and we're out here to support the rule of law." Dr. Rick Nelson, 44, a vascular surgeon from Oklahoma City, said he was upset that votes that should not be counted were being included in Mr. Gore's total. "No votes are no votes," said Dr. Nelson, who said he had also been a part of the protest in MiamiDemocrats said the protests were part of a pattern of intimidation.. " New York Times 11/25/00 ". Following are excerpts from a brief filed by lawyers for Gov. George W. Bush in reply to the Democrats' opposition to a review by the United States Supreme Court of George W. Bush v. Palm Beach Canvassing Board. .. The F.D.P.'s repeated reliance on principles of "federalism" is particularly misplaced. This court has repeatedly recognized the powerful federal interest in the selection of presidential electors. In Anderson v. Celebrezze, for example, the court held that "in the context of a presidential election, state imposed restrictions implicate a uniquely important national interest." Thus, the federal Constitution and Congressional enactments make clear that state laws regarding the appointment of presidential electors are a matter of federal concern. See United States Consitution, Article II, Section 1; Title 3, United States Code, Section 5. These provisions directly refute the F.D.P.'s erroneous assertion that petitioner is "attempt[ing] to federalize a state law dispute." Indeed, the Constitution and federal statutes have already "federalized" numerous matters relating to the appointment of presidential electors, including those at issue here. . . ..Contrary to the F.D.P.'s assertions, this case involves much more than a "state law dispute," and instead involves substantial violations of due process and Title 3, United States Code, Section 5. The F.D.P.'s argument rests on the baseless assumption that this court is absolutely precluded from applying federal law standards to weigh the validity of state court decisions purporting to apply state law.." New York Times 11/25/00 ".Title 3, United States Code, Chapter 1, Section 5 If any state shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such state, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at

least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such state is concerned. Freeper efoley ". Look at the text of Speaker of the Florida House, Tom Feeney's statement of today and you'll notice that the "verified" letter from the Division of Elections (SOS) has already been given to him with the vote totals from election day, the mandatory machine recount and the overseas ballots. In other words, the SOS has already handed over to the legislature the certified totals (Bush +930) according to Section 102.111 of the Florida Statutes. Those democrat counties can count till the cows come home and can stick their chads where the sun don't shine. ." Newsmax 11/23/00 ".The Illinois case was referenced in Tuesday night's opinion offered by the Supreme Court, and has been trumpeted by the Gore team as a model for Fla. counties engaged in the manual recount. Attorney Burton Odelson, who represented one of the candidates in the 1990 Illinois case, told the Tribune, "The judge did not count ballots that were indented because he could not determine the voters' intent. .. "From the beginning, I knew everybody [in Florida] was interpreting this case wrong and reading into it what they wanted to read into it." .. The Gore team had a lawyer in the Illinois case present an affavadit to the Fla. Supreme Court stating that the Illinois court had agreed dented ballots should be included. .The Tribune said the attorney's affadavit "apparently was mistaken in its assertion that such ballots were counted." " Freeper Right Thinker "..I read the case on wednesday. It is clear that a "punch" is necessary. It does say that hanging chads and other evidence of voter intent is to be considered. Swinging doors, hanging, etc are OK. The opinion also talks about how the problem the voters have may be the fault of the election commission or the paper. While it is silly, it appears positivly brilliant compared to the FLSC. Boise will never be punished by the court. He raised the issue that they wanted to answer. He gave them the opportunity to do what they wanted to do. Anyone who thinks after the activist decision the FLSC issued that Boise will be punished or that the matter will even be taken up by the court is deluding themselves. .." Bloomberg.com 11/24/00 Paul Horvitz ".A Florida judge expressed deep skepticism about granting any emergency order to recount overseas military ballots in the state as requested by lawyers for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. .. After hearing two and one half hours of argument, Leon County Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith said he would be ``hard pressed to grant any relief.'' The judge said he would issue a decision after seeing further written arguments to be submitted Saturday morning. " Freeper KellyAdmirer " His reasoning, such that it is, is that he basically has nothing to rule on. The local officials, in his (wrong) opinion, are just doing their jobs as they see fit. He also seems to have a very idiosyncratic and, dare I say it, hypertechnical interpretation of consent decrees. This fellow evidently was asleep when his law school professor went through the Declaratory Judges section of the syllabus." AP 11/24/00 Jackie Hallifax "Two counties complied with Republican wishes Friday and counted overseas absentee ballots that had earlier been rejected, adding to George W. Bush's lead over Al Gore by 32 votes in uncertified totals. The absentee counts in Duval and Clay counties came as a trial judge said he's not likely to force a dozen other counties to reconsider overseas military ballots rejected for lack of a postmark or a similar flaw. .. He commented from the bench after listening to lawyers for Bush argue that Democrats confused county boards on the standard to use in counting absentee ballots from soldiers abroad. Bush lawyers said they would offer more evidence Saturday, and the judge withheld any final ruling. ." Freeper 4u2 " Well, Freepers, the protest at the Broward County Courthouse is coming along nicely, while continuing to grow larger. At noontime, some 400 turned out with Bob Dole & Gov. Mark Ricocicot. I returned at 6:00 and by that the time the crowd had grown to at least 600, including a large number of Blacks for Bush. Then there were guys in Confederate Uniforms waving the Confederate flag. Strange, our black Republicans didn't seem to mind as we laughed and chanted together. A guy in a Yankee civil war uniform stood next to him waving the Union banner. The street was roped off to separate Repubs from Dems, and it was clear that there were only a handful of Dems there. It was heartening to see that we made all the evening news and, get this: MARIO CUOMO CALLS US " A BUNCH OF THUGS" while on a CNN interview. Coming from him, that's a compliment. Poor babies, apparently they can't stand to have their own tactics used against them. He's never seen Republicans protesting before, and was probably frightened by it. But it was totally peaceful and the cops didn't hassle anyone and were pleasant and polite, as were we. ." ".UPDATE; Professor Irwin Corey, aka David Boyz, on CNN a few minutes ago, calls us "rampant rioters." What a hoot! This is the kind of propaganda campaign we're up against. ."

CNN 11/24/00 "..Also from Washington, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman charged that raucous Republican demonstrations in Miami-Dade County earlier this week strong-armed local officials into canceling a hand recount of votes there. A senior Bush campaign official said Lieberman was over-reacting and that his complaints have no merit. He said Lieberman did not protest what the Republican said were similar demonstrations orchestrated by Democrat activist Jesse Jackson. "I think it is the latest example of the Gore campaign saying one thing while doing another," he said. .Six Democratic congressmen expressed sentiments similar to Lieberman's in a letter sent Friday to the Justice Department urging it to investigate "what appears to be a shocking case of undermining the right to vote through intimidation and threats of violence." " CNN 11/24/00 "..The certification of Florida's statewide election results was expected late Sunday or early Monday, based on specific instructions included in a Florida Supreme Court ruling early this week that allowed the recounts, but set a tight deadline for their completion. .Even after the deadline for vote certification, the Florida tumult will be far from over. Should the state's numbers show Gore still trailing Bush, Gore's team has said he will not concede the election. The expected Democratic challenge will find itself in good company. In addition to the U.S. Supreme Court appeal that Bush filed to stop the recount in Palm Beach County, the Republicans have already moved forward with legal challenges to the certified results submitted by 13 Sunshine State counties. .Bush's legal team is contending some 900 to 1,100 overseas absentee ballots cast by Floridians serving in the armed forces were rejected because they lacked postmarks or were not signed. Those votes should be counted, the GOP says, because the military sometimes transfers mail aboard military transport aircraft, meaning many of those ballots may not have been postmarked. ." Florida Statutes " 102.168 Contest of election.-- (3) The complaint shall set forth the grounds on which the contestant intends to establish his or her right to such office or set aside the result of the election on a submitted referendum. The grounds for contesting an election under this section are: (a) Misconduct, fraud, or corruption on the part of any election official or any member of the canvassing board sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election. (b) Ineligibility of the successful candidate for the nomination or office in dispute. (c) Receipt of a number of illegal votes or rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election. (d) Proof that any elector, election official, or canvassing board member was given or offered a bribe or reward in money, property, or any other thing of value for the purpose of procuring the successful candidate's nomination or election or determining the result on any question submitted by referendum. (e) Any other cause or allegation which, if sustained, would show that a person other than the successful candidate was the person duly nominated or elected to the office in question or that the outcome of the election on a question submitted by referendum was contrary to the result declared by the canvassing board or election board." ABCNews 11/24/00 "..The U.S. Supreme Court said today it will hear arguments in a Republican lawsuit seeking to stop manual vote recounts in Florida, taking the nations highest court into largely uncharted legal territory The Supreme Courts decision marked a stunning, unexpected development that was a victory for Texas Gov. George W. Bush and the first time the justices have ever considered a case that may decide who eventually wins the White House Now the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the Florida Supreme Court overstepped federal law and the Constitution when it limited Harris discretion to certify election results, which she had wanted to do without including the hand recounts. The justices will also consider what role, if any, the high court, or the federal government should play in settling a presidential election dispute something the high court has stayed away from in the past.. Republicans have argued the Florida State Supreme Court "engaged in a standardless and lawless exercise of judicial power designed to thwart the will of the electorate as well as the considered judgments of Floridas executive and legislative branches." .Federal law says a dispute concerning the appointment of electors should be resolved under state laws enacted before the election..That laws purpose was to prevent partisan lawmakers unhappy with an elections results from creating new laws to alter the outcome in favor of their party. The Republicans argue the state Supreme Court altered election law in its Nov. 21 decision and did not adhere to all of Florida law, but only certain provisions. ." ABC Radio 11/24/00 Freeper Amerigomag ".. At mid day our local ABC radio affilitate announced in their nationally sindicated, on-the-hour segment that the Office of Management and Budget would not release approximately 5.2 million dollars in transition funds to the Bush campaign even if Bush were pronounced the winner in Florida tomorrow because the outcome was "contested". Apparently it is customary to release such

funds when all state results are certified" Freeper bigswede ". If PBC has only completed 243 precincts and haven't counted questionable ballots for those precincts yet, they have almost 400 precincts left to count, which means they will have trouble finishing by Sunday at 5 PM. If they truly have 5000 or 6000 questionable ballots yet to count, they have no chance of finishing in time unless they just throw them all in the air and count the ones that land face up for Gore and face down for Bush (would be as accurate as the present method, and less biased). .. If, on the other hand, they are only releasing precinct numbers as the questionable ballots for that precinct are counted, then they are not finding votes for Gore, with about a third of the precincts counted, which would be very good news indead. .Being cynical, I suspect there is some other scenario unfolding, such as a surprise ending on Sunday afternoon. .." FoxNews 11/24/00 John Gibson " JOHN GIBSON JUST CALLED KATHERINE HARRIS A "FLEDGELING POLITICAL HACK". THE NO SPIN ZONE JUST TURNED INTO JUST THAT, SPIN CITY.." ABC 11/24/00 Freeper Brett Reid " On ABC Nightly News I just heard that they will be counting through the night. Stealing votes for Gore. Any doubt he'll have his numbers by Sunday. It was confirmed that they would by Gore's fundraiser earlier today (see DRUDGE REPORT and earlier FR posts). Already Bush's lead is down in the 600's. Can and will Katherine Harris certify if their are some questions still to be addressed? (ie Supreme Court decision next Friday), and what about the PR on our own behalf? Please Freeper's burn the night oil. Let's not let them steal this election. " Reuters 11/24/00 Alan Elsner "Republicans feel much more intensely that George W. Bush should be the next president of the United States than Democrats do about Al Gore according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Friday. The poll of 604 voters taken this week found that 60 percent of those who did not support Vice President Gore in the Nov. 7 presidential election would not regard a Gore presidency as legitimate and would believe he had ``stolen the election.'' . Fully 70 percent of Bush supporters said they would not regard Gore as a legitimate president. .. Only half as many of those who did not vote for Texas Gov. Bush felt the same way. In fact, 47 percent of these non-Bush voters and 43 percent of Gore voters said they would regard a Bush presidency as legitimate. Only 30 percent said they would feel he had stolen the election." Townhall 11/24/00 Maggie Gallagher ".. Vice President Al Gore stands before us, dishonored and selfindicted by the sanctimonious rhetoric he uses to mask his naked drive for power. If the vice president himself cares only about "our democracy" and that "every vote counts," why isn't he in court right now, insisting that the signed ballots of military voters be counted? And if hand recounts are the only way to make sure every vote counts, why didn't the Gore campaign insist to the Florida Supreme Court that every county, not just three heavily Democratic counties, recount its votes?..." News-Journal Online 11/23/00 Michael Haun "..... MICHAEL HAUN (michael.haun@news-jrnl.com)MO< Staff Writer DELAND -- They were counted, recounted and then hand counted. Now a political watchdog group is asking the courts to clear the way for its own examination of the roughly 184,000 Volusia County ballots cast during the Nov. 7 presidential election. ....... The Washington, D.C.-based Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in circuit court Monday, claiming county officials broke state law when they denied the group's request for a ballot inspection. A judge has not yet set a hearing date. ...... In a written response issued Nov. 14, Volusia Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe said the Judicial Watch request didn't allow her office sufficient time to notify all candidates on the ballot of an inspection, as the law requires. She wrote that the office was in the midst of certifying results and processing absentee ballots. .......Palm Beach and Broward counties also turned down the group's requests and have subsequently been sued. A Palm Beach County judge is expected to take up that county's Judicial Watch lawsuit this morning. ..... Judicial Watch filed public records requests last week with all of Florida's 67 counties. Fitton said 44 of those, including Miami-Dade County, have scheduled time for the group to conduct its examination. However, no ballot examinations have been performed. ......" UPI 11/24/00 James Chapman "......When one reviews the long history of the relationship of courts to elections, it soon becomes obvious that American courts, most particularly the Supreme Court, have served different functions in different periods of American life. At many junctures in American history, elections have affected judges. More rarely, judges have affected elections. ....... In the first seventy-two years of the nation (1789-1861), courts were preoccupied by the issues of states rights vs. national power, and were very reluctant to interfere with political action. .......In the next 72 years (1861-1933), after a final flurry of state's rights cases growing out of the Civil War, the courts moved to economic issues. Here, they were more willing to overturn laws, and almost always did so from the "right," defending corporations from economic interventions from either state or national lawmakers. ....... Franklin Roosevelt's presidency changed the court. Once again, after a futile attempt to reverse the New Deal, the courts changed their focus -- this time

from economic issues to civil liberties issues. This new focus brought the courts into elections, because access to fair and free elections was a central civil liberty. This new court intervention became the favorite whipping boy of the right, and the favorite of liberals. ...." FoxNews 11/25/00 Keith in Iowa "..... .FoxNews Channel reporting Bush lawyers filed a motion to withdaw the lawsuit - citing many counties reconsidering on their own, Bush picking up votes, lawsuit not needed anyore...? ....." Broward Freeper Quaker ".....I just saw the whole episode. They Expelled Sherer again. This whole recount is a joke. ..." Freeper big ern "..... He disclosed that the lawyer for the canvassing board has conflict of interest. His wife is on the Gore legal team. previously undisclosed ....." Freeper snorkeler "....MSNBC made that clear..taht they would likely be heavily dem and from ex-pat Israeli. Republican observer demanded to be heard as to why the board should apply machine standards to votes caste by people with the card clearly visible to them. Republican board member asked to hear the arguements. Judge refused. Told deputeys to clear the room and that the rebub observer would not be readmitted. ....." Freeper Ifly4Him ".....The details are sketchy, but this is what I heard: A lady from the Broward canvassing board (possibly a staff person) told the media that there are 500 absentee ballots from "other" precincts that have been "discovered" and weren't originally included. Somehow, MSNBC knows or is speculating that they are from Israel. The GOP observer hit the roof and accused the chairman of manufacturing votes. He was expelled from the room as they recessed. ....." Freeper Tasha "...... It is not a prank. They are in a major fight right now. It's just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat - the democrats are pulling votes out of their back pockets, and they want to count the absentee ballots in the same way they are counting dimpled chads. The want to find out what the absentee "meant" when they were casting their ballot. The con-artsit democRATS have no shame whatsoever. This is major con game. ....." Freeper papagall "......The silver-haired woman on the left of screen is married to a Gore team lawyer. Judge Lede in the middle is alocal Dem Party big-whig. The poor Republican on the right has no chance of fair dissent. ....." Freeper snorkeler "..... Racicot on MSNBC now! Said he asked the board refuse the absentee dimples.....was refused fair hearing ...." Freeper ~Vor "...... Governor Racicot speaking now...demonstrating the use of a stylus...Congressman Steve Bouyer (R) standing behind Racicot...Gov Frank Keating also in attendance...all upset because there is no "fairness" in counting..." MSNBC 11/25/00 Freeper wotan "...... I just saw on MSNBC that Gore has a net gain of 411 in Broward with 1300 of 2000 ballots falsified. Expect about another 210 for about +620 for broward. ...." Freeper veronica "..... Volusia thinking of going back to Nov 8 numbers - 52 vote LOSS FOR GORE. Be sure to subtract the 157 VOTES GORE LOST IN MIAMI-DADE. These votes totals being released are not accurate. ....." Freeper Owen "......I'm seeing the Volusia news scattered about too, Zap. I suspect it as a maneuver. They filed their recount before the 5 PM Tuesday deadline, and dimples weren't even on the radar screen then. I suspect they'd like to count again using the Broward dimple standard to add more Gore votes. ....... The Osceeeola county situation is becoming intriguing. They had 600 votes for Bush that also had Bush "written in". They cancelled the votes and tossed them as "double votes". Under the "intent of voter" criteria, this is a possible 600+. .....The reason, mostly, that I give this a chance is that about 10 days ago I recall a story from the heavily Gore Gasden county in which 120 votes had exactly the same situation and *they were counted*. ....." Freeper Katie_Colic "......I saw MSNBC admit that the old lady who is the Democratic observer usually sees a vote for Gore and the Republican observer sees nothing. Then, he is outvoted when the Democratic counter agrees it's a vote for Gore. That's exactly how MSNBC reported it! And of course they're too objective to suggest that this process isn't fair....." Freeper rocklobster11 "...... I just saw that Gore is up 446 with 1473 counted. Gore has gained 49 votes in the last 81 counted, so it looks like they are doing everything they can to count a vote for Gore. They have been averaging about 20% to Gore, but now they are averaging 60% ....."

Freeper upstatenyrepublican ".... I am watching too and EVERY vote is going for Gore now. It's outrageous. The Republican is saying, "no reasonable certainty," and the other two say, "Gore." ....." Freeper ~Vor ".....Torie...MSNBC is reporting that there were 500 absentee ballots just found and they would be bringing them in to count...said they had to get the absentee ballots counted and that was Mr. Scherer's concern...said the rep's were not told of these new ballots coming in from other precincts..." Freeper zeebee ".....Racicot is saying these absentee ballots were rejected by the machine as an undervote for the Presidential candidiate. He says you can't try to determine "intent" of an underpunch when there was no machine to confuse the voter. Also that there is 600-650 of these ...." Freeper upstatenyrepublican "....On Cnn or MSNBC I can't remember, they are saying that these were old absentee ballots that went through the machine and came up as undervotes. Two governors (R ) just spoke and said that these are punched by hand and not by machine so they can't be counted. I guess Broward is counting them anyways after a lunch break. ....." Freeper coloradoguy "..... Don't you see what's happening? GW pulled the lawsuit on military ballots and now other Republican counties are counting previously thrown-out military ballots. So, the DemocRATS are now going to farm the jewish overseas ballots and laugh in our face. They know that PBC will probably not finish, so their going to need to come through to declare Goron the winner. ....." Freeper Spiff "...... They are talking about locking themselves in. Putting handcuffs on the door, etc. Incredible - just like Dade they've expelled the Republican observers and are locking the doors to count in secret. This is going to get ugly. ....." Miami Herald 8/18/00 Freeper 4u2 "...... From the Miami Herald: Sigler paved the way for other openly gay judges to serve in Florida: Mark King Leban became a Dade County judge in 1995; last year, Gov. Lawton Chiles appointed Robert Lee a Broward County judge. .....Judge Lee is heading the recount. This is the guy who is perpetuating this fraud!!! ....." Freeper Bob Evans "...... IN BROWARD COUNTY, officials made a surprise announcement Saturday that they had found 500 untabulated absentee ballots filed from abroad. This discovery was expected to delay the county's completion of its revised count, which had been expected Saturday. ........ Democratic Vice President Al Gore earlier had made significant gains in the largely Democratic county's manual review of ballots, posting about 500 extra votes over those recorded with the state Nov. 14. In Palm Beach County, election officials began examining more than 8,000 so-called questionable ballots still to be counted, having already reviewed about 1,900. A county spokesman said board officials vowed to count late Saturday and resume work early Sunday to meet the deadline imposed by Florida's state Supreme court. ......" Open mike in Broward - Freeper Larry80 "..... Mike is open at msnbc live and they don'y know it ....." Freeper firstbasekid1 "...... I WAS JUST ABOUT TO POST THIS!!did I heard them say that the 500 ballots they found were in the bag the whole time? ......" Freeper LifeandLiberty "....The guy to the left of the old lady counter just made a phone call requesting "support". Said they need bodies to give support and to get them from all coutines! So much for accusing the republicans of organsised protest!. Shows how impartial the recount is!!! Time of comment was around 10:40 pst. ....." Freeper richwolo "..... He accused Dems of "Trolling" for votes untill the correct number was reached. He was asked to leave and told not to return. Lone Republican on the counting team, does not even speak aby more. He looks like he is ready to have a breakdon or suffer a stroke. What a travesty of Justice. I hope someone isvideotaping all the proceedings. Have never seen anything like this in my life. I am beginning to feel like a proleteriat in the USSR. ...." CNN 11/25/00 ".....In a surprise move Saturday, attorneys for the campaign of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush dropped their petition in Florida state court to allow disqualified oversees absentee ballots to be counted in 12 counties. ..... The matter had been expected to be addressed later Saturday in Leon County Circuit Court. ....... Broward County, Florida, a Republican observer was ejected Saturday from the ongoing hand vote recount there. The observer, an attorney who was raising objections about the way absentee ballots were to be counted, was tossed out of the room by the chairman of the canvassing board and a lunch recess was called. ...." Freeper Camillus76 ".....Congressional Medal of Honor Winners speaking about absentee Military Ballots NOW on CNN. Also, MSNBC says Bush likely to file suits in 13 separate counties to get them to count the disqualified military ballots. ...."

Rush Limbaugh 11/24/00 "..... When Miami-Dade County said they wouldn't continue their hand recount, I made a prediction. I said, "Expect the liberals to start whining that the GOP protestors, who demanded the vote counting be made public, would be blamed for usurping the path of justice." ......Well, now it's happening. The press is saying that Miami-Dade stopped their count because these GOP ruffians accosted some God-fearing Democratic counters - who, by the way, were just doing the Lord's work. The media is also reporting that Republicans may have been bussed in to Broward County! As if never before has it happened in politics - come on! The Democratic Party is nothing but a big rent-a-mob! ....." The WPB Post 11/25/00 Joel Engelhardt "..... In a strong indication that the Democratic campaign's desperation level is rising, lawyers for Al Gore spoke openly Friday of contesting the recount results in Palm Beach County -- the Democratic bastion they once thought would allow them to carry Florida. ...... While that puts the Gore campaign in the awkward position of challenging the very recount it demanded, Democratic lawyers are aggressively pursuing it because the manual recounts in South Florida aren't likely to give the vice president enough votes to offset Texas Gov. George W. Bush's 930-vote Florida lead. ........ Gore also plans to contest the Miami-Dade canvassing board's decision to abandon its manual recount. As the tortured hand count limped forward Friday, it became increasingly clear that if the Palm Beach canvassing board hews to its present counting standards, Gore will not get the votes he needs to catch Bush, at least not in Palm Beach County. With 244 of the county's 637 precincts reporting, Bush showed a net gain of 10 votes over Gore. Approximately 50 precincts in south county, where Gore's support was strongest, have been reported. They have helped his cause very little. ....." Smodeerf ".....The need for a Conservative T.V. Network. (Example: Three Medal of Honor recepients just expressed their feeling on the Military ballot situation. MSNBC wasn't even covering it.) I'm just curious as to the opinions of others on the idea of a great need for a conservative T.V. Network. Also could a boycott of the prevailing networks MSNBC,CNN and all the other Major Networks and their sponsors by conservatives have a profound effect on the way they report the news? ....." Freeper markfnkl ".....I also was struck by MSNBC's failure to cover the Medal of Honor recipients' press conference regarding the overseas military ballots. Dave Boies clears his throat and Chip Reid or whoever is right there with a microphone. ....." Freeper kcreason88 ".....Tony Snow on FOX covering it now... " Freeper WhiteKnuckles ".....Give CNN credit. They covered it as well as did FOX. I guess the other two only cover MOH winners when it is a democrat. ...." Freeper Fred Mertz ".... I saw those CMOHonor recipients on C-Span live. Thank you, C-SPAN! ....." Freeper jeep jeep FACT: On Election day 2000 and prior to the close of Florida polls, Democratic Party volunteer Kristie Clegg fielded over 5,000 phone calls from people concerned that they had voted for the wrong Presential candidate.- source Allen G. Breed, AP 11/11/00 FACT: The DNC paid Telequest, an Arlington, TX based company to make 5,000 calls in 45 minutes to alert voters that they may have voted wrong due to possible ballot confusion. -source Allen G. Breed, AP 11/11/00 FACT: Palm Beach County was targeted with at least 50% of these calls."Only about 100 of the voters in Palm Beach hadn't voted, and about 2,400 felt they may have made a mistake on the ballot..." 2,500 of 5,000 calls. source Allen G. Breed, AP 11/11/00 FACT: Here is the actual script of these calls, "Some voters have encountered a problem today with punch card ballots in PBC. These voters have said that they believe that they accidentally punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate. If you have already voted and think you may have punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate, you should return to the polls and request that the election officials write down your name so that this problem can be fixed." - source Allen G. Breed, AP 11/11/00 FACT: The Essar Group, of Mumbai India acquired Telequestion, Inc. (parent comany of Telequest) 9 days after the election (11/16/00). -source <AHREF=HTTP: www.essargroup.comhttp://www.essargroup.com FACT: The Essar Group had no previous US Companies. Their marketing efforts had previously all occured in India. -source www.essargroup.com FACT: The Essar Group primarily does business in these following sectors; Oil, Steel, International Shipping, Power & Telecom. Most of their operations occur in India, Asia, and the Middle East. -source www.essargroup.com FACT: The Essar Group's Steel Company is in deep financial ruin. "The industrial Bank Of India & other financial institutions have reportedly turned down Essar Steel's desperate plea for additional finance to help

pay off it's maturing Floating Rate Notes (FRNs)." "The due date for the $250 million FRN is July 2o..." "For Essar Group especially the additional problem has been that the issue of FRN retirement has been highly sensationalized. As it often happens it has even acquired political overtones." "In any international borrowing the country at risk is always factored in alongside the individual borrower's risk. That an Indian company has been allowed to default(should it occur) does not reflect favorably on the machinery within India that sanctioned the facility for Essar Group." -source The Hindu; Online Edition of India's National Newspaper 07/15/00 FACT: The Gore Lieberman 2000 Campaign openly stated that it would, "win by any means necessary." source David Horowitz article, Salon Magazine 11/22/00 FACT: The Gore Lieberman Campaign has accepted donations from individuals (US citizens) with the same last names as Essar Group Board Of Directors that totals over $13,750. -sources www.essargroup.com and www.opensecrets.org FACT: Telequest claims to do work for both major political parties and to be non-partisan. They also claim that they follow all federal & state(s) laws regarding telemarketing practices. -source www.telequest.com Drudge 11/25/00 "...... As Broward County elections officials pressed to finish their review of disputed presidential ballots, transcripts of the canvassing board recount sessions show member Suzanne Gunzburger, a Democrat...blatantly hunting for more Gore votes! .... Freeper MPB ".....Oh man, I'm watching the live feed and it's just ghastly... I pulled this off the transcript on Drudge... does this make any sort of sense? -JUDGE LEE: 10A 1, no reasonable certainty. COMMISSIONER GUNZBURGER: I haven't looked. JUDGE LEE: I'm just stating my opinion, I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER GUNZBURGER: The other races are Democratic. There is an indentation on that and I would vote for Gore. (Broward County Canvassing Board, Esquire Deposition Services, November 23, 2000, p. 1398 - 1399) So we have in Gunzburger's own words that "I would vote for Gore", so obviously in her mind that means that this unknown voter would as well. Well thank you Miss Gunzburger for voting for this person, even if he/she meant to vote for nobody. ....." Freeper BushMeister ".....The chutzpah of Suzanne Gunzberger is breathtaking! Here's how the newly "found" Broward County overseas absentee vote is proceeding. Judge Lee announces the number of the disputed ballot, and hands it to Rosenberg (the newly registered Republican, who was recently a registered Democrat). Rosenberg generally says "no reasonable certainty". The ballot is passed to Democrat Commissioner Suzanne Gunzberger, who within 3 seconds declares the ballot a "vote for Gore". Her facial expression tells that even SHE doesn't believe it. Then the ballot is passed to Judge Lee, who has generally been confirming that there is no vote for anyone on the ballot. Gunzberger is like that character in "The Mask", who says: "SOMEBODY STOP ME!" ...." Freeper peteram "..... From the transcripts: JUDGE LEE: Number three. COMMISSIONER GUNZBURGER: I see a clear vote for Gore. It's like a garage door. MR CARROLL (Republican Attorney): I ask you not to bend the ballot, please. GOVERNOR: Don't bend the ballot. MR. POZZOVLI (sic) (Republican Attorney): You may not bend the ballot.

JUDGE LEE: I agree that's a vote for Gore. Broward County Canvassing Board, Esquire Deposition Services, November 23, 2000, p. 1516) Somebody had better read these transcripts before this Sunday or next Friday at the latest. This is truly AMAZING. ...." Newsmax 11/25/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Earlier this week, Jack Thompson reported that a video shows members of the League of Women Voters punching ballots that supposedly had already been voted in a Miami election. Sound fishy? ....... Well, we note in today's Miami Herald, a member of the League of Women Voters writes that Miami-Dade had a unique way of handling questionable, indented ballots. "Volunteers" would simply help determine who the voter intended to vote for and punch the ballot after the election. ....... Here is the letter to the editor from today's Herald: ........ As a volunteer and former board member of the League of Women Voters, I spent many an election eve assisting our Elections Department. If we were able to easily remove loose chads by hand, we were instructed to do so to prepare the ballot for counting by the machine; if chads were indented or if ballots were otherwise marked or irregular, we presented them to staff for further action. It was never my experience that our handling of the ballots resulted in the creation of new holes or unintended votes. The cardboard stock ballot is tough enough to sometimes resist even intentional poking by the voting pin. It isn't readily subject to partisan ``manipulation'' as has been suggested by those who would discredit a manual recount. DANIELLA LEVINE Miami ....." NewsMax 11/25/00 Carl Limbacher "..... There is "explicit statistical evidence of massive ballot tampering in Palm Beach, Fla.," says expert statistician Robert Cook, who notes that ballot errors only occurred in presidential races. .......... And, he adds, the same kind of ballot tampering occurred in Palm Beach County in 1996. In an analysis sent to Michael Reagan, Cook, a nuclear engineer with a track record for analyzing and correcting trends, errors and mistakes in heavy construction projects (ships, power plants, nuclear reactors, military and aerospace vehicles, etc.) for more than twenty years, put forth a compelling case that the 19,120 presidential race ballots at issue in Palm Beach County were "destroyed by deliberate double-punching ballots with a 'second punch' for Al Gore or Pat Buchanan." Cook used what Reagan called "simplified but wide-ranging statistical comparisons to establish beyond doubt that Democratic operatives "stole," by double-punching ballots, "approximately 15,000 Bush votes in Palm Beach County and approximately 3,400 additional Buchanan votes." Cook charges that his statistical analysis shows: 19,120 presidential race ballots were destroyed by deliberate double-punching ballots with a "second punch" for Al Gore or Pat Buchanan. (In 1996, an additional 15,000 Dole and Perot ballots were destroyed by double-punching presidential ballots in Palm Beach County.) The national error rate of double-punching ballots is less than 1/2 of 1 percent, or at most, 1,800 ballots in all of Palm Beach County, with the errors between all races and all candidates. Palm Beach County has an error rate 10 TIMES larger than reported in ANY other county in the nation using paper punch ballots! ONLY in Palm Beach were 15,000 ballots "invalidated" (for double-punched ballots) in the 1996 presidential election. ONLY in Palm Beach did this "double punch" error happen ONLY in the Gore-Bush-Buchanan selections for president. (In a truly random "error," the mistakes happen in every race, at about the same rate. In Palm Beach, the massive errors (over 19,000) ONLY happened in the presidential race.) ONLY in Palm Beach did Gore GAIN 750 votes in a recount. In 50 out of 67 counties in Florida, the actual change in the recount was 5 to 7 votes, and in 63 out of 67 counties, the total change was fewer than 30 votes either way. Further, in 63 out of 67 counties the "changes" were somewhat evenly divided between ALL the candidates, in rough proportion to the original number of votes. This is the statistically expected result and represents a true and legal recount of the ballots without any change in the ballots themselves. There are about 15,000 "Bush + Gore" ballots that have mostly Republican choices below. THESE ARE FRAUDS. They represent Bush votes that were stolen. A "mistaken" "Gore + Buchanan" voter would ALMOST CERTAINLY have chosen the Democrats in the rest of the ballot ... or if, AS THEY CLAIM, those "Gore + Buchanan" voters who were "told to push the second

hole" really meant "only followed directions," THEN the rest of the ballot would be solid Democrat, or blank. Washington Post 11/25/00 John Mintz "..... Election lawyers in Illinois say that the Gore team and the Florida Supreme Court were mistaken this week in citing an Illinois Supreme Court decision in 1990 as a precedent for ruling dimpled ballots are acceptable. In a passage quoted by the Florida court, the Illinois judges said that voters should not be disenfranchised "simply because the chad they punched did not completely dislodge from the ballot." But the ballots at issue in the Illinois case involved mostly "hanging" chads much more detached from the punch card, those involved in the case said......" Fiedor Report 11/26/00 "...... Legal eagles often laugh when they admit that someone committing fraud against one or two people will often be arrested. But defraud a whole class of people and quite often there are no legal penalties. Let's see if we can make an exception this time. There are quite a number of people who need some serious prison time. Because, the people harmed were our American active duty military personnel. While in the military, people are stationed somewhere other than home -- anywhere in the United States or elsewhere in the world. Or, in the case of the Navy, out on a boat in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, they are all still American citizens and have the rights of all other American citizens. Which means, according to the laws of the United States, they also get to vote. No matter where they are stationed, American military personnel and their family may ask for an absentee ballot from their home election committee and have a perfect right to expect that their vote is added to the normal election count. ......" Freeper TBBT ".......Gov. Wittman from N.J. just walked in to observe the proceedings.... The pace has slowed since she has walked in the room and the 3 member canvassing commission is now giving each ballot more scrutiny than they were before. When she leaves the pace will probably pick back up to warp speed... " Freeper Azzurri "....This is exactly what I have been observing. When a Republican congressman or governor walks in to observe, the pace slows and the commission appears to be very fair and meticulous. As soon as they leave and only "ordinary" Republican observers are present, the Gore vault opens back up. ....." sdkhaki "....I've tallied the last 16 ballots looked at. 11 no votes, 4 Gore and 1 Bush. The one Bush vote was ony tallied because the female cheatocrat was directed to look at the ballot again after she briefly glanced at it and announced "no vote". She is as corrupt as they come. ..." Sue Gunzburger for Congress webpage 11/24/00 Freeper COBOL2Java "......Broward County Commissioner, 1992-present. Hollywood City Commissioner, 1982-92. Former Public School Classroom Teacher. Professional Marriage & Family Counselor (MSW, LCSW). .... Democratic Party Volunteer. Delegate, White House Conference on Families. .... Hannah G. Solomon Award for Leadership, National Council of Jewish Women. Hope Restored Award for Anti-Drug Leadership, Broward Sheriff's Office. Outstanding Commitment to Broward Award, The Vanguard Chronicle. Woman of Distinction Award, March of Dimes Foundation. Heart Award for Child Advocacy, Children's Consortium. Woman of Style and Substance Award, Florida Philharmonic. Leadership Award, Pride South Florida. Social Activist Award, Temple Beth-El. Dedication & Support Award, St. Thomas Indian Orthodox Church. Community Leadership Award, Center One Governmental Dream Builder Award, Children's Harbor. Married to Gerry Gunzburger since 1960. ....." FoxNews 11/25/00 Freeper motife "..... Just reported by the reporter at Palm Beach and would issue a partial count. According to Fox they'll have to average 300 ballots per hour for the next 25 hours to finish. Even so, they haven't been doing any counting for over 2 hours. Could it have anything to do with Gore threats to sue PBC? ....." FoxNews 11/25/00 Freeper EggsAckley "......Sen.McColsky on Fox saying Rep. protesters are acting like "terminators", and trying to stop vote recount. What a total windbag clymer! ....." AP 11/25/00 Ron Fournier "..... Democrats and Republicans scratched for votes all across Florida as Al Gore and George W. Bush plotted their strategies for Sunday, when the state's top elections official certifies the longest, closest White House race in 124 years. ...." Freeper oak ".... http://qrd.diversity.org.uk/qrd/orgs/NGLTF/1994/equality.statement.endorsement.project .... The above URL shows the MZ. Gunzburger is the FLA. REP for the "FIGHT THE RIGHT" organization. A farleft radical group. Is there any doubt she should have recused herself? ...." Freeper Billie "....... 'Did the Democrats really think the Republicans would just sit idly by and let Gore steal the election? ' Callista, that's exactly what they were expecting, based on the past performance of Republicans. What they DID NOT EXPECT was that this time, this candidate would not be a pushover. We have a different kind of Republican team running, and the RATS cannot believe their tricks aren't working

this time. ....." Freeper FrostFire "...... Steve Buyer just said there is no way the votes can be counted fast enough to give this election to gore. When they tried to ask him about the demonstartors, he said he preferred to talk about what was going on INSIDE and how riciculous it is. ....." Freeper timydnuc "..... walden...I think you may have the point of the day. These little county hacks that are experts at stealing smaller elections for the dems must have read the Federal Law and realized that this goes to a Federal court, and they must serve 80% of a Federal sentance. I think, under the advise of their attorneys, they will just put on the brakes, thinking no harm, no foul. I hate to tell them, but that probably won't work either. Does any FReepers in those counties knw if these hacks are elected officials or appointed?......" Freeper appeal2 "..... Fellow freepers, this is over.There are six ways for W to win and C will never reach the deadline. I feel that Burton was a GOP plant. He was appointed by Jeb and he has been nothing if not fair. My brother-in-law (fbi) knows him personally and only has good things to say. He appears before him regularly in court and applauds his skills as a jurist. My mother-in-law was in the PBC counting room and only had good things to say. A number of these constested ballots were challenged just to slow down the process. The key that the fix was in for W came when they broke for Thanksgiving. How could they justify that when Broward was busy cooking, I mean counting votes for Algore. ........... No PBC re-re-re-count will not be completed and god bless Judge Burton, he saved us. The Dems are currently up in arms and can't believe they've been had. Expect another lawsuit and on and on. Now expect Harris to ignore Browards votes. She will be challenged but it won't matter because algore will have lost. This thing is over. The media will be carrying on until 5pm tomorrow. If I am wrong about the votes, Harris will still ignore them and she now has political cover because the FLorida Legislature has come down squarely behind her. ......" UPI 11/25/00 Tom Hopkins Kathy Gambrill "......A day away from the certification of Florida's presidential election vote tally, both Republicans and Democrats brought in their top guns Saturday to make the case that their candidate was the real winner and the other side was counting on double standards, intimidation and delaying tactics to make off with the U.S. presidency. ...... Backers of Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush held rallies in several Florida cities and gathered outside Vice President Al Gore's Washington residence, shouting "Get out of Cheney's house," a reference to Republican vice presidential candidate Richard Cheney. ......" Investor's Business Daily 11/27/00 "..... Dimpled ballots. Uncounted military votes. There seems to be no end to the chicanery, manipulation and routine fraud marring Florida's vote recount. That's why the U.S. Supreme Court has stepped in. ...... The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to get involved in a state election is certainly unusual. But it may be the only thing keeping a fair election from turning into a massive voter fraud. .....The reason is alarmingly clear: The Democrat's horde of lawyers will stop at nothing short of victory. Nothing. And why not? So far, they've prodded and intimidated local officials into accepting bizarre and plainly illegal standards for counting votes. ....." Freeper 4u2 "..... It started again at 9:00 AM when the first 300 showed up in a driving rainstorm. Finally, it stopped raining about 11:00 and the crowd began to swell. The chanting went on non-stop, Soooore Looooser, Soooore Looooser. By the time we left at 16:00, I estimated the crowd at about 1200; the Democratic ranks "swelled" to about 50. The crowd was totally peacefull, and didn't trash the street with litter like some folks we know do. The bull horns were going and there was lots of singing, What we lacked though were some drums to keep the cadence going. Finally a lady with a drum showed up and so did some guys with big pots which they were banding on with large spoons. Then the chanting and noise level rose dramatically and everyone got more boisterous. ......Unfortunately, none of our Repub "leaders" showed up. It also appeared that the media was boycotting us. CNN & PMSNBC cameras all stayed in the courthouse and studiously avoided coming outside. Then, of course, they paraded their Demo attack dogs like fat-face Nadler out to assert that we were a violent mob that was interfering with the vote count. And that convicted fellon, Alcee Hastings too. ........Almost everyone seemed aware that none of our Republican leaders were present and wondered why they weren't supporting us. We definitely needed someone to speak. ........" New York Post 11/25/00 Deborah Orin "...... A new poll shows voters are now twice as likely to say they'd see an Al Gore victory as "stolen" compared with a George W. Bush presidency - but black voters emphatically disagree. Overall, 60 percent of Gore opponents say they'd see a Gore presidency as "stolen" rather than legitimate - but only 30 percent of Bush opponents say that. But the survey found a huge racial divide, with 60 percent of black Gore voters saying a Bush presidency would be "stolen" - and only 24 percent saying the Republican would be a legitimate commander-in-chief if he wins......" New York Post 11/25/00 Steve Dunleavy ".....IF Al Gore wins the White House, he can kiss his butt goodbye when it comes to some Southern Democrats. Reluctantly, I have to say Gore can win on reinvented votes,

when it comes to some Southern Democrats. Reluctantly, I have to say Gore can win on reinvented votes, thought votes, intended votes, crystal-ball votes. But his support in Dixie among some Democrats is falling apart like a hanging chad. "None of this would be going on, there would not be this much ado if George Bush had been certified under Florida state law in the first place." " New York Post 11/25/00 "..... Is this ever going to end? Probably. But not, it seems, soon. ........ Tomorrow afternoon, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris will take possession of final (we use the term advisedly) ballot hand-counts - with the intention of certifying, once and for all, the results of that state's presidential balloting. .......Upon which, as the world knows, turns the outcome of the 2000 election. .....Ummm, not so fast, Ms. Harris. The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday signaled its intention to have a say in the matter - scheduling oral arguments next Friday on George W. Bush's contention that Florida's highest court illegally permitted the hand-counts in the first place. ......" Rod Adair 11/24/00 "....... BROWARD Bush 177,360 Gore 386,614 DADE Bush 289,574 Gore 328,861 PALM BEACH Bush 152,964 Gore 269,764 Gore leads Bush by the following ratios: 2.18 to 1 in Broward 1.14 to 1 in Dade 1.76 to 1 in Palm Beach or, overall, by a ration of 1.59 to 1 in the three counties combined. Bush started out in this second (or third) recount 930 votes ahead. Some of the reports coming out of Florida, which we hear incompletely and in starts and spurts, seem to indicate that Gore may be making up votes in ratios far in excess of what we might reasonably expect. In other words, we hear things like "Gore picked up a net 88 votes (in such and such county) out of only 327 votes counted." While such an outcome (in a fair and legitimately conducted recount) is possible, it is mathematically unlikely. Much more likely are changes---net gains or losses--- in either candidate's totals that are in ratios reasonably similar to those already established in the course of the already counted 11/2 million votes (shown above). That is a big sample. The current recount began with Gore needing 930 votes to catch Bush (leaving aside a host of other issues involving the legitimacy of the entire procedure---and we see it as wholly illegitimate). Based on the returns we already have, we can't assume it is reasonable for Gore to be the only one to gain. In fact, we have to assume Bush will get about 63 votes for every 100 additional votes Gore finds. Doing some simple algebra, and using "x" for the additional Bush votes which will be "found" in the ongoing recount, we know that Gore has a reasonable expectation of getting about 59% more (1.59x) than Bush. By using the equation 1.59x - 1x = 930, we can determine the minimum number of votes which have to be found for Bush before Gore can catch up. That equation says that number is 1,576.

If Bush gains 1,576, then it is not unreasonable for Gore to gain 2,506, and thus move into a tie. So far, though, we don't see those kinds of gains being made for Bush. The reports seem to be much smaller and much more one-sided in favor of Gore. If that kind of numerical phenomenon (low numbers, big gains) shows up, you have a right to be very suspicious. (We mean even more suspicious than you may already be.) If you see a report from one county which says Bush gained 50, but Gore gained 350, it just isn't statistically probable. Keep that in mind. ....." New York Post 11/25/00 Steve dunleavy "...... "The Democrats have really misled the canvassing board here," said lawyer Burton Odelson, from Chicago, on the so-called "pregnant chad" nonsense. ....."The Florida Supreme Court invoked as their standard, their bible of recount law, the Supreme Court of Illinois. "And Gore's people reinvoked it many times as to why their chads - you call them pregnant, we call them indented chads - should be counted. ....."Accidentally or on purpose, they're just not telling the truth to people here. It is exactly the opposite. ......" Freeper dougd ".....methinks everyone is focusing on the wrong person here. 102.111 Elections Canvassing Commission.-- (1) Immediately after certification of any election by the county canvassing board, the results shall be forwarded to the Department of State concerning the election of any federal or state officer. The Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Director of the Division of Elections shall be the Elections Canvassing Commission. The Elections Canvassing Commission shall, as soon as the official results are compiled from all counties, certify the returns of the election and determine and declare who has been elected for each office. In the event that any member of the Elections Canvassing Commission is unavailable to certify the returns of any election, such member shall be replaced by a substitute member of the Cabinet as determined by the Director of the Division of Elections. If the county returns are not received by the Department of State by 5 p.m. of the seventh day following an election, all missing counties shall be ignored, and the results shown by the returns on file shall be certified. Note that SoS Harris was, by judicial decree, "unavailable to certify" - ergo Dir of Div of Elections had to, by law, replace her with another cabinet member. Only SoS was restrained by the court, not the Elections Canvassing Commission. ........The Fl Supremes can't read - they were too confused to cast their votes properly just like all their comrades. ......" New York Post 11/25/00 Deborah Orin "..... The U.S. Supreme Court stunned the legal world yesterday by agreeing to hear George W. Bush's request to halt Florida's controversial hand recounts - and put the historic case on a fast track. "The Supreme Court is saying, 'Enough is enough. We're going to make some sense out of this anarchy,'" said presidential scholar Douglas Brinkley. ....... But the nation's highest court said it will consider whether Florida's Supreme Court violated due process and the U.S. Constitution by changing election rules after Election Day to allow hand recounts. ....... The nation's highest court won't be hearing, at least not now, Team Bush's charge that the hand recounts are subjective and thus unconstitutional. ........Leaders of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, who claim the state's highest court overstepped its authority, last night said they'll join the Bush case before the nation's highest court. ....." New York Post 11/25/00 Deborah Orin "....As of last night, Gore had cut Bush's official lead from 930 votes to under 700, but it was unclear if the veep could overcome the gap. Aides have said Gore will refuse to concede even if Bush is certified as the winner tomorrow. ......... In the hunt for votes, Gore's main gains are from Broward County, where Republican Bob Dole, the former Senate leader, noted the "dimpled" ballots were awarded to Gore on strictly partisan lines, with the two Democrats voting yes and the lone Republican no. ....... Most states don't count "dimpled" ballots and it turns out that Gore lawyers wrongly cited an Illinois state court ruling as support for counting "dimples." The trial judge excluded all "dimpled" ballots. .......Several thousand Florida "dimpled" ballots remained to be considered, leaving the outcome unclear. ....." New York Post 11/25/00 Deborah Orin "....The order agreeing to hear the case was unsigned. Normally at least four of the nine justices must agree to take up a case. .......... In essence, Team Bush is asking the high court to roll back the clock to Nov. 14, when Harris wanted to block any new hand recounts under the state deadline. ......" Freeper report AP 11/26/00 ".....Associated Press reports that Palm Beach County inspected 1,868 Ballots today out of a now estimated 9,500 "disputed" ballots. That leaves about 7,632 disputed ballots to go through before the deadline at 5PM on Sunday night......... Doing the math, the Palm Beach County Canvassing Committee went through 1,868 disputed ballots in about 14 hours. That is a rate of 133 ballots per hour. At this rate it will take an additional 57 hours for palm Beach County to finish counting all ballots.

They have stopped for the night and will reconvene at 8:00AM Saturday Morning. This will give them only about 31 hours to complete the remaining 7,600+ ballots. To accomplish this they will need to work from Saturaday morning until Sunday afternoon with no breaks, and will have to average about 245 ballots per hour to complete their work. Again, they only did about 133 ballots per hour today. If they don't finish all the ballots they will have to use either their initial vote submission or machine recount tally. Does anybody think they can count the remaining 7,600+ ballots in less than 31 hours??...." New York Post 11/25/00 Gregg Birnbaum ".....Several Florida counties yesterday began reconsidering some military ballots rejected on technical grounds, but a judge was reluctant to OK a request by Republicans to force officials to accept them. ....... Bush picked up two dozen more votes when three counties included previously nixed military ballots and four more counties plan to meet today or tomorrow to take another look at overseas ballots. ...... Among them is Escambia County, home to Pensacola Naval Air Station, which rejected 112 military ballots. ......... Bartlit noted that no one from Al Gore's campaign attended the court session, saying Democrats didn't want to be publicly linked to an attempt to reject ballots from members of the armed services. ......But it was the vice president's supporters who urged county officials to show no leniency when reviewing overseas votes. ......" New York Post 11/25/00 Kenneth Lovett Malcome Balfour ".... Angry Republicans screamed "no more Gore" and sang patriotic songs yesterday as Broward County officials doggedly examined 1,800 disputed ballots in a hand recount that narrowed George W. Bush's lead. .....With half the disputed ballots counted, Gore had a net gain of 187 in two days - and 324 since the manual recount of all ballots began. ......The county canvassing board expects to finish counting the ballots today so the results can be delivered to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris by tomorrow's 5 p.m. deadline. ......... They shouted "Bush won twice!" and cheered as 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole asked, "When is it going to stop?" "There's something wrong with this system," Dole said. .....At one point, protesters closed in on Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-Fla.) as he did a TV interview, forcing deputies to surround him. ......." FoxNews 11/25/00 "...... GWB was just shown waving to a huge cheering crowd outside the Bush hq. in Austin. Slightly different than Algor sneaking out the back door....? Freeper EggsAckley .... Adds HateBill "..... I saw that shot. He looked wonderful, and totally gratified at his greeting by copious enthusiastic Bush/Cheney supporters. I especially enjoyed his giving the crowd the W sign. He looked so masculine, not like the girly gore going out for ice cream buffeted by the Tubby Tipper who will look like Jerrold Nadler if this goes on much longer. ...." Freeper Dog ".... CNN just showed it Tony Clark said he could see anything Because there were so many people there.. The Gore supporters knew better to show up...lol ...." Insight Magazine 11/24/00 Sheila Cherry "...... The continuing uncertainty concerning the presidential election results has many investors unsure of what to do next or of what direction the economy will take. Election 2000 is over - maybe. "The people" have spoken - sort of. Whatever victors there may be will have to pick through political rubble for their spoils - such that there are. ...... But jittery financial markets meanwhile have been convulsed between stunned disbelief and opportunism amid the chaos. While the political hacks sought to augur voter intent by reading "pregnant" chads to determine who won Florida's prized 25 electoral votes, and hence the presidency of the United States, nervous investors searched through the nasty jumble for clues concerning the likely direction of U.S. economic policy and the consequences. Financial markets hate uncertainty and Election 2000 was chock full of it - even more than during the 1998 presidential-impeachment crisis. ....." Freeper WL-Law ".....Seriously, Volusa discovered that their 'recount' (which they certified to the SoS) failed to recount approx 200 votes. That recount had harvested a net 51 vote gain for Gore. Since the mistake was discovered, they have determined that the original vote was more fair (because it included all the votes), and have moved to replace the certified/recount totals with the original election-night totals. ......" AP 11/25/00 Karin Meadows "......Weary, crabby and still facing thousands of disputed presidential ballots, Palm Beach County election officials said they would work overtime to meet a Sunday recount deadline. Frustrated Democrats, who asked for the count in the first place, said they will contest the outcome. ''You may be here all night,'' canvassing board member Carol Roberts told reporters Saturday. ..... The board will send partial results to the state if it fails to complete the hand count by 5 p.m. Sunday. ......The three board members, all Democrats, have examined more than 2,000 of some 9,500 ballots in dispute because voting machines could not clearly read a presidential choice. The results released so far, from 260 of 637 precincts overall, have disappointed Democrats who had hoped to pick up hundreds of additional votes for Al Gore. ....." Freeper markfnkl "..... Are people watching the shameless Gunzberger? Rosenberg says "Bush vote". She says "I don't see anything dislodged". When Judge Lee points out to her a clear punch through and announces "Bush vote", Gunzberger actually LAUGHS. In other words, she knows she's cheating, and

laughs when her blatant efforts get caught. She has absolutely no shame. ....." Freeper machman "....... This clearly is the strategy. I bet Boies is behind it, he was the first to bring it up, that republicans were "puching" people, "stomping" on them. But of course there is this from another thread here at FR, and comments I made about Bonior, the minority Whip. .......Pivotal move led to end of Dade count But Leahy -- one of three members of the canvassing board -- denied Friday that the protests played any part in his decision to scrub the recount. ``The protest was not a factor in my decision, he said. ``We simply could not get it done by the deadline. Leahy denied a report in The New York Times that quoted him as saying the protests had influenced his vote to call off the recount. He said the protest outside his office had influenced the board's decision to return to the 18th floor, but not his vote to scrap the recount. ``I was concerned that what we were doing was not being perceived as a fair and open process, Leahy told reporters on Wednesday. ......... Read this, and remember that Leahy repeated it live on CNN today. Now get this, I saw David Bonior, (communist, Mich) on Evans and Novak repeat the lie. Novak challenged him, but he said he would rather believe what was reported in the New York Times. Simply unbelievable. Makes you wonder, was the NYT in cahoots with the dems to "get the story out" for the rats? Makes you wonder. ....." National Review Online 11/25/00 Robert Alt "..... As the Florida recount winds to a close, Gore's team is already geared up for a legal contest if he is still behind when the final count is certified. The key argument circulated at this moment is that Republicans intimidated election officials in Dade County, which they allege caused the voting officials to abandon their recount effort. But the speech by the Republican protesters was constitutionally protected, any interference to the recount process could have been avoided by less restrictive means than abandoning the process, and the actions of the board leading up to the protest was arguably unlawful. Of course, all of this assumes that the decision not to recount was forced by "intimidation." Far from the alleged intimidation being the cause, the board had significant reasons to abandon the recount, and in fact took a risk of creating a biased count by going forward with the count at all. ......." MSNBC 11/25/00 "....... MANY of the Republican protesters in Broward County were unhappy with critics who say the GOP has brought in out-of-state support to rattle south Florida canvassers. "Because someone paid for my hotel room, because someone paid for my plane ticket, I'm a thug?" asked Terry Benham, a Little Rock, Ark., lobbyist. Another sign in the crowd read: "We are not from Rent-A-Mob." ......... In Fort Lauderdale on Friday, a street was blocked off, and more than 200 GOP supporters were separated from a Democratic crowd of about 50 people by police tape and Broward County deputies. A brick was thrown through a window at the Broward County Democratic Party office in Plantation late Thursday or early Friday. No one was hurt. On the brick, according to party officials, was written: "We will not tolerate any illegal government." ....." Freeper GuillermoX ".... Palm Beach will likely submit whatever count they have, and the SoS will have to take it. Hopefully Gore will not gain enough in PB. ...." Freeper Smedley "..... May I refer you to Fla law 102.166(5) - this requires that ALL BALLOTS be handcounted. The counties must count ALL ballots by hand. By enforcing that all votes be handcounted, the canvassing boards can't pick and choose precincts favorable to them before "running out of time" This is what sparked the uprise in Miami. The fool board decided to "skip" the Cuban community before progressing to the undervote piles. ...." AP 11/25/00 "......Certification of Florida's presidential vote may not necessarily follow promptly after the 5 p.m. EST Sunday deadline for county results to be filed. Ben McKay, spokesman for Secretary of State Katherine Harris, said Saturday that certification could be delayed for hours or longer if legal action or ''unforeseen circumstances'' intervene. The secretary of state's office plans to open at 8:30 a.m. Sunday to receive and report county returns in the tight, disputed race between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. .....McKay has said certification by Harris and two other members of the state canvassing commission could come as early as 6 p.m., one hour after the deadline for counties to file their returns. ....." From the Florida Supreme Court decision: ".....The Secretary may ignore such returns [filed after the initial statutory date] only if their inclusion would compromise the integrity of the electoral process in either of two ways: (1) by precluding a candidate, elector, or taxpayer from contesting the certification of the election pursuant to section 102.168; or (2) by precluding Florida voters from participating in the federal electoral process. In either case, this drastic penalty must be both reasonable and necessary......" "......Accordingly, in order to allow maximum time for contests pursuant to section 102.168, amended certifications must be filed with the Elections Canvassing Commission by 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 26, 2000 and the Secretary of State and the Elections Canvassing Commission shall accept any such amended certifications received by 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 26, 2000, provided that the office of the Secretary of

State, Division of Elections is open in order to allow receipt thereof. If the office is not open for this special purpose on Sunday, November 26, 2000, then any amended certifications shall be accepted until 9 a.m. on Monday, November 27, 2000. The stay order entered on November 17, 2000, by this court, shall remain in effect until the expiration of time for accepting amended certifications set forth in this opinion. The certificates made and signed by the Elections Canvassing Commission pursuant to section 102.121 shall include the amended returns accepted through the dates set forth in this opinion......" Freeper aristeides 11/22/00 "... it would seem the Florida Supreme Court did not bother to read Barry Richard's supplemental brief filed yesterday with them. That brief (entitled "Response in Opposition to Reply Brief") pointed out that at least 22 days had to be allowed for contests because of the provisions of 102.168. ......" Filing by Barry Richard for Bush in Florida Supreme Court 11/21/00 "...... In addition, as the Court's repeated inquiries during oral argument made clear, there is an extremely tight timeframe for consideration of these issues. As the Court recognized, the State of Florida must conclusively select its electors by December 12, 2000, or risk not having its electors participate in the election of President. See 3 U.S.C. 5. Florida law provides by right that an unsuccessful candidate may contest the certification of election. Section 102.168, Florida Statutes, provides that such contestant shall have 10 days after the last county canvassing board certifies its election result or 5 days after the last county canvassing board certifies the results of a particular election following a protest. Section 102.168(6), Florida Statutes, further provides that the defendant to such contest shall have 10 days after the complaint has been served to file an answer admitting or denying the allegations on which the contestant relies. There is then a statutory provision for an evidentiary hearing with the taking of testimony, 102.168(7), Fla. Stat., and any ruling by the circuit judge would be subject to appeal. Even on an expedited basis, it is difficult to believe that such legal proceedings could take less than at least 7 days. Thus, Florida statutory law at the very minimum provides for a 22 to 27 day period for contesting an election. Counting back from December 12, 2000, this would require that the certification of election be completed by November 20, 2000, at the very latest. Newsmax 11/25/00 Jack Thompson "...... The U.S. Supreme Court's grant of a writ of certiorari to the campaign of Gov. George W. Bush, thereby agreeing to hear his appeal of the bizarre Florida Supreme Court ruling mandating the inclusion of the hand recounts in the vote totals, has confounded the Gore campaign and his team of lawyers. ...... What it ought to do is scare the hell out of them. Literally. ........The Boies spin reveals new panic in the Gore camp. For if this is purely a state issue, then why has the highest court in the land agreed to hear the case on federal constitutional grounds? ............ The Gore team has known all along about the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case of Roe v. Alabama, which overturned an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that had changed the way votes were counted, after an election. Sound familiar? And that was in a state election, not a federal one. How much greater is the weight of the Bush argument for federal review of a federal election and for the only office in which the candidates are elected by the entire nation? .........Gore is in deep trouble this moment. Whereas Florida's Supremes are an activist court for partisan reasons, at least the U.S. Supreme Court has been activist for the purpose, in their minds, of reining in states not compliant with the U.S. Constitution. ......." MSNBC 11/25/00 Freeper Ok ".....Gunzsburger for the third precinct consectively put 1 Bush vote into Gore pile. She is handling the final tally and the Republican observer has caught her 3 times CONSECTUTIVELY! This woman should be removed immediately. She's a Representative in the Far-left "Fight the Right" organization. ...." Freeper Oak "..... "Did they catch her?" Yes, the republican observer stated that it should be 17 Bush votes added for that particular precinct. Gunz said well I have 16. They requested a recount, the recount was 16. Then they went one-by-one and when they were all finished - the Republican called out the ballot number of the one not in the 16. They looked in the Gore pile (someone has suggested in was the NO Count pile) and the Bush vote was there for the 3rd consecutive precinct. ....." Freeper aculeus "...... Keep calm. Gunzburger is a stroke of luck. She is not only infuriating Republicans she is probably being watched by SCOTUS. The tape can be used as evidence there or in the 11th. She is a godsend ... to us!!!!!!!! ....." Freeper StAnDeliver "..... PBC board appears to be in meltdown over mis-placed ballots. On MSNBC. ...." MSNBC Freeper dormee "...... MSNBC keeps saying that Palm Beach will not release any information on how the votes are going until tomorrow afternoon when they certify with the SoS. We hae no idea what is going on!! They could be picking up hundreds of votes for Gore. Has anyone heard anything, and do you think the media will stand for them not telling us anything? ......." AP 11/25/00 ".......State House Democrats aren't happy with the GOP leadership's plan to hire lawyers to join

in George W. Bush's presidential recount lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court. The House Democrats, outnumbered 77-43, also aren't pleased with the makeup of a special committee set to meet Tuesday to discuss voting irregularities, a meeting that could lay the groundwork for a possible special session to ensure that Florida's votes are counted by the Electoral College. The Republican legislative leadership said Friday it would hire lawyers to represent the Legislature, seeking to intervene as the Supreme Court considers the state's ongoing recount. ....." Newhouse News 11/25/00 Alex Lane "......Throngs of supporters welcomed a bluejean-clad George W. Bush back from his ranch in Crawford to the governor's mansion here Saturday with supportive signs, cheers and chants of ``President Bush!'' The concise claim of victory seems to have replaced ``No More Gore'' as the favorite mantra of Bush supporters -- but the question remains whether Bush will make the same claim himself Sunday night if his slim lead survives the continuing hand recounts in Florida's Palm Beach and Broward counties. If Bush does remain ahead, he will have to choose his words carefully. Too bold an assertion of victory in an election Al Gore has vowed to contest could come across as presumptuous and arrogant. Too cautious a speech could lend legitimacy to Gore's protests at a time when Bush surely wants to stoke the public's impatience with the twists and turns in various courtrooms. ......" Sunday times (UK) Andrew Sullivan 11/26/00 "...... IT IS clearer now than ever before that what we have been witnessing in America these past two weeks is something only a smidgen less than an attempted legal coup. ......... I say "legal" coup because the law can sometimes be selectively used to circumvent the law. And I say "coup" because what has been going on is an attempt to snatch victory from the twice-declared winner in a manner that violates almost every principle of common sense, constitutional law and due process. ......Moreover, this was clearly a premeditated, conscious decision by Al Gore's campaign. Gore didn't blunder into this crisis. He planned for it, prepared for it and has been micro-managing every aspect of it from the beginning. ......." Sunday times (UK) Andrew Sullivan 11/26/00 "......The first inklings came in the early hours of election night, November 8, when William Daley, the Gore campaign manager, declared to the throngs in Nashville that: "This campaign goes on!" ........ As Daley was commandeering the troops, the Gore mouthpieces were already spinning on television. I was watching Newsweek's Jonathan Alter with increasing disbelief at 4.30am. "I'm not talking about changing the rules or having the popular vote somehow supercede the electoral," Alter presciently opined. "If you look at the history of close recounts in congressional races, they're always disputed. You go precinct by precinct and then people say this recount wasn't fair, we have to do it again. ............ "And the result after weeks would be a lot of pressure to say instead of trying to sort out who really won Florida, let's end this thing. You get a series of irregularities all over the state of Florida, pretty soon nobody can figure out who really won. What happens then?" ...." Sunday times (UK) Andrew Sullivan 11/26/00 "......So the strategy was clear. The Gore team would throw every legal challenge they could at every recount they could find. They would routinely invoke the phrase "will of the people" at every convenient moment to keep reminding people that Gore had won the popular vote nationally. And they would simply assert something nobody properly knew - that if "the will of the people" were followed, Gore would be shown to have won Florida. ......" MSNBC 11/25/00 Smedley "...... The talking heads are agreeing that PBC will be unable to finish there rererererecount. This is great news. We are 477 up and Harris will reject the Broward numbers anyway. Tomorrow at 6pm it will be President-Elect GWB. ....." MSNBC just announced/calculated that PBC will, at best, finish 3000 of the 7000 votes needed. Broward with 50 to go ...." Chicago Tgribune 11/25/00 Jan Crawford Greenburg "...... The U.S. Supreme Court made at least one thing clear Friday when it announced it would step into one of the most momentous and contentious political battles of all time: An institution known for acting deliberately that is also notoriously publicity-shy is capable of pulling off an extraordinary surprise. ......In an announcement that caught even seasoned court watchers off guard, the court said it would take up a legal challenge that could determine who wins Florida's 25 electoral votes and, as a result, the presidency. .........But a few who did see it coming, notably Pepperdine University's Douglas Kmiec, said the court is taking up the kinds of issues it often addresses, such as the separation of powers among branches of government and the structural relationship between the federal and state governments. "They ultimately saw the national importance involved in the question," Kmiec said. "... And they saw that they were, in this case, truly the court of last resort to bring clarity to a frightfully unclear process that doesn't show any signs of abating." ... Several observers said that prospect, particularly if Bush prevails, could make the high court's role in the case moot. But Kmiec said the issues were of such importance-and would be relevant if Gore sued to challenge those county results-that the high court could choose to stay involved. Regardless, the court indicated it wants to know precisely what impact its ruling could have: It asked both sides to explain the consequences of a possible finding that the Florida Supreme Court did not comply with the federal law. ...."

Freeper StarFan "...... Haven't read past your post so perhaps this was mentioned but PBC is asking their attorney to look into whether they can submit a partial recount if not completed in time. I am very suspicious that they're keeping the numbers close to the chest. Are they waiting to find out just how many votes it will take for algore to jump ahead and give him an advance Christmas gift? This smells to high heaven since they've been advertising every fart they make all along except now when it is vital to the public. ....... Drudge put up an article from a English newspaper indicating GWB will announce himself the winner after it is certified tomorrow. Let us hope! Bush lead down to 481 per MSNBC as of 10:26 p.m. est. ....." Freeper be-baw "...... MSNBC just reported that "unofficially" Gore is up by less than 100 votes in Palm Beach County with about 434 of 637 precincts reporting (reporteretter said they are getting info from both Pub and 'Rat sources). ....." Freeper dwills "..... Palm Beach officials have stated, and the media has reported, that they have no problem certifying partial results. Of course, reporting such partial reports is excellent grounds for rejection by the Secretary of State--if her powers to do so hadn't been gutted by the FL court. A partial count would be fine grounds for post-certification contest as well, the procedure for which is, you guessed it, a recount by another Demo judge. ...." Freeper bigswede ".... On another post, it was reported that PBC is counting a ballot every 5 seconds. If true, that means they will finish counting in time, and you can be sure they will come up with just the right number of votes to put Gore in the lead. Otherwise why would they be rushing to finish? Looks to me like the fix is in and Bush will be trailing by Sunday night. ....." Broward Finishes: Gore Leads Bush in Broward by 565 "Votes" 11/25/00 FoxNews Freeper Arthur McGowan MSNBC Hardball 11/25/00 "...... On the November 25, 2000 episode of "Hardball", after being questioned by Chris Mathews about the Gore post-certification contest strategy, David Boies noted that it was typical for a state judge in Leon county to take the case and appoint a "special master" to determine whether votes were missed from the count. He directly noted that votes could be awarded by the judge as part of the remedy to the plaintiff's contest motion....." NewsMax 11/25/00 Carl Limbacher "..... "These demonstrations were clearly designed to intimidate," complained Sen. Joe Lieberman Friday, after a pro-Bush protest outside the offices of Miami-Dade election officials on Wednesday preceded a decision to end the presidential recount in that Florida county. ........On Saturday, Gore campaign official Paul Begala, who doubles as an MSNBC talk host, complained about the GOP's "thuggish" behavior and Republican inspired "beatings" by Miami-Dade demonstrators. "Show me the videotape," countered Oliver North, who regulary engages in verbal fisticuffs with Begala on MSNBC. "Where are all these people who claim they were assaulted by demonstrators?" North demanded to know. ..........Indeed, let's go to the videotape, though none so far has materialized, before America takes too seriously the bloviations of political operatives like Begala about threats and inimidation. ....." NewsMax 11/25/00 Carl Limbacher "..... And so Sen. Lieberman urges that, "this is a time to honor the rule of law, not surrender to the rules of the mob." Of course, only a few weeks ago, when Republicans asked Gore/Lieberman to persuade the NAACP to discontinue an incendiary commercial attempting to link George W. Bush to the dragging death of James Byrd, the Connecticut senator was silent again. So was former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who also took to the airwaves on Friday to complain about GOP thugs. This is the same Mario Cuomo whose wife went on television on the eve of the 1994 election to warn that blacks would riot if he was turned out of office. He was -- but much to his undoubted disappointment, his promised riots failed to materialize. Where were these oh-so-concerned Democrats, now wringing their hands over imaginary GOP intimidation and violence, when CBS's "Late Show" added the caption "Snipers Wanted" to a clip of George W. Bush addressing the Republican convention in August. What happened to the condemnation of Lieberman, Begala, Cuomo and all the rest when notorious Clinton backer Alec Baldwin rose to his feet on the "Conan O'Brien Show" to urge fans to stone Henry Hyde to death? If Democrats want videotape of thugs beating up citizens as they exercise their constitutional rights, Fox News Channel can oblige. Fox was the only network to broadcast film of the November 1998 Philadelphia beating of proimpeachment protesters Don and Teri Adams by paid goons wearing "Teamsters for Clinton" T-shirts. Go for it, Mr. Begala...." Orlando Sentinel 11/26/00 Gwyneth Shaw ".....As leaders of Florida`s Republican-controlled Senate scrambled to find a general to lead their legal charge into the election fight, Sen. Daniel Webster came up with three names. One was deemed too staunch an ally of the Democrats; the other couldn`t be reached so close to the Thanksgiving holiday. The third, Roger J. Magnuson -- whose name came to Webster as he drove from Tallahassee to Ocoee Wednesday night -- accepted Senate President John McKay`s offer. ....... Magnuson comes with a sterling resume: Educated at Stanford and Harvard, he`s a senior partner

specializing in business and corporate litigation at the huge international law firm of Dorsey & Whitney in Minneapolis. Since 1995, he also has served as dean of the Oak Brook College of Law in Fresno, Calif. Most classes and communications between students and professors are online or over the phone. Oak Brook`s stated mission, in part, is "to build and establish the biblical foundations of truth, righteousness, justice, mercy, equity, integrity, and the fear of God in legal education and in the professional arenas of law and government policy." ........." Orlando Sentinel 11/26/00 Gwyneth Shaw ".....Webster, a devout Southern Baptist who home-schools his six children, said he thought of Magnuson not because of Oak Brook`s principles but because he can help Senate Republicans beat the Florida Supreme Court. Webster has been among the more strident critics of the court`s decision Tuesday that allowed manual recounts in three South Florida counties to continue and the strongest advocate of the Legislature joining Texas Gov. George W. Bush`s effort to have the Florida high court ruling thrown out. "He`s one of the top [attorneys] in the country, similar to [Gore attorney David] Boies," Webster said Saturday. "You give him the briefs, let him study them overnight, and he`ll get up in the morning and talk for an hour or two without notes. He just wins." ......." Sunday Telegraph 11/26/00 Makr Steyn ".....IN the chadlands of Florida, glassy-eyed Democratic officials work their way through the pile and hold their ballots up to the light in search of the dimpled chad: Gore. Gore. Gore. Invalid. Gore. Gore. Buchanan. Gore. Bush . . . Whoops, sorry, that was my corned beef on rye. The Vice-President has been stacking up more dimples than a convention of Kirk Douglas impersonators. But will they be enough? At 5pm today, when the final numbers are submitted to the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, Al Gore's Great Election Heist getaway car comes to a fork in the road. If the mountain of dimples, pimples, pustules, cysts and other blemishes invisible to the naked eye has pushed Al past Dubya by three votes, look for the Gore campaign to drop talk of "patience" and "letting the process play out" for words like "finality" and "the American people are looking for closure" and "it's time to move on". ....." Townhall 11/25/00 Robert Novak "......Even before the Democratic-appointed Florida Supreme Court ruled for Al Gore, leaders of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature were meeting privately to discuss possible legislative intervention in the presidential recount. In those sessions, House members expressed a much more hostile attitude toward the state's high court than did their Senate counterparts. Senate President John McKay cautioned that the lawmakers should move slowly and methodically. The Democratic Supreme Court and the Republican Legislature have a history of contention in Florida. The GOP lawmakers fully expected that the judges would exceed their judicial authority and legislate from the bench. ......" AP 11/26/00 "...... The Broward County canvassing board raced to finish its recount Saturday, adding more than 500 votes for Democrat Al Gore as GOP tempers flared over re-examination of some absentee ballots. Gore trailed Republican George W. Bush by 930 votes in the official total in the state that will decide the presidential race, with two Democratic-leaning counties facing a 5 p.m. Sunday deadline to turn in their new hand-count results for certification. ..... Gore had a net gain of 534 votes in Broward, including 397 that were from disputed ballots under review because machines did not read a presidential vote the first time around. ......Republicans expressed surprise that election officials were considering questionable absentee ballots Saturday. Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a spokesman for Bush, said those ballots should not be judged by the same standards as ballots cast in a voting booth because absentee voters had a better opportunity to express clear choices. ....... ``I've heard so many speeches from so many of you folks that I don't care to hear another one,'' said Judge Robert W. Lee, the chairman and one of two Democrats on the three-member board. ......That drew an angry response from GOP attorney William Scherer, who accused Lee of partisanship. .....``You're trolling for votes here because it's clear that you can't win this election,'' Scherer told Lee. ....``Mr. Scherer, you're out of line,'' the judge said before clearing the courtroom for lunch. He barred Scherer from returning after lunch. ....." Freeper F-117A "....The Gore bitch in Broward just talked about the votes "We just GOT". She basically stated what they were there for...to GET votes! ...." AP 11/26/00 Marcy Gordon ".....Weary Palm Beach County election officials toiled through the night, punctuating their scrutiny of thousands of disputed presidential ballots with occasional dustups, as they strained to meet a Sunday recount deadline. ''We're moving along,'' Judge Charles Burton, the board chairman, said Saturday night. ''We're trying.'' Frustrated supporters of Al Gore, who asked for the count in the first place, said they will contest the outcome regardless of what it is......" CNN 11/25/00 Frank Buckley "...... CNN Correspondent Frank Buckley has been covering the Florida recount from Miami-Dade County, where Republican protesters Wednesday stormed the canvassing board office before it decided to permanently halt a hand vote recount. Democratic leaders have expressed outrage, asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate.

Q: Was there an attempt by the protesters, as Democrats have said, to intimidate the canvassing board? Buckley: The question is out there: Was this an attempt to intimidate the board? The Republicans said it wasn't. The board chairman said it was not intimidating, it was just a question of logistics and time. ......" Freeper rumrunner "....... (6) A copy of the complaint shall be served upon the defendant and any other person named therein in the same manner as in other civil cases under the laws of this state. Within 10 days after the complaint has been served, the defendant must file an answer admitting or denying the allegations on which the contestant relies or stating that the defendant has no knowledge or information concerning the allegations, which shall be deemed a denial of the allegations, and must state any other defenses, in law or fact, on which the defendant relies. If an answer is not filed within the time prescribed, the defendant may not be granted a hearing in court to assert any claim or objection that is required by this subsection to be stated in an answer. Fla. Stat. 102.168 ...." And "..... Bush HAS TO BE NAMED A DEFENDANT, according to (4) "The canvassing board or election board shall be the proper party defendant, and the successful candidate shall be an indispensable party to any action brought to contest the election or nomination of a candidate." ....." NY Post 11/26/00 Kenneth Lovett Malcolm Balfour Gregg Birnbaum "...... Al Gore's supporters expect the veep to fall about 300 votes short in his battle to win the presidency through manual recounts in Florida, but they vow to continue the fight in the courts. ....." Bruce Fein 11/26/00 ".......THE U.S. Supreme Court has granted partial review of George W. Bush's petitions. But he may come to regret getting what he asked for: Bush could lose far more than he wins in this case. The Supreme Court commands sacred reverence among citizens generally. It is vastly more respected than legislative or executive bodies or the media. Its nine justices are institutionally above the political fray, enjoying lifetime appointments and beholden only to their own constitutional scruples. ......... Thus, if Bush is thwarted by the court, no matter what its reasoning, many will believe that the final word has been spoken from Mt. Sinai, and that to continue the mudfight with Gore would be blasphemous. And since seven of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents, Bush will be not able to blame partisan bias. ........My prediction: The U.S. Supreme Court will tell Bush to drop dead. ....." NewsMax 11/26/00 Carl Limbacher "..... N.Y. Times: Gore Will Fight On The flagship newspaper for America's liberal elites reports in Sunday's editions that even if George W. Bush is certified the winner, "Mr. Gore's campaign has made it clear that he not only expects to fight on, whatever the result, but also expects prominent Democrats to stand behind him." ........ The Times notes what NewsMax.com has said from the beginning: "Public opinion is one of the major arenas in which the battle is being fought." .......The Times says polls show the public is not pressing an end to Gore's contest of the result. .....Still, if Ms. Harris certifies Bush, Gore's days may be numbered. ...." FoxNews 11/26/00 "...... At this moment Arlen Spectre is calling for Gore to concede the election!....." Harris will not grant extention Announcement on MSNBC now. Says SoS has no choice. Freeper SuzanneC "..... MSNBC just interviewed Al Sharpton. His organization is filing a civil rights action against Miami-Dade. Sheesh! This will never be over. ......" Freeper ameribbean expat "...... Bob Graham, whose Aunt Katherine Graham oversees the snaggletoothed bimbette who wrote the Katherine Harris fashion slam piece, wants Harris to be "gracious"? Sorry Bob, you lose. Make sure you write that on your anal-retentive 3x5 card. And we will keep that "gracious" remark in mind when SoS Harris kicks your a$$ in the senatorial campaign 4 years out. ......" FoxNews Freeper sicsemperchad "...... [ BREAKING: Fox is reporting that thousands of felons may have voted in Palm Beach and Broward based on a sampling, most of which were democrats. ...." CNN Bob Ebans ".....It was just announced on CNN that the GSA (General Service Administration) will not provide President-Elect Bush with office space till this mess with the election goes through the courts! ....." Freeper NoControllingLegalAuthority ".... There is a federal law on this. Bush needs to file for a writ of mandamus in federal court to force the surrender of the keys to the transition building. If issued, federal marshals would enforce access for Bush to the facilities and equipment. Defendant Bill Clinton cannot prevent access just because he doesn't like the outcome. ....." Washington Post 11/27/00 Doug Mills "..... Obstacles still remain before Texas Gov. George W. Bush can be assured of being the next president, but the odds against Vice President Gore moving into the White House have never looked longer. That was the consensus of lawmakers and other political observers last night after Bush was formally certified as the winner of Florida's crucial electoral votes by the margin of 537 votes.

......" CNN 11/26/00 "......An attorney for Democrat Al Gore said Sunday the campaign would press three legal fronts in an effort to boost the candidate's chances to win the presidency over Republican George W. Bush. ..... Gore campaign attorney David Boies described the campaign's plan as a "work in progress" in a rapidly changing political landscape. ......" AP 11/26/00 Ron Fournier "..... Al Gore believes he could yet be the nation's 43rd president if courts reopen the vote count in a handful of counties in Florida. The Democrats will contest these results in court as early as Monday. ........Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican and Bush campaigner, certified Bush's 537-vote lead and declared him the winner of the state's decisive 25 electoral votes - even as the vice president vowed to challenge the results in state and federal courts. ``This is not some forlorn hope,'' said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. ``This is not just acting out. They are, in fact, close to overcoming Governor Bush's lead.'' ......" CBS "......The voters have had their say, and now it seems the professional politicians will have theirs.......... Republican politicians in the U. S. Congress and Florida's state legislature are rattling their sabers, threatening to take constitutionally sanctioned but politically extraordinary steps to deliver the election for George W. Bush, come what may in the hand counts and court houses. ......... Scenarios where the Florida legislature - rather than a majority of the state's voters - chooses the state's 25 electors and the U.S. Congress decides the election's ultimate outcome were once thought of as remote, "Doomsday" possibilities. Now, the highly implausible seems possible. ......." Newsday 11/26/00 Linda Deutsch "...... The Florida secretary of state's declaration Sunday in favor of George W. Bush was certain to trigger intense legal challenges by Al Gore's campaign. Moments after Katherine Harris declared Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman called the results ''incomplete and inaccurate'' and promised a vigorous challenge. ..... Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, speaking for Bush, attacked the plan for a legal contest and suggested, ''At some point ... the lawyers must go home.'' ........." Newsday 11/26/00 Linda Deutsch "........Earlier, Gore lawyer David Boies said he would file suit first thing Monday morning to force the counting of thousands of votes he said were never counted. ''Until these votes are counted, this election cannot be over,'' Boies told a news conference. ''There are thousands of votes that haven't been counted once.'' The Bush camp said those ballots represented 10,000 voters not casting a vote for president. Boies said that contests would be filed in at least three counties -- Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau. .....In Nassau County, Democrats are seeking use of the recounted total, which would give Gore 51 more votes. In Miami-Dade, Boies said there are 10,000 votes which could not be read by a voting machine and were not hand counted. .......Boies, asked if legal challenges will ever end, said, ''Of course everything's going to be over by Dec. 12,'' the deadline for certifying Florida electors. ....." Newsday 11/26/00 Linda Deutsch "......The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday a coalition of civil rights organizations intends to file a lawsuit on behalf of disenfranchised voters in Florida under the Civil Rights act. In a telephone interview with the Associated Press, Jackson criticized the Justice Department and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, saying more needs to be done to stop violent protests that intimidate minority voters, and to ensure that no voters are disenfranchised in that state. ......." ABCNews 11/26/00 ".......The high court is asking lawyers for Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush three specific questions. All of them deal with the Florida Supreme Court's Nov. 21 decision to extend the deadline for local canvassing boards to file amended election results from Nov. 14 to Nov. 26....." ABCNews 11/26/00 "....... First, did the state high court's decision violate a 19th-century law that says election rules cannot be changed after Election Day? The Bush campaign says it did. ....... Bush's lawyers are relying on a federal law that says states should resolve disputes related to the appointment of electors "under laws enacted prior to Election Day." They contend the Florida State Supreme Court exceeded its reach in its Nov. 21 decision by changing the standards for certifying votes after the election had taken place. The purpose of that federal law was to prevent partisan lawmakers unhappy with an election's results from creating new laws to alter the outcome in favor of their party....." ABCNews 11/26/00 ".......Second, did the state court's decision violate the U.S. Constitution, which says each state will appoint electors "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct." In other words states - not judges - should decide election laws. ....."

ABCNews 11/26/00 ".......Thirdly, the justices asked each party to file a brief addressing the following question: What would be the consequences if the high court found the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida did not comply with Title 3, Section 5 of the U.S. Code? That's the federal law requiring election disputes to be settled using laws enacted before Election Day........... "The court is asking the parties to consider what the practical effects of such a decision may be," said ABCNEWS legal consultant Jan Baran. "Largely because of the time constraints, they are asking both sides to suggest remedies."........." ABCNews 11/26/00 "....... "The court isn't going to settle everything," said Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School."If the court rules for Bush, as a practical matter, things might be over. If the court rules for the Gore, the court has settled very little." ......... The justices said they would hear an hour and a half of arguments starting at 10 a.m. Friday. So far, Harvard University law professor Laurence Tribe has confirmed he will be making arguments on Gore's behalf. Tribe has long experience in arguing cases before the high court and has often been mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee himself. It's likely Theodore Olson, a former Reagan administration Justice Department official who is now in private practice with the Washington law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, will represent Bush. However, the Republicans have not confirmed this. ......" ABCNews 11/26/00 ".......The high court said it would not decide whether the hand recount process itself is constitutional. Bush's legal team is arguing hand counts are not constitutional and is requesting a federal injunction to stop them all together. That case is still before the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which hasn't decided if or when it will hear oral arguments in the case........Republicans had asked for the U.S. Supreme Court to bypass the federal appeals court, which is expected to announce Monday afternoon whether it will hear oral arguments or decide the case from the briefs......In that case, Republicans argue the manual recounts in Florida should stop because they violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Essentially, Bush's legal team argues it's not fair for only a handful of counties to have hand counts. They say votes from the three counties in question are being given too much weight and diluting votes from Florida's other counties that did not have hand counts.........." ABCNews 11/26/00 "....... Palm Beach County filed a brief against both Republican appeals, pleading for the U.S. Supreme Court to let the process play itself out in Florida. Harris also filed a brief supporting the appeals that argued the Florida Supreme Court erred in its decision. Also, Florida's Republican-dominated state Legislature said Friday it planned to join Bush's appeal. ........." Time 11/26/00 Frank Pellegrini "....... George W. Bush planned no victory party and Al Gore planned no concession; both merely packed the Tallahassee streets with protesters and waited. And when the 5 p.m. deadline had been history for two-and-a-half hours, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris walked into the camera-filled Florida State Cabinet Room and certified George W. Bush as the winner of Florida by 537 votes. ......... Not so fast, said Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman. Within minutes, Lieberman was out to keep the cameras off the celebrants and start immediate p.r. preparations for a long and turbulent week ahead. ........ James Baker followed him from Tallahessee before 8 p.m., unspooling the litany of Bush's victories in this election, hinting at dissension in the Democratic ranks, and taking Gore to task for going back on his last ceasefire offer. "At some point, the law must prevail and the lawyers must go home," Baker said. "We have reached that point." He noted that America has never "had a presidential election decided by a contest." And let's not start now. ........." Time 11/26/00 Frank Pellegrini ".......But she let it go by. The lady certainly has a firm grip on her discretion. The Florida Supreme Court had given her a nice out - if a timid but honest canvassing board like Palm Beach's (we know they're honest because Gore is suing them in the morning) wasn't going to finish on time, she could give them 16 more hours if the Secretary of State's office was closed on Sunday. ..... She not only turned down Palm Beach's request for the extra time and kept her office wide open and bustling with lawyers all day, she then handed Lieberman a few lines for his speech by certifying only the original machine-count results and blithely moving on. ...... OK, maybe the counting board shouldn't have taken Thanksgiving off. But if Harris was any sort of diplomat, she might have graciously closed up her office, taken the whole batch in the morning, and in the process made her soon-to-be-litigated certification a little less temporary. ......" Time 11/26/00 Frank Pellegrini ".......Bush has now been declared the Florida winner three times (pending litigation). What should he do? He might have the recovering Dick Cheney amp up the "transition" a little, but don't expect bunting and confetti. The idea is to put the burden squarely on Gore to explain to the American people why he's still suing to prolong this race. ...... From Monday until the Supreme Court rules, Gore has to rely on the polls that say a majority of Americans still have a feeling that the vote has been kind of fishy - that there are votes in Miami-Dade, in Palm Beach, in some other counties, that were cast by Democrats for Gore with good intention but lousy execution. That they're out there somewhere, waiting to be found, interpreted and put in the veep's consistently rising column. Bush has to rely on the other large feeling among Americans that maybe we should stop looking already. ...."

ABCNews 11/26/00 Reuters "....Following is the text of a statement by Republican George W. Bush shortly after Florida certified him the winner of the state"s presidential election: "..... Good evening. The last 19 days have been extraordinary ones. As our nation watched, we were all reminded on a daily basis of the importance of each and every vote. We were reminded of the strength of our democracy, that while our system is not always perfect, it is fundamentally strong and far better than any other alternative. The election was close, but tonight, after a count, a recount and yet another manual recount, Secretary Cheney are honored and humbled to have won the state of Florida, which gives us the needed electoral votes to win the election. We will therefore undertake the responsibility of preparing to serve as America"s next president and vice president. ......... The path to progress is consideration and fair-dealing. I"ve worked with Democrats and Republicans in Texas, and I will do so in Washington. I will listen and I will respect different points of view, and, most of all, I will work to unite our great land. ........This has been a hard-fought election, a healthy contest for American democracy. But now that the votes are counted, it is time for the votes to count. The vice president"s lawyers have indicated he will challenge the certified election results. I respectfully ask him to reconsider. Until Florida"s votes were certified, the vice president was working to represent the interests of those who supported him. I did not agree with his call for additional recounts, but I respected his decision to fight until the votes were finally certified. Now that they are certified, we enter a different phase. If the vice president chooses to go forward, he is filing a contest to the outcome of the election, and that is not the best route for America. All of us in this election fought for our views. Now we must live up to our principles. We must show our commitment to the common good, which is bigger than any person or any party. We cannot change yesterday, but we share a responsibility for tomorrow. Time runs short, and we have a lot of work to do. So tonight I"m naming Secretary Dick Cheney to chair our transition effort, and Secretary Andy Card to serve as my chief of staff. I"ve asked Secretary Cheney to work with President Clinton"s administration to open a transition office in Washington. And we look forward to a constructive working relationship throughout this transition. The end of an election is the beginning of a new day. Together we can make this a positive day of hope and opportunity for all of us who are blessed to be Americans. Thank you very much, and God bless America. ......" Newsday 11/26/00 Karin Meadows "...... Palm Beach County officials denounced the decision to reject their partial presidential recount and said they would release the results of their completed recount on Monday. .....Secretary of State Katherine Harris rejected Palm Beach County's marathon hand recount Sunday, throwing out 180 votes Al Gore would have picked up in his struggle against George W. Bush. ...... The set of partial returns ''fails to comply'' with state law, Harris said moments before certifying Bush as the winner of Florida's drawn-out election. She instead accepted results from the last machine count, on Nov. 14. ......... Harris' decision to reject the partial returns was ''a slap in the face'' to county election workers, Burton said. ''All we needed was about two hours.'' ....... The Palm Beach board, which lost a crucial day when it took Thanksgiving off, stayed on the job even after Gore's lawyers served notice the campaign would ''contest'' the results -- the formal word under Florida state law for challenging the results of a certified election. ....... But Miami-Dade officials suspended work last week, saying they couldn't meet Sunday's deadline. And Democrats accused Palm Beach canvassers of ignoring clear votes for Gore. ........The complaint centers on methods used to judge voter intent on indented ballots: Gore supporters say Palm Beach should have used a more lenient standard in judging the so-called dimpled chads, pointing to results in Broward County, where the vice president picked up 567 votes in the recount. ......." MSNBC 11/26/00 "...... If there was anyone out there who had any lingering fantasties that the modern media does not have a liberal slant, they may put that notion to rest. On Sunday night, after the speech of President-Elect Bush following his victory and certification in Florida, Hardball host Chris Matthews characterized Republican protesters, excercising their 1st Amendment rights in the face of gross unfairness, as members of "the Hezbollah wing of the Republican Party." Mr. Matthews might be well-advised to try to mask leanings and tone down his character attacks on people trying to exercise free speech in the midst of the liberal media establishment. ......" AP 11/26/00 "......The General Services Administration will not release $5.3 million to help the next president prepare for office until the challenges to the election are resolved, a spokeswoman said Sunday. Although Florida's statewide canvassing board certified Texas Gov. George W. Bush the winner of its 25 electoral votes and, therefore, the presidency, Vice President Al Gore's plans to contest the election place the outcome in enough doubt to keep the transition office closed, spokeswoman Beth Newburger said. ........ `Newburger said GSA Administrator David J. Barram is ``authorized by law to ascertain -- that is what the law says -- the apparent winner, and authorize the transfer of funds to begin the Inauguration.'' .......``As long as there is not an apparent winner, and the outcome is unclear, there's not much we can do,'' she said. ......" Freeper CWW 11/26/00 "....LEGAL ANALYSIS OF SUPREME COURT CASE - WHY GORE'S @SS IS

COOKED This summary is based on a review of the Supreme Court briefs filed to date as well as discussions with attorneys who are familiar with and are involved in the Bush case set for hearing of Friday, December 1, 2000. THE ISSUES BEFORE THE COURT FAVOR BUSH: ISSUE #1 - The first issue the Supreme Court has agreed to address is whether the Florida Supreme Court's ruling violated the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and/or 3 U.S.C. 5. WHY BUSH WINS THIS ARGUMENT - The one fact that the lamestream media has missed is that the Florida Supreme Court's decision to change the rules after the fact violates not only the Due Process clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, but also, it violates a federal statute governing the use of recount procedures by the States - 3 U.S.C. 5. Under 3 U.S.C. 5, States may impelment recount procedures following the election. HOWEVER, the rules that govern the recount MUST have been in place PRIOR TO THE ELECTION. In this case, the Florida Supreme Court's decision essentially rewrote new rules AFTER the vote. Therefore, the Florida Supreme Court's ruling violates not only the Due Process requirements of the 5th and 14th Amendments, but also, the rulign violates a specific federal statute. By the way, Congress enacted 3 U.S.C. 5 in 1887 during reconstruction after the country had just experienced a grueling series of post-Civil War elections. The Congressional intent and legislative history underlying 3 U.S.C. 5 is VERY clear - the statute was designed to prevent post-election changes and manipulation of rules governing the counting and recounting of votes. Issue # 2 - The second issue that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider is whether the Florida Supreme Court's decision violates Article 2, 1 of the U.S. Constitution. WHY BUSH WINS THIS ARGUMENT - The crux of issue # 2 is the "Separation of Powers" doctrine. Pursuant to Article 2, 1, State Legislatures have plenary power to determine how they will select the electors for their states. The Florida Supreme Court violated Article 2, 1 by ignoring several explicit statutes passed by the Florida Legislature and by essentially legislating new rules for election disputes. By doing so, the Florida Supreme Court improperly usurped the legislative function and violated Article 2, 1 and the Separation of Powers Doctrine implicit therein. THE COURT MAY HAVE TELEGRAPHED ITS POSITION - The Court may have telegraphed its position in a rather unusual and dramatic manner. In particular, the Court asked the parties to provide briefs discussing the appropriate remedy should it find that the Florida Supreme Court acted improperly. This is a very interesting question for several reasons. First, the decision by the Florida Supreme Court not only violated the rights of the candidates, but also, it violated the rights of the voters to properly contest the results. That presents a problem. It would appear easy enough for the Supreme Court to say, "Ignore the manual recounts; let the Secretary of State certify the original mechanical recount results." Sounds good right? BUT, there's a fly in the ointment. There is supposed to be a 20 day period for VOTERS to contest the results AND the contest must be based on the state of the evidence (the ballots) at the time that the contest is initiated. Well, we don't have 20 days. The cutoff expired the day before the Florida Supreme Court rendered its now infamous decision. So, the voters already have been screwed out of their due process rights. Furthermore, because ballots literally have been run through the mill multiple times, the condition of the evidence is no longer in the condition that it would have been at the time that a proper contest would have been initiated by a voter. In sum, regardless of the candidates' positions, the Florida Supreme Court's decision has deprived the voters of their right properly to contest the results, and the U.S. Supreme Court can't fix that problem without legislating themselves. There's not enough time to execute a proper contest under the law, and the ballots have been spoiled. SO WHAT'S THE COURT'S OPTION - There is only one option. Because the Florida Supreme Court has screwed the pooch on this one, the U.S. Supreme Court likely will return to the Constitutional roots of this issue - Article 2, 1. That is, the Court will send the problem to the Florida Legislature so that they can pick the electors, as they are empowered so to do under the Constitution. Any other remedy would be incomplete and untenable. This, my friends, is what judicial activism by the Florida Supreme Court has done. It is a damn mess!! This quandry is also why the Supreme Court asked the parties to brief the specific remedy issue. ...... So, that the answer - The Florida Legislature will decide - And that will be BUSH. Wall Street Journal 11/27/00 "......If the Democrats are smart, they'll persuade their man to give up before Friday. ...... The canvassers kept counting dimples yesterday and the nation got Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's dramatic announcement certifying George W. Bush as Florida's election winner. ....... Still, the weekend's most important event toward closing the circle for President-elect Bush was surely the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to step into the middle of the 100-round Florida slugfest. It does not mean that the Supreme Court is going to declare Governor Bush the outright winner. What it

does mean is that the American institution with the largest inventory of moral and political clout just now is about to lean hard on somebody. And in our view that somebody is Vice President Al Gore. We think that its acceptance of this case means that the Court is telling Mr. Gore it is time to stand down. ............ " Wall Street Journal 11/27/00 "......If you are a Democrat it is painful to lose by 537 out of six million cast. It would surely be better to win by 537 votes. But the only way that happens is if you are willing to affirm what various Florida canvassing boards, Mr. Gore's lawyers, and the Florida Supreme Court have done to the state's election laws as they existed on November 7, 2000. Or, as the Florida Supreme Court put it, letting "a hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions" get in the way. That is, they all changed the election law in the interest of what they believe to be a higher good, described as "the will of the people." Again, agreeing with the rightness and legality of all of this is the only way that dimpled ballots make Al Gore President. No one disputes this dynamic. If the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed with all of this, specifically, with the state of Florida's authority to do whatever it wants while electing a President, it would have told Governor Bush's lawyers to get lost. Instead, it told the lawyers for both sides to show up Friday on Constitution Avenue. ......" Wall Street Journal 11/27/00 "...... We have felt from the beginning of this battle that the Gore team has been trying to fill an inside straight. They had to have hoped they could contain the case inside Florida's friendly judicial borders. And surely they knew from day one that the moment might arrive when Governor Bush's lawyers would ask the federal courts to rule that Florida was violating Title 3, Chapter I, Section 5 of the U.S. federal code, which states that "laws enacted prior" to the day of election "shall be conclusive and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution . . ." After all the Florida litigating, the predictable federal collision has arrived for Mr. Gore. ......." Wall Street Journal 11/27/00 "....... Having won discretion for the canvassing boards, Mr. Gore's lawyers are now planning to sue these very same boards for not simply making Mr. Gore President. They are going to sue Miami-Dade's Democratic board for shutting down its count in light of the supreme court's deadline. Most brazen yet, the Gore lawyers will sue Palm Beach County for failing to use the most liberal possible standard for identifying dimples favorable to Mr. Gore. .......Then on Saturday the Broward canvassers surfaced a box of 500 absentee ballots to check for Gore dimples. But absentee voters punch out their ballots with a paper clip. There is no machine to confront. The notion of a dimpled chad on an absentee ballot is absurd. This is the abuse of a U.S. presidential election that has to be stopped, and Secretary of State's certification deadlines have been the appropriate mechanism for doing so. ......." Wall Street Journal 11/27/00 "......As a footnote, Florida's horror show probably means that virtually every voting precinct in America is going to be subjected to a national effort to clean up voter fraud, inefficiency and abuse. Guess which party is least likely to benefit from that reform. ......." MSNBC 11/26/00 Brett Reid "...... Talking heads are losing it tonight. Just got word that Tim Russert was slamming Bush big time. He was instructing the masses how Gore should overturn the election tomorrow! Motor mouth Chris Matthews wasn't much better. I think these guys need some serious FReeping! Boycott MEET THE PRESS and HARDBALL. Send e-mails and FAXs. Show them that the silent majority's not silent anymore. ...." CNN 11/27/00 "......Texas Gov. George W. Bush said he will go ahead with forming an administration after Florida officials certified his 537-vote lead in that state's presidential recount Sunday, but Vice President Al Gore prepared to challenge those results in a formal contest. ....... Bush named his running mate, former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, to lead his transition team, and former Transportation Secretary Andrew Card to serve as chief of staff. ...... "This has been a hard-fought election, a healthy contest for American democracy," Bush said. "But now that the votes are counted, it is time for the votes to count. The vice president's lawyers have said they will contest the election results: I respectfully ask him to reconsider." ........" CNN 11/27/00 "...... Gore's legal chief, David Boies, announced plans Sunday to challenge results in at least three counties -- Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau, where the canvassing board abruptly threw out the results of its mechanical recount and reverted to its original results. He described the plans as "a work in progress." "It probably will not be until tonight that we have a complete view of what has happened and a complete understanding of what the nature of our contest will be," Boies said. ....... Gore was said Sunday to be considering a televised address to discuss why he will pursue further legal action in the Florida recount......" CNN 11/27/00 "...... Bush announced plans to begin a transition Sunday night, but the General Services Administration -- the government agency that supplies material resources to federal employees -- said it would not yet provide money or office space to him or Gore to plan a new administration. ......." CNN 11/27/00 "......Hillsborough, Okaloosa, Orange, Pasco and Polk -- face Republican lawsuits to force

review of absentee military ballots rejected for lack of a postmark or other problems. The county-level action came after Bush's lawyers Saturday dropped a state court lawsuit over rejected overseas absentee ballots.......... " Wall Street Journal 11/26/00 John Fund "...... Al Gore will address the country tomorrow to explain why he is still contesting the election. NBC News reports that one of his main arguments will be that a "complete" recount of Miami-Dade County would net him between 500 and 600 votes, enough to overtake George W. Bush as the winner in Florida. .......... Mr. Gore and other Democrats are busy creating a myth that they would have clearly won the Florida recounts if only Miami-Dade County hadn't reversed course and cancelled its planned manual recount last Wednesday. Frustration on the part of grass-roots Democrats is understandable, given the steady diet of incomplete information they've been fed on how many Gore votes were likely to be found in a recount of Miami-Dade's 10,750 "questionable" ballots. But senior Democrats probably know better. Some are keeping the "myth of Miami" alive in part to keep up morale and so they can have something to litigate. So long as Miami-Dade's votes aren't hand-counted, the Gore people can believe they won Florida. ........" Wall Street Journal 11/26/00 John Fund "......But a Sunday Los Angeles Times analysis by Ron Brownstein concludes that "if Miami-Dade County had been compelled to keep counting, it might have helped Gore, but probably not as much as is commonly believed." Brownstein quotes a senior Democrat who agrees: "Dade was never going to yield huge numbers." Democrats told him they only expected to pick up between 100 and 200 votes overall in Miami. Republicans were looking at a wash, with no overall change. ....... Unlike Broward and Palm Beach, which gave Mr. Bush only 30% and 35% of the vote respectively, Dade was much more evenly balanced. Mr. Gore won on Election Day with only 53% of the vote, in part because six out of seven Cuban-Americans voted for Mr. Bush. This means that in any recount, Mr. Bush would likely have won about half of the "undervoted" ballots, those in which no clear choice for president was tabulated by the machine recount. ....." Wall Street Journal 11/26/00 John Fund "...... Democrats respond that the Miami-Dade manual recount was clearly picking up a lot of votes for Mr. Gore before it was cut off last Wednesday. In the 135 precincts (out of 614) that had been recounted, Mr. Gore had picked up 157 votes. Democrats reasoned that at that rate they were on their way to adding between 700 and 900 votes to Mr. Gore's margin in the county. This is specious. Brian Kalt, an assistant professor of law at Michigan State University, has closely followed Miami-Dade's recount. He notes that by beginning in numerical order, it proceeded first through heavily Democratic precincts, many of which had gone for Gore by as much as 9 to 1. The 135 recounted precincts as a whole gave Mr. Gore 74% of the vote, compared with only 53% countywide. That means that the remaining precincts as a whole went for Mr. Bush, and would have delivered far fewer additional votes for Mr. Gore. ...... "The count was just about to move into heavily Republican and Cuban areas," says Mr. Kalt. "Given how the rest of the precincts would have voted, I don't see how Gore would have picked up votes. If the trend had continued, an admitted if, Bush would actually have gained 400 votes countywide." ......" "..... On Nov. 23, Judge Lee explained the board's new standard: "It's not objectively subjective or subjectively objective, but I think it's somewhere in the middle." Glad he cleared that up. Transcripts of the board's vote counting show that Suzanne Gunzburger, who like Judge Lee is a Democrat, is calling a clear majority of ballots for Mr. Gore. Judge Robert Rosenberg, a Republican, is very often skeptical of indented or dimpled ballots--frequently leaving Judge Lee as the swing vote. The process leaves Burt Odelson, the lawyer who handled the famous Illinois dimpled-ballot case that the Florida Supreme Court cited extensively in its Tuesday decision, appalled. "This is as close to 'ghost voting' as you'll get," he says. Since the Florida court's ruling, a Chicago Tribune article has pointed out that far from allowing dimpled ballots, the Illinois decision upheld a judge who declined to count them. But Democrats have moved on from citing the flawed Illinois precedent to attacking "thuggish" Republican demonstrators who they say intimidated the Miami-Dade canvassing board into canceling its planned recount. Nonsense, say board members. "I was not intimidated," David Leahy told CNN. "My vote had nothing to with the protests. It simply had to do with not enough time." ........." New York Times 11/27/00 Linda Greenhouse "......It is a role that carries both risk and reward. The judgment of history on the Rehnquist court, now in its 15th year, may very well depend on the court's performance in this case: on the sobriety of its tone, the persuasiveness of its reasoning and the unanimity of result or, at the least, the civility between the majority and the dissent........... On the most obvious level, the justices are now in a position to shape the outcome of a presidential election in which not only the court itself but individual justices featured prominently as campaign issues......... The timing of Friday's argument will make it all but impossible to lift the case completely above the partisan fray. The court will be hearing the case five days after George W. Bush's certification as winner and almost certainly during an effort by Vice President Al Gore to contest the results........ "

New York Times 11/27/00 Linda Greenhouse "......The question, said Prof. William D. Popkin, a specialist in legislation at Indiana University Law School, is "whether ordinary statutory interpretation can conceivably be called an arrogation of legislative power." A Supreme Court opinion accepting the Republicans' characterization of what happened in Florida "would call all statutory interpretation into question as a violation of separation of powers," Professor Popkin said in an interview........ The implications of the Bush appeal for the essential meaning of the judicial function add still another dimension to this historic Supreme Court case. In judging the Florida election dispute, the justices inevitably will be judging themselves......" FoxNews 11/26/00 Freeper Groovy "..... Jim Engle, I believe is his name, who covers Gore for Fox, said that Gore believes he has already got the numbers he needs to win. 157 from Miami. 52 Nassau. 215 or so from Palm Beach. 123 From military ballots that Gore believes were illegal besides the postmark. Unbelievable, he is now considering challenging openly the military ballots. These are the rough numbers, Gore claims that by adding these up, he would be up by 9. Anybody else hear this with more accurate numbers? ....." New York Times 11/27/00 Adam Clymer ".....About four hours before Gov. George W. Bush of Texas was certified as the winner in Florida, Vice President Al Gore sat in his living room today and insisted that he had to fight on for the presidency but seemed to want to assure Americans, and perhaps his supporters in particular, that his effort would not be endless.......Mr. Gore said that no Democrat had urged him to drop his efforts, and that some prominent Republicans, whom he would not name, had encouraged him to fight on. But he seemed to want to convey the assurance that an end was in sight. He said he felt certain that the Florida counting would be complete before Dec. 12, the deadline for naming members to the Electoral College. He said he did not expect the issue to become a matter for Congress to decide......." New York Times 11/27/00 Adam Clymer ".....A crucial argument for the Gore campaign, but one that needs to be made with increased urgency with Florida's votes officially declared, is to insist that a further delay of two and a half weeks will not trouble the nation. For example, Mr. Gore said he had decided who he wanted in his cabinet, and a transition does not yet "require much more than that" of him or of Mr. Bush......." New York Times 11/27/00 David Firestone "......David Boies, Mr. Gore's chief trial lawyer in Florida, said his team planned to file a formal contest in the Leon County Courthouse here on Monday morning in an effort to demonstrate an incorrect outcome occurred in three counties: Miami- Dade, where officials first agreed to do a manual recount but then abandoned it abruptly on Wednesday; Palm Beach, whose manual recount was rejected today because results were incomplete; and Nassau, where officials recently threw out the results of a mechanical recount and relied instead on the initial count from Election Day.......Even if the high court rules against Mr. Gore and says the secretary of state was within her rights when she set Nov. 14 as the deadline for reporting results of manual recounts, that will not necessarily have any impact on the contests, they say. That is because Florida's laws on contests give judges wide discretion in considering proof that the wrong person was elected. In addition to things like bribery and fraud, the law allows the judge to accept "any other cause or allegation" that proves the outcome was wrong........ Mr. Gore's lawyers said they planned to concentrate on that phrase, and noted that a manual recount, whether or not the Supreme Court requires it be included in the state certification, can still be presented as valid evidence before a judge that the election should be overturned......." New York Times 11/27/00 David Firestone "......Mr. Boies noted that the high court refused to consider the issue of whether the hand counts were legal, accepting the Florida Supreme Court's decision that they were. He suggested that the high court's opinion would now be almost a moot point, because it is dealing with issues related to the certification of the election nearly a week after the certification has taken place.......... "At the end of the day, the best thing about the United States Supreme Court decision to take the case for us now is that it keeps the Florida Supreme Court in check," the senior Republican lawyer said........The lawyer acknowledged that he was worried by the broad discretion the law allows a judge in deciding who should have won the election. Because the law was designed for local races, and has never been used in a statewide race, let alone one for president, the lawyer said he could not believe it could really be used to overturn a race for president........The law is so broad that it allows a judge to perform a manual recount of a county's votes itself, or appoint someone else to do it. That is precisely what Mr. Gore's lawyers will ask a judge to do in the case of Miami- Dade County, where election officials stopped counting last week, unable to meet the deadline. Mr. Boies said he wants the court to appoint a special master to count 157,000 disputed votes in Miami-Dade........" New York Times 11/27/00 David Firestone "......Mr. Boies said the campaign was still considering whether to file a contest in Seminole County, where officials allowed some absentee ballots to be filed without the proper voter identification numbers. Democratic officials said the campaign was reluctant to challenge this outcome because it would have the effect of disenfranchising some voters......." New York Times 11/27/00 David Firestone "......Even though the lawyers see more potential consequence in

the contest phase than in Friday's narrowly focused Supreme Court hearing, the high court could still rule on the ultimate question of who wins the election. Assuming the Gore campaign convinces a trial judge that Mr. Gore won - which Republicans insist is an extreme long shot - the issue would inevitably be appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. And if that court should rule for Mr. Gore, the Bush campaign would waste no time in taking it back to the United States Supreme Court......." Freeper GI Jane ".....They will have to fight a war on three fronts: (1)Filing and arguing the "contest" (2)US Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit on the handcounts diluting the vote (3)US Supreme Court on US Code Title 3 Section 5 and the associated FSC violation of separation of powers I hope he has a lot of $$$. ...." Drudge 11/26/00 "......The General Services Accounting office declared on Sunday night that it will not release $5.3 million to George W. Bush in order for him to commence a presidential transition team. GSA spokeswoman Beth Newburger addressed the press Sunday: "As long as there is not an apparent winner, and the outcome is unclear, there's not much we can do." ...... But the order to not allocate the cash to the Bush team did not come from GSA Administrator David J. Barram, a Clinton appointee. It came from White House chief of Staff John Podesta -- on the day before Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was to certify Florida's recounted returns! ......." Townhall 11/27/00 Thomas Sowell "....."Every vote must count!" has been the magic mantra of Florida judges who are trying to give Al Gore the electoral victory that the voters failed to give him. "Every guess must count!" is more like it, when courts start authorizing local Democratic officials in heavily Democratic counties to "interpret" dents in the ballots as votes. Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey tells us that it may be hard for a weak 85-year-old to perforate the ballot, but that this is no reason to deprive the elderly of the vote. What makes all this a farce is that many ballots with only a dent in them for president have clearly perforated holes where votes for other offices have been made. Why would someone too feeble to perforate one slot be athletic enough to perforate the others? Moreover, if a dent is the same as a vote, then why not disqualify those ballots where there is a dent for one candidate and a perforation for his opponent? After all, that would be illegal voting twice for the same office -- if you buy the theory that a dent is a vote. ........ These guesses by local Democratic officials are to be counted as votes, according to Florida's Democratic judges. Worse yet, the courts are permitting -- or, in Palm Beach, requiring -- that dimples be given the benefit of the doubt in three heavily Democratic counties, while the other 64 counties must have ballot perforations that can be read by machine to qualify as a vote. ....... Why are the vote-counters not going back through the military ballots to see how many of them are signed and dated, so that they can be counted without the postmark -- especially if "every vote counts"? Or must only every vote for Al Gore count? ...... " New York Times 11/27/00 Bob Dole "..... Vice President Al Gore has waged a strong and determined campaign. But a narrow loss is still a loss - and for him, the moment to concede has come.... But the Constitution does not recognize near-victories. There can be only one winner, and one president....... Governor Bush prevailed in not one but four counts of the votes in Florida: the tally on election night; the automatic recount; the count including absentee and overseas ballots; and now the final, certified total........ The vice president has been given a machine recount required by law, a hand recount in counties of his choosing, a generous extension of time for vote counting from the Florida State Supreme Court, and almost every advantage that local canvassing boards could offer. The one thing he has not received is enough votes to win........Now our country must receive something from him. The vice president must have the good grace to accept defeat......" New York Times 11/27/00 Bob Dole ".....The "contest" permitted under Florida law is, in fact, a lawsuit - a legal maneuver by the vice president to overturn the certified result of Florida's election. There would be a trial with witnesses, examinations and cross-examinations, evidentiary rulings, motions, briefs - and, of course, teams of lawyers. The first election of this new century would become the trial of the century followed, inevitably, by appeals. Choose this path, and there is no going back.......... The outcome of it all? Quite likely, the same result we have today, but with a nation even more divided and confused and embittered. Never in our history has a presidential candidate filed suit to overturn an election he has lost, and for good reason: because the damage done would be far greater than any advantage gained. To their everlasting credit, unsuccessful candidates in all of our closest elections - most recently, Richard Nixon in 1960 and Gerald Ford in 1976 - put the nation's interest ahead of their own........" LA Times 11/25/00 David Savage Henry Weinstein ".....The U.S. Supreme Court argument next week over

Florida's ballots will focus almost entirely on a federal law--apparently never used in the 113 years it has been on the books--that forbids states to decide presidential elections based on rules adopted after the voting. ...... the justices said they would consider whether the Florida Supreme Court's decision to require that recount results be included in the state's vote totals violated the Electoral Count Act of 1887. ........ That law requires that "any controversy or contest" concerning the naming of members of the electoral college must be decided based on "laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors." ........ In their appeals, Bush's lawyers say the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday violated that statute because it "retroactively changed the law in Florida," which authorized Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state, to certify the winner of the presidential race on Nov. 14. Vice President Al Gore's lawyers dispute that interpretation. .......... The announcement was an ominous sign for the Democrats. The high court has almost complete discretion on what cases it considers, and four of the nine justices must agree to grant a petition for review. Several legal scholars said the justices would not have taken the case, George W. Bush vs. Palm Beach Canvassing Board, 00-836, if the initial briefs had not caused a majority to lean in Bush's favor-although all cautioned that the justices often change their view of a case after studying additional briefs and arguments. ......." New York Times 11/27/00 Michael Cooper ".....In the end, no judge's ruling was necessary. The mere act of filing lawsuits, threatening lawsuits, lobbying officials and mounting a full- scale public relations campaign got the Republicans results: enough local elections officials in Florida reinstated overseas military and absentee ballots that they had previously rejected to add more than 100 votes to Gov. George W. Bush's wafer-thin edge over Vice President Al Gore. Today alone, Mr. Bush picked up at least 68 votes when canvassing boards met in seven counties - many of which are still being sued by Mr. Bush....." Anne Coulter 11/26/00 "....The Florida court's ruling on Tuesday night is even more insane than the typical judicial imperialism. Usually, when judges have a hankering to legislate, they choose territory untrod by the written law. Where the law is silent, they concoct "penumbras" and "emanations" and discover hitherto unnoticed, invisible provisions. The Florida decision is more lawless than Roe vs. Wade. Florida law isn't silent on the question of when the election is over. In no uncertain terms, the law imposes a mandatory seven-day deadline on the submission of election returns. The kangaroo court simply took the seven-day statutory deadline and replaced it with a 19-day deadline. Why not rename the state bird? ...." Washington Post 11/26/00 ".....A poll taken last night by The Washington Post and ABC News following Bush's certification found growing public support for Gore conceding the election. By a margin of 56 percent to 39 percent, they said they were confident the Florida votes have been counted accurately......" Boston Herald Online 11/27/00 ".....For the fourth time this month George W. Bush has won the right to claim Florida's 25 electoral votes. If there were a shred of honesty and decency left in Vice President Al Gore he would do what he began to do on election night. He would concede this election to the man who won it then and who continues to hold the lead no matter how many times the rules of the electoral game are changed to favor the Democratic pretender to the Oval Office. ......... Bush won Florida and the presidency on election night. He won the state again after the first recount of ballots. He won it - and would have been certified the winner after overseas ballots were counted - had not Florida's Supreme Court decided to rewrite the state's election laws and set their own arbitrary deadline. And let's not forget that Bush won the overwhelming number of overseas ballots despite efforts by Democratic lawyers to disqualify ballots of American men and women serving in the military......" New York Times 11/27/00 Richard Berke ".....Republicans said tonight that Florida's certification of Gov. George W. Bush as the victor there delivered them a vital political and legal argument: that no matter how slim the margin, he is the official winner in Florida and, thus, has a rightful claim on the White House.......It also gave Republicans a fresh rationale to begin calling upon Vice President Al Gore to withdraw............. But even as Mr. Bush announced in stern and perhaps brazen posture that he was forging ahead in assembling a new administration, Democrats were hardly dispirited. If anything, they seemed surprisingly emboldened........." FoxNews 11/26/00 "......In a move that could shift 4,700 votes away from George W. Bush, Democrats asked a Seminole County court on Sunday to throw out absentee ballots which they say Republicans illegally tampered with in order for them to be accepted. Bush received 10,006 absentee votes in Seminole, compared to 5,209 for Al Gore. ........ Democratic attorney Harry Jacobs filed the lawsuit on Nov.17, saying that all absentee ballots in the county should be thrown out if the disputed absentee votes can't be identified and dismissed. A hearing on his suit is scheduled for Wednesday. ......... Goard said the GOP asked whether a staff member could add the IDs and she agreed. Two Republican staffers spent days at the county elections office with a laptop computer, matching ballot requests to names and writing the identification numbers on the requests. ...... "The Republican Party asked if they could resolve that situation," Goard said. "They had an individual who had a database. We provided a chair - that's all." ........... >What happened in

Seminole County appears to be illegal, said Joseph Little, professor of law at the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida. However, he said dismissing 15,000 absentee ballots for a "technical violation" would be overkill. ....... "I don't think there is any wrongdoing on the part of the people voting," he said. .........."Where we have misconduct, wrongdoing sufficient to influence the outcome of an election, then the Florida courts have decided that this is even more important than the individual ballot submitted by an absentee voter," Jacobs said. ....." Newsmax 11/26/00 Carl Limbacher "..... When Katherine Harris certified Bush the winner this evening, she didn't count more than 180 votes that Al Gore had gained over George Bush in the manual recount of Palm Beach's vote. ....... Palm Beach was two hours late in finishing its manual recount and missed the 5 PM deadline imposed by Fla.'s Supreme Court. ..... Even if the 180 Gore votes were counted, Bush remains the winner. .....A source close to the Bush side reveals that Harris could not wait, even for two hours, to add the Palm Beach recount. If she did, it would be a tacit admission on her part that she could move the deadline, as Democrats insist she should have done when the first deadline was not met. .....Also, Miami-Dade cancelled its recount because it couldn't make the deadline today. If Harris accepted the late Palm Beach recount, the Gore team would argue, in all fairness, Miami-Dade should have a new deadline. ....." Newsmax 11/27/00 "......Ballot observers have found one outrageous case after another of tampered ballots, miscounts and bias in Democrat-dominated Broward County's recount, NewsMax.com learned in exclusive interviews over the holiday weekend. ".....Tampered Ballots - Numerous absentee ballots had the chad for George W. Bush Scotch-taped back in and the chad for Al Gore punched out. .......... "We were told there were about 80 such absentee ballots," an observer told NewsMax.com. "The Broward County Canvassing Board's justification for allowing these votes - that voters obviously just changed their minds - might be understandable for the isolated case, but not for 80. ......"These Scotch-taped ballots are a shining example of a corrupt process. These ballots can be tampered with after they left the hands of the voters, and the Broward County Canvassing Board is all too happy to count them as Gore votes." - Chads were dislodged from ballots shaken by county workers during the counting. On one such occasion, for example, a county ballot counter predicted that a hanging chad on a ballot would fall off if he were to shake the ballot. He then shook it, knocking off the chad. That ballot was subsequently identified as a Gore vote. - One Republican observer collected more than 75 chads from the table and floor in the area where ballots were being inspected and counted. ......While that observer was trying to collect the chads from the table before a lunch break, the counting supervisor ordered him to leave the chads - and leave the room. - Writing and ink blots, indications of tampering, were found on ballots. ......" Newsmax 11/27/00 "......Miscounts - There were attempts to count 75 Gore ballots as 100. ........ During the final counting, four stacks of 25 ballots each were supposed to be stacked crossways into stacks of 100 votes. But on at least one instance, four stacks containing only 75 Gore votes each were originally counted as if they were four stacks of 100 ballots, a miscount of 100 votes in favor of Gore. ......The Republican ballot observer who saw and objected to this error - leading to its correction - was then kicked out of the room at the Broward County Emergency Operations Center. - County ballot counters also were observed placing Bush ballots in the Gore pile. ......At one counting table, a counter repeatedly put ballots that had been identified as votes for Bush onto the Gore pile. On no occasion was he observed placing a ballot identified as a Gore vote onto the Bush pile. ........... Newsmax 11/27/00 "......Bias and Collusion - Democrat observers were under instruction to challenge ballots even where it was clear there was no vote cast for president. ........ - A Broward recount supervisor was even overheard accepting pro-Gore instructions from a Broward County Canvassing Board attorney. .....The board attorney told the recount supervisor to "err on the side of giving it to us," a witness told NewsMax.com. ..........The Broward supervisor then reversed his earlier instructions and told the ballot observers to feel free to challenge no-vote ballots. - On one occasion two Broward counters were observed showing each other their voter registration cards and identifying themselves as Democrats, as if they were members of the correct club.

- On other occasions county workers were observed demonstrating for Gore. ...... ......" NewsMax 11/26/00 Carl Limbacher "...... House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, issued the following statement this evening concerning the certification of the Florida presidential vote: "As determined on election night and confirmed through multiple recounts, George W. Bush has been selected to serve as our country's 43rd president. With this certification by Florida's Secretary of State, the national interest demands that Mr. Gore recognize Governor Bush's victory and terminate efforts to reverse the judgment rendered on November 7th. "It is now clear that no number of recounts, if lawful, will change the outcome of this presidential contest. ....." Newsmax 11/27/00 Kirsten Davis "......Republican George W. Bush last night claimed the White House - and said it's time for Al Gore to concede the endless election of 2000. ..."The election was close, but tonight, after a count, a recount and yet another manual recount, Secretary [Dick] Cheney and I are honored and humbled to have won the state of Florida," Bush said. "We will, therefore, undertake the responsibility of preparing to serve as America's next president and vice president," added Bush as he sought to take charge after 19 days of post-election limbo. ......." Newsmax 11/26/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Al Gore has disgraced himself beyond the point of no return, if rallies in Democrat-dominated southeast Florida are any indication of the nation's mood. ......... The Democrat attempt to exclude the military vote seems to have backfired. Even in notoriously liberal Fort Lauderdale, hundreds of supporters of George W. Bush rallied for rule of law and against Democrat vote fraud Saturday. ........The enthusiasm of the crowd would no doubt have saddened veep wannabe Joe Lieberman, that critic of First Amendment rights of free speech. ......" NY Post 11/26/00 Rod Dreher "...... THE governor may live in relatively liberal Austin, but there may be no more pro-Bush city anywhere than this Republican stronghold deep in the heart of Texas. And boy, are these people mad. How to put this? If RuPaul stood in Dealey Plaza and announced, "I'm here, I'm queer, and I'm going to take away your guns," he'd be scarcely less welcome than Al Gore is today. ........ "I'd say it's ratcheting up. I think if Gore doesn't concede on Sunday, it's just going to blow," said Wick Allison, publisher of D magazine, which covers this city. Allison, who lived in New York City for a number of years as publisher of National Review, believes the potent nature of the fury building in heartland cities like Dallas is going largely unreported by the TV networks. "They're relying on polls, but polls don't register the intensity of the anger," he said. ......." Freeper spiff "...David Barram was the Deputy Secretary of Commerce under Ron Brown!!! Ft Worth Star Telegram 11/27/00 Robert Reyes "..... Al Gore has been vice-president for eight years. One heartbeat away from the most powerful political office in the world -- but in the meantime stuck in a position that isn't worth a bucket of warm spit. ........ Al Gore has been second banana long enough. He will not be denied. He will do anything to become president. .... He lost Florida and the election on Election Day. He lost the recount in Florida, but he refuses to give up his unholy quest for power. ........ He has lost twice already in Florida. No problem -- just forget about counting the votes by an impartial machine, let biased Democrats count questionable ballots until they produce a Gore victory. ......" Washington Times 11/27/00 Dave Boyer ".....George W. Bush, president-elect at last, moved swiftly after winning Florida last night to lay out his agenda in a nationally televised address and called on the Clinton administration to turn over the keys to transition offices for a smooth transfer of power. .............. Mr. Bush named his running mate, Richard B. Cheney, as chairman of his transition team and Andrew Card, a Cabinet member in his father's White House, as his chief of staff....." UPI 11/26/00 Tom Hopkins "......The recount of votes from the presidential election in Palm Beach County would not have been enough to influence the outcome that gave Texas Gov. George W. Bush a narrow victory - even if counters had not missed the deadline by more than two hours......... At 5 p.m., county officials faxed the results of a machine recount to Secretary of State Katherine Harris along with a set of the incomplete results from the manual recount........ They later completed the hand count and the 200-vote gain by Democratic Vice President Al Gore would not have been enough to influence the statewide outcome that gave Texas Gov. George W. Bush a 537-vote edge........." Washington Times 11/27/00 Bill Sammon ".....The state of Florida last night certified George W. Bush as the official winner of its 25 electoral votes, counting 537 more popular votes than Al Gore. ...... Mr. Gore's lawyers vowed to contest the results by filing a new lawsuit today. With the Florida votes, Mr. Bush won 271 electoral votes, one more than necessary, to Mr. Gore's 267 votes.......Mr. Bush stopped short of issuing an unequivocal claim to presidency. Almost three weeks after 100 million Americans went to the polls to select a

new president, the fight is expected to drag on into December.........His spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, said the governor prefers for now to be called "Governor Bush." Nevertheless, with the certification, Mr. Bush is, until a court of competent jurisdiction says otherwise, the president-elect......." AP 11/26/00 Karen Gullo Freeper HAL9000 "...... The Associated Press has just issued a retraction of an earlier report that "Bush and his aides celebrated with champagne and cigars after his remarks". Here is the original article, with the false statement in bold font: .....Bush says he's honored to win Florida's contested election Nov. 26, 2000 | 9:12 p.m. By Karen Gullo Associated Press Writer ........ AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -Texas Gov. George W. Bush said Sunday night he was ``honored and humbled'' to have won Florida's contested election and he asked Al Gore to reconsider his decision to contest the outcome. ...... In the moments before the speech, Bush was joined in his office by his top aides, Card among them. Cheney, released from the hospital on Friday after suffering a mild heart attack, was at his home in suburban Washington. ...... Bush and his aides celebrated with champagne and cigars after his remarks, although he dispatched his spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, to make one point. ......" Here is the updated version, with the substitute text in bold. It omits the false claim that Bush "celebrated with champagne and cigars". ........ RETRANSMITTING a0661 to CLARIFY in Eds note that reference to champagne and cigars was INCORRECT Nov. 26, 2000 | 11:38 p.m. By KAREN GULLO Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Texas Gov. George W. Bush said Sunday night he was ``honored and humbled'' to have won Florida's contested election and he asked Al Gore to reconsider his decision to contest the outcome. ..... In the moments before the speech, Bush was joined in his office by his top aides, Card among them. Cheney, released from the hospital on Friday after suffering a mild heart attack, was at his home in suburban Washington. Top aides filed out of Bush's inner office moments before he emerged for his speech. While subdued, they were clearly in a celebratory mood as they lined up behind camera crews smiling broadly. Yet Bush dispatched his spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, to make one point. ........ " FoxNews 11/27/00 Freeper DJ88 "..... FNC reported that all 19 judges in PBC kicked the appeals hearing filed this morning by the voters in PBC for a new vote up to the FLSC. No word yet on whether they have (FLSC) has received the paper work or if they will even hear the case. That's all that's been reported so far. ....." Freepe Bcrago66 "....This is interesting, because the Florida Supreme Court knows that they are now under scrutiny by the US Supreme Court for acting like a super-legislature. Look for these weasels to become strict constructionists from here on in. ....." Freeper nd76 "..... This is a different case than was argued before the Florida Supremes. This arises from a voter lawsuit in which three private citizens (i.e., Black activists) are claiming "confusion", and thus are demanding a new vote for President in Palm Beach County only. As I understand it, they appealed their loss in the Palm Beach County circuit court to the Florida district court of appeals which sits in a courthouse in West Palm Beach (this court--one of five intermediate appellate courts in Florida--has appellate jurisdiction over the counties in the southeast corner of Florida). It is the judges on this district appellate court who have certified the appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. ....." MSNBC 11/27/00 Freeper Terry Mross "..... Bush apparently was going to announcement Colin Powell as Secretary of State but Powell asked for Bush not to announcement. Just wondering what people think of this. ....." Freeper Williams "..... Obviuosly, the media is twisting the fact that Powell will probably be Secretary of State, into his "refusal" to be announced last night. I think Powell is a bit of a weenie, but I also think the announcement was better w/o Bush announcing cabinet posts. It would have been too obvious an attempt to say "look I have Colin Powell." ....." Associated Press 11/27/00 Karen Gullo "......George W. Bush is moving full-speed ahead with forming a new administration, despite legal questions that continue to cloud his ascendancy to the White House. ``Time runs short, and we have a lot to do,'' Bush said late Sunday as he declared himself the likely winner of the contested presidential election after Florida's secretary of state certified 25 electoral votes for him. ....... Bush lost no time in beginning the process of filling top jobs, naming former Transportation Secretary Andy Card as his White House chief of staff. Another top job could also be offered soon - Bush wants former Gen. Colin Powell as his secretary of state. Senior advisers said Powell didn't want his selection to be part of Sunday's political tumult. Bush also wants to open a transition office in Washington and asked running mate Dick Cheney, head of his transition team, to work with President Clinton to move that effort forward. ......Card was meeting with Bush about transition matters Monday morning. On his way into the state Capitol, he was asked whether Bush would move quickly to fill Cabinet positions and White House jobs. ......" Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "..... DemoRat Critter Ed Markey(D-MA) has LIED AGAIN. He states that 10,750 ballots in Miami-Dade are the only ballots in the ENTIRE USA that have not been counted because of machine error

machine error Mr. Markey, what about the 26,000 ballots tossed-out in Duval County, 180,000 tossed-out ballots statewide in Florida, 120,000 tossed-out ballots in Cook Couny Illinois? The total of tossed-out ballots nationwide is surely in the millions. ....." FoxNews 11/27/00 Freeper Bryan24 "..... A Democrat from New Jersey, Bob Menendez is holding a news conference in Florida right now. He is saying that there are THOUSANDS of votes that have not bveen counted once. He is trying to gin up support for Gore. Another Congressman on now. I believe he is refering to Dade County. The problem is that EVERY BALLOT was ran through the machines 2 times. Every BALLOT was counted 2 times. ...." The American Spectator 11/27/00 Reid Collins ".....For the first time, CNN switched to live camera coverage of the Broward County canvassing board "hand counting" some 2-thousand disputed ballots. It was the first such live coverage from that venue. Two men and a woman with stacks of the little punch cards were divining the past and foretelling the future. Through future coverage we would get to know them as Judge Robert W. Lee, the one with the mustache, Judge Robert Rosenberg, the lone Republican, balding and with a magnifying glass, and Suzanne Gunzburger. .......In this initial coverage, the woman held up a card. A muffled conversation. "Gore," some one pronounced. The card was placed in the Gore pile. Another card aloft. The woman claimed to see a glint of light shining through a spot. She handed the card to Lee, the board chairman. He held it up and said he could not see any light. Higher, near the light. He held the card as high as arm would reach. He saw the light. The Gore pile ....." Weekly Standard: "........."The canvassing boards should do the same. The Gore campaign and its lieutenants would have us believe that there is some significant number of voters who wanted to vote for Al Gore but were defeated in their attempts either by their own physical frailty or by some defect of the machinery. This is the only theory left that looks even remotely capable of producing a Gore victory. But here is the crucial thing: It is a testable theory. The canvassing boards in Broward and Palm Beach, as we write, have been left alone by the courts to exercise their discretion. Here is what they should ask themselves. .......... If the voters posited by the Gore campaign exist, wouldn't they also have cast "dimpled votes," as it were, for other offices? If there are dimples for Gore, there should be dimples for Senate and dimples for Congress and dimples for dogcatcher. .......In the absence of such thoroughly dimpled ballots, the South Florida canvassers should conclude that a ballot full of holes for Democratic candidates, but with some vague indentation where there should be a hole for Gore, can't conceivably mean the voter intended to vote for Gore. If we must divine intentions, it means the opposite: The voter, having demonstrated the ability to punch out chads, can only have intended to refuse a vote for the man at the top of the ticket......" Bush-Cheney Campaign 11/27/00 ".....REACTION TO GOVERNOR BUSH'S STATEMENT RE: What Gore needs to consider: "The rules were changed in a way that Bush did not like, and that Gore requested. Bush still won counting with Gore's rules... [Gore has] to consider where reasonable people in the center are going to look at this, and say, 'Guys you had your shot, the count, the recount - they changed the rules for you and you still did not win.' It's time to be magnanimous. RE: Governor Bush's Speech: "...the tone...was perfect... "There was a persistence and a determination in what [Governor Bush] said, but it was also incredibly conciliatory. It was the first kind of conciliatory speech that anybody has given in this, and that probably goes to peoples hearts." - Bob Woodward on Larry King Live, CNN, 11/26/00 ____________________________________________________________ 2 STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH The last nineteen days have been extraordinary ones. As our nation watched, we were all reminded on a daily basis of the importance of each and every vote. We were reminded of the strength of our democracy that while our system is not always perfect, it is fundamentally strong and far better than any other alternative.

The election was close, but tonight, after a count, a recount and yet another manual recount, Secretary Cheney and I are honored and humbled to have won the state of Florida, which gives us the needed electoral votes to win the election. We will therefore undertake the responsibility of preparing to serve as America's next President and Vice President. Full statement: http://www.georgewbush.com/News.asp?FormMode=NR&ID=2140 ____________________________________________________________ 3 STATEMENT BY SECRETARY JAMES A. BAKER, III Ladies and Gentlemen, Shortly after I arrived here some 19 days ago, I said here in this very room that the election process in Florida and in the country as a whole - needed to conclude with fairness and finality. I suggested that everyone step back, pause, and think about what was at stake. I warned that there might be no reasonable end to the process of counts, challenges and contests if it slipped away from us. So here is the account of the past 3 weeks. Full statement: http://www.georgewbush.com/News.asp?FormMode=NR&ID=2139 ____________________________________________________________ 4 STATEMENT BY AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER BOB CRAWFORD Democrat Member of Florida's Election Canvassing Commission Thank you, Madam Secretary. Let me first commend you on the job that you and your office have done during these last almost three weeks since the election. This has been a tough election. It has not always been pretty. But we got the job done, and we got it done right. People called me and say--particularly from out of state--and say what's going on down in Florida, and I have to keep reminding people, the only thing that's going on here is that we've got a razor-thin election for the most important job in the world. And that's all it is. After all the jokes, after all of the anguish, we've just got a close election. And any state that had to go through this would've had the same problems, I think, that we have had. But I think it's over. It should be over. And maybe that's the important word there, "should." You know, Yogi Berra once said, "It's not over till it's over.'' Well, it's over, and we have a winner, and it's time to move on. There's one thing that I am sure of and that is both sides have enough legal talent to keep this tied up through Christmas. But one thing the lawyers can't do for us and one thing the courts can't do for us: They can't bring this country together again. And while we have a winner tonight and we have a loser tonight, it's going to take both of these gentlemen to bring this country together again, and I hope we can get on with that work soon. And I'm proud of the job that we've done here in the state. ____________________________________________________________ 5 GORE JUST SPINNING ABOUT SUPREME COURT, SAYS EXPERT Fox News Channel, 11/26/00

FOX NEWS' BRIT HUME: "...does the Gore team not have something to work with here in the fact that we have the Supreme Court coming up on Friday. That-that creates sort of a period of continuing, a sort of unfinality if such a word exists." NATIONAL JOURNAL'S STUART TAYLOR: "...Unless I'm missing something that is completely hollow spin. There is nothing what so ever, I think-that the Supreme Court of the United States can do for Al Gore. They could do some things for George W. Bush, but Al Gore hasn't asked them to do anything except uphold what the Florida Supreme Court has already done. But I don't think he's in the position to say, "Oh by the way could you order some more recounts?" So I think there is nothing, if...Gore runs out of ammunition. Which I think he may well do, before the Supreme Court of the United States gets to a hearing. I think he has to give up, because there's nothing..." Orlando Sentinel 11/27/00 Rene Stutzman ".....That lawsuit over whether to throw out Seminole County's 15,000 absentee ballots is about to shift to Tallahassee. After a contentious court hearing this morning, attorneys for Longwood Democrat Harry Jacobs and Seminole's Supervisor of Elections, Sandy Goard, agreed to transfer it. ...... Attorneys for Goard and the Florida Republican Party today asked Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson to transfer the case to Tallahassee. They said that since Secretary of State Katherine Harris last night certified the results in Florida, she should be one of the defendants, and since she certified them in Tallahassee that's where the case belongs. Jacobs' attorney, Gerald Richman, first objected, then later huddled with other attorneys in the courthouse lobby and agreed. ......" NBC Today Show 11/27/00 Freeper The people have spoken ".....In a discussion this morning on Today with Katie Couric, Jonathan Alter, and Chris Matthews (now that's a balanced group!), Matthews argued that Gore has a better than even chance of winning the election. All he has to do is convince 4 Florida Supreme Court justices to recount Miami-Dade, and he's in! (No mention of the US SC, the Fla legislature, or the US Congress.) To his credit, Alter said it's more complicated than that. ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..... I can't stand the way the leftest media misreprestents what happened in Miami... I saw this on a live WebCam. The people "rioting" inside the building weren't even the same people demonstrating outside the building, carrying signs and all. When have the police ever allowed a crowd of demonstrators inside of a building where a vote count was taking place? Here's the actual chronology: 1) Canvassing commission realizes there isn't time to hand count all 600k ballots. 2) Canvassing commission decides to only recount the 10,000 "disputed undercount" ballots. 3) They tell the hundreds of counters and observers to stop what they are doing. This leaves the counters and observers inside the building with nothing to do. 4) Canvassers decide to retreat to an enclosed room on the 19'th floor. The room had no windows. There were a handful of observers allowed in but no cameras. 5) Thed hundred or so Republican observers and counters go to the 19'th floor and demand "Let us in!" These "rioters" were never the outside demonstrators with signs, let alone the "Elian" crowd. Many of them were dressed in jackets and ties! But does cbs/abc/nbc/cnn/msnbc describe this accurately? Noooooooh way! ....." WTAM 11/27/00 Freeper mccarthyite "..... This morning, another Democrat called on Vice-President Algore to concede. Congressman Jim Traficant powerfully stated that Algore has now lost four different times using three different sets of rules and that he should now concede for the good of the country. Trafficant was the guest host on WTAM's mid-morning show. WTAM is Cleveland's largest news-radio station......" Law.com 11/27/00 Tonu Mauro "..... Inside a rented mansion in Miami, away from the constant flow of e-mail, Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe is fashioning the strategy he will use on behalf of Vice President Al Gore on Friday in the U.S. Supreme Court argument that could determine the 2000 presidential election. ....... On the other side of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, No. 00-836, the epicenter appears to be the D.C. offices of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where partner Theodore Olson is coordinating a team of lawyers crafting arguments on behalf of Gov. George W. Bush. ....." Freeper LongsforReagan "..... These bozos are on right now. Daschle and Gephardt are like Charlies

Angels, the camera shows them talking to Algore but no video of Algore. Just a voice like Charlie....." Freeper MikeDarancette "..... Daschle just told Gorp that he saw a calculation where Gorp won by 9 votes. Are thre Democrats saying that the Absentee Overseas Military Ballots that were recounted over the weekend illegal? Are they attempting to ignore the Military votes again? ....." Freeper truthkeeper "..... There aren't words to describe this accurately, except to say it's surreal. I feel like I'm watching some progaganda out of 1930's Germany. Daschle and Gephart patting Gore on the back for "FIGHTING FOR US!!" ....." Freeper Lazmataz ".... * Daschel says he knows Gore will accept results when they are in -- BUT THEY ARE IN AS OF LAST NIGHT!!! * Gore says this is about the integrity of our system of government -- WHILE HE UNDERMINES IT!!! * Gore claims certain votes were not even counted once -- WHICH IS A LIE!! * Lieberman says they are asking for every vote to be counted -- DESPITE THE FACT THEY WERE!!! * Lying Joe mentions the FL Supreme Court set the deadline, without noticing the obvious irony that they are contesting it. * Gore says there are enough votes to change out come -- ONLY IF THEY DENY THE MILITARY BALLOTS THAT ARE ILLEGALLY DENIED!!!....." * Freeper CHIEF negotiator "....MSNBC just said "How stagey and awkward did THAT look". ....." Freeper DJ88 "...... ROFLMAO!!!!!!! MSNBC said that???? FNC Jim Angle was LAUGHING afterwards!!!! Then, FNC cut away from the news conference just starting to go to Austin....this is too funny!!!!!!!! WHAT A BUNCH OF MORONS!!!!!!!!!!! ....." Freeper Howlin "..... Oh this part is good.........the press is asking them why they only want to count CERTAIN votes and take away others! ......" Freeper Paraclete ".... Daschle and Gephardt are looking like fools taking questions right now . . . They're getting all tied up and don't know the facts . . . this could really hurt the demos. ....." Freeper RightOnline ".....If you don't have Rush turned on, do so. He's playing it live and "commenting" as it goes along............HYSTERICAL!!!!!!! The Q&A from the press caught 'em off guard. They're sounding like total asses as they try to spin the gathered media. Some of those reporters are in trouble; they actually challenged Gephardt and Daschle. Love it.........ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ....." AP 11/27/00 Linda Deutsch "....Al Gore challenged Florida's now-certified presidential election in court Monday, his lawyers disputing an outcome that left him merely 537 votes short of George W. Bush. Gore's lawyers challenged the results from Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Nassau counties in a filing early Monday afternoon, hoping their last-ditch effort can overcome the margin for Bush that Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush supporter, certified for him Sunday night. ....... Harris accorded Florida's 25 electoral votes to Bush, a step that will give him the presidency if it holds up. The contest was filed by Gore attorney Dexter Douglass. A judge was immediately chosen to hear the case. ''This is something that's too important to be decided in a partisan environment,'' Gore attorney David Boies said earlier on NBC. ''This is something that ought to be decided by impartial judges.'' .......In Miami-Dade, Boies wants a count of the 10,000 votes he said could not be read by a voting machine and were not hand-counted. In Palm Beach, the Gore lawyers want to include recounted votes -- at least 180 for Gore -- that the secretary of state refused to accept because the recounting wasn't completed until after a 5 p.m. EST Sunday deadline. In Nassau County, Democrats are seeking to add a recounted total that would give Gore 51 more votes. In that case, the county reverted to reporting its initial post-election total instead of a machine recount because some 200 ballots were inadvertently left out of the recount. ......" Freeper financeprof "..... Although I am not to be outdone in my disdain for the FSC, even I don't think they are that stupid. If they order a recount in Miami-Dade, or require the SOS to include PBC's post-deadline results, they will effectively overturn their own decision. It's one thing for them in their arrogance to re-write the FL statute, it's another thing altogether for them to reverse themselves in such short order. Any attempt to do so would require them to undermine the basis for their own earlier decision. Doing this prior to the ruling by the USSC would invite a serious and embarassing slap down from the Supremes. Doing it at any time would reveal to all that the FLSC is a den of partisan hacks (we all know it is, but they will want to retain the pretense). Matthews gives a prediction a minute. His batting average is about that of a little leaguer

facing Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez. ...." UPI 11/27/00 ".....A suit challenging all absentee ballots submitted in Seminole County, Fla., was moved to Tallahassee Monday to be heard on a state level because the state capitol is where votes are certified......... Sanford attorney Harry Jacobs, who is a Democrat, filed the suit because Republican Party workers were allowed to sit in the supervisor of elections office and add missing voter identification numbers to 4,700 absentee ballot requests. Without these numbers, the requests were incomplete and no ballots would have been sent. He claims this is ballot tampering....." Antiwar 11/27/00 Justin Raimondo "...... Supporters of the embattled Slobodan Milosevic, confronted with the sight of tens of thousands of Yugoslavs rising up in rebellion against election fraud and decades of repression, charged that these people were "thugs" in the pay of the West. Milosevic himself, newly resurfaced and reelected as the head of the Serbian Socialist Party, reiterates the charge. Today, confronted by rising protests not only in Florida but across the nation, supporters of the embattled Al Gore, desperate to hang on to power at any cost, are singing the same song - with the same ominous undertone of hinted reprisals and threats of legal action. ....." Reuters 11/27/00 ".....Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott called on Monday for Senate committee chairmen to start hearings on January 4 for ``president-elect'' George W. Bush's cabinet appointees. Raising the pressure on Democrat Al Gore to concede defeat in the election of Nov. 7, the Mississippi Republican said those hearings would follow the swearing in of new senators on January 3. ``Given the protracted contest to determine the presidential victor, it is critical that we move expeditiously and be prepared to confirm the new cabinet on January 20 after the president has been sworn in to office,'' Lott said in a statement. ...." Rush Limbaugh program 11/27/00 Freeper Wil H "..... According to Rush, Gore called all the networks last night and begged them NOT to refer to G.W Bush as "President-Elect Bush" Slimy little scumbag and the compliant weasel media at work....." Freeper Logician "...... After all the hoop-la and every Democrat screaming that "Gore won the Florida vote", we now find out the true intent of the FLSC and Vice President Al Gore. See, Gore got the backing of the FLSC in making new election laws after an election was held. I could never figure out why the FLSC placed such a deadline that would hinder the loser to contest the results until now. You see, if Gore had of overcame Bush's lead, Bush would have had to contest the results and wait on Gore to respond to the contest 10 days later: Thereby annulling any other efforts by Bush to contest anything else. However, Gore never gained the lead as expected and now he has to wait for Bush's response to his contest for 10 days. By that time, the December 12, 2000 deadline to determine the Electors of Florida will be needed. Too late for Gore! I hate to say it, but Goron is definetly been cooked and served by his own little web of lies, voter fraud and partisan politics......" Freeper MindBender26 "......FReepers made history in Seminole County today. For the first time since experienced courthouse observers could remember, Republicans and Conservatives were out in force to protest. The issue was a lawsuit by Orlando attorney Harry Jacobs to disenfranchise 15,000 absentee voters in this heavily Republican county just north of Orlando. Jacobs, known for his ceaseless TV advertising and love of the media wasn't even in the courtroom as details of the settlement that moved the case to Tallahassee were hammered out. He was outside giving media interviews. Everything went well for Jacobs until he tried to give more interviews on the sidewalk outside the courthouse. The cries from the FReepers of "Bush Won", "Boycott Jacobs & Goodman" and "Let Our Soldiers Vote" reverberated everywhere. We were so loud one bailiff even asked us to reduce the volume a bit since we were disturbing other cases! When TV viewers in Central Florida watch the news tonight, they will see Jacobs, but they will see him embarrassed and overwhelmed by the voices of about 50 FReepers all gathered to prevent the theft of this election! ...." Florida Times-Union 11/27/00 "...... Boies also said the campaign will challenge the actions taken by the canvassing board in Nassau County, which belatedly decided to change its membership and certify the original election results rather than those provided by a computer-assisted recount. Boies also accused the Nassau board of meeting without proper public notice. ....... Nassau Supervisor of Elections Shirley N. King, a Democrat, said last night that everything had been done legally in Nassau and she said she would defend any challenge. ......King said the canvassing board member referred to by Boies was replaced with the approval of Nassau commissioners because the man who was replaced was going out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend. She said the public meeting was advertised properly. And King said she properly returned to the votes counted on election night vs. a machine recount because 218 votes in the first count were not tallied in the recount. Bush gained 51 votes by returning to the election night tallies, but King said the move was fair. "He's [Boies] the only one who has that opinion, to my knowledge," King said. "I've been asking for some time that I be allowed to do an automatic recount and have not gotten that permission. That's when I amended it. The recount was incorrect." Marshall Wood, an attorney

gotten that permission. That's when I amended it. The recount was incorrect." Marshall Wood, an attorney for the GOP in Nassau County, said he was puzzled by the demand that the recount be made official despite 218 people losing their votes. ........."The supervisor of elections has maintained all along there was a mistake in the recount," Wood said. "I don't understand why they're contesting it if they want every vote to count. We had 218 people who voted on Election Day have their vote not counted on the recount. In essence, those people have been disenfranchised." ....." CBS 11/27/00 Freeper hiflyer78 "...... As a former broadcast new producer I have seen my fair share of yellow jounalism and scoops that are not what they seem, but yesterday topped them all. During the closing minutes of Sunday's Chargers/Chief football game carried on CBS, CBS news interrupted the game and Tom Brokaw prepped us for Kathleen Harris' annoucement on the Florida certifcation. His introduction of her was appalling. While she may be a Bush supporter, all that does not need to be rehashed so negatively every time Brokaw opens his mouth. I was ouraged to hear this. Stick to the facts TOM, she the Secretary of State of Florida and she is a Republican, but 3 sentencs of her ya da ya da, ya da connections in the smear manner and tone you used was unnecessary. We have never heard PBC Democratic Carol Roberts election commsioner referred to continually as a stauch Gore supporter who has visited the White House ya da ya da ya da continually from Brokaw or for that matter from any other ther news numb's lips. Give us facts and report the truth. Now consider this...not 5 minutes after that "Special report", CBS goes into 60 Minutes and immediately intterupts again, with Brokaw. He now changes a few words in his intro and then we "wag the dog". He says that Kathleeen Harris is about to announce the certification and this is about to happen, then they roll the tape of what had been telecast live starting about 15 minutes previously. This introduced again as about to happen live. This was not live news about to happen, it was news that had happened and had aired just a few minutes before. A proper disclaimer explaining this was ignored. Properly done, this type of story needs to be disclaimed and prefaced as " Just a few minutes ago, what you are about to see took place.... This was not done. CBS knowingly allowed this screw up to happen and made millions of viewers think that they were watching it live and they were not. Not only do they have Brokaw's left slant on this breaking story they rebroadcast, but they decieve the public by saying it is about to happen. Just give us the facts, Mr Borkaw and cut the crap! What happened to objectivity? ....." Freeper rumrunner "......"Within 10 days after the complaint has been served, the defendant must file an answer admitting or denying the allegations on which the contestant relies or stating that the defendant has no knowledge or information concerning the allegations.." Fla. Stat. 102.168(6) ......In their Emergency Motion to Shorten Time for Bush to answer, they ask the court to order Bush to answer by 5:30 p.m. tomorrow. Motions to shorten time have never been used to place a case at-issue. It is common in injunctive relief (eg, domestic violence, spoliation of evidence, etc). However, there is no statutory or equitable ability for the court to give Gore this unprecedented relief as Bush's answer is A STATUTORY RIGHT. In effect, if the court ORDERS Bush to repond before the statutory scheme, that court will be in violation of the U.S. Code, changing the rules of an election after the election has concluded. This is precisely why the Florida Supreme Court screwed up. I am amazed that the media has not picked up on this elementary principle. If the court orders Bush to give up his due process rights (right to review the complaint, conduct investigation, allege affirmative defenses) in the statutory time, Bush will appeal. This appeal will take a couple of days before presumably the Fla. Supreme Court rules illegally. Yet another issue in front of the US Supreme Court. Before I read the Motion, I was curious if Bois would be able to cite ANY precedent or statutory right to shorten the time in which a defendant has to ANSWER. There were no citations, except that the trial court has broad discretion. Super Litigator? ....." Title IX ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS Chapter 102 Conducting Elections And Ascertaining The Results 102.168 Contest of election.-(1) Except as provided in s. 102.171, the certification of election or nomination of any person to office, or of the result on any question submitted by referendum, may be contested in the circuit court by any unsuccessful candidate for such office or nomination thereto or by any elector qualified to vote in the election related to such candidacy, or by any taxpayer, respectively. (2) Such contestant shall file a complaint, together with the fees prescribed in chapter 28, with the clerk of the circuit court within 10 days after midnight of the date the last county canvassing board empowered to canvass the returns certifies the results of the election being contested or within 5 days after midnight of the date the last county canvassing board empowered to canvass the returns certifies the results of that particular election following a protest pursuant to s. 102.166(1), whichever occurs later.

(3) The complaint shall set forth the grounds on which the contestant intends to establish his or her right to such office or set aside the result of the election on a submitted referendum. The grounds for contesting an election under this section are: (a) Misconduct, fraud, or corruption on the part of any election official or any member of the canvassing board sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election. (b) Ineligibility of the successful candidate for the nomination or office in dispute. (c) Receipt of a number of illegal votes or rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election. (d) Proof that any elector, election official, or canvassing board member was given or offered a bribe or reward in money, property, or any other thing of value for the purpose of procuring the successful candidate's nomination or election or determining the result on any question submitted by referendum. (e) Any other cause or allegation which, if sustained, would show that a person other than the successful candidate was the person duly nominated or elected to the office in question or that the outcome of the election on a question submitted by referendum was contrary to the result declared by the canvassing board or election board. (4) The canvassing board or election board shall be the proper party defendant, and the successful candidate shall be an indispensable party to any action brought to contest the election or nomination of a candidate. (5) A statement of the grounds of contest may not be rejected, nor the proceedings dismissed, by the court for any want of form if the grounds of contest provided in the statement are sufficient to clearly inform the defendant of the particular proceeding or cause for which the nomination or election is contested. (6) A copy of the complaint shall be served upon the defendant and any other person named therein in the same manner as in other civil cases under the laws of this state. Within 10 days after the complaint has been served, the defendant must file an answer admitting or denying the allegations on which the contestant relies or stating that the defendant has no knowledge or information concerning the allegations, which shall be deemed a denial of the allegations, and must state any other defenses, in law or fact, on which the defendant relies. If an answer is not filed within the time prescribed, the defendant may not be granted a hearing in court to assert any claim or objection that is required by this subsection to be stated in an answer. (7) Any candidate, qualified elector, or taxpayer presenting such a contest to a circuit judge is entitled to an immediate hearing. However, the court in its discretion may limit the time to be consumed in taking testimony, with a view therein to the circumstances of the matter and to the proximity of any succeeding primary or other election. (8) The circuit judge to whom the contest is presented may fashion such orders as he or she deems necessary to ensure that each allegation in the complaint is investigated, examined, or checked, to prevent or correct any alleged wrong, and to provide any relief appropriate under such circumstances. Freeper Wil H "......Cheney speaking, calling for Transition funds and keys to the office. Chewing out the GSA and the Goverment They are going to do their own thing from private funds. They file as a 501C(4) organization - donations up to $5000 allowed. Clay Johnston becomes Executive Director of Transition, Ari Fleischer is Press Secretary. Pure fact, no Rhetoric, just getting on with the job. ...." Freeper Howlin "...... He's laying it out chapter and verse......what they are going to do........annoucing some names......I missed them, sorry. Talking about how IRRESPONSIBLE it would be for them NOT to move ahead. Talking about how much time they have lost. ....." UPI 11/27/00 Mark Kukis ".....The White House said Monday it would prepare transition materials for the next administration, but also maintained the election result is still too unclear to begin full cooperation with either Vice President Al Gore or Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who claimed victory in the contested Florida recount........... Siewert said White House Chief of Staff John Podesta had instructed all cabinet agencies to begin preparing briefing materials to provide the president-elect, and President Clinton planned to meet with his cabinet Monday afternoon at the White House to discuss transition work.......... Siewert said the legal challenges brought by Gore against the Florida vote count, however, created enough uncertainty about the election to freeze some transition work........ So far, neither Bush nor Gore has formally

requested any materials from the current administration. Bush, however, called for cooperation from the White House in claiming victory Sunday night when Florida's secretary of state awarded him the state's crucial 25 Electoral College votes after a recount that Gore says is inaccurate and incomplete........." Freeper apackof2 "..... HE IS ON NOW. SAYING THAT CURRENT ADMINISTRATION WOULDN'T RELEASE TAX PAYER MONEY FOR TRANSISTION. SO THEY ARE GOING AHEAD WITH OWN TRANSTION TEAM& OFFICE! EXCELLENT! CLAY JOHNSON WILL BE HEAD OF TRANSTION. SETTING UP A TAX-DEFERRED BUSINESS TO ACCEPT DONATIONS TO COVER COST OF OWN TRANSTION TEAM OFFICE ETC. RIGHT ON! VICE-PRESIDENT CHENEY TALKING ABOUT GORE---"NEVER HAS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIADTE GONE TO COURT TO TRY AND CHANGE THE OUTCOME OF AN ELECTION----FORGIVE SPELLING TYPING FAST ......" Freeper coramdeo "..... He made the point - all votes have been counted, recounted and many counted a third time. ALL VOTES HAVE BEEN COUNTED!!! You got that media? Also hammered Gore for the irresponsibility of not allowing new administration adequate time to prepare for the challenges ahead. We are getting on with the transition. ......" Freeper Dog "..... Listen to the media questions...they are asking about Cabinet posts and such.....NOT 1 question is out of Line.... they are very respectful...OMG!! ......" Freeper AlGone2001 "..... Clinton has met his match. Cheney is running circles around him and demonstrating true leadership ability. If Bush were to sit back on this, he'd display weakness- but this is showing that he knows how to choose an alternative method to getting the job done. Bush did the right thing by going around the FLA SC to the SCOTUS as well. True leadership! ....." Freeper kellyrae "..... I think this is a good move. The message is, (1) we know what we're doing, (2) when there is a job to do, we know how to get around any Clinton/Gore obstacles, and (3) we walk our talk - we don't need no stinkin government handout. ....." Freeper Lorraine "..... It will be so nice to know that full FBI investigations will be done on Bush/Cheney's people unlike the present lowlifes as detailed in Unlimited Access. Things are going to be ship/shape in this White House! ....." Freeper MagnusMat ".... As a Professor in higher education, I have to hand it to President Bush for picking Cheney. I have a good feeling for Bush and his staff! Cheney exudes competence! ......" Freeper rintense "....' Could you picture Joe LIE doing the same? I can't. ' ....... No way. Cheney has a very smooth and even tone when he speaks, and is very articulate. Lieberman sounds like Willie Tanner from Alf. He stumbles and stammers like he has to process every single word he speaks. ....." UPI 11/27/00 "....The Supreme Court Monday refused to allow C-SPAN to televise Friday's argument on the presidential election dispute. The justices also are expected to reject similar requests from CNN and others. In a letter to C-SPAN executive Brian Lamb, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said the full court actively considered the request to provide TV coverage of Bush vs. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, which was made last week......" Seattle Union Record 11/27/00 David Ortman ".....The math can be expressed as follows: If the political system is denoted as "P" and the number of election attorneys is denoted by "EA" and the number of votes is denoted by "V" and the number "N" of weeks that the legal proceedings stretch on, then the probability that you will find "P" if you force the collapse of the system by an election is inversely proportional to the number of EA plus the number of times the vote is counted "C" to the "N" power. It looks like this: P = V / (C + EA)^N Thus, there is a high level of political-system certainty when the total vote (V) is divided by the number of times the vote is counted (C=1) and there are no election attorneys involved (1+0=1). However, as the number of election attorneys begins to approach the number of votes cast, and the number of weeks of legal proceedings increases, P drops rapidly to 1, which signifies Chaos. Should the number of election attorneys (EA) actually exceed the number of votes cast, the entire political system drops into a black hole sucking everything below the event horizon, including news anchors and pundits. The lesson for political state functions is that electors are more interesting when you let their full paradoxical superposition evolve undisturbed. Even when they are forced to make up their minds, the closer their ballots are examined, the more uncertainty results. ....." Newsmax 11/27/00 "...... When Al Gore said he had no intention of seeking the support of any Bush elector in the Electoral College, he may have been telling the truth. This morning, Democratic operative Bob Beckel

appeared on CBS's "The Early Show" and gave some deeper meaning to Gore's statement last week. Beckel admits that he has been seeking out Republican electors. Beckel told CBS he is not asking Republican electors to switch their votes from Bush to Gore. He is simply asking them to "abstain" from voting in the Electoral College. Bingo! Gore can appear to not be asking electors to switch, and Beckel can do his bidding. With President-elect Bush leading 271 to Gore's 267, Beckel would need to convince no more than five Bush electors to abstain to give the election to Gore. ....." CNS 11/27/00 Cheryl Chumley "..... Democratic operatives for Vice President Al Gore would be wise to pay attention to the latest public opinion polls that indicate Americans are growing impatient with the battle for the White House, one political analyst said. At stake is Gore's political career, said Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow with Hudson Institute, and possibly the fate of the Democratic Party in future elections. ......" CNS 11/27/00 Cheryl Chumley "..... A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll of 607 adults contacted by telephone on Nov. 26 may be the most dramatic reflection of the public's mood, she said, but it cannot be construed as a definitive portrayal because it has yet to pass the test of time. With a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points, the Post and ABC found that 60 percent of respondents believed Gore should concede the election to Republican challenger George W. Bush. ......" AP 11/27/00 ".....Gov. Jeb Bush quietly signed the paperwork that certified his older brother's presidential victory in Florida and set up a Republican slate of electors. The ``certificate of ascertainment'' was signed by Bush Sunday night at the Governor's Mansion and sent Monday by certified mail to the Archivist of the United States. .... If the Florida decision holds, George W. Bush would become the nation's next president. ......." AP 11/27/00 Will Lester "......Polling immediately after Florida's certification of George W. Bush as winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes found that six in 10 Americans say it is time for Al Gore to concede the presidential race. Such public opinion measured just after a big event like the Florida certification of Bush as winner may be more a snapshot of the emotional reaction to an event. It could take several days to get a more settled picture of public opinion. .......About 40 percent in the poll taken Sunday night said Gore should concede because the vote was fair, while almost 20 percent want him to quit because they ''want to get this over with.'' ....." Judicial Watch 11/27/00 ".......Judicial Watch will begin counting disputed ballots from the presidential election in Palm Beach on Tuesday, November 28, at 10:00 am. Circuit Court Judge Jorge LaBarga ordered Palm Beach to give access to Judicial Watch under Florida state law, which allows citizens to inspect ballots. Palm Beach was under court order to allow access to the ballots today. As a result, Judicial Watch will seek court sanctions for the delay. Johnson Lambert & Co., a public accounting firm with expertise both in counting ballots and in fraud, will oversee the Judicial Watch effort. Over 400 citizens from across the country have volunteered to help Judicial Watch count the disputed and other ballots, such as absentee military ballots. Judicial Watch plans to conduct an independent analysis of disputed and other ballots throughout the state of Florida....... Also on Tuesday, at 8:45 am, a court will hold a hearing on granting Judicial Watch access to disputed ballots in Broward County. ......" Chicago Sun-Times 11/27/00 Robert Novak "......Since the morning after the election, Al Gore's managers have planned to elect a president by milking votes out of three heavily Democratic counties in Florida. Although former Sen. Dole and Michigan Gov. Engler were stunned by the transformation of voided ballots into votes for Gore, the count by late Saturday was not up to what Democrats had hoped. ...... The dispatching of Dole, Engler and a squad of other Republican governors to south Florida illuminated the votecounting procedures in Broward and Palm Beach counties. As a totem of the GOP and the party's 1996 presidential candidate, Dole can always attract national attention, and he did so when he said he saw "votes being cast, not counted." ....... Engler said the same thing--with elaboration. In Broward, he said, "not one disputed ballot did I see that could be counted in Michigan. Not one. You really have to see it to believe it." The surreal quality for Engler stemmed from Suzanne Gunzburger, the fervent Democrat on the threemember Broward canvassing board; she gave Gore each and every questionable ballot. The result was 583 votes picked in the county, eating up more than half of Bush's statewide lead. ......" Chicago Sun-Times 11/27/00 Robert Novak "...... Their behavior was no aberration but in fact was the extension of the carefully plotted Democratic recount strategy. It is no accident that Democrats always seem to win contested elections, such as Sen. Mary Landrieu's notorious Louisiana victory in 1996. They have the blueprint and the experts, and they were mobilized for Gore even before anybody knew the 2000 election would be a dead heat. "The Gore campaign didn't just send people to Florida fast," Ryan Lizza writes in an excellent article in the

Nov. 27 New Republic. "It sent the party's top recount experts." That included recount ace Chris Sautter, who was one of many experts on call election night. As long ago as 1984, Sautter ran the recount campaign that unseated an Indiana Republican congressional candidate already certified by the secretary of state--an outrageous power play that permanently poisoned the atmosphere of the House of Representatives. .......... Nor did Sautter's handbook take into consideration the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court might spoil the Democratic game, threatening to overrule the politicized and liberal Florida Supreme Court. Superlawyer David Boies, representing the Gore campaign, did not imagine it either. ......." Bush Cheney 2000! 11/27/00 "..... IN THE NEWS...BURTON: DEMOCRATS WANTED TO COUNT EVEN NON-DIMPLED BALLOTS "JUDGE CHARLES BURTON [PALM BEACH COUNTY CANVASSING BOARD]: 'People talked about the dimpled ballots. I don't recall that many truly dimpled ballots. What we saw a lot of was barely discernible impressions, impressions that you could hardly see on the front of the ballot, and when you flipped it over, made a slight impression. Well, you know the Democratic Party was arguing we should be counting every one of those. And clearly, you couldn't count those. I mean, that doesn't even rise to the level of a dimpled ballot. So, for whatever the reason, sure--I mean, the one thing we learned is, there were an awful lot of votes that were not counted.'" -CNN, 11/27/00...." Baltimore Sun 11/25/00 Margo Athens ".....Judge L. Ralph Smith of Leon County Circuit Court said he would issue a written ruling after reviewing the case, but said he had heard no evidence that any of the canvassing boards had violated the law in tossing out more than 1,400 absentee ballots for the presidency because of postmark, signature and registration problems. ........ There have been "a lot of suggestions that they have violated the law but none of it substantiated," Smith said at the end of a 2 1/2 -hour hearing, during which attorneys for the counties said they were not influenced by any partisan concerns but simply followed the law in rejecting improperly marked ballots. "The court just doesn't enter orders telling elected officials to comply with the law. I think that's basically what's been asked of the court," Smith said. ......." MSNBC on the Contest hearing Freeper MHT "....Can this make a difference this late in the game, esp. with the Supreme Court looking at this on Friday? Sam Goldman (?) on Fox is basically saying no.... " Freeper MrFred ".... Why is the Bush team giving in to expediting this. They should use the full 10 days. ......" Freeper MHT "....Fox thinks that this Saunders Sauls is the most conservative of the five judges who could have heard this issue in Leon County. ....." Freeper MHT "...... In the contest phase of a post-certification challenge to the Florida vote (protest is the word used for what Gore was doing before Harris certified Bush yesterday), regular county vote counters are not used. They have to use these master counters who are supposed to be voting experts and nonpartisan, brought in as specialists. I wonder if there are even enough of these people to count the votes before the end date of Dec. 12 when the electoral rep names have to be submitted by the Fla. legislature to the US House. ....." Freeper Vermonter "....... CSPAN has the hearing and the various parties are throwing everything but the kitchen sink into what they want this judge to hear and rule on. Just wondering when he is going to say 'enough is enough' ..." Freeper DemiDog "...... The Bush team is going ahead with expidition because they plan to file a motion to dismiss. They know that this motion will probably be granted. The sooner the better. They stated early on that their motion to dismiss will be based on the claims that the Gore administration has not filed this contest in a timely fashion. ...... In other words, the deadline for Gore to file a contest has passed already. The law does not take into account the fact that the FLSC moved the certification deadline. While the FLSC may have done that, they did not move the deadline to file contests and that is where the Gore team will be proven dead before they start. What a bunch of idiots. Game/Set and Match for the Bush team. ......" Freeper Vermonter "..... I think he just told all the lawyers to sort out what the h*ll they want him to decide on and he'd listen to motions on what stays and what goes. ....." Freeper The Conservator "..... Ha! I listened to the Judge's comments. As an attorney, there is NO WAY that this judge is going to be in a position to make a ruling on the facts by December 12th, much less allow for Florida Supreme Court review of that ruling. Which means that the certification that occurred last night will stand! ....... Boeis needed to get assigned a judge who would agree to "move" this case along, and he did not get it. If I were him, I would have a long hard talk with my client tonight about how he is not going to be getting what he wants when he wants it. I think Gore will concede Wednesday or Thursday. ......" Freeper FrostFire "..... Richard called Boies out and told the judge how Boies was trying to hoodwink the court. This is a Pubbie judge. He won't be so deferential to Boies as those idjuts on the SC. Cheney was awesome. Any of you that get the echampion mail will be notified as soon as it gets going......" Freeper FrostFire "..... No ruling. Just set a date for another hearing about where and how they *might* view* the *disputed* ballots and insure their security at the same time. That is NOT

what Boies wanted to hear. ....." Freeper prognostigaator "..... The judge sort of hesitated in denying the Military vote attorney the opportunity to become a part of the same case as the Gore Lieberman ballots which Boies wants a special master for .. He says he will take it under advisement leaving it up to an agreement between the opposing lawyers.. ....." Freeper DemiDog "..... They can't file the motion to dismiss at this time. They have to wait. They have already told the judge that they intend to do this. They can't file their response untill it is time. That time is when the Judge and all parties agree that the response deadline is to occur. ....." Freeper FrostFire "...... Boies asked for the disputed ballots to be brought to the court so they could be *examined*. Richard said that Boies was just trying to set the stage for his next motion which was to appoint a special master to count the ballots. Richard said there was no sense in bringing the ballots since the judge had not even ruled on the FIRST motion yet. And he was right. Boies looked sick and sort of deflated. Pubbie judges. Gotta luvem. ......" Freeper DemiDog "...... Good question. All I know is what I heard Bush's lawyers say during the arguments for throwing out the Gore assertion that Bush shouldn't be given due process. ...... I must assume, that their argument will be that the FLSC had no authority to move the certification deadline, and that the clock was ticking according to Florida statute and not some arbitrary deadline set after the fact by the FLSC. ....." Reuters 11/27/00 Steve Holland ".......[President Clinton (news - web sites) came close to taking sides with Vice President Al Gore on Monday in Gore's election dispute with Republican George W. Bush, saying ``every single vote'' ought to be counted in Florida. Clinton, who has studiously tried to stay above the bitter fray between Gore and the Texas governor, declined to accept Florida's certification on Sunday night of Bush as the winner of that state's vote pending the outcome of Gore's legal challenges. ....... Clinton said the legal process should be allowed to ``play itself out,'' in a comment that could be construed to mean that there is no reason for Gore to concede the election to Bush at this time. ......" AP 11/27/00 "...... Text of Vice President Al Gore's complaint to contest the election, as filed Monday with the circuit court in Leon County, Fla.: ....------ COMPLAINT TO CONTEST ELECTION ......... 3. The Election Canvassing Board certified 2,912,790 votes for George W. Bush and Richard Cheney and 2,912,253 votes for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, a difference of 537 votes. That difference was entirely the result of: (a) rejecting the results of the complete manual count in Palm Beach County (which resulted in approximately 215 additional net votes for Gore/Lieberman) and the results of a manual count of approximately 20 percent of the precincts in Miami-Dade County (which resulted in approximately 160 additional net votes for Gore/Lieberman); and (b) including changes to the certified results of the Nassau County Canvassing Board which, over the Thanksgiving weekend, changed its previously certified results -- not based on a manual count, but by adding votes in violation of Florida law from earlier tabulations that had previously been rejected by that Board as illegal (which resulted in a total of approximately 50 additional net votes for Bush/Cheney). (c) not counting approximately 4,000 ballots in Palm Beach County that were marked by the voter with an indentation but which were not (in most cases at least) punctured that the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board reviewed but did not count as a vote for any presidential candidate and which have been contested. If discernible indentations on such ballots were counted as votes, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman would receive more than 800 net additional votes. (d) not counting approximately 9,000 ballots in Miami-Dade County that have not been recorded as a vote for any presidential candidate and which were never counted manually because the Miami-Dade County Canvassing Board prematurely ceased its manual count with only approximately 20 percent of the precincts counted. If these approximately 9,000 uncounted ballots result in the same proportional increase in net votes as the ballots that were counted by the Board before it stopped counting, these ballots would result in approximately 600 net additional votes for Gore/Lieberman. ........ 25. On the morning of November 22 the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board decided, in light of the deadline set by the Supreme Court, to manually count approximately 10,750 ballots with respect to which the machines did not record a vote for President. These ballots are known as ''uncounted ballots.'' As of that time, in two full days of work 96,500 ballots from 139 precincts, approximately 20 percent of 635 Miami-Dade precincts, had already been counted. These results confirmed overwhelmingly that the machines which had read the punch cards had failed to count thousands of citizens' votes for presidential candidates. 26. In addition, hundreds of ballots contained a punch at the number immediately below that of the Gore/Lieberman punch hole in a location that could only evince the voter's intent to cast a ballot for the

Gore/Lieberman candidacy. 27. The sample manual count conducted by the Miami-Dade Board identified six net additional votes for Gore/Lieberman. Those votes appear to be included in the totals certified by the Elections Canvassing Commission. Failure to include them would be rejection of lawful votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the outcome of the election. 28. Beginning November 22, Republican and other supporters of George Bush launched a campaign of personal attacks upon Canvassing Board members and election personnel. The November 24, 2000 New York Times reported: ''Upstairs in the Clark Center (where votes were being counted), several people were trampled, punched or kicked when protesters tried to rush the doors outside the office of the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections. Sheriff's deputies restores order. When the ruckus was over, the protesters had what they wanted: a unanimous vote by the board to call off (sic) the hand counting.'' 29. Some news reports described the protests as a ''near riot.'' The New York Times also reported on November 24, 2000: ''One nonpartisan member of the Board, David Leahy, the supervisor of elections, said after the vote that the protests were one factor that he had weighed in his decision.'' 30. Following a lunch break on November 23, and without notice of the intention to consider the issue, the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board announced it would cease all manual counts. The reason for the decision was that it was not possible to complete a full manual count of all ballots by the 5 p.m., Sunday, November 26, 2000 deadline for amending certifications. The Canvassing Board also voted to discard the hundreds of additional votes that had already been duly counted up to that moment. ....... 47. On November 24, 2000, the Nassau County Canvassing Board met without the notice required by section 286.011, Florida Statutes (2000). At that meeting, the Board decided to submit a new certification to the Department of State, reporting the unofficial election night returns (Gore/Lieberman 6,952 votes and Bush/Cheney 16,404 votes) rather than the returns of the statutorily mandated machine recount (6,879 votes for Gore/Lieberman and 16,280 votes for Bush/Cheney). The Board thus changed its certification and certified November 7 results that it had previously certified as incorrect. 48. David Howard, a member of the Board, did not attend the November 24, 2000 meeting. Marianne Marshall did attend it. ........." LA Times 11/27/00 Elizebeth Methren "....To borrow from Herman Melville, it was a damp, drizzly November in the soul of this city that voted 4 to 1 for Vice President Al Gore. .... As Gore prepared to contest the results in Florida, even as the secretary of state there certified the vote Sunday night, many here voiced a chilly recognition that it is time to move on. ......... "It's just gone on too long. It's getting to be . . . ridiculous," said Cheryl O'Connor, a Gore voter who works at a tearoom here in the onetime whaling capital of the world. "If we can send someone to the moon, why can't we get our voting right?" Like O'Connor, even die-hard Democrats said it is time to acknowledge that their guy didn't win. ....." AP 11/27/00 Ron Fournier "..... Powell and Rice will likely be the first Cabinet choices formally announced, but probably not this week, [Bush] aides said. Advisers said Bush plans to have a diverse Cabinet, in terms of race and gender. He hopes to appoint at least one Democrat to a high-profile job, they said. ....." AP 11/27/00 ".....A group of Florida lawmakers has taken the position that when the voters" choice is in doubt, the election of a president is a matter for politicians, not judges. The Republican-dominated Florida Legislature claimed in court papers filed Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court that under federal law it has the ultimate say over which 25 electors Florida sends to the Electoral College. ......... Uneasy with George W. Bush"s paper-thin win in Florida, and the possibility that Gore"s challenge could put him on top, the Legislature is doing everything it can to make sure Bush"s win holds up. Their strategy is to choose electors who are pledged to vote for Bush. ....... Lawyers hired by the Legislature"s Republican leaders filed a brief asserting their authority to choose Florida"s electors if it becomes likely that court wrangling may keep Florida from participating in the Electoral College at all. ...... A special joint committee of the Legislature was set to meet Tuesday, officially charged with addressing voting irregularites such as inconsistent counting standards among counties and failure to count some military absentee ballots.. ...... The lawyers hired by the Legislature to make its point to the U.S. Supreme Court include two well-known conservative law theorists. Charles Fried, a former Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice, was a solicitor general in the Reagan administration known for arguing against racial quotas. He's now a Harvard law professor. Roger Magnuson, who"s representing the Senate, is dean of the private Oak Brook College of Law in Fresno, Calif., an attorney in Minneapolis, and has been active in the national movement against gay rights ordinances. ...."

CBS w/ Dan Rather 11/27/00 Freeper structure "...... Just caught a quick interview with Suzanne Gunzburger (the Broward County vote counter), in which the reporter says that Republicans object to the way Gunzberger counted or "divined" Democrat votes for Gore. This piece actually made it pretty clear what an incredibly loose standard Gunzberger claimed was correct. Coming from Dan Rather's newsroom, I thought this was REAL NEWS! ......." AP 11/27/00 Karen Gullo "...... George W. Bush forged ahead with planning for a new administration Monday, establishing a transition beachhead in Washington and preparing to begin naming prospective Cabinet members. ........ While Bush remains in Austin, Texas, Cheney will oversee efforts in Washington to put together a new government. Denied federal funds and office space earmarked for the transition, Cheney announced that the Bush camp would begin its operations with private financing. ......He announced that Clay Johnson, Bush's gubernatorial chief of staff, would serve as executive director of the prospective transition. .......Cheney also announced that Ari Fleischer, a senior campaign spokesman who had moved to Austin for the campaign, would return to Washington to serve as transition spokesman. ....... For his part, a day after declaring himself the winner of the presidential election based on his certified - but legally challenged - victory in Florida, the Texas governor met with his choice as White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, and got down to transition business. ......... Bush was expected to move quickly to designate retired Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state in a Bush administration, and Stanford University scholar Condoleezza Rice as national security adviser. He was also expected to give economist Lawrence Lindsey a top economic job. ......``Thirty percent of the time ordinarily available is already gone,'' said Cheney, who has been involved in several transitions, including the one between Nixon and Ford in 1974. ......He was Ford's chief of staff, and later served as defense secretary in the administration of Bush's father. ...... ``We have to get onto the business now of beginning to talk to people about possibly joining the administration, sourcing others for their ideas and thoughts on who might be willing to serve, beginning the process of preparing people to go through the full-field investigations the FBI requires; the complete financial disclosure that's required by the Office of Government Ethics; preparation for the confirmation process in the United States Senate,'' Cheney said. ......" AP Drudge 11/27/00 ".....A Democratic congressman is under increased security after receiving numerous death threats following his outspoken support of Vice President Al Gore during Florida's recount of presidential ballots, an aide said Monday. U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Boca Raton is just one of several election participants who say they have been threatened or harassed since the recounts and election protests began. Carol Roberts, a Palm Beach County commissioner and member of the canvassing board that oversaw the county's manual recount, was assigned a sheriff's department body guard after receiving threats. ......" Drudge 11/27/00 "...... **Exclsuive** George W. Bush is seriously considering removing his petition before the Supreme Court, a senior Bush source said late Monday. "We need to begin the healing," the source told the DRUDGE REPORT from Austin, "and the governor would love for this to end -- and end now. He would be willing to drop the Supreme Court, and all other court action, if the vice president would now do the same." ...." Chicago Tribune 11/27/00 "...... There is a line, not all that fine, between perseverance and stubbornness. Al Gore is about to trip over that line and collapse with a thud. His determination to keep fighting, even after Sunday night's formal declaration that George W. Bush won the presidential race in Florida, presents the increasingly unappealing portrait of a man who wants to be a winner at any cost. ....... Florida has certified that Bush carried the state. Election officials followed the procedures and timetable dictated by the Florida Supreme Court. Florida has delivered a final count more closely scrutinized than that of any other state-ever. Yet Gore won't accept that judgment. ....." FoxNews 11/27/00 Freeper out_of_control ".... Michael Barone just announced on Fox that if the handcounts were continued in Dade Bush would have a net gain of 304. The remaining precincts went for Bush 54%. The democrat strongholds that gave Gore a 157 vote net gain have, obviously, already been counted. ....." MSNBC 11/27/00 Freeper Boatlawyer ".... Bush has until Friday 12/1 to answer contest petition ....." Freeper Jimmy Mrose asks "...I thought the Florida statute says he has ten (10) days to respond. ....." Freeper eureka! Adds "..... Because of the FSC scheduling change to let the RATS count again, Gore's atorneys had to ask that the 10 days under the statute be shortened. W's attorneys said fine, we're going to seek dismissal anyway, or so that is what I have gathered here..... " Freeper Boatlawyer adds "...Hey, Boise wanted the judge to order a response by tomorrow! ....." Freeper eureka! ".....Yes, so I read here. Based on what I read, it seems like the good judge was not too receptive to Boies' other requests, e.g. for impoundment, appointment of a special master etc. As an attorney, do you have any thoughts on W's attorney's promised motion to dismiss and merits thereof? ....." Freeper DJ88 adds "....No he wasn't receptive to Boies at all, IMHO. He's a good ole country boy judge who I enjoyed watching, and he looked like

he didn't give a rat's butt whether Boies came from Hootersville or from Washington, DC. ....." The American Spectator 11/27/00 Thomas Jipping "..... Face it, Al, you lost. Denial may be OK for a while for personal things, but this is the country we're talking about. You did everything (absolutely everything) you could, but it's time to admit you lost......You did not lose by much. Look at it this way: At least your percentage of the popular vote was higher than George W. Bush's and that should make you feel better. And you only lost by four electoral votes, which was really really close. Imagine how Walter Mondale felt in 1984 -- he got slammed 525-13 in the Electoral College. That's got to hurt......." Florida Supreme Court 11/27/00 Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "......The parties are to file in this Court no later than 5:00 p.m. November 28, 2000, briefs on all issues in this case including why this Court should exercise its discretion under article V, section (b)(5), Florida Constitution. ...." Freeper Green adds "....It's about the Palm Beach County voters asking for a revote. It was denied in lower court and they appealed. The appeals court transferred it directly to the FSC. ......" Freeper SinginSuzi ".....I'd like to see what happens to the Democrats if they miss THIS 5:00 pm deadline!!! ......" UPI 11/27/00 "....A federal appeals court on Monday granted more time for Republicans to prepare for oral arguments concerning the presidential ballot recount in Florida........ The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it "reluctantly" agreed to a Republican request to delay oral arguments until next week in a case challenging recounts in Florida......... The appeals court said oral arguments that were tentatively scheduled for Wednesday would be rescheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 5........ The court had already delayed hearing the case because the Florida Supreme Court last week granted a request by Democrats to allow recounted ballots to be added to the state's total........." Associated Press 11/27/00 Anne Gearan ".....Certification of the Florida presidential vote gave George W. Bush most of what he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to give him in a case to be heard this week. Now Bush must decide if he wants to keep the court case alive. And, if he does, the nine Supreme Court justices must decide if his new status as the certified winner leaves them anything useful to decide. ....... Bush could gain a kind of moral high ground by bowing out of the litigation just as Al Gore is cranking up a new phase of court challenges in Florida, said Stephen B. Presser, a constitutional scholar at Northwestern University's law school. ........ Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified the election for Bush on Sunday night with some of those recounted ballots included. If that stands up, Bush becomes the next president. A narrow Supreme Court ruling that the recounted ballots shouldn't be included would not change the outcome at this point, said Mary Cheh, a constitutional scholar at George Washington University's law school. ``I don't see that anything turns now on the Supreme Court's decision,'' so the justices may scratch the case before Friday's scheduled oral arguments, Cheh said. ...... ``The Supreme Court may be grateful that it's now moot, because it's gotten itself into quite a little fix,'' she said. Other scholars predicted the Supreme Court will press ahead with the case, if only to act as a traffic cop for further litigation now in the Florida courts. ....... ``Since there are brush fires going on throughout the state of Florida, I doubt that it will just drop the matter,'' said Mark Levin, president of the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation. ......... One scenario goes that if Gore wins some or all the challenges he filed in three counties, Bush would appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. An appeal from there would go to the U.S. Supreme Court, just as Bush's appeal did last week. Hence, the justices might want to hang onto the Bush case because they might have to get involved eventually anyway, Levin and others said. ........ Another wrinkle involves Bush's separate constitutional challenge to recounts, which the Supreme Court declined to hear but which is still awaiting a hearing in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Monday, Bush asked the Atlanta-based court for a delay in oral arguments, which were tentatively scheduled for Wednesday. His lawyers noted that with the certification deadline passed, there will be no recounts for now. ...... " LewRockwell.com 11/27/00 Paul Craig Roberts "..... If the Republican Party permits this extraordinary abuse of office by the Florida Supreme Court, Republicans will have signed an American version of the Enabling Act, which in 1933 transferred legislative power from the German parliament to Adolf Hitler, thus making him a dictator. Instead of signing over power to one person, the Republicans will have transferred it to the judiciary. Elected representatives will have a difficult time reclaiming their authority from judges. After 46 years the judiciary can claim squatters rights to supreme power. Hitler faced more constraints than our judiciary, which proceeds without an Enabling Act...." Freeper bekki4Bush on the judge hearing the contest ".....Judge Sauls (sp?) hearing the contest case listed Douglas Dexter as a personal reference in his files....one of Gore lead attorneys! ......" On Gore's speech Freeper summer ".....Howard Fineman gave Gore's speech a huge THUMBS DOWN. He cited reason after reason on MSNBC as to why it was horrible, starting with the annoying flashbulbs from cameras throughout the speech. ......" Freeper Hildy "..... I think the tide is turning. As soon as the numbers came out the public 60% to 40% thinks that Gore should give it up, the press saw the writing on the wall and

came out the public 60% to 40% thinks that Gore should give it up, the press saw the writing on the wall and changed it's hardline. It's over. ......" Freeper Ironwood "...... I wanna know why Gore needs a dozen U.S. flags as props behind him. I also noticed that when he walked out -- overdone stagecraft for a megalomaniac. A sufficient two American flags stood proudly behind Bush when he spoke last night......" Freeper MegaDittoDaddy "..... IT WAS A BIG BOMB!!! Expect 80% of the people to say he should resign by tomorrow! ....." Freeper wyopa "..... George Stephanapoulos on ABC was clearly in favor of Gore's argument - every vote cast should be counted and there are thousands of votes not yet counted - and thought he made a good case directly to the American people. That's all I heard. I wasn't surprised and neither, I imagine, was anyone else. ....." Freeper Paraclete "..... We're seeing a real pay-off on having had big name repubs on the scene in Florida. Many of the demo hacks are Congress/Senators who aren't really beefed up on what went on down there. Barbara Boxer looks terrible trying to contend with Gov. Pataki. ......" Freeper gswilder "...... On the flags, he was trying to outdo Bush, who had 2 behind him last night. What a shameless man. Most of the post speech analysis has not been too positive for Gore. Russert said his sources said Gore has about another week for this to play out. If he cannot get some court wins in FL, or the USSC rules against him, then Gore will concede immediately. (Yes, I know we have heard this before.) Keep writing ALL congress people. We need to have large organized rallies this week. Use link below to send batch emails to ALL of congress. http://www.mailblasterdot.com ......" Freeper gswilder "..... CNN had some poll results tonight that did not look good for Gore and they even admitted it. Something like 57-40% thought he should concede. Bush needs to be on TV EVERY day this week announcing something related to transition. To be a winner, you need to look and act like a winner. No time to be a gentleman. ....." Freeper relee ".... Sean Hannity said that L. Douglas Wilder, a highly respected former Virginia governor, has joined Robert Reich in calling for algore to concede. Good news! The tide is turning. ....." Freeper summer "..... Fineman was analyzing it from the perspective of (a) what he thought Gore had to do, and (b) if Gore did it. And, in every instance, Fineman seemed to conclude: Gore failed to do it in this speech. For example, Fineman said Gore needed to appear as both "victim and prosecutor", but: Gore failed. Fineman also went on at length about the effects of that ABC poll, showing 60% of Americans think Gore should concede. Fineman explained that polls have a certain effect (I can't remember what he called that effect), resulting in others viewing the result of the poll as "fact", so that the same result will now show up in other polls. (Again, he was referring to the ABC poll showing 60% want Al to concede.) ......It seemed very clear to me that Fineman has concluded it is over for Gore. ....." Freeper Pure Country "..... Have you noticed how sing-songy Gore's delivery is? If he, himself, really believed what he was saying, he would say it with real conviction. He even knows he is blowing it big time. Then there is MS. Boxer who has to speak with her shoulders going up and down with her speech. Both Boxer and Gore look and sound more like musicians than states men and women. ......" Freeper Bryan24 "..... The biggest indicator is that no one is discussing the speech. That says a lot. ...." Freeper Matt M 11/27/00 "..... Hannity on H & C mentions two Dem Congressman have defected. One is Carson from Indiana, who is the other? ...." Freeper BADJOE ".... Jim Traficant of Ohio and a Dem. congresswoman from Indiana. ...." Freeper Matt M "...... Calls to my Congressman's office today (Collin Peterson) indicate a third is probably on the way. ....." CNN 11/27/00 Reuters "......Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on Sunday called on Democrat Al Gore to concede defeat after the state of Florida certified Republican George W. Bush the winner of its disputed presidential election. ......... Lott said by conceding the election, Gore would be "following the selflessness" of other American politicians who admitted defeat despite very close election results, including former presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and former vice president Hubert Humphrey. ...." ABCNews 11/27/00 ".......Though he is a registered Democrat, Sauls, 59, was appointed to the bench by Republican Gov. Bob Martinez in 1989. During his tenure as chief judge of Florida's 2nd District, Sauls came under fire for stretching the powers of office. He was criticized for creating a felony courts fines program that required defendants to pay money to the county before paying the victims of their crimes.........In early 1998, Sauls also was accused of meddling in a case when he decided to release an accused tax evader into the

custody of a lawyer who happened to be his next-door neighbor. That decision was made after court hours in a phone made from Sauls' home and angered the state attorney's office because prosecutors were not consulted. In a 1998 interview with the Tallahassee Democrat, Sauls admitted he made a mistake in the taxevasion case but said he didn't intend to do any harm. "Although judges do make mistakes, they are not done intentionally with malevolent design," Sauls told the Democrat. ......... But the firing of a court administrator in November 1998 led to Sauls' removal from his post. Sauls led the charge to fire a court administrator after the administrator undermined the judge's decision to hire his own handpicked director over a search committee's choice. Sauls' selection for that job happened to be the daughter of one of his good friends........ After the firing, several judges asked the Florida Supreme Court to intervene and review Sauls. Within one week, Sauls resigned. Florida Supreme Court Justice Major B. Harding accepted the resignation, citing Sauls' "continuing disruption in the administration of justice." Since then, Sauls has remained on the bench as a circuit judge in Tallahassee. ......" CNN 11/27/00 Bill Schneider ".....Did anyone else see Bill Schneider on CNN quote their latest poll figures showing 62% of American public want Gore to GO AWAY?! ...." NewsMax 11/27/00 "...... Last weekend, Palm Beach's former elections supervisor, Jackie Winchester, was all over the airwaves. The retired Winchester, who served some 23 years in the same position as Theresa LePore, was presented to the public as just an independent source to explain why so many Gore votes were lost. Winchester claimed that the voting machines have been faulty for some time. (Why this was not an issue for her when she was in office is not clear.) .......... The media, which has been quick to point out Katherine Harris' affiliation to the Republican party, haven't bothered to note that Winchester is a lifelong Democrat. In fact, she spent the presidential campaign as a volunteer for Gore, working his phone banks. .......Why the media didn't mention her party affiliation becomes more curious: Winchester's appearances were arranged by Gore's campaign as part of their "Count the Dimples" effort. ......" CNN 11/27/00 "...... CNN National Correspondent Tony Clark has been following developments in the campaign of Gov. George Bush in Austin, Texas.......... Q: Now that Bush has declared himself a winner, what is the feeling like around the campaign. CLARK: The mood is very upbeat. Andy Card, who has been designated Bush's chief of staff, said this morning he planned to talk a couple of times to Dick Cheney, who will head up the transition. And they may set up their own transition office, since the General Services Administration is not ready to turn over workspace in Washington........ Q: Any other developments in Austin? CLARK: I think what's going to be key is to watch over the next couple of days to see if people are named to key cabinet posts. It's one thing to name a chief of staff and have your running mate oversee the transition. It's a much stronger step actually to name people to cabinet positions when the election is still in question. Q: Would the candidates for Cabinet positions be willing to be identified while the outcome of the election is still up in the air? CLARK: Some would be. Condoleezza Rice [a member of the national security team under President George W. Bush and an adviser to Gov. Bush] is expected to be national security adviser. And Larry Lindsey is expected to also have a Cabinet post, possibly as secretary of the Treasury. [Lawrence B. Lindsey has been a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.] ......" Associated Press 11/27/00 Janelle Weber "......The Rev. Al Sharpton sued Secretary of State Katherine Harris and George W. Bush today, saying the two Republicans interfered with the rights of Florida's minority voters........"What Mr. Sharpton has filed is more of a political document than a serious legal (document)," Bush spokesman Jim Wilkinson said. "He can't seem to name any specifics."......" Independent/UK 11/28/00 David Usborne "...... The historic court action, portrayed by Republicans as the last throw of a candidate who refuses to accept that he has lost, is focused on three Florida counties at the centre of the post-election day storm - Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Nassau. ......... It is unclear when the Circuit Court in Tallahassee will rule on the suit. Hearings are not likely to begin until today. But was virtually certain that the side that loses will file an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court. ......." The Telegraph/UK 11/28/00 Stephen Robinson "....... IF you torture an election result long enough, eventually it will confess to almost anything you want, or so Al Gore seems to believe. Thus, after the hanging chads and rejected military postal votes, we are now moving deeper into the legal mire. ......

Yesterday, the Democrats said they were determined to contest the election result, and that is altogether a different and more ominous matter. ...... We are now watching a full-blooded legal and political assault against a de facto president-elect of the United States. ..... And should Mr Gore ultimately snatch the election in the court room, his will almost certainly be an unhappy presidency. Already, a crowd has gathered outside his official vice-presidential residence in Washington, jeering him and telling him to get out of town. ........Not, of course, that Mr Gore sees it that way, publicly at least. The oddest aspect of his behaviour in the past three weeks has been his pious certainty that he is the rightful winner. ....... Even if he does opt to withdraw in the next few days, Mr Gore - highly rated as a candidate by America's liberal press for his supposed competence, decency and sense of duty - has already behaved with a reckless selfishness that surely will have destroyed his political credibility. ........ In his gracelessness and self-righteous fury, Mr Gore uncannily resembles Bill Clinton during the impeachment hearings, when the President set himself up as the defender of the constitution against a Republican witch hunt. Mr Clinton even cited his success in heading off conviction on his impeachment charges as one of the two major triumphs of his presidency. ......." MSNBC 11/27/00 Freeper dictatorMA "..... Pat Cadell doing a great job on hardball right now... says the dems are perpetrating "one of the greatest lies in american history" ......... he is referring to the "count every vote in miami dade" bull crap.... I love this guy .. I know he is a lib but at least he is honest... Chris Matthews actually let him speak without cutting him off this time.. ..... watching this charade is amazing since this will all come to an abrupt end when the SCOTUS tears apart the Fl Supreme CT ruling which made this fiasco possible.. ....." Independent/UK 11/28/00 Mary Dejevsky "......George W Bush's victory speech may have been couched in words of velvet, but it contained at least one rapier shaft of steel. Making a direct lunge for the tools of power, Mr Bush said he had asked his running-mate, Dick Cheney, to "work with President Clinton's administration to open a transition office in Washington". He added icily: "We look forward to a constructive working relationship throughout this transition." ...... Thus opened a new, and possibly more vicious, front in the already bitter battle for the White House: a tussle for the keys of the transition office, two floors of an office block near the White House, already staffed, wired and equipped, awaiting the advance guard of the next administration. ........In 1963 the transition was recognised as a process that required government staffing and public funding. Until then, it had been a mostly ad hoc arrangement funded by the new president's campaign office........Now, with more than 3,000 jobs in the gift of the President, the transition is an extensive operation supporting the appointment, vetting and briefing of new staff, as well as the hugely sensitive distribution of office space and facilities. But possession also marks the symbolic entry into the ante-chamber of power. With Mr Bush claiming victory, and Mr Gore not conceding, who should have the keys? ......." Florida Legislature and the SCOTUS "....... The SCOTUS is focusing on the following three questions... 1. Whether post-election judicial limitations on the discretion granted by the legislature to state executive officials to certify election results, and/or post-election judicially created standards for the determination of controversies concerning the appointment of presidential electors, violate the Due Process Clause or 3 U.S.C. 5, which requires that a State resolve controversies relating to the appointment of electors under laws enacted prior to election day. 2. Whether the state court's decision, which cannot be reconciled with state statutes enacted before the election was held, is inconsistent with Article II, Section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution, which provides that electors shall be appointed by each State in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct. 3. What would be the consequences of this Court's finding that the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida does not comply with 3 U.S.C. Sec. 5? You can read the brief for yourself but the following is a quote from the brief's conclusion... The Court should rule that Questions 1 and 2 are not justiciable because their resolution lies in the hands of the Florida Legislature or, if it does not act, the Congress. If this Court nonetheless reaches those questions and concludes that the election decisions below deviated from pre-existing law, then the Court should order those deviations to be corrected before December 12, in which case the Electors will be determined by the choice of the voters under those pre-existing rules. If those deviations cannot be corrected by December 12, then it will become necessary for the Florida Legislature to exercise its authority to appoint Electors to comply with its constitutional duty to assure Florida is represented in the Electoral College. ....." Indianapolis Star 11/27/00 Mary Beth Schneider and George Stuteville "......"Now that the votes are counted, it's time for the votes to count," Bush said. ...... .... U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., broke ranks. ..... Carson said Gore should drop his challenge to the Florida recount because the country is "battle-torn" and shouldn't go through more of this fighting. "I really don't think we have much of an advantage in pursuing this," Carson

shortly after Harris certified Bush as the winner of Florida's electoral votes. ...... "I think it would be best if we let it go. Not to say we lost it," she said, adding that four years will pass quickly. ....... Carson said she hasn't talked much to other congressional Democrats about the issue, and she doesn't want to see Bush in the White House. But, she added, "I can work with anybody." ........U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer, a Democrat from South Bend, says he's concerned that the inflammatory rhetoric will make it difficult for the two parties to work together. ...." MSNBC 11/27/00 Biblebelter "..... Pat Caddell listed his liberal Democrat credentials. He said he worked for McGovern, Cuomo, and Teddy Kennedy. He then said the Democratic Party has become a conferderacy of gangsters who seek to win at any cost. ...." Freeper ironman "..... I think the exact quote was the Democrat party has been "hijacked by conferderacy of gangsters." ....." Freeper cerberus ".....There was just an incredible exchange between Chris Matthews and Pat Caddel. When asked about the effectiveness of Gore's remarks tonight, Caddel really opened up about the fraud of selectively recounting votes. He also referred to Congressman Markey's comments a few minutes earlier as the most incredibly racist thing he had heard in ages. (Markey insinuated that Republicans were attempting to prevent African-American votes from being counted.) Chris Matthews got really flustered and cut Caddel off before he could finish his point. ........" Freeper meanman "..... Now don't get on my case, but I was surfing channels and saw Joe De Gennava on Whoreldo. He convinced Rivera that the next negative vote against Gore would be the end of him. Whoredo agreed, said its like at OT football game. First rejection of Gore's appeals would be his last. ....." The NY Times 11/27/00 David Firestone "......Vice President Al Gore placed his last hope of gaining the presidency in a lawsuit filed today that contests the results of the presidential election in Florida, asking a circuit court judge to declare him the winner and award him the state's 25 electoral votes. ........ But at a hastily called court hearing this afternoon before Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court, it became clear that the sheer magnitude of the trial, which will include witnesses, exhibits, at least eight plaintiffs and defendants and the possibility of yet another recount, may burst a looming deadline of Dec. 12. That is the day the state's electors are to be sent to the Electoral College. .......... In the lawsuit, Mr. Gore's lawyers said the vote totals certified on Sunday night by the Florida secretary of state were wrong, contending that thousands of votes in three counties were uncounted. Had all the votes been counted in Nassau, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties, the lawsuit said, Mr. Gore, and not Gov. George W. Bush, would have won. ......." The NY Times 11/27/00 David Firestone "...... Ronald A. Labasky, a Tallahassee lawyer who serves as general counsel to the State Association of Supervisors of Elections, said Judge Sauls was considered to be among the more conservative of the four civil judges on the county court, and was known as a fairly strict interpreter of the statutes. He is probably not the judge the Gore team would have picked if it had had a choice, Mr. Labasky said. ....... Because the hearing took place at 4 p.m., only a few hours after the lawsuit was filed, just after noon, Mr. Bush's lawyers had no time to respond formally, and the judge granted them until Wednesday to do so. But their opposition to the core demands of the contest quickly became evident at the hearing. ........Barry Richard, the lead trial lawyer for Mr. Bush, objected strenuously when Gore lawyers asked to have the ballots moved to Tallahassee. "What this motion is leading to is not about the preservation of these ballots," Mr. Richard said. "What it's leading to is the plaintiff's next motion, which is asking the court to appoint a special master to begin doing what the election board has already done: count these ballots. And there is no authority in any law or the rules to appoint such special masters." .........Judge Sauls did not rule on whether to move the ballots or to appoint a special master, allowing two days for the various parties to respond to the requests. ....." Newsmax 11/27/00 Carl Limbacher "..... Tens of thousands of Floridians were inadvertantly disenfranchised when the TV networks mistakenly called the election for Vice President Al Gore an hour before all the state's polls had closed, a Republican polster said Monday. 187,000 people who could have voted in Florida's panhandle did not, polster John McLaughlin told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly. ........ If they had voted, McLaughlin said, past elections show their vote would have broken for Bush nearly two-to-one: ......" USA Today 11/28/00 Marilyn Adams "......As the Palm Beach recount plodded ahead Sunday, protesters marched outside with signs bearing messages that have become increasingly nasty. ....... They called Vice President Gore a "thief and liar" and branded Texas Gov. George W. Bush a "bully." Separated by barricades and nervous-looking deputies, a crowd of Bush supporters and a much smaller cluster of Gore backers attempted to out-scream each other on megaphones. ....." USA Today 11/28/00 Bill Nicholds Judy Keen "..... George W. Bush's team vowed Monday to move ahead with a presidential transition even though the federal government has refused to release funds for the effort, claiming a president-elect has not been chosen. .......... Republican vice-presidential nominee Dick Cheney,

in his first news conference since he had a heart attack last week, told reporters in Washington that the transition group would raise private funds to begin staffing the next administration. ........ Cheney said it was "regrettable" that the Clinton administration has decided to deny Bush for now nearly $5.3 million in federal funds set aside for the transition. ......." MRC 11/27/00 "......Bush Wins? Not As Democrat Dan Rather Sees It Katherine Harris may have certified George W. Bush as President-Elect last night, but don't expect the liberal media to concede this official result any faster than their friends in the Gore campaign will. Last night in live coverage on CBS, Dan Rather identified Harris as a Republican at least six times, and questioned the finality of her finding at least ten times: Rather began: "Nineteen days after the presidential election, Florida's Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner - as she sees it and she decrees it - of the state's potentially decisive 25 electoral votes. Katherine Harris will officially certify the state's election returns...The believed certification as the Republican Secretary of State sees it - is coming just hours after a court ordered deadline for counties to submit their hand count and recount totals." "The reason we're on the air right across the board nationally right now is because Florida's Secretary of State - a Republican, as we've mentioned before campaigned actively for George Bush, well-connected to Governor Bush's Governor brother Jeb Bush in Florida, but a woman who has consistently said 'I'm trying to do my job, right down to the letter of the law, as best I can'...She will certify - as she sees it - who gets Florida's 25 electoral votes. Those 25 electoral votes potentially will be decisive." Rather explained the signing: "What's happening here is the certification - as the Florida Secretary of State sees it and decrees it - is being signed...After this, it will be, at least in the opinion of the Secretary of State, that the results will be final...The Secretary of State, as she has restated here, in effect believes that the election certification she gives should stand." "This is the Secretary of State and others, certifying the statewide outcome as they view it. This action is being challenged already. David Boies, the lead lawyer for Democratic Vice President Al Gore's campaign, said that this certification would be challenged tomorrow on at least three grounds, and probably more." ....." USA Today 11/28/00 Jill Lawrence "......Al Gore weighs his options and plots his strategy inside a vice presidential residence that has become a magnet for protesters. ''Every vote counts!'' his supporters chant. Across the road, backers of George W. Bush counter with ''Concede now!'' But Gore isn't conceding, and he doesn't believe he's a loser. Which leaves the country with two presidents-in-waiting and days of contention ahead. ......... For the moment, Gore is the one with narrowing options. Legal challenges continue, but Bush has been certified the winner of Florida, its 25 Electoral College votes and thus the White House. He is naming members of his new team. His running mate, Dick Cheney, held a news conference Monday on plans for the transition to a Bush administration. And Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott called for confirmation hearings Jan. 4 for appointees named by ''President-elect Bush.'' ......" The Associated Press 11/28/00 Karin Meadows ".....The results of Palm Beach County's manual recount of thousands of presidential ballots do not match up with figures from the last machine count, a county spokeswoman said late Monday. Denise Cote said ``unaudited figures'' from the manual recount were sent to state elections officials for certification, though that doesn't mean the numbers were wrong. She refused to discuss details. .... Cote's announcement raises the possibility that if a court orders the state to accept results from the manual recount, those numbers may be wrong. ......Earlier, County Judge Charles Burton could not explain why the county has not released the final results of its hand count, but he played down any significance. ....." Orlando Sentinel 11/28/00 Rene Stutzman and Kevin P. Connolly "....The dispute over Seminole County`s 15,000 absentee ballots shifted Monday to Tallahassee, to the same courthouse where Vice President Al Gore is contesting the official results of Florida`s presidential election. ......For now, the two issues are separate suits, but Republicans said Monday they would press to consolidate the cases. ...... Before the judge could rule, Jacobs` attorneys agreed to simply refile the suit in Tallahassee. They immediately flew to Tallahassee and did just that. It`s not clear, however, what will happen next or when something will happen. ....... Bringing the suits together would slow down both cases, something Gore wants to avoid as he faces a Dec. 12 deadline, the date Florida must choose the members of its electoral college. Consolidation would also cause a public-relations problem for Gore, who has kept his distance from the Seminole suit If Gore were pulled into it, he could appear to be a hypocrite. Throwing out all of the county`s absentee votes, including thousands that were cast legitimately, would go against Gore`s mantra of making every vote count. But that`s exactly what the Seminole suit seeks. It would be interesting to see Gore`s attorneys try to make both arguments at the same time, said Ken Wright, a GOP attorney. ....." Newsday 11/28/00 Tom Raum "......George W. Bush, in a bold gesture to assert authority, is moving key operatives to Washington, D.C., and seeking private financing for a presidential transition. ......Associates close to Bush said the list of prominent Republicans under consideration for top jobs included Montana Gov. Marc Racicot and Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith. ...... Racicot, who has emerged as a top advocate in the Florida recount fight, has been mentioned as a possibility for Interior secretary or attorney general.

Goldsmith's name has been circulated as a potential housing secretary. ...... Bush hopes to appoint at least one Democrat to a high-profile job, his associates said. Former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., has been mentioned as a possible candidate for defense secretary and Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt of North Carolina could find himself on a list of potential education secretaries, aides said ...... Rebuffed by the Clinton administration in a bid for office space and $5.3 million in federal funds, a defiant Bush team announced Monday it would seek contributions of up to $5,000 each from individuals to help pay for a transition office in the nation's capital. He also was moving critical elements of his operation from Austin to Washington to establish a presence near the center of federal government. Cheney himself will be based in Washington. ...... The actions of the Bush camp contrasted sharply with assertions by Democrat Al Gore that the election won't be over until the courts say it's over. His camp is seeking legal action to reopen Florida's vote recount. ........ ''Let the people have their say, and let us listen,'' Gore said Monday night in a nationally televised address to the nation. That address was closely monitored in Austin -- Bush watching from the Texas governor's mansion and the campaign staff assembled before television sets at campaign headquarters. Fleischer said Gore's address offered ''nothing new.'' ....... The General Services Administration in Washington is refusing to open a transition office or release $5.3 million for the next president-elect until the contest is settled. ''This is regrettable, because we believe the government has an obligation to honor the certified results of the election. Despite the decision, we feel it is our obligation to the American people to honor their votes by moving forward and assembling the administration that they've chosen in this election,'' Cheney said. ''Therefore, at the direction of Governor Bush, we will proceed, drawing on other sources,'' he said. ......." South Florida Sun Sentinel 11/27/00 Brad Hahn Neil Santaniello ".....They labored for the better part of 10 days under the nation's vigilant eyes, struggling with legal wrangling, partisan putdowns and exhaustion to count 462,000 presidential ballots by hand. But when the Sunday afternoon deadline to send recount totals to the state arrived, Palm Beach County elections workers hadn't finished the job. None of the count counted. On Monday, fingers pointed in all directions. ..... At County Judge Charles Burton, the Canvassing Board chairman, for choosing turkey over ballot chads by suspending the recount through Thanksgiving. ..... At county lawyers, for telling the Canvassing Board to hold the recount until the Florida Supreme Court gave a go-ahead. ...... At Republicans, for allegedly slowing down the process by incessantly objecting to ballots clearly punched for Al Gore. ... And at other politicians, lawyers, county staff members and anyone else tied to the ordeal. ......" Newsmax 11/27/00 "......Twenty-four hours after NBC declined to interrupt regular programming to cover George W. Bush's first speech to the nation as certified president-elect, the network decided to break into its Monday night prime-time schedule to air Vice President Al Gore's response live. NBC immediately denied any favoritism. ...." New York Post 11/27/00 ".....Al Gore launched a new campaign yesterday, this time to fight back and try to convince Americans - and Florida courts - that George W. Bush isn't really the president-elect. ...... A day after Florida certified Bush as winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes, Gore dispatched teams of lawyers to try to reverse the results in three Florida counties - and went all out in a PR blitz to convince the public that anointing Bush was a big mistake. ......In a day packed with action on several fronts, Gore delivered his message in a televised conference phone call with running mate Joe Lieberman, House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. .......The conference call was clearly meant to send a message that top Democrats weren't abandoning Gore - despite an ABC poll that said that six out of 10 Americans believe Gore should give up his bid to overturn the Florida results. ...... Even former Clinton White House Labor Secretary Robert Reich agreed. "You've got to come to an end here at some point," Reich told ABC-TV's "Good Morning America." ......." Newsmax 11/27/00 "......"I think the vice president should take the high ground and hand it over," Rep. Julia Carson (D-Ind.) said. "I don't think he lost the election, but I think the illegal activity that has taken place since the election has left the country battle-scarred. In order for the country to get on with its business, we have to put this behind us." ......... Newsmax 11/27/00 "......Lieberman, Gore campaign manager Bill Daley and chief lawyer Ron Klain tried to persuade House Democrats to support them during a conference call in which they explained their legal strategy.......With camera crews and reporters watching, Gore's conference call with the congressional leaders seemed almost surreal. The four talked in stiff, almost-rehearsed tones - seemingly more to the cameras than to each other - and all agreed that Gore was doing the "right thing" by contesting the election. ...... Gephardt, who was with Daschle in Tallahassee, assured Gore there was "overwhelming support" for his effort to contest the election. ......" MSNBC 11/27/00 Jay Severin ".....Al Gore is riding a bicycle. The bicycle is his waning presidential prospects. He is still on the bicycle, but on Sunday night the chain came off. GORE IS still pedaling, but the wheels are slowing down. The vice president will, on residual momentum, glide for a few more days. But then,

physics (not being subject to recount, hand or otherwise) dictate his bicycle will stop. Gore will fall down and go boom. Will there be any Democrats left to catch him? ........ Poor Al Gore. No longer a candidate as of Sunday night's certification but, now, simply a loser. That's what elections do, produce a winner and a loser. ......" Washington Times 11/28/00 Bill Sammon ".....Al Gore yesterday contested the certification of Florida's election results by filing a lawsuit that insists he would be nine votes ahead of George W. Bush if the state would throw out scores of military ballots.....Gore's renewal of his call for disqualifying the votes of soldiers and sailors stationed overseas returns his campaign to an earlier stance that had proved a public relations disaster........"In order to come up with that number, you would have to disregard several hundred absentee ballots from overseas," a reporter pointed out to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who was dispatched to Tallahassee by the Gore camp yesterday. "Is now the Gore team . . . saying, 'No, those votes ought not count'?"........"Well, your question I think is symptomatic of the situation we're facing right now," Mr. Daschle replied. "You have votes coming in from all directions. And I don't think anybody has an absolute count."......." Washington Times 11/28/00 Wesley Pruden ".....Al is like one of the dogs at the greyhound park. If a greyhound actually catches the mechanical rabbit he's trained to chase around the track, he'll never run after it again. The dog learns that chasing, not catching, is the game......... Al had to be saved from learning the awful truth about the mechanical rabbit. There's got to be a succession of "next years" for Al, who has been running all his life......Now that Florida has awarded its 25 electoral votes, and with them the presidency, to George W., we can all get on with the rest of our lives. Save the tears for the lawyers........Lawyers are the losers in Florida. The best estimate is that there are 500 Democratic trial lawyers at work down there for Al. At $750 an hour - which is what David Boies charges his clients and Al certainly wouldn't discriminate against the rest of the lawyers, some being black, Hispanic and/or female that comes to $375,000 an hour, just for lawyers........" Worldnetdaily 11/28/00 "...... You just knew there would be a poll that purported to tell us "how the people felt" about Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris' Sunday decision to certify her state's election ballots and finally award the victory -- officially -- to George W. Bush. ...... Nobody should feel disappointed. Today's establishment media princelings are nothing if not predictable. One poll in particular asked if Gore should just concede his loss to Bush now that Florida and its all-important 25 electoral votes have been officially awarded him after innumerable counts and recounts -- some in violation of Florida state law. ....Six in 10 Americans -- including more than 40 percent of avowed Gore supporters -- said yeah, the veep should call it quits. Personally, I'm surprised the number wasn't higher, but, then again, partisan politics -- like roaches -will likely survive nuclear war someday. Like roaches, there are still plenty of partisan Democrats who will never concede to Bush. ....." Washington T imes 11/28/00 Audrey Hudson "...... The uncounted ballots in Florida - which have played a key role in Democratic challenges - are just a drop in the bucket of ballots dismissed nationwide because of voter error, say political observers. An estimated 180,000 votes were dismissed in Florida - out of 6.1 million votes cast - because of improper voting procedures. ........ However, more than 2 million ballots were tossed out in all 50 states and also will not be counted, said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. ......Mr. Gans estimates that between 1 percent and 1.8 percent of votes cast - or 2.1 million to 2.8 million ballots - were eliminated nationally. ...." Reuters 11/27/00 Paula Bernstein "...... NEW YORK (Variety) - No, that wasn't a grimace on Peter Jennings' face on Sunday night. Amid accusations that the networks' election night coverage had a liberal bias, the ABC News ``World News Tonight'' anchor wants to make it clear that he is impartial when it comes to the still unresolved presidential election. ....... In his daily email to viewers Monday, he said that viewers shouldn't read too much into his facial expressions after George W. Bush gave his ``acceptance'' speech on Sunday evening. ......``There were a lot of email messages today that suggested that the look on my face after Bush spoke was disapproving -- even biased. Actually, I was struck by the fact that it was a very serious moment, and we treated it accordingly,'' wrote Jennings. ......" Washington Times 11/28/00 Paul Craig Roberts ".....The Florida Supreme Court must be severely punished for participating in vote fraud. Impeachment is too good for the Gang of Seven. Arrest, indictment and trial are the best response to the court's misuse of judicial office to facilitate the attempted theft of a presidential election. Florida is a state where Republicans have been overwhelmingly elected to legislative and executive office. In a state where Republicans hold the balance of power, why would partisan Democratic justices so audaciously and confidently overstep their authority and ignore statutory law in order to help Democrats revote ballots to Al Gore's benefit? The answer is that for almost a half-century - ever since the 1954 Brown decision of the U.S. Supreme Court

- the judiciary has been gradually appropriating the legislative role, adding the power of lawmaker to its assigned role of law interpreter.......... Unlike the Florida Supreme Court's brazen decision to assist the Democrats in stealing a presidential election, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision was in behalf of a noble cause - desegregation of public schools........" Worldnetdaily 11/28/00 "..... Ronald Scott Owens, who hailed from Vero Beach, Fla., recently made the ultimate sacrifice along with 16 shipmates when the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen's Aden harbor. Now, from what I'm hearing, the ballots of Ronald Scott Owens and almost 700 other Florida military voters may have been deep-sixed for reasons that former President Carter and the Arbiters of Good would already be decrying if we weren't America the Beautiful. .......This skullduggery was exemplified in a five-page letter -- a tip sheet, really, on how to zap military absentee voters -- sent by Florida lawyer Mark Herron to like-minded attorneys who've been storming the Sunshine State. ......The word is that this injustice took on a life of its own when Democratic Party leaders both in Florida and in Washington did the math and decided the military vote would favor the opposition. ....." Freeper artios "...... Fast - note taking - sorry for typo's America has naver had a contested election... Overall view of contest preceeding, set record straight Contest without legal substance. Boise "pet theories" - 10,000 votes - actually non-votes. Typical for people to not vote. 1.6% in county - 34 counties in FLA have higher percents of non votres - some states have higher percents. They have been counted 2x. Myth #2 - "Miami Dade would have conducted if not for Repub mob storming.." - Board - independent protest was for FLA sunshine laws - moving behind closed doors. They saw "noisy but peaceful, they said they were not intimidated - they said they stopped becuase they could not meet the deadline - they were many police and alos woman and babies int he "mob"... tuen back the rhetoric.. Butterfly ballots - typical throughou country, designed by Demos - approved by demo party, posted in Newspapers, law is - if there is concern - complian beforte election... Nasau county - 218 votes earlier declared illegal - included in final count. Not actually ever declared illegal. Myth. Machine recount discovered them. permission asked and received to include.. unanimuous board decision - included 2 demos Not concerned about seminole county - no merit - will talk later if desired... Position would be: any person can assist a voter and the voter must sign the application. superviser came in and added the information non issue, super4viser allowed them to do it because the info was not in controversy - social sec. # or other non contested info - nothing to do with the ballot. Information is not something that could be manipulated. no issue with illegal or suspect activity Duval county - 9.x% military (high %)- 20,000 undervotes - but no county - if you check one county should check all. "Divine inspiration interpretng intent".... if we do it - lets do it in Duval county. Contest: How long? Dem's want Repubs not to object to anything and not prepare so that it won't take long But due process should not be suspended just for Gorebaby.. Contest could have been filed after first certification - extended because Gore team asked for extention... 175,000 no votes... thrown out in greater percents in Duval County and throughout US... not fair... treated like all non-votes through out US plus recounted.... Freeper uplifters ".... Oh man!!!!! James the pit bull Baker is AWSOME!!!!!!! He just spanked a reporter!! The reporter was asking/whinning "how can you guarantee that theses 10,000 votes in Dade county are not actual votes"? Bakers reply was how can anyone gurantee that? Than he pointed out the fact that in Duvall there was 22,000 and then in the whole state 175,000 and then all throughout these united states there were millions. Then he said the point is, we have a system in this country that has been in place for years and you can't just change that system in the middle of the game. ......He just shut her right up!!! He wasn't mean or anything, just FIRM!! ...." Sfgate AP 11/28/00 ".....Sen. John McCain says he stands ready to go to bat for George W. Bush's assertion that he has won the presidency, but wants no role in a Bush administration. During a tour Monday through southern Arizona McCain said he has not been in the forefront of Bush's post-election campaign because he has not been asked to. He added that, if asked, he would join his Republican counterparts on the talk shows to urge Vice President Al Gore to concede. ......" Newsmax 11/28/00 Carl Limbacher ".....13-year-old Bush Supporter Beaten by Pro-Gore Crowd The

airwaves have been filled lately with Democrats complaining about the intimidation tactics of pro-Bush demonstrators. So it will be particularly interesting to see what some of these same folks have to say about the latest report of political intimidation; one that involves not just angry taunts and jostling -- but the beating of a 13-year-old boy by supporters of the vice president....... It happened over the weekend as Gore and Bush supporters gathered on opposite corners of Massachusetts Ave in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, the Washington Post buried this item in the seventh paragraph of their report on the dueling protests: "A scuffle (broke out) Sunday in which a 13-year-old boy heading home from the Bush corner crossed to the Gore side and took a punch in the gut."....." ROBERT N. HOCHMAN 11/28/00 ".....Conventional wisdom has it that George W. Bush scored a big victory in getting the U.S. Supreme Court to take his case, to be heard on Friday. Indeed, when the Gore team came out saying that it welcomed the court's involvement, most pundits dismissed this as old-fashioned spin. It seems, this time, that Al Gore's spin-doctors have it right. ............ It looked like Mr. Gore was going to make up the 930 votes he needed. And it looked like only the U.S. Supreme Court could stop him. ...... It didn't work out that way. Miami-Dade County decided not to recount. Palm Beach didn't finish in time. Mr. Gore didn't find the votes he needed. Mr. Bush doesn't need the Supreme Court anymore, either legally or politically. Neither does the nation. He should move to dismiss his own petition. ......" AFA Journal 11/28/00 Brian Fahling "......And Mr. Bush and his advisors, unfortunately, have apparently been suckered into believing the Gore claim that Florida statutes and federal constitutional law permit a presidential election to be contested in Florida's courts. They do not........ Florida law clearly does not provide for, nor does it contemplate, that a national election may be contested in its courts. Let me explain. First, Florida statute 102.168 provides that the complaint filed to contest an election "shall set forth the grounds on which the contestant intends to establish his or her right to such office . . . ." It hardly requires argument to note that Florida cannot legislate or adjudicate competing claims to the office of president of the United States. It is by mere force of circumstance that we now know that Florida's electors will tip the balance in the electoral college, but that is an entirely different matter than contesting an election under Florida law on the ground that you are entitled to occupy the office of President of the United States. ........ What Mr. Gore is really contesting is the assignation of electors to Mr. Bush as a result of his winning the popular vote. And Mr. Gore has already had multiple bites at that apple through the protest provisions of Florida law. Provisions that ceased to be operative upon the passing of the judicially created and expanded 5:00 p.m. Sunday deadline. He cannot be contesting the election of Mr. Bush to the office of president since that is an office created by the United States Constitution and not the State of Florida........" Newsmax 11/28/00 Charles Bloomer "...... "No Controlling Legal Authority" - Vice President Al Gore When Al gore uttered this nonsense in defense of his illegal fundraising activities, little did we realize the larger significance of the phrase. We failed to realize that this attitude was the definitive attitude of the entire Democratic party toward the law. ........ With Bill Clinton at the helm, the Democrats have waged a dangerous, unremitting war against the very foundations of law in America. They have repeatedly, maliciously undermined the law in order to achieve their goals, or to escape punishment when they have broken the law. ........" rushlimbaugh.com 11/27/00 Rodger Schultz "...... George W. Bush was certified the winner of Florida, which gives him the necessary electoral votes to win the presidency. Although the media refuses to report it, this makes Bush president-elect of the United States of America. Why isn't the press reporting this? Well, it turns out that Algore called network anchors, television executives and newspaper editors and begged them not to refer to Bush as president-elect - so they are dutifully falling in line. Isn't that amazing? Do you think, had George W. Bush called the networks and asked them to refer to him as president-elect, that they would have done it? Ha! It's interesting to note that the Bush campaign didn't even make the effort to call those people. The Gore team did, and the press - willing accomplices that they are - just followed orders. ...." CNSNews 11/28/00 ".....Over 2 million votes nationwide were invalidated in this year's election because of voter error, a recent survey says. The Washington Times reports Tuesday that a survey conducted by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate finds that between 1 percent and 1.8 percent, or between 2.1 million and 2.8 million votes, were thrown out this year in all 50 states. Curtis Gans, director of the organization, told the Times that the dismissed ballots were from people "who by one form or another did not accurately do their ballot, and it was thereby thrown out for one reason or another." An estimated 180,000 out of 6.1 million votes cast were dismissed in Florida......" National Review 11/28/00 Tim Graham ".......Conservatives have been documenting the liberal bias of the TV networks for at least three decades. In her book The News Twisters, author Edith Efron chronicled how the networks favored Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential race. So perhaps we should

networks favored Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential race. So perhaps we should watch patiently as liberals attempt the baby steps of complaining about conservative media bias. The primary liberal target is the Fox News Channel, which is the hottest phenomenon in cable television, a growing powerhouse that is crushing MSNBC (which is a film-clip festival of celebrity interview repeats outside major political crises) and costing jobs at an increasingly nervous CNN (namely Clinton golfing buddy/ex-CNN president Rick Kaplan). .........Fox's founding declaration of difference was to announce the slogan "We report, you decide." This is a shocking deviation from the liberal media modus operandi, which is marinated in the impatient belief that the American people are too politically unreliable to be allowed to make decisions for themselves. ....." ABC 11/28/00 Freeper aruanan "..... I just heard some national newswoman on ABC say that Algore is being praised for urging Clinton to include Bush in national security briefings which would "normally be done only for a president-elect". She went on to say that they were going to go ahead with background checks "even though Bush has refused to concede". ....."Freeper ralph "....Bush should concede. Simply winning is not enough. He has failed to be annointed by Rather, Jennings, etc. and therefor has no legitimacy. Your vote is inconsequential in comparison to the infinite wisdom of the media. ....." CNS News 11/28/00 Susan Jones "...... Far from being presumptuous, Republican George W. Bush is being responsible in starting to work on his presidential transition, said the man who's been tapped to serve as Bush's White House chief of staff. ........ In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America Tuesday, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Andrew Card said, "Governor Bush would be irresponsible if he didn't start to work on a transition. He's not doing this out of arrogance. He's doing it out of responsibility and an expectation that he should be ready to handle the daunting task of being president of the United States of America."............ Because the Clinton administration is refusing to grant Bush access to a federally-funded transition office in Washington, the Bush team announced Monday it would seek contributions of up to $5,000 each from individuals to help pay for their own transition office in Washington.......... Card also suggested that the spirit of bipartisanship will guide the Cabinet selection process. Card noted that Bush has a history of working with Democrats and appointing them to leadership positions. "He did that in Texas, and he'll be a great president because of his ability to bring people together," Card said. ......" CNS News 11/28/00 Susan Jones "..... In simultaneous live interviews on two different television networks Tuesday morning, the men who would be vice president - Democrat Joe Lieberman and Republican Dick Cheney - talked about the post-election impasse, with Lieberman saying that "something unfair has happened to us," and Cheney saying the Gore-Lieberman post-election challenge will make a smooth transition of power more difficult........" Jewish World Review 11/28/00 Mona Charen "..... One senses that the Democratic Party, in its ferocious power hunger, has lost sight of every competing virtue. To put it charitably, one hopes that Al Gore does not really understand that he is playing with fire. ...... The gracious 1960 concession of Vice President Richard Nixon to Sen. John F. Kennedy has been cited a number of times since the current battle began -- to the point where liberals are clearly sick and tired of hearing about it. Stop making a hero out of Nixon, they insist. He didn't want to concede but was strong-armed into it by President Eisenhower, who feared instability. ......" Florida Times-Union 11/28/00 Steven Thomma / Knight-Tribune News Service ".....Stopped a maddening 537 votes short of the presidency, Al Gore insists he can see enough contested votes to put him over the top. But to reach them, he would have to win an extraordinary series of legal and political battles. ....... In two weeks, Gore would have to persuade Florida's state courts to overrule the vote certified by state authorities following rules issued by the state supreme Court. He would have to win a new court-supervised count. And he would have to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to reject George W. Bush's challenge to the constitutionality of the new count. ......And if he somehow managed to win all those legal fights and becomes the first American in history to successfully overturn a legally certified presidential election result, the Democratic vice president then would have to convince both a Republican Florida Legislature and a Republican Congress to accept the result without objection. ......" Newsmax 11/27/00 Dan Frisa "...... George W. Bush has now won the state of Florida for the fourth time and finally, on Sunday, was officially certified the winner by the state Elections Canvassing Commission. ...... With Florida's twenty-five electoral votes, Bush has the requisite majority of the Electoral College, and thus is our President-elect. ......In fact, sixty percent of Americans want Junior Gore to concede and allow George W. Bush to become President, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. .......Yet the past three weeks of legal wrangling by the Gore campaign, while within the technical confines of the law - as liberally and improperly interpreted by the Florida Supreme Court - have taken its toll on American stature in the world, on the Office of the Presidency, and on our entire electoral process itself. ......." AP 11/28/00 ".......George W. Bush's legal team introduced an expanded lineup of trial lawyers Tuesday to ``set the record straight'' and counter Al Gore's court contest of the presidential election in Florida. In one

main dispute, in Miami-Dade County, Gore lawyers want a recount of some 10,000 votes they said could not be read by a voting machine and were not hand-counted. But James A. Baker III, representing Bush in the voting disputes, said, ``It's incorrect to say that these votes haven't been counted.'' ........ ``They've been counted just like all of the other nonvotes, not only in counties in Florida but also in other counties across the United States,'' he said. ..... ``America has never had a presidential election decided by a contest of the election outcome in the court,'' Baker said. ..... He said the expanded legal team, consisting of lawyers Barry Richard, Fred Bartlit, Philip Beck, Daryl Bristow and Irvin Terrell, will focus on four main legal challenges made by Gore. ......." The Federalist 11/28/00 "...... "Although this newspaper endorsed Mr. Gore, it is clear that he and his backers are continuing to demagogue an issue long after the horse has left the barn. Now is the time to give up and to go home and to let Mr. Bush run the country for the next four years. Now is the time to stop the charade and the demagoguery and the constant filings in court." --Tallahassee News "We recommended Al Gore and Joe Lieberman and continue to believe they would perform ably. But the candidate who prevails in Florida, and thus gains the White House, must have won it fairly and must be seen as having done so in a fair way by both sides. ... As Gov. George W. Bush forcefully noted yesterday, the Supreme Court has changed the rules after the election." --Miami Herald "Does Mr. Gore truly want to become President on the basis of some cards that maybe, sort of, suggest what is delicately called 'voter intent'?" --Wall Street Journal "A few people were able to cast two votes for Al Gore in this election. They are the justices of the Florida Supreme Court, who were able to vote for Gore on Nov. 7 and again last night." --National Review Northwest Florida Daily News 11/28/00 Jeff Newell "......Although George W. Bush was certified as the winner of Florida's presidential election Sunday night, a lawsuit filed Saturday afternoon by Bush over military ballots remains pending in Okaloosa Circuit Court. ......... Local lawyer Brian Sanders filed the lawsuit against the Okaloosa County Canvassing Board and its members for Bush, vice-presidential candidate Richard Cheney and the Republican Party of Florida. .......... Although the lawsuit has been filed, the defendants were deliberately not served "to give the canvassing board an opportunity to determine whether we could work the matter out," Sanders said. "It's in legal limbo," said Kelvin Wells, who heads up the Bush campaign in Okaloosa County. Wells said the issue involves some 25 military ballots which the Bush campaign believes were rejected in violation of federal law, identified in the lawsuit as the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. ......" Washington Post 11/28/00 Howard Kurtz "...... If Al Gore was counting on the ping pong rules of journalism one candidate hits the ball on Sunday, the other smashes it back on Monday, and both are covered with equal force - he must be sadly disappointed this morning....... In just 24 hours, the tone of the media coverage has shifted sharply against him, with story after story portraying him as losing his grip on any claim to the presidency....." AP 11/28/00 Karin Meadows "......Palm Beach County gave a law firm access to thousands of contested presidential ballots Tuesday, angering Democrats who said the punchcards shouldn't be touched until election disputes are over. ...... ``It's outrageous,'' said Lance Block, a Democratic observer of the county's much-maligned and ultimately rejected hand recount. ``The possibility of the integrity of those ballots somehow being compromised is high.'' The ballots were opened under threat of a lawsuit from Judicial Watch, a law firm that has filed several suits against the Clinton administration in recent years. The firm enlisted hundreds of volunteers to inspect uncounted ballots in several Florida counties. ........Lawyers for Democrat Al Gore had asked a state court to seize about 800 Palm Beach ballots for a hand recount in Tallahassee. They contend that thousands of ballots in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade County were either wrongly ignored or not counted - more than enough to give Gore the state's decisive 25 electoral votes. ......" The Associated Press 11/28/00 Linda Deutsch ".....Al Gore's lawyers asked a state judge Tuesday to quickly hear and rule on his challenge of Florida's certification of George W. Bush as the presidential winner by the end of next week. A fast-paced schedule would allow the Florida Supreme Court to hear any appeal and issue an order, if necessary, by Dec. 9, three days before a Dec. 12 deadline for the state to choose its electors, the attorneys said. In the motion to the court, Gore's attorneys also renewed their plea to have the judge appoint a ``special master'' to review disputed ballots. ...........``The central and indispensable witness to these proceedings is the ballots. They must be manually counted without further delay. The court or a special master must immediately begin that process,'' attorneys said in their legal brief. ......." The Associated Press 11/28/00 Linda Deutsch ".....On another issue, Bartlit said there was no Republican

mob of protesters that intimidated the Miami-Dade elections officials into halting the recount as the Gore camp alleges. ``That's the myth,'' he said, adding that the three board members decided on their own that they simply could not meet the Sunday deadline to finish the recount. ``There were no shouts, no pressure in the room,'' the lawyer said. Gore went on national television Monday night to make his case. ........." The Associated Press 11/28/00 Linda Deutsch ".....``Our Constitution matters more than convenience,'' Gore said. ``So, as provided under Florida law, I have decided to contest this inaccurate and incomplete count, in order to ensure the greatest possible credibility for the outcome.'' ........" The Associated Press 11/28/00 David Royse ".....Leaders of Florida's Legislature say they have the right to step in and pick electors in the contested presidential race if court wrangling threatens to keep the state from participating in the Electoral college. And if it's up to the Republican-dominated body, it will be a slate pledged to casting the decisive 25 electoral votes for George W. Bush. To do that, lawmakers would have to go into a special session to choose a new method of picking electors, which federal law says is their job if the state is in jeopardy of missing the Electoral College vote. ......." UPI 11/28/00 Michael Kirkland "......Florida law governing the "contest of elections" -- a set of provisions underpinning Vice President Al Gore's ongoing challenge to the vote certification in that state -- appears to give a state circuit judge almost unlimited power to order the inclusion of uncounted ballots in any final state tally............. Section 102.168 of the Florida election code says, among other things, "The circuit judge to whom the contest" of the election "is presented may fashion such orders as he or she deems necessary to ensure that each allegation in the complaint is investigated, examined, or checked, to prevent or correct any alleged wrong, and to provide any relief appropriate under such circumstances."........ The plain language of the section appears to give state Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who is overseeing the challenge in Tallahassee, wide discretion to correct the final tally if he decides the vote count was unfair............ There appears to be no precedent in which a judge ordered a new count, with the inclusion of previously passedover ballots, arising from an allegedly defective machine count........ If Sauls were to order such a resolution, the campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush could challenge his action under a federal statute that requires elections to be decided under state law that existed on Election Day. The Bush camp could argue in federal court that any unprecedented order from a state judge constitutes "new law."......." UPI 11/28/00 Michael Kirkland "...... Gore is relying on two provisions of Florida law in the same section that outlines Sauls' powers to construct a remedy. State law allows for a circuit judge to act when there is a "rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election," and later, "Any other cause or allegation which, if sustained, would show that a person other than the successful candidate was the person duly nominated or elected to the office in question ..." AP 11/28/00 "......An antitrust advocacy group urged the Justice Department to try to breakup Voter News Service, arguing the joint venture contributed to the major television networks' making the same mistakes in declaring a winner of the presidential race in Florida. Writing for the American Antitrust Institute, University of Baltimore law professor Robert H. Lande said that the five television networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN - and The Associated Press combined their exit polling operations in the joint venture to save money. ``Since they all relied upon the same pooled data, they all made the same error,'' Lande wrote. ...." Mike Reagan Radio Show 11/27/00 Freeper Ragtime Cowgirl "..... Tonight on the Mike Reagan show Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) described is experience as a witness to the Miami-Dade recount last Tues. night. ..... He said that each of the three members of the canvassing board used a different method of determining which ballot should count. The process was entirely random, no uniform standards. There were no Republicans on the canvassing board. He was appalled by what he witnessed. ....Miami-Dade initially planned to do a full re-count, but the Cuban-American vote was strongly pro-Bush. They decided to scratch that plan and only count the 10,000 ballots that clearly showed NO VOTE for President. .......These ballots had been counted 3 times already by machine, and in each case the machine noted a clear no vote for Pres. The voters clearly punched out votes in the other state/county races, and their intentions NOT to vote for the Pres. was obvious. This is what Rep. Diaz-Balart saw: ......... If a ballot had clear punches for other Democrat candidates, the canvasser would say "Gore". The Republican witness would protest, the canvasser would say "protest noted...."Gore"", and continue on. They were clearly manufacturing votes where no vote was intended. If a small pencil mark, or a mark that wasn't even visible to the witness, appeared next to Gore's name, the canvassers said "Gore", Republican witness would protest, canvasser would say, "protest noted...Gore", etc. throughout the evening. ..." Mike Reagan Radio Show 11/27/00 Freeper Ragtime Cowgirl "..... Congressman Diaz-Balart was so shocked by blatant disregard for the truth, and the in-your-face liberal fraud that he returned home profoundly depressed. On a night that included the FSC ruling allowing these fraudulent re-counts to continue past the

depressed. On a night that included the FSC ruling allowing these fraudulent re-counts to continue past the SOS/legal date, thru Sunday, Rep. Diaz-Balart was sure that they'd be able to manufacture enough votes. His own friends told him that they would not have believed his accounts if they had heard the stories from someone else. .......... The good Congressman's words regarding Al's "every vote should count" speech from early this evening: "They have the gall to say that these votes have not been counted in Florida. These 10,000 votes he wanted re-counted 4 times. The ultimate legacy of Clinton/Gore is that we are strong enough to survive these people as a nation, but it won't be easy." ......." Al Gore press conference 11/28/00 Freeper Wyatt's Torch ".... Lying again. Saying W was "the first to file suit." Barbara Streisand! ...." Freeper glennaro "....Proposed to have all ballots re-counted in 7 days. ....." Freeper Interesting Times "....A complete recount of what? The three counties? Florida? America? Earth?...." Freeper spectre "..... "The right to vote has been protected by the law" Pandering to the NAACP now. Implying that the "stories" he has heard about blacks being denied fair vote might be true. Will someone tell him the election is OVER, someone? Anyone? ...." Freeper Boatlawyer ".....What am I missing? First he delays certification by 12 days for a bogus "protest," now complaining he needs accelerated "contest" period. Is this like the kid who kills his parents wanting sympathy for being an orphan? ...." Freeper glennaro "..... "Old cheap outdated machinery found in places of people with lower incomes." ....." Freeper Eric Esot "..... Q: Why is it bad thing for republicans to protest... A: Why not count all the votes. Q: The NAACP, and black votes, disenfranchised... A: I don't know, but, Why not count all the votes. Q: 60% of the american people are tired of this... A: The polls don't matter, I have the popular vote, Why not count the votes... This guy has gota go! " Freeper truthkeeper ".....Jarrett spinning like a top. He just got a copy of Bush's contest brief and has now figured out they're actually dealing with REAL LAWYERS who understand about discovery, emergency motions, etc. I'm laughing my arse off listening to this moronic shill try and present a happy face for Gore. BTW, he's also picked up the Gore giggle. ...." Freeper 1 Old Pro ".....A couple of points about algor's latest proposed counting scheme: * Algor has NO authority to propose a statewide recount especially AFTER the state has certified it's electoral votes for Bush. * He must know that there isn't enough time for his ongoing lawsuits and therefore must propose another desperate proposal for a re-re-re-count. * His blaming of Bush for lawsuits is quite possibly the most revealing and insane lie to date. * He is a sick, sick, man. * Baker, Cheney, and/or Bush should be on TV in MINUTES to say that this proposal and algor are NUTS. ....." * Freeper Howlin "......Andrea Mitchell just said that Gore is trying to go over the head of the judge in Florida to the American people to demand that they hurry up stuff because Andrea said the polls are going south on him. Boise seems to want the judge in Florida to go ahead and apply the REMEDY before the judge even decides IF a rememdy is needed. I think they were surprised yesterday when they realized the judge is going to do it the right way -- not their way. ....." Freeper BunnySlippers "....I can't stand that phoney smile he's using constantly now ... and the little fake chuckle here and there. ....." Freeper Haddon ".....People...this is scary. What we have been witnessing are the actions of a man who is mentally ill. Call it OCD, call it delusions of grandeur, whatever you want. He is clearly unstable and unfit for office. The one good thing that I can say about this election from hell, the country got to see the REAL AL GORE. ....."

Freeper Black Bart ".....This is what the Democrats should have asked for on Nov. 17 after Harris had certified the vote total. They would have had 3 weeks to get it done. Instead they wasted their efforts on county protests and time consuming manual counts of ballots designed to be tabulated by machines. ....." Freeper BlueHorseShoe "...... Imagine the breakdown to come when they all realize the gig that has worked over the past 8 years is finally up. I said this at the beginning of Dubya's campaign and I'll say it again proudly. People all over will completely and utterly under estimate him. And they have. We are finally seeing the unraveling of lies and deceit being replaced with class, sophistication and honor. "W" turned upside down stands for "M - as in MET YOUR MATCH"...!! :o) ....." Freeper East Bay Patriot "......As I said in another post, this guy has lost it. He truly is going over the edge. He's practically raving. ........ You watch. You mark my words. The rest of his party is going to start abandoning him in DROVES after today. They see what's happening. He's turning into a laughing stock. I can't wait to see the next "Saturday Night Live" skit. He's becoming a self-parody. ....... You think Quayle was a punching bag for the late night comics and talk show hosts? Just wait. Just wait and see what happens over the next week. Gore is going to be publicly humiliated. And the party knows that as goes the public's opinion of Gore, so goes their opinion of the Democratic party. As of today, this is OVER. Gore is history. The party is going to put an end to this, unless I am very, very mistaken. ......" Yahoo! Freeper Brown Deer 11/28/00 "...... For a brief time-- a very brief time-- the Nasdaq had a good thing going... Buyers emerged, cutting today's losses nearly in half, and then Vice President Gore began to speak... Detailing his wish to have all votes counted and proposing a plan that allows for 7 days, starting tomorrow, for a full and accurate count, the VP provided another reminder-- as the Bush camp has also done-- that the election process is far from settled... In any event, the Nasdaq has gone back on the defensive and the mixed trade persists..." CNN 11/28/00 Freeper lowteksh "...... All the arguments that Palm Beach County was just a couple hours away from completing their recount on Sunday are just plain false. CNN reporter just indicated that a final audit of the results sent Friday has yet to be audited (about 50 precincts left) and that there may be changes in the recount tabulation. Said that out of 10,000 undervotes there were more than 8,000 remaining after the recount. Of course these are the totals that were partially submitted and never counted so the official results won't change, but I wouldn't be surprised if the auditing finds enough votes to change the election (CNN didn't report this possibility, just my opinion). If that were to happen expect the PBC recount to become the focus of Gore's contest if a Miami-Dade recount is not allowed. ...,,: Freeper sdkhaki "....... There he goes again...trying to skirt the law and make a deal!!!! I sat in disbelief as Gore made his latest lawless "proposal". Here is what he demanded in his Motion to Enter Expedited Scheduling Order He wants 10,500 ballots in Miami-Dade counted by 6 December and he wants 3,300 contested ballots in Palm Beach recounted starting by 29 November........Bush filed an "Notice of Objection to Plaintiffs' Expedited Trial Calendar" in which he scolds Gore for creating the compacted contest period which Gore now tries to dodge! Gore's brief also goes against the schedule that the judge had just set out only yesterday! ....." Freeper RMDupree Letters from Jack Thompson ".... The Honorable N. Sanders Sauls Circuit Court Judge Leon County Courthouse ....Re: Patently False Representations in Your Courtroom by David Boies ...... Transmitted under cover of this letter are two other letters sent to Mr. Boies, who is presently appearing before you. These letters ask him correct a series of falsehoods made both to the Florida Supreme Court and now to you. As you know, you have the option or discretion to address possible ethical breaches by lawyers who appear before you. ......" November 28, 2000 David Boies, Attorney Boies, Schiller, and Flexner ...... There you go again. It has now been reported on Fox News by highly-regarded journalist Brit Hume, that yesterday you told Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who is presiding over the contest suit, that the Palm Beach County Judge violated the Florida Supreme Court's ruling when he prohibited the Palm

Beach canvassing board from hand recounting dimpled chads. Just the opposite, as you know, is the case. The Judge ruled that the canvassing board could count dimpled chads, and that they should do so in a reasonable way applying their own rules That is why the Palm Beach canvassing board used the following standard: if an individual ballot displayed a number of dimpled chads, including one for his/her presidential selection, then this was evidence of that voter's propensity to wield the stylus in that fashion. But if only the presidential chad was dimpled on an otherwise nicely-punched ballot for the other candidates, then that chad would not be counted for either candidate. So, look what you have now done: You have misrepresented to the Florida Supreme Court, with both a false affidavit and a false characterizing of a key case, that the Illinois Supreme Court ordered the counting of dimpled chads. You were caught in this falsehood by the Chicago Tribune last Thursday. Then you have taken that Florida Supreme Court ruling, obtained through falsehoods, to the Judge before whom you are now appearing and said yesterday that the Palm Beach Judge is disobeying that Florida Supreme Court ruling, which he is not! You have thus unethically piggybacked two falsehoods to enhance your client's litigation fortunes. What is next? That the peaceful protesters in Miami-Dade last Wednesday fired shots? ....." Associated Press 11/28/00 Sandra Sobieraj ".....Al Gore called Tuesday for a recount of thousands of questionable ballots in Florida's contested election, and urged Texas Gov. George Bush to drop his objections. ``This is not a time for delay, obstruction and procedural roadblocks,'' the vice president said. Gore, who has challenged Bush's victory certification in Florida, told reporters his proposal was necessary because the nation needs ``to be able to say there is no legitimate question of who won this election.'' ....." Freeper Maceman 11/28/00 "..... I just called my Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. I had very pleasant, polite conversations with aides at both offices. I said that I thought it was time for Gore to hang it up, and expressed my opinion that his continuing fight is starting to hurt the credibility of the Democratic Party. I urged the Senators to use their influence to persuade Gore to concede. .... Guess what??!!! They both told me that they are getting a lot of calls from other concerned Democrats expressing the same sentiment! The young lady at Kennedy's office said that more calls are in the "hang it up" camp, although she couldn't quantify. .......But the guy at Kerry's office said it's running about four to one for Gore to concede. The Democrats are starting to fold folks! WE ARE WINNING THE PR WAR!!!!! ....." MSNBC 11/28/00 Freeper Oak ".......There is a democratic operative bringing a case against the Seminole county absentee ballots, and there's a black woman judge whom is not even letting the Bush lawyers finish their sentences. She has immediately quashed two motions by the Bush lawyers. The Bush lawyer explicity asked to appeal, which he said is his right by law. She sniped back at him "I will not stop these proceeding." Sure enough, I'm telling you, if you listen to this judge for 2 seconds, you realize she's willing to disenfranchise 10,000 voters to get Gore elected. The democratic operative is claiming that since some of the absentee ballot applications (not the ballots) were improperly filled out, that the 15,000 absentee ballots should all be stricken. Just like I could tell by the FLA. Supreme court questions how they would rule, I'm telling you this female judge is a Gore Partisan. And she's not going to let the law stand in her way. ......" Freeper GhostofImpeachment "...... I saw it on MSNBC. That woman is out to get BUSH. This is a "judge". I can't believe this. ......" Freeper truthkeeper "..... I'm watching it. Her name is Nikki Smith...somebody got the other judge removed already. (At least I thought I heard that.) I heard the Bush lawyer say that he's going to apply for certiari on this case. Lots and lots of lawyers running around over there...Barry Richard was up speaking for a little while, too. This woman is NOT backing down. ....." Freeper Exocist ".....I saw this judge and it was pathetic. She speaks to the Bush lawyers with contempt. Gore doesn't want his hands on this case, because he doesn't want to make it look like he's throwing out votes; so, he's having his supporters bring this suit. The Bush lawyers asked to has this consolidated with the Gore Contest, and the Judge cut them off and stated, we going to do this right here. ......" Freeper Terry Mross "...... Some Florida newspaper took a poll on whether or not the FLSC should be impeached. 70% said "yes". I think the legislature is going to get these guys. They didn't even take the time to read Boise Illinois case. They simply took his word for it. That is malfeasance, is it not? ......" Freeper Howlin "...... In my entire life, I have NEVER seen anything like this! And I am a court reporter. This is

nothing less than a full frontal assault on the legal system of this country AND the presidency. Gore MUST lose! ....." Freeper Freedom of Speech Wins "...... Her name is Nikki Ann Clark. She seems to want to keep the jurisdiction in her court. Seems to want the individual spotlight and resent the arguments towards moving it elsewhere. Sounds like the Bush lawyers will get it pulled to a higher court to me. They will need to go outside of her authority to do this. Supposedly this suit is being filed by people "not in the Gore camp" to try to disqualify 15,000 votes that represent a net bush vote of 4,700. ..." Reuters 11/28/00 Jim Wolf ".....The White House said on Tuesday it would start daily national security and intelligence briefings for George W. Bush's team to ensure a smooth transition if the Texas governor sustains his claim to have been elected the next president. President Clinton's chief of staff, John Podesta, said White House National Security Advisor Samuel Berger would contact the Bush team later in the day to set up the sessions with Central Intelligence Agency briefers normally given to a president-elect. ``We want to make sure that Governor Bush has up-to-date security information, intelligence information,'' Podesta said in an interview on CNN. .....The offer to brief Bush, a Republican, was at the suggestion of Vice President Al Gore, Podesta said. ...." Hughes conference by wienerdog.com ".....VP Gore made some additional comments about his challenge...having failed to make his case to the American people last night...we had a count of the votes and then a complete recount and then a selective manual recount...one dealine, then another deadline for certification that was orderd by FLSC...all deadlines are behind us...recounts are behind us...and now having come up short...VP Gore is proposing to make up yet another set of rules...another count...common sense does not allow it... Now regrettably the VP wants to go back and change the rules after the election is over...he wants to short circuit the amount of time we have to respond to his challenge ....." Freeper miyamoto ".... Stock market are turning against Gore Stock Indices declined exactly 2 pm eastern time with NSADAQ down more than 4%! ......" Seminole issue Freeper Eva ".....The Bush lawyers already stated that they would request a writ of certiori to appeal a ruling on consolidation of this case with other Democrat cases and requested a two day delay which the judge refused to rule on at this time. She must rule sometime, however. ......" Seminole issue by Howlin ".....The printer did NOT put a place for the voter ID on the REQUEST FOR AN ABSENTEE BALLOT -- instead he put a place for DOB. When the requests for absentee ballots came in, the Election Board rejected ALL the GOP ballots; the GOP asked the board to let them sit in HER OFFICE and put the voter IDs on them -- she agreed since it was HER OFFICE'S MISTAKE FOR NOT CATCHING THE ERROR! So they sat in HER office and used a laptop to put the information on them. Then she accepted the requests for ballots and send out the ballots. The Democrats did THE EXACT SAME THING, only they caught the mistake earlier and put the voter ID numbers on the REQUEST FOR BALLOTS before they, the DNC, sent the registered Democrats in Seminole County requests for absentee ballots WHETHER THEY ASKED FOR THEM OR NOT. ....." MSNBC 11/28/00 Freeper Patriot "..... Laurence Tribe is briefing that he just file briefs in the SC saying that the the FSL did not break federal law! There is no legal basis for the Bush claim. Sounds kinda like "no leagal authority". ....." Freeper Dog adds "..... Did you all know that Tribe testified in the confirmation hearings AGAINST Bork ..Scalia.....Thomas.. He is going to be the one arguing for Gore before the USSC....LOLOLOL Can Gore pick them or what.. " Washington Times 11/28/00 Audrey Hudson "...... The uncounted ballots in Florida - which have played a key role in Democratic challenges - are just a drop in the bucket of ballots dismissed nationwide because of voter error, say political observers. ....... An estimated 180,000 votes were dismissed in Florida - out of 6.1 million votes cast - because of improper voting procedures. ....... However, more than 2 million ballots were tossed out in all 50 states and also will not be counted, said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. ..... Mr. Gans estimates that between 1 percent and 1.8 percent of votes cast - or 2.1 million to 2.8 million ballots - were eliminated nationally. ......"These are people who by one form or another did not accurately do their ballot, and it was thereby thrown out for one reason or another," Mr. Gans said. Vice President Al Gore is contesting the election in Florida based on "incomplete and inaccurate"

vote tallies.. ....." Washington Times 11/28/00 Audrey Hudson "...... Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican, said it is a known factor that a certain percentage of votes is discarded during machine counts. Mr. Craig said every effort is made to create uniformity and fairness in counting votes, but it does not mean every vote can be counted. "While that is frustrating to some, it has never been that way," Mr. Craig said. ...... Mr. Craig said the quick reaction by Mr. Gore's campaign to ask for recounts indicates they were prepared in advance of Election Day to ask for hand counts in heavily Democratic counties to swing a close vote. "This was a well thought-out and planned strategy in advance. When Al Gore said he would do anything and everything to win this election, we must take him at his word," Mr. Craig said. Contacted by The Washington Times, several secretary of state offices said they ....." FoxNews 11/28/00 Freeper Freedom of Speech Wins "..... Per the network anchor Cohen has launched an investigation of the military absentee ballots. Sounds like it may be an investigation of how people had problems receiving them and of them being ignored once received. ......" Freeper xzinw ".... Remember that Cohen is a Republican..... And that he needs to get back into the good graces of his own party, especially after Bush's inauguration. ....." Freeper sdkhaki ".....Rush made a great point today when he pointed out that David Boies really blew it by getting the Florida Supremely Kangaroo Court to extend the certification deadline by 10 days. By doing that, the contest period was necessarily shortened to the point where a proper contest cannot be conducted. This BTW is proof that the Florida legislature knew what they were doing when they established the statutory timeline between election day and 12 Dec when the electors must be appointed......... Gore filed a Motion to Enter Expedited Scheduling Order in which he asked the Judge Sauls to throw out the reasonable schedule he had just established the day before. That schedule allowed Gore until Wednesday to file his Notice of Filing of List of Proposed Witnesses and Exhibits. Bush would then have 2 additional days to respond. A hearing would then be held to determine whether Gore had grounds to continue and what to do about it (such as ordering more recounts)............ Gore's problem is that any ordered recount would then extend to the end of next week, not leaving enough time for the losing side to appeal to the Florida Supremely Kangaroo Court.......... Bush filed a Notice of Objection to Plaintiffs' Expedited Trial Calendar in which he points out that Gore is now asking the judge to start ordering relief for Gore before Bush has even had his opportunity to file his briefs. Bush also points out that Gore is now asking to drastically minimize Bush's due process rights even though this predicament is entirely Gore's own making! Bush says that "(Gore's) selfinflicted exigency is not a license to for (Gore) to ignore the court's rulings"......... It's clear that Gore is in deep legal trouble. He's desparate and grasping at straws. ........" Freeper Dog ".....Someone on another thread said CNN reported that right after algore spoke the stock market tanked. Which is shocking because CNN actually said it on air... " CNS News 11/28/00 "...... Even though their party's standard bearer, Vice President Al Gore, continues to fight the presidential election results through the court system, some Congressional Democrats are already lining up with Republican George W. Bush. Some Democrats are even vowing to vote for Bush if the election is eventually decided in the U.S. House. According to Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS), who spoke to Mississippi television station WLOX-TV, "I will vote the way the majority of my constituents in the Fifth Congressional District voted. And in this case, Governor Bush carried the district," Another Democrat, Texas Representative Ralph Hall, according to a spokesperson, would also vote for Bush if the election were decided in the House. "Congressman Hall for a year-and-a-half has been a supporter of George Bush. He's a longtime friend of former President Bush and said he would always continue that support. However, in Texas, there are 17 (House) Democrats, so it would take more than Congressman Hall's vote to make Texas go for Bush. ...." Freeper truthkeeper 11/28/00 "...... Just passing along what is definitely the talking point of the day for the pressholes. The last one I saw spewing this line was Michael Isikoff on Neil Cavuto's show. All day these creeps have been saying that, because Bush is trying to utilize the shortened contest response time (I think it's down to four days...should have been 10 days), he's being totally unreasonable, capricious, and is trying to "run out the clock." I would say they apparently know nothing about due process rights, but the biggest jerk of all on this is disgusting Greg Jarrett of MSNBC, and he's a lawyer. This is making me furious. Bush has already been screwed!! Are all these reporters really this stupid, or just plain evil? ....." Drudge 11/28/00 Freeper Nyer ".... Here's a shocker!! CBS, home of Dan Rather, has published an item on their web site, disparaging Gore's speech yesterday and today. (CBS) It is both ironic and educative that Vice President Al Gore's address to the nation Monday night was laced with half-truths. It is tempting not to take words very seriously right now, since there is so much indigestible verbiage spewing from the candidates, their surrogates and their lawyers (not to mention pundits). But it is instructive to take rhetoric

candidates, their surrogates and their lawyers (not to mention pundits). But it is instructive to take rhetoric seriously. So let's decipher Gore's plea for patience Monday night (which he repeated nearly verbatim on Tuesday, in the sunlight). "All we have asked since Election Day [is] a complete count of all the votes cast in Florida," Gore said. "Not recount after recount as some have charged, but a single, full and accurate count." That is just silly. He must really think we're chumps. ....." MSNBC 11/28/00 ".....Insisting that "nobody needs to get excited," a Florida judge denied Al Gore's emergency request Tuesday to start immediately counting disputed ballots in two counties that could affect the state's presidential election. The judge put off a formal hearing on Gore's underlying request for a manual count of the ballots until Saturday, one day after a historic hearing on Florida's disputed election before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. "I AM NOT going to interfere with the U.S. Supreme Court," state Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls told lawyers from the bench Tuesday in Tallahassee. ......... Sauls said that if he decides to grant any recount, he wants it finished by Dec. 6 to allow enough time for either side to appeal or contest it. That meant it was not absolutely necessary to start the recount before Saturday, Dec. 2, and therefore he didn't need to decide before then, he said. ......In the meantime, Sauls ordered county election officials to begin transporting the disputed ballots to Tallahassee so they will be ready if he orders a recount. He also scheduled a preliminary hearing for Thursday to examine the underlying legal questions at issue in Gore's motion. ....." CBSNEWS 11/28/00 Freeper Kingpin ".....It is both ironic and educative that Vice President Al Gore's address to the nation Monday night was laced with half-truths. It is tempting not to take words very seriously right now, since there is so much indigestible verbiage spewing from the candidates, their surrogates and their lawyers (not to mention pundits). But it is instructive to take rhetoric seriously. So let's decipher Gore's plea for patience Monday night (which he repeated nearly verbatim on Tuesday, in the sunlight). "All we have asked since Election Day [is] a complete count of all the votes cast in Florida," Gore said. "Not recount after recount as some have charged, but a single, full and accurate count." That is just silly. He must really think we're chumps. There was, immediately after Election Day, a recount of the votes mandated by Florida law and endorsed by Gore. It was a recount of all the votes, in all the counties. Then, at the request of the Gore campaign and local canvassing boards controlled by Democrats, there were manual recounts in selected Florida counts. Gore wants some of those recounts amended. So how can he assert that he has not advocated multiple recounts but just one "full and accurate count"? Simple: by defining "full and accurate" as "Gore wins." This part of a bigger charade where Gore and Lieberman pretend that the goal of targeted recounts in counties where Democrats control the canvassing boards is not to acquire more votes than Bush's margin of victory. If Gore's goal were really a "single, full, and accurate count" he would have demanded manual recounts in all 67 Florida counties. ....." CNN 11/28/00 "......The Florida legislature took its first steps toward naming presidential electors Tuesday as a special committee met to discuss whether a special session would be needed to choose the state's contingent to the Electoral College. Florida lawmakers say they have to be prepared to select the state's 25 electors by December 12 in case the disputed Florida recount remains unresolved. Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated body say they want to be sure Florida voters are represented when the Electoral College meets December 18 to choose the next president. ...... "We must take whatever action is necessary to do our duty to protect and defend the great state of Florida in the Electoral College," said state Rep. Johnnie Byrd, a Republican, speaking at the committee hearing. ...." CBSNews 11/28/00 "....Andrew H. Card, Jr., 53, is a moderate known for his easygoing personality and his ability to keep a cool head under pressure. Even his political enemies consider him a "genuinely nice guy." ..... Card is a native of Holbrook, Massachusetts, and a former state representative who served four terms. He ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for governor in 1982. ......After deciding to pursue a career in Washington, Card joined the Reagan White House as a deputy assistant and liaison to the nation's governors. During this time he stayed close to then Vice President Bush, serving as an adviser. ...... Debbie Dingell, president of the General Motors Foundation and wife of Rep. John Dingell, D-Mi., praised Card to the Washington Post as "one of the most supportive people I know." She called him a "genuinely nice guy." ...... Card is expected to play a major role on the Bush transition team, and even though the team doesn't have office space yet, Card is already hard at work. Appearing on CBS' Early Show, Card said that should Bush become president-elect, the governor will be ready to lead, despite the obstacles resulting from the incredible election. ........"It will be a tremendous challenge, given how close the Congress is - both the House and the Senate. But Gov. Bush has a history of working with people to get things done," Card told Early Show Anchor Jane Clayson. ....." Palm Beach Post 11/28/00 Joel Engelhardt, Robert P. King and Stephen Kiehl "..... After counting the ballots four times, Palm Beach County still doesn't know how many votes Al Gore and George W. Bush got on Election Day three weeks ago. ...... A day after completing a grueling hand recount, county officials Monday refused to release a final vote total because the numbers didn't add up. Somehow, they say, about 50 votes for Gore disappeared. ...... Furthermore, a Palm Beach Post analysis of the numbers released so far shows

the total ballots cast in 72 of the county's 637 precincts changed between the last machine count and the hand count. ......The total number of ballots cast should always be the same, no matter how many times they're counted, officials say. ......The partial results revealed other irregularities, lending credence to Republican claims that the task of counting hundreds of thousands of ballots by hand is loaded with potential for error. ...... The total number of ballots cast dropped by 13 between the Nov. 8 machine recount and the Nov. 11 machine recount. The missing ballots seemed to reappear in the hand count, the figures released Monday showed. ...... Additionally, the hand count showed the total number of ballots rose in 45 precincts and dropped in 27 since the Nov. 11 machine recount. ...... In Precinct 153 in Boynton Beach, the total number of ballots rose by nine between Nov. 11 and the hand count -- from 1,182 to 1,191. Bush and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan each gained one vote, Gore gained two, Workers World Party candidate Monica Moorehead picked up three and Constitution Party candidate Howard Phillips zoomed from zero to eight. The number of under-votes -- ballots with no choice for president -- dropped by six. In Precinct 12C in Jupiter, nine ballots disappeared, the total dropping from 1,554 to 1,545. Bush lost five of those, Gore lost three and the number of under-votes dropped by one. In Precinct 162G in Delray Beach seven ballots disappeared, the total going from 1,981 to 1,974. Bush and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader each gained three votes, while Gore, Buchanan and Phillips each gained two, and Libertarian Harry Browne gained one. The number of over-votes, or ballots cast for two or more candidates, increased by seven. Moorehead lost one vote, and the number of under-votes dropped by 26. County officials said they couldn't get the numbers to add up. In one precinct counted after 5 p.m. Sunday, the tally sheet showed Gore lost 50 votes from the last machine count. ......" FoxNews 11/28/00 Freeper LadyLiberty "...... You guys have got to watch Bill O'Reilly. He was going off on Congresswoman (?) Zoe Lofgren of CA about the Illinois case law regarding dimpled ballots. A must see. ....." Freeper Miss Marple "..... Wow!!! Everybody who missed this, watch it! It comes in the first part of the interview before the break. I thought he was going to stroke out! I think he came this close to throwing her off the show! ...... Now they are back and he is calmer. This is an argument about the Illinois case that Boies incorrectly cited...she says it is as Boies said, O'Reilly says no, they checked with the Tribune and the people involved. She just keeps lying. I wonder what is in her FBI file? ....." Freeper hawaiian "....THIS WAS PHENOMENAL. She was almost crying and he was screaming at her. His eyes looked like he was possessed he was so pissed. I thought he would kill her. ....." Freeper dagney ".....She fianlly had to switch her point to "the rule of law" without admitting she was wrong about the Ill case. DUMB DUMB ......" Freeper COUNTrecount "......He has mentioned a very important point which is getting very little media attention. IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID. While Al fiddles, all of Wall Street is burning. Wait until the end of the month when the Gorons open up their investment statements and figure out what is happening to their investments ! TRILLIONS of dollars are gone up in smoke.Where is the outcry ? ....." Freeper EdZep ".....Oh! Did you just see that Hill guy (retired representative, I think) speaking on behalf of the Reverenduhhh Jackson? He shot his wad in a grand statement, then didn't know how to respond to O'Reilly saying, "The machines werent' biased!" He looked lost, and it seems someone off camera was feeding him lines, because he'd eventually get wound up again. ........." Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor ".....Attorney General Bill Pryor and Secretary of State Jim Bennett today filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Florida Supreme Court's ruling last week in the presidential election dispute. Pryor said that Alabama has a profound interest in preserving constitutional guidelines that require elections to be conducted with "fundamental fairness," that election procedures may not be changed after an election, and that the Florida court usurped the powers properly reserved to the executive and legislative branches of government. Because of the magnitude of wrongs that have occurred at the state court level, it is not only right, but also essential that the federal courts step in to protect this federal right to fundamental fairness in elections, he added. ....... " Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor ".....The State of Alabama's particular interest in the Bush v. Palm Beach case stems from its striking similarity to an Alabama case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit five years ago, Roe v. Alabama, involving the counting of unwitnessed absentee ballots in the 1994 election for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama. The 11th Circuit determined that such unwitnessed ballots had not been counted in the past, and declared that changing the procedure for counting such ballots after the election had been held was a violation of the U.S. Constitution's requirement

that election procedures be fundamentally fair. The State of Alabama subsequently reformed its election laws to ensure adherence to this constitutional mandate, and the Secretary of State and Attorney General have relied on the Roe decision in enforcing election laws, advising state officials, and ensuring that election procedures in Alabama are and remain fundamentally fair. ......... While the federal courts ordinarily do not involve themselves in "garden variety election disputes," the 11th Circuit stated in Roe, if the election process becomes fundamentally unfair, the resulting violation of due process demands federal relief. "Like the case now before this Court, however, Roe was no "garden variety" election dispute," Pryor states in his brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. "Like this case, the post-election change in election procedures by the state courts raised serious questions about the fundamental fairness of the election process." ......." Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor ".....Reminding the Court of longstanding federal precedents, Pryor cited Brown v. O'Brien, a 1972 case in which the District of Columbia Circuit stated "there can be no dispute that the very integrity of the (election) process rests on the assumption that clear rules will be established and that, once established, they will be enforced fairly, consistently, and without discrimination as long as they remain in force" and Duncan v. Poythress, a 1981 ruling by the former Fifth Circuit that said the Court "could imagine no claim more deserving of constitutional protection than the allegation that state officials have purposely abrogated the right to vote, a vote that is fundamental to our society and preservative of all individual rights." ......... Pryor told the U.S. Supreme Court that "these cases underscore that the right to vote, at bottom, is a federal right. . . if a state election procedure is so flawed as to be fundamentally unfair, that process violates due process. Where, as in Roe and in this case, a state supreme court materially changes state election procedure after an election has occurred and while votes are still being counted, that change is fundamentally unfair and violates the due process rights of the voters and the candidates." ......" Wall Street Journal 11/28/00 "..... Al Gore is contesting the Presidential election not from clawing ambition, his spinners tell us, but because he has divined that he really won. Maybe so. A mind that can count a dimpled chad as a vote is capable of believing about anything. Mr. Gore's professed high-mindedness would be easier to credit, though, if it were not washed in the casual attitude toward the truth that we have come to expect from the author of no controlling legal authority, the Buddhist Temple fund-raiser and the iced tea defense......" New York Times 11/28/00 David Barstow ".....Three lawyers hired by the Republican leaders of the Florida Legislature told a select committee today that the Republican-dominated body was duty-bound under the United States Constitution to promptly call a special session to name Florida's 25 electors. ......... Several Democratic and Republican legislators agreed that today's carefully orchestrated testimony set in motion a process that virtually assures that the Legislature will meet in a special session to name its electors for George W. Bush. The Republicans hope to use the Legislature to take the decision out of the hands of Florida's courts, where Vice President Al Gore's lawyers are challenging the decision by the state canvassing commission that Mr. Bush won the state and thus its 25 electoral votes. ......... The Democratic and Republican legislators said the testimony would almost certainly prompt the select committee to formally recommend a special session, perhaps as early as Wednesday. ....... This in turn would clear the way for Tom Feeney, the Republican House speaker, and John McKay, the Republican Senate president, to sign a joint proclamation calling for the session. Two senior Republican legislators said that such a gathering was likely to begin next week. ......... And yet the Republican members took great pains today to show themselves as eager, open-minded students who simply wished to be schooled on what they often referred to as their "rights and responsibilities." Not one repeated the harsh Republican allegations of recent days, allegations that have Mr. Gore secretly mapping a path to victory by disenfranchising the nation's fourth largest state. ..... Democrats repeatedly questioned the need for a special session now that Florida's results have been certified. In response, the Republicans' legal experts cited the Electoral Count Act of 1887, saying that the Legislature must step in and appoint electors if the results are in doubt, either because of an unresolved contest or because the results were produced by counting procedures that were altered after Election Day. ..... But Bruce Ackerman, a professor of constitutional law at Yale University, said today that this interpretation of the Electoral Count Act was flawed. "I'm just stunned at their dramatic incompetence," he said of the Republican legal advisers. ....." Drudge 11/28/00 "...... The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained a written order issued by NBC to all of its broadcast affiliates which directed stations not to carry George W. Bush's speech -- delivered just hours after certification of the Florida Election results! ...... NBC ordered affiliates not to interrupt entertainment programming for Bush, the document shows. The order caused complete controversy inside of NBC, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. Less than 24 hours later, NBC did break into its prime time entertainment programming for a speech by AL Gore. "We blew it on Sunday night," said one senior NBC NEWS source in Washington. "We will not make that mistake again... sure, the perception is we favor Gore, we carried his speech, but not Governor Bush's speech. This was not a decision from NBC NEWS. This came from the network president. TITANIC cost a

pretty penny, the feeling was that carrying Bush would distract from the impact of the movie." ........" Time 11/28/00 Frank Pellegrini "..... Al Gore is done begging, and back to bargaining. ...... The afternoon after making his big-picture plea for patience to the American people, Gore came out for reporters Tuesday with a new angle, courtesy of the new Bush legal team: My plan for the contest takes nine days. Theirs takes forever. ......"This morning, we have proposed to the court in Tallahassee a plan to have all the ballots counted in seven days, starting tomorrow morning, and to have the court proceedings fully completed one or two days after that," Gore said. And then he said it again. ......"Unfortunately, just about an hour ago, Governor Bush's lawyers rejected this proposal," Gore continued. "Instead, they have proposed two weeks of additional court proceedings and additional hearings, right up to the Dec. 12 deadline for seating electors.... I believe this is a time to count every vote and not to run out the clock." .......... Bush communications director Karen Hughes was out within the hour with a typically clenched-teeth response about deadlines passed and recounts undergone (and got caught in a nasty semantic trap about why they weren't calling Bush "president-elect" yet), though she needn't have bothered - the Bush lawyers in question had already prepared us for their rejection Tuesday morning. Barry Richard, Bush's version of David Boies, explained that Gore was dragging them into this contest at a very late date, having already gotten the Florida Supremes to delay certification by 11 days. And they certainly weren't going to wait around for a hand count in Miami-Dade that has already missed two deadlines, and wasn't necessary in the first place. ......." Time 11/28/00 Frank Pellegrini "..... Gore certainly needed to turn the tables somehow. Tuesday saw a rash of newly released polls declaring that in the wake of Sunday's certification, a growing majority of Americans thought Bush was president-elect and Gore should concede. (How many just want somebody to concede was tricky to separate out.) A third of Gore's own supporters said they shared that view. ......... But when asked about those numbers, the Gore who Monday night thanked the American people "for taking the time to listen" didn't sound like he had anything to plead for anymore. "Well, I said during the election to many of you that I didn't think the polls mattered. And on Election Day, sure enough, contrary to the polls, Joe Lieberman and I carried the popular vote nationally by 300,000 votes," Gore segued, while making a mental note to give that reporter a ton of access. "I'm quite sure that the polls don't matter in this, because it's a legal question." ......" CNN 11/28/00 "...... Gore and his fellow Democrats sought Tuesday to appeal to a public jury whose apparent growing impatience may prove harder to overcome than any judge. ...... Stepping outside the vice president's official residence in Washington, Gore repeated his assertions that the challenges to Florida's certified vote total -- which granted Bush a 537-vote lead -- would continue until Florida's courts allowed "a single, full and accurate count." ....... Gore's afternoon speech marked his second nationally televised appearance in less than 24-hours. ......"This morning we have proposed to the court in Tallahassee a plan to have all the ballots counted in seven days," Gore continued. That count, Gore said, could have commenced Wednesday morning save for rejection of the proposal by the Bush legal team in Florida. ....... Operatives for the Bush campaign responded in Austin within moments of Gore's brief address, saying the Democrats were spreading "misinformation" with their public spin of the Florida counts. ...... "The votes have been counted twice if not more," said Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Bush. "It's a misrepresentation. He wanted a hand count, now he wants a court count. So now he wants this election decided in court." ....... Bush Communications Director Karen Hughes came out swinging in Austin just a few hours later, saying Gore was trying to "change the rules after the counting is over." .......... "The original count, recount and certification deadlines are all behind us," Hughes said. "The selective manual recounts and the post-election, courtimposed deadline for certification of Florida's vote are behind us. And now, having come up short in all those counts, and all those times, Vice President Gore is proposing to make up another set of rules." "Common sense does not allow it," she said. ......." CNN 11/28/00 "...... The Bush camp also busied itself Tuesday with its bold moves to initiate a full administrative transition. Bush himself was preparing to retire to his Crawford, Texas, ranch late Tuesday so he might "reflect" on the weighty decisions he must make, Hughes said. ......... Vice presidential candidate and transition team leader Dick Cheney said in Washington on Monday that though Bush's people could not depend on the full cooperation of the Clinton administration and the federal government, a transition team would nonetheless be assembled, and the process to build a Bush administration would begin. ..... He added that he saw a "good possibility" that a Bush Cabinet would include some Democrats. "The governor has given me instructions to look in those areas. We clearly will." ........ Andrew Card, whom Bush has tapped as his White House chief of staff in waiting, said Tuesday he had spoken about transition work Monday with the man he hopes to succeed, Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta. "He expressed his willingness to work with us, to make sure transition works well," Card said on CBS' "The Early Show." ........ Podesta said the White House has been working with both campaigns. "We want to make this as smooth as possible, whether it is Vice President Gore or Governor Bush," he said on "Today." ....."

CNN 11/28/00 "......Associates close to Bush said the list of prominent Republicans under consideration for top jobs included Montana Gov. Marc Racicot and former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith. ....... Racicot, who has emerged as a top advocate in the Florida recount fight, has been mentioned as a possibility for interior secretary or attorney general. Goldsmith's name has been circulated as a potential housing secretary. ..... Bush hopes to appoint at least one Democrat to a high-profile job, his associates said. Former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Georgia, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for defense secretary and Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt of North Carolina could find himself on a list of potential education secretaries, aides said. ......" CNN 11/28/00 "......Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson planned to led a prayer vigil at the Florida Supreme Court at noon Tuesday. Jackson held a brief press availability prior to the event where he called for fairness and a full count of contested ballots in two of Florida's most disputed counties. ....... And Judicial Watch, the conservative watchdog group and Clinton administration nemesis, joined the Florida vote-counting fray Tuesday with what it described as a "nonpartisan" effort to count votes in Palm Beach. .......Group chairman Larry Klayman has received court permission to examine Palm Beach County's punchcard ballots. Klayman said beginning Tuesday he and independent auditors would look at the ballots for evidence of fraud and to make sure the votes were counted correctly. ........Because elections officials want to safeguard the ballots, some of which may be needed in the ongoing election legal battles, Judicial Watch members will be able to look at -- but not touch -- the ballots. That means election officials will have to hold the ballots one by one for inspection by Judicial Watch members........" CNN 11/28/00 Keating Holland "..... Six in ten Americans now think the battle over the presidential election has gone on too long and a majority of Americans interviewed before Al Gore's prime-time speech on Monday said that he should concede the election, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. .......Nonetheless, most Americans say that they would be able to accept either Bush or Gore as the legitimate president -- although, in a sign of growing partisan tensions, a majority of Bush supporters now say that they would not accept a Gore administration as legitimate. ...." CNN 11/28/00 Reuters ".....Republican George W. Bush, who has declared himself president-elect of the United States, on Tuesday called the incoming Mexican president, Vicente Fox, to congratulate him on his upcoming inauguration. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said the Texas governor, who on Sunday declared victory despite legal challenges that remain in the disputed U.S. election, phoned Fox, who will end 71 years of single-party rule in Mexico when he is inaugurated on Friday. "They spoke half in Spanish and half in English," said Fleischer, who gave no further details of the conversation....." Nightline 11/28/00 Freeper Rokke "..... Interesting Nightline tonight. Koppel spent some time in Breaux's (Dem Senator from Louisina) office listening to constituents' phone calls. They showed the day's tally sheets. Not one phone call in support of Gore. About 100 urging him to concede. It was beautiful. The guy receiving the calls implied that was all they were hearing. I called my Senator and Rep today. My Rep is Tammy Baldwin (lesbian from Madison WI). Her staffer was very polite and took all my info, and then said, we've been getting a lot of your type of phone call. Tonight my Senator (Russ Feingold, Dem) was shown on local news saying this needs to end this week! There is no way Gore can pull ahead this week so read between the lines. The pressure is working folks. Keep it up!!! ....." Nando Times 11/28/00 David Bauder ".....The Supreme Court, after rejecting a request to allow television coverage of Friday's arguments in the Florida election case, said Tuesday it would quickly make an audio tape available. Distribution of an audio tape, which would not be available until after the court session is over, is believed to be unprecedented for the nation's highest court. ...." New York Times 11/28/00 Jerry Gray "....Lawyers for Vice President Al Gore asked a Florida state court today to assume an immediate manual recount of disputed votes from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. A judge this evening did not agree to that, but did order the ballots to be sent to the court. .....The Democrats had asked for counting to begin on Wednesday and to end seven days later, leaving time, if necessary, for an appeal to the State Supreme Court. But Judge N. Sanders Sauls said that he would hear arguments in the case beginning on Saturday. In the meanwhile, he ordered election officials in Miami-Dade and in Palm Beach counties to send contested ballots in their areas to Tallahassee by noon on Friday in case they were needed for counting. The judge also said that election officials should send typical voting machines used by the voters in those counties. ....... " New York Times 11/28/00 Jerry Gray "....In their plea today to the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Bush's lawyers asked the court to bring ``legal finality'' to the presidential election by reversing the decision of the Florida state courts and by barring any further ballot recounts. ........ ``The Florida Supreme Court's decision, which conflicts with both federal statutes and the federal Constitution, will thus continue to affect, and has the theoretical potential to change, the outcome of the presidential election in Florida, and thus the

nation,'' the lawyers for Mr. Bush argued. ......... In their argument, the Gore lawyers said, ``This is a state law case that, despite its undoubted importance, does not belong in federal court.'' ........" New York Times 11/28/00 Jerry Gray "....Each side attracted allies who filed friend-of-the-court briefs - the American Civil Liberties Union, like the Gore team, supporting the Florida Court and the American Center for Law and Justice, which is conservative, backing Mr. Bush in his petition to the Supreme Court. ....... " New York Times 11/28/00 Jerry Gray "....Earlier today, the Bush campaign expanded its legal team to fight the challenges that have multiplied since Florida certified the Texas governor the winner on Sunday night. ....... In the state court fight in Florida, the Democrats accused Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties of ``illegally and improperly'' discarding thousands of legal votes, and another county, Nassau, of counting illegal votes. They asked Judge Sauls to transfer the ballots out of the counties' custody and into the hands of the courts. ....... James A. Baker III, who is representing the Bush campaign in the voting disputes, said this morning that ``It's incorrect to say that these votes haven't been counted.'' ``They've been counted just like all of the other nonvotes, not only in counties in Florida but also in other counties across the United States,'' Mr. Baker said at a news conference. ...... Mr. Baker said the lawyers - Barry Richard, Fred Bartlit, Philip Beck, Daryl Bristow and Irvin Terrell - will focus on the main legal challenges made by the Democrats. And they immediately set about trying to pick apart their opponents' case. ......" New York Times 11/28/00 Jerry Gray "....In Nassau County, the elections board decided not to certify the votes tabulated in the required mechanical recount, reverting to the election-night tally and subtracting a net of 52 votes from Mr. Gore's column, which the Democrats say was illegal. The county reverted to its election night count instead of the machine count because officials said about 200 ballots had been inadvertently left out of the recount. ``These were real votes by real people,'' said Mr. Bristow. ``No one at no time declared these votes illegal.''......" USA Today 11/29/00 Joan Biskupic "....... Florida's election battle may be the first of its kind to go before the U.S. Supreme Court, but briefs filed Tuesday indicate that it will be joined on terms familiar to the nation's justices: States vs. the Feds, Courts vs. Legislatures. ......... Both sides claimed to be buttressed by the "plain language" of the law and "true intent" of its drafters - always key in deciding a case. ......... Lead Bush lawyer Theodore Olson, meanwhile, said the U.S. Constitution and federal law clearly leave it to state legislatures to set rules for presidential election disputes. He maintains that by extending the timetable for certifying results and allowing some manual recounts to be included, Florida's Supreme Court effectively rewrote state law, in violation of a federal statute passed after the nasty presidential contest in 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. ......... That law says controversies over appointing presidential electors should be resolved under standards "enacted prior to" the election. Bush lawyers say it was passed "to discourage precisely what has happened in Florida this month, where the candidate who did not receive the most votes in the official tabulation is attempting to change the result by changing the rules." .......But Gore lawyers counter that the Florida court resolved a conflict in pre-existing, ambiguous state law, which is "a familiar and quintessentially judicial role." They also insist that the law in question is not a mandate on the states, which traditionally control election policies. ......" USA Today 11/29/00 Joan Biskupic ".......GOP lawyers also say the Florida court's ruling forcing Secretary of State Katherine Harris to wait nearly two weeks for manual recounts violated a part of the U.S. Constitution that says electors shall be appointed by each state "in such manner as the legislature" directs. ....... Democrats say the reference does not erase a state court's usual role of determining what laws mean. They say Bush's claim "rests on intemperate and insupportable mischaracterizations of the Florida Supreme Court's decision as usurping the role of the state legislature." ....." AP 11/29/00 ".....MILWAUKEE (AP) - Wisconsin Republicans alleging voter fraud in the Nov. 7 presidential election said Tuesday they had discovered 76 new fraud cases. District Attorney E. Michael McCann said his office would look into the allegations, but added that an ongoing investigation into earlier Republican charges of double voting had failed to show a single instance of fraud. McCann said his office had looked into reports of fraud by Marquette University students, but that several e-mails, letters and calls alleging student voter fraud had failed to include specific names. ......" Boston Herald 11/29/00 Howie Carr "..... Hey, Al Gore, as they say in the bars every morning at 2, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Al, you lost. You got the Florida Supreme Court to go into the satchel for you. You've changed the rules once, twice, many times. But in spite of it all, you and your ``confederacy of gangsters,'' in Pat Caddell's instantly memorable phrase on MSNBC Monday night, were unable to steal the election. And Dubya didn't even have to unleash his pit bull, Argeo Paul Cellucci. Now, Al, it's over. You're history, toast, roadkill. You lost. ....." AP 11/29/00 Deborah Baker "...... SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- The state Canvassing Board, yielding to concerns of the state Republican Party about votes that included no presidential choice in Roosevelt County, agreed

of the state Republican Party about votes that included no presidential choice in Roosevelt County, agreed Tuesday to certify Al Gore as the winner of the presidential race in New Mexico by 483 votes but not to make the results official until Thursday. ......... Republicans said it was "highly unusual" that 10 percent of those who cast votes in the southeastern county -- about 570 people -- did not vote for president. Republicans reject a similar argument by Democrats that so-called undervotes be examined in Florida, where George W. Bush was declared the winner by state officials. ....... The New Mexico board decided Tuesday to ask state District Judge David W. Bonem in Portales to call the Roosevelt County canvassing board before him to determine whether the election results should be corrected. ..... The county voted 2-to-1 for Bush. But Republican officials acknowledged that even if more presidential votes were found in the county, it was unlikely to swing the state to the GOP nominee. ....... Republicans pointed out that four years ago, only 46 people in Roosevelt County -- less than 1 percent of voters -- did not vote for president. Statewide that year, the drop-off was 3.6 percent. .... In this year's election, 2.8 percent of voters statewide did not vote for president. But in some counties the undervote was substantially higher: 10 percent in Rio Arriba County, 7 percent in McKinley County and 5 percent in Mora County, all Democratic strongholds. ...." Washington Post 11/29/00 Michael Kelly "..... For the first time in the Republic's history, the party in power in the White House, having lost a presidential election, seeks to overturn that election in the courts. The government of the party in power is refusing to cooperate in the orderly transfer of power to the winner of the national election. A majority of the public now says, in surveys, that it wishes this stopped; some 60 percent to 70 percent--including, in one poll, a third of Al Gore's own supporters--say Gore should concede....." Newsmax 11/28/00 Carl Limbacher "..... The Gore legal team has begun laying the groundwork for possible legal revenge against Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris - with an investigation that a campaign official once promised "will make Whitewater look like a picnic." ...... In briefs filed with Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls on Monday, Gore lawyers suggested that Harris had behaved unethically, accusing her of official "misconduct" and citing two examples where they say she "violated" state election law: ............ "The secretary's and commission's rejection of the Palm Beach County manual count results violates their duty to certify the true results of the election under section 102.111, Florida Statutes, and more specifically violates section 102.131, Florida Statutes, which provides: 'The Elections Canvassing Commission in determining the true vote shall not have authority to look beyond the county returns.'" ..... Gore lawyers also charged that Harris' decision to certify the election "violates the Nov. 21 order of the Florida Supreme Court. ..." Rather than argue that Harris had merely misinterpreted the law or had acted unfairly, the Gore legal team contended she engaged in "misconduct sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election."....." New York Times 11/29/00 Bush to USSC "...... The Florida Supreme Court's decision, which announced a new framework and timetable for resolving controversies over the presidential election results in that State, should be vacated because it does not comply with 3 U.S.C. Section 5........ Responding to a presidential election crisis much like that unfolding in Florida during the past three weeks, Congress enacted a statutory scheme to implement the constitutional mechanism of the Electoral College. One of those statutes, Section 5, provides that state court resolutions of controversies regarding the appointment of presidential electors shall be conclusive only if they are made pursuant to "laws enacted prior to" Election Day.........The court below rejected Florida statutes and deadlines for the appointment of electors and the resolution of presidential election disputes as "hypertechnical." Instead, it resorted to its "equitable powers" to prescribe new standards and deadlines, suspend mandatory enforcement mechanisms, and curtail the discretion conferred on the state executive by the legislature. The decision below constitutes a clear departure from the legal requirements established before election day, and announces new rules governing the resolution of election disputes. The Florida Supreme Court thus consciously and boldly overrode Florida's "laws enacted prior to" election day and replaced them two weeks later with laws of its own invention........" New York Times 11/29/00 Bush to USSC "...... The Florida Supreme Court, by arrogating to itself the authority to make new rules applicable to this election contest, also violated Article II of the Constitution, which invests the authority to regulate the manner of appointing presidential electors in state legislatures. ...... The Constitution provides that "each State shall appoint [electors] in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." History and precedent establish that this power granted to state legislatures is both plenary and exclusive........ Article II establishes a federally mandated separation of powers between the state legislature and other branches of state government in the context of choosing presidential electors. The Framers deliberately chose to invest the power to determine the manner of choosing electors in this particular branch of state government, thereby excluding the exercise of such power by the other branches. Any delegation of this constitutional authority must be both clear and express....... The Florida Legislature has not granted to the state Supreme Court the authority to determine the manner of choosing electors. On the contrary, the Legislature has established a complex and detailed framework for presidential elections, and has granted the executive branch the authority to exercise limited discretion and to certify the results of such elections in accordance with statutorily imposed deadlines. The state court reached out and prohibited the executive branch officials from performing their duties, and announced new deadlines to supplant those

enacted by the Legislature. The court thus arrogated to itself the power to determine the manner in which Florida's electors are appointed, authority that the Constitution reposes only in the state legislature........" New York Times 11/29/00 Bush to USSC "......The proper remedy for the Florida Supreme Court's violation of Article II is nullification of its attempt to interfere in the manner in which the state's electors are appointed. The court below had no authority under the federal Constitution to announce new rules for this presidential election. Its attempt at judicial legislation was unconstitutional, and its actions patently ultra vires, and the court's decision is thus void. As a result, the state executive branch officials should be freed by this court to carry out their duties without the unconstitutional interference of the state Supreme Court..........." New York Times 11/29/00 Bush to USSC "...... The Florida Legislature directly contemplated close elections when it enacted the controlling statutory provisions at issue. Florida election law not only authorizes machine and manual recounts, but sets explicit limits and short time frames for the period during which they may be conducted. In passing sections 102.111 and 102.112 the Legislature plainly determined that expedition and finality were paramount considerations, and elevated those goals over the need for manual recounts that might threaten to drag on interminably. If requested, manual recounts are neither required nor are they conducted on a statewide basis. The statutory deadline, by contrast, is expressed in unambiguously mandatory terms and applies uniformly throughout the state. No meaningful conflict can be discerned between the carefully confined time limits for the protest phase, including the manual recount provisions, and the statutory deadline provisions: manual recounts, under the law as it existed on Nov. 7, must be completed within the deadline.........." New York Times 11/29/00 Bush to USSC "......The new, judicially established statutory deadline written in place of the one contained in section 102.111 and 102.112 also creates a new rule of law in that it effectively modifies the legislative provisions provi ding for contests to election results. That statute clearly anticipates that results will be certified in a timely fashion, in order for the results to be contested in court. A contestant has 10 days from the time the last county canvassing board certifies its returns to file his or her complaint. The defendant then has 10 days to file an answer. By issuing a judicial decree that pushes back the deadline for certification from Nov. 14 to Nov. 26, the Florida Supreme Court has modified the pre-existing rule of law discernible on the face of the Legislature's contest provisions. Indeed, because any judicial or other proceedings regarding challenges to the appointment of electors must be finally re solved by Dec. 12, contestants, and particularly defendants, will not have the statutorily provided time in which to file their pleadings, conduct discovery, and participate in a trial and appeal as contemplated by the Legislature. Plainly, the Florida Supreme Court created a new rule, one that had not been in existence before Election Day 2000, for resolving disputes concerning the appointment of electors.........." New York Times 11/29/00 Bush to USSC "...... The additional question posed by this court asks "What would be the consequences of this court's finding that the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida does not comply with 3 U.S.C. Section 5?" The appropriate remedy to follow from such a finding seems obvious: This court should vacate the Florida Supreme Court's judgment, thereby reinstating the Elections Canvassing Commission's statutory authority to act in accordance with the clear and specific deadlines prescribed by Florida election law as of Nov. 7, 2000. The same relief would flow, of course, from this Court's determination that the decision below violates Article II. Such a result would permit Florida's executive officials to perform their duties under the law as it existed on Nov. 7, 2000. As explained above, Title 3 sets forth a carefully crafted federal scheme, in which the states play a crucial role. Florida, in particular, has through its Legislature designated certain state executive branch officials, including the secretary of state and the Elections Canvassing Commission, as the state officials responsible for performing Florida's obligations under the federal scheme and exercising appropriate discretion. ......" New York Times 11/29/00 Bush to USSC "......In Florida, the Legislature manifestly did not grant the authority to adjust deadlines for election returns to organs of the Florida judiciary. Rather, it set forth a precise statutory scheme to govern the appointment of presidential electors. The Florida Supreme Court's extensive and unauthorized revision of that scheme was unconstitutional....... Thus, while the Constitution does not generally require states to observe the separation of powers principles that inhere in our federal constitutional structure, states must provide for the manner of appointment of electors through the legislative process rather than by resort to the executive or judicial branches of their respective governments. The Florida legislature could have delegated to state courts some authority over the manner appointing electors. But any such delegation must be both clear and explicit. Because the power to determine the manner of appointing electors is vested by the Constitution itself in the state legislature - and only in the state legislature - it cannot be presumed to have been delegated sub silentio, nor can another branch arrogate it

legislature - it cannot be presumed to have been delegated sub silentio, nor can another branch arrogate it to itself without the legislature's express approval......" New York Times 11/29/00 Eric Schmitt ".....When Gov. George W. Bush named Dick Cheney on Sunday to prepare the transition to the White House, he fit him into the role he had always had in mind for his running mate: running things. ....... Denied the keys to government transition offices, Mr. Cheney is working from a makeshift study off the kitchen in his town house in McLean, Va., contacting prospective cabinet members, hunting for rental offices and sketching a legislative agenda for a Bush administration......... Mr. Cheney, a former White House chief of staff, secretary of defense and head of a major oil services company, is also a veteran of five presidential transitions since 1969, an invaluable asset to a Bush campaign organization that is short on government experience......... "When Dick Cheney was chosen, it was clear to me that Bush picked him to be his partner in governing, much more than his campaign running mate," said Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. "And everything since the election has borne that out." ......" New York Times 11/29/00 ".......Faced with a case that has much of the world's attention and could decide the presidency, Judge N. Sanders Sauls of the Leon County Circuit Court surveyed the horde of lawyers before him Monday and drawled, "This is no different from any other litigation." ..... Whether Judge Sauls was joking or not, people who know him and his work call the remark a sign of how he will handle Vice President Al Gore's lawsuit contesting the certified results of Florida's presidential vote........ "He will not be bullied in a courtroom by anyone," said Peter M. Dunbar, a prominent lawyer in Tallahassee, who was counsel to former Gov. Bob Martinez. "He will keep things moving along, and he will not be intimidated by the magnitude of the case."......" New York Times 11/29/00 ".......Judge Sauls is, by all accounts, one of the keener intellects on the state bench, yet unassuming. He brings a folksy manner to his work, telling lawyers today that they reminded him of "the fellow who jumped on his horse and rode off madly in all directions." He has lived his entire life in conservative, mostly rural, north Florida, yet he has a broader range of experience than most state judges, having worked as a prosecutor, a litigator, a magistrate in federal bankruptcy court and the administrative judge for the local circuit court. Lawyers here call Judge Sauls a judicial conservative who is loath to stray from the letter of the law. They say that Judge Sauls, a Democrat appointed by Mr. Martinez, a Republican, seems conservative politically, too, though they acknowledge that they cannot be certain. ......" THE WASHINGTON TIMES 11/29/00 Frank Murray ".....Vice President Al Gore's chief lawyer charged at the Supreme Court yesterday that George W. Bush is raising flimsy arguments to become president, but Mr. Bush's lawyers said Friday's constitutional battle could decide the presidency....... The Gore brief, also 50 pages and filed personally by Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe at almost the same minute, defends the Florida Supreme Court's decision. The brief described that ruling's 12-day extension of the certification deadline to Nov. 26 to accommodate selective recounts in three overwhelmingly Democratic counties as "garden variety" court action that did not rewrite state laws or violate the U.S. Constitution........... "[Mr. Bush's] claim that the Florida Supreme Court may not interpret state electoral statutes calls into question not only that court's indisputable power of judicial review, but also the important and established interpretation of such statutes by state attorneys general nationwide," the Gore brief said, challenging Mr. Bush's reading of Title 3, Article 5 of the U.S. Code......... A member of the Gore legal team said two new issues of mootness and "harmless error" will be raised in tomorrow's filing, in hopes the justices will simply throw out Mr. Bush's appeal. "We're not raising it now because if there are results in the contest in the Florida courts that put us up over the top, it's not moot," said the Gore lawyer who asked not to be identified in discussing future strategy.......... Mr. Bush's brief yesterday argued that many issues still would be affected by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, including "some of the recently filed election challenges to the election results" filed by Mr. Gore this week. One example is the complaint that the Miami-Dade County recount stopped. If the Supreme Court rolled events back to the original deadline of Nov. 14, that action would be meaningless because it had not begun........" Freeper ambrose "....Tonight, Patrick Caddell once again hits a homerun. While Matthews and the other panelists babbled on, Caddell pointed out that the Palm Beach numbers DO NOT ADD UP! Caddell said that when doing a hand recount, the precinct by precinct results must match up with the original machine count. Caddell said that there are wide variations from the hand counts to the machine counts, as in there were not just more votes for Gore in these precincts... there were more votes, period. Caddell was hesitant to call this fraud. He thought it could simply have been that Palm Beach rushing through the process, combined with exhaustion, resulted in a series of errors. Bottom line, whether as a result of fraud or exchaustion by the vote counters (or both), these ballots have become hopelessly tainted and compromised. Of course, after Caddell hammered this point, Matthews was like "oh that is interesting", and then brushed Caddell off... " Washington Times 11/29/00 Bill Sammons "....A Florida judge last night rejected Al Gore's emergency request to begin recounting ballots today and largely rebuffed the vice president's plea to dramatically

accelerate his lawsuit contesting the election. ...... Gore lawyers vowed to immediately appeal the ruling by Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who said no ballots will be counted before Saturday. "We can't wait until Saturday," Gore attorney David Boies told the judge. "We're going to have to appeal that decision, because it is our view that waiting until Saturday is tantamount to denying" the entire lawsuit. Mr. Gore is racing the clock to overturn Florida's election results before Dec. 12, when federal laws require the selection of Florida's 25 electors.....But Judge Sauls pointed out that the ballots in question have not yet been shipped from southern Florida to his courthouse in Tallahassee. "I've essentially denied your beginning to count something we don't have right now," he told Mr. Boies. Bush lawyers warned that it would be improper to recount only some of the ballots from the two counties, as the Gore team has requested. Specifically, the vice president wants a recount of the 3,300 most promising ballots from Palm Beach County and 10,000 from Miami-Dade. "You cannot look at those votes in isolation," Bush lawyer Daryl Bristow told the judge. "No count could take place other than in the context of a full manual recount....... The prospect of expanding the hand recount from 13,300 selected ballots to all ballots in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties - a total of more than 1 million - is daunting to the Gore camp, which is increasingly worried about the ticking clock. Judge Sauls also rejected most of an accelerated schedule that the Gore team proposed for the lawsuit. Mr. Boies wanted the trial to start as early as yesterday and no later than today. But the judge instead scheduled an "omnibus hearing" for Saturday, when both sides could present evidence and witnesses for as long as they wanted. Still, he cautioned that the case might not be wrapped up until Dec. 7. "This is the best that I can fashion to at least be unfair to both parties," Judge Sauls said......" Washington Times 11/29/00 Bill Sammons "....."There are ways to expedite this," Mr. Boies said. "And I can't think of a legitimate reason not to begin the counting on Thursday, at least with respect to the Dade County ballots." This prompted the usually low-key Bush lawyer Barry Richard to angrily denounce the Gore team's increasingly urgent calls for expediency. ........ "My client is entitled to a hearing before Mr. Boies' client gets relief," he snapped to the judge. "Every time Your Honor gives him another thing, he's back on his feet asking for one more thing that you've already denied him - twice........ "We've already truncated this proceeding so that my client has little or no time to prepare for a hearing. "Mr. Boies [is] asking this court to give him everything he's requested, which is to begin another ballot recount before he has provided one iota of evidence or permitted my client to have one hour of hearing on whether or not he's entitled to that recount." Judge Sauls acknowledged he had already shortened the normal period of 10 days in which the defendant can reply to the plaintiff........ "I can't strip you of every right that is known to everybody to accommodate" the Gore side, he told the Bush team. Hours before the ruling, Mr. Gore stepped before cameras and called for an immediate recount of disputed ballots in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, where ballots already have been counted two or three times........." Media Reality Check 11/28/00 Kate Wright "..... Newsweek Washington bureau reporter and MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman let it slip out this morning: The liberal media's double standard is benefiting Al Gore as the Democrat tries desperately to spin his way from defeat to victory. ....... Fineman was a guest this morning on radio's Imus in the Morning, simulcast on MSNBC, when host Don Imus asked the question that most liberal reporters dread: What if the roles were reversed? "What if Gore had won and Bush, what if the roles were reversed," Imus wondered. "How would, I wouldn't want to include you in this, but how would the liberal weenies of the news media be treating this if the roles were reversed?" ....... "Oh, my God. Are you kidding?" Fineman truthfully replied. "That George Bush was a crybaby, that he was the spoiled son of a failed President. You know, you could just hear, the personal attacks on Bush would be just absolutely vicious." ........ But, as Fineman knows, the networks aren't calling Gore a crybaby or subjecting him to vicious personal attacks. Monday, all of the broadcast networks interrupted prime time to carry Gore's plea for patience; Sunday, NBC refused to give the certified winner, George W. Bush, a similar chance to speak live and unedited to the entire country. ......" NewsMax 11/28/00 Jack Wheeler "......For all of my life, as long as I can remember, Republicans have been pushed around by Democrats....... The presidency was stolen from Richard Nixon, Goldwater was morphed into a nuclear-bomb-throwing lunatic, Nixon crucified, Ronald Reagan - the man who rescued America's economy, gave America its pride back, and won the Cold War - dismissed as an "amiable dunce." ....... The Democratic Party specializes in intimidation. It is rretrievably corrupt, engaging in every criminal trick in the political book. ...... Over the past three weeks in Florida, the Democrats pulled out every sleazy below-the-belt move they have in their intimidation arsenal. Their pathologically biased media allies backed them all the way. .....But for the first time in modern memory, the Republicans fought back. They didn't roll over, didn't wimp out. .......To their shock and amazement, the Democrats found themselves in a real fight, a kick-them-in-the-nuts, bite-theirear-off, gouge-their-eye-out actual street fight. As the Wall Street Journal observed, "This isn't your father's GOP." It's not the spineless GOP of "Go-Along-to-Get-Along" Bob Michel. We've got a kick-butt, rip-yourlungs-out Republican Party in the making here, folks. Which is why I don't want Al Gore to concede just yet. ....."

NewsMax 11/28/00 Jack Wheeler "......Every refusal of Al to concede now, every whine, every fruitless lawsuit, every act of increasing desperation digs the hole deeper: a hole in which Al is not only burying himself but - if he will keep digging a little longer - his entire party. ........I want Gephardt and Daschle - the party leadership, not only the cartoon fruitcakes like Nadler and Wexler - to jump in feet first. Already polls show over 60 percent of Americans want Internet Al to give it up. I say let the revulsion and disgust grow. The longer Al hangs on, the farther he, and his party, have to fall. ......Make no mistake: If the electorate was evenly split on Election Day, it isn't any longer. ....... There were a number of turning points. First was the county map run in USA Today showing an ocean of red Bush counties sparsely sprinkled with islands of blue Gore counties. Seeing the map made millions of people instantly understand why we have an Electoral College, and cut the legs off Gore's total popular vote edge. ...... There was Bush-Baker-Cheney deciding to go to the mat. Tom DeLay making it clear that the House would not allow Gore to steal the presidency. America's heartthrob heroine Katherine Harris standing straight up to the Democrat-Fascists. .......All of this inspired tens of thousands of ordinary Americans to take to the streets to prevent the theft of the presidency, waving signs like "No Recount for Retards," "No Hail to the Thief," "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Democrat," and of course the immortal "Sore-Loserman." ....." New York Post ".......Al Gore popped up on national TV yesterday afternoon for the second time in just 17 hours, proposing that George W. Bush sign on to a bizarre scheme patently not in the Texas governor's best interests. ....... Plus which, by all appearances, what Gore proposed would be illegal. Such conduct is not appropriate by prospective presidents of the United States. To put it mildly. ....... Gore proposed that he and Bush agree between them to a "special master" to expedite the veep's lawsuits alleging ballot miscounts and irregularities. ....." New York Post ".......In Florida, with the whole world watching, candidates for public office can't agree - all by themselves - to revise the election law. It's illegal. ...... Even if the Bush camp hadn't rejected it out of hand, the scheme would necessarily have been a non-starter. So why propose it in the first place? It's safe to suppose that the overnight polls from Gore's unctuous Monday night address were horrific. ..... Time to crank it up another notch? It didn't work. ....... Most Americans understand what Gore is up to: They see a combination of ambition, obsession and denial informing the vice president's rhetoric. ......." MSNBC 11/29/00 Freeper RightGuy "..... Just reported on PMSNBC that Judge Sauls has ordered that ALL ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach be shipped to the Leon County Court. ......This is good news for Bush, as Richards and Klok argued this was essential IF and when ballots are counted. Of course, as BR argued yesterday, the legal question must first be addressed: Did the local canvassing boards exceed their discretion in conducting/not conducting counts. This answer is an emphatic no. But, if it were YES, they'd have to count every single on ein each county - which will take forever and would be subject to some rational standards. ...." Newsmax 11/29/00 Jack Thompson "......The press has yet to question Gore lawyer David Boies about the Chicago Tribune's bombshell report last week revealing that he filed a false affidavit with Florida's Supreme Court, which gave the court precedent for allowing the counting of dimpled ballots. But lawyers know that what Boies did could land him in hot water. One such member of the legal profession is NewsMax.com's Jack Thompson, who on Wednesday filed the following complaint with several legal disciplinary committees in the state of New York: .......".....Specifically, as the lead attorney for the presidential campaign of Vice President Gore, Mr. Boies incorrectly and prejudicially misrepresented to the Florida Supreme Court the ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court the case styled Pullen v. Milligan, 561 NE 585 (Ill 1990). Additionally, Mr. Boies submitted to our state's highest court a false affidavit from a participant in that same case. ........The November 22, 2000, opinion of the Florida Supreme Court reveals that it relied, to its detriment, on the false representations of Mr. Boies. ......." MSNBC Freeper HeiltoTheChiefNOT! ".....BREAKING: MSNBC IS REPORTING that Gore woke up to bad news reading the Washington Post as Capitol Hill is reporting that their phone lines and e-mail are overwhelmingly calling for V.P. Gore to concede! So many protesting e-mails caused their computer to crash! ......" and "...... Even the morning interviews Gore did today(IMO- out of utter desperation) he was slammed and looked like the pomptious lying a$$ Imus says he is! .......... And I swear Gore is either the most arrogant SOB ever born or he is a robot programmed for self destruction for a future/current evil demoncrat plan of driving us crazy,debunking the rule of law and constituition,and paving the way for Hillary or making some sick Bill Clinton attempt to enable him to look good and stay in office! Simply put...The dems have gone MAD! ......." Excerpts from Washington Post article above "..... "Many Democratic offices on Capitol Hill reported being flooded with messages urging Gore to end his legal challenges and concede. The Capitol's Internet server buckled under the crush of the burden, which an official said was the heaviest since President Clinton's impeachment days." ........... "And for the first time yesterday, some of the people close to Gore began talking

about his political prospects beyond 2001. ......." WorldNetDaily 11/29/00 Jon Dougherty "..... Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Cohen had determined that there was nothing that could be done to compel counties in Florida to count discarded military ballots. .....Over 1,000 military absentee ballots were tossed out by Florida canvassing boards, most of them because they lacked a postmark. The postmark issue, in particular, is of concern to the campaign of Republican George W. Bush, because Florida law indicates that if a military absentee ballot is "otherwise" valid, no postmark is necessary for the ballot to be counted. ....." AP 11/29/00 Reuters "....A majority of American voters believe Democrat Al Gore should concede the disputed presidential election to Republican George W. Bush, but almost three quarters of those who voted for the vice president want him to fight on, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. ....The poll of 604 voters conducted by pollster John Zogby on Tuesday found that 57 percent wanted Gore to concede right now while 37 percent disagreed. The survey"s margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points. ....." Newsday 11/29/00 Karin Meadows AP ".....A judge on Wednesday rejected a conservative law group's bid to keep examining Palm Beach County's presidential ballots, including 3,300 being sought by that Al Gore's legal team for a recount. ...... ''I think these ballots need to be up in Tallahassee now so whatever needs to be done can be done quickly,'' Circuit Court Judge Jorge Labarga said, clearing the way for the transfer of the ballots to the state capital. ....... Judicial Watch enlisted hundreds of people to inspect ballots in several Florida counties. Chairman Larry Klayman said he hopes to determine what standard canvassers followed in judging voter intent. The review in Palm Beach so far found ballots counted with ''no discernible standard,'' he said. After Wednesday's ruling, Klayman said he would seek access to the ballots in Tallahassee. That drew a sharp response from the judge. ''Judge Sauls obviously has enough on his plate now,'' Labarga said....." Northwest Florida Daily News 11/29/00 "....Why, Al, why? We've had a hard time understanding why Mr. Gore continues this fight rather than bowing out graciously. ....... But the International Herald Tribune captured the most plausible reason: The vice president is "frustrated, even at times embarrassed ... by the legal maneuvering he has set in motion in his quest to prove he won the balloting in Florida." But he pushes ahead anyway because "he believes - no, he knows - he won the election."......... This explanation brought to mind columnist Thomas Sowell's 1999 book, "The Quest for Cosmic Justice." In it, Mr. Sowell explained how the modern liberal governing philosophy embraced by Mr. Gore is so preoccupied with achieving desired "cosmic" outcomes - uplifting the poor, righting wrongs, ending inequality, etc. - that it is willing to twist hardand-fast laws to do so. ...... Remember when Mr. Gore, in his second debate with the Texas governor, said that the U.S. Constitution is a living and breathing document? This is what Mr. Sowell is talking about viewing laws as edifices that are malleable and unfixed, that can be interpreted for a so-called higher purpose (as defined by those in authority, of course). ....." Dallas Morning News 11/29/00 "..... Recent polls seem to indicate that a fed-up public may have developed a healthy immunity to spin and that Mr. Gore is losing the PR war. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll conducted just before the vice president's address Monday found that 35 percent of respondents disapprove of Mr. Gore's handling of the election and 19 percent strongly disapprove. Lesser percentages disapprove of Mr. Bush's behavior. ....." Fort Worth Star Telegram 11/29/00 Mark Davis ".....As president of the United States, Bill Clinton holds the keys to the presidential transition office four blocks from the White House. He also holds its purse strings: about $5 million budgeted for the change of chief executives. Both are held hostage, though, as partisan sniping is once again allowed to cloud the nation's electoral will. President-elect George W. Bush (and that is his accurate title, please) wishes to get on with the process leading to his inauguration in January. He has every basis for doing so. ....." The State Newspaper 11/29/00 ".....The Gore lawyers seem to have placed their strongest hopes on reversing the decision of the canvassing board in Miami-Dade County to not offer any hand recounts, since the board thought it could not do a good job and meet its deadline. While the Democrats may not like this decision, and may even think that the decision will cost them the election, they should abide by it. ...... It's a call made by a local governing board, the type of panels that oversee elections across the country. National campaigns with a team of lawyers should not be able to overturn those local panels with legal pressure. The courts are going to be rightly reluctant to overturn that group's decision. It's unfortunate that the Gore lawyers have no such scruples. ......." 11/29/00 Bill Thompson by Freepr sinkspur "......Bush wins. Bush wins. Bush wins. And just in case you missed it: Bush wins. That would be one "Bush wins" for each of the three times that George W. Bush has prevailed in Florida's portion of the 2000 presidential election and one, just for good measure, for the time

prevailed in Florida's portion of the 2000 presidential election and one, just for good measure, for the time that the TV networks unanimously declared Bush the winner only to retract the projection later on. ....." Freeper ChadGore "...... The Truth about the Miami/Dade protest. The protesters were speaking out against the canvassing boards illegal decision to count 10,000 undervotes behind closed doors, not "in the sunshine" of public view, as mandated by florida law. That Democratic Miami/Dade canvassing board had intentions of going behind closed doors and punching holes into those 10,000 ballots and adding votes for Al Gore when nobody was looking. When the peacefull protest began, the democrates realize they've been exposed and could not continue punching holes into ballots adding votes for Al Gore behind closed doors. ....." Email from Jim Nicholson 11/29/00 "...... Dear eChampion, Please review the following fact sheet and quotes, and forward to family, friends, and associates. It is time for truth to prevail and for Gore to concede. Thank you, Jim Nicholson Chairman, RNC **************************************************************** SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT MYTH: There are more than 10,000 votes in Miami-Dade that have never been counted. David Boies: "[T]here are over 10,000 ballots that have never been counted once for the presidency of the United States." [Today Show, 11/27/00] FACT: * Every ballot in Miami-Dade was counted at least twice - once on election night and again during the automatic recount. * In every election, there are a significant number of ballots that are cast by voters without choosing a candidate in every race on the ballot, including races for President. For example, in this election, 5% of the voters in Idaho, 3.9% of the voters in Illinois and 3.6% of the voters in Wyoming cast a ballot without registering a vote for President. * The 10,000 votes (actually 9,000 according to their filing) about which the Gore campaign has been complaining constitute only 1.6% of the ballots cast in Miami-Dade. These ballots were counted - twice; they merely registered no vote for President * This reality reflects common sense: a voter may want to vote for a candidate for the Senate, House or other office, but be undecided about the choice for President. In particular, a voter who usually votes for candidates from one party may vote for local or statewide candidates, but be uncomfortable with his or her party's choice for President and yet unwilling to vote for the other party's candidate. So he or she might cast a ballot without marking a choice for President. MYTH: If you counted all the votes that already have been counted in some of the recount, Gore would actually be ahead by 9 votes. FACT: * Democrats get to this number by adding unreported and unofficial votes from the late manual recount in Palm Beach and from the partial manual recount from Miami-Dade, and by subtracting the valid military overseas ballots and some of the certified votes from Nassau County. * The Florida Supreme Court set a deadline of 5 p.m. on Sunday for completing manual recounts, almost tripling the statutory time period for counting mandated by Florida's Legislature. * Palm Beach did not complete its manual recount by the Supreme Court's deadline. Miami-Dade returned to its original decision of not proceeding with a manual recount. * The 157 "interim gain" for Gore in Miami-Dade came from a selective recount of the most Democrat precincts. Gore won these selected precincts by approximately 75% to 25%, while Gore won the entire county only by 53% to 46%. It would be unfair to use this interim change without counting Republican precincts, too. * Precincts in Miami-Dade, including those with predominantly Hispanic and Cuban American voters, favored Bush. The Gore approach would treat these minorities in a discriminatory fashion.

* Military overseas ballots that were valid under Florida and federal law should be counted. Counties recognized this and counted them. Even Joe Lieberman said that such military ballots should not be rejected. & Even if you add the 157 interim gain for Gore in Miami-Dade and the final manual recount of net 192 for Gore in Palm Beach (as reported by the NYT), and then also subtract the over 50 votes that belong to Bush in Nassau County (see below), Bush still wins by well over 100 votes. MYTH: Miami-Dade would have conducted a manual recount if not for the Republican "mob" that "intimidated" the canvassing board. KLAIN: "We think already almost 160 votes were counted in Dade County before the mob stopped the count.... But I think that to say that a mob can storm a counting facility, stop a count, and then that's going to provide the end because a partisan of the Bush campaign, Ms. Harris, refuses to accept returns and cuts off the counting, I don't think that's the kind of end that we have to American elections." [GMA, 11/27/00] FACT: * The record shows that the crowd was reacting to the Board's decision to move the recount behind closed doors, where it could not be observed by the public or the media, and to limit the recount to only a select set of the votes. * No Board member mentioned the protests as a factor in the decision, and Judge Leahy of the Board has already stated clearly that he was not intimidated by the crowd. ???? The police made no arrests, received no assault complaints, and did not even instruct the crowd to desist. The crowd was quieted promptly. MYTH: In Nassau County, the board violated Florida law by adding votes from earlier tabulations that had been rejected by the board as illegal. FACT: * On election night, all the votes were counted, but during the machine recount, 218 ballots were accidentally separated from the rest, and not counted. As a result, Bush received 124 fewer votes and Gore received 73 fewer votes than on election night. * After the recount, the Nassau County Board supervisor discovered her mistake, and tried to correct it. Because the Supreme Court of Florida had held the date open for final certification until Sunday at 5:00 p.m., the Division of Elections informed the supervisor that she could revise the count to make it accurate. * The Board (2 Democrats and 1 Republican) voted unanimously to certify the original election night count which included the 218 ballots - rather than the machine recount total (which mistakenly omitted those ballots). Stars and Strips 11/28/00 Ed Offley "...... It was supposed to have been a merely tactical maneuver in one state in the 2000 presidential campaign. But the attempt by the Democratic Party to rigorously challenge and void as many military absentee ballots as possible in Florida has emerged as one of the biggest political blunders in the still ongoing campaign between Republican nominee George W. Bush and Democratic nominee Al Gore, election analysts say. "There is tremendous anger in the military over the challenges to those votes," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia government professor who specializes in presidential politics. "Sometimes you think you can get away with a fast one and you get caught with your pants down."......" AP 11/28/00 Guy Coates "..... Sen. John Breaux, D-La., is under mounting pressure to urge his candidate, Vice President Al Gore, to step aside in favor of Republican George W. Bush. Although a large majority of Louisiana voters are Democrats, Bush carried the state with over 60 percent of the vote. Bob Mann, state director for Breaux, acknowledged Tuesday that a majority of the many phone calls and letters to the office ask the senator to urge the vice president to give it up. ...." Electronic Telegraph 11/29/00 Robert Uhlig "..... BAD news for cheating spouses, politicians who have no intention of sticking to their election promises and other habitual liars. A company has developed a portable lie detector that exposes fibbers by detecting tremors in their voice. The 35 pocket-sized gadget, called the Handy Truster Emotion Reader can be plugged into telephones and mobile phones. Its South Korean makers say that it could see through eight out of 10 lies, putting an end to claims that cheques are in the

post and trains have been delayed. Using a technology developed for the Israeli military and tested on Al Gore ..." National Review 11/29/00 William Kucewicz "..... Team Gore is waging a disinformation campaign worthy of the KGB. During the Cold War, Soviet intelligence regularly planted erroneous information about the United States in communist propaganda organs around the globe. The aim was literally to create a story - to manufacture news that had little or no basis in fact - in order to taint America in the eyes of the world. Now, Americans (and the world) are being treated to an equally fraudulent disinformation campaign by the GoreLieberman do-whatever-it-takes, plow-through-to-victory team. The Gore camp would have us - and presumably Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls - believe, in the words of the vice president himself, that election officials in Miami-Dade County "brought the [ballot] count to a premature end in the face of organized intimidation," resulting in an "inaccurate and incomplete count" of the presidential election results in Florida. Joseph Lieberman called it "the rule of the mob," and Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) decried a "Republican riot" that "shook the foundations of democracy." ......." WSJ 11/29/00 Freeper Interloper "..... This was part of a headline summary on the Dow Jones newswires: -Tallahassee Circuit Judge Nikki Clark who was recently turned down by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for an appellate judgeship set a fast-track time schedule for a lawsuit challenging absentee votes in heavily Republican Seminole County. ...." Yahoo AP 11/28/00 Sandra Sobieraj ".......But some of Gore's closest associates said he privately battles frustration and worry that time will run out before his arguments against the accuracy of Florida's count are fully heard and weighed in court. Others describe his private sentiment as reflective of his public one. ``There's a decorum and judiciousness,'' said Carter Eskew, a longtime adviser in Gore's inner circle. Eskew conceded some percolating frustration in Gore's off-camera moments. ``He does believe he won the popular vote in Florida. He moreover believes if they would only follow the rules and count the votes, he could prove that,'' Eskew said. ......" Freeper RightFighter in response to "...... Saul is free to do anything up to and including saying "Ya know what? We don't have time to count all these ballots, so I'm just going to say that they all meant to vote for Gore. Court's adjourned." Said "....Actually, in reading President-Elect Bush's filing with the US Supreme Court, I don't think this is true. Quoting that filing: "Under Florida law, there is a "presumption that re-turns certified by election officials are presumed to be correct." Boardman v. Esteva, 323 So. 2d 259, 268 (Fla. 1975). Specifically, certified election returns are "regarded by the courts as presumptively correct and if rational and not clearly outside legal requirements should be upheld." Id. at 268-69 n.5 (quotation omitted)." ....... "Consequently, to overcome this strong presumption, an election challenger must show, as a threshold matter, that there has been "substantial noncompliance with the election statutes." Beckstrom v. Volusia County Canvassing Bd., 707 So. 2d 720, 725 (Fla. 1998)." ......As you can see, the judge is NOT allowed to make an arbitrary decision regarding the count, since the certified results are PRESUMED by law to be correct. ....." The Northbrook Newsletter 11/28/00 Melissa Maidenchad ".... Much is made of the Florida Supreme Court's excursion into activist law making...in contravention of the Florida Legislature's carefully laid out election process. Many have said that the only remedy available to the Court is to set the vote totals back to the time of the second recount. Many have said that this really is moot because the "contest phase" would then be ongoing. ...... Au Contraire, you fair-minded folk. The Florida Supreme Court seriously messed with TIME....at least as much as they did with votes. The legislature had set up rigid timelines that allowed for counting, recounting, manually recounting, tabulating, certifying, contesting, and, if need be, legislatively intervening. And in their wisdom, the legislature had given most of the TIME to the contest period. They had seen the need to be fair to both those contesting and those APPEALING any contest. ....... The bottom line is this. The Florida Supreme Court stole TIME. And the impact of that stolen time is coming to bear on George W. Bush's rights of due process. ..... This is clearly seen in media reports that accuse Bush of stalling, of trying to run the clock out, of playing a "rope-a-dope" strategy. What he's really trying to do is mount a reasonable, unhurried defense. Serious impact is also being felt by Bush in court. New courts are clearly making decisions forcing Bush to expedite his defense because the contestees were granted special favors in the first place. ......." Freeper NittanyLion "....Dow is up 30 points since Cheney started talking. NASDAQ is down on the day, but is also trending upward. Amazing. ....." Freeper Green on Cheney "..... He isn't really discussing Florida at all. At his last press conference he refused to answer questions about Florida saying that wasn't the reason for the press conference. Haven't heard one question about Florida in this one. Maybe they know better than to ask given his previous answer.

This is really only about transition and the reporters are asking questions that deal with a new administration and not even talking about the crap going on in Florida ......" Freeper Siouxz "...... You know what I like about Cheney & Bush's way of dealing with this? The Bush side is simply INFORMING the press what they are doing. Gore is TRYING TO CONVINCE everyone that what he is doing is right and good. IMHO, the Bush team just oozes class and maturity. Gore is a crybaby dictator wannabe. ....." Freeper Green "......LOL!! Said he can't waste time waiting on GSA to cooperate with the transition funds. Said he has a job to do and can't wait on others to act. ....." Freeper CheneyChick "..... LOVED that Prez Bush statement! "I have spoken with one former President and it wasn't President Bush!!" He is so funny. ....." Freeper Green "...... oh hilarious! was asked about advice to Gore...Said he doesn't spend much time thinking about giving Gore advice since he wouldn't listen to it anyway so he'll pass on answering that question! ....." Freeper X-Servative "..... Listening to Cheney makes be feel confident in American leadership once again...The Reagan Revolution has become the Bush Evoluton! ....." Freeper glegi7 ".... Gore speaks yesterday at 2:00 and the NASDAQ takes a dive. Cheney speaks today at 2:00 and 5 minutes later the Market is climbing. ...." Law.com 11/29/00 R Robin McDonald ".....On Monday, the court reluctantly deferred that hearing until next week -- after the U.S. Supreme Court has heard an appeal by George W. Bush's presidential campaign of a decision by the Florida Supreme Court. ....... At the request of Bush lawyers, Chief Judge R. Lanier Anderson III rescheduled oral arguments for 9 a.m. Tuesday, "if oral argument is held." Siegel v. LePore, No. 00-15981 (11th Cir. Nov. 15, 2000; Touchston v. McDermott, No. 00-15985 (11th Cir. Nov. 14, 2000). ........ But both appeals remain alive. "We still believe strongly the 11th Circuit case needs to be decided, and appealed to the Supreme Court if necessary, before Dec. 18," says James Bopp Jr., attorney for the James Madison Center for Free Speech, a conservative, Washington, D.C.-based legal foundation. "There's no reason why the 11th Circuit wouldn't go ahead and hear this case." ......" Law.com 11/29/00 R Robin McDonald ".....After rushing to expedite both appeals before Thanksgiving, Anderson "reluctantly agreed" to delay oral arguments in both cases. The move came after Bush lawyers on Monday filed an emergency request to defer their own hearing, citing "significant events" that have occurred since the appeals court set oral arguments for today. In a rare move, the appeals court had intended to hear both appeals en banc. It also had allotted an hour for each argument -- double the time usually allotted for an appeal. ........ Because of the secretary of state's Sunday deadline, "presumably no additional unconstitutional manual recounts of the returns of this election will occur," the emergency brief states. ......... The Bush campaign's lead counsel, Theodore B. Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, is expected to make the oral arguments for the Bush campaign both before the U.S. Supreme Court and the 11th Circuit. .......Those questions were raised both by the Bush campaign (Siegel) and in the Brevard County voters' suit (Touchston). Both appeals claim that hand-counts deny equal protection under federal voting statutes to Florida voters who live outside those counties where manual recounts were conducted. The additional scrutiny given to those hand-counted ballots, as well as their interpretation by possibly partisan county officials seeking to divine a voter's will from a ballot meant to be scanned by a machine, in effect, dilute the votes of all those whose ballots were not tabulated by hand, according to the briefs. .......Both appeals also claim that the lack of any uniform standard for determining what constitutes a valid ballot during a hand-count allowed Florida elections officials to make arbitrary decisions about what counted and what did not. ....." Washington Post 11/29/00 Al Kamen ".......The General Services Administration, keeper of the keys to the presidential transition offices and, more importantly, to $5.3 million in transition funds that can be used to keep hundreds of campaign workers gainfully employed until the inauguration, finds itself on the receiving end of an organized telephone and e-mail campaign from a group calling itself "concerned citizens." "We know we are being targeted by a Web site called 'FreeRepublic.com,' which calls itself the 'premier conservative news forum,' " GSA spokesman Henry L. "Hap" Connors Jr. said. He estimated that GSA had received about 425 e-mails and 215 telephone calls in the last couple of days......" New York Post 11/29/00 Steve Dunleavy "..... CAROL ROBERTS, the abrasive and blatantly partisan Democrat on the Palm Beach County canvassing board, has gone off to the wilds of Burma. "She left on Monday - and it's good for her," said fellow county commissioner Mary McCarty, a Republican. "She needs a break and frankly we need a break from her. "She was supposed to leave earlier but then she realized

something. "If she left, her place by statute would have been taken over by Warren Newell, chairman of the county board. "This posed a problem for her because Warren is a Republican and that would have put the lone Republican on the canvassing board." ....." Daily Press Newport News VA 11/29/00 R Cort Kirkwood "......If you want to know what's wrong with the Democratic Party, closely inspect Paul Begala , a Clinton-Gore factotum and familiar face in connection with the theft of the election in Florida. Begala is a typical Potomac pantywaist who looks like he can't lift anything heavier than a glass of Chablis, but who is capable of one thing: Peddling poisonous opinions on the predominantly pro Gore networks. Actually, poisonous is too weak a word. Slanderous and despicable are better. .........The Gore states went blue, and Begala conveniently forgot to mention California, where police beat the daylights out of Rodney King or New York, where cops rammed a broomstick up the rectum of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. Begala might say the cops came from Texas or Wyoming, but in any event, his amnesia isn't the Point. ......Point is, he did what desperate liberals always do when they're losing: They call someone a racist or level of a general charge of bigotry. ......One of the first Gore supporters on the ground in Florida, for instance, was that voice of calm and reason, Jesse Jackson. .....Jackson hadn't dropped his bags at the hotel before making the preposterous charge, with absolutely no evidence, that blacks were denied the right to vote not only in Florida but also across the South. ....." AP 11/29/00 Sandra Sobieraj ".......Dismissing concerns public sentiment is turning against him, Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) said his chances of winning the presidency in the courts remain at 5050 and that the disputed election should be settled by mid-December. ``I don't think we're having an election about the election. I think we are having a test about our democratic principles. Will we count all the votes or not?'' Gore said in a taped interview aired Wednesday on NBC's ``Today'' show. ......." CNN via Dow Jones 11/29/00 ".....The election supervisor of Palm Beach County, Fla. announced Wednesday that a hand recount of votes showed that Democrat Al Gore gained 188 votes, the Cable News Network reported. When Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified votes on Sunday, she declined to include the hand recounted votes from Palm Beach County because officials hadn't met a deadline set by the Florida Supreme Court. ...." Chicago Tribune 11/28/00 John Kass "..... Al Gore, the man who wanted to lead his nation into a new century, is acting like a spoiled crybaby. That's too bad. He should stop whining and whimpering and lawyering and stamping his feet like a kid on the playground who demands his own way. Al, you lost. Deal with it. ....." Newsmax 11/29/00 Christopher Ruddy "..... "What a mess," Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, said after a day of reviewing thousands of ballots here in West Palm Beach. Klayman's public interest law firm has taken the baton and begun its own independent account of the Palm Beach vote. ......... He detailed massive irregularities in the count. Klayman's auditors have only reviewed a few thousand of the ballots, focusing their efforts on the disputed ballots that had been set aside by the canvassing board in their final recount. ........ These ballots were not included in the final count because they had a single dimple for president. The canvassing board only accepted ballots with multiple dimples. ...... Klayman has not done a recount of these but he said he observed a "lot of Gore votes. They have very discernible impressions or dimples," he said. "But it may be impossible to find out what really happened in the vote," Klayman said, expressing shock at the condition of the ballots. "These things look like they have been in World War II."........ According to his independent auditors, Klayman said ballots reviewed so far shows four areas of irregularities and possible fraud:..... The hand counts do not reconcile with the machine counts. ....... Election officials used "pink ballots" - replacement ballots for paper ballots they said were destroyed by the machine. This allowed officials to fill out the ballot for the destroyed ballots....... The canvassing board had no clear methodology when conducting the recount........ Record keeping was so bad, there is no record of who the canvassing committee awarded votes to from each of the questionable ballots........" The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 11/29/00 ".....Nemencio Rivas and Rodney Marshall, both felons on probation, are not supposed to vote. But on Nov. 7, Rivas and Marshall both walked into Ward 327 at the Highland Park Housing Complex, filled out new registrant cards and cast votes for Al Gore....... Felons who are still serving their sentences - including probation and parole - may not vote, under state law. If they do, they are committing a felony that is punishable by up to four years in prison and a $10,000 fine....... The votes of Rivas, 20, and Marshall, 28, were uncovered during a spot check by the Journal Sentinel of the more than 750 people who registered to vote on election day at Ward 327, on the city's west side......." Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 11/29/00 Brad Hahn Neil Snataniello "......There are still no final vote totals from Palm Beach County's much-watched hand count of 462,000 ballots, almost three days after elections officials begged for a few more hours to finish the task......... That final sprint to the finish -- with no one but

officials begged for a few more hours to finish the task......... That final sprint to the finish -- with no one but Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore to reconcile the numbers -- has led to inconsistencies and quirks that are delaying the release of totals, county officials said. In one case, 50 votes granted to Al Gore in the Nov. 12 machine tabulation vanished from the hand-count total -- and did not land elsewhere.......County leaders downplayed the delay and said the numbers can be easily reconciled so totals can be released by noon today. ......" Neal Boortz 11/29/00 "....... On the Thursday following the election I posted The Bush - Gore Electoral Map, which shows every county won by Gore and each one Bush carried. That map included a few interesting statistics; among them: * Counties won by Gore: 677 * Counties won by Bush: 2,434 * Population of counties won by Gore: 127 million * Population of counties won by Bush: 143 million * Square miles of country won by Gore: 580,000 * Square miles of country won by Bush: 2,427,000 * States won by Gore: 19 * States won by Bush: 29 Now Professor Joseph Olson of the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul Minnesota has produced another interesting new statistic. Professor Olson looked up the crime statistics for all of these counties and came up with this: * Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore: 13.2 * Average Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Bush: 2.1 Ah ... those Gore voters. This country needs more of them, right?....." CNN 11/29/00 Freeper Ghostofimpeachment ".....Seinole Case, Repubs want to have Al Gore deposed because they contend he is behind suit. Dem Biased Judge closed down court quickly after request. ...." CNN 11/29/00 Freeper Dog Gone "...... CNN reports breaking news that the Republicans have requested to depose Al Gore in the Seminole County Absentee Ballot case. They want to get him under oath to determine whether or not his camp is behind this suit to dismiss absentee ballots that have already been counted. LOLOLOL!!!! ....." Freeper hawaiian adds ".....This MUST mean the GOP knows of Al Gore's involvement in the case and has evidence of it. That means Gore would either have to admit it on the stand, or that he would look even worse after the evidence his revealed, proving him to be, once again, a liar. However, the judge will never let his boy testify. ...." Freeper Dog Gone ".....You're absolutely right. There's no remedy for this alleged harm. Throwing out all ballots would invalidate lots of ballots that were completely unrelated, and as a matter of law, we don't know that all 15,000 ballots weren't for Gore anyway. One thing they teach in good law schools is that "not every legal wrong has a legal remedy." In other words, just because someone did something wrong, it might not be possible to do anything about it under the law. It's possible this judge didn't go to a good law school. ...." Freeper truthkeeper FoxNews "..... Carl Cameron of Fox is reporting that Rep. Gene Taylor (Democrat, I think his state is Mississippi) has now publicly stated that, should this mess move into the Congress, he will be supporting President-Elect George W. Bush. I'm sure everyone remembers that he also stood with us during Impeachment. YAHOO. One down, anyway... " Freeper SwatTeam ".....Most of the men in Texas are REAL men and don't need anyone to tell them how to dress or walk or talk. George W. is a good example of this and we're proud to call him Texan, Governor, and President of the United States. A real man is not afraid to surround himself with competent, smart people because he doesn't worry about such juvenile things as being overshadowed by anyone else. Real men are grownup and secure individuals. Don't you just love it? Boy, I sure do! ....." USA Today 11/29/00 James Freeman "....... Under our system of government, it's really hard to settle arguments if people won't acknowledge facts. For example, Al Gore's endlessly repeated statement that 10,000 ballots in Miami-Dade were never counted is absolutely false. Every ballot was counted at least twice,

and each of these ballots was found to have no vote for president. ........" USA Today 11/29/00 James Freeman "....... The machine counts turned out to be highly accurate. Democrats started believing their own spin about antiquated, unreliable machines. So they cheered the Florida Supreme Court decision and assumed that a hand count would net thousands of new votes for Gore. It didn't. That's why Gore loyalists moved on to Plan B, looking for new votes among ballots without a presidential selection and claiming that "dimpled chads" are really Gore votes in disguise. ...... This is America, as the vice president likes to say, and that means people do the voting and election officials do the counting. This should be obvious, but somehow the chaos surrounding this close election has convinced some people that election officials should be promoted from their usual jobs as counters to new positions as interpreters of our desires. .......This was the year of the undecided voter. We can say conclusively that on Election Day, more than 50 million people in the United States did not particularly care for Al Gore. With similar precision, we can say that more than 50 million people didn't think much of George W. Bush. So why is it so hard to believe that roughly 1.5% of Miami-Dade voters didn't like either of these guys and did not select a presidential candidate? Could someone have put the stylus up to a chad and pulled back after deciding that Bush was inexperienced or Gore was untruthful? Of course. In fact, I think it's highly likely after watching the campaign coverage. ...." Freeper kellylm ".... I looked up "Seminole" at the top of FR's page and found this article [http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a0fad5c2815.htm] which quotes Mark Herron, who was tied to the 5page memo designed to kick out as many overseas military absentees as possible. In this article he says they were looking at it but no decision had yet been made. A few days later another article (here) [http://orlandosentinel.com/elections/1117law.htm] announced the suit was filed by a local democrat activist who said he "did not consult" with the Democrat Party before filing. ...." Newsmax 11/29/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Former pollster to President Carter Pat Caddell has been one of the more eloquent commentators on the post-election travesty. ...... Monday night on MSNBC, Caddell offered a stinging indictment of what his Democratic Party has become under Clinton-Gore, as revealed more clearly than ever now by the vice president's scorched earth power grab: "I need to make this point," said Caddell. "I'm a liberal Democrat. I started in Florida politics. I worked for George McGovern. I worked for Jimmy Carter. I worked for Ted Kennedy, Mario Cuomo. Nobody can question, I think, my credentials and my convictions. "But I have to tell you, at this point it's hard not to believe that my party, which is the party I've belonged to since my great, great grandfather in my family, has become no longer a party of great principle -- but has been hijacked by a confederacy of gangsters who need to take power by whatever means and whatever canard they can say."....." FoxNews 11/29/00 Freeper MississippiMan "...... After hearing the Republican objections to the way the Miami-Dade ballots are once more being run through machines for the purpose of segregating the undervotes from the main batch, Judge Sauls has just ordered Miami-Dade to immediately stop doing absolutely anything to these ballots in any shape, fashion, or form other than packing them up and shipping them. .......The Republican lawyer is also explaining that as they go, the Miami-Dade workers are going through the undervotes, counting dimples, and putting them in envelopes that say "CLEAR VOTES." ....All of this has been ordered stopped by Judge Sauls. ....." Freeper ambrose "... these ballots have become hopelessly corrupted. ...." Freeper Terry Mross "..... This isn't a surprise. They're still counting after the certification. Can you believe this fraud? And for PR purposes they know exactly how many votes they need to "find". Also, I thought all this recounting had to be done in public. ...." Freeper Terry Mross "..... Boies pointed how "we're paying the expense so we'd like to have our ballots brought on up." The judge left it to the canvassing board and they said they'd send them all at the same time. Their own board is going against them. This is all a delay tactic to get the legislature to appoint the electors so they can object in Congress. We need to plan on millions marching on Washington on Jan 5th to hold the republicans feet to the fire. Or, feets to da fire, as some would say ....." Freeper JohnMac "......Legally speaking if the votes have been altered at all, they should not be admitted into evidence. Presumably the judge will require foundational testimony that the ballots are substantially in the same condition they were in when last counted. That is now impossible. They have been run through the machine, put into new envelopes, counted, handled etc. I would also think there is a chain of custody problem. How many potential people had access to ballots? This is a classic spoliation of evidence issue...especially when one considers that those whose legal responsibility it is to maintain the ballots are democrats and are actually the ones "handling" them. ....." Freeper Terry Mross "......Boies is still trying to get the judge to let them start counting now. He's wanting to get to the seven mental dwarfs on the FLSC as soon as possible. It's going to be funny when those idiots

get to the seven mental dwarfs on the FLSC as soon as possible. It's going to be funny when those idiots refuse the overturn their own ruling, which is what they'll have to do to give Gore what he wants. The judge turned him down, by the way. Counting will not start until there's an evidentiary hearing on whether or not to actually do a recount. So, the judge won't even rule, as they asked him to do, so , they can't go to the SC. Ha Ha ....." Freeper MississippiMan "...... Miami-Dade county workers, NOT canvassing members were opening up envelopes and doing counting and putting them in other envelopes. The Bush team claimed no one has no idea what they have now done to these ballots. The county workers may have been making the ballots easier to read by removing chads or identations for clearer reading. THIS IS A VIOLATION. ...... What a mess. ....." Freeper Oldeconomybuyer ".....Neil Cavuto called it a "slap down" for Mr. Bois...denied both requests from the Dems...1) to get the "undercount" ballots up fast and the remainder later, and 2) to formally deny the request to start counting immediately so that the Team Gore can immediately appeal to the Florida Stupreme Court. ....." Freeper Lenmonster "......It looks to me like the judge gave NOTHING to Boise. He said Miami Dade could bring the ballots up when they want, and Miami said they wanted to take one trip, so the ballots won't be there til 5pm on Friday. In addition Boise wanted the judge to deny a motion to start counting now so they could appeal, but this crafty judge wouldn't approve or deny the motion, so it can't be appealed. It's so funny to watch Boise sweat! ....." Freeper ambrose "...... This judge is absolutely crushing Team Gore... he isn't giving them anything to appeal. He needs to delay and delay and delay, then count the damn ballots himself. If he denies another count, the Florida Supreme Court will yank the case out of Sauls courtroom and find a liberal "special master" to do the counting... ....." Freeper Freedom of Speech Wins "....... Bush lawyer pointed out to N. Sauls Sanders that Boies was trying to get him to sign a denial to start the count so that he could immediately appeal it and get it moved from N.Sauls Sanders before the Saturday hearing. Boies was trying to get the count started before the Saturday hearing of whether or not there should be a count. N. Sanders Sauls then refused to sign it until at least after Saturday's hearing. He is keeping his back and rear to the wall when dealing with the Gore lawyers so far. ....." Freeper billhilly ".....Score this a HUGE victory for the Bush legal team. For any yankees concerned that this good old boy judge is about to get rolled by Boies, talk to a southern friend. He ain't. He is dumb like a fox. ....." Freeper DJTex "....... I watched Judge Saul's hearing yesterday and the Bush team looked great. The Gore team headed by Boies looked pushy and desperate, looking for a fight or an appeal. Judge Sauls was very cordial and listened well, but you tell that the Bush lawyers got along much better with Sauls and are playing the "cooperation" game for the Judge while everyone knows that the clock is going to run out before any count could even get started. I could tell halfway through the Boies saw that he and Gore were screwed. He couldn't push the Judge to do anything since the Bush team deserves the time to fashion a defense. This is all just window-dressing--the Bush team is in charge and the Judge is a really great old country boy, dumb like a fox. If Judge Sauls told Miami-Dade to stop screwing with the ballots that were mixed in "no-votes" with good votes and just ship them all to his court--then that is double-good news for our side. It confirms that you have to examine all 600,000 ballots, not just the 10,500 Gore-rich undercounts. ......" Freeper Pres Raygun "...... The problem Boies has, is that he has no evidence to support his contest of the election. Even if you extrapolate the unfinished recounts in the most favorable terms for Gore, Gore still comes up short. His only hope is to have the undervotes recounted by a favorable court, that will count dimples as votes. Then he could get the evidence he needs to contest the election certification. It appears to be a chicken and egg thing. Appealing to the FLSC is a desperation move, that may succeed given the nature of the FLSC, but only at the expense of getting destroyed by the USSC or even the 11th circuit court. Gore may win with these ridiculous tactics, but the end result will be an undeclared civil war. ......" Freeper CA Conservative "...... Let's assume the FL legislature names the electors. When it goes to Congress, those electors can only be objected to if one congressman AND one senator object. In that case, the Congress ends the joint session, and each house takes up the issue. They only have two hours to debate the issue. The only way the FL electors would be disqualified is if a majority of BOTH houses of Congress agree with the objection. I could see where the objection could be upheld by the Senate if Gore refused to recuse himself and broke a tie vote, but it would never be upheld by the House. Bottom line, the

FL electors would stand, and Bush would be President. ...." AP 11/29/00 Linda Deutsch "......Vice President Al Gore authorized a new appeal to the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday, sending his legal team back to the site of one of his biggest legal victories, The Associated Press has learned. ....... The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Gore's lawyers in papers to be filed later Wednesday would ask the justices to do one of two things: - Supervise and direct the counting of ballots themselves. - Order a judge in Tallahassee to begin doing so immediately, overturning an earlier ruling. ......Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls on Tuesday refused to hear Gore's request on an expedited basis. Instead, he ordered a hearing for Saturday and ordered that disputed ballots from MiamiDade county be transferred to Tallahassee. ......" Freeper bayourod "..... The Florida Supreme Court (and lower courts) have already seen the writing on the wall and know that anything they do that would give Gore the election will just be nullified by the legislature. Gore is either mentally impaired or he has some plan that no one has been able to guess. His best hope is to get 3 electors to defect. Everything he is doing now will make that more difficult because he keeps losing legitimacy. Public Opinion is turning against him rapidly making it less probable that any Elector would risk trying to justify defection. ....." Freeper ontos-on ".......It is inconceivable that they would appeal this for the timing and other reasons. Why should he get cart before the horse. Gore himself was responsible for the fix he is in now, because if SoS was permitted to go ahead on schedule, then there would have been more time for their court challenges. ......... It was only because he wanted to gain politically by forestalling the certification and because he assumed he would win with the precertification recounts. But he lost that gamble. Indeed, his plan was to go into the lead by the extended pre-certification recount and then leave Bush with a time problem preventing him from challenging. ......,Also, another reason he wanted the precertification recounts to be delayed is that he wanted to know the number he needed AFTER the military overseas absentees were counted . He wnated to get his precertification recounts to be after the military recounts. WELL, IT DIDN'T WORK OUT DID IT AL. TOUGH $ HIT. ......" Freeper Howlin "....... The judge at the hearing today, Sauls, refused to give Boise a letter stating he had denied Gore remedy, AFTER Boise had already written into his pleading to the FSC that, in fact, the judge had denied the rememdy. Boise is going to be hard pressed to get this in front of the FSC without that letter! ......" Freeper Big Ezy "........ Because of slick lawyering on the Bush side any chance of going to the FSC on an appeal to start the count was blocked in it's tracks. Boise was beaten like a drum when the Bush attorney informed the Leon County Judge that this was a move to get him to deny thier request for a count ASAP. The Bush attorney told the Judge that he had NEVER denied thier motion but had made a scheduling move. Boise stood up and said no your honor that's not the truth we're not threatening the Court or trying to pull anything on the Court. ....... The Bush attorney then stood up and read Gore's motion for appeal where Boise had asked for relief due to the Judge DENYING them relief. He told the Judge that if he denied this motion they we set to appeal. The Judge said well we'll see you all on Saturday as scheduled. Bosie was blown out of the water and caught lying again to a Judge. Now we see why they call the Bush attorneys the "Boise Killers" they have never been beat by him. LOL. ....." Freeper winstonchurchill "....... Very, very important point. As Prof. Elhauge of Harvard speaking to the FL Senate yesterday made clear, they must get ALL of the "contests" (he repeatedly described all the litigation as "contests" for this purpose) finally resolved BEFORE December 12 OR the Congress can consider the "conclusivity" of the selection of the electors. ......... Even if the "contests" are "resolved finally" between December 12 and December 18, it does not revive the "conclusivity" retroactively. Thus, the FL Legislature must appoint a slate before midnight Monday December 11 to insure the votes are cast for W without wrestling through the Congress. Complicated but critical. While I don't think a lot of most Harvard Law professors, the Legislature certainly found the right one in Elhauge. ......" Freeper Stefan Stackhouse ".......My theory: Judge Sauls already has in mind what he is going to do. He is going to bring in some expert statisticians, and do a random sample of the whole set of ballots. A sample of 1% should do just fine, and will only take a day or two to pull and examine. This is why he needs the whole set of ballots, and not just the undervotes. The sample results will then be compared against the machine count, and by statistical inference the court will be able to adjudicate whether or not a ballot-byballot hand count of all the "undervote" ballots are really needed. There are case law precedents for such a procedure, by the way. Even with this streamlined process, however, the issue is still going to be not so much WHAT to count, but rather HOW to count. Whether 100 or 10,000 undervotes are counted matters very little in comparison to the

issue of how they will be interpreted by the counters. I think that Judge Sauls clearly understands that this is at the very crux of the matter, and that he is entirely right and proper to reign Boies and his gang in until this crucial matter of law is decided. I furthermore suspect that this crucial issue of law will in turn revolve around one very crucial issue of fact: how can it be that a ballot registering unambiguous votes for other offices would register an undervote ONLY for the office of President? And why should there be SO MANY uncervotes? And why should there be SO MANY ONLY to be inferred for Gore? Again, the testimony of expert statisticians will be crucial. Statistical theory would predict that the incidence of undervotes would occur randomly and in roughly equal proportions all across the ballot. It would also predict that the undervotes would split between parties in approximately the same proportion as the clearly registered votes. It would also predict that the incidence of undervotes as a percentage of total ballots cast would be approximately the same as that experienced by all other jurisdictions using similar voting systems. For this little exercise to be of any value to Gore, the actual situation must be different from what statistical theory would predict. But for this to be true, there must be some special cause to which this phenomenon can be attributed. This is why the judge specifically asked to have sample ballots and voting machines brought up. Boies and his crew must demonstrate with a preponderance of the evidence that the equipment itself caused: 1) an abnormal number of undervotes; 2) an abnormal number of undervotes in the presidential election; and 3) an abnormal of undervotes only for Gore. If they fail to do this, then expert statisticians on the Bush side should be able to infer that OTHER causes -- including fraud -- are the likely reason for the undervotes in question. That should give Judge Sauls everything he needs to dismiss the case outright, without even going through any ballot counts -- and to refer it to the relevant prosecutor's office. ......" NationalReview.com 11/29/00 "...... Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota will vote for George W. Bush if the presidential election goes to the House of Representatives in January, NRO has learned. "The judicial process should work itself out, but he would support Mr. Bush if the election went to the House," said Karen Krieg, Pomeroy's press secretary. ....." Freeper Howlin ".....Boies has NO ground to ask that. NONE whatsoever. You can't go ask the FSC to take a case because you don't like a judge's SCHEDULING. ....." Freeper erk "...... Here is what I think I heard: 1. Yesterday, Gore filed a motion to start counting right away. Sauls did not rule on that motion, but instead scheduled an evidence hearing for Saturday. 2. Today, Gore refiled basically the same motion, but just added the label "emergency". (This was the judge's characterization.) 3. This was the last item before the court today. Bush's lawyer stood and indicated (diplomatically) that "while I'm sure they faxed this over to us, this is the first I have seen it." 4. Upon a quick review of the document, the Bush lawyer said he thought the Gore team was trying to pull a fast one on the court. He then read directly from the Gore document that what they were attempting to do was have the judge admit that he had denied Gore's entire motion thereby leaving Gore no relief. 5. Bush lawyer argued that the judge had not denied relief but had only set a schedule. At that point, my connection failed (watching over the net), but I have gathered from others that Sauls refused to sign the order. The important points are as follows: Legal point: They have nothing to appeal, yet! PR point: They have announced to the world they are going back to the Florida Supreme Court, but they don't have anything to go back with! ......,: Freeper McGavin999 "......I think you're right. The Gore team made a serious mistake by trying to trick this judge. I learned a long time ago that these slow talking southerners are not slow thinking. They insulted him, and that's a pretty stupid thing to do. This guy may not be sophisticated like Boies, but he's smart and he is the JUDGE. ....." Freeper Howlin "....... '(he repeatedly described all the litigation as "contests" for this purpose) ' ....... The reason he says that if, regardless of what the Gore team thinks, this is NOT a contiuation of the recount.

This is a whole new ballgame. All bets are off. All counts are off. Anything now will have to be a NEW count, not an addition to what's there already. This is no longer about recounting ballots. This is, in fact, about Al Gore trying to overturn the election of a duly elected and certified president elect. ......" Freeper MississippiMan "......The bottom line, of course, is that Boies was dumb enough to mistake a Southern drawl for ignorance. That may really come back to haunt him. ....." Freeper Thumper1960 "........ Beck pointed out to the Judge what the Ghore team was up to. Boise smiled and looked all innocent..."Awww, Judge, we're not trying to screw you! Honest!" If Beck hadn't read, verbatim, from the Ghore appeal papers, perhaps the Judge might have accomodated Boise. Judge Sauls did not look very happy after he refused to sign the order that Boise wanted. ......" http://www.enterstageright.com/1200freepers.htm Linda A. Prussen-Razzano 11/27/00 "........ Senator Joseph Lieberman, Vice President Al Gore's running mate, publicly issued allegations that the Republican Party was bussing paid operatives to Florida for the expressed purpose of intimidating local election officials into stopping the manual recount. .......Not only is this approach pitiful, it reveals just how little they know about their "opposition." The rallies and protests I've seen on the television have all the hallmarks of a "FReep." FReep is a term coined several years ago by the registered users at FreeRepublic.com, a political action web-site for conservatives. The "Sore Loserman 2000" signs now peppering mainstream news casts were not compiled by the Republican Party. This ingenious phrase was coined by three registered users, "CPL Baum," "Registered," and "Mass Exodus." ........The now famous "Cops Cheer," heard in the background of Washington reporter's newscasts, originated in the weekly Washington, D.C. protests by, yet again, FreeRepublic. On their own time and their own dime, this loosely knit group of motivated citizens has been holding peaceful protests across the country for at least two years. If the Republican Party was actually paying protestors, as Senator Lieberman would have us believe, then "Angelwood" and several other "Freepers" have considerable back pay coming to them........" JW 11/29/00 ".......WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission was asked on Wednesday to investigate four major U.S. television networks for awarding Florida to Democrat Al Gore before the polls closed in the state on Election Day. Smithwick & Belendiuk, a small law firm that represents radio, television, telephone and other communications clients before the FCC, filed a five-page complaint against the ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox networks questioning whether they subverted the public interest in making their calls. Some U.S. lawmakers have said the announcement by the networks about Florida may have led some Americans to skip voting. "Something went wrong. Let's find out what that something is and let's fix it," Arthur Belendiuk, one of the firm's founders, told Reuters in an interview. "It may have been nothing more than an innocent mistake but you had all the major news organizations using one source for their information," he said. Belendiuk said the firm was making the complaint on its own behalf. ....." Daily Telegraph 11/29/00 Ben Fenton "......FROM his redoubt on Observatory Hill, Al Gore was scanning the horizon yesterday for signs of national outrage at the Florida vote-counting fiasco. An aide described Mr Gore as "a lost soul" who was increasingly absorbed in the struggle to pull his political future out of the fires of the 2000 presidential election. .......The Vice-President's multiple lawsuits in Florida were aimed at persuading the courts to order a recount by hand in two of the state's largest counties, the only way he can find enough votes to overturn George W Bush's decisive 537-vote margin. ....... Opinion polls released yesterday showed that a speech he made 60 hours ago, timed to last only five minutes and to end before the popular Monday night American football, had left the country split 49-49 on whether or not he should concede defeat. ....." Judicial Watch 11/29/00 "......Judicial Watch uncovered that Palm Beach County workers and volunteers recreated certain ballots which had been allegedly damaged during the machine count of the ballots. Other potential problem areas Judicial Watch found included the failure of Palm Beach officials to devise any standard for evaluating the disputed ballots, the failure of Palm Beach to reconcile vote totals throughout their various counts, chads taped onto ballots, ballots for a particular candidate mislabeled as ballots for another candidate, and the lack of certainty on the part of Palm Beach officials as to the number and location of the disputed ballots. ........" Newsmax 11/29/00 Jack Thompson "...... Fireworks went off late Wednesday afternoon in the Tallahassee, Fla., courtroom of Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls at the expense of Gore lead attorney David Boies. ...... Late this afternoon, Boies put in front of Sauls an order prepared by Boies saying that the judge had ordered the hand recount not to occur. Once the order was signed, Boies could then take an appeal of this issue to the Gore-friendly Florida Supreme Court. The law is that you can't take an appeal unless and until there is an order entered. No order, no appeal. .......... Sauls angrily told Boies, who persisted in asking for the order, that he wasn't signing any order until he decided what to do on the recount issue after the hearing, not before. ....."

Freeper worriedwell ".....You probably saw this, but.. from CNN: "Gore's legal team turned to Florida's First District Court of Appeals to secure permission to file "an original petition" with the state Supreme Court asking it to order the immediate counting of the disputed ballots. The appellate court failed to respond before the close of business Wednesday. A short time later, the state high court also closed for the day." ....." Freeper NocontrollingLegalAuthority "........ This Florida fiasco is not about legal rights. Gore is asserting false claims in a blizzard of lawsuits. He is abetting the use of false affidavits in his filings. He is asserting there are thousands of votes that were not counted- a charge he knows to be patently untrue. Of course this is a game, a dangerous game, but a game nevertheless. He has flooded Florida with so many lawsuits, his opponents do not have the lawyers to respond. This is the most irresponsible use of the court system in U.S. election history. In my view, Gore and his lawyers should be prosecuted for deliberately interfering with a lawful election. ......" Hardball 11/29/00 Freeper AJAY "....... Rush was wrong but so were a lot of the rest of us. In a crunch like we have right now, Chris shows his true colors. A couple of nights ago, I watched him on Charlie Rose's PBS program and this was a very different Chris Matthews. Like a chameleon, he blended perfectly with the exteme liberal bias of the Charlie Rose crowd. Gore was a hero because he was so tough--wouldn't we all want him to play hardball for us with foreign leaders? Chris's admiration for Gore was matched only by his contempt for a weak George W, who looked like a deer in the headlights (yes, the same ridicule they heap on Dan Quayle--never mentioning how Quayle whipped Gore in their 1992 debate). ............This afternoon (to be repeated some time(s) tonight), on MSNBC, Hardball's guests were black jounalist Clarence Page, Ms. Vanden Heuvel (editor of the far-far left "Nation"), and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. These all are Clinton-Gore suck-ups with the possible exception of Vanden Heuvel who thinks Clinton and Gore are rightwing conservatives. They were discussing minority voting in Florida and showing on the screen a rather unimpressive difference demonstrating that blacks were more likely to vote on punchcards than whites in that state. Not only did Chris start playing the race card for Gore but he was pressing his guests to play it even harder. They hardly needed encouragement to support his demagoguery and they all kept raising the stakes on Chris' race card. It absolutely was shameless. ......The one good thing about this attempted coup detat is that it gets us all to see each other's true colors. I have to admit that Chris took me in just as he did Rush Limbugh, who has been pushing Matthews' program lately. I have seen the "real" Chris Matthews and he never again will be the same fair commentator for me. I now only hold him in contempt. ...." Freeper Benrand "...... Yeah, I saw that too...the reason 60% of blacks used older machines is because whites took the money out of the cities. Classic Marxist bullsh*t. He knows better. ...." AP 11/29/00 David Royse "......Florida's House speaker said Wednesday he is convinced the Republican-led Legislature needs to go into special session as early as next week to name its own slate of presidential electors. ``I don't believe there's an option at this point and I'm prepared to go,'' said Feeney, who along with the Senate president has the power to call a special session. ``I'm standing on the playing field ready to put my helmet on.'' ........ Democrat Al Gore strongly disagreed with the idea, casting the Legislature's potential move as a usurpation of citizens' voting rights. ......." AP 11/29/00 Alan Fram ".......Some congressional Democrats are worried that Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) is losing his public relations battle against Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites) as the two rivals grapple for political advantage in their 22-day-old fight for the White House. ....... ``When you're insisting on every vote counting, you have to start doing a better job saying that that means the military vote, too,'' Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, a leader of the House's conservative Democrats, said Wednesday. ``We're getting killed on that one. The facts are different.'' ......Gore ``is miserably losing the PR war,'' said Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., another conservative. ......." Yahoo! Asia-News 11/30/00 AFP "..... Republican lawyers Wednesday suggested that a Florida court put Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in the witness stand in a case asking for thousands of absentee ballots to be thrown out. No immediate decision was taken on the suggestion, which the plaintiffs in the case strongly rejected. "This is an attempt to confuse and complicate issues," said Gerald Richmond, the lead lawyer for the voters who filed the case...........Also Wednesday, the Florida Appeals Court denied an appeal by Bush lawyers of Circuit Judge Nikki Clark's rejection of a request to join the case with the contests heard by another judge. The Bush camp said it was concerned there could be contradictory rulings from the two courts. Bush was declared the winner of the decisive Florida election, with a 537-vote lead over his rival, but the Democrats argue that a proper count would put Gore in the lead......." Freeper truthkeeper "....I heard Barry Richard say today they're involved in 42 lawsuits. ...."

Freeper report "..... Election-law expert Burt Odelson of Oak Lawn, a partner at Odelson & Sterk of Evergreen Park, spent several days last week monitoring the ballot recount in two Florida counties as a consultant to George W. Bush's legal team. Bush's advisers are relying on Odelson's expertise from a precedent-setting 1990 Illinois Supreme Court case in which Odelson was involved. In the case - which Odelson said the Florida Supreme Court misinterpreted - the judge who was ordered to recount about a dozen ballots ruled that dimpled chads should not always be counted. Odelson was called in to explain the ruling to judges in Palm Beach County, who then applied it to the recount there. Odelson represents nearly a dozen Southland government bodies. Other clients include state Senate President James "Pate" Philip (R-Wood Dale) and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Following is his take on the developments in Florida: ......... Q: You got involved in the Florida recount because of your experience with a 1990 election case in Illinois. You represented now-state Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R-Des Plaines)? A: It was Penny Pullen v. Rosemary Mulligan. Pullen (who lost by 31 votes) took the case to the Illinois Supreme Court, which ordered a hand recount. Judge Francis Barth set the standard. He discarded 19 ballots because he could not reasonably ascertain the voters' intent by viewing the totality of the ballot. The ones he threw out are exactly the types of ballots being counted in Broward County. Q: If there's any slight indentation, they're counting those ballots in Florida? A: Not in West Palm Beach. I spoke privately with the judge there, and we went over the Pullen v. Mulligan decision, and he ruled in accordance with that. Q: Was the Florida Supreme Court wrong to allow the recount to continue? A: I think they were wrong. They should have allowed (Florida Secretary of State) Katherine Harris to certify the vote. Not only had (the canvassing boards) already counted all the votes, they counted ghost ballots. Q: How do you know this? A: I sat there. I saw it. Q: That's a pretty serious accusation. A: It's the truth. It's not an accusation. The election judge (in Broward County) would hold up a ballot and both myself and Gov. John Engler (R-Mich.) would look at it. The commissioner, who was a Democratic committeewoman, would literally glance at it and say, 'Gore.' They were all for Gore, according to her. Q: So the chad wasn't punched at all? A: Maybe barely, in the best-case scenario. Q: The voter, then, could have been making a choice not to vote in the presidential race? A: That's what it was. People are so shocked that people didn't vote for president. It happens in every election. Q: So why didn't you object? A: Broward didn't let us object. Q: You just sat there? A: And had to take it. I only took it for an hour, and I told Gov. Engler, 'I can't take this. I'm going to get arrested and get thrown in jail.' Q: And how many ballots passed through like that? A: 200

Q: And this was happening in all these counties? A: Just Broward. In West Palm, they were doing it right. If you look at the numbers, you can tell they were doing it right. In Palm Beach County, Gore picked up a net gain of 180 votes out of 14,500. In Broward, Gore picked up 580 out of 1,500. Q: How do you know that didn't happen in favor of Bush, too? A: They didn't hand-count in (Republican) counties, and it didn't happen in West Palm Beach because I saw it. Q: Don't you think Gore has the right to be extra cautious, considering Florida is Jeb Bush's state? A: No. If it was my state, I would have involved myself even more (than Jeb Bush has). Q: Should dented chads be counted? A: Only if the whole ballot is like that because no one could possibly know what a voter was thinking when they were in the voting booth. ..... Q: Is the U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Friday going to be the deciding factor? A: Legally, it could continue on. Politically, if the court does what I think they're going to do, Gore will have a really hard time because I think the Bush people will win again. Q: The U.S. Supreme Court specifically will rule on what? A: They're going to look at whether the Florida Supreme Court intruded into the legislative branch. The Florida Supreme Court had ruled that Harris did not have the discretion to certify the vote (before all the hand recounts were finished). I think the court is going to say she does have the discretion. Q: And what's best-case scenario for Gore? A: That the court says, 'We really don't have authority here. The Florida Supreme Court was right and there should be hand counts.' Q: Has integrity been lost in this process? A: 100 percent. I believe the U.S. Supreme Court will be nonpartisan, but it would be naive to think the Florida Supreme Court was. CNN Larry King Live 11/29/00 Freeper nutmeg "...... As Howard Feinman (sp?) from Newsweek has stated, we are on the verge of "tipping" public opinion to (supporting) Bush. He said that once popular opinion approaches 66% for Gore to concede, it's absolutely over. With Colin Powell in the picture and JOHN McCAIN (FINALLY) calling for the end of this endless litigation (tonight on Larry King Live), it may have been tipped as of 9:30 EST tonight! As Senator McCain just stated to Larry King, "The worst kept secret in the United States has been Colin Powell as Sec'y of State!" ....." AP 11/29/00 Tom Raum "......Retired Gen. Colin Powell prepared to join George W. Bush at his Texas ranch, where Bush worked to assemble a national security team that he could announce as early as next week. Powell was expected to get the job of secretary of state if Bush overcomes court challenges to his presidency. The retired general has told associates that he would accept the post if Bush asked him to serve. ....... The Bush high command on Wednesday courted top members of Congress, hoping to lay the groundwork for bipartisan legislative cooperation after the achingly close national election. ....... Vice presidential running mate Dick Cheney, meanwhile, announced the opening of a Bush transition office in the Washington suburb of McLean, Va. ...The office is being financed by private contributions because the Bush campaign was denied federal office space and $5.3 million in taxpayer funds earmarked for the presidential transition. The General Services Administration held off from releasing the space and the money because Democrat Al Gore's court challenges remain unresolved. The Bush campaign plans to raise $3.5 million in contributions of no more than $5,000 to pay for the transition. ....." AP 11/29/00 Tom Raum "......Other lawmakers have suggested that Bush commit himself to work for quick bipartisan deals on issues that appeal to both parties, including prescription drug coverage for the elderly, and scaling back his divisive proposal for a massive tax cut. Aides said Bush recently spoke with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. .......Laura Nichols, a spokeswoman for House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri, said that Bush had not

approached Gephardt but he would be ''willing to meet with whoever the president is.'' .......Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush would wait a while before calling Democrats directly, noting that most Democrats were currently lined up in support of Gore's challenges. However, Fleischer said Bush did place a call to Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., although he was having difficulty reaching him. ......." WTTK Radio 11/29/00 Freepr pabianice "...... Here we go. Jay Severin on WTTK radio in Boston has made two predictions: 1. Janet Reno is about to seize control of the FL election on the grounds that black FL voters were denied the right to vote because voting machines in black neighborhoods don't work as well as those in white neighborhoods. 2. The judge in the Seminole County dispute is about to throw-out all the absentee ballots that were returned with applications that had been numbered by precinct workers, in violation of FL law. This will net Gore 4,000+ votes. I hope he is wrong on both counts. ....." Freeper Revel ".....This was posted by Sandy last night. I hope the republicans have this because it is case law that completly takes away any threat to GW. Beckstrom v. Volusia County Canvassing Board: a trial court's factual determination that a contested certified election reliably reflects the will of the voters outweighs the court's determination of unintentional wrongdoing by election officials in order to allow the real parties in interest--the voters--to prevail. By unintentional wrongdoing, we mean noncompliance with statutorily mandated election procedures in situations in which the noncompliance results from incompetence, lack of care, or, as we find occurred in this election, the election officials' erroneous understanding of the statutory requirements. In sum, we hold that even in a situation in which a trial court finds substantial noncompliance caused by unintentional wrongdoing as we have defined it, the court is to void the election only if it finds that the substantial noncompliance resulted in doubt as to whether a certified election reflected the will of the voters. ...." SHELBY OPPEL 11/29/00 St. Petersburg Times "....... The Rev. Jesse Jackson had hoped to lead hundreds of marching college students to the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to protest Florida's presidential election. But a more routine commitment -- final exams -- kept the crowd small at a "prayer vigil" on the courthouse lawn. ..... So Jackson, with members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Florida lawmakers, repeated their demand for a federal investigation into voting irregularities in Florida's minority communities to about 200 people, about half of whom were journalists. ....." AP 11/29/00 Jane Sutton ".....Miami-Dade County's police SWAT team -- the specially trained and heavily armed squad called out in gunfights and hostage battles -- will drive the county's disputed presidential ballots to Florida's capital, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. A judge ordered some 14,000 disputed ballots from heavily Democratic Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties sent to Tallahassee by noon on Friday so they would be secure and ready if they needed to be counted or examined as part of Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites)'s court challenge of Florida's election results......" NY Times 11/30/00 David Firestone "......Lawyers for Vice President Al Gore said today that their only chance for victory in his contest of the Florida election would be shattered if they have to wait until Saturday to begin counting disputed ballots, and they began an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court to do the counting itself, immediately. The appeal was filed with the District Court of Appeal late this afternoon and will be submitted to the state's highest court early Thursday, Mr. Gore's lawyers said. ......... It essentially asks the Supreme Court to take over Mr. Gore's contest lawsuit from the deliberate-moving trial court, to count the ballots itself, and eventually to declare Mr. Gore the winner if he wins the recount. .........But lawyers for Gov. George W. Bush said they had no intention of allowing any hand counting to begin without a vigorous legal fight. To that end, they persuaded Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court to order 1.1 million ballots - every vote cast in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties - brought up from South Florida and placed in the court's custody. ......"We did it to make a point," Mr. Richard said in an interview. "If you recount any ballots, you have to recount all of them. Now we don't think any ballots should be counted, because the manual recount of ballots is finished. But in the event the court determines that some ballots should be counted, we wanted them here so they could all be counted." ......" NY Times 11/30/00 David Firestone "...... The decision by Mr. Gore's lawyers to appeal the case shows how perilous their situation is. By appealing, the lawyers were forced to put on paper their fear that their case could be over if they cannot begin counting ballots until Saturday. ........ The decision to wait until a Saturday hearing "is effectively a final order denying all relief sought by plaintiffs because the action now pending below must be completed before Dec. 12, 2000, in order to offer any relief," said the notice filed with the

Court of Appeal. ..... But the decision to bring up all the ballots means that they will not be assembled in Tallahassee until late Friday, a day later than planned. And even then, the hurdles are enormous. There will have to be another hearing before the Florida Supreme Court, and Mr. Gore's lawyers will have to refute three arguments to be raised by the Bush team: There should be no more counting at all; if there is any counting, it will have to include all 1.16 million ballots; and if there is any counting of disputed ballots, dimples cannot be counted as votes. ......." NY Times 11/30/00 David Firestone "...... If these issues are heard before Judge Sauls, there will have to be briefs, witnesses and evidence on each point, which could take days. If the Supreme Court agrees to shortcircuit the process, there will still have to be lengthy briefs filed, and the court may need to wait several days before finding time for yet another momentous hearing in its schedule. ....... The request for all 1.1 million ballots was a dramatic example of the many ways in which the Bush legal team can use the built-in safeguards and procedural cul-de-sacs of the law to its advantage in the contest phase of the election. The nation's legal system was built for fairness, not speed, and its infrastructure is simply not designed for the warp drive requested by Mr. Gore. ......" MSNBC 11/29/00 Freeper abigkahuna "....... Tonight on Hardball, Pat Cadell was tearing into a nattering babob from American University. DUring the back and forth, Cadell slamming his hands on the table in frustration began yelling that "I was a democrat.." What is happening in Florida is theft... Cadell is truly disgusted with the democrat party. I think tonight he was trying to renounce his affliation with the party of his birth. It must pain him so. Cadell sees the thuggery, the unbridled grab for power. THe democrat party is no longer his...Just as it no longer represents much of this country's morals or sense of fair play. And what we are witnessing is the destruction of a once grand party. Yes, the democrats and republicans could frustrate each other to no end in regards to forging policy, but in the end we were all Americans. Today? This once powerful and influential political force, the democrat party, no longer represents America or her virtues. To paraphrase Cong. Jerry Nadler, the "wiff of satanism is in the air." ....." Orlando Sentinel 11/30/00 David Cox "....Gov. Jeb Bush stepped back into the political spotlight Wednesday and reasserted himself as a player in the presidential contest between his brother, George W. Bush, and Al Gore. Since Election Day on Nov. 7, Bush has kept a low profile as the Texas governor and the vice president clashed over who really got the most votes in Florida. Three weeks ago, Bush removed himself from the panel that certifies Florida`s official election results and virtually went into hiding. But on Wednesday, surrounded by reporters after a state Cabinet meeting, the Republican governor spoke up: He`s "not opposed" to signing legislation that the Republican-controlled Legislature wants to pass to award Florida`s 25 electoral votes to his brother, despite Gore`s legal challenges to the vote count. ....." Orlando Sentinel 11/29/00 Kevin Connolly rene Stutzman Robert Perez "......A lawsuit accuses Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Sandy Goard of voter fraud, a felony that could send her to prison for five years. But is she likely to be prosecuted? No, say prosecutors and legal experts. And at this point, it doesn`t appear as if anyone wants her prosecuted. ........ Jonathan Abady, one of the attorneys suing her, says the goal is not to send Goard to prison. It`s to repair the damage done, he claims. The suit asks that all 15,000 Seminole absentee ballots be thrown out. ...... Chris White, chief of operations at the State Attorney`s Office in Seminole, said Tuesday that a criminal complaint has not been filed against Goard, and based on his reading of the law, he`s not sure what law she broke. ...... Goard`s attorney, Donna McIntosh, called the allegations "outrageous and unfounded." ...... The suit, filed Nov. 17 by Longwood Democrat Harry Jacobs, accuses her of allowing a GOP employee and a GOP volunteer to work out of her office for several days, correcting absentee-ballot request forms. ....... " Orlando Sentinel 11/29/00 Gwyneth Shaw "......Three legal experts testified Tuesday that the danger of Florida not being represented in the Electoral College next month is great enough that the Legislature should plan immediately for an unprecedented special session to appoint members. ....... Given the current situation -- with Vice President Al Gore challenging Florida`s Nov. 7 presidential election and the deadline for selecting electors looming in 14 days -- it`s likely that lawmakers will have to step in, they said. ...... "It would be prudent for the Legislature to start the machinery of lawmaking now so it can be prepared should the litigation go on and bring up the possibility that the electors are not in place on Dec. 12," said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. .....Yoo, a former clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, said the power conferred to the Legislature bars any other branch of state government from getting involved. That means lawmakers could pick the slate of electors without Gov. Jeb Bush having to sign a bill into law, he said. ......" AP via TBO 11/29/00 ".....Tensions were high and media glare already fixed on the Stephen P. Clark Government Center as disputed voter ballots were being packed up for police transport up the state. ......

Amid that hubbub, the well respected, longtime county manager unexpectedly announced his retirement. Then things really got hectic. ..... Police swarmed into the building, a high-rise headquarters of Miami-Dade County's elected officials, and no one seemed to know why. ........ "I have no thoughts at this time," said Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas when asked about the horde of police, which wasn't part of the ballotprotection detail. ........ Soon word began to spread that Miami-Dade County Commissioner Pedro Reboredo's office was being cleaned out. ...... State Attorney's Office spokesman Don Ungurait said later that Reboredo hadn't been arrested, but that "during the course of this process he's come and given a voluntary statement." ......."I can confirm there's an active investigation being worked by our public corruption units and Miami-Dade Police's public corruption unit," Ungurait said. ......He declined to comment on whether Reboredo was a target, and did not provide any details on the investigators' activities Wednesday at the government center. ..............." MSNBC 11/29/00 Freeper tame "..... This afternoon MSNBC reported that the Judge in the Seminole County, Florida Case, Nikki Clark, was turned down for an Appellate Judgeship by Jeb Bush in the past. Ms. Clark is an Afro-American Democrat. The Seminole County case could be the biggest problem for George W. Bush since the case brought by a private citizen, if sustained, could theoretically result in thousands of ballots cast for Bush to be thrown out. ......" Freeper 11th_VA on Nightline "..... Gore is on everyday, to encourage his supporters, he's still alive, but everytime a court rules against him - another nail in the coffin (so to speak). Interesting, they note, Germany, France, and England have pulled most reporters since Bush certified ... very little news abroad about Gore now ... " Freeper Tashara adds "......FREEP Nightline's email - they are saying that they are getting swamped with emails and showed the computer screen. they said they are getting "many" pro Gore emails, but "many more" calling for goreon to concede. That means 2 for gore, and 20,000 for Bush most likely. They said that Gore still thinks his campaign is still going on. ......" Freeper Tashara "..... LOL, Ted is interviewing international media, asking if the story is still making news none of them even printed the story today, hahahahha. Ever since Bush was certified in Florida, international news lost interest. They say they will be looking at Friday's story with the Supreme court. The sense they say is that Gore will not make it. They don't understand why this election process is taking such a long time. It is too complicated for themto explain to their readers at this point - another reason they are losing interest. ....." AP 11/29/00 "......Martin County election officials allowed Florida Republican Party workers to remove and correct incomplete absentee ballot applications from GOP voters that would have been rejected otherwise. Supervisor of Elections Peggy Robbins, a Republican, said she does not believe her staff violated any law or acted improperly in the weeks before the Nov. 7 election. She said the only applications the Republicans were allowed to complete were ones the party had provided its members. ......... A similar incident in Seminole County has resulted in a lawsuit by a Democratic lawyer, who says election officials violated a state law that says only the voter, an immediate family member or a guardian can fill out an absentee ballot application. ...... " ABCNews 11/29/00 ".......George W. Bush is not referring to himself as the president-elect yet, but the Texas governor is forging ahead with his transition plans, setting up an office and reaching out to retired Gen. Colin Powell....... At a news conference in Washington this afternoon, Dick Cheney, Bush's running mate and the head of the Republican candidate's transition efforts, confirmed the campaign has opened transition headquaretrs in McLean, Va., and has named more staff. Cheney also said that Powell, often rumored to be a candidate for secretary of state in a potential Bush administration, would accompany him on a visit to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, for transition talks on Thursday....... In the last two days, Gore has also made a show of his transition efforts. This afternoon the vice president had lunch in the Old Executive Office Building with his running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut; his transition director, Roy Neel; Labor Secretary Alexis Herman; and environmental advisor Katy McGinty....... Herman and McGinty have been suggested as possible members of a Gore Cabinet...... Cheney added he would begin taking the Clinton administration's daily national security briefing at the transition headquarters in McLean.......... Tuesday, White House spokesman Jake Siewert confirmed that National Security Adviser Samuel Berger has contacted Bush foreign-policy adviser Condoleezza Rice, trying to arrange for the Bush team to receive daily briefings from the CIA - the same updates Gore is given as part of his vice-presidential duties........" ABCNews 11/29/00 ".......Meanwhile, speculation continues to swirl about Bush's possible Cabinet appointments. Besides Powell, names being discussed are Rice as national security adviser, Montana Gov. Marc Racicot and Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating as attorney general and Bush campaign chairman Don Evans as

and Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating as attorney general and Bush campaign chairman Don Evans as commerce secretary. Former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia has been mentioned as a possible secretary of defense, but has said he would not want to be part of a Bush cabinet.......... Today Cheney, asked if Bush might be relying too heavily on holdovers from the administration of his father, President George Bush, said he did not "see anything inconsistent with asking people who have got experience at the federal level, as well as other levels.".......Cheney was President Bush's defense secretary, while Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush. Gail Wilensky, a key health adviser to President Bush, has been mentioned as a possible health and human services secretary. ....." ABCNews 11/29/00 "...... With ties to both the Republican and Democratic parties, Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls seemingly has not shown preferential treatment to either in his handling of Al Gore's legal challenge of the outcome of the presidential election in Florida....... A registered Democrat who was appointed to the bench by a Republican governor, Sauls, in fact, even said he was going to make both sides unhappy with his rulings...... Today, just before appearing in court before Sauls, Gore's lawyers said they would appeal his ruling to the Florida Supreme Court and try to get the judge to hear the case faster. Later they filed the appeal. During the hearing, Bush's lawyers accused the Gore camp of "threatening the court" with their announcement of an appeal. Sauls, in a plainspoken style that has become a trademark to his observers, said, "Even if [they] were, it wouldn't bother me."......... Today and Tuesday, he repeatedly sparked laughter in the courtroom, at one point jokingly asking how many trucks would be needed to carry a million ballots to his courtroom - as he ordered at the requested of the Bush team. On Tuesday, he demanded that attorneys agree on something, at least: "We could count until everybody is slaphappy, but if no one is on the same page, I don't know what's being accomplished." ......" CNN 11/29/00 "......The Gore legal team went first to the First District Court of Appeals to secure permission to file "an original petition" with the state Supreme Court asking it to order the immediate counting of the disputed ballots. .............. On Wednesday, Gore campaign attorney David Boies pressed the judge for a written order reflecting what Boies believed the court did Tuesday, which was that by denying the immediate recount, the judge denied them any relief. Boies wanted that in writing to aid his appeal, but George W. Bush's legal team objected, saying the judge was still considering the request. ...... Sauls denied the Democrat's request, saying he couldn't count what he didn't yet have and Saturday's hearing could determine if there would be any recounts. ...... Sauls did grant the Bush team's request that all Miami-Dade and Palm Beach ballots -- about 1 million -- be moved to Tallahassee in advance of a Saturday hearing. Gore's team tried to get the roughly 14,000 disputed ballots sent earlier, but county officials said it would be easier to ship them all together. ......The judge also granted a GOP request to have both Republican and Democratic observers ride in a car that is part of the caravan bringing the votes to the state capital Friday evening. One county official said he would be happy to put those observers in a police car, and he joked that he would provide handcuffs as well. ...... " CNN 11/29/00 "......Roughly 462,000 ballots were cast in Palm Beach County and 654,000 in Miami-Dade County. Counting the more than 1 million ballots would take days. .......Sauls may or may not order the disputed Palm Beach and Miami-Dade ballots recounted. CNN learned from a Gore campaign source that Democrats will not wait for him to make a decision later this week. Instead, attorneys will take the case to an appellate court, hoping to speed up the process. A related appeal is being filed with the Florida Supreme Court as well. ....." CNN 11/29/00 "...... Meanwhile, Gore gained 188 more votes than Bush in the manual recount of Palm Beach County ballots completed last Sunday but not included in the certified statewide vote, election officials reported Wednesday. Gore got 515 new votes in the recount, compared with 327 for Bush. ......" CNN 11/29/00 "...... A lawsuit challenging some Seminole County ballots will go to trial on December 6. A Democratic activist has accused Republicans of tampering with absentee ballot applications and is seeking to have more than 15,000 absentee ballots thrown out. If that case is successful, it would cost Bush about 4,800 votes. The trial will be held in Leon County, where Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark on Tuesday set the December 6 date. Attorneys for the Republican side want to take a deposition from Gore because they think the vice president's campaign is behind the suit. ......" CNN 11/29/00 "......The approximately 14,000 ballots in question showed no vote for president when they were tallied by machine, either on Election Day or in a statewide machine recount. The Gore campaign says the ballots never have been counted; Bush partisans argue they contained no valid vote for president. ......" CNN 11/29/00 "...... In Baltimore, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said Wednesday that the nation's largest civil rights organization plans to sue over alleged voting irregularities in Florida. Mfume said the NAACP will sue the state and several counties, seeking unspecified relief. The NAACP also is asking local chapters to hold hearings into whether voting irregularities occurred in other states. ....."

CNN 11/29/00 "...... Police in Miami-Dade County said an elaborate process was under way Wednesday to get more than 10,000 disputed ballots ready for transfer to the Leon County courthouse in Tallahassee. Detective Patrick Brickman said election officials were conducting a ballot inventory in the presence of Democratic and Republican observers......" CNN 11/29/00 "...... The Florida Supreme Court has yet to decide whether it will consider Palm Beach County's butterfly ballot controversy. The state's highest court extended until Wednesday afternoon the deadline for submitting written arguments in the case. Thousands of Democratic voters claim they were confused by the format and voted for the wrong candidate. They seek a countywide revote. ........" CNN 11/29/00 "...... Gore plans to meet Wednesday with Roy Neel, the head of his transition team, to prepare for a possible administration. Lieberman plans to join the discussion in Washington. Bush has begun naming staff to help him prepare to take power and intends to raise private funds to proceed... Cheney says that if the Republican ticket was in Gore's shoes, it would have conceded by now. "If I were in his position, that's what I'd do," Cheney told CNN's Larry King Live. "We really think it's time to get on with the business of governing," Cheney said in the Tuesday night interview. ....." Wall Street Journal 11/29/00 Daniel Lowenstein "....... Most of the Florida election lawsuits involve difficult issues with legitimate arguments on both sides. A glaring exception is the suit brought by Harry Jacobs, a personal-injury lawyer, seeking to invalidate 15,000 absentee ballots cast in Seminole County. ....... The press has taken the case seriously, and perhaps it should, since a victory for Mr. Jacobs would hand the election to Al Gore. But unless Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts is presiding, no court should take the case seriously. ...... The controversy centers on Florida's requirement that applications for absentee ballots contain voter identification numbers. Both parties sent out many applications with these numbers already filled in by computer. But software error caused the omission of numbers from some sent out by the Republicans. In some counties, the election officials themselves filled in the numbers. In Seminole, they declined to do so. However, they permitted Republican workers to fill in the numbers, sitting in the county election offices--without supervision. ........." Wall Street Journal 11/29/00 Daniel Lowenstein "....... Now Mr. Jacobs asks a court to throw out these votes. But what could justify disqualifying--"disenfranchising," to use the word fashionable in election disputes-voters because of an arguably wrong decision by the election supervisor? ...... But that is not the extent of the suit. There is no way to separate the 5,000 ballots whose applications were handled by Republican workers from the other 10,000 absentee ballots cast in Seminole. So Mr. Jacobs proposes disregarding votes cast by people who were not only innocent but who had no connection whatever with the problematic applications. .......... The Alabama case involved failure to comply with the requirements for a lawful ballot. In Seminole, no ballot irregularity is alleged. The problem relates only to the application. Ordinarily, irregularities with applications that are far more serious than Seminole should have no effect, so long as the voter is eligible to vote and the ballot itself complies with legal requirements. ......There is one close question in the Seminole case. Should Mr. Jacobs, an attorney and officer of the court, be disciplined for bringing a frivolous lawsuit? ....." Union Leader 11/30/00 Robert Novak "...... "WE'RE SCREWED," bemoaned one of Al Gore's political lieutenants when he learned last week that the United States Supreme Court had accepted the Florida recount case (though he used stronger language than that). ......... Gore's lawyers never expected the Supreme Court to enter the case. Since it did, they have doggedly pursued election contests in a Tallahassee courtroom and publicly expressed confidence in the Supreme Court's ultimate decision. Privately, however, Gore's politicians doubt that the court would accept George W. Bush's appeal only to rule against him in behalf of the Florida Supreme Court........What's more, they know that if the United States court overrules the Florida court, Gov. Bush's 950-vote lead in Florida as of Nov. 14 would be frozen as final. The Broward County recount's gain of 567 votes for Gore would be wiped away. Democratic contests in three other counties would become moot, if the court rules out the manual recounts. So would other myriad judicial proceedings. "It would be over," one Gore official told me, asking that his name not be used........... " Union Leader 11/30/00 Robert Novak "...... Enter Anthony Kennedy. As President Ronald Reagan's last nomination to the Supreme Court, he substituted for the rejected Robert Bork but was thought by many backers to be even more conservative. ......As I reported in 1992, Kennedy's astounding flip on abortion was widely attributed to the influence on him by constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe. The supposedly conservative jurist and the liberal Harvard law professor became friends and Tribe talked Kennedy into hiring a former student as his law clerk. Now, not surprisingly, Tribe is a prominent soldier in the army of lawyers trying to win the Presidency for Gore. Nevertheless, experienced conservative court-watchers are confident that Kennedy will swing right this time. ...... Moreover, nobody with a vestige of conservative legal values would find it easy to support the Florida

Supreme Court's order barring Secretary of State Katherine Harris from certifying the Bush vote. ......" Union Leader 11/30/00 Robert Novak "...... That was not comprehended by David Boies, the famous trial lawyer heading Gore's legal team, when he advised Gore that the Supreme Court would not take the case. Bush found at least four justices who believe sufficiently in judicial restraint that they place rules over the activist Florida Supreme Court's quest for "justice." A majority of the Supreme Court, including Kennedy, figure to follow the federal statute requiring that voting regulations be set before the election. Some courtwatchers suspect that even apostate Republican Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter could decide to overturn. ........ This is difficult to understand for Boies, who predicts the Supreme Court will back the Florida court just as confidently as he forecast that it would not take the case. ........ A Presidential candidate personally attacking an individual Supreme Court justice is without precedent, but all year long Gore has battered Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. ...." The Associated Press 11/29/00 Matthew Daly ".....GThe state Elections Enforcement Commission will look into possible fraud involving paper ballots used by thousands of people to vote for president Jeffrey Garfield, the panel's executive director, said Wednesday an investigation is needed to "ensure that Connecticut voters have the same high confidence in votes cast by presidential ballot" as they do in votes cast by traditional voting machines. The special ballot allowed about 35,000 unregistered voters, or voters who had recently moved from the town where they were registered, to vote only for president. ........ ....." Washington Post 11/30/00 Ceci Connolly Juliet Eilperin ".....Using the tools of modern technology, they are targeting Gore through talk radio, street protests and his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill. In blunt, often brutal language reminiscent of the rhetoric aimed at President Clinton during his impeachment and trial, Gore is portrayed as a win-at-any-cost sore loser with a penchant for lying and a death wish for his party........."He LOST already! Why can't he understand?" blares a message on the Web site Freerepublic.com. The conservative site, which backed such anti-Clinton figures as Linda R. Tripp and Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), is organizing protests, hosting online chats and selling "Gore Loserman" Tshirts......." Washington Times 11/30/00 George Archibald "......House Republican leaders have called President Clinton's transition manager to a congressional hearing to defend his denial of $5.3 million in presidential transition funds to the Bush-Cheney team since Florida's vote certification. General Services Administrator David J. Barram has refused to release the funds appropriated by Congress until Vice President Al Gore has exhausted his legal challenges to the Florida outcome, which pushed Republican George W. Bush over the needed 270 electoral votes to become president Jan. 20........ "While it was perhaps justified to withhold these funds pending the outcome of the Florida election, the Florida election results were certified on Nov. 26, with Gov. George W. Bush being declared the winner," the Republican chairmen of the House Appropriations and Government Reform subcommittees told Mr. Barram in a letter Tuesday. "The committees believe the transition funds should be released immediately," Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the Appropriations panel chairman, and Rep. Steve Horn of California, the government reform subcommittee chairman, wrote in their letter to Mr. Barram. They said the GSA administrator's continuing refusal to finance the government changeover "jeopardizes the ability of the president-elect to implement an effective transition" and may violate the law......" ABQ KOB-TV4 11/29/00 Freeper CedarDave ".....Well, it's starting again in NM. The 10 P.M. news said that Bush has picked up about 150 votes in Roosevelt County as a result of a hand recount of some ballots. The reason is thought to be errors in programing the voting machines, similar to those found several weeks ago in Bernalillo County (no vote for president when straight party ticket picked). There are at least five other heavily Republican counties that used the same machines and may be similarly affected. Since Gore is ahead by only 486 votes, this could definitely affect the final outcome. The RATS are claiming foul: "Why do Republicans support hand counts in NM but not Florida?" is their cry. It's obvious -- There are no holes to punch, no dangling chads, no confusing arrows. Just a place to blacken in a box that is read by the machine IF it is programed correctly. (BTW -- in future elections, I would support counting a few precincts by hand to compare with the machine results to detect programing errors)....." Washington Times 11/30/00 Bill Sammon "....... A Florida judge yesterday rejected Al Gore's demand for immediate access to a promising batch of ballots, while the Florida Legislature moved closer toward asserting itself in defense of George W. Bush........It was a double dose of bad news for the vice president on the second day of his lawsuit contesting the outcome of Florida's election. ........But the most significant setback came from Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who dismissed the Gore team's call for immediate access to 3,300 disputed ballots from Palm Beach County and 10,000 from Miami-Dade County....... Siding with Bush lawyers, Judge Sauls ruled that if these 13,300 ballots are to be shipped to his court in Tallahassee, so must a million undisputed ballots, a decision that further delays the proceedings.......... "We want the Florida Supreme Court to rule that the counting begin immediately," Gore

lawyer Jeremy Bash told The Washington Times after the hearing. "The lower court won't even set a date for beginning the counting process."......" Washington Times 11/30/00 Bill Sammon "....... Mr. Bash said the Gore team would file appeals last night with the Florida Supreme Court and a state appeals court. These appeals take issue not just with yesterday's ruling, but also with the judge's decision Tuesday to reject Mr. Gore's call for an immediate recount......... If and when Gore lawyers prevail in their call for another recount, the Bush team would argue that all ballots must be counted.......Mr. Boies objected to demands by the Bush team that all ballots be considered - or none at all. He pleaded in vain for the judge to allow Palm Beach and Miami-Dade to send the 13,300 disputed ballots immediately, even if that meant sending the remaining ballots in a separate convoy later......" Washington Times 11/30/00 Bill Sammon ".......But Bush lawyers cast new doubts on the integrity of ballots in Miami-Dade, saying workers mishandled them yesterday. "County employees were actually going through undervotes, what the machine spit out as a nonvote, and doing their own little manual recount," Bush lawyer Phil Beck told the judge. "And if they thought it was a clear vote, even though the machine said no, they'd put it in a separate envelope that said, 'clear vote.'....... "And we asked them to stop it, and they said no," he said. "We should not have county employees, who are now doing a manual recount, and segregating what the machine said is a nonvote into two different categories. They ought to put them back in the same category."...... He added: "Otherwise, I'm concerned, Your Honor, that we're going to have a hopeless mishmash where nobody's going to be able to figure out what the canvassing board even thought about these ballots." .....Judge Sauls agreed with the Bush team and suggested the employees in question might end up being subpoenaed to appear at the trial, which is set for Saturday......." Washington Times 11/30/00 Bill Sammon ".......In the end, the judge sided with the Bush team, delaying the shipment of any ballots from the two counties until all ballots could be packed and loaded into vehicles, which would not arrive in Tallahassee until at least late tomorrow. "It seems to me, that that's putting an undue burden on them to make them run two convoys up here with those ballots," said Judge Sauls....... "Your Honor, we are, of course, paying for the expense," Mr. Boies protested. "Since they're prepared to bring it up and we're paying for the expense, it seems to me that there's no legitimate reason not to have them come up." "I'm going to leave it to them," Judge Sauls said, gesturing to the telephone voice box to signify election officials from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. "What do you all want to do down there? Do you want to send up two times or do you want to do it once? It's your call." "One time, from Miami," said Miami-Dade election official Murray Greenberg......"One time it is," the judge concluded. "All right, that's it - one time." ....." Washington Times 11/30/00 Bill Sammon ".......For the second day in a row, a special committee of the Republican-dominated Florida legislature met to discuss the possibility of directly appointing electors for Mr. Bush in the event that a court orders the appointment of Gore electors instead. The Gore team bused 70 Democrats from South Florida to yesterday's hearing yesterday in order to protest such a move by the legislature. Mr. Gore himself joined in the rhetorical war against such a move........" Newsmax 11/29/00 Carl Limbacher "..... The Washington Post, which deep-sixed its Paula Jones exclusive in 1994 because editors claimed the story wasn't solid enough, is now digging for sexual dirt on Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. ...... On Nov. 22 Neal Travis, gossip columnist for the New York Post, reported, "I hear that some major magazines - and I don't mean the tabloids - are delving deeply into what, if any, relationship exists between Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his secretary of state, Katherine Harris." ......Now the New York Observer's Ron Rosenbaum says insiders at the New York Times are "buzzing" over a rumor about Harris' private life. ......The Washington Post clearly has it in for Ms. Harris, allowing its style reporter to savage her in a notorious profile ten days ago that claimed her make-up reflected an inability to do her job......." Washington Times 11/30/00 James DeLong "........ The cameras showed the Florida Elections Canvassing Board signing the certification of the results of the election. But they did not show the next step, which was that this document was immediately sent to office of Gov. Jeb Bush. According to the staff of his legal office, he then signed a formal Certificate of Ascertainment appointing the Electors pledged to George Bush........Early Monday morning, this Certificate of Ascertainment was deposited in the U.S. mail, registered, and addressed to the Archivist of the United States, as required by Section 6 of Title 3 of the United States Code..........The signing of the Certificate of Ascertainment is very important. The convoluted provisions of the post-Reconstruction federal statute that governs resolution of disputes over electoral vote-counting in the U.S. Congress place the Certificate in a central role, and its signing has transformed the dispute. [United States Code, Title 3, Sections 1-19.]......." Washington Times 11/30/00 James DeLong ".......To begin, the media keep saying Florida must appoint its electors by Dec. 12. This is true, but irrelevant, because Florida now has electors. It might be possible for a

Florida court to order the appointment of a competing slate, but it cannot undo the existing appointments. Even if it ordered Florida's governor to revoke his action and oust the electors from office, his power to do so is limited; the certificate has already gone to the Archivist of the United States in Washington, who will place it before Congress.........Of course, a Florida court might try to enjoin the electors certified by the governor from voting. But this would be unlikely to succeed, since the electors are performing federal constitutional functions, and since federal law quite clearly gives to the U.S. Congress the power to resolve disputes among competing slates of electors......." Washington Times 11/30/00 James DeLong ".......The best a Gore-leaning court could do would be to set up a conflict among competing slates. But, under the law, electors who hold a Certificate of Ascertainment signed by the governor have an immense advantage in any congressional dispute over the electoral vote count. The rules are tricky, but the bottom line is that a certificate signed by the executive of a state prevails unless it is rejected by both houses of Congress.............. Unless both Houses were convinced that the court's judgment was legitimate, the governor's slate would win. ........Finally, the Florida legislature appears to be out of it. The U.S. Code says the legislature may appoint electors if the state has failed to make a choice on Election Day. But Florida has made a choice - as the certificate attests. Of course, the legislature could endorse either the existing slate of electors or a judicially chosen alternative, an act that would carry great weight in the U.S. Congress even though it would not constitute a legally binding settlement....... In other words, so long as the U.S. House of Representatives remains convinced that George Bush is the legitimate winner, the dispute is over......" WSJ/Opinion Journal 11/30/00 Dennis Prager ".....An Open Letter to Democrats This time, you've gone too far. You finally made a big mistake. ........ You probably never thought you would live to see middle America and mainstream Republicans galvanized to resist your ongoing takeover of America. But like other power-hungry groups in history, you didn't know when to hold back. Your party and its standard bearer, Al Gore, have attempted to thwart an election not in the quiet of the night (as in 1960) but in daylight, before the cameras of the world. And finally we have begun to resist. ......... Most of us have never attended a political demonstration. Most of us are not particularly political, preferring work, family, sports, and communal associations to political activism. But now we are angry. By golly, even Bob Dole is angry. Republicans are actually organizing demonstrations. Such activism is so rare that "conservative activist" is an oxymoron. But for the time being you have changed that. Call it the Chad Revolt. ............ In fact, it is thanks to your changing ballot-counting rules, your emphasis on hand counts in only those Florida districts you dominate, your invalidation of military ballots, your sending of Jesse Jackson to rouse race-based anger and of Alan Dershowitz to smear Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, that many of us have decided, finally, to fight back. ........ Given all this silence in the face of your attempt to control America, it is no wonder you thought you could litigate your way to the presidency. And maybe you could. But lo and behold the rest of us are beginning to fight. Not enough yet to take back the schools or the courts or the professional organizations or the news media. But enough to let you know that we are out here. Yes, that large block of America between New York and California that in your hearts you believe to be racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, homophobic and misogynist, is fighting back. You think that way because, in your arrogance, you confuse liberal with decent. But tens of millions of us have a different view of liberal--as increasingly nihilist. ......... And now, thanks to Mr. Gore not having the decency to do what Richard Nixon did 40 years ago, much of America might still find you frightening, but they no longer find you intimidating. Thankfully for America, you made a big mistake. ....." Washington Times 11/30/00 ".......It is true that the Florida court set no standards on how to divine the intent of the voter, perhaps preferring to leave that to the extra-sensory powers of a vice president inclined to hear voices "of the people," at least. Instead, the court, as reported by the New York Times, cited at length and "with approval an Illinois Supreme Court decision mentioned in the Democrats' legal papers that said any indication of a voter's intent - even a dented or partially punctured punch card ballot - should be considered" (italics added)........Dimples away, said the Gore team, rubbing its hands at the prospect of counting dented (Gore) ballots as valid votes with the weighty imprimatur of judicial precedent. But oddly enough - or maybe not so oddly enough - no such legal precedent ever came out of Illinois, despite its mention "in the Democrats' legal papers.".......In 1990, in the wake of a contested local election, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Cook County Circuit Judge Francis Barth had to examine 27 disputed ballots. Revisiting that case last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that the trial judge ultimately accepted eight additional votes: three with hanging chads and five with punctures. Six disputed ballots were withdrawn. Four with misaligned pinholes were discounted. And he rejected each and every one of the nine dented ballots (a.k.a. "dimpled" or "pregnant" chads) in question............. . "From the beginning, I knew everybody [in Florida] was interpreting this case wrong and reading into it what they wanted to read into it."......"Everybody" is right beginning with the Florida Supreme Court (which, shockingly enough, seems to have relied solely on the Gore team's erroneous "legal papers"), most of the media, and such key players as Palm Beach County

Circuit Court Judge Jorge Labarga, who invoked the Florida state court decision when ordering the local canvassing board to abandon its decade-old standards and count dimpled chads......" Washington Times 11/30/00 "........ How was so crucial a case misrepresented to the Florida Supreme Court? Why? Might David Boies care to explain? .......... And there's more. Last Tuesday night, shortly before midnight in Illinois - and after the Florida Supreme Court had ruled at around 10 p.m. EST - Al Gore's top lawyers, David Boies and Mitchell Berger, telephoned Cook County attorney Michael Lavelle. Mr. Lavelle represented Penny Pullen, the ultimate winner in the 1990 case. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Gore attorneys woke Mr. Lavelle to ask him whether he would swear that he remembered dimpled ballots being counted. Mr. Lavelle said he signed two identical affidavits early the next morning attesting that, to the best of his memory, the judge had indeed counted dimpled ballots. He then faxed the affidavits off to Mr. Berger. "In 10 years, memories can fade," Mr. Lavelle told the newspaper on hearing that the judge had in fact rejected the dimpled ballots. Perhaps. But why did the Gore attorneys want affidavits in the first place especially after the Florida Supreme Court had already ruled?........" Townhall.com 11/30/00 Brent Bozell "......First, how does NBC explain itself? So meaningless did this network consider the certification of the next President of the United States that it refused to interrupt the network's airing of "Titanic." The network lamely tried to excuse its obnoxious dismissal of the certification by stating it had, you betchum, aired a couple of minutes of coverage during the next commercial break. Forget it, fellas. Of course, the next night, when Gore spoke to the nation, NBC showed the Undead Candidate's entire desperate address live. On Tuesday, when Gore addressed the country again in the afternoon, NBC interrupted its soap opera to air Gore live again. True colors were never more evident. ....." Townhall.com 11/30/00 Brent Bozell "......Over at ABC, a sleepy-eyed Peter Jennings telegraphed his unhappiness with this seemingly final result. As Harris and her two fellow certifiers signed the documents sealing Gore's doom, Jennings rebutted: "Let's reassert what we said at the beginning. This is not over by any means, as formal as it looks. There'll be as many as half a dozen legal challenges on this, either already in motion or being put in motion." Jennings went into rebuttal mode after Bush spoke: "So though Governor Bush quotes Thomas Jefferson and says every difference of opinion is not necessarily a difference of principle, names a transition team led by Dick Cheney, names Andy Card to be a chief of staff, and says he wants to open a transition office and work with President Clinton, this is certainly not over." In other words, please ignore everything you've seen and heard tonight. It is not real. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The great and powerful Oz has spoken, and Gore is still kicking in Florida! ....." Townhall.com 11/30/00 Brent Bozell "......As usual, Dan Rather won hands-down for weirdness. Rather was more impolite and partisan than Jennings, straining to identify Harris as a "Republican" not once, but at least six times. And for good measure, he questioned the finality of her decision at least ten times. To deconstruct the meaning of certification, he used his bizarre Muhammad Ali-like poetry, saying Harris would announce the winner "as she sees it and she decrees it." Evidently, in Rather's eyes, Harris was not duly elected. Somehow she anointed herself the Queen of Florida. ......" Regarding Reboredo "....BREAKING!!! A POLICE SPOKESPERSON WITH THE METRO DADE POLICE DEPARTMENT TOLD ME: "IT WASNT THE US (POLICE) THAT WENT INTO HIS OFFICE. IT WAS THE FBI" FBI WENT INTO THE OFFICE!! I AM TRYING TO CONFIRM THIS. I HAVE A PHONE MEETING SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW AT 9:00 EASTERN WITH THE STATE ATTORNEYS OFFICE. ...." Freeper oneway Freeper casinva ".....From NBC Channel 6 out of Miami / Ft. Lauderdale for Thursday, November 30, 2000: (See www.msnbc.com/local/wtvj/353881.asp) comes the following: ....... Miami-Dade Commissioner Reboredo investigated Miami-Dade County Hall was a busy place on Wednesday. In addition to Merrett Stierheim stepping down, there is a possible criminal investigation beginning into Miami-Dade Commissioner Pedro Reboredo's office. ......... Miami-Dade police showed up on Wednesday and began taking records out of the long time commissioner's office. They were looking at his employee records to verify exactly who is working for him and the status of each employee. .......... NBC 6 spoke directly with Commissioner Reboredo about the investigation and he confirmed that officers did show up at his office and did take some records with them. ....... Investigators are interviewing his employees and he says he is cooperating with police, although he isn't sure exactly what they are looking for. Reboredo did say investigators are asking about his workers and their schedules. ......" Worldnetdaily 11/30/00 "..... Three out of four American voters believe George W. Bush will take office as their next president, compared with just 15 percent who think it will be President Gore on Jan. 20, according to a new Portrait of America poll. .......As to the unending recounts and legal challenges, 58 percent of voters think it's time for Al Gore to drop all of his legal challenges and concede the election. Fifty-seven percent of voters think George W. Bush actually won the election. ......The POA telephone survey conducted Tuesday

voters think George W. Bush actually won the election. ......The POA telephone survey conducted Tuesday night, Nov. 28, also found that 56 percent of voters are "somewhat" or "very confident" the election will be settled in a fair and reasonable manner now that the U.S. Supreme Court is involved, while 40 percent are "not very confident" or "not at all confident" in such an outcome. .......On the explosive issue of vote fraud, 3 out of 5 Americans say voter fraud and illegal activities played a role in Election 2000. The WND/Rasmussen survey found only 1 in 5 voters that disagree. Some 67 percent of Republicans see fraud, compared with 58 percent of Democrats. ....." Times Dispatch Mason-Dixon "......The election may still be up for grabs, but most Florida voters have already picked a winner. A new poll says 62 percent of state voters accept George W. Bush as the winner in Florida. Thirty-seven percent don't accept Bush, and 1 percent are unsure. Support for Vice President Al Gore, meanwhile, has started to slip among the faithful: Twenty-four percent of Gore voters now say they accept Bush as the winner in Florida........"The voters who support Bush are galvanized; they say their man won," said Brad Coker of Mason- Dixon Polling and Research, Inc. "Gore voters are kind of throwing in the towel and saying "Let's get on with it."' The poll, conducted by MasonDixon, was conducted Nov. 27 and Nov. 28, with a sample of 803 voters. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points......" New York Post 11/30/00 George Will "..... AS George W. Bush is inaugurated Jan. 20, the law firm of Boies, Gore & Lieberman may be clustered in front of the platform, waving legal briefs purporting to demonstrate illegal imperfections in the way the "will of the people" was measured in Florida, where both the winner and the loser received the support of 27 percent of "the people" of Florida, understood as that state's eligible voters.. .....Beneath such result-oriented lawyers' artistry lurks a pernicious premise. It is that casting a ballot is a task so challenging for many voters that the task cannot be completed without the intervention of lawyers-as-intuitors. This soft bigotry of low expectations infused Al Gore's eerie speech Monday evening. ......... He said: "If the people do not in the end choose me, so be it." Note the tense: He assumes the election - the campaign, even - is still going on. He assumes "the people" are not done choosing. Well, of course, how could they be - assuming that "the people" will not be done choosing until the priesthood of intuitors is done intuiting. ...." Worldnetdaily 11/30/00 "..... On Tuesday the Pentagon's chief spinner and criminal privacy rights violator, Ken Bacon, told the nation that his boss, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, had "ordered" the Pentagon's inspector general to find ways to improve the military absentee ballot process. ........ There is no doubt that the system does need improving. It's a shambles; furthermore, it's a disgrace that the Pentagon can spend nearly $300 billion a year but can't find the resources to ensure our soldiers, sailors and airmen can vote for their own commander in chief. ...... But I've got to be honest, here -- Cohen's decision leaves me cold. Like so many other "efforts" launched by Clinton administration lackeys, there is little real evidence that anything will come of it. ......" Worldnetdaily 11/30/00 "...... Does anyone get the sense in this fallout of our post-election explosion that Al Gore and company will not be going quietly into that good night? That every new call for a recount and fluttering of court filings has taken on the aura of those desperate, last minute stay-of-execution appeals that lawyers typically instigate on behalf of cold-blooded murderers? What we are witnessing here is no longer democracy in action (that was a few weeks ago) but a political career in the throes of demise. And it is not a pretty sight. ............ To be fair, I can commiserate to the extent that any man whose entire life has been perched upon politics would be bitterly disappointed at the loss of that which he has coveted for so long. I can agree that it would be almost natural to want to contest a defeat delivered by such a narrow margin, particularly when the stakes are so high. And I can understand how so much more frustrating it would be to realize one actually garnered the popular vote, but not the votes that truly count.........But regardless of all these considerations, or maybe because of them, I am utterly appalled that a man who would be president could behave in such a juvenile manner. ....." Worldnetdaily 11/30/00 "....... Standing by that silly-looking bunch of flags on Nov. 27, Al Gore said all he wants is "a complete count of all the votes in Florida." How on earth can he say this after two statewide vote counts? Mr. Gore's quest for political power has drawn him into a swamp of spin and outright lies. ..........For reasons perhaps known only to God and Mr. Gore, he committed himself to a scheme that, right from the start, is undermining both democracy and the rule of law. ...... Mr. Gore chose to seek more votes from the only available source: improperly cast ballots. Mr. Gore knows that elections are legitimate only when conducted by rules about both voters and their ballots. A citizen ineligible to vote cannot insist that his vote be counted. Neither can an eligible voter who casts his ballot improperly or chooses not to vote. For this reason, elections always result in rejected ballots. According to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, this year more than two million ballots across America were not counted because a variety of errors or problems meant they were improperly cast. ......... Mr. Gore's scheme to slip improperly cast ballots into the official tally, then, undermines democracy just as much as a scheme to remove properly cast ballots.

Let's be clear about this: While every vote requires a ballot, not every ballot contains a vote. ........ His quest for power depends on converting non-votes to votes, that is, on creating votes that did not previously exist. That's what he's willing to do in his quest for power. Now you know. ......" Leon County Courts 11/30/00 Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA ".....Motion to Conduct Statewide Manual Recount of All 180,000 "Undervotes" & "Overvotes" in Florida has been filed on behalf of George W. Bush by private citizen Intervenors in the Election Contest Case before Judge N. Saunders Sauls..... Basically, the request states that if the Judge orders any recounts in the Election Contest that he must order a fair, accurate recount of all 180,000 under/overvotes statewide to promote fairness and equal protection to all Florida voters. ...." AP 11/30/00 ".....Al Gore (news - web sites)'s lawyers argued to the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) Thursday that the Florida Legislature does not have authority to appoint its own slate of presidential electors. Congress set Election Day as a uniform national date for selection of electors, Gore's lawyers wrote in the latest round of filings. The brief, filed a day ahead of a showdown session in the high court, argued that Florida made its presidential choice on Nov. 7, ``although by a vote so close and under a counting process so flawed that the state's courts are still attempting to ascertain ... what the choice was.'' ...." Freeper Wil H on Boise conference "..... Bois is shooting himself in the foot, making a case that the Manual recount in Palm Beach was no more accurate that the machine recount. He is claiming the "Uncounted" votes in punch card counties are twice the percentage or more than that of optically scanned ones. Then he proceeeds to show a graph that shows the hand count in Palm Beach had little change on the mechanical count LOL! He just destroyed his own argument. ....." Freeper cunning "..... Woah! Somebody's nailing him on the Illinois case, and he's continuing to say that the case said it WAS decided to count indented ballots. What the hell...?! ....." Dow Jones 11/30/00 "...... Meanwhile, Sen. John Breaux, D-La., confirmed that representatives of Bush's organization approached him about the possibility of serving as secretary of the Department of Energy in a Bush Cabinet, the New Orleans Times-Picayne reported Thursday. With the election outcome still uncertain, Breaux said he had not been offered the job, only that "I've had feelers put out to me by low-level people in the Bush organization, mostly campaign-type people, asking if I would be interested in serving." Breaux said he would consider the Cabinet post, but also said he thought he might be "could be more useful to Bush in the Senate than the Cabinet," the paper said. ....." Freeper Ken H "....Ron Insana on CNBC just made the point that the market nosedived following Lieberman's remarks. The democrats are getting tarred with the market crash. ...." Freeper Maringa "..... On another board, I heard good news about the Seminole ballots: Can someone search and link this article? I don't know how::Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark dealt a crushing blow to the Gore campaign today, ruling that the County Canvassing Board must review every absentee ballot application to determine voter intent. If, by completely filling out and signing a ballot application and submitting it to the County Clerk's Office, one concludes that, in fact, that registered voter intended to get and use an absentee ballot, then the Board must allow the application to stand. However, if the Board determines that the completely filled out applications represent penmanship practice, and not an attempt to receive a ballot, then the applications can be rejected. ......" Newsmax 11/30/00 Wes Vernon "...... For the nearly 50 percent of Americans who own stocks or bonds, or have some other connection to the markets, Vice President Al Gore's insistence on blocking and delaying finality in the Nov. 7 election is bad news. ......The most dramatic indicator of the negative effect of the uncertainty is the Nasdaq, down a whopping 20-plus percent since Election Day. ....... Whenever the economy goes south, unemployment starts to go up, which could mean bad news for many other Americans who do not own stocks or bonds but work for companies that are adversely affected. ....." Freeper sdkhaki "...... Yesterday the Gore legal team got stymied when David Boies tried to get Judge Sauls to sign an order denying their request for an immediate recount. Bush lawyer Barry Richards correctly pointed out that the Gore team was trying to get the Judge's John Hancock on an order that they could then appeal to the Florida Supremely Kangaroo Court............ Well...the slippery Gore team is trying to get around that in filings made yesterday to Judge Sauls and the Florida 1st District Court of Appeals......... In the Plaintiffs' Notice of Appeal, filed in Judge Sauls' court, Gore claims that even though the judge has not issued a written order, transcripts of the court hearings serve the same purpose............. In Gore's Suggestion to Certify, filed yesterday in the 1st District Court of Appeals, their desparation and understanding of the time crunch is quite apparent....... Freeper sdkhaki "...... Because time is limited to complete the contest action --Florida electors must be

selected by December 12 --a manual recount of the contested ballots must begin immediately. Any delay in the counting process of the contested ballots will prevent Appellants from obtaining meaningful relief under section 102.168. The court must allow sufficient time to complete an accurate and fair count of the contested ballots which is essential for the proper resolution of the contest action. Counting now ensures that the results will be available in the event the circuit court or the Supreme Court ultimately determines that the vote totals should be adjusted to reflect the validity of the contested ballots......." Freeper sdkhaki "......By denying Appellants' motion, the circuit court frustrated the statutory scheme as well as the recently entered order of the Florida Supreme Court in Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris, 2000 WL 1725434. The Supreme Court recognized the urgency of this matter when it required amended certifications to be filed by 5: 00 p. m. on November 26, 2000 "in order to allow maximum time for contests pursuant to section 102.168."......... The appropriate relief under the circumstances is for the court to begin an immediate review of the contested ballots so that valid votes that were improperly rejected by the local canvassing boards, and thus not included in the Secretary of State's certification of votes, be properly included in Florida's final tally of votes cast for President should Appellants prevail on the merits of their claims. Courts have an absolute duty to count disputed ballots......." Freeper sdkhaki "......The correct standard considers the totality of the circumstances to determine the intent of the voter on each ballot. Courts have had no problem expressing the test. Delahunt v. Johnston, 671 N. E2d 1241 (Mass. 1996), see also Pullen v. Mulligan, 138 Ill. 2d 21 (Sup. Ct. Ill. 1990), This standard is consistent with the order of Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge Jorge Labarga that ordered the local canvassing board to apply an objective intent of the voter standard. Judge Labarga wrote "[ e] ach ballot must be considered in light of the totality of the circumstances... where the intention of the voter can be fairly and satisfactorily ascertained, that intention should be given effect." ...... The third erroneous ruling was that the parties contesting the election cannot identify the ballots that they contend were wrongly rejected. The only ballots to be reviewed by the circuit court in a contest action are the rejected ballots Appellants allege are legal ballots as so identified in their Complaint filed under section 102.168( 2). The Court should not engage in a manual review of all of the votes in the contested counties nor does it need to review all of the votes cast in the entire state of Florida because no issue has been raised by any party as to these uncontested ballots........" Nasdaq 11/30/00 Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "..... Nasdaq-100 Pre-Market IndicatorSM Value Nasdaq-100 Indicator: 2479.04 Net Change: 123.81 % Change: 4.76 ...." Washington Times 11/30/00 George Archibald "...... House Republican leaders have called President Clinton's transition manager to a congressional hearing to defend his denial of $5.3 million in presidential transition funds to the Bush-Cheney team since Florida's vote certification. ....... General Services Administrator David J. Barram has refused to release the funds appropriated by Congress until Vice President Al Gore has exhausted his legal challenges to the Florida outcome, which pushed Republican George W. Bush over the needed 270 electoral votes to become president Jan. 20. "While it was perhaps justified to withhold these funds pending the outcome of the Florida election, the Florida election results were certified on Nov. 26, with Gov. George W. Bush being declared the winner," the Republican chairmen of the House Appropriations and Government Reform subcommittees told Mr. Barram in a letter Tuesday. ........ "The committees believe the transition funds should be released immediately," Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the Appropriations panel chairman, and Rep. Steve Horn of California, the government reform subcommittee chairman, wrote in their letter to Mr. Barram. ...... They said the GSA administrator's continuing refusal to finance the government changeover "jeopardizes the ability of the president-elect to implement an effective transition" and may violate the law. ....." Washington Times 11/30/00 Andrew Cain "...... Al Gore yesterday blanketed network newscasts to press the case for his court challenge as Democrats in Congress reported a flood of calls from constituents who want the vice president to concede to George W. Bush. ......While Mr. Gore held transition meetings at the White House to project a presidential image, his advisers said privately yesterday he needs a court victory in the next 48 hours to prevent a fatal erosion of the public's support. ......." CNS 11/30/00 Justin Torres ".....The liberal interest groups that have rallied around Vice President Al Gore in the post-election period are driven by many different impulses, say observers, but foremost among them is an attempt to weaken any potential Bush administration. "At this point, it seems unlikely that Gore will pull out a victory," said a Republican media consultant who worked with the Bush campaign. "But if they make enough noise, they'll weaken Bush in his dealings with Congress and the public. That's what they're after." ......" MSNBC 11/30/00 Freeper Bryan24 "...... The Florida Special committe on the election just voted to call a special session in order to solidfy the Florida Electoral Vote. More info to follow.... "

Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "...... From ABC: "[A] court declaration of a new winner in Florida between Dec. 12 and 18 could create competing slates of electors from the Sunshine State. That, or a later court reversal of Florida's presidential election results, could prompt congressional challenges to the Electoral College vote after the newly elected U.S. Congress tallies it on Jan. 6. Republicans will hold a narrow majority in the upcoming House of Representatives....the Senate will be evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. What's more, among those Democrats will be Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democratic vice presidential candidate. And Gore, as vice president, could conceivably cast a tie-breaking vote for himself to be president. And if Florida does indeed send two sets of electors, both houses of Congress would have to be in agreement in order to pick among competing presidential claims. "With a divided House and Congress, you could also have the House voting for Bush's electors, the Senate and Al Gore voting for Gore's electors," "But in that case, it's the slate that is signed by the governor that counts." This is the end game. Checkmate. ....." AP 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch ".... Racing against the clock in their challenge of Florida's presidential election, Al Gore's attorneys filed an urgent plea with the state's highest court Thursday to start hand-counting thousands of ballots. With a trial court judge refusing to budge on the issue, Gore lawyers first asked the midlevel First District Court of Appeals to step aside and then filed their papers with the Florida Supreme Court just as it opened its doors. ``There is no reason to delay counting ballots even one day,'' they said. If there is not enough time to finish the counting before Dec. 12, the deadline for states to choose their electors, the brief said, ``the resulting controversy about the legitimacy of the presidency would be destructive for our country.'' ......" US Census 11/30/00 Freeper ".....In further analyzing the county electoral map I have come to some remarkable conclusions: Of the wealthiest 10 counties in the U.S. all voted for Algore. Of the wealthiest 10% of counties, only 55% voted for Bush (175 of 314) Of the poorest 10% of counties, 75% voted for Bush (238 of 314) Of the remaining 80% of counties, 81% voted for Bush (2055 of 2512) I determined the wealtiest counties by factoring both the median home prices and the average family income. This data was obtained from the US Census...." Boston Herald 11/29/00 Don Feder "..... To hell with bipartisanship; this is war. Monday evening, Vice President Al Gore did not tell us he was tying up the election because of his all-consuming ambition. He did not admit he was whining because, even with the extension granted by Florida's judicial activists, he didn't have enough time to steal the presidency. He wasn't going into that good night kicking and screaming because he has no life outside politics. ....... Oh no, he was doing it, he said, for democracy, because the Constitution matters more than convenience, because - in America - every vote must be counted. It was a performance worthy of a man who learned at Bill Clinton's knee. ......Three weeks after the election, Gore continues to procrastinate, obfuscate and litigate, while cloaking his desperation in the rhetoric of fairness. ...... Every vote must be counted - and recounted and molded and massaged until enough Gore votes can be manufactured to hijack the presidency. ......Every vote must be accurately assessed - behind closed doors, in heavily Democratic counties, by Democratic-controlled canvassing boards. Every ballot must be fairly weighed, except military absentee ballots, which must be thrown out on technicalities, wherever possible. ......" Fresno Bee 11/30/00 Louis Galvan "..... Jim Robinson, a registered Democrat, didn't become involved in politics until Bill Clinton first ran for president eight years ago. But Robinson, a Navy veteran who served three tours in Vietnam aboard three destroyers, didn't campaign for Clinton. ....... Today, Robinson, a 55year-old native of Fresno and a retired Web site designer and programmer, finds himself thick in the battle to keep Al Gore out of the White House. .....Still a registered Democrat -- but not for much longer, he says -Robinson is owner of Free Republic, a Web site he created out of his home in 1996 shortly after muscular dystrophy forced him into early retirement. ....And it is on his Web site, www.freerepublic.com, that thousands of users first became exposed to the "Sore Loserman 2000" parody of the "Gore Lieberman 2000" election campaign signs. ....." Northwest Florida Daily News 12/30/00 Glenda Newbould "..... As a lifelong Democrat and 20-year veteran serving as deputy supervisor of elections in Walton County, I am appalled at the behavior of Al Gore and the Democratic Party. In 20 years I have never seen such a display of unwillingness by any candidate to concede an election. Vice President Gore and his Democratic Party have attempted to discredit the honest, hard-working and patriotic team that orchestrates elections throughout Florida, accusing them of incompetence and in some cases making accusations bordering on fraud. All for Al Gore's personal agenda. All because Al Gore didn't win "his" election. Because of this display, I have been forced to reconsider my association with the Democratic Party.

Two years ago, I was secretary of the Walton County Democratic Executive Committee and ran for supervisor of elections on a Democratic ticket. This past election year, I was asked to consider the chair position for the Walton County Democratic Executive Committee. I am no stranger to Democratic politics. At this time I am severing all association with the Democratic Party and have changed my party affiliation to Republican. It is comforting to know there is still a Constitution and a democracy in America, and to know the Republicans are there to fight for their continued existence. GLENDA NEWBOULD DeFuniak Springs ........ Above is a letter to the editor to the Northwest Florida Daily News from the Deputy Supervisor of Elections for Walton County, Florida. Apparently Ms. Newbould was wearing "rose colored glasses" as she tolerated the past eight years of Clinton/Gore corruption. But Al Gore finally smacked her between her eyes and broke those glasses with his charges of misconduct against election officials of his (and her) own party. Better late than never, Ms. Newbould! ...." Albuquerque Journal 11/30/00 AP "......The state Canvassing Board is waiting for Roosevelt County officials to certify election recount results before it can officially declare a winner in the presidential race in New Mexico. State District Judge David Bonem ordered a recount of straight ticket ballots in the southeastern New Mexico county at the request of the state board and Republicans concerned about numerous county voters not casting ballots for president. ........... "We were 100 percent correct," said Mickey Barnett, the GOP national committeeman for New Mexico and a former state senator whose district included Roosevelt and Curry counties. "There were programming errors. The machines didn't count any straight ticket ballots." After review one of the county's 19 precincts, election officials discovered the error. ........ County election officials counted the ballots within a few hours Wednesday night. The Roosevelt County Canvassing Board was scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. Thursday to certified the new results, Bonem said. Diane Denish, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said late Wednesday the recount would likely decrease Vice President Al Gore's lead in New Mexico but not overturn it. ....." Judicial Watch 11/30/00 ".....Judicial Watch, Inc., the public-interest watchdog which investigates and prosecutes government abuse and which has, in recent days, been conducting its own inspection and count of ballots in Florida counties (particularly in West Palm Beach) has moved the Court in Florida's Leon County to intervene in order that it may have continuing access to ballots of West Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. This week in West Palm Beach, Judicial Watch and its expert certified public accounting firm, Johnson, Lambert and Company, discovered widespread problems with the vote count. These problems include, but are not limited to: 1. An absence of vote counting methodology; 2. An inability to identify which candidate was awarded which vote; 3. A greater number of ballots were hand-counted than were machine-counted; 4. Recreated and damaged ballots; and 5. Disputed ballots inadvertently filed in the wrong envelopes for Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Judicial Watch is moving to intervene in order that it may inform the Court about the inherent problems in any ordered recount, as well as to continue its own inspection of ballots. ....." AP 11/30/00 ".....George W. Bush picked up some New Mexico votes but not enough to overturn Al Gore's lead in the state after Roosevelt County hand-counted some presidential votes in response to Republican questions. ......Roosevelt County's hand-recount Wednesday night added 324 votes to Bush's total in the county and 209 votes to Gore's, cutting Gore's lead statewide to 368 votes, according to unofficial totals. ......" Freeper sdkhaki "....... It is going to be a real hoot to watch Team Gore argue in court against a statewide recount of all the under/over/no votes. Their petition to the Florida Supremely Kangaroo Court today says they only want the 14,000 ballots from WPB and Miami-Dade counted because they are the only ones that they dispute. Team Gore is going to have to stand up in open court and argue why the other 100,000+ unregistered votes should not be counted.

Gore - "Let's count every vote." Gore's legal team - "Let's count only the votes we think will help us." ......" Freeper chainsaw "...... How can there be an accurate recount when the Gore team has been altering the ballots after the certification of the Florida election, behind closed doors, without republican observers watching. The only fair thing to do is a machine recount of the number of ballots. Disallow the dimple chads and may the winner take all. Techincally that is not fair to Bush either. How many chads were eaten by the democrat ballot counters. ......" Freeper Carl-HuTex 11/30/00 "...... Its amazing, but the more Gore is on TV, the more the stock markets crash! Everytime Gore says "all the votes must be counted", the markets lose hunderds of points the following day! This is instant recession in a bottle. The name of that bottle is Algoreaphobia. The future does not look bright! The markets have crashed so far, that programmed sells have kicked in, and this is hard to overcome. Plus, millions of people new to the market have seen their portfolio values drop by more than 50%! They will be very hesitant to put more money in the stock markets! Gore has killed our economy so he can win the White House. Carol ...." National Archives Freeper Reverent "...... Florida's Certificate of Ascertainment listing the twenty-five (25) Republican Electors HAS BEEN RECEIVED and a photo of it is posted on-line at the National Archive's website....." Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "....Ultimately, you are right. This is the final trump card. 3 USC 9. ....." AP 11/30/00 David Royse "..... A committee of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature called Thursday for lawmakers to meet in special session ``as soon as practicable'' to consider appointment of electors in the state's contested presidential election. The vote came over the objections of Democrats, who said there should be no interference in the election controversy......" Newday 11/30/00 Jessica Kowal "......."I don't think the allegation is sufficient to justify throwing out the ballots," said Barry Richard, Bush's lead attorney, who described the case as "a tempest in a teapot." The Florida Republican Party said that party employees altered the request forms only in Seminole County and that they did it because a printer error on the postcard placed an incorrect number where the voter ID number should have been. ......"Beyond a shadow of a doubt, what was done was absolutely proper," said Mark Mills, a spokesman for the Florida Republican Party. "We wanted to make sure they received their ballots, so we filled in the code information." Gore's attorneys considered adding Seminole County to their contest, but decided against it. This is because an attempt to throw out absentee ballots would cloud Gore's single-minded message to "count every vote," a Gore legal adviser said. ........" Newday 11/30/00 Jessica Kowal ".......Bush's attorneys also do not seem pleased about Leon County Circuit Court Judge Nikki A. Clark, the judge hearing the case, who was a top aide and a judicial appointee of the late Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles. In recent weeks, Republican Florida Gov. Jeb Bush passed over Clark for appointment to a higher court, which gives some reason to believe she may have an ax to grind against all Bushes. Jeb Bush considered Clark "too liberal" and would probably block any promotion while he is in office, said one Tallahassee attorney who knows Clark well. ........... Clark, 48, a registered Democrat, was the first black woman to join the local circuit court, in 1993. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in town Tuesday for an election-related protest, stopped by her courtroom for more than a hour. Bush's attorneys looked grim as Clark efficiently ordered attorneys to limit depositions to 45 minutes for each side -a heartbeat in normal litigation and a schedule that makes it more likely the case would be heard in time to possibly affect the election results. ......Gayle Andrews, a Democratic media consultant working with Jackson and a sorority sister of Clark, said the Bush team "drew the wrong judge" and probably "groaned" about her selection because "she's notorious for wanting to get to the bottom of stuff." ......" Freeper Dog "..... Rush just said his new theory is as follows..Gore's refusal to bow out ...is Gores'way to mess up the Bush admin..I thought this thought also... Guys the Dow is down 240 pts..Everytime they speak millions of people lose REAL MONEY!!!!.....This is so frustrating.. ...." Freeper truthkeeper "....... Motions to intervene being discussed right now...both of them. (Citizens and JW.) Citizens' group up first. ....... The judge sounds open-minded to intervention. Intervenor's counsel about to argue right now. Judge is just insisting that they stick to his schedule. Right now he will hear if they have a significant interest in the matter. .......Intervenor's counsel saying that his clients, the voters in the state of Florida, are the "most important people" in the suit, and this gives them a substantial interest in the case. Says Gore should not be able to cherry-pick counties to his advantage. Says he does not need to present any further testimony or evidence, so their intervention will not put any undue burden on the court's schedule. Judge thinking, hand to chin, looking over paperwork right now... ...." Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "..... Intervenor reading AG Butterworth letter to the court now. ......"

Freeper truthkeeper "...... Judge questioning Intervenor's counsel right now. "Are you asking that we count ALL ballots in the state?" Counsel: "No, Your Honor...I am NOT." Judge: "What are you asking?" Counsel goes on to explain that Gore's selective scheme is unconstitutional, provides no standards, etc. Judge: "I'm sorry I asked." (Laughter from the courtroom.) ......Judge: "Apparently we have some common interests here." Looks like he's going to allow a "limited grant of intervention!" ....... LIMITED INTERVENTION FOR CITIZENS GRANTED!! ......." Freeper Freedom of Speech Wins "....... Mr. Jennings a non-Bush lawyer representing Republican voters has just kicked up a storm. This guy is forceful. Has a letter from Butterworth as part of his case. Saying the cherrypicking of counties is illegal and skews result, that this handcount is unconstitutional. Motion for the contest to be dismmissed. The Butterworth letter said that if the selective recount went on in 4 counties it could result in Florida's electorals being placed in legal jeopardy due to provisions of the state consitution and possibly the Supreme Court. Now they are coming back to Jucdicial Watch, Klayman is on a conference call. ....." Freeper truthkeeper "....... The citizens have argued in their motion against any more recounting, but that if the ballots (undercounts) from Gore's cherry-picked counties ARE to be counted, the undercounts from ALL the counties should be counted. Larry Klayman arguing right now for intervention by Judicial Watch. ......" Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "...... Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth's legal opinion letter to Palm Beach Canvassing Board (11-14-2000) basically states that selected hand-counts are ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL. ......" Freeper truthkeeper "...... Sounds like the judge is NOT granting Larry Klayman and JW intervention as a party, but IS granting them permission to "hang around here and watch the (counting) proceedings"with observers. Larry Klayman: "That's all we want, Your Honor." Sounds like we're two for two today, guys! ....... Judge "respectfully denies" Klayman's Motion to Intervene, but grants that two of his observers can be present for counting, "and treated respectfully." This judge is a-okay! ....." Freeper Green "....... No, he is saying that in the event any counting takes place Klayman's observers will be allowed to be present. But he also refused them access to continue their inspection during the proceeding and said that when this is all over all the ballots will be returned where they belong. I got from that they can continue their inspection that he interrupted at that time if they so desire. ......" Freeper I'mPeach "...... Judge will take up the motion for a state-wide recount of "under-votes" on Saturday. ...." Inside.com 11/29/00 Stephen Battaglio "......Fox News Channel and NBC News are threatening not to renew their contract with Voter News Service, the polling consortium now being blamed for the networks' bad calls on election night. In a statement issued Wednesday, Fox News says it will bow out of the consortium ''unless adequate explanation is supplied regarding misinformation presented on Election Day.'' The news division said it had started looking at polling alternatives for future elections..." Freeper Bekki4Bush "...... watched it all on C-Span. Relax. It looked good to me. The issue of ALL 180,000 undervotes was addressed, and will be a part of the SAturday hearing. Any recounts ordered IF THAT HAPPENS will be observed by Kayman's CPA and he will present evidence that the counts that already occurred were flawed and standardless. This keeps getting more complex and this judge is gonna toe the line. Butterworth's letter to Palm Beach County which was to ENCOURAGE them to hand count gives the legal opinion that will throw this whole thing out! He screwed himself. I love it when that happens to Dems. ....." Freeper truthkeeper "....... Yes, limited intervention. They won't be allowed to muck up the court's schedule with testimony, etc. You'll more from them at Saturday's hearing, when they'll be discussing those 180,000 additional ballots. ......." Freeper KC Burke ".......The Florida Courts could order the Electors not to execute, or the Governor to rescind due to a determination that a Contest was valid, which would leave it up to the Legislature to name a replacement slate if they wanted, which would be problematic. The Constitution gives them the final responsibilty to determine how Electors are selected, in my reading, but a competing Slate could be sent by a Florida Court in the case of a court upheld Contest. ........ Then it falls to the joint meeting of both Houses of Congress to hear objections to one slate or the other. If both houses, individually don't agree what to use, the SLATE SIGNED BY THE GOVERNOR is what is used according to US Code adopted in response to Amendment XII. ....."

Freeper newszjunkey "..... November 14, 2000 The Honorable Charles E. Burton Chair, Palm Beach County Canvassing Board County Courthouse West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 Dear Judge Burton: Attached is the legal opinion requested by the Board. The circumstances surrounding these legal issues are extremely serious. If hand recounts have already occurred in Seminole County and an unknown number of other counties without the restraint of a legal opinion while similar hand counts are blocked in other counties due to a newly issued standard, a two-tier system for reporting votes results. A two-tier system would have the effect of treating voters differently, depending upon what county they voted in. A voter in a county where a manual count was conducted would benefit from having a better chance of having his or her vote actually counted than a voter in a county where a hand count was halted. As the State's chieft legal officer, I feel a duty to warn that if the final certified total for balloting in the State of Floriday includes figures generated from this two-tier system of differing behavior by official canvassing boards, the State will incur a legal jeopardy, under both the U.S. and State constitutions. The legal jeopardy could potentionally lead to Florida having all of its votes, in effect, disqualified and this state being barred from the Electoral College's selection of a President. Sincerely, Robert A. Butterworth Attorney General RAB/dmm ....." Freeper ftrader "....... May I interject my view of the final end to this? Miami-Dade has now mucked up the entire status of the election as of certification day. They ran the ballots through the machine AGAIN yesterday and this re-run CHANGED EVERY TOTAL IN EXISTENCE! ......... Boies said that the 10,750 "undercounted" ballots were their witnesses ... now there are only about 9,000. This now changes the entire complexion of the count. IF Gore were to prevail in Leon County, CERTAINLY they could not count the "undercounted" 10,750 SINCE THEY NO LONGER EXIST...there is a new batch of undercounted ballots [ABOUT 9,000]. Obviously, there are NEW piles of Bush and Gore "counted votes" that are NOT in agreement with the certification. Therefore, EACH AND EVERY BALLOT [660,000 OF THEM] WOULD HAVE TO BE HAND-COUNTED...AGAIN! ........Judge Sauls will NOT do that! ..........Second, Palm Beach votes will NOT be recounted, because the standards used ARE the standards used in Illinois...look at the "totality" of the entire punchcard. Sauls will throw THAT out, once Richards reads from their ruling. This will be over by Tuesday, IMHO, and there will be NO recount! ......" Freeper Ohioan "....... I have not had the chance to view any of today's proceedings, as I am at my law office. But the Tuesday night hearing demonstrated to me that this Judge has a mind like a "steel trap." He is ahead of the lawyers at every turn. This is very, very good, from an historical perspective--as well as for our immediate purposes. He will make a record in this case that will be very, very constructive. After all, it was this Judge and not any of the lawyers that insisted that the ballot instructions--those the claimed but unproven Gore voters obviously did not follow--be added to the list of exhibits. Those instructions completely undermine Gore's case! Keep in mind, that it is the record made in the Trial Court that any Appellate Court has to work with. ......" Freeper SierraWasp "....... Dqban22 & ALL!!! Wilshire 5000 Index Lost 1.18 TRILLION Since Election Day!!! Re: Your #104 and economic collapse... From CBS MarketWatch: "3:58PM Nasdaq on market cap loss by Tomi Kilgore As of the Nov. 27 close, the Nasdaq stock market lost $651.7 billion in market capitalization since Nov. 1, according to Nasdaq statistics. Since Nov. 6, the day of the presidential elections, $753.1 billion

in wealth was lost. According to Wilshire Associates, the Wilshire 5000 index ($TMW) lost $1.18 trillion in market cap from Nov. 6 to Nov. 27." ....." Freeper ohioan "....... Yes. I was headed out, Tuesday night, when the proceedings came on Fox and I became so interested in the way this Judge was taking complete charge of a complex, multi-party and multifaceted proceeding, that I hung on every word. I can tell you as an ethical trial lawyer, it is a rare but very acute pleasure to try a case before a Judge who has so good a command of the entire context of subject matter. ......" Freeper sdkhaki "....... Team Gore filed a Motion to Resolve Factual and Legal Issues of Count III with Memorandum of Law today, asking Judge Saul to make a ruling on the Nassau County issue of the 52 vote pickup for Bush. They aren't arguing that Bush didn't get the votes...they are basing their case on the allegations that there was no proper notice of the 24 November meeting wherein the decision was made, and that an illegally assigned substitute commissioner attended the meeting (the substitute had been a candidate...on 7 November!). So much for every vote counting............ In the motion linked above, Team Gore is asking Judge Saul to rule based on Gore's assertion that there are no "significant controversy" over the facts of the allegations. In the Nassau County Answer of the Defendant Nassau County Canvassing Board, filed after Gore's motion, we of course discover that the facts are very much in dispute. Nassau County specifically denies the allegations about the lack of notice and an illegal board member. ...........These Gore lawyers are as underhanded as they come. They are trying to get legitimate votes thrown out because of alleged technicalities over how the meeting was conducted!! They file a motion with Judge Saul saying the facts aren't in dispute BEFORE Nassau had even filed their answer brief! Nassau County very much disputes the facts of the case and it should make some interesting viewing on Saturday........God I wish the lamestream press would pick up on this kind of crap!!!!!!!!!! " New York Post 11/30/00 Richard Johnson "....... DAVID Boies - the top trial lawyer representing Al Gore in his desperate attempt to overturn George W. Bush's victory in Florida - isn't licensed to practice law in that state. But if he were, he'd likely be facing a disciplinary hearing in Tallahassee. Boies and fellow lawyer Edward H. Wohl - his co-counsel in representing Bruce Winston in his nasty fraternal feud with brother Ronald Winston - are both under investigation in New York by the Appellate Division's Departmental Disciplinary Committee. ....... Wohl and Boies are both accused of entering into an agreement in 1996 with a witness, Kathleen A. Kerr, who had worked for Ronald at the family jewelry firm, Harry Winston Inc. In Florida, Wohl faces similar charges. ....."The agreement included compensation to Kerr in the amount of $25,000 for the initial 50 hours of assistance," the Florida Bar vs. Wohl complaint states, "and a bonus ranging between $100,000 and over $1 million depending upon the 'usefulness of the information provided by Kerr.'" ........ In both Florida and New York, where various Winston v. Winston suits were contested, lawyers are not allowed to pay material witnesses for their testimony. ......" Newsday 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch ".......Al Gore's lawyers framed their arguments to Florida's Supreme Court Thursday as an appeal for the ages, one that could save the right of suffrage from an assault that would undermine its very foundations. George W. Bush's legal team saw the issue differently. In Florida, said attorney Barry Richard, the law ''has been followed. There has to be an end point.'' ......... The 50-page legal brief repeatedly quoted from the justices' own decision that allowed vote recounts and said the right of voters to be heard was paramount. If votes are not recounted by the time Florida electors need to be chosen -Dec. 12 -- the briefs said, ''the resulting controversy about the legitimacy of the presidency would be destructive for our country.'' ........Republican Bush's lawyers said at a news conference that county and state officials were correct in certifying election results, even though machines had rejected many ballots. ....... ''It doesn't matter how many times somebody says everybody's ballot should be counted,'' said Richard. Gore's lawyers ''haven't asked for everybody's ballot to be counted in the first place,'' he said. ....... ''And in the second place, we're not talking about ballots that were not counted, other than ballots that were rejected because the machine determined they weren't properly marked.'' ......" Newsday 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch ".......The Gore lawyers have criticized Sauls for not moving fast enough. He has refused to rule on the recount issue until he hears legal arguments Saturday. But in their Supreme Court brief they said they felt ''respect and empathy'' for the judge whose actions would be considered speedy in normal circumstances. ......... ''We are here because we believe that this is the only way to ensure that the precious right of Floridians to vote and have their votes counted will be protected.'' ......" Washington Times 11/29/00 Audrey Hudson "......... A sizable number of Florida votes may have been cast by ineligible felons, illegal immigrants and noncitizens, according to election observers. The Florida Board of Elections sent a list to county election officials throughout the state to purge voter lists of 11,274 felons before this year's election. ......... That directive was ignored by Palm Beach County Election Supervisor Theresa LePore and at least one other county. ........ Officials in the county say the state's information was flawed, so they created their own list of suspected felons to purge. ........ An investigation by the Miami Herald

and NBC News found that at least 64 felons voted on Nov. 7 in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. .......... " Newsday 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch ".......An organization that advocates tougher immigration restrictions, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, says lax election standards allow illegal immigrants to vote. The Voting Integrity Project points to the "motor-voter" law as the main problem in allowing noncitizens to vote. The law permits citizens to register to vote when they apply for a driver's license or various other services of state and local government. It was vetoed by President Bush in 1992, but signed a year later by President Clinton. Noncitizens with green cards are not allowed to vote, but one of the first things they do after settling in the United States is to acquire a driver's license, said Deborah Phillips, chairman of the Voting Integrity Project. "They are also filling out a voter registration form without even realizing it, and when they get a card from the government in the mail saying they can vote, they think it is OK," Miss Phillips said. ......"Polls are not allowed to inquire about citizenship, and states have no way to weed them off the roll," Miss Phillips said. ....." Newsday 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch "......."Until now, our awareness of voting by noncitizens has generally been limited to a specific district. In this election, with the results razor-close in thousands of districts, it has most likely affected the entire nation, and perhaps the final results," Mr. Stein said. "Dead people, confusing ballots and inaccurate vote counts should not determine who our elected officials are. Neither should people who are not eligible to vote. One of the most precious rights of a citizen is that of the vote. It must not be undermined by errors or illegal voting," he said. ........... According to 1996 statistics from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the latest available, there are an estimated 350,000 illegal immigrants in Florida. ......" AP 11/30/00 Ron Fournier "...... Al Gore's lawyers battled for his political survival in the Florida and U.S. supreme courts Thursday, pleading against delaying fresh vote recounts ``even one day'' as a half-million ballots sped by rental truck to Tallahassee. GOP lawmakers jockeyed in the state capital to award the presidency to George W. Bush in case the judges wouldn't. ......... ``When the counting stops, we want to be prepared to lead this nation,'' Bush said in Texas between transition meetings with Colin Powell - the star of his Cabinet-in-the-making. ......." AP 11/30/00 Ron Fournier "......Sauls could need the ballots in case he sides with Gore after a hearing Saturday on the merits of recounts in three counties. The vice president is trying to overturn the official results of Florida's election, which give Bush a 537-vote lead and the 25 electoral votes needed to claim the White House. ....... Gore's advisers believe he needs a court victory and a speedy reduction of Bush's lead to keep public patience with a 23-day standoff that the vice president said could linger until the Electoral College meets Dec. 18. ..........His lawyers filed an urgent plea with the Florida Supreme Court asking the seven justices, all with Democratic ties, to start hand-counting ballots while Sauls decides whether the recounts could be added to Gore's totals. ``There is no reason to delay counting ballots even one day,'' the brief read. ......" AP 11/30/00 Ron Fournier "......Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said lawmakers may need to intercede if the results are still uncertain Dec. 12, the day states must choose their electors. ``Clearly, the U.S. Constitution delegates the authority of the selection of the electors to the Legislature,'' he said. ``That is as clear as can be.'' Not so, said Gore's lawyers. ............ They filed papers with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the Legislature would be on shaky ground if it appointed its own slate. Both sides were submitting briefs in advance of Friday's Supreme Court hearing in Washington. .........Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, accused Jeb Bush of helping his brother with a power grab. ``It threatens to put us into a constitutional crisis,'' Lieberman said. ....." AP Newsday 11/30/00 Anne Gearan "..... George W. Bush's lawyers argued to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday that the Florida Legislature has the constitutional power to appoint its own set of presidential electors. ......''In this context ... the Constitution specifically assigns the power to determine the manner of appointing presidential electors to the state legislature,'' as opposed to the ''state'' in general, Bush's lawyers wrote. .......... Gore's lawyers replied Thursday that the state Legislature would be on shaky constitutional ground if it set up a new, rival set of electors. ........ ''Respondents lengthy and tortured efforts to recharacterize the decision below as a modest, hardly noticeable, garden-variety act of ordinary statutory interpretation fail to withstand the mildest scrutiny,'' the Bush lawyers wrote. ...." NewYork Post 11/30/00 John Podhoretz "....... REPUBLICANS are waiting for "them" to talk sense into Al Gore. "They'll go to him and make him concede," countless people have said to me in the past two weeks. .... Consider this. .........Only a few days ago, Gore's post-election campaign suffered three body blows in quick

succession. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court surprised the hell out of everyone by agreeing to hear part of Bush's case. By Saturday morning, it was clear to all observers that Gore wasn't going to score enough votes in the two ongoing recounts to overtake Bush. And on Sunday night, Bush became the certified winner in Florida. Public polls were showing a pronounced erosion of Gore's support, even among Democrats, as approval of the vice president's efforts in Florida dropped by more than 20 percent - numbers that I'm told were just about the same in private polls conducted by both parties. .........,Did Democrats begin calling on Al Gore to give it up, to concede, to live and fight another day? Oh, no, no, no. .........." NewYork Post 11/30/00 John Podhoretz ".......If Gore somehow prevails, Gephardt, Daschle and other Washington Democrats will have stood by him at a time of testing - and President Gore will owe them. If Gore does not prevail, they will have lost nothing. They will have supported their party in a dark and complicated hour, and who can blame them for that? Besides, with with a 50-50 Senate and a nearly tied House of Representatives, President Bush will have to reach out to them to find some means of passing legislation and getting his appointments through. He can't afford revenge. ........Better still, they will have subtly helped to cripple Bush's presidency in its first critical year. It will take the Texas governor about that long just to get his staff in place, and the one practical accomplishment he would have sought in his first hundred days - his across-the-board tax cut - is now dead and buried. Prospects will look very bright indeed for Democrats to recapture control of the Senate and the House, thus making Daschle and Gephardt the kings of Capitol Hill. ......" Freeper sdkhaki "...... One of the most intriguing aspects to Saturday's marathon hearing is going to be the argument over what standard to use if any punchcard ballots are ordered to be recounted............ In the previous manual recounts, the local canvassing boards set up whatever standards they wanted. Even after repeated requests to a judge, they were not given any black and white standards. But if Judge Sauls orders any recounts, he or people he designates will do the counting. They will have to be provided a standard. The legal arguments over that issue should be intense.........." Freeper sdkhaki "...... Team Gore likes to reference the Delahunt v. Johnson case from Massachusetts. But the facts in that case aren't really similar. It was shown that there were problems with the ballots due to water damage. And Team Gore is STILL using the Pullen v. Mulligan case from Illinois. Dimples were not counted in that instance..........The Virginia AG filed a SCOTUS amici brief and talks about the Delahunt and Pullen cases and includes instances where other states EXCLUDE dimpled ballots. Considering how Judge Sauls has ruled so far, I'm betting that Team Gore will not get the standard they need.......... Another interesting point BTW from the amici brief I referenced above. "If an indentation reflects a voter's intent to punch out a chad, then logically every punch card ballot must be reexamined to see whether the vote cast by a detached chad has been cancelled out by an indented chad found on the same ballot and in the same race." That's very true since Gore is trying to say that there is no difference between a dimple and a clean hole. I wonder how many votes Gore would lose if the canvassing boards disqualified ballots based on a clean punch and a dimple. ......" Freeper WoodrowTKatt on the Butterworth letter "...... Actually, this letter is a doubly ironic hoot. You gotta remember the context in which it was written. Palm Beach County asked SOS Harris for an opinion on whether or not manual handcounts could proceed. As we all know, she said they were only called for under narrow circumstances: fraud, machine breakdown, software failure, etc. .......... PBC didn't like this answer so they went to Butterworth for another (sort of like a child going to dad after mom already said "no"). AG Butterworth wrote the letter above to justify going ahead with the PBC recount, since some other counties (I forget which) had counted some of the ballots manually during the automatic statewide recount. He said if some counties looked at ballots manually, it's only fair if all counties do so. ............Now, in the contest phase, Butterworth's same letter can be turned against his cause -- on what basis can Gore justify scrutinizing ballots in PBC and Miami-Dade without applying the same scrutiny to other "undercount" ballots throughout the state? Pretty funny, eh? ....." Freeper copycat "....' Did the SoS certify votes from this "two-tier" system? ' Yes she did. Hand recounts were certified from quite a few counties. Here's the thing...ANY county in FL could have elected to hand count their ballots, the canvassing committees have that power, but they had to do it BEFORE the Nov 14 deadline. Why Seminole and others went ahead and hand counted while Dade, Palm Beach and Broward dilly-dallied is open for speculation. ......" Freeper Okiereddust "..... Just heard this on the radio. Let me summarize. "Oklahoma State Attorney General Drew Edmondson today foiled an amicus curie brief with the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the Florida State Supreme Court, along with Attorney Generals from several other states. Attorney General Edmonson argued that the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling in the matter would violate a basic principle

of states rights, that states determine and run their own elections. He said if the U.S Supreme Court overturns the FSSC decision it will set a precedent whereupon federal courts will feel complelled to constantly intervene in state elections. He said that the FSSC decision was well founded on Florida State precedent and case law." ......." Freeper Congressman Billybob adds "...... As stated, this story is false. ALL of the Amicus Curiae briefs were due on Tuesday the 28th at 4 p.m., and not a minute later. I know. I filed one of the eight such briefs. And I have in my hot little hands as I write this, my stamped copy showing receipt by "Supreme Court, UC, Clerok's Office." The AG of Alabama did file an excellent brief. I find it hard to believe that a GOP AG would file a brief as dumb on the law as this report claims. ........... The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob, cyberCongressman from Western Carolina ......" http://www.supremecourtus.gov/florida.html Leon County Circuit Court Filigns 11/30/00 Freeper bcoffey "...... The Bush Team will be taking the deposition of Michael E. Lavelle (who made the infamous affidavit on the Illinois case) on Friday, December 1, 2000 in Des Plaines, Illinois....." "..... This is a Subpoena Duces Tecum, which means the deponent must bring certain documents to the deposition, to include All documents relating to Pullen v. Mulligan, both from the original case and the appeal to the Supreme Court of Illinois All communications between deponent and certain persons, including David Boies All affadavits executed since Nov 7, 2000 relating to involvement in Pullen v. Mulligan .....Oh, and the dep is to be videotaped! ......" Freeper texas_ranger "...... Seems to me that Boies got this affidavit to cover his butt. He knew he misrepresented the Illinois case to the FSC and he needed some deniability. Now he has an affidavit from a party to the case that backs up his story. He can always say "but I didn't mis-represent the facts, I was given bad information." I don't know where the Bush team is going with this, but thier legal strategy has been pretty good so far so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt......" AP yahoo! 11/30/00 Karen Gullo "......Staffers carried in folding tables. Volunteers filed in by the dozens to drop off resumes. The mailman made his first delivery - four letters. A local eatery dropped off coupons for discounts on pizza lunches. ......... George W. Bush's new transition office in suburban McLean, Va., was a buzz of activity Thursday, its first official day of business. While Bush met with running mate and transition czar Dick Cheney and former Gen. Colin Powell in Texas to talk over the business of forming a new government, staffers scurried like mad in McLean to get the 2,100 square-foot office up and running and make good on Bush's declaration, ``We're open for business.'' ......." AP 11/30/00 ".....House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott are going to Texas this weekend to discuss the congressional agenda with George W. Bush in a session that will underscore their position that he is the legitimate president-elect. Republican sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bush's transition plans also will be on the agenda when he sits down with the GOP congressional leadership for the first time since the election. ....... The session will serve to underscore Hastert and Lott's stated belief that Bush won the election despite Al Gore's legal challenge in Florida......." Washington Times 11/30/00 Suzanne Fields "..... Winner vs. whiner The Republicans have become the street fighters spoiling for a little action, and the Democrats the whiners. George W. has pinned Al Gore's shoulders to the playground asphalt. Look who turned the tables. ......... The Gore team introduced David Boies, understudy for Warren Christopher, as if he was Napoleon at the victory of Austerlitz. Not for long. Suddenly the mild-mannered Jim Baker looks like the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. .......Walk into any restaurant, coffee shop or bar overflowing with political junkies and a television set and it's the staid Republicans who are unruly and cheering, their fists in the air. The Democrats slink low in their chairs, timidly studying a map to the high road.. .......The greatest irony of all for Democrats, the party of the radical "feminists," is that Katherine Harris, the woman with true grit who achieved power the old-fashioned way by getting elected to it, is dumped on by the sisterhood for, of all things, getting her make-up wrong. ........" Bush - Cheney 11/30/00 "........ Here's What They're Saying: What Should Happen Next - Post Election: Day 23 "While [Sen.] Kerrey [D-MA] said he'll support Gore all the way to the Dec. 12 deadline, he also expressed doubts about the vice president's chances of success. He said Bush's legal team is doing everything possible to delay the lawsuits, hoping to run out the clock. 'I think he's playing a losing hand,' Kerrey said of Gore." Omaha World-Herald Bureau, by Matt Kelley, 11/30/00 "It's time, Democrats. The moment is at hand for the Democratic Party to save itself by sacrificing one of its own. Even as polls show that a growing number of Americans hold Vice President Al Gore largely responsible for the legal circus in the Sunshine State and believe that the Democratic nominee should concede defeat, Mr. Gore seems to have settled into the bunker." Dallas Morning News, Editorial, 11/30/00 "This newspaper's call for Gore to concede is more narrowly drawn. Gore's refusal to accept the victory of

George W. Bush in Florida subjects the nation to more uncertainty and political gamesmanship. Florida has certified its vote, in accordance with the pro-Gore rules set by the Florida Supreme Court. The End." Chicago Tribune, Editorial, 11/30/00 "One of the more conservative Democrats, state Rep. Greg Delleney Jr. of Chester, called on the vice president to concede. 'The votes have been counted and he came up short. ... To me, Gore is coming across as a whiner. I think he's putting his own self-interest ahead of the country,' Delleney said. "State Rep. Joel Lourie, D-Richland, issued a statement that was more cautious but still put pressure on Gore to abandon his legal challenge. 'I do think Gore got more votes than Bush in Florida, but at some point he needs to move on for the good of the nation,' he said...'I don't think it's good for the country that this thing drag on. It's now approaching a month. We've got to put the good of the nation ahead of what's good for any particular political party,' Lourie said. "Gov. Jim Hodges, who has had his run-ins with Gore, has counseled patience. But he cautions the dispute can't go on indefinitely. 'The people's patience is wearing thin,' says Hodges spokesman Morton Brilliant. 'Like most Americans, we think this thing needs to end soon.' "But Senate President Pro Tem John Drummond, D-Greenwood, called for closure. 'Gore should absolutely fold his tent. I think he ought to graciously say, 'I'll see you later.' " The State (SC), by Lee Bandy, 11/30/00 "At least one Tennessee Democrat was chafing at the delays.State Sen. Jerry Cooper (D-McMinnville) said his constituents are 'tired of it' and that if the Supreme Court rules against Gore 'then he ought to quit.'" The Memphis Commercial Appeal, by James W. Brosnan, 11/30/00 'At some point in time, you have to close it down and make a decision,' [Rep.] Boyd [D-FL] said. 'And then whoever's going to be president has to have time to put his team in place.' They and other Democrats from conservative areas say calls, faxes and other messages to their district offices are running strongly in favor of Bush. Associated Press, by Alan Fram, 11/30/00 "'I think there is a core of Democrats that believes there has to be a resolution to this and it has to come soon,' he [Steven Kfoury, chairman of the Lawrence Democratic City Committee] said. State Rep. Barry R. Finegold, D-Andover, who campaigned for Vice President Gore in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, agrees... "'I think people at this point are ready for this election to be over,' he said. 'If it goes after this week, I don't see people being happy.' Rep. Finegold said if it does go longer, he fears a backlash against his party, especially in the 2001 elections. "I think they have to be very careful about how long they prolong this," he said. "It's been a tough election, but I think people have to move forward." Lawrence [MA] Eagle-Tribune, by Nancy C. Rodriguez, 11/29/00 "Once the Supreme Court rules, it will be time to focus on the transition from the Clinton administration to the next president, said Donny Ness, campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, DFL-8th District. "At some point Democrats would have to say, 'We accept the results of this election; we accept that George Bush is our president. We want to do whatever we have to make sure that the country comes first and not partisanship,' '' [Donny] Ness [campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar (Democrat)] said." Duluth News-Tribune, Martiga Lohn, 11/29/00 Washington Times 11/30/00 Greg Pierce "...... "There are Republicans taking to the streets in Miami, in Fort Lauderdale, in West Palm Beach, in Tallahassee, in Austin, in Washington, and who knows where else. In each place, they have been met by pro-Gore demonstrators, but there has been no comparison between the size and the passion of the two sides," the American Spectator's Byron York writes. ........ "At this weekend's protests in Washington, for example, anti-Gore demonstrators greatly outnumbered pro-Gore forces at all times - even though The Washington Post pictured only the small Democratic contingent on its front page Sunday morning (some of the networks paid them even less attention). If anything, such coverage made the Republicans even more intense," Mr. York said. ........"All this has left Gore supporters a little, well, rattled. 'Where are the Democratic fire-breathers?' asks Democratic fire-breather David Talbot, editor of Salon. 'With their omnipresent "Sore Loserman" placards and their full-throated charges of election stealing,' Talbot

writes, 'the Republicans have seized the momentum.' . . . " FoxNews 11/30/00 Freeper Captain7seas "...... Brit Hume on FOX News just reported correctly that the real cause of the protest in Miami was caused by the actions of the Miami/Dade Canvassing Committee excluding the media and public from the room where the Committee was counting ballots. This report showed a handwritten protest signed by members of the media protesting the illegal actions that the Miami/Dade Canvassing Committee were engaged in. The controlling legal authority is Florida Statute 102.166 (6) "Any manual recount shall be open to the public." ........ This protest has been "spun" by everyone from ALGORE, Joe Lieberman and just about every other Gore supporter I've seen that could get in front of a camera, as a staged Republican riot where paid thugs "operating from an urban assault vehicle" intimidated the Canvassing Committee into stopping the legal recounting of ballots. ......" USA Today 11/30/00 AP "......If every vote in Florida were counted, Vice President Al Gore would be the next president, President Clinton says, and ''America will be embarrassed in front of the world if the votes are not counted.'' Clinton offered his off-the-cuff observations to two reporters, Hilary MacKenzie, a Southam News reporter writing for the Ottawa Citizen in Canada and Stefan Simons of the German weekly Der Spiegel......" UPI 11/30/00 Michael Kirkland "......Whatever the U.S. Supreme Court decides following Friday's argument, the decision might not affect Gore's challenges to the final vote tally now in state court in Florida. However, whichever side wins this first round of U.S. Supreme Court action will gain an enormous psychological victory over his opponent in the battle for public opinion......... All the parties filed "merit" briefs in the dispute with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday. "Merit" briefs outline the arguments that each side's lawyer will take in person Friday.......... Thursday, the parties to the dispute -- Bush, Gore, the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board and the Florida secretary of state and attorney general's offices -- were scheduled to file "response" briefs.........." UPI 11/30/00 Michael Kirkland "...... In its Thursday brief, the Bush camp ripped into Gore's contention that the U.S. Supreme Court should stay out of the legal battle in Florida. It called the Gore arguments "lengthy and tortuous efforts to recharacterize the decision below as a modest, hardly noticeable, garden-variety act of ordinary statutory interpretation."......... The Bush brief insisted "the Florida Supreme Court plainly rewrote the election laws in a number of significant respects," in violation of federal law. The Florida Supreme Court created "out of whole cloth, a new deadline for a selective, standardless, changing and unequal manual recount process for this particular election," the brief said......" UPI 11/30/00 Michael Kirkland "...... The Bush brief also said the state court's action should be "vacated," or thrown out, because it does not comply with federal law, which says that elections must be conducted under state laws as they exist on Election Day.......... " UPI 11/30/00 Michael Kirkland "...... The Gore campaign filed its own "response" brief earlier Thursday. Though the issue is not before the justices, the Gore campaign told the U.S. Supreme Court, among other things, that Florida's legislature cannot legally name its own slate of presidential electors, as its Republican majority has threatened to do if the legal contest goes on much longer........ The Gore brief, in paragraphs separate from the main argument, said Florida voters picked their choice on Nov. 7, but because of a "flawed" counting process that choice is not clear........ The brief said "it is not self-evident that such direct appointment is even available" under the language of federal law......." UPI 11/30/00 Mark Kukis Mark Benjamin "......Crucial political support for Vice President Al Gore's effort to challenge Texas Gov. George W. Bush's apparent election victory may hinge on Friday's proceedings in the U.S. Supreme Court, according to some Democrats.......... The Supreme Court case to be heard on Friday has political implications that go way beyond its narrow legal focus. Whichever way the Supreme Court rules, Bush remains the certified victor. If Bush prevails, Florida'searlier vote tally - excluding the manual recounts ordered by the state's high court - will be re-instated, increasing his margin of victory to nearly 1,000 votes. But even a Gore victory will only underpin the current vote tally - including manual recounts - leaving Bush the certified victor anyway. The real impact of the ruling will be the effect it might have on perceptions of the rectitude of both men's competing claims to the presidency, and -- perhaps -- on the momentum of the ongoing legal cases in Florida......." FoxNews 11/30/00 Freeper tnvet "..... Fox News Sheppard Smith reported tonight that Bush has received just over 4 million to aid his legal fight. G.W. publishes the names and amount given of every contributor. G.W. also placed a 5000 dollar limit on contributions. Gore said he put no limit on the amount that could be given. He also said he would not disclose who gave or how much they gave. He did say he might consider giving some info at a later date. He said he collected about 3 million. ........ Shades of Clinton non-disclosure already showing through. Gore said he had enough to go as long as necessary. 3 mil won't cover 700 high priced lawyers for that long, which leads me to believe that maybe a foreign Gov like China may be covering

the cost. .......Gore said he would not concede even if USSC ruled against him and he lost all of his lawsuits. He Said it would end on the Dec 18. Looks like the fix with the electoral college is in....." FoxNews 11/30/00 Freeper WoodrowTKatt ".......O'Rielly just had one of the lawyers from Pullen v Mulligan, the now infamous Illinois case that Boies misrepresented before the FLSC. Besides repeating the facts of the case (which are already well known on FR), he made the following final point: Broward county got the standard wrong. The judge in Pullen v Mulligan ruled that you must look at the ballot in its entirety. A dimple doesn't count if other votes on the ballot are cleanly punched. .......In Broward, they awarded hundreds of votes to Gore if there was a dimple on the gore punch and the rest of the ballot was voted Democrat. By the very case that the FLSC cited, Broward ought not to have done that. .........If Gore does manage to restart the recounts in his election contest, this means Bush would have a strong claim for re-re-re-recounting Broward using a valid standard (the same one PBC used). Gore could well lose more votes in a Broward recount than he'd gain from a Miami-Dade recount. ....." Time Warner Cable 11/30/00 Freeper FreeCapitalist "....... Houston Area Freepers (and others)! We need to take action against Time Warner Cable, Ted Turner and CNN: Time Warner Cable, affiliate of CNN has declared war on the Fox News Channel. During the past week, Time Warner has interrupted shows with local commercials frequently during shows such as The Oreilly Factor, Fox News Sunday, The Fox Report and Hannity and Colmes. I watch Fox News regularly and this has just started happening during the post-election coverage. The commercials run into programming during the best conservative guests like Peggy Noonan, etc... This is an obvious directive to censor effective conservatives and to irritate viewers of the Fox News Channel causing them to view other Cable News Networks such as CNN. Please join me in standing up against the Turner Propaganda. Fox News Channel has been a valuable addition in the fight against liberal bias and I hope you will take a minute to help Freep the Time Warner BASTARDS! .....Time Warner Cable Toll Free phone number: (800) 299-2002 or (713) 462-9000. FCC Community ID: TX0676 - City of Houston Regulatory Phone number: (713) 247-1104 ...." Electronic Telgraph 12/1/00 Mark Steyn "...... THE strangest sight on television this week was Tom Daschle, leader of the Senate Democrats, and Dick Gephardt, leader of the House Democrats, sitting in a Florida hotel room taking a conference call from Al Gore in Washington. .......... Al had just happened to call to discuss this recount business while his two colleagues were miked up and a cameraman was in the room. Tom and Dick sat around looking studiedly casual as Al did his usual routine about "the will of the people" and "the integrity of our democracy". ......... True, Tom Daschle doesn't look the least bit like Drew Barrymore, but, if you've had enough cocktails and keep the lights down, Dick Gephardt is a passable Cameron Diaz. Unfortunately, they both began to take on the air of those slack-jawed, glassy-eyed "human shields" who Saddam Hussein liked to put on TV during the Gulf War to describe what a great time they were having in dull, unmodulated voices. ......" Newsday 11/30/00 Marie Cocco "......There may come a day very soon when Al Gore must show the fine breeding from which he certainly must have benefited and concede the presidential election. That day has not dawned. Not quite. And Republicans can blame themselves. It is they, not Gore, who have allowed the dark to linger over this shrouded election that will not end. Because it is they, not Gore, who are responsible for the most frightening turn this grim spectacle has taken: the near-riot by the mob in Miami that stormed county offices the day before Thanksgiving in a clear, if not premeditated, effort to stop the counting of ballots. The mob was incited -- yes, openly led by -- Republican officials who have waged a campaign of disinformation in declaring the manual counting of ballots, which is legal under Florida law, to be the equivalent of fraud. ...." Associate Press 11/29/00 Mike Schneider "......Nearly a month before Election Day, the elections supervisor in Seminole County allowed a fellow Republican to spend more than a week correcting thousands of absentee ballot applications she had set aside because of a computer error. The decision by Supervisor Sandra Goard and the unsupervised work done by Michael Leach of the Florida Republican Party are at the heart of a lawsuit that would, if successful, give Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) nearly 4,800 additional votes - more than enough to claim Florida and the presidency. ......... During a hearing Tuesday in Tallahassee, Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark refused to consolidate the case with an overall election contest, and instead set up a fast-paced schedule scheduled to begin Wednesday.............Republicans and Goard's attorneys say they didn't break the law. ``Any person can assist the voter in filling it out and can present the application to the supervisor's office,'' said Barry Richard, an attorney for Seminole County. ........ Goard's office referred calls to her attorney. Her assistant supervisor, Dennis Joyner, said he couldn't comment on the specifics of the case but denied any wrongdoing. ``We were in the position of trying to make sure as many people as possible received a ballot,'' Joyner said. ......." FoxNews 11/30/00 Freeper Patriot "...... Tonight on Hannity and Colmes Senator Deconcini called on Gore to concede and said it is time to move on. ....." Freeper MississippiMan ".... I just saw it. I heard him say it was

time to move on, but has he actually used the word 'concede' yet? ......" Freeper Rep717 "..... He is a former Senator and he said that it was not in the best intrest of the country for this to go on. He thinks Gore should throw in the towel. ...." CBSNews 11/30/00 Susan Walsh ".......In a party line vote today, a committee of Florida lawmakers recommended a special session of the legislature for the purposes of naming its own slate of presidential electors in the event that unresolved Democratic lawsuits imperil Florida's chances of being counted in the Electoral College. ....... emocrats believe the real goal of Republicans' push to green-light the extraordinary session is to insure a George W. Bush victory. ............ If a court overturns Secretary of State Katherine Harris's certification of the statewide vote, or a new court-authorized vote tally points to a Gore win, a full session of the Republican-controlled Legislature would be in a position to seat a slate of electors pledged to Bush. ........." CBSNews 11/30/00 Susan Walsh "....... For two days, the Select Joint Committee on the Manner of Appointment of Presidential Electors considered the advice of dueling teams of constitutional law experts about the legislature's authority and obligations under federal law and the U.S. Constitution to intervene in the appointment of electors. ......... Both sets of lawyers interpreted Article 2 of the Constitution and the federal laws known as 3 U.S.C. Sections 2 and 5, which describe the authority of state legislatures to determine how they appoint electors, according to a schedule. .......... The same set of laws is at the heart of the George W. Bush's case in the United States Supreme Court, which will be argued Friday morning. ........ The Republicans' experts said the laws and Supreme Court case law give the state legislature "plenary"-that is, absolute-power to appoint electors. .......They recommended that lawmakers pass a "contingent" resolution or statute which would take effect in a scenario where Florida's electoral votes were in doubt. ......." 3 USC 15 Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "........ However, and most importantly, it is extremely likely that when the Congress gets Florida's certified slate of Votes that it will lead to an objection within Congress, as contemplated by 3 USC 15. That section determines how to Count Electoral Votes. Since there could be up to 2 or 3 disputed slates of Electors from Florida, or the Congress simply may not want to accept the votes from Florida (or elsewhere) in an expected partisan showdown (as Gore has set in motion), then the new House and Senate must separately deliberate to come to a consensus. In that case, we can assume that the 50-50 or worse Senate (with a tie broken by Gore himself) will choose to follow the Gore-friendly slate of Electors' votes and that the House of Representatives (heavily Republican) will go with the Bush-friendly slate. With no clear consensus or agreement between the House and Senate, 3 USC 15 is clear that the final determinant will be by counting the votes of Electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the Executive of the State: Jeb Bush's Sunday filing. This interplay between 3 USC 5 and 3 USC 15 was briefly alluded to just recently in Bush's Supreme Court Reply Brief at pp 12-13 (pointing out the requirement that an executive certification would be determinant in deciding a Congressional dispute between the House and Senate in how to count a State's disputed Electoral votes; therefore the Florida Supreme Court cannot change the SOS/Executive deadline for certification retroactively). In sum, Jeb Bush's official certification filed on Sunday will ultimately control if there is a dispute within the Congress on how to count Florida's Electoral vote. .............. The section which is the critical final determinant, 3 USC 15, states: "But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted." .............. Again, Jeb Bush's certification will be the tie-breaker in any dispute within the Congress about how to count Florida's Electoral College votes. ....... This is the final endgame and why Gore cannot win and Bush will win. Checkmate. ...." Wall Street Journal 11/30/00 Paul Gigot "...... The ubiquitous Jesse Jackson held a loud public rally in Tallahassee this week, but his less publicized courtroom visit could matter more to Al Gore. ........ For the TV cameras, Jesse and members of the Congressional Black Caucus did their usual race thing, comparing Florida 2000 to Selma 1965. To their civic credit, blacks outpolled (15%) their share of the voting-age Florida population (13%) this year. But Mr. Jackson still says blacks were victims of "targeted racial profiling." So dimpled ballots equal beatings with clubs. ...........More telling, however, was the hour or so that Mr. Jackson and his famous phalanx spent in the courtroom of Judge Nikki Ann Clark. Judge Clark is a black former aide to Gore campaign chairman and Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth. She was recently passed over by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for a promotion. Judge Clark's ruling next week on absentee ballots in Seminole County could hand the election to Al Gore. ......Democrats are arguing that 15,000, Bush-heavy ballots should be disenfranchised because the GOP assisted 4,700 in their absentee applications (not the ballots themselves). So much for "counting every vote." But you can bet Judge Clark noticed who was watching her from the gallery. ......" USA Today 12/1/00 Laura Parker "......Perhaps the most significant victory for Al Gore's campaign Thursday

was the television footage of a Ryder truck driving up the Florida Turnpike with 462,000 ballots from Palm Beach County. That kept alive in the public's eye what his lawyers have thus far failed to accomplish in court: the prospect that there are more ballots to be counted. Counting ballots is central to Gore's ability to win. .......... That might buy him time in the court of public opinion. But the legal battle to resume the count is more problematic, and it grows more so by the day as appeals are piled on top of appeals. In the end, getting the count going and finished might prove too high a hurdle...... To restart the count, one of two things must happen: * Gore must persuade the Florida Supreme Court to supersede Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls' delay of the count....... * If the Supreme Court declines to step in, then Gore must prevail at Saturday's hearing before Sauls. ..... In any event, the case will end up back at the Florida Supreme Court because the loser in Saturday's hearing will appeal. It is also possible that the Bush team will search for ways to appeal a ruling on the resumption of the count to the U.S. Supreme Court. ..........But maneuverings will eat up time, and time is Gore's biggest enemy...... " USA Today 12/1/00 Laura Parker "............. Resumption of the manual count in Miami-Dade. This is the central thrust of Gore's case and where he has the greatest chance of overtaking Bush in the vote tally...... About 9,000 of the 10,750 "undervotes" had not been counted when the canvassing board abruptly shut down its manual count the day before Thanksgiving. Undervotes are ballots that did not register a vote for president when run through a vote-counting machine. Before the board quit counting those votes, it found 160 new votes for Gore. ........" USA Today 12/1/00 Laura Parker "......Reconsideration of disqualified ballots in Palm Beach. Gore contends that the canvassing board used too high a standard to determine when to disqualify some 3,300 "dimpled" ballots, or ballots that had indentations indicating an attempt to vote. ...... "Obviously, if just 538 of them are counted, Gore wins," said Greg Barnhart, the Palm Beach lawyer who has handled the Palm Beach challenge for Gore. ........ " USA Today 12/1/00 Laura Parker "...... Disqualification of 15,000 absentee ballots in Seminole County. This could have the effect of erasing some 4,800 votes from Bush and thus providing Gore with a far wider margin of victory than the hundreds of new votes he is trying to rustle up in new counts in South Florida. In Seminole County, Democratic activist Harry Jacobs sued to have the ballots thrown out after learning that GOP activists had filled in missing information on absentee ballot request forms........." USA Today 12/1/00 Laura Parker "......Calling for a new election in Palm Beach County. Lawsuits brought by Palm Beach voters now stand before the Florida Supreme Court, which has yet to decide whether it will accept the case. The voters contend that the confusing "butterfly" ballot design in Palm Beach County spoiled as many as 20,000 votes because voters either punched the ballot twice or mistakenly cast a vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Gore. NewsMax 11/30/00 Carl Limbacher "..... President Clinton abandoned all pretense of objectivity in the Florida election dispute Thursday, telling a Canadian reporter in Washington that "America will be embarrassed in front of the world if the votes (in Florida) are not counted." Then the president added, "If the votes were counted Al Gore would carry the state." ......" Freeper Uncle Fud "..... Three times during the monologue, Jay was "interrupted" by Gore "speeches" each one of which was a meaningless nonsequitur made up of cut and pasted fragments of a real Gore whine. There was lots more anti-Gore material too, plus a couple of obligatory Bush jokes that were much milder. Leno of course is no real friend of conservatism, but few people are better at knowing what the audience is now ready to hear. And another example of how Gore's overexposure is weakening him. ...." O'Reilly Factor 11/30/00 Freeper Yankee "..... George Mason University Professor William Lash told Bill O'Reilly that odds are heavy that the U.S. Supreme Court will "grab the Florida Supreme court by the collar and shake the heck out of it.". He expects that a solid majority of the Justices will rule in favor of Bush. From his lips to God's ear............. " Freeper Don'tMessWithTexas "...... I think it will be a 5-4 for Bush. Majority: Thomas, Scalia, Rehnquist, O'Connor, and Kennedy. The decision will not be handed down over a weekend. However, the court will not take long to render opinion. I get a feeling that one or two justices already understand how they want to decide this case and may be having their clerks a preliminary opinion as we speak. Could have an opinon by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. FLSC and circuit court will wait until ruling comes down. ....." Freeper appeal2 "..... As an attorney who's had experience with the USSC, I think the odds are about 85% in Bush's favor. The one troubling aspect is how the SC will fashion their order. Generally when the USSC takes a case they are looking to give finality. In this case, they are hearing such a narrow

issure, mainly dealing with the 1887 statute, it is hard to figure how they will end this thing. Expect some type of sweeping order that will issue a narrow ruling on the issue but blast algore and the FLSC and rip them a new one. You can rest assure that this thing is going W's way. We just have to be a little bit patient. ....." New York Times 12/1/00 David Firestone "......[Gov. George W. Bush's lawyers] also announced plans to subpoena nearly 1.17 million ballots from three Florida counties, on top of the 1.16 million that began arriving by truck in the state capital this afternoon........ Bush legal team filed a brief arguing that Mr. Gore had no ability to contest the results because he was never really a candidate in the election.........Technically, only the electors supporting presidential candidates are on the ballot, the brief said, and only they can file contests. It also said the vice president had failed to prove that the outcome of the election would be different if 14,000 disputed ballots were recounted. And it argued that manually recounting only part of the ballots was illegal......" New York Times 12/1/00 David Firestone "......The Republicans plan to call 95 witnesses at the trial, according to lawyers who have seen their plans.........Democratic lawyers accused the Republicans of delaying tactics designed to drag out the lawsuit past Dec. 12, when the State Legislature will have named Florida's presidential electors...........The Gore team filed a lengthy appeal this morning with the Florida Supreme Court, asking its seven justices to begin counting the 14,000 ballots........" New York Times 12/1/00 David Firestone "...... The Democrats are hoping a quick ruling will allow them to avoid the entangling arguments raised by the Bush team, eliminating the need to try to persuade Judge N. Sanders Sauls to count the ballots that they believe contain enough votes for Mr. Gore to change the outcome of the election............ Republicans have promised to fight any effort to count even a single ballot, and on Wednesday persuaded Judge Sauls to order all 1.16 million ballots from the two counties brought to Tallahassee. All would need to be recounted if even a single vote was, they argue......" New York Times 12/1/00 David Firestone "......In a letter to Judge Sauls, Jason Unger, one of Mr. Bush's lawyers, said his team was issuing subpoenas to the election boards in Broward, Volusia and Pinellas Counties, demanding that all of their 1.17 million ballots be sent to the courthouse by 5 p.m. Saturday.......The reason was explained in the brief: some of the ballots from those counties, particularly Broward, contain indented chads that were counted as votes. These were illegal, the brief says, and must be excluded......." New York Times 12/1/00 David Firestone "......At a hearing today, Judge Sauls expressed some skepticism about allowing the ballots to be transported, noting that the three counties were not contested in Mr. Gore's lawsuit and might not be required to comply with the subpoenas. But he agreed to put the matter off until the Republicans raise it formally in court.........." New York Times 12/1/00 David Firestone "...... Mr. Gore's lawyers are placing an enormous amount of hope on the possibility that the Florida Supreme Court, may agree on Friday to short- circuit the case. ......... Ben Ginsburg, Mr. Bush's general counsel, said it was the Democrats' own fault that they were running out of time, because they persuaded the Florida Supreme Court earlier this month to let the hand counts continue. That should not mean Mr. Bush's lawyers must give up their right to properly defend their client, he said....... "The arguments that we raise in our motion to dismiss are all fairly standard legal defenses, and they are valid and significant legal issues. If they fail to name the proper candidate on the ballot, are we supposed to let them get away with all sorts of shortcuts?"..." New York Times 12/1/00 David Firestone "...The lawyers also argued that: Mr. Gore's lawsuit was filed past the legal deadline....... It failed to name Mr. Bush's Republican electors as a party to the suit.......Manually counting ballots from only two counties violated the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.......The contest suit was prohibited by the "doctrine of laches," an old legal term meaning the failure to seize one's rights promptly. ...... The Republicans argued that the court cannot simply count a few thousand ballots chosen by the Gore team "Common sense dictates: three predominantly Democratic counties out of the 67 counties of Florida cannot determine which candidates prevailed in this statewide and, ultimately, national contest," their brief said. ......." New York Times 12/1/00 Linda Greenhouse "......The chance that the election case to be argued before the Supreme Court on Friday would point to a clear way out of the Florida morass has diminished almost by the day in the week since the justices surprised the country by agreeing to hear it........ A tangle of new lawsuits, as well as proposed action by the Florida Legislature, has raised the possibility of further Supreme Court appeals and thus the prospect that this case might not even produce the court's last word. ...... Whether the newly prominent statute, Section 5 of Title 3 of the United States Code, is crucial to the outcome of this case depends largely on whether the justices conclude that anything has happened in Florida so far to make the provision relevant to this phase of the dispute and therefore ripe for review........ Section 5 is one long, difficult 133- word sentence, constructed as an "if . . . then" proposition. If a state takes certain steps in

difficult 133- word sentence, constructed as an "if . . . then" proposition. If a state takes certain steps in appointing its presidential electors, then the choice of those electors "shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes." Exactly what the "if" clause means, and what conclusions the Supreme Court should draw from whatever it decides, is very much in dispute......." New York Times 12/1/00 Linda Greenhouse "......Whether all of this matters depends in large measure on the Supreme Court's first interpretation of Section 5, which Congress passed in 1887 to avoid a repetition of the Hayes-Tilden electoral debacle of 1876 in which competing slates of electors vied on the floor of Congress.......... The law says that if a state has provided "by laws enacted prior to" Election Day, a method of settling "any controversy or contest" concerning the appointment of electors, the determination made according to those laws shall not be subject to challenge in Congress........ The Bush position is that because the Florida Supreme Court "changed" substantive state election law after Election Day, there is no "prior" law in place and the condition of Section 5 is therefore not satisfied...........The Gore position is not only that the Florida Supreme Court decision did not change the law by interpreting it, but also that this entire argument represents a misunderstanding of Section 5. In particular, the Gore reply brief maintains that what has to have remained unchanged since before Election Day under Section 5 is not state election law as a whole, but rather a state's dispute-resolution process for dealing with electoral problems........." New York Times 12/1/00 Linda Greenhouse "......In accepting the Bush appeal, the justices asked both sides to address the question: "What would be the consequences of this court's finding that the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida does not comply with Section 5?" ...... The Bush brief argues that in that event, the state's court's judgment should be vacated. "Such a result would permit Florida's executive official to perform their duties under the law as it existed on Nov. 7, 2000," the brief says. ........ Further, the Bush team maintains that such a reversion to the original vote-counting deadline would mean that the essential claims of Vice President Gore's new state-court lawsuit contesting the certification "will be rendered invalid." That is because there would be no basis for asserting that any post-Nov. 14 recounts should either have continued or been included in the official total.........." New York Times 12/1/00 Linda Greenhouse "...... The Gore brief says there would be no basis for overturning the decision, even if the justices found a Section 5 problem with the state court's ruling. That is because the only purpose of Section 5 was to offer states a "safe harbor" against challenges to their electors. If the condition of Section 5 is not met, the result is to simply to remove the benefit of the safe harbor, according the Gore lawyers, whose reply brief today tells the justices: "This court lacks the power to reverse a state's decision to forgo a benefit the federal government need not have offered in the first place." ......... As for the Bush assertion that the Gore post-certification contest would be doomed, the Gore reply brief today described the argument as a "breathtaking" and invalid request to have the Supreme Court "declare the game over."....." New York Times 12/1/00 Linda Greenhouse "......Additional disputes revolve around a clause in the United States Constitution, contained in Section 1 of Article II, providing that "each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct," a slate of electors. ......... Under the Bush view, this provision is a delegation to the legislature that carves the state judiciary and the executive branch out of a role in interpreting or enforcing state laws having to do with the presidential election. Under the Gore view, nothing in Article II should be read to strip state courts of the ordinary review power that the framers intended them to have......." PRNewswire 11/30/00 "......National Legal and Policy Center filed a Complaint with the Florida Bar today requesting that David Boies and Mitchell W. Berger, attorneys for Vice Present Albert A. Gore, Jr., be investigated for apparent professional misconduct relating to an allegedly false affidavit reportedly offered to two Florida courts last week. .......... NLPC's Complaint -- available at www.nlpc.org -- draws on recent articles from the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times that reported that Boies and Berger allegedly requested and allegedly used an affidavit from an Illinois attorney about the treatment of ``dimpled'' ballots in an Illinois case and that the affidavit appears to be false. The Illinois attorney later reportedly corrected the affidavit but apparently Boies and Berger have not taken remedial action to address the allegedly false affidavit. The affidavit is an exhibit to NLPC's Complaint. ......... The Complaint stated, ``Given the attached affidavit and the reported facts in the two news articles (Boies and Berger) may have violated and/or may continue to be in violation of (the) Florida Rules of Professional Conduct ... '' One of the possible violations cited in the Complaint includes Rule 4- 3.3(a), ``Candor Toward The Tribunal'' which states: A lawyer shall not knowingly: (1) make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal; ... (3) fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling

jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel; or (4) permit any witness ... to offer testimony or other evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. A lawyer may not offer testimony that the lawyer knows to be false in the form of a narrative unless so ordered by the tribunal. If a lawyer has offered material evidence and thereafter comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial measures......." New York Law Journal 11/30/00 "..... Profiles of the four lawyers scheduled to argue Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board before the U.S. Supreme Court today: .... .....Theodore Olson, counsel for Bush Campaign ......Mr. Olson, 60, headed the Office of Legal Counsel under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1984, and returned to Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to start its appellate practice. Among the partners at the firm is Eugene Scalia, son of Justice Antonin Scalia. ...... Mr. Olson said an elaborate accounting procedure has been developed to make certain that Mr. Scalia does not profit from the firm's U.S. Supreme Court practice, which might prompt Justice Scalia to recuse himself from the firm's cases. ...... Mr. Olson has a clear, direct speaking style, devoid of rhetorical flourishes. ......Mr. Olson has a Court record of eight wins and four losses. In his highest-profile argument to date, he took on the difficult task of defending the Virginia Military Institute's all-male policies in 1996......" ......Laurence Tribe, counsel for Gore Campaign ....... Working out of a suite at the Watergate Hotel, Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe has been preparing for the most high-profile case of his career in typical fashion. ....... Though Mr. Tribe's usually lengthy prep time has been compressed, it is likely to produce a highly polished, airtight argument that leaves nothing to chance. Mr. Tribe does not always win his lifetime record is 19 wins, nine losses, one draw - but he is rarely caught off guard by a question from a justice. ......Mr. Tribe, 58, has a lot to be self-assured about when he approaches the Supreme Court podium. He once clerked for the late Justice Potter Stewart, and is author of American Constitutional Law, the most frequently cited legal text of the last half-century. Former students fill the ranks of Supreme Court law clerks. ....... " ......... Paul Hancock, counsel for Florida Attorney General ........ Paul Hancock will represent his boss, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth. Mr. Hancock has been with Mr. Butterworth, a Democrat, for three years. But in 27 years in the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the Ohio native worked for four Republican as well as two Democratic administrations. ......... Mr. Hancock, 56, is a 1966 graduate of Xavier University and a 1970 graduate of the University of Toledo law school. In a 27-year career with the Justice Department, he litigated cases involving school desegregation, voting rights, fair housing, and fair lending. When he left in 1997, he was deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. ....... In Florida, Mr. Hancock developed Mr. Butterworth's program to help the elderly. In 1999, Mr. Butterworth promoted him to deputy attorney general for South Florida. ....." ............Joseph Klock Jr., counsel for Florida Secretary of State ........ The old adage says clients hire a lawyer, not a law firm. But when Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state, hired Joseph Klock Jr. to represent her in the presidential recount dispute, she got both - a lawyer possessing a solid reputation with the Florida Bar and the leader of one of the state's most prominent firms. For 21 years, Mr. Klock has been the managing partner of Steel, Hector & Davis, a 160-lawyer pillar of Miami's legal establishment. Former partners include Attorney General Janet Reno and U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who in the first week of the post-election litigation rejected a request by Governor Bush to stop the manual vote recounts. ...... While the other three lawyers arguing before the High Court Friday are appellate or civil rights specialists, Mr. Klock's resume is broader and more corporate. ....... He also handles litigation, having argued before the Florida high court and federal trial and appeals courts, but Friday will be his first appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court. ......" Washington Times 12/1/00 James Huffman "...... A Florida legislative committee yesterday called for convening a special session of the Legislature for the purpose of appointing Florida's presidential electors. When this alternative was suggested by former Secretary of State James Baker in the wake of last week's Florida Supreme Court decision, several television commentators suggested that the Bush campaign was

threatening to go nuclear. Gore lawyer Kendall Coffey said on national television that such a move would be a threat to the rule of law. The New York Times and other leading papers have since chimed in on how outrageous legislative action would be....... Article II of the United States Constitution provides for each state legislature to appoint presidential electors. Title 3 of the United States Code provides that the appointment is to be made on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. No where in federal law does it say electors are to be selected by popular vote. Florida, like every other state, has chosen to select its electors by popular vote on the date specified by Congress....... Title 3 provides further that "[w]henever any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed . . . in such a manner as the legislature . . . may direct." This federal law anticipates the situation in Florida. The law does not require the Legislature to intervene, but it recognizes that the Legislature has the power to do so. When should a state legislature exercise that power?............ Notwithstanding the extreme rhetoric of both the media and the Gore campaign, the case for legislative action may become persuasive, particularly in light of the Florida Supreme Court's agreement with the Gore campaign's insistence that the will of the people must be respected. It should not be even an open question whether the will of the people is better represented by an unelected court's exercise of its equitable jurisdiction or by a popularly elected legislature's action pursuant to state and federal law......." Washington Times 12/1/00 Rowan Scarborough ".....Gore attorney David Boies yesterday continued to tout an Illinois court case as proof that dimpled ballots must be counted, even though an affidavit he submitted to Florida officials on the case was retracted........ Republicans say it is one of several incidents in which Vice President Al Gore's campaign, and the candidate himself, are misstating fundamental facts to get ballots counted their way and sway public opinion........A Democratic lawyer in the case, Michael Lavelle, submitted a sworn affidavit at Mr. Boies' request that stated the trial judge had, in fact, counted dimpled ballots. Democrats, who want local election boards to count indented ballots to gain more votes for Mr. Gore, presented the affidavit to the Broward and Miami-Dade county election boards......Mr. Boies made a personal appearance Nov. 22 before the Broward board, whose two Democratic members then voted to change standards and count dimpled chads. The result: Mr. Gore picked up 585 votes.......Mr. Lavelle retracted his affidavit the following day and faxed a corrected one to Florida Democrats.......... The correction, however, was not passed along to the three-member Broward board, according to a Republican attorney and a Broward election official. The corrected affidavit surfaced at the very moment Broward's two Democrats were counting indented ballots for Gore over the objections of a Republican board member........" Washington Times 12/1/00 Rowan Scarborough ".....Yesterday at a press conference in Tallahassee, Mr. Boies continued to promote the Illinois case........."Now, I don't know what somebody has reported about that being the case or not being the case," Mr. Boies said, referring to news stories questioning his interpretation of the Illinois case........"What I do know is what was reported contemporaneously, and I know what the [first Lavelle] affidavit says," he added. "Now, in addition to that, I know what the case says, and the case talks about indented ballots. So whether or not there were or were not indented ballots - and I think the record is clear that there were indented ballots counted - the fact is that the law is that indented ballots are relevant, and that's the proposition for which the Florida Supreme Court cited that case." ......... Mr. Lavelle, in his corrected affidavit, wrote, "My mistaken recollection was that the trial judge counted 'indented or dimpled ballots' where light did not shine through. In fact, the trial judge only counted 'indented or dimpled ballots' that light could pass through."...... " Washington Times 12/1/00 Rowan Scarborough ".....Mr. Odelson, who represented Mr. Bush during the Broward recount, said Democrats never forwarded the revised Lavelle affidavit to the board as required. "If this was a judicial proceeding, there would be some lawyers very worried about their own law licenses," he said. "But it was not a judicial proceeding. It was a canvassing board." ............ A spokesman for Circuit Court Judge Robert Rosenberg, the lone Republican on the Broward board, said Mr. Rosenberg does not recall ever seeing the revised affidavit submitted to the canvassers. The spokesman said he obtained a copy of the Illinois trial transcript and through that learned that the first affidavit was false........" Washington Times 12/1/00 Rowan Scarborough ".....Republicans contend the Illinois citation is not the only time Gore advocates have stretched the facts. Some examples: Mr. Gore and his surrogates consistently charge that Republicans tampered with ballots in Florida's Seminole County.......In fact, Democrats in Seminole have filed suit charging that a Republican Party worker added voter identification numbers to absentee ballot applications, not the ballots themselves....... Mr. Gore often has asserted that there are thousands of votes in Florida that were never counted. "All the votes haven't been counted yet," Mr. Gore told CNN. "There are more than 10,000 that have never been counted." In fact, of the four predominately Democratic counties in which Mr. Gore requested hand recounts, three did an initial count, a machine recount and then a manual tally. Miami-Dade County did not complete its hand count, deciding it could not meet a state Supreme Court deadline of Sunday at 5 p.m.......

 A number of Democrats have charged that Republican protesters intimidated the Dade county board into stopping its hand count. "This is a time to honor the rule of law, not surrender to the rule of the mob," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Mr. Gore's vice-presidential running mate. ......... Republican protesters tried to force their way into a counting room after the Democratic board decided to count some 10,000 contested ballots out of public view. The board later met in public, heard arguments from Republican and Democratic lawyers, and then voted to stop the manual count. Since that time, board member Judge Lawrence King and chairman David Leahy have said the protest played no role in the board's decision. Mr. Gore and his surrogates repeatedly say they want "all votes counted." But Democrats made a concerted effort to throw out absentee military ballots based on sometimes minor technicalities. In the current Gore lawsuit contesting Mr. Bush's 537-vote Florida lead, the Democrats want a judge to further disqualify military ballots that some counties submitted as amended returns to the Secretary of State by the 5 p.m. Sunday deadline....." Cosmo Relax, gets some sleep. We conservative have to realize that in politics everything even the courts are political. Right now Bush is kicking Gore's clymer all over the political stage. 2/3 of FL are now firmly in W's side. Jeb enjoys a 70% approval rating and the Republicans have comfortable majorities in the state legislature. The FLSC is scarred spitless that they will be impeached. The only thing they have said in the last week was two days ago when they announced they wouldn't be saying anything that day. W has been certified the winner of the election in FL and the only judge who can overturn that fact is Judge Saul. Judge Nikki is irrelevant, unless Gore adds Seminole county to the election contest, which would be political suicide. If you doubt this, why has Gore disavowed any knowledge of the case? If we win the political war, the FL legislature will be free to appoint the W slate of electors without impunity. Good night. 14 Posted on 11/30/2000 23:22:25 PST by Pres Raygun CNSNews 11/30/00 Lawrence Morahan "......A memorandum by Defense Secretary William Cohen to the Pentagon's inspector general directing him to review the way the military handles absentee ballots from troops stationed abroad "is hollow if [Cohen] doesn't do anything about the current controversy," a leading defense commentator said. "It isn't a matter of military members being denied the right to vote. What's at issue is whether or not their vote is counted," said Elaine Donnelly, director of the Center for Military Readiness. Donnelly called on Cohen to "affirm very clearly how the postal system in the Defense Department operates" and to assert that the 1,500 votes cast by service members in Florida from overseas that were thrown out by elections officials for lack of postmark, should be regarded as valid......." Roll Call 11/30/00 SusanCrabtree "....... "The problem is becoming time," said Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.). "I think there's a responsibility when the Electoral College is [convened] Dec. 12 - that date should stand. The country has the luxury and responsibility of assuring an accurate vote count until [that date]. At that point other interests must become secondary, and the process of an orderly transfer of power must commence." ........ Two Senate Democrats from states that voted for Bush by a wide margin have faced increasing pressure from constituents frustrated by the Gore campaign's ongoing legal battle. Sens. John Breaux (La.) and Max Baucus (Mont.) both expressed concern this week that the process should come to a close quickly. ......... Privately, Senate Democrats were already discussing the benefits of having vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) return to his duties in the Senate and working with the Bush administration. ........ Gore remains confident that the vast majority of the Democratic Caucus, including several liberals and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, will remain steadfast in their support. But with Rep. Julia Carson (D-Ind.), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich calling on Gore to surrender, the Vice President reached out to centrist and conservative Democrats this week and urged them to hang together. ......" AP 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch "......In the Republicans' first formal response to the Democrats' contest, they claim Gore's challenge is baseless because the real election wasn't between the Texas governor and the vice president, but between the separate groups of 25 Florida electors. ..... Only electors can file contests because only electors supporting presidential candidates are on the ballot, the motion reads. Thus, the contest is invalid because Gore has no legal grounds to call for it, it said. ......" AP 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch "......GOP lawyers also want to call 95 witnesses at the trial, according to party lawyers. ............The motion also seeks dismissal because the Gore's lawyers filed their challenge after the 10-day deadline required by state law. The filing says that it is a ''red herring'' to argue that the Florida Supreme Court's extension of the recount deadline gave the Gore team any more time to file a contest. ......." AP 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch "......The motion, filed with Judge N. Sanders Sauls, also states the manually

counting only part of the ballots is illegal, and a recounting the ballots for the entire state ''would have dire consequences for Florida and the nation.'' ......... The filing also seeks dismissal because the judicial recounts the Gore camp is seeking are ''illegal, inappropriate, and manifestly unfair.'' ......." AP 11/30/00 Linda Deutsch "......Republicans asked Sauls to order an additional 1.2 million ballots brought to Tallahassee from Volusia, Broward and Pinellas counties, said Bush campaign spokesman Scott McClellan. ....''We believe there were a number of illegal votes for Gore in those counties,'' McClellan said. ......While saying the Bush campaign believes that ''the manual recount is fundamentally flawed,'' McClellan said lawyers filed the motion because ''if there is to be another manual recount, it should not be another selective one designed by and for the vice president.'' ......." Worldnetdaily 12/1/00 Kenneth Timmerman "......Exhausted, disgusted, his voice still hoarse from arguing with Democrat floor managers, Virginia Republican Roger Morse has just returned from the south Florida trenches, where he says he witnessed an "attempted coup behind closed doors" to steal the presidential election. .......... After three days of changing the rules every time we walked in the room, the Democrats finally decided to conduct a partial recount behind closed doors, and took the disputed ballots from the main counting room to a small, private room up on the 19th floor without the press," Morse said. "They barred the doors to Republican observers, and refused to let us enter. That's when we realized we had to do something to prevent them from stealing the election." ........... Under Florida's "sunshine" laws, dozens of television news teams had been allowed to film the manual recount at county election offices in Miami-Dade, West Palm Beach and other disputed counties from behind a rope line. ............" Worldnetdaily 12/1/00 Kenneth Timmerman "......"We were told that we were challenging too many ballots and slowing things down," said Bryan Wilkes, another Republican recount observer who was accredited by Miami-Dade County. .........And that's when head Judge Lawrence King, a Democrat, ordered county workers to pack up the ballots and take them to a smaller room upstairs far from the cameras -- and from the Republican volunteers. ...... Morse and Wilkes were concerned because the procedures in the public room downstairs were already bad enough. "We saw Democrat election officials bending ballots until the chads popped out," Wilkes said. "We saw them knock whole stacks of Bush ballots onto the floor. We saw them counting ballots like a deck of cards. We saw ballots with chad taped back into the Bush hole, making them votes for Gore. You tell me: How many people go into the voting booth with a roll of scotch tape in case they make a mistake? This was very carefully done. Clearly, it was a professional job." ......: Worldnetdaily 12/1/00 Kenneth Timmerman "...... When the Democrats disappeared into the elevators with the ballots, Roger Morse and a few other Republican volunteers rushed after them to the 19th floor. ..........."We knew they were going to steal the election behind closed doors, and they wanted as few witnesses as possible," Morse said. "We wanted the press in there. We wanted them to videotape each ballot before they made a decision. We wanted the public to see there wasn't anything resembling a vote on any of those ballots, so they could see for themselves what the Democrats were doing." ........Morse and other Republican volunteers milled around in front of the glass door of the recount room up on the 19th floor, when they realized they had to do something. "It started out pretty weak. We shouted things like 'Stop Stealing the Vote!' 'The Fix is in.'" ......Then, Morse admits, it got nasty. "We started chanting: 'Let the press in!' I guess that's pretty vicious, pretty unruly -- pretty unconstitutional." ...That is indeed how the mainstream press has portrayed the Republican demonstration. ...." Worldnetdaily 12/1/00 Kenneth Timmerman "......Beyond the glass door of the counting room, Morse and the other Republican volunteers could see the Democrats stuffing ballots into "magic envelopes." .......... It was the same procedure that had been underway for several days in the glare of the cameras downstairs. Only this time, it was being done with none of the volunteer GOP recount observers in the room, and no cameras in a position to view the ballots. .......... Each "magic envelope" contained the disputed ballots of one MiamiDade county precinct. After the 3-member county canvassing board reviewed the disputed ballots, they sealed them in the envelopes and wrote the count by hand on the front. ............No Republican sits on the canvassing board. Wilkes, Morse and Republican lawyers familiar with the Miami-Dade recount said the board systematically ruled against Bush in judging the votes. ....." Worldnetdaily 12/1/00 Kenneth Timmerman "......Upstairs on the 19th floor, the Democrat election judges were racing through the disputed ballots, stuffing them into "magic envelopes," sealing them, and writing the new count on the back. Outside, the numbers of Republican protesters grew, and television crews began to arrive. At one point, an individual identifying himself as a Democrat lawyer emerged from the room. Film crews caught him stuffing a ballot into his suit pocket and the Republicans out in the hallway cried foul. ......... "He was immediately surrounded by Sheriff's deputies and was eventually taken away," Morse said. ........ The "lawyer" was subsequently identified as Miami-Dade County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Geller. He claimed he had required a police escort to escape the "mob," an allegation picked up by Time, U.S. News and Joe Lieberman. In fact, Morse says that Geller was escorted down to the 18th floor for questioning by

county sheriff's deputies. ....... Several hours later, county election officials emerged to report that Geller had been handling a "training" ballot, and that these were common and available to all accredited election watchers. ......... "That's simply not true," said Morse. "We'd been trying to get access to these training ballots for days, but all our requests to see them were denied." .......County election officials said training ballots could be distinguished from valid ballots because they did not bear the date of the election, but otherwise they were identical. ........" Worldnetdaily 12/1/00 Kenneth Timmerman "...... Not only had film crews videotaped the entire altercation with Geller, but as of early this week no police reports had been filed. .......... "The sheriff's deputies were thoroughly unconcerned by us," Morse said. "They had one deputy posted at each door, and never called for back-up. And the only person taken into custody was Joe Geller." ........... By one o'clock that afternoon, county canvassing commissioners called a halt to the recount. Gore campaign officials blamed it on the protesters. But in its news coverage, U.S. News & World Report quoted canvassing board member David Leahy as saying: "These were people in ties and jackets. This was not a mob." Leahy explained that the board had decided to call off the recount because members felt they still would not be able to meet the Sunday deadline......." Worldnetdaily 12/1/00 Kenneth Timmerman "...... Despite videotaped evidence that proves no such acts of violence occurred, a Justice Department investigation for voter intimidation remains a serious threat for volunteers such as Wilkes, Morse and others who have been identified as working for Republican members of Congress, believes Barbara Olson, a lawyer who recently authored a biography of Hillary Clinton, "Hell to Pay." ....... "This is another attempt at intimidation," Olson said. "Given the record of the Clinton-Gore administration, no one should take it lightly. It's the same tactics they used against Linda Tripp. The threat of prosecution is intimidating to young people who can't battle the power of the United States government and who can't afford to hire expensive lawyers. And that's just what this administration is counting on." ......" WorldNetDaily.com 12/1/00 ".... Al, I know it's tough to lose by a hair, but it's time to get a grip. Talk to any horse owner who's lost in a photo finish. Bad, yes, but there's always another race, unless you go nuts. ..... First, let's start with what we both know to be true: There's never been a perfect election; all the "intentions" and flawed ballots of every voter have never been counted; no judge can magically turn this whole mess into a flawless process; and no losing presidential candidate in this nation's history has ever sued his way into the White House. ...... And second, what you're doing -- day by day, dimple by dimple, lawyer by lawyer -- is giving George W. Bush the mandate he didn't get at the ballot box. Wednesday, for instance, here's how the New York Daily News summarized the results of its reader's poll: "By midnight, 83 percent had said it was time for Gore to quit. Only 17 percent voted for him to continue the battle, giving the Texas governor a landslide he didn't get on Election Day." ......Nationwide, some 60 to 70 percent of the public, including a third of your own supporters, are saying you should concede. Like the readers of the Daily News, less than a fifth of Americans now consider you the winner of Florida's election. ....." CSPAN 12/1/00 Freeper Helms "....Contrary to erroneous reporting, not four(4) but five (5) Supreme Court Justices are required to rule of an expedited hearing, ie, the Bush proceedings before the court. The above was reported several times this morning on CSpan, by an expert on the Supreme Court and a man who Brian Lamb had interviewed some 14 years ago before the steps of the hallowed institution. ....." Freeper shezza "...... That Tribe was awfully condescending in his remarks to the questions of the Justices...if Madame Justice O'Connor is deemed to be the swing vote, it might not bode well for the gore camp that Tribe kept interrupting her, spoke to her in a condescending manner (like he was correcting a goofy undergrad in one of his Harvard classrooms), and repeatedly informed Justices Scalia and Rhenquist that they were wrong. Not a polite, "I read it a different way," or "Perhaps Your Honor would consider the next paragraph," but a flat out, "You're wrong." Oy vey! Smarmy little snake, isn't he? ....." MSNBC 12/1/00 Freeper truthandlife ".... Just watched MSNBC and watched two former clerks for Justice O'Connor and Kennedy. The Kennedy clerk said that the Justices would not take a pass on this He said that Kennedy would vote for Bush (sounded very sure). He said that Kennedy usually questions the parties both tough but this time he questioned Gore's lawyers probably to influence O'Connor to vote for Bush. ...... The former O'Connor clerk said that she believed that O'Connor was leaning Bush. Probably 6-3 with O'Connor or 5-4 without her. ...." Adds Julliardsux ".... I think former clerks use that status to get on tv and then they have to pretend to know how the Justices are leaning. The only ones who know are the current clerks, and if they leaked, they would be executed by the guillotine in the SCrOTUmS building. They may be right, but do not believe ANY of them. ...." Freeper Paraclete "..... Actually, I thought Olson did a credible job of answering the questions. I thought the questions for Tribe were much more hostile and he stumbled around much more. It showed the weakness of their argument. Scalia had a hayday. Given another hour and Tribe would have been whittled down to

nothing. ...." Freeper another1 "....... I called into C-Span a little while ago - thanked them on behalf of Free Republic for their coverage, and for attempting to keep the conversation focused on the issue at hand - which is whether or not the Florida Supreme Court legislated from the bench. I pointed out that one of Justice Scalia's questions to Professor Tribe made the answer clear. He asked if the Florida State Legislature had enacted legislation extending the date for recounts, would that be considered a statutory change. Tribe hummed and hawed, be we all know it would be. That is exactly what the Florida Supreme Court did - it clearly enacted a statutory change. I explained this is why I believe that the SCOTUS will strike down the FSC decision. ....." UPI 12/1/00 Michael Kirkland ".....liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer, in questions and statements from the bench, indicated their position that the Florida Supreme Court's interpretation of Florida law should be given "deference" by the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's highest court traditionally defers to state court interpretations of state law.......... They also questioned whether the current case means anything, since Bush won Florida's 25 electoral votes under the extended deadline, and an ongoing challenge by Gore in the Florida state courts to the vote certification may not be greatly affected by a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the narrow grounds before it......." UPI 12/1/00 Michael Kirkland "..... Two of the court's conservatives, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, in questions and statements from the bench, indicated they believed the state court might have violated the Constitution by using the Florida Constitution's guarantee of "the right to vote" in order to "trump" the Legislature's rights under Article II........" UPI 12/1/00 Michael Kirkland "..... Moderate conservative Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy at times seemed to take both positions, but ended Friday's argument appearing to lean toward Rehnquist and Scalia........ Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, as usual, was an enigma and did not speak from the bench. He traditionally follows Scalia's lead but has shown increasing independence and unpredictability over the last year and a half......." UPI 12/1/00 Michael Kirkland "..... Friday's argument also included casual references to issues that will not be decided in the case. O'Connor, for one, indicated that she believed Florida's Legislature can pick its own set of electors, as it has threatened to do if the presidential contest is not decided by Dec. 12, the federal deadline for each state to certify its presidential electors......" UPI 12/1/00 Michael Kirkland "..... "Two weeks after the Nov. 7 presidential election, the Florida Supreme Court overturned and carefully rewrote...laws enacted by the Florida Legislature on the conduct of that election," Olson said. He said the state supreme court was ignoring the 113-year-old federal law requiring that elections be decided under state statutes in effect on Election Day....... Speaking for Gore Friday, Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, one of the country's foremost constitutional scholars, tried repeatedly to argue that the Florida Supreme Court was only trying to reconcile conflicting provisions of the Florida election code -- the one setting Nov. 14 as a deadline and another allowing hand counts for vote-tally error......... "Anyone reading that would realize that that's a deadline in a Pickwickian sense," Tribe said, referring to a character out of Charles Dickens. "Pickwickian" means something should not be taken literally. "It's not a real deadline."....." UPI 12/1/00 Michael Kirkland ".....Speaking for Secretary of State Katherine Harris in support of Bush, Miami attorney Joseph Klock Jr. said the Florida Supreme Court had the power to do what it did, but asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that the state court changed the law....... "Certainly the date changed," O'Connor said, "and it was done by the court. It just does look like a very dramatic change."....... Speaking for state Attorney General Robert Butterworth in support of Gore was Paul Hancock, deputy attorney general of Florida......." CBS tape 12/1/00 Freeper True-Stu .... Start A McCreary, Esq ".....Wow...after listening to the tape broadcast of the USSC oral arguments, this lawyer is struck by a few things. 1. I have argued a few appelate cases, but sure wouldn't want to be on my feet arguing in this pressure cooker! 2. Justice Scalia was loaded for BEAR! He wasn't asking real questions of Tribe -- no, he was telling Tribe the way it was. NO waffling with this justice. The clear use by the FLSC of the FL Constitution to trump unambiguous dates in the statute is clearly improper and gives rise to a Federal issue. 3. The follow up questions by Rehnquist and Kennedy indicate that they are clearly on board with Scalia. O'Connor is there too, but not as passionately (no surprise there). Thomas was the most silent, but I think

can be counted on to join these others. 4. The Democratic appointees questioned (or expounded) in a way that indicates their support of the FLSC decision. Ginzburg, Stevens and Breyer were clearly legitimizing the FLSC decision as merely interpretation, not legislation. Justice Souter was again showing his liberal side and is once again the wild card here, but I think he will join the Dem appointee aliance. 5. Tribe did a fairly good job arguing his case, but he just wasn't dealt a very good hand of cards, in my opinion. Scalia and Rehnquist's plain reading of the FLSC decision as a FL constitution trumping of legislation, rather than legitimate statutory construction, buried the wooden cross in his chest--very difficult to recover from that if you're a liberal vampire. It looks like a 5 to 4 decision in favor of Bush. Possibly a 6 to 3, but that's the long shot. Freeper Heisenburger ".... Scalia ripped Tribe a new clymer. I loved that last exchange between Olson and Darth Bader-Ginsburg where she said that the FLSC did not mention the state constitution anywhere in their decision, and he says, "It's on the second page of the opinion." What was Clinton thinking when he appointed her? She has no idea what she's doing on that court. ......" Freeper ftrader "..... Tribe had to admit that VOTER ERROR had NEVER been the reason for a recount in the state of Florida. Beyond all hope, I would wish that this court would uphold the legislature AND Kathryn Harris as having total authority, and giving an opinion which would let Judge Sauls ELIMINATE any recount to be part of the contest. ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt ".... Here's the quote from the transcript: KLOCK: Well... BREYER: And now the secretary has certified a winner. And therefore, I guess, whether we win -- whether your side, the side your supporting, wins or loses, it doesn't change that. And I guess that's moot. KLOCK: Well... BREYER: But my question is, is there any respect in which this really makes a difference this case, how -- I'm thinking, if it does make a difference, numbers of vote, is that kind of thing right for us to decide now? How could it make a difference? What's the consequence of our going one way or the other now, in this case? Maybe Breyer will recuse himself now (don't hold your breath) ....." Leon County Courts 12/1/00 Freeper A_Niceguy_In_CA "......Objection to Subpoena for Production of Materials from Broward County by Party and Motion to Quash http://199.44.225.4/courtDockets/pdf/CV-00-2808az.pdf ...... Objection to Subpoena for Production of Materials from Volusia County by Party and Motion to Quash Objection to Subpoena for Production of Materials from Pinellas County by Party and Motion to Quash ..... In their countinued quest to "quash" the possible recounting of any ballots except "14,000 disputed ballots from Dade and Palm Beach County, the Democrats have filed objections to the Republican Subpoena for addional ballots in the Election Contest Case before Judge N. Sanders Sauls. The Democrats have also requested an emergency hearing today before Judge Sauls. ......" Bush-Cheney 11/30/00 "..... PRESS PROTESTED THE MIAMI-DADE CANVASSING BOARD'S DECISION TO DENY PUBLIC FROM BALLOT COUNTING ROOM Members of the Press submitted a letter in Miami-Dade on November 22 AUSTIN-The day the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board voted to shut down the bipartisan manual recount and deny access to the media, more than a dozen news organizations submitted a handwritten protest to the board. The letter, dated November 22, was addressed to David Leahy, Miami-Dade Canvassing Board Elections Supervisor. The following is a typed version of the letter. The attached pdf file is a copy of the actual letter.

Dear Mr. Leahy, In the interest of democracy, which requires fair and open proceedings, we the undersigned believe that media representation in the counting room will be necessary. To observe without hearing is not to be present essentially, so any decision to bar the media would constitute a barring of the public, who we represent. We therefore are prepared to go to court to gain access in the name of freedom of information. As you aware, Section 102.166 (6) of Florida statutes says "any manual recount shall be open to the public." We hope this can be settled without legal action. The Wall Street Journal Associated Press Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Post (2 reporters) New York Times Times (London) ABC NEWS Miami Herald Washington Post Bloomberg News Chicago Tribune Reuters Associated Press 12/1/00 "......At least 445 Florida felons voted illegally Nov. 7, casting more doubt over the sharply contested presidential election, a newspaper investigation found. ........ A review of nearly half a million ballots cast in 12 Florida counties found that hundreds of felons voted despite the state's multimilliondollar effort to purge dead and illegal voters from lists of registered voters, The Miami Herald reported in its Friday editions. This could mean more than 5,000 felons cast ballots if the pattern holds up across the state. Nearly six million people voted in Florida's 67 counties. .......Most of the votes, nearly 75 percent, were cast by registered Democrats. ....." MRC 12/1/00 "..... Last night on ABC's Politically Incorrect, host Bill Maher made an outrageous joke about hoping for the death of Florida's Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris. This morning, a report by correspondent George Lewis on NBC's Today replayed the "joke" for their viewers without any critical comment: "Now earlier today, a rental truck carried a half a million ballots from Palm Beach to the Florida Supreme Court there in Tallahassee. CNN had live helicopter coverage from the truck making its way up the Florida highway, and for a few brief moments, America held the hope that O.J. Simpson had murdered Katherine Harris." ....." Associated Press 12/1/00 Jeffrey McMurray "......Democratic voters filed a lawsuit Friday against Martin County's canvassing board in an attempt to throw out 9,773 absentee ballots, most of which were cast for George W. Bush. If a judge rules to disqualify all of the ballots, Democrat Al Gore would gain 2,815 votes more than enough to grab the lead and Florida's 25 electors from Bush. ...... In a case similar to one filed Nov. 17 against Seminole County, the voters claim Republican Party officials were allowed to alter ballot request forms by adding voter identification numbers to applications that were left blank. .......But Gary Farmer, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, said the Martin County situation was more serious because elections officials allowed the GOP to actually remove the request forms from the office. The action allowed Republicans ``unfettered and unsupervised access to these official public records,'' the lawsuit said. ......" WorldNetDaily 12/1/00 "..... Al Gore is seeking to perpetuate a number of myths in furtherance of his obsessive quest to fulfill his childhood dream. He is speaking with forked tongue because the truth does not benefit his presidential ambitions. ...... Myth Two: That every candidate, upon request, is automatically entitled to a manual recount under Florida law. ..... "Candidates," said Gore, "are given the right under the

law to say, 'Look. This election is close enough that the ballots that haven't been counted could make the difference, so you have to count 'em.'" This is false. ...... The law provides that either candidate may request a manual recount in any county. When such a request is made the county's canvassing board may then conduct a manual recount of 1 percent of the county's total votes in at least three precincts. If such 1 percent sampling indicates "an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election," the board may, but is not required to, conduct a full manual recount. Florida legislators involved with drafting and enacting this statute say that "an error in vote tabulation" means a machine error. ........So, in the absence of fraud, before the canvassing board may order a full manual recount, its 1 percent sampling must show that there were sufficient machine errors that could affect the outcome of the election. No one -- even on the Gore team -- contends that there were any machine errors. So, under the statute, none of the four counties had the statutory authority to conduct full manual recounts. Even if you ignore the statutory requirement for a machine error, the county canvassing boards still wouldn't have been required to conduct a full manual recount; their decision as to whether or not to do so is purely optional and within their discretion. Public officials cannot be forced (through a writ of mandamus) to perform an act over which they have discretion. Miami-Dade acted wholly within its discretion in declining to conduct a full manual recount. Therefore, Gore's lawsuit to force Miami-Dade to complete its manual recount is without merit. ......" MRC 12/1/00 Brent Baker ".......This morning's NBC Today show uncritically played the joke in a compilation of late-night comedy clips. Maher's joke came in a clip from his monologue for the studio audience at CBS Television City, which ABC breaks up and runs excerpts from after ad breaks to lead into another segment with his four guests. Now the text of the joke taken down by MRC analyst Jessica Anderson and transformed into a fax by Tim Graham: ABC PAYS FOR THIS, AND NBC'S TODAY THINKS IT'S FUNNY BILL MAHER JOKES THAT AMERICA HOPED O.J. KILLED KATHERINE HARRIS .............. Last night on ABC's Politically Incorrect, host Bill Maher made an outrageous joke about hoping for the death of Florida's Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris. This morning, a report by correspondent George Lewis on NBC's Today replayed the "joke" for their viewers without any critical comment: ......."Now earlier today, a rental truck carried a half a million ballots from Palm Beach to the Florida Supreme Court there in Tallahassee. CNN had live helicopter coverage from the truck making its way up the Florida highway, and for a few brief moments, America held the hope that O.J. Simpson had murdered Katherine Harris." ......" AP 12/1/00 Tom Raum "......Asserting victory even as court challenges continue, George W. Bush says ''one of these days'' he'll prevail. In the meantime he's meeting with top Republicans to plan for a new Bush administration. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott made plans to travel to Texas on Saturday to confer with the Texas governor for the first time since the election. ....... The session will underscore the position of the two GOP leaders that Bush is the legitimate president-elect. They will discuss the congressional session that convenes in January as well as Bush's transition progress, GOP officials said. ....... On Thursday, Bush and running mate Dick Cheney met on Bush's ranch here with retired Gen. Colin Powell, Bush's presumptive choice for secretary of state. ........ ''Dick and I and Andy Card will be continuing to discuss both the transition and the set up at the White House,'' said Bush. Andrew Card is his choice for White House chief of staff. Bush and his wife Laura, who have spent most of the week on their secluded 1,500-acre ranch here about a two-hour drive north of the state capital in Austin, were to return to Austin on Friday for a Christmas party. ........ They will return to the ranch early Saturday. The meeting with Lott and Hastert will be at the ranch, said campaign spokesman Dan Bartlett. He added that Bush engaged in additional transition planning sessions Friday morning with Card and Cheney. ......." Freeper arthurus "...... Mr.Boies likely did not "lie". Rather he induced the Illinois lawyer to lie, then quoted the Illinois lawyer to the Florida judge. Thus, while Boies did not lie, he suborned perjury, which is not quite the same thing but is just as taboo in court. ....." Freeper WOSG "..... Is the Mass. case Delahunt??? ........ Delahunt himself, a Congressman from MA, was on the radio with Sen Domenici, talking about Florida case. Delahunt mentioned his situation and Domenici said "wasn't the undervote in your case around 25%?" "yes, that's right" said Delahunt. ......25% !!! Clearly a problem with ballots. Miami-Dade undervote is 1.6%. Completely apples to oranges case. ....." AP 12/1/00 Linda Deutsch "......With the nation's high court expressing concerns about entering the fight, Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls went ahead and called an emergency hearing late Friday on a series of motions by Democrat Al Gore's attorneys. ........ The Democrats contend, among other things, that George W. Bush's attorneys are ``threatening to make a mockery'' of the proceedings before Sauls in Gore's lawsuit contesting the Florida outcome. ........ They reacted in particular to a Republican proposed witness list of

contesting the Florida outcome. ........ They reacted in particular to a Republican proposed witness list of more than 90 people including the governors of New York and New Jersey and former presidential candidate Bob Dole. ......The Republicans also proposed calling all members of election canvassing commissions in counties with disputes over ballots. ......The Democrats noted they planned to call only two witnesses. ......" AP 12/1/00 Linda Deutsch "......With at least 42 election suits pending statewide, more litigation sprouted by the hour. Among the issues added to the mix: ........ Democrats sued the Martin County canvassing board asking to throw out all the county's 9,773 absentee ballots because Republicans were allowed to add voter identification numbers to ballot applications. A hearing was scheduled. Bush received 6,294 absentee votes in the county, compared with 3,479 for Gore. Gore would gain 2,815 votes if the absentee ballots were thrown out. ....... The Republicans sought dismissal of the lawsuit before Sauls saying Gore's lawyers filed their challenge after the 10-day deadline required by state law. The Republicans also claimed Gore's challenge was baseless because the real election wasn't between the Texas governor and the vice president but between the separate groups of 25 Florida electors. ....... Republicans asked Sauls to order an additional 1.2 million ballots brought to Tallahassee from Volusia, Broward and Pinellas counties. Bush campaign spokesman Scott McClellan said, ``We believe there were a number of illegal votes for Gore in those counties.'' ....." Freeper sampai "..... This is fantastic! The pubs are burying the dems in legalese. It will take judge Sauls a few years to sort it all out. They're doing the same thing in the Seminole county case as well. Poetic justice! Gore thought Bush would be in this situation after the FSC extended the recount deadlines......." Freeper grobdriver "...... I'd love to see Carol Roberts on the stand to account for her behavior. Be sure and show her video tape to refresh her memory! ......" Freeper WoodrowTKatt "...... Richards arguing that ballots from Broward, Vollusia and other counties need not be sent up now... just preserved in case judges ruling makes them necessary. ....." Freeper D-fendr "......I believe: First issue was hearing objections from counties (not PB or Dade) to shipping ballots now, judge ruled they don't have to ship but have to impound, sequester ballots if needed later. Now on to another issue. ....." Freeper Vermonter ".... Judge is telling all parties their witnesses better be right there and available when needed. ....." Associated Press 12/1/00 David Royse ".....Senate President John McKay said he wants to take the weekend to read a report on whether lawmakers should call a special session to pick the state's presidential electors. ``I'm a slow reader so I'm not going to make any proclamation, any decision, until after I read the report,'' he told reporters during a news conference Friday. ``If it's the right thing to do, we're going to do it and if it's not the right thing to do, we're not going to do it,'' said McKay, a Republican. ........ Florida's 120 legislators are likely are to be summoned to Tallahassee next week - three months earlier than expected - to name the state's delegates to the Electoral College. More than half the lawmakers are freshman who've never helped make a law or voted on an amendment. .....The state's 25 electoral votes will decide whether George W. Bush or Al Gore ultimately wins Florida, and the White House. Bush has been certified the winner of the state, but Gore has sued to overturn that outcome. ....." Newsmax 12/1/00 Carl Limbacher "..... The Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek and CNN are among the Clinton-Gore team's media dirt diggers now searching for some scandal that would tarnish the reputation of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. But so far they've hit one dry hole after another, reports the New York Post on Friday. ......... One reporter on the "Get Harris" beat told the Post's Page Six, "These rumors, fueled by interested partisans, have been flying for weeks. I'd be derelict in my duty if I didn't look into them, but there is nothing there." ...... Still, that didn't stop the New York Daily News from indulging in a little visual innuendo, using its Thursday edition to front-page a photo of Harris standing next to Bush in a pose that made them look like a couple. .......Gore mouthpiece Chris Lehane told the Post that the veep's team has nothing to do with the ugly rumor-mongering. "We have one goal, one focus, one objective - simply to count every vote in Florida." .....Still, at least one Gore campaign aide has vowed revenge against Harris, telling NBC News anonymously that the she can look forward to an investigation into her background "that will make Whitewater look like a picnic." ......" Sauls hearing Freeper DJ88 "....They only asked that the ballots in selected counties be SEQUESTERED. The Demos are the ones who CALLED THIS ONE...they want the judge to "reign in" the Bush Lawyers..."too many witnesses" waaaaaaaaahhhhhhh...wahhhh... ....." Freeper D-fendr "....Judge is describing rules/procedures. Basically saying we are going to have a regular trial, following the usual steps and procedures, but we're gonna hurry as fast as we can. Is basically laying out ways to save time. ....." Freeper AuraOfTheBlade "..... Exactly what I've though this will be bogged down in procedure, examination of evidence and witnesses, this is a TRIAL! Excellent. ....." Freeper dobbyman "...... Even Ginsburg will vote for Bush on this. It will be 9 to 0 for Bush. Did we not hear

the last 15 minutes of questioning of which Ginsburg asked the last question? .......All the questions and answers evolved down to and eventually focused at the end to only one most important bottom-line question. That one basic question that the US Supreme justices at the end were trying to get an answer to was - did the Florida Supremos make their decision because of contradictions in Florida election law or because the Florida Constitution required it!!!!. ......The US Supremos were pointing out that the Florida Constitution cannot be used to change Florida election law because the US Constitution gives a higher authority to the Florida election law. ........ At the end all the US Supremos were focused on the written verdict of the Florida Supremos about this point. The last question was asked by Justice Ginsburg in that she said to the Bush lawyer(Olsen) that she sees no mention of the Florida Constitution in the written conclusion by the Florida Supremos. .......Olsen corrected her on that and pointed out that on page 38 of the written verdict that the Florida Supremos did cite the Florida Constitution as the reason to overrule the FLorida Secretary of State on the deadline date for the Vote recount.......- end of debate - a GRAND SLAM and WORLD SERIES Win for BUSH and the REPUBLIC of the United States ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "....Dem Lawyer: "witnesses to our case are the ballots..." Judge Sauls immediately cuts him off, "I've heard this before... this is a statewide election...there may or may not be other evidentiary matters... " and ".... Sauls: "This is not just the counting of ballots as I understand the law... " Freeper Demidog ".... Wonderfull! The judge just flatly refused the Gore request to start counting ballots because there has been no evidence presented yet that would necessitate a count. Until such time as evidence indicates that a recount is necessary, Gore can pound sand. ....." Freeper Demidog "..... Yet another loss! The Gore lawyers wanted to have the judge explicitly reject their "motion" to start the recount to which he replied he wasn't even going to allow them to enter the motion. This thereby pre-empts their ability to file an appeal on his "rejection." ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..... Judge asking why Republicans need experts on voting machines... "because Dems claim machines cause dimples..." Judge: "ok, ok" ......" Freeper DJ88 "..... Richards just stated that they are deposing ALL OF THEIR WITNESSES TODAY.... " Freeper Demidog "..... Motions to dismiss will prevail I am betting. The intervenor is asking to be allowed to make a motion to dismiss and the Bush team is saying that they also are dealing with the same sort of issues in their motion. ....." The Kentucky Post 12/1/00 Roy Wood ".....Although he says he's not interested, U.S. Rep. Ken Lucas may have a shot at a job working for George W. Bush - if Bush becomes president. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday mentioned Lucas as one of five Democrats Bush is eying for possible spots in his administration. The newspaper reported that Lucas could be in line for a job in the Department of Agriculture, possibly as an undersecretary. The job might seem a natural for Lucas, who is considered in Washington as an expert on tobacco....." UPI 12/1/00 Mark Benjamin ".....Republicans said Friday that lawyers for Texas Gov.George Bush performed well before the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments Friday over the election contest in Florida........ Democrats said that even a likely split decision against Vice President Al Gore could sound the death knell for his efforts to win the White House with the help of the courts....... Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Friday that Republican attorneys made a convincing argument that the U.S. Constitution allows states to set election rules........ "I thought they made very compelling arguments," Hatch said. "The constitution gives the states the authority to set and hold the deadlines. It is a heavy burden to overcome that [Harris] did not overstep her authority."...... Democrats said they hoped for a unanimous decision that would send a clear signal to the American people on the election controversy. But even though the court will not necessarily decide the outcome of the election, Democrats said that even a split decision against Gore would eliminate his political support among members of his party........" FoxNews 12/1/00 Adrienne Mand "......George W. Bush may want to rethink his opposition to a new vote to end the Florida election mess. According to a new FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll conducted Wednesday and Thursday, the Texas governor would win with 49 percent of the vote "if the election were held over again tomorrow." And 56 percent said Al Gore should concede. ...... Also, 60 percent of the 900 registered voters surveyed had a favorable opinion of Bush, while just 46 percent thought highly of the vice president. Bush's ratings went up, while Gore's dropped from a pre-election poll. ......Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, trumped both of them, with 64 percent of respondents saying they had a favorable opinion of him. ......" Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..... I heard on cnn or fox that Bob Dole and Christie Todd Whitman are on the Bush witness list (they were both recount observers)... anyone know who else is among the 90+ on our witness list? ...." Freeper aberfoyle ".... Judge just reiterated my point - "affidavits are hearsay, we're not gonna try this case on affidavits." Boies is going to get dumped out of court on his head if he tries to make his case with a stack of affidavits and only two live witnesses, both experts. ......"

Leon County Clerk 12/1/00 John Thrasher ".....John E. Thrasher, a Republican elector, has filed a motion for dismissal of the Gore contest in Judge Saul's Leon co. court. His basis is that Gore was not a candidate and therefore is not entitled to contest. Furthermore, claim is made that the Presidential election of electors is not entitled to be contested under Florida election code (102.168) Any lawyers care to comment on this?......" Freeper sleuthone "..... This is THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT OF THE DAY. THE ELECTOR AT ISSUE IS NOT JUST SOME JOKER WITH A NEW LEGAL THEORY. HE'S THE FORMER SPEAKER OF THE FLORIDA HOUSE AND ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MEN IN FLORIDA. THE LEGAL THEORY HE IS PUSHING IS THE MAGIC BULLET AND BUILDS ON JAMES DELONG'S ARGUMENT ABOUT THE TRANSFORMING EFFECT OF GOV. BUSH'S CERTIFICATION OF FLORIDA'S ELECTORS. BUSH CANNOT MAKE THE ARGUMENT DIRECTLY BECAUSE OF POLITICAL CONCERNS, BUT YOU CAN BET HIS PEOPLE WROTE THESE PLEADINGS. WATCH THIS CASE......DEVELOPING HOT ......" Freeper Oldeconomybuyer ".....Bad day for TeamGore/Boies in Tallahassee. First, Judge "Stalls" pimp-slaps them on starting the recount and now the FSC has DISMISSED their request for an immediate handcount! Beautiful! ....." Newsmax 11/28/00 Jack Thompson "..... According to an interview on Bob Dornan's coast-to-coast radio show just now finished, the news weekly Human Events is about to run with a story under reporter John Gizzy's byline stating the real reason, according to investigative work by Gizzy, the hand recount of computer punch card ballots was stopped the day before Thanksgiving. It was not, according to Gizzy, the protests or the lack of time. It was fear of Democrat vote fraud in Florida's most populous county. Specifically, the canvassing board, headed by David Leahy, knew of 5,000 illegal ballots cast by Haitians who are not citizens of this country and thus cannot vote. Such votes would be expected to have been cast overwhelmingly for Gore-Lieberman. ........" Leon County Courts 12/1/00 "...... The Democrats, thru a private citizen lawsuit have filed to ERASE ALL OVERSEAS ABSENTEE BALLOTS from the certification in the state of Florida. Complaint to INVALIDATE ALL OVERSEAS ABSENTEE BALLOTS "...A_Niceguy_in_CA who adds ".....They want to ERASE all 1500 ballots already counted and certified, claiming that they were illegally received after November 7. ...." CNN 12/1/00 Freeper Notwithstanding "....... I have snipped these quotes from the opinion. It seems to be saying that the US Constitution gives the power to select electors to the state legislatures. Since state legislatures are in control of the selection of electors, it is the state legislature that can set the rules. In this Michigan case the state court ageed that the legislature was in control of the selection of electors and the court had no power to negate the legislature's control. Repeat: The state court noted that the state court did not have the power to do so. The US Supreme court also noted that it would rightly reverse the state court decision if that state court had ruled otherwise on this matter - since it would have usurped power the Constitution did not grant. The US Supreme Court also noted that ammendments have repeatedly failed to passed - ammendments which would withdrawn power from the state legislatures (to select electors). Thus it is absolutley the power of the legislatue to select the electors - with no interference from the state court. I am merely a 1st year law student, but think this is the jist of the opinion from 1891. By the way Greta van Sutern on CNN just agreed with my analysis! Freeper LincolnLover "......"As we concur with the state court, its judgment has been affirmed; if we had not, its judgment would have been reversed. In either event, the questions submitted are finally and definitely disposed of by the judgment which we pronounce, and that judgment is carried into effect by the transmission of our mandate to the state court. -SNIPThe Constitution does not provide that the appointment of electors shall be by popular vote, nor that the electors shall be voted for upon a general ticket, nor that the majority of those who exercise the elective franchise can alone choose the electors. It recognizes that the people act through their representatives in the legislature, and leaves it to the legislature exclusively to define the method of effecting the object. -SNIPMr. Justice Story, in considering the subject in his Commentaries on the Constitution, and writing nearly 50 years after the adoption of that instrument, after stating that 'in some states the legislatures have directly chosen the electors by themselves; in others, they have been chosen by the people by a general ticket throughout the whole state; and in others, by the people by electoral districts, fixed by the legislature, a certain number of electors being apportioned to each district,'-adds: 'No question has ever arisen as to the constitutionality of either mode, except that by a direct choice by the legislature. But this, though often doubted by able and ingenious minds, (3 Elliot, Deb. 100, 101,) has been firmly established in practice ever

since the adoption of the constitution, and does not now seem to admit of controversy, even if a suitable tribunal existed to adjudicate upon it.' And he remarks that 'it has been thought desirable by many statesmen to have the constitution amended so as to provide for a uniform mode of choice by the people.' Story, Const. (1st Ed .) 1466. Such an amendment was urged at the time of the adoption of the twelfth amendument, the suggestion being that all electors should be chosen by popular vote, the states to be divided for that purpose into districts. It was brought up again in congress in December, 1813, but the resolution for submitting the amendment failed to be carried. In this report it was said: 'The appointment of these electors is thus placed absolutely and wholly with the legislatures of the several states. They may be chosen by the legislature, or the legislature may provide that they shall be elected by the people of the state at large, or in districts, as are members of congress, which was the case formerly in many states; and it is not doubt competent for the legislature to authorize the governor, or the [146 U.S. 1, 35] supreme court of the state, or any other agent of its will, to appoint these electors. This power is conferred upon the legislatures of the states by the constitution of the United States, and cannot be taken from them or modified by their state constitutions any more than can their power to elect senators of the United States. Whatever provisions may be made by statute, or by the state constitution, to choose electors by the people, there is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated.' Senate Rep. 1st Sess. 43d Cong. No. 395. -SNIPFrom this review, in which we have been assisted by the laborious research of counsel, and which might have been greatly expanded, it is seen that from the formation of the government until now the practical construction of the clause has conceded plenary power to the state legislatures in the matter of the appointment of electors. We entirely agree with the supreme court of Michigan that it cannot be held, as matter of law, that the legislature would not have provided for being convened in special session but for the provision relating to the time of the meeting of the electors contained in the act, and are of opinion that that date may be rejected, and the act be held to remain otherwise complete and valid. And as the state is fully empowered to fill any vacancy which may occur in its electoral college, when it meets to give its electoral vote, we find nothing in the mode provided for anticipating such an exigency which operates to invalidate the law. [146 U.S. 1, 42] We repeat that the main question arising for consideration is one of power, and not of policy, and we are unable to arive at any other conclusion than that the act of the legislature of Michigan of May 1, 1891, is not void as in contravention of the constitution of the United States, for want of power in its enactment. The judgment of the supreme court of Michigan must be affirmed. " Freeper AuraOfTheBlade "......Indeed, McPherson v. Blacker has put SCOTUS on alert, as the FSC changed the legislation scheme by way of its constitution. Thus allowing itself or the Florida constitution about what is required under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, as submitted by Mr. Olsen. .........Possibly, the case may be remanded and the original date of certification applied, as there was no showing of fraud nor voter machine malfunction raised prior to the initial certification date. Moreover Justice Scalia briefly mentioned the Illinois case, which invalidates the hand counts, as voter's intent cannot be determined by dimples and the like. Another interesting point raised was the absentee overseas ballots, which falls under federal law. One more door opening for SCOTUS to intervene. In short, an interesting day. ......" Associated Press 12/1/00 ".......Some results from a new poll released Friday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press on the unsettled presidential election. The poll of 947 adults in the first wave of polling was taken Nov. 20-26 and the second wave of 688 adults was taken Nov. 27-30. The error margin for both samples was 4 percentage points. When results don't total 100 percent, the remainder either didn't know or refused to answer. Who do you think will be the next president of the United States, George W. Bush (news - web sites) or Al Gore (news - web sites)? -Bush, 66 percent -Gore, 13 percent (It was 58-20 in Bush's favor last week)

Suppose it turns out that the following candidate is the next president. Do you think he will have legitimately won the election or do you think it is because the voting was conducted and counted improperly in Florida? George W. Bush -Legitimately won, 48 percent -Way vote was conducted or counted, 33 percent (Last week, 54 percent thought Bush will have legitimately won) Al Gore -Legitimately won, 36 percent -Way vote was conducted or counted, 44 percent (Those percentages haven't changed in the last week) FoxNews 12/1/00 Freeper MississippiMan "...... Craig Waters just announced that the butterfly ballot was NOT in substantial non-compliance with the law. This issue is finally over. No re-vote......" Associated Press 12/1/00 David Ammons ".....Democrat Maria Cantwell, a dot-com millionaire who financed her own campaign, narrowly defeated veteran Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, results of a recount confirmed Friday. Her victory creates the possibility of a 50-50 tie in the new Senate. Cantwell, a former one-term U.S. House member waging her first statewide campaign, ousted the 18-year incumbent by 2,259 votes, out of nearly 2.5 million cast, as the last of Washington's counties reported their recount results. The initial unofficial count had given her a margin of 1,953 votes. ..." FLSKC 12/1/00 MississippiMan "...... Amid all the excitement over Gore's request for immediate recounts being dismissed, we forgot to pay attention to the other announcement that Craig Waters made at the same time, which was the scheduling for the Butler case. Butler is the Republican voter who is suing on the grounds of selective hand counts being unconstitutional. This case is still alive. NOT dismisssed by FLSKC, and briefs due on Monday. ......" Freeper austingirl adds ".....The judicial tide has turned. I'm going to love watching the democrap spinners trying to put a good light on today's decisions by the FLSC. Isn't it amazing that they (FLSC)are willing to hear a case about the unconstitutionality of hand counts when they allowed them earlier? ...." Excerpt of hearing today at USSC Freeper libbylu "..... BREYER: And now the secretary has certified a winner. And therefore, I guess, whether we win -- whether your side, the side your supporting, wins or loses, it doesn't change that. And I guess that's moot. KLOCK: Well... BREYER: But my question is, is there any respect in which this really makes a difference this case, how -- I'm thinking, if it does make a difference, numbers of vote, is that kind of thing right for us to decide now? How could it make a difference? What's the consequence of our going one way or the other now, in this case? KLOCK: Your Honor, it makes an enormous difference. Because the relief that has been requested would be for the court to determine that the law in effect at the time of the election was that manual recounting of ballots would not be permitted to address voter error, which I think has been extensively... BREYER: But we don't -- suppose they won, and the relief was -- suppose your side won, and the relief was, fine, it should have been certified on November 14 or 18 instead of November 26. Now, what's the consequence of that, just that? Forgetting what the reasoning is, is there a consequence that flows from that that is real, adverse, you know, significant, concrete, that we can predict now as opposed to speculating? KLOCK: The only immediate result would be that you would have a margin that was instead of being 536 votes would be 900-and-some-odd votes, and it would only be added to as a result of whatever was added by the overseas ballots. BREYER: And this case has said -- we've said a claim is not right if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated or, indeed, may not occur at all. And so what I wonder is, is this in this realm of speculation as to whether or not it will or will not make a difference to the outcome of the election? KLOCK: It will make a difference to the outcome of the election because there is an ongoing contest which is

interrelated and is involved in the Supreme Court's opinion. KLOCK: And, of course, because the Supreme Court of Florida, in coming up with the remedy that they came up with, completely changed the period of time from a relatively short period of time, seven days for a protest, and a much longer period for a contest, we now have a situation where there's 19 days for the protest and 16 days for the contest. SCALIA: Well, it's too late to lengthen the time for the contest. I mean, to the extent that they've shortened the contest time, you know, that's water over the dam by now, isn't it? KLOCK: Yes, Justice Scalia. But the issue, here -- I'm sorry. SCALIA: Is it not the case that if the votes are, as they have been shown to be, under the Florida Supreme Court's opinion, the race is much closer, and, therefore, some counties under Florida law would conduct recounts that otherwise would not conduct recounts. Doesn't whether a recount is conducted depend upon how likely it is that the recount is going to change the outcome? (The point they were trying to draw out, i think, is this) KLOCK: Your Honor, if the law is returned to the point it was on November 7, there is no right to a manual recount to correct voter error. And that will end the litigation that currently exists in the state of Florida, which were the opinions of the secretary of state's Division of Elections that were issued and also the state of the law as it existed at that point and time. The record shows very clearly there is no dispute that there were any problems with voting machines or any of the tabulation problems with voting machines. It was simply when they went through the process of what is, Justice Ginsburg, a discretionary right to a manual recount, not a mandatory one. When they went into that and did the test, each of those canvassing boards did not find any problem with a mechanical problem. It was simply a problem in terms of voter error. The secretary took the -- never mind. AP 12/1/00 Jeffrey McMurray ".....Democrats sought to toss out 24,000 absentee ballots in two Republicanleaning counties Friday, making a second claim that Republicans used dirty tricks to complete ballot applications. The lawsuit seeks to have 9,773 absentee ballots excluded from the final vote count in Martin County, where some 120,000 people live directly above Palm Beach County. ...." Associated Press 12/1/00 Linda Deutsch "......The Florida Supreme Court and a state court judge dealt Al Gore's lawyers a double defeat Friday in their bid to force an immediate hand recount of thousands of disputed ballots. In yet another ruling announced later in the day, the state high court unanimously refused to orders. .......The vice president's lawyers came up empty on two other rulings handed down Friday that spurned his bid to force an immediate manual recount of 14,000 contested ballots in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. In an emergency hearing, Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls refused for the third time in less than a week to order a manual recount of disputed ballots, at least until he hears arguments beginning Saturday. ....... The Florida Supreme Court, which was implored to intervene, refused without comment. Waters said merely that the petition was ``dismissed without prejudice,'' meaning it could be filed again. .....``There can be no ruling until there is evidence taken,'' said Sauls, setting the stage for an historic weekend trial on Gore's contest. ......." Associated Press 12/1/00 Linda Deutsch "......While the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington heard arguments on weighty constitutional issues, Sauls grappled with more mundane legal questions - subpoenas for documents, motions by outside parties to intervene - and made clear he hopes the trial can be wrapped up in a single day. ...... Sauls said each side can call only one expert witness. The judge also ordered the impounding of an additional 1.2 million ballots in Volusia, Broward and Pinellas counties. The Bush campaign had asked that they be brought to Tallahassee, but agreed that the impounding would suffice. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said, ``We believe there were a number of illegal votes for Gore in those counties.'' ........... " FoxNews 12/1/00 Freeper Kate in Palo Alto "..... Brit Hume just announced that a NY columnist believes that poor Lars Eric Nelson passed away due to a stroke while he listened to Bush attorneys some days ago. The columnist says the Bush attornyes are to blame for the death......" Freeper Cooter "..... Just saw on TV that the lawsuit filed in Texas disputing Dick Cheney's legal residency was dismissed. The judge's ruling was that the 3 plaintiffs did not have standing to file the suit. The were alleging that Bush and Cheney were not entitled to the states electors because they violated the 12th amendment regarding both candidates being residents of the same state. ....."

Bush-Cheney 12/1/00 "..... Some of you may have heard about an organization, the "Swing States PAC," raising funds claiming to be associated with Bush-Cheney 2000. Please read the letter Bush-Cheney 2000 has released as well as the Washington Post article "'Swing State PAC' Probed" outlining this situation. ...... _______________________________________________ Dear Bush/Cheney 2000 donors and supporters: It has come to our attention that an organization calling itself the "Swing States PAC" is attempting to raise funds in the name of Governor Bush and Bush/Cheney 2000 without authorization from us. We further believe that this organization is using the Bush/Cheney 2000 master donor list to make these unauthorized solicitations. Swing States PAC is in no way associated with Bush/Cheney 2000 and we believe that their solicitation is an inappropriate effort to imply authorization or association that they do not have. If you receive a solicitation from the Swing States PAC, we strongly urge you not to make a contribution and to immediately report the matter to Jack Oliver or Michael Toner at Bush/Cheney 2000. Please also send us copies of any solicitations that you may have received. That way, the campaign can immediately forward this information for investigation of this unauthorized and inappropriate activity so that Bush/Cheney 2000 can take appropriate action to protect its interests. One Swing States PAC solicitation purports to be on behalf of the "Legal Challenge Fund," and references the campaign's need to raise funds to support on-going recount activities. Another solicitation purports to raise funds for the "George W. Bush inaugural ball gala event," and promises to award a pair of tickets to the "George W. Bush Inaugural Ball in Washington, DC" to randomly selected contributors. J. DeWald, who is identified as the "Chief of Staff" of the organization, signs both of the solicitations. Thank you for assisting us in dealing with this unfortunate situation. Jack Oliver can be reached at (512) 344-4601 and Michael Toner at (512) 344-4616. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any relevant information you possess. Sincerely, Jack Oliver National Finance Director Michael Toner General Counsel......" Washington Post 11/30/00 Susan Schmidt ".....So far, the envelopes aren't going to lawyers for Bush and Gore--they are going to mail drops at Mail Boxes Etc. on Pennsylvania Avenue. As of late yesterday, the letters and the person who rented the mail drops were under scrutiny by the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspector and the Connecticut state attorney general. ....." NewsMax 12/1/00 Carl Limbacher ".....With few exceptions, congressional Democrats have publicly rallied round Vice President Al Gore in his post-election fight for the White House, even as polls show him losing the public relations war with the American people. ....... But privately, according to one little-noticed media report, nervous Democrats are bombarding Gore with faxes and e-mail calling on him to quit. ....... On Wednesday, Fox News Channel's Paula Zahn broached the topic of the secret Democrat mutiny with Gore spinmeister Peter Fenn, after first citing a Washington Post report blaming Republicans for the pressure: ....." UPI 12/1/00 ".....The Duval County Supervisor of Elections office has been busy since Election Day signing up new voters and helping current registrants change parties, WJXT-TV of Jacksonville reported Friday. Clerks said they have never seen anything like it after any other presidential election........ Assistant Supervisor of Elections Dick Carlsberg said he talked to the clerks in the office and they told him, "There's been a definite surge in party affiliation changes, and it's been from Democrat to Rpublican."....." CSPAN 12/1/00 Freeper zeebee "..... Here are the final words from today's SCOTUS hearings: GINSBERG: As I look in the conclusion, the paragraph on page 37-A, where they summarize what they said, there is nothing there about the Florida Constitution. It's only about the Florida election code. They say they must construe the Florida election code as a whole, and they point out the provisions in conflict. There is not one word in that paragraph that says anything about the Florida Constitution. MR. OLSON: The very second paragraph refers to the Florida Constitution and the rights to vote. Page 36-A

of the appendix to the petition. CHIEF JUSTICE RHENQUIST: Thank you, Mr. Olson. The case is submitted. End of hearings Freeper jpthomas "....Here are the referenced paragraphs. Olson was right--the second paragraph in the conclusion refers to the Florida Constitution: X. CONCLUSION According to the legislative intent evinced in the Florida Election Code, the permissive language of section 102.112 supersedes the mandatory language of section 102.111. The statutory fines set forth in section 102.112 offer strong incentive to County Canvassing Boards to submit their returns in a timely fashion. However, when a Board certifies its returns after the seven-day period because the Board is acting in conformity with other provisions of the Code or with administrative rules or for other good cause, the Secretary may impose no fines. It is unlikely that the Legislature would have intended to punish a Board for complying with the dictates of the Code or some other law. Because the right to vote is the pre-eminent right in the Declaration of Rights of the Florida Constitution, the circumstances under which the Secretary may exercise her authority to ignore a county's returns filed after the initial statutory date are limited. The Secretary may ignore such returns only if their inclusion will compromise the integrity of the electoral process in either of two ways: (1) by precluding a candidate, elector, or taxpayer from contesting the certification of election pursuant to section 102.168; or (2) by precluding Florida voters from participating fully in the federal electoral process. In either such case, this drastic penalty must be both reasonable and necessary. But to allow the Secretary to summarily disenfranchise innocent electors in an effort to punish dilatory Board members, as she proposes in the present case, misses the constitutional mark. The constitution eschews punishment by proxy. ....." CNN 10/4/00 Kelly Wallace ".....The White House on Wednesday accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of "another stalling tactic," after learning about reports Yugoslavia's constitutional court annulled the results of last month's presidential election. "The court is stacked with his cronies," said an administration official, who did not want to be identified. "If they have in fact invalidated the first round, it would be consistent with a man who knows he has lost and who refuses to recognize the results." ......" CNN 12/1/00 "...... Opening its latest barrage against the Gore camp, the Bush campaign answered Gore's challenge of Florida's certified election returns late Thursday by asking Sauls to dismiss the challenge on multiple counts. In addition, Bush's legal team said it would subpoena nearly 1.2 million additional ballots from three Florida counties -- a move codified by Sauls in a Friday afternoon pre-trial procedural hearing. ........ The Bush campaign argued that Gore cannot mount a challenge in Florida because he and running mate Joe Lieberman were never on the ballot: Technically, only the party's electors appeared on the ballot. ......... The response also says Gore has failed to show that the outcome of the election -- certified for Bush by a margin of 537 votes -- would be changed if the 14,000 votes he wants hand-counted are tallied. ......... If the court allows the votes to be hand-counted, Bush's lawyers argued, it must recount every ballot or additional ballots chosen by the Bush campaign. But they also argue that the manual recounting of ballots is illegal. ........" Jewish World Weekly 11/30/00 Cal thomas "...... In his televised mini-sermon Monday night, Gore appealed to the nation to allow him to have the job for which he was to the manor born. He said the public's voice had been "made mighty by the whole of its integrity.'' ........ Integrity is not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of the administration of which Gore has been a part. .......Attention should be paid to former Florida Secretary of State Jim Smith, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal on November 10 (and spoke on CNN the day before) that those 19,120 presidential ballots at issue in Palm Beach County were "destroyed by deliberate double-punching...with a second punch for Al Gore or Pat Buchanan.'' This would seem to suggest that voters who either voted for Bush or voted for another candidate other than Al Gore had their ballots tampered with in order to give unfair and illegal advantage to Gore. ........Furthermore, an estimated two percent of Florida voters decided not to vote for any presidential candidate, while voting for other offices on their ballot. There have been no challenges due to any double punching in those non-presidential races. ......." Jewish World Weekly 11/30/00 Cal thomas "......The error rate in Palm Beach County is 10 times greater than reported in any other county in the nation which uses paper punch ballots, according to Robert Cook, a nuclear engineer who holds a masters degree in statistical quality control and is experienced in analyzing and correcting trends and errors in heavy construction projects. His analysis may be found on Michael Reagan's Web page (go to reagan.com, then scroll down to "Today's Headlines''). In a phone interview,

Cook tells me that only in Palm Beach were 15,000 ballots "invalidated'' because of double punched ballots in the 1996 presidential election. Only in Palm Beach County (and only in the most heavily Democratic precincts) were 19,120 ballots rejected in this race for double punching. That's an error rate of 4.4 percent overall. In the rest of Florida, there was less than one-half of one percent double-punch error rate. ........What especially got Cook's attention was that in every Palm Beach precinct where Gore got more votes than there are registered Democrats, George W. Bush received less than 60 percent of the registered Republican votes. In no Palm Beach precinct did Bush receive more than 80 percent of the number of registered Republicans. Does that sound fishy in a nation supposedly so evenly divided? It should, considering that it was only in Palm Beach County that more than 20 percent of Republicans "forgot'' to vote for their party's presidential candidate. On average, says Cook, in every other Florida county, Bush received more votes than there were registered Republicans. Nationwide, polls indicate more than 90 percent of registered Republicans supported the Republican candidate. ....." Freeper Libloather "...... At 1pm, as I was walking from the Supreme Court building on 1st Street towards the Capitol South Metro station, I saw an Omega Tours bus parked on 1st Street which was waiting to load it's passengers. EVERY SINGLE PERSON who got on that bus had a non-homemade Gore/LIEberman campaign sign in their hand. I took total advantage of the situation and appropriately FReeped 'em all with my "GET OUT DA ALGORES!" poster. That wasn't the end of it - Fifty yards on front of that bus was ANOTHER bus, labeled Hamon Brothers on it's front...." CNN 12/1/00 Brooks Jackson "......... Gore's arithmetic was simple: Canvassers counted about one-fifth of the precincts in Miami-Dade County before calling it quits. The partial recount produced a 157-vote gain for Gore that wasn't included in the state's certified total. Projecting that the remaining precincts would have yielded an equal gain of votes for the Democratic nominee, his legal team argued that county's decision to halt manual recounts cost their candidate a net gain of 757 votes. ....." CNN 12/1/00 Brooks Jackson "......... But the experts disagree. Bruce Hansen, a statistician at the University of Wisconsin, contends that a 600-vote gain for Gore in the remaining precincts is a highly unlikely scenario. ......Professor Hansen's own study of the Miami-Dade vote examined the polling data precinct by precinct, and concluded that Gore would gain as many as 179 additional votes and as few as 15 if the hand recount was completed. ......Hansen says the partial manual recount the county had completed focused on precincts with the strongest Democratic support, while those remaining would have favored Gore less. ....." CNN 12/1/00 Brooks Jackson "......... Yet another university study estimates a 10-1 chance that Gore would actually lose votes in the remaining Miami-Dade precincts. Peyton Young, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, estimates that Gore could lose as many as 62 votes in the remaining precincts or gain as many 283 votes. ......And that's based on very sophisticated methods -- choosing possible variables by chance and projecting each precinct's possible outcomes over and over again. ....." Time 12/1/00 Frank Pelligrini "..... It's going to be very hard for the Supreme Court to give Al Gore anything more than a flesh wound. ....... Say the Supremes rule for Bush, 5-4. A tight majority on the conservative Court that made such a handy bogeyman for Gore during the campaign sure wouldn't stop him now. .... He'll just soberly, and correctly, insist that the Court ruled on his protest but not his contest (which lives on in the Florida courts at least through Saturday). His noble, selfless quest to "count all the votes" must continue for the good of democracy. ........And Gore's base, glimpsing the names of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on a pro-Bush majority decision, will know exactly what he means. ....." Time 12/1/00 Frank Pelligrini ".....A no-decision is a mild rebuke of Bush's argument against hand counts. A strong ruling in Gore's favor, having a similar effect of leaving Florida to its own devices, would be a slightly stronger one. But either would only require the Bush camp to continue the fight in the Florida courts, which it's doing anyway. Both of those would puff Gore's chest out a bit, but not change much once the dust settled. ...... The only thing Gore has to fear is what looks like the longest shot: A strong ruling for George W. Bush. ....." Time 12/1/00 Frank Pelligrini ".....Make it 6-3 or 7-2 or more, though, and the buzzword on cable-news correspondents' lips will be "supermajority." And then it starts to echo. ...... A severe ruling for Bush doesn't invalidate Gore's legal situation or strategy, it just forces him to refile his contest under different terms. But it could invalidate Gore himself. What filters down to the mostly-just-disgusted-by-now public will be that Bush went to the Supreme Court to stop manual recounts, and he won. And Gore, though he didn't go looking for a fight, lost. Big time. ...... The polls that say Gore should concede will shoot up. December 12 will start to loom. ..... Which still puts it at about 50-50. ..." ABCNews 12/1/00 Sascha Segan "......The justices gave an intense grilling to both Theodore Olson, lawyer for Bush's Republican presidential campaign, and Laurence Tribe, representing Al Gore's Democratic forces, says ABCNEWS analyst Jeffrey Toobin.......But Olson took more heat from more justices. And in a

forces, says ABCNEWS analyst Jeffrey Toobin.......But Olson took more heat from more justices. And in a court that's probably seeking a unanimous decision, that's bad news for the Bush side, which is seeking a slam-dunk to toss out hand-counted votes in Florida....... "I think the only possibility for a unanimous ruling, based on the questioning, is a pro-Gore decision," said Toobin. "[Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, [David] Souter, and [John Paul] Stevens gave no indication of any sympathy for the Bush position, whereas the others, you could make a case either way." ......The justices are looking for a way to resolve this case on the narrowest possible legal grounds, says Toobin. They don't want to decide the election, and they don't want to overreach their power........ "They might leave the Florida courts alone ... letting Florida continue its recount with the acknowledgement that if Florida would somehow step in later and certify the wrong person, that they could return to the case later on," said Toobin....... The high court may also be seeking to explain it is not the right venue for this dispute right now, Toobin says. "The Supreme Court issues rulings all the time about the limits of its own jurisdiction," he said. ....... " Freeper Freethesheeples ".... Lets hope the Toobin's are WRONG on this. I listened carefully to all 90 minutes of the arguments & I think there COULD be a split decision favoring Bush, but who knows! The Supremes are working very late tonight, their lights are approaching midnight in Washington,(Laura Ingraham, a former clerk for Clarence Thomas commented upon this tonight on the Spin Room on CNN) and that means they are on the job. ....." Associated Press 12/2/00 Vickie Chachere ".....Leon County Circuit Court Clerk Dave Lang has been on the job 41 years and nothing in that time compares to what might lie ahead: a hand count of 1 million ballots. ......With 185 employees and the ongoing daily responsibilities of a busy court, Lang has been preparing contingency plans should Judge N. Sanders Sauls order a count of the ballots from two South Florida counties. ...... The clerk's office is in control of the ballots, now considered evidence in the civil lawsuit. ...... Lang on Friday enlisted aid from Ion Sanchez, the county's election supervisor, to train Lang's employees in how to properly count and handle ballots. Leon County doesn't use the punch-card ballot system that has created so many problems in the South Florida counties, but Sanchez said he has studied the system and is prepared to assist if the judge so orders. ...... Lang also was preparing to find a location that would allow for the counting of the ballots and trying to figure out how to keep the clerk's office operating while the counting goes on. ......" New York Post 12/2/00 Deborah Orin "....."I suspect the Supreme Court would very much like to have a unanimous decision, but the tenor of the questions didn't suggest that," said Yale University constitutional law Professor Jack Balkin. "The worst possibility that could happen would be a 5-4 decision. It would be as if the Supreme Court poured gasoline on the fire . . . From the questions, I heard a 5-4 ruling [for Bush]," added Balkin, who believes the court will try hard to avoid such a close split. .......A pro-Bush ruling would find Florida's Supreme Court had no right to allow late hand recounts. A pro-Gore ruling would uphold the Florida court. Or the justices could punt and drop the case. .......Fordham University law Professor Abner Greene, who clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens, said: "A 5-4 ruling would be the saddest of outcomes, because it would make people think the Supreme Court is political, too." ......That's why many analysts believe the high court will try to find a broader consensus, at least 6-3, or conclude it was wrong to take up the case in the first place - or that it has now become moot. ...." New York Post 12/2/00 Bruce Fein ".....Pressure for a unanimous opinion will be high, as it was in the unanimous Nixon tapes case. With public opinion polarized, the nation doesn't need the additional disunity that would come with a fragmented Supreme Court decree. It's likely that early next week, Rehnquist will speak for the court by ruling that the issue is a political question that must be answered by Congress when it counts electoral votes on Jan. 6. That would be a win for Gore - but it will gain him little in his uphill quest for the presidency. Florida's Republican-ruled state Legislature plans a special session to name Bush electors and end the war over dimpled chads. None of the U.S. Supreme Court justices indicated any constitutional barrier to the plan yesterday. ..." Orlando Sentinel 12/2/00 Rich McKay ".....Another round of legal battles is looming as the NAACP prepares a battery of lawsuits against Florida counties, possibly to include Volusia County because of complaints from Bethune-Cookman College students in Daytona Beach. For weeks, lawyers have been quietly gathering affidavits that allege various types of voter- and civil-rights abuses all over the state, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and legal-advocacy groups. The mix is likely to include complaints from up to 50 B-CC students who say they were registered to vote but were turned away from the polls...." New York Post 12/2/00 Andy Soltis ".....If there were a rerun of the presidential election, George W. Bush would win in a landslide, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found. The nationwide phone poll of 900 registered voters found 49 percent would cast ballots for Bush compared with 36 percent for Vice President Al Gore, 3 percent for Ralph Nader and 1 percent for Pat Buchanan. ....."

Boston Herald 12/2/00 "..... Justice Anthony Kennedy, in questioning Gore attorney Laurence Tribe, hit the issue: ``You say the Florida Legislature now has no role. You now say this court has no role. That means the Supreme Court of Florida is it.'' ....... Given the caliber of the Florida Supreme Court that's a rather scary thought. (Now there's a gang that would have good reason not to allow cameras in the courtroom.) ......The public is looking for finality in this endless presidential election season. The highest court in the land could provide it, if it were so inclined....." New York Times 12/2/00 ".......JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA TO LAURENCE H. TRIBE, MR. GORE'S LAWYER: "I just find it implausible that they really invited the Florida Supreme Court to interpose the Florida Constitution between what they enacted by statute and the ultimate result of the election." JUSTICE STEPHEN G. BREYER TO MR. TRIBE: "What is the Nov. 26 date? Is that the seven-day date moved? Has it created a new date...." INSIGHT magazine 12/1/00 Paul Rodriguez ". He submitted false information to the Florida Supreme Court and at least two Florida canvassing boards responsible for counting voter ballot cards. That same false information was relied upon by the Florida Supreme Court in a highly important opinion, and by others, to justify Al Gore's efforts to have dimpled or dented ballots included in manual recounts. One would think the press would have jumped heavily on such a story once it was discovered that Gore's attorney, Microsoft prosecutor David Boies, not only filed false information before the Florida Supreme Court and various other officials in Florida but failed to correct the false submissions even after they were exposed. And what was the false information? It was an affidavit by Michael Lavelle, reportedly a Democrat, who is a lawyer in Cook County, Ill. He was the lead attorney 10 years ago in Pullen v. Mulligan, widely considered in legal circles to be the controlling case in matters related to so-called dimpled- and dented-chad ballots. Lavelle represented Penny Pullen after a Republican primary against Rosemary Mulligan, who subsequently lost the contested race by a handful of recounted votes. ............ After a late-night telephone call from Boies, Lavelle sent two identical affidavits to the Gore attorney in which he swore under penalty of law that the Illinois Supreme Court and the lower court judge presiding in the contested race had decided it was proper to count dented or dimpled ballots to determine voter intent. But it never happened! In fact, the courts flatly rejected such a standard. .." INSIGHT magazine 12/1/00 Paul Rodriguez ". The Chicago Tribune was the first to send a reporter to check the court records and report that Lavelle's affidavit was false. But this was after the Florida canvassing boards, at least one lower court and the Florida Supreme Court had made decisions based on the false information presented by Boies. Though a few news organizations, such as our sister publication the Washington Times, reported the false affidavit and Lavelle's retraction, the story has not been widely published. Why, we don't know. ..But, just as the general press has ignored the story so too has Gore lawyer Boies, who even after receiving a corrected affidavit from Lavelle declaring that in the controlling Illinois case dimples and dents were formally excluded, the Gore lawyer (and the vice president himself) failed to notify the Florida Supreme Court and elected officials. Moreover, Boies has gone on to insist that, despite his own now-refuted evidence, he's still right and Republicans are wrong. ." WorldNetDaily.com 12/2/00 Paul Sperry " Fulfilling a widely broadcast prediction by a leading Democrat, at least one major newspaper has requested that officials in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties provide its reporters access to thousands of presidential ballots that Vice President Al Gore claims hold "uncounted" votes for him, WorldNetDaily has learned. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., earlier this week hinted that "somebody" could apply under Florida public-records law to review the disputed ballots if the courts don't allow a manual recount of them. The Los Angeles Times has done just that, confirms an editor in its Washington bureau. The move by the paper, which historically has a pro-Democrat editorialpage voice, threatens to reopen the debate even after President-elect George W. Bush is inaugurated Jan. 20. ." The N. Sanders Saul Trial - Freeper commentary WoodrowTKatt "....Witness is holding up a plastic template now -- is this different than the rubber gasket? Will the judge nod off before we find out? ...." Howlin "...ALERT: the voting machines in Florida DO NOT HAVE rubber spines; this is NOT the same type of machine. newzjunkey ".....The Bushies should inspect the sample ballots at every turn. I can't believe they're not. I suppose, that's why the judge insisted on knowing if they were going to try and use this to make a dimple ballot. I'm wondering what the second ballot was that he tore off and slipped under the pad. Very peculiar. ....."

Howlin "....HIS machine has a rubber spine down the middle; the ones they use in Florida do not; somehow, that is suppose to be relevant. The point is, this guy knows about HIS machine, not theirs. How many witnesses are they calling for Gore? ....." Gwwilder "....The expert is now trying to give his opinion on how the machines can mess up. Bush's attornies are objecting left and right. Judge seems to be upholding most of the objections. ......" KeatsforFirstDog "....good - they are going to try to get rid of this sleazy witness ....." yup...I knew it...this guy doesn't have the proper credentials...Gore attorneys getting mad ....." WoodrowTKatt ".....Bush lawyer is cross-examining now... "Are you a demographer?" "Do you have any training as a mechanical engineer?" (NO). ....." jwalsh07:...,Whats your degree in? Political Science. Are you an engineer? No. Then how the hell are you qualified as an expert witness in the design and engineering of voting machines? NEXT! ...." Mike Darancette "....The machine was not from the counties in question - no chain of evidentiary posession. ....." WoodrowTKatt "..... Question: Do you expect to testify about how rubber affects the votiung machines? Goron Lawyer: OBJECTION. Apparently, Saul's 12-hours for this trial are Pluto-hours... about 19 years here on Earth ....." Howlin "...Is this one of Gore's TWO witnesses? If so, he is dead in the water. ...." Doohickey "..... This witness is a professional "vote-smith" ....." Pettifogger "...... I should be writing a brief, but I am glued to this garbage. . . ........ Keep in mind that all these complaints that Bush is trying to run out the clock, while partially true, I am sure, are not the SOLE reason for the kind of lawyering we're seeing here. These Bush advocates have an ethical obligation to be "zealous advocates" for their clients. They MUST be allowed to put forth a strong defense, including the challenging of the credentials, credibility and potential biases of any witnesses. These objections by the Goreites to this voir dire of the "machine expert" are p'ing me off! ......" Carolinamom "....Even the judge is questioning the witness' qualifications! ....." WoodrowTKatt "..... Judge is going to admit Rubberman as a witness, but Sauls is very skeptical of his socalled expertise. ......" Tbeatty "...... The is going to allow the votomatic guy to testify about the machines. The judge doesn't think he is a very good espert witness though. HE is going to give his testimony the "appropriate weight". Made it seem as if there was a Jury trial, this guy wouldn't be allowed. ....." Mdittmar "....Witness just said the voting machines were in equipment managers truck that he took home overnight! Nice control of the chain of evidence!!!! ....." Truthkeeper "..... Oh good grief...the guy just admitted he doesn't even know which version of this machine was used during the election. Get the hook! ...." Timeout "..... Now the JUDGE is testifying! ....." JoeEveryman "..... *BANG* JUDGE SAUL POINTS OUT FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS WHEN VOTING ....LOLOLOLOL ......" Hobson "......When the machine was allowed the demonstration of the "machine" they said they weren't going to demonstrate dimples! The Pubs should be objecting!! Have I missed something? ....." Yankee " Now the a--hole is showing how a voter can place the ballot on top of the machine, disregarding the instructions and create a dimple. This is f--king sick. He says voters "have been observed" making this mistake. HOW. You vote secretly in a PRIVATE BOOTH. .." Bluefish " OK. This guys says that a dimple is created by putting the ballot on top, contrary to the instructions. We can argue that therefore, a dimple is evidence of fraud. The fact that the ballot has to be put behind the holes to insure the chad is punched out is to prevent fraudulent indentations. Therefore, all dimples MUST be ignored to preserve the integrity of the voter intent and to prevent a proper vote from being altered by somebody pushing on the card when it is not in the slot"

Vermonter " "Expert" is showing how dimples can be made if the voter fails to even place the ballot properly in the machine! Places the ballot on top of the machine instead of inserting it into the 'throat' where it belongs. .." Bygolly ". It's encouraging to hear that someone (da judge) thinks instructions are relevant! .." Gumption " This witness is proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a voter must first ignore all instructions for casting a ballot in order to create a dimpled chad. ." Watchful One " I'm sorry! I just saw the expert explain how the first column gets sooooooo much more wear than the right side of the machines that it causes wear on the poor rubber strips. Then, when asked if he had been able to produce dimples, the witness said he had -- but proceeded to explain how absentee voters might make dimples (without the machines) and how stupid voters might make dimples by just putting the card down on top of the machine and pressing down on it with the stylus! I CANNOT STAND TO SEE THIS ABSOLUTE NONSENSE BEING LISTENED TO AS IF IT WERE EVIDENCE! IS THIS WHAT WE'VE COME TO???? " Dog ".. The Judge is shaking his head....this is a Bad witness for Gore...they are trying to make the case for Dimples...They are trying to get Dimple Ballots in....LOLOL .." Truthkeeper " Even Greg Jarrett on MSNBC, world's biggest Clinton/Gore suck-up and propagandist, is admitting the Bush side is going to eat this guy for lunch. Other legal expert agrees with him. .." Relee ".. Bush has contested 3 more counties according to CNN. .." Ken H " Just saw Judge Burton interviewed on CNN. Says that when he gave airline ticket to the ticket agent, the agent held the ticket up to the light to determine where he intended to go. HA! " Dog " Did you hear the "Expert" witness say ....your honor this is how you make a gore vote.the judge cut him off...lolol .." Dog " Hey...when the witness asked for his report back....he said and I quote..."ITS OLD"....that means he doesnt have updated material..LOLOLOL " Mombonn " pmsnbc is trashing the "expert" witness, saying that the Bush attorneys said the other day that he's not an expert. Said the Bush expert will destroy him. .." Moe ".. This witness is an embarassment. He showed how to create dimples - put the ballot on top of the voting machine (instead of in the voting machine) and try to push holes in the ballot card. The judge and Bush lawyer both question whether the INSTRUCTIONS indicated that this is the proper method of voting. Wait until the cross exam.....it will be fun. .." ImPeach " Judge: "Is this witness going to be on here all day?" LOL " Bcoffey " That "recount in New Mexico" allusion is totally irrelevant... or maybe it is... The reason for court-ordered recounts in New Mexico was was that someone programmed the machines so that straight party tickets were not recognized. " Azzurri ".. The biggest mistake this witness made was when he did an example of someone putting the ballot on top and saying the arrows and hole no longer line up. That means that a) the voter did not follow instructions, and b) there is NO WAY to discern the voter's intention because if the holes don't line up there is NO WAY IN HELL we can know who they intended to vote for. " Timeout ".. Gore attorney just challenged the "expertise" of his own expert!LOL! .." Truthkeeper " I've decided I love this judge. He is nobody's fool. He's very unhappy about the Gorons trying to sneak in evidence (this guy's old report) at the very last minute. Is making an exception for the Bush side to study the report over lunch and possibly re-cross the witness if they wish. GOOD! " Bryan24 " He just said the canvasing boards are the determiners of the standards! That is exactly opposite of what Bois is arguing. Great Witness! .." Dog " Everyone WAKE UP!!!... BECK IS TAKING THIS GUY APART.. " Dog ". This witness is very hostile.. "

CheneyChick ".. Getting sassier as time goes on. Bringing up TX law was stupid. .." Ole Okie ".. Thank God for this trial, no spin- JUST TRUTH. Thank God for this judge. He knows what he's doing, and he is IRRITATED with this witness. " Beeline40@aol.com ".. These samples are not the same ballots used in the election. WOW!!! ." Dog ".. He just said this is NOT THE SAME CARD!!!! that they use as a BALLOT ...ITS NOT!!!!.....GORE IS DONE!!!!! " Gswilder " Sauls just nailed the expert. Asked if these ballots they are looking at are the same as was actually used. He said no! Seems irritated with this witness. .." NERep ". The witness on the stand brought a report and it was introduced as evidence. The Bush lawyer tried to refer to a different section on his questioning and the Gore lawyer objected. The judge allowed the Bush lawyer to peruse it during the upcoming lunch break and then cross-examine later if necessary. " Outraged At FLA " "I didn't ask you about texas law, just answer the question" This witness is such a hack.. The judge had to tell him twice to just answer yes or no on the same question" Textide ". They just said that the sample ballots could create dimples easier than the REAL ballots!!! This is too much .." Cajiungirl ".. Gore's lawyer just moved to strike some of their witness a.ka. rubberman testimony. He was using sample ballot to show dimples but sample is thicker paper,,a reject" American72 ". Judge just overruled Goron objection "This has no relevancy to our request that dimples on REAL ballots be counted, not the sample ballots. I move this whole line of questioning be stricken." .." Vermonter " Bush's lawyer is cross-examining the 'expert' witness and has gotten him to admit that sample ballots are not identical in terms of how much effort it takes to make a dimple as real ballots. .." Reaganite ".. This witness refuses to give straight answers. He has used old information, ballots that are a heavier card stock than actual ballots, and just generally BS. When Bush lawyer calls him on his nonexpertise and bias, he tries to embellish. The judge keeps telling him to answer yes or no. Obvious, total bias. Obvious Demo shill. Slam dunk for Bush. " Truthkeeper "..Yes...Beck is destroying and humiliating this hack hired gun Gore dredged up as an "expert"...and we're loving every minute of it. .." WoodrowTKatt ".Lawyer: Would you put the ballot in the device and vote for President. Rubberman: (does as instructed; pulls out ballot). Lawyer: did you successfully vote for President just now? Rubberman (inspects ballot) Yes, the 5-hole is punched. I voted for Gore. Judge Sauls: You don't have to tell us who you voted for... (laughter in the court). .." Vermonter " Witness has answered several questions starting with "I would imagine....." Beck calls him on it and says why don't you just say you don't know. .." WoodrowTKatt " Bush Lawyer asking a great question: if the voter placed the ballot on top of the machine (instead of inside the slot), wouldn't there be dimples throughout the ballot, not just for President? .." Bryan24 ".. This will be used by the Bush team, COUNT ON IT. A 20 year old demonstrator, tht has never had the rubber changed, with a thicker thatn normal ballot. Voted perfectly! GORE IS TOAST! " WoodrowTKatt "Beck: So it's your expert opinion, as a poly-sci major, that the rubber on the left-handside gets chaffed faster than on the right-hand side. .." Outraged at FLA "Bush Lawyer: "Have you ever tested this?" Goron Witness: "Well, no I haven't" Nuff said... " Cajungirl " Poor guy,,doesn't know the machine that measures hardness of rubber and he is saying the rubber gets harder. This is pitiful. Doesn't know about synthetic and natural rubber. .."

 o tcham " The judge keeps saying "Let's stick with this format: yes or no, then explain if necessary. That way we can all get through this!" " Aristeides " Rubberman says, "I'm not a rubber expert," LOL!!! .." Freepersup ". grilling witness as to his expertise on natural rubber vs synthetic rubber, oh man they used the word "impacted' .." jaybee ".. MAJOR points being scored by Bush lawyer!! All kinds of things we have been speculating about, but haven't made it into court. 1. Gets the guy to admit that only a dimple appearing as if it was caused by a stylus should be counted. 2. Witness admits that if the voter was working on top of the ballot, ALL marks would be indented, not just the one for president. 3. Bush lawyer shows how indent could be made on left side when putting ballot into machine. 4. Witness admits that it would be useful to see if there were dimples on right side only also. (I don't think that this has ever been evaluated) " cajungirl ".. The witness doesn't know who wrote his profer,,the judge is clutching his face,,this is a massacre. .." KeatsforFirstDog " oh my!!! admitting he did not write his aff to the FLSCT by himself, uh oh.... Look at the judge!!! " SAMWolf " I just love the look on the Judges face. This is priceless!! " o tcham " Beck asked if he knew how many people,on average, use one of these machines during an election. The man then explains that he wanted to know but didn't have time to study it. He is defensive. The judge just says "Just answer yes or no!" Rubberman's theory is that the chads could fill the well and thus voters would not be able to punch the chad through. LOL " Doug from upland " With a background as an instructor of Real Estate law at the college level, I have been an expert witness in court regarding real estate matters. This witness is absolutely being torn to shreads. He is doing everything he can to avoid answering a question. A judge does now want to know what you imagine, meathead. He wants to know to what you can testify because of your purported expertise. This idiot is bought and paid for by the Gore legal team, he is totally unprepared, he is attempting to spin as they do on CNN and he is being made to look like an absolute partisan fool with not even the slightest degree of expertise. .." Truthkeeper ".. Boy, this Beck is brutal. I wish he had been my divorce lawyer. BTW, is anybody checking out the faces of the lawyers in the room. They're all stifling big grins. I loved the line about "Every once in awhile you get some big brute of a voter who can actually push the stylus through." ROFL! .." NittanyLion " Basically, this witness has made a number of suppositions based on opinion. Things such as: -Rubber gets harder on the left hand side of a voting machine than on the middle or right hand side. -Chads pile up inside the machine, and when there are too many it makes punching the ballot impossible -Some voters placed the ballot on top of the machine instead of inside it, and as a result dimples are made Bush's attorney is now poking holes in each argument, but doing so in a way which mocks the witness' ignorance. Even though it's obvious the witness is a hack, Bush's attorney is still keeping after him - almost to the point of excess. .." WoodrowTKatt ".Beck: "If your theory of Chad Buildup is correct, you need 7 or 8 times as many voters voting President as for other offices?" Rubberman: you would be right if they cleaned out the machines after each election. But in Miami they clean them out on an as-needed basis; and in PBC they clean them out on an election-cycle basis... yada yada yada Primary... yada yada yada Runoff. .." Bigbob " Now the lawyer is showing how the Votomatic goes in a suitcase and is carried to the truck, and bouncy-bouncy-bouncy-hauled to the storage place. Chads knocked loose, right? Witness: "Well, I guess I'd think so"... Anyone got a sword for this guy to fall on? "

Floratina " Bush atty is demonstrating the way the votamatic machine is picked up by a precinct worker. The probably don't lift them up flat, they carry them like a suitcase and the chad trapped below would all shift to the top or side of the unit, away from the "presidential" strip-area where they are supposedly pooling. .." NittanyLion " Oh! This guy just got caught perjuring himself. He said he didn't know both sides needed to be present for a machine inspection, when in fact a Bush lawyer in the room told him. .." Mom_in_Georgia ".. JUST got caught in lie by attorney from Palm Beach. PBC attorney told him NOT to go without representative from other side. He said earlier that he went alone. ." Floratina ".. New atty steps up. Rubberman is queried about his inspection of the Palm Beach machines. He was told (by the man questioning him now) that he could do an inspection, but an atty from the other side (Bush?) needed to be present. Rubberman did not do this. .." Jackbill " Now the judge is objecting for the Bush attorneys. He has done that several times. Under direct, I heard him say "I'll sustain that objection" when all the Republican lawyer had done was start to stand. Everybody laughed. I think that he was trying to speed things up but by now he is resigned to this thing lasting until the next World Series. .." WoodrowTKatt " PBC lawyer: Do you know what the recommended cleanout schedule for a Pollstar machine is? RubberMan: Makes sense after each election. Would it make sense that the cleanout cycle depends on the number of people who use the machine? RubberMan: sure. ." Mark49 "..ROTFL - This expert witness had access to the evidence in a high priority case WITHOUT witnesses? If this was me I would be worried about where the judge was going to have me sleeping tonight!!! .." Peach ".Good move - Repub lawyer getting them to open votomatic machine again and reading instructions that are clearly displayed for all voters. Voters who can read, that is. .." Dog ".Chad just fell out...LOLOLOL .." MagnusMat ".. Does it look like Gore lost this one? .." SAMWolf " Great! Rubber man shows PollStar machine to Judge and dumps chad all over the Bench!!! " The Chief ".ROFLMAO! Chad falling all over the judges desk! Well so much for the build up of chad theory! .." Smoopy ". I think the real story here is NOT the shreading of this fool the Dems call an "expert witness" but rather that Judge Saul is allowing this to go on forever. Judge Saul apparently could care less how long these games go and and apparently would just as soon have this drag out forever. His decision becomes less relevent with each tick of the clock. PLAY ON CHILDREN! .." Mombonn " Good guy asks "Would it be a fair election if a dimple that was not intended to be a vote was counted as a vote?" Great question! .." 1stMarylandRegiment "..ROFLMAO. Pubbie atty. is making the expert witness read the 10"x15" voting inx. .." WoodrowTKatt "Rubberman: (reading voting instuctions) press the stylus straight through... Beck: Straight through. Isn't that in Bold Type? .." CheneyChickbigbob " Be sure all holes are cleanly punched and pull off all loose chads. VOTER RESPONSIBILITY. In other words: YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE. .. What is so hard about that??? ......" Mcjordansc ".. I agree. Gore' "expert" has stated in open court that you cannot determine voter intent by viewing a dimple on a ballot. .." Reaganite " Delicious......... Beck is reading the instructions in the voting booth. Witness is confirming. "If you make a mistake, return ballot and obtain another. Look at back of card, make sure ballot is properly punched, pull off any CHIPS that might be hanging. If punched votes have made small circular hole, return

and get new ballot." Read by witness. Then the witness says dimples are a new phenomenon. Noose is tightening on this dork. " Uncle "..Witness: "Dimples are a new phenomenon in American political history"...general laughter, including the judge. I bet Boies was not laughing. .." WoodrowTKatt ".. Rubberman: ...dimples are a new phenomenon in American voting history... Beck: All this science of yours, hard rubber and all, and this is the first time for dimpled chads? .." Machman ".Witness just admitted "you can't tell" when asked if a dimple was a vote . But he said that if there there is only a dimple and no other vote, you could divine that there was intent. But, if there is a vote, say for Gore, but a dimple for Bush, you must ignore the dimple. ......WHAT! YOU ONLY COUNT DIMPLES WHEN THERE IN NO OTHER INDICATION OF VOTE, BUT IGNORE THEM IF IT MAY CAUSE A DOUBLE VOTE! . He also said that people could change their minds, dimple one, then change their mind and vote for the other, you must ignore the dimple. But we must COUNT the dimple if you may have made one dimple, then changed your mind on voting for that office at all. ......, That is a slam dunk for the Bush people. ......" Gnl " Bush team finally says it: In news conference just concluded, Ben Ginsberg (Bush attorney), in response to reporter question of whether not counting the 10,000 ballots would illegitimize a Bush presidency, says: To paraphrase: "You stated a precise number of uncounted ballots. The question is, how do you know how many there are unless they've already been counted?" .Beautiful! ..." Dog " Fox Just reported that the 9 Justices of the USSC are working today...Anyone think we could hear something today?? " GOP " I do not know if anyone has reprted this or not. I heard earlier today that the Bush team is now contesting results in Broward(great!) Volusia and Seminole county. The reasoning is if a judge orders a recount with a lesser standard used in Broward or Volusia then they should be recounted again also. The biggest news is that we are now trying to get the Seminole county suit transferred over to this judge. They hope he will isssue a judgement that what was done in Seminole was not illegal. Go Bush! " Aristeides ". I read on a thread here yesterday that the U.S. Supreme Court cancelled its docket scheduled for Monday. That suggests to me that its opinion is likely to come out Monday. On the other hand, I'm biased. As Travis McGee can confirm, I predicted some days ago that their opinion would come out on Monday. " KeatsforFirstDog "..Very nice...Gore has only 2 witnesses and the star witness is not an American in one of the most important trials in American history... " NittanyLion ".. Rate of undervotes on punchcard ballots is five times higher than SAT ballot, according to Hengartner. " WoodrowTKatt ". Now showing bar chart... punchcard counties have much higher reject rate than optical-scanner counties (3 per 1000 vs 15 per 1000 for Presidential race). ......: Bigbob " CHART: % of ballots with no recorded vote for President Optical Scanner 0.3% Punch Card ballots 1.5% Palm Beach 2.2% Witness explaining his analysis... " cantfindagoodscreenname "...,The statistician is saying that demographics (i.e. race and income level) can be the cause of "undervotes". Hmm...poor minorities can read the whole ballot, vote for others in the race, but can't figure out how to vote for the president? .." WoodrowTKatt "..Claims he used demographic data to determine that difference NOT caused by demographic factors (ethnicity, income). .." Bigbob ".. Claims chance of difference between optical and punch card undervotes is "less than winning the lottery". Must have been coached to not use statistical terminology (i.e. confidence levels, etc) .." Bigbob ".. CHART #2: Ballots with no recorded vote for President in Palm Beach Palm Beach ballots BEFORE manual recount: 2.2% Palm Beach ballots AFTER manual recount: 2.0%

Palm Beach ballots AFTER manual recount: 2.0% Recovery rate: 8% (difference found in manual recount) (Wasn't able to transcribe the complete chart) " WoodrowTKatt " He's making the case that Broward dimple standard was better than the PBC standard - it moved the vote totals closer to the average for optical scanner counties. .." .Prof is testifying that proportion of manual recount votes assigned to Bush closely matched the pre-recount percentages... (i.e. manual recounts were 'fair'). .." ..Beck: you didn't look at how undervotes compared for Senate or Congressional races or judges. (No). " Trombone ".. Bush lawyer got professor to admit "that he didn't have a clue?" Incredible. Too funny for words. .." KeatsforFirstDog uh oh...here it comes again...a witness who proffered bad affidavits to the FLSCT "Am I an expert on this?" .." Dog ".. Beck must know something on his affidvit to the FLSC...he keeps coming back to it. .." WoodrowTKatt " Beck: Do you know that the people (RATS) that you are testifying for are claiming that the machines cause undervotes for President but not for other offices? ..(If President and other offices had similar undervote rates, that would contradict Rubberman's morning testimony). " AndyJackson " Witness testified that optical scanner has lower undervote than votamatic punch card. Cross - did you verify this theory by examining the undercount comparison non-presidential races. Witness - no Cross - is not this fatal to your theory? Direct got nowhere in 40 minutes and cross has taken him apart in 3 minutes. Witness: No data on this .." NittanyLion " I missed the next exchange because I was typing. Sorry. Now claims the SecState was "less than helpful" when providing data. .BECK: Was that before or after she was sued by the Gore legal team? " Trombone ". Lawyer generally getting the witless to affirm that he didn't really do his homework before he got on the stand. No he didn't look at the precinct level, no he didn't do anything but get info from the Gore legal team.... " AndyJackson " Witness: In order to decide on alternative hypothesis one would have to go into much more detail. Getting argumentative and irritable with Beck. About to lose it. Wintess: If one uses common sense ... but no data or statistical analysis. Witness: If you look at racial demographics according to county cannot explain all of difference between undercount statistics. .." WoodrowTKatt " QuebecProf is testifying that he analyzed data at county level (not precinct data). .. For you stat geeks out there, I think this weakens his case... undervotes could be concentrated in poor precincts of punchcard counties (like they are); this could acount for the differences between punchcard and opticalscanner counties... it wouldn't necessarily show up when the data is aggregated at the county level. . Beck is grilling him on this, but I wonder if the judge or anyone else in court gets this argument. .." Vermonter " Beck is trying to get the witness to talk about a hypothetical by using the last witnesses testimony that there were differences in problems with the voting machine from one side of the ballot to the other. I think he is leading up to saying that if this theory is valid, why didn't this witness do the analysis. Cool! ." Bigbob " Beck just laid out a great hypothetical - comparing the undervotes from the left-hand side of the machine to those from the center or right. Witness just admitted "That would be an interesting question". Beck pursuing - - if true, this would negate the argument about chad build-up, etc. Brilliant! Prof. can't quite buy it, squinting, eyes darting around...he's not a happy camper. .." Bob Calco " CNN just cut in to assert that Beck hasn't poked any holes in the professor's testimony or undermined his credibility, but rather seems to be trying to buy time. The Clymer News Network strikes again" Floratina ". Beck is asking Frenchy about votamatic presidential undervote numbers vs the optical scan undervotes. He wants to know how undervotes in the middle of a ballot in a votamatic area compared to

undervotes in the middle of a ballot in a county that used optical scan. .. Frenchy hadn't looked in to that and says it would be difficult to measure because the votes for county offices obviously vary from place to place. .." Snorkeler " Plus he has already got him to admit that there is an UNKNOWN effect re demographics re voters who are inexperienced. Read that....my statistics are corrupt to an unknown degree cause i cannot factor in VOTER ERROR!!!! And voter error is not grounds for contest..good one!!! ." Born again " Beck is really nailing there assumptions. If they don't compare the undervote to the other races how can they make an assertion that it was wrong in the presidential. Again the gorans have insufficient forward thinking to prove their point.... " WoodrowTKat " 1) Scanner counties have a very low (3 per 1000) undervote rate. 2) Punchcard counties have a much higher (15 per 1000) rate of undervotes. 3) This difference is NOT due to the difference in voters; it's just an artifact of punchcards and punchcard counting machines. 4) Handcounts "recover" votes, so after the handcount the undercount rate is closer to the scanner counties. 5) Handcounts are fair because the Gore/Bush percentage is about the same AFTER the manual recount as before (i.e. the "recovered" votes don't all go for algore). .." Meyer ".. He's shown that if you compare counties selected by himself, you can show that undervotes are higher in PBC than other counties. .. he also showed what we already know, that if you recount and divine votes in selected democratic counties, the ratio of Gore/Bush votes will roughly match the original ratio of the county. He has failed to show that the differences in undervotes in the presidential race are different than that of other races because he didn't check the other races. ." Liberals are Evil Socialists " Basicly, this guy says there is enough variation that even his own numbers are purely hypothetical. In otehr words, all of this means absolutley nothing because the statistical error rate depends on undefined variables which he ahs not fully considered. The Judge knows this is nonsense. This is what paid hack experts always do in court. They are trying to show machine error and there is simply no proof. ." WoodrowTKatt ". Actually, cnn is half right this time (which is pretty good for them).......... Beck is using StatProf's testimony to impeach the goron's theory this morning -- that defects in the machines cause more undervotes for President than other races. We all know this is bs, so impeaching rubberman is pretty easy., .. But Beck isn't impeaching this Prof's testimony on its own terms, i.e. that punchcard systems cause higher overvote rates than other voting systems like scanners; that these votes can be recovered, etc. Beck is using Frenchy to shoot down Rubberman, but he isn't shooting Frenchy down, at least not yet. .." LawProf " Beck is very sharp. He immediately picked up on the causation vs correlation/association point the witness volunteered. This is important because all he has shown is a correlation between voting machines and undervotes, not causation. What is impressive is that Beck was listening to the witness and was able to exploit this opening offered by the witness on another point. " Mombonn " I haven't a clue as to what's being said right now, but I am astounded by how brilliant Phil Beck is. He's completely conversational in statistics. The Bush team is so well-prepared for the Bush "experts" that it takes my breath away. buddah bore is probably taking extra iced-tea breaks about now. " NittanyLion ". You must use covariants to prove causation as opposed to association. Apparently this professor is using demographics as his covariant, when he could have used similar races on the ballot (Senate, statewide judge races, etc). Seems as though the prof's method is second rate. .." Dog ".. He also told Beck ...if I had the answer you wanted I can make my facts fit the answer.. ." Randita ".. Beck talking about empirical evidence vs. proof. . It strikes me that the Hengelgartner or whatever his name is, if his analysis is based on proof, could actually be making Bush's case for him. He showed a chart with the undervotes that were counted in Broward and PBC showing that the %'s of Bush/Gore votes in those were roughly equivalent to the %'s of Bush/Gore votes as registered by the machine count. If this is the case, then wouldn't undercounted ballots across all counties prove out the same, meaning that Bush still wins? Not that I'm advocating hand counts of other counties, but his would be a good argument against it - that the results would be equivalent to the percentages before the hand counts, so why bother -- Bush still wins."

WoodrowTKatt ".. Great Question by BECK: have you considered that voters, when faced with a punchcard ballot, may be more likely to CHOOSE not to vote for an office? (i.e. other explanations than voter/machine error could explain the difference in undervote rates). " Ingtar ". Klayman has been saying that there are more ballots than there were on election night. Could these morons have been stupid enough to add a bunch of ballots with dimples, and other partial punches in the Presidential column only? If the Bush lawyers can show that these undervotes exist this changes to a fraud trial. (IMHO) ." Smedley ". I haven't a clue as to what's being said right now, but I am astounded by how brilliant Phil Beck is. He's completely conversational in statistics. I do understand statistics and probability, and I am AMAZED at Beck's command of statistics. .." Truthkeeper " Oh goody...false affidavit time. .." Vermonter ".. Beck is showing witness an affidavit that was sent by Gore's team to the FLSC. Witness said he thought it was only going to this court and that it was a draft. Beck has something in para 6 he wants comment on." Japedo ". This guy looks like he wants to jump out of his chair and run for the door. he's moving to much and looks VERY uncomfortable!!!! " Katy123 ". He's starting to squirm alot more,he knows he is being caught up in Gore's lies. ." WoodrowTKatt " Another good question by Beck: in a previous election (1998 I think) there was a big difference between the undervotes in Governor's and Senator's race. This shows that there are other factors that influence these undervote rates besides the voting machine used (which is what FrenchyProf is trying to prove). .." NittanyLion ". The analogy sometimes used is this: If there is a higher incidence of stork nests in a town in England, and there is also a higher incidence of babies in that town, is that an association, or is there a causative factor between the two? . From my understanding, you need to show that correlation exists for a better reason than simple coincidence. This is done by finding a like situation (covariant) and analyzing it for similarities. The more similarities between the two situation - the better chance their is a causative factor. Hope I got that right - my knowledge is limited in this area. " Trombone " Gore lawyer objecting to Beck's questions. Beck replies testimoy will go to witnesses credibility later. .." Trombone ". Gore lawyer objects that this affidavit was for a different court case. Bush lawyer says that this greatly influences the credibility of this witness. Ouch. .." Eat ". ALL THREE "experts" ON PMSNBC JUST TRASHED THE ENTIRE GORE ARGUMENT!!! John Shubin said the Gorons have overreached and Phil Beck is a great lawyer ... Ray Brown says the Goregasms can't prove their case! .." Motife ".. "so.. in your analysis of this race, you bought into the Gore theory that the left hand column has more undervotes EVEN THOUGH the evidence you yourself found in the 1998 race proved the contrary.." ." Vermonter "Witness is backpedaling from this document as fast as he can in terms of it being a final affidavit! ......" Textide " Beck's is a rock! It takes enormous talent to argue anything for such a long time, and have it remain relevant. I've never seen anyone do this. Amazing! " Jackbill ". Statistician: "Alright, there are mistakes in my affadavit". Beck, looking sad and shaking his head: "Yes there are". In his mind: Now I've got you, you SOB". Anyone who doesn't think that Gene Hackman should play Beck in the movie, isn't watching very closely. ." Txzman " Beck is nailing this guy in the differences between the affadavit submitted to Saul's court and the "fast draft" used by the Gore team at the FLSC. It was interesting to note that the Professor quickly blurted out "there are mistakes in the proffer I submitted"...lol! .." MegaDittoDaddy ". ADMITS HE HASN'T SEEN THE 98 PBC BALLOT!!!! BWAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAA!!!! MR. BECK YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!! YOU DA MAN!!!! .."

Canadian Ian " The Bush lawyer has just gone in for the kill asserting the witness has not studied the ballots closely! Sweet. " Cerberus " The professor is getting crucified!!! He is closing his eyes and shaking his head like he can't believe what is happening to him. Beck is sooo shrewd and sooo organized. His use of technology is masterful and the clock ticks........... " MegaDittoDaddy " THE BOISE FALSE AFFIDAVIT TECHNIQUE!!!! I LOVE IT!!! THIS GUY AND GORE ARE DEAD!!!! .." Patriot ". Just creamed him about the 98 ballot where the Senate race was in column 1 and the Governor race in column 2. Therefore in your sworn statement column 1 had more votes than 2? So much for the case of column 1 always undervotes!..... ..." NittanyLion "..The witness has essentially admitted that there are errors in his affidavit. Beck has punched holes in the method used for the prof's statistical analysis. The professor is pounding waters like he's headed to a desert. ." KeatsforFirstDog " Sauls was just nodding his head in disbelief after this presentation Mistake??? Mistake??? " NittanyLion ". The professor filed a sworn affidavit stipulating certain facts about the 1998 PBC ballot. Beck has now pulled out an old ballot and is showing all the discrepancies between the affidavit and the actual ballot (most deal with ballot layout). The professor has admitted that he never SAW the ballot before signing the sworn statement - he relied on the Gore legel team for the "facts". .Cross is finished. .." Billva " Beck cut this guy wide open and exposed the Gore legal team for the fakes they are. .." BRK ".. Ouch!!! He is reaallllllllly screwed now!!! Hahahhahahaaahhahaha!!! " Reaganite ". Didn't Beck also get him to admit that his affadavit was submitted to the court by Gore's lawyers with something missing from his original? Seems like there was talk about a "draft," etc.... Also, Beck is getting him to admit he never saw a Palm Beach ballot and depended on Gore's lawyers to give him his "facts." " WoodrowTKatt " Oops... Frenchy's analysis of 1998 assumed the races he looked at (Senate/Gov) were in columns 1 and 2... BUT THEY WEREN'T. Both were in column 1... throw out that part of Frenchy's analysis! .." Bigbob " Devastating! Beck leaves witness having admitted "I relied on the Gore legal team for the facts". ." Kattracks " Beck has this guy nailed. Witness didn't look at any ballots. He used the info the Gore team gave him. Once he admitted that Beck had no more questions. " Dog ". Beck:...you relied on the Gore Legal team to fill out your affidavit..witness ....yes.... Game set match .." Txzman ". Beck's nailing this guy on errors in his own analysis! Used a sample 1998 PBC Ballot that misidentified the columns the holes were in! .. Thus the Professors analysis looks like cheap BS! "You never even looked at the Ballot, did you? Says Beck.!! You relied on the Gore legal team to give you your facts, didn't you? Yes!!! .Holy crap! This guy got toasted!! Gore's team set him up with bad data - he never even looked at the ballots used! ." Truthkeeper ".. Beck gets Professor to admit he signed false affidavit..."it was a mistake, yes." Admits he relied on information provided by the Gore team and in fact NEVER SAW THE BALLOT HIMSELF. Judge looks very serious right now. ." Danzaroni ".. I think the lawyer just closed by saying "So you were expecting the Gore attorneys to give you the straight facts?" Ouch. .." Glennfromcal ". Although the Professor was the one on the stand, the examination attacked the credibility of the "Gore Legal Team." It was shredded. " Japedo " I know, this is going MUCH better then I could ever Hope it would!! God bless GW BUSH and

the awesome Team he has!!! how many more Gore people are going to take the stand for him to Omit? LOLOL " The Wizard " The Gores provided misleading information, as usual, thinking no one would see it......BIG TIME .." Galactica " He also said he relied on the Gore legal team to provide him with the data on the ballot, which was wrong. Makes it look like the Gore legal team was trying to pull a fast one. " Bootyist-monk ". This is so great. When Beck first put up his affidavit, he apologized for the bushforpresident on the top of his fax, and the professor joked about trying to find the rat. And Beck says that he thinks one is in there. .And then he nails this guys nuts to the wall. Rat found. " Canadian Ian ".. CNN - concentrating on the rubber witness now that the day's proceedings are over. "Neither side has proved a prima facia case". .." markfnkl ".. Legal expert on MSNBC just predicted Judge Sauls will rule for Bush. .." Ben Hecks ".. Thanks for running the threads! My observation is that Judge Sauls pointed out that Gore's own legal team was responsible for disrupting the actions of the canvassing board therefore Gore has no entitlement to relief. .." Markfnkl " Cleta on MSNBC saying she thinks Bushies should move for directed judgment, not even bother with more witnesses, Judge Sauls ready to shoot this thing and put it out of its misery. " Miyamoto " In order to produce dimples in ballots the material underlying the ballot must be soft to give way enough to dimple but not enough to penetrate. The material in question would soften only if heated or impacted at from 1 to 1000 times per second meaning that normal voting frequency ( several impacts several minutes apart) would not allow dimples. However, since there were dimples someone was in fact impacting the ballots at an abnormal ( 1 to 1000 times per second) frequency. Banging away at a votamatic to produce fraudualent votes .." FrostFire ".. Jim Angle says Rubber guy is KEY testimony. " Aristeides ". Duh! Defendant doesn't have to prove a prima facie case. The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, and in an election contest the plaintiff has to prove his case by a standard of clear and convincing evidence. If he does not, defendant wins. " KernFarmer ".. The Judge's staff told him they had things to do tonight and the Judge told them he didn't mind makin the lawyers stay until midnight but wouldn't put his staff through that! .." McGavin999 ".But not too soon. It would then be appealed to the FSC. After exposing all the faults with the affidavits filed previously with SCOFLA, I don't think they'll look favorably on anything further from the Gore team. It was bad enough that they're being taken to task by SCOTUS for over reaching, now it turns out that they were fed tainted information and didn't detect it. These judges have to be steamed. .." Terry Mross ". Now Little Boys is mentioning the "other" case....Seminole County? Will that be Gore's last hope? " Cato-lives ". This was the best trial I have ever seen. I especially loved the moment that Judge Saunders started questioning Judge Burton. At that moment, you knew that Saunders recognized all the lies by the Gore team. It was great! Saunders: Tell me Judge Burton, how many votes did VP Gore get after the 1% count? Burton: 19 Sauders: How many ballots did you count? Burton: 465,000 Saunders:Then why did you choose to continue with counting? Burton: Uh, it wasn't my decision. It was the defining moment. He knew Gore team lied big time. I believe history will reveal that everything that has happened in Florida was a major plan months before Election Day. Beck is certainly a great attorney. ." ImpBill ". Only one side, the Democrats, need to prove there was Voter Fraud or machine malfunctions to "sucessfully contest" the election. If they are pinning their hopes on the composition of rubber, they are cooked. . Did anyone else see Boies get up and put the other Dem lawyer in his seat as the good Judge

was getting angrier and angrier. I mean Boies litterally put his hand on the "ambulance chaser" and pushed him, gently, back into his seat. I thought I would fall out of my chair laughing. .." Slimer " I just heard on Fox News that the SCOTUS was deliberating today and it currently stands at 4 to 4 with Justice O'Conner undecided. Can anyone verify? ." Sam_paine ". The one "point" that the RATs pulled out of Cronkite/Poindexter/Rubberman before Sauls told them to go to hell was that while the flexing was not enough to heat the rubber and degrade it, that it would harden in the heat of a storage warehouse. But, oooops! Dumb demmy just shot himself in the clymer because it ruins their argument about the left column being more likely to cause dimples that on the rest of the ballot. .. If the rubber was hardened because of heat in storage, ALL OF THE COLUMNS WOULD REACT THE SAME!!! Hope Beck picks up on this in closing, if it gets that far.... " Nx76 " Actually, they have asked for dismissal, or, in the alternative, for directed verdict in their favor. The judge on Friday at the pre-trial conference indicated that he wanted to get the evidentiary record in place, and then entertain dismissal motions at the end (for example, the motion of former Florida House Speaker and current GOP elector John Thrasher to dismiss on the bases that (1) the courts have no jurisdiction to even hear this case, because, in their view, Florida law does not contemplate a contest to a presidential election--only contests to state offices (and there is real legal support for this position, BTW), and (2) the wrong parties are involved--Gore/LIEberman were not on the ballot, their slate of electors were, and Gore/LIEberman have no "standing" to sue, and, further, they didn't sue the right defendants, in that they did not sue all of the GOP electors, and did not serve them with process. .." Ptrey "..>I don't like the judges' questions about Burton having to stop counting because of court appearances. Don't look good atall!< I disagree. This was great as the judge was implying that he knew the re-count would have been finished if Burton wasn't being sued by Boise and spending time in court and meetings. i.e; The count wasn't finished on time because of "BOIES". There will be no re-count. JMHO .." Starsandstripes ".. Rubber expert back. Gore team objects to his being here as, "Having no value to provide evidence". Unbelievable! Gore team is objecting every minute now! Go Bush team, Go Bush. Judge getting on to it now! ! " Leroy S Mort " Sauls is gettin his skivvies in a wad re the Dem lawyer's constant objections. Rules the witness may testify concerning the chemical makeup of the rubber. " Markfnkl " When a judge goes out of his way to congratulate a witness who has just made a statement that is devastating to a party's case, the lawyers representing that party understandably suffer a huge blow to their morale. In this situation, Judge Burton's point that there was no reasonable justification in the first place for a manual count makes it that much more difficult for the Gore team to argue that yet another manual count, under more liberal standards, should be conducted. ..For Judge Sauls to have saluted Judge Burton immediately upon his making of that statement would tend to indicate Judge Sauls' approval of Judge Burton's view. This certainly would suggest that he is inclined to rule against Gore. .." Nancetc " Judge Sauls is a saavy guy...great question and comment about why would you go for a full manual recount based off 19 vote gain out of 400,000 votes. And Judge Burton points to Carol Roberts as someone he didn't feel comfortable with in her little speech to go for a full recount. .." Markfnkl ".. As a lawyer, I can say without doubt that when Judge Sauls, under the circumstances, saluted Judge Burton as a great American, the Gore team's collective heart sank. .." Palmer ".. Sauls asking questions. Wants to know result of 1% sample count Burton: 19 increase Sauls: on what basis did the board decide to do full recount? Burton: no real basis, it was just Carol's presentation. .." Truthkeeper "..Burton slams Carol Roberts' "little performance" at 2:30 a.m. to initally call for the manual recount; "I wasn't too happy with her." ..." Squire ".Sauls is now asking Burton a question: reference to PBC 1% sample recount... when you finished that, what did that show? Burton: showed net gain of 19 votes for Gore. Sauls: How many precincts? Burton: Democrats picked 3 precincts, plus 1 extra to get to 1%. Sauls: if that was 1% of 462,000, on what basis did the board decide that 19 vote increase indicate an error in vote tabulation that could affect outcome of election.

Burton: that was based on Roberts 2:30am presentation that I wasn't happy with. Sauls: was that based on any standard or analysis. Burton: No, since the sample was only democrat precincts, and republicans would have gained fro their precincts too...now I'm accused of blocking recounts. Sauls: absolutely not. I salute you, you're a GREAT AMERICAN. " Truthkeeper " Barry Richard and other counsel (SoS's?) asking for summary judgment, but understands that judge will want to reserve this option "due to the gravity of the case" and hear some more evidence. This is great...I love it. ." CNN 12/2/00 Freeper AM2000 ".. Florida Senate President John McKay says he will not call a special session on the selection of the state's 25 presidential electors, CNN reports. Details soon. ." Adds guise " Easy, easy, he won't call for one MONDAY. just wishful thinking by CNN . Here's AP story. .. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Republican-controlled Legislature is poised to hold a special session Wednesday to try to enforce George W. Bush's certified win in Florida by naming the state's 25 electors, the House majority leader said. But Senate President John McKay said he isn't ready to sign a proclamation convening the session despite House Majority Leader Mike Fasano's statement that both leaders would do so on Monday. McKay said, however, that he is still waiting to review a committee report recommending the session. "I will not call a special session on Monday," he said. .." Newsmax 12/3/00 UPI ".Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush's favorable ratings have risen since Election Day and Democratic Vice President Al Gore's have dropped, according to a poll released Saturday. The poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday by FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, also found 56 percent said Al Gore should concede the presidential election. Sixty percent of the 900 registered voters surveyed had a favorable opinion of Bush; 46 percent thought highly of the vice president. Bush's ratings went up, while Gore's dropped from a pre-election poll, Fox said. ..." New York Times 12/3/00 Michael Cooper "Lawyers for Gov. George W. Bush have been arguing since Election Day that no further recounts are needed in Florida, but today they took out some legal insurance of sorts: they filed a complaint stating that if the Democrats were granted recounts in some counties, the Republicans should be entitled to recounts in othersThe complaint was filed in Leon County Circuit Court, half an hour before Judge N. Sanders Sauls began hearing Vice President Al Gore's lawsuit seeking to overturn the certified presidential election results "If the court grants plaintiffs' request for a recount of the ballots in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties," the complaint says, "then ballots in Broward and Volusia Counties must also be recounted, applying the same standard, and those results must be included in the final certification by the Election Canvassing Commission." The brief alleges that improprieties in counting votes in Broward and Volusia Counties cost Mr. Bush votes" UPI 12/2/00 Kathy Gmbrell "Attorneys for Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George Bush presented oral arguments on Saturday in Leon County Circuit Court in an election contest that questions the validity of ballots in three counties The outcome of what is considered an historical election contest is crucial to the Gore campaign, which suffered a series of blows this week to their effort to get 14,000 disputed ballots recounted. Gore's attorneys believe that a judicial review with court-ordered standards would give the vice president the votes needed to overtake Bush's 537 vote lead Votomatic and Pollstar voting machines used in the disputed counties were brought into court to demonstrate how they worked. An expert in elections systems testified early in the day that he found voting machines in Palm Beach County had not been cleaned since elections held in November, 1998 A statistician testified that the use of the optical scanner method of voting was less likely to create an under-vote than the punch cards used in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.. .. "I was a little concerned with the standard we were applying," Burton said. He explained that some of the indentations were so minor that they did not crease the paper. "Some were so close as to be contentious." Burton said of some of the ballots that had "dings, dents and marks.". Phil Beck, an attorney with the Bush campaign, said the Gore team had no reason to second guess what the Palm Beach canvassing board did because they did the best they could under difficult circumstances. "We had an opportunity on cross-examination to show weaknesses in their testimony", said Beck. "We tried to establish that a political science major ought not to be the one to talk about voting machines." Hillbilly " Doug Hattaway was both in shock and denial during his interview with John Gibson. Every analyst that I heard agreed that Phil Beck had destroyed the only two witnesses Gore's lawyers called. I saw it all, and it was one of my best days ever. A couple of weeks ago I read a lot of posts from Freepers complaining about how outclassed the Bush lawyers were. Can they say, Phil Beck, Barry Richard and Ted Olson? .." Blaze "..My favorite part was when the judge asked the other judge, on the stand,What triggered the

manual count? he basically said Carol Roberts!!!!!!!! ." Zook ".. I was so happy to hear the judge be so "on-target" with that question. I mean, no one else asked it, so he did. On what basis did you procede with a full recount since you only found a 19 vote change? Can you say "controling legal authority"? ......" Sueann " I saw Olson on Niteline and he really talked like he had his head together; much more so than Tribe - who is a drip. Olson was asked by Ted almost the same question about how the judges peppered him. Olson said it was because our side had the burden of proof, and he was happy to have them ask so many questions, so he could find out what they were thinking about the briefs (which had already been supplied to the judges earlier in the week). He seemed very calm and said he believed the Bush team had put together a strong case, because of the questions they ask. If it wasn't a positive thing, he never let it show. . However, two of the Justices made statements like, "this is very disturbing; this is way over the line" - which says to me they are upset about the FSC ruling. .." CNN Via AheadNews 12/2/00 Jessica Reaves ". It wasn't exactly high drama, but it had its moments. And while the first day of testimony in Al Gore's contest of the Florida election results didn't go quite as long as everyone expected - an increasingly cranky Judge Sanders Sauls adjourned his Leon County courtroom for the night at 6:15 p.m., citing staff hunger pangs - it went long enough to establish a decidedly discouraging trend for Gore's legal team. It was supposed to be a quick, clean attack: Boies et al were calling only two witnesses, who were, one presumed, supposed to deflect every GOP criticism and render every doubt moot: Of course there should be a full manual recount in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties! Is there another conceivable outcome? Of course, that's not exactly how it happened. .." Dep ".if this report is typical of cnn, it explains a lot. in practically every detail, it is wrong. for instance, it neglects to mention that the statistician admitted on the stand that he had never actually seen a ballot about which he had opined in a sworn affidavit and in a proffer given to the florida supreme court, effectively impeaching himself and adding to the mass of disbarment material against boies. ............ but it doesn't just omit stuff. it also gets stuff wrong. example: it was barry richard who moved for dismissal, but he said he was doing it to get it on the record, not because he wanted the judge to rule just now. and the judge did not deny the motion, he said he would defer his ruling. ......... in short, while this account does tilt things in favor of gore -- the day was much worse for him than the article indicates -- it also betrays a breathtaking ineptitude in covering lawsuits. ......" Topcat54 ".. During his cross-examination, Bush lawyer Beck peppered Hengartner with hypothetical questions relating to the left-hand side of the voting machine, apparently hoping to discredit Brace's testimony but serving primarily to underscore a serious miscalculation on the part of Gore's legal team which would probably have been wise to have stuck with the Miami-Dade recount as the basis for their contest. . My "Perry Mason" moment was when Beck led the witness through his own affidavit on the "left column" problem comparing a 1998 race for US Senate and FL governor. Using Palm Beach data, Hengartner concluded the high undervote count for the US Senate was due to the race being listed in the first column. Then Beck walked back to the podium and said something to the effect, "Fact is you've never seen a 1998 Palm Beach ballot." He then showed the court an actual PB ballot with both senate AND governor races listed in the first column. Seems the expert was relying on info supplied by the Democratic liars, er, laywers. ........." HairkingNH ".. NPR has reported Gore's end game. If Florida seats Republican Electors, Gore intends to have West Virginia's DemoRatically controlled state legislature change the electors to provide enough DemoRats to give Gore 270 electors. " Andrew Byler " Can't Bush trump that in the U.S. House of Representatives? Nope! ." Tbeatty " U.S. Code does not trump the Constitution. W. Va. COULD do this but it's not likely. .. As Scalia pointed out in the Supreme Court hearing, the USC is a "Safe Harbor" provision, meaning it is almost like a compact between the Federal and State government. U.S. Code trumps the STATE constitution so this is the effect of it. It gives uniformity to State election laws. .. But as MacPherson vs. Blackey has pointed out, the Right to select electors is a State Legislative right from Article II. It is a fundamental power of the state legislature. It doesn't require consent of either the Judicial or Executive branch (so Jeb doesn't have to sign anything). It can only be changed with a U.S. Constitutional ammendment. Interestingly, this was what happened when the Election of Senators was changed from Completely leglistalive to a popular vote. It would be hard to argue that the legislature of any state doesn't hold this trump card when it required a Constitutional ammendment to remove this authority for the election of Senators. ......... No it's not Democratic, but we live in a Consitutional Republic and its the lesson Republicans need to spank the Democrats with over and over again. This is an excellent showcase of the roots and namesake of the two parties. ."

parties. ." Nd76 ". Also, the governor of West Virginia is a Republican (he does not leave office until January). Furthermore, unlike the situation in Florida, where the winner is arguably in doubt because of the court challenges, there are no further challenges to the election in West Virginia, and the Bush slate of electors was duly elected by the voters (the WV legislature meets only a couple months per year, and it may well be that only the governor can resolve it into special session--this would have to be checked--Florida strikes me as unusual in that the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate, without the Governor, can call a special session). .." SamAdams76 ". Would never happen, even if they could do it. Bush clearly won West Virginia. The West Virginia legislature would be committing political suicide should they so subvert the will of their constituents. Furthermore, Bush won the popular vote in Florida and this has already been certified. Thus there is no reason for the Florida legislature to appoint the Bush electors anyhow. " COL FLAGG " I live in NYC and I'm listening to Lynn right now. You're right, she's really off the wall tonight. I think she sees the writing on wall and the idea of an impending Bush presidency has sent her over the egde, she just can't accept it.I wish we could post a transcipt of her remarks. OK, so far tonight, she has accused the media of being pro-Bush/Anti Gore-proof right there that she is delusional, she also came right out and said that Republicans are FASCISTS, that Bush/Cheney are only out to serve the interests of the Corporate elite, she also suggested that Katherine Harris's is having an affair with Jeb Bush. And I think she really believes most the nonsense she is spewing. " John Valentine " You conspiracy theorists crack me up! The West Virginia legislature cannot overturn the results of a certified election. And they CERTAINLY will not succeed in getting their Republican Governor to go along with such an illegal move. .." Rodger Schultz ". Kimball Brace, Al Gore's "Election Data Expert" seemed to have his testimony effectively impeached by a series of Bush lawyers before Leon County Circuit Court and Judge N. Sanders Sauls. ........., Under aggressive questioning, Mr. Brace had to admit that he had no experience, nor did he know of any study, that pertained to "hardened rubber" on Votamatic machines that would cause failure to vote. He also was shown not to know the number of "chads" that would be required to cause a "chad buildup" that would hinder the voter and cause a "dimple." He had previously buttressed the Gore appeal to the Florida Supreme Court that asked for a recount of some ballots, and in his proffer claimed expertise where, in fact, he was actually relying on his own limited observation. . Most important, when asked if when a voter started to vote for Al Gore and withdrew the stylus after "feeling no candidate was worthy," would that leave a dimple for Gore, he responded "yes." When asked if that dimple could later be described as a failed attempt to vote for Gore, he responded "no." More than once Brace was admonished for "think, feeling and guessing" about something instead of "knowing." Brace's penchant for giving rambling non-answers caused Judge Saul to ask him repeatedly to answer "yes or no". " Rodger Schultz ". The attorney for Palm Beach County questioned him about inspecting voting machines after he was told "it would be okay as long as a representative from the other side was present." Brace went around him and later claimed he was not aware that the attorney was acting for Palm Beach County. ...... After he later seemed to backtrack on whether a dimple on Gore's name meant voter intent, Bush attorney Beck got Brace to admit that "dimples are a newer pehenoenom in American voter history," to much laughter. . Gore Lawyers objected several times but were mostly overruled by Judge Sauls. It appears to me that, based on this first witness, Gore's legal team will have a very hard time convincing this court that Gore "undervotes" deserve being counted. I also thought that the Bush team was able to discount the "chad buildup" argument effectively by discussing the vertical storage of the votamatic. .. Isn't it intriguing that the most powerful legal arguments don't involve arcane discussions of obscure points of legal technicalities -- but, rather, just plain facts and logic? ......" Mattie ".I sent this to FoxNews 11.24.00. It is the best info that I have. ......... Clear the record and don't let another talking-point-reading liberal lie again. ......... The uniform code for conducting a manual recount that liberals cite WAS NOT signed by Bush and was in place when Bush took office. Bush signed an amendment to the election law in 1997. This amendment treated the use of a manual recount and was in a completely different section from the manual recount standards. Indeed, the amendment restricted the use of manual recount. The liberals distort this fact of history. This uniform code was LAST AMENDED in 1993 and took effect September 1, 1993 - almost a year and a half before Bush took office. Ann Richards was governor in 1993. .. " Robert_Paulson2 "Fox is admitting that beck did a first class HIT JOB on both of the last two GORE witnesses... forcing them to admit lies, distortions and outright text manipulation to try and mislead the entire Judicial system... Boise looks like elmer fudd... Caught red handed in a multiple series of lies, distortions,

false affadavits and outright bad lawyering... Listen Carefully David... can you hear them laughing... can you hear HIM laughing??? Yes david that is Bill Gates laughing at you as you try to operate the windows based software being used in the court room? Can you hear Bill Gates laughing his arse off at you??? Wanna bet with Bush as president your attack on Gates is over for good? Wanna bet Bill is gonna have a bone or two to pick with you as soon as the new administration takes office??? gorf is toast. Boies is marmelade. Bush is the President of the United States. " Chairman_December_19th_Society ".. No, the Gore team subtly altered what he had written, and misled him as to the data he was reviewing. The statistician's fault was not questioning and verifying the data. He appears to have also not be entirely familiar with several other effects that could have influenced the results. WADR-1. Beck gets professor to view afidavit. 2. Beck gets professor to agree material in proffer is based on afidavit. 3. Beck lays out on butcher paper what the statistician says is in his afidavit, regarding the fact that there were more votes in the second column than the first for the 1998 election. Second column for Governor, first column for Senator. 4. Beck produces and shows court actual ballot Page 1 from 1998. 5. Senator and Governor BOTH in column 1. Afidavit and proffer wrong. Credibility impeached. Algore present two "experts." Both slammed. .." NewsMax 12/3/00 ".. President Clinton wants controversial hand recounts sought by Vice President Al Gore in Florida to be conducted, if necessary, after Inauguration Day -- even if Gore loses all his court challenges and Bush becomes president on January 20. . "There are another 892 (Gore) votes in in Palm Beach County that we know about," Clinton said Thursday at a benefit for cancer research in New York City. "That's enough to put him over the top." .. " Fox News Channel 12/2/00 Rick Alger ".Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday requested the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate allegations that Labor Secretary Alexis Herman took part in an influence-peddling scheme while she served as a White House aide during President Clinton's first term. ..." MSNBV 11/29 Paul Begala " The Bush operation reminds me of North Korea. You have a group of insanely loyal, fiercely committed lunatics, devoting their lives to slavish devotion of a man whose only claim to power is that his father used to run the country. George W. Bush is Kim Jong Il with better hair. ." AgapePress 12/2/00 Fred Jackson and Jim Brown "World magazine has done a profile of the woman who Gore supporters have painted as the key villain in the Florida election dispute. Within days after launching their battle to overturn the results, Democrats and many of their supporters in the secular media put their sights on Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. . Here is just a sample of the phrases they have used to describe her: "lackey for the Bush campaign," "Cruella de Vil coming to steal the puppies," "crook," "Florida's ghoulishly made-up Secretary of State," and even "Soviet commissar." . But as the World profile notes, people who know Harris say both the Gore camp and its "media foot soldiers" are dead wrong. " abcnews.com 12/2/00 "..With ties to both the Republican and Democratic parties, Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls seemingly has not shown preferential treatment to either in his handling of Al Gore's legal challenge of the outcome of the presidential election in Florida. .. A registered Democrat who was appointed to the bench by a Republican governor, Sauls, in fact, has even said he was going to make both sides unhappy with his rulings. "He's his own man, always has been and always will be," says Mallory Horne, a former speaker of the Florida House. "Any elected judge would prefer that this go away. But Sandy Sauls will never duck it. He'll never find a way to recuse himself." .. He repeatedly sparked laughter in the courtroom, at one point jokingly asking how many trucks would be needed to carry a million ballots to his courtroom - as he ordered at the request of the Bush team. On Tuesday, he demanded that attorneys agree on something, at least: "We could count until everybody is slaphappy, but if no one is on the same page, I don't know what's being accomplished." . At times treating the challenge to the presidential election like a horse-trading dispute, the bald, bespectacled jurist has dispensed his own brand of Southern humor to add some levity to the partisan sniping. "It's a little bit like getting nibbled to death by a duck," he drawled to laughter. ." Freeper Jimmy Valentine " Somebody help me with this please. When the Bush attorney was examing the statistical expert from Yale I believe he was able to demonstrate that the witnesses original sworn statement as presented to the lower Florida court had been changed by the Gore attorneys to make it look more definitive than it was originally when it was submitted to the Florida supreme court. ..Is this just me or has that RAT Boise done it again?. .." Freeper Patriot ".. That's right! The Gore team omitted a phrase

has that RAT Boise done it again?. .." Freeper Patriot ".. That's right! The Gore team omitted a phrase from the professor that more studies needed to be done. .." Freeper Kcreason88 ". MSNBC has had a panel of attorneys on today, only one of which, the liberal guy Iforgethisname, stated Gore might have some chance, otherwise this is a Bush presidency, folks, from the Leon County court case standpoint. Is this the one that matters? Tomorrow we will get the end of this trial, late in the day, so now what will happen? The ballots will be re-counted? I'll eat my new Christmas tree if the judge rules for this. .." Freeper ftrader " I agree with you 100%. Judge Sauls had been lied to TWICE by the Gore team, once on the Illinois decision brought up on Day 1, and again TODAY when the slimeballs gave erroneous info to the poor slob statistician to prove a point with BAD DATA, and for changing his deposition. The judge totally believes that Judge Charles Burton WAS WITHIN THE LAW to count, or not, and HOW to count after he was pressured to. .. There is NO way the Gore lawyers have proven machine error, problems with hard plastic on column 1 rubber buffers, abuse of discretion by Burton. They WILL lose Nassau, because the evidence is that a whole batch of ballots was OVERLOOKED in machine count #2. . NO RECOUNTS BY JUDGE SAULS. He will rule for Bush, because there is no fraud, no machine error, no fairness in recounting ONLY the "undercounts" which may or may not be votes, no fairness unless the entire state is recounted. The canvassing boards HAVE authority. This judge likes the LAW. .." The Daily Telegraph, UK 12/3/00 David Wastell " AL GORE plans to continue his legal battle for the White House even if the federal Supreme Court rules against him this week, despite warnings from friends and allies that he is wrecking his chances of ever running for President again. .. Supporters of George W. Bush are hoping that a Supreme Court judgment in his favour in the dispute over Florida recounts would prove a decisive blow against Mr Gore. A ruling following Friday's hearing by the court's nine justices, possibly restoring Mr Bush's original 930-vote lead, could come as soon as tomorrow. ." The Daily Telegraph, UK 12/3/00 Mark Steyn " CAMPAIGN 2000 has moved on from dimpled, hanging and swinging chads to the dimpled Sandra Day O'Connor, not a hanging judge but definitely a swinging one. Justice O'Connor is the swingingest swinger on the US Supreme Court: on a divided bench that increasingly splits on 5-4 lines, Ms O'Connor is the judge statistically all but certain to be on the winning side. . Four justices lean conservative, four lean liberal, but Ms O'Connor swings cheerfully between the two groups according to no discernible principles of jurisprudence. She joined the conservatives to cast the deciding vote ruling that gays have no right to be Scoutmasters. On the other hand, she joined the liberals to cast the deciding vote striking down Nebraska's prohibition of partial-birth abortion. .." Freeper cajungirl " Ah,,he's bring up their stats guys stuff on the gov race,,the subject of the false proffer to the fla supremes. I was shocked at that,,that seemed unethical to me,, " Freeper Amelia ".. Do you think the Goron team will even cross exam Dr. Marais? I'm sure they will TRY but I don't know if they are smart enough to score any points...he might make them look even worse than they already look. .." Freeper bigbob "The Goron lawyers have been noticably QUIET thus far. They are obviously outclassed by this witness. Intersting to note that while Hengartner was an academic, Dr. Marais has even stronger academic credentials, AND also is employed as a professional statistician and consultant. .." Freeper Jzoback " Beck is laying waste to any credibility Gore's number cruncher had yesterday. The cross exam should be interesting. Probably real short and sweet. Get this guy off the stand. ." Freeper Wisconsin " Some thoughts to help frame the issues. What the issues are is very murky, but here is a try: (1) Repubs are claiming that can have a recount only if there is a failure in machines. Dems counter that punch card machines are faulty. Query: does they need to show that the machines in the county are particulalry faulty or merely that punch card machins in general are bad machines related to this: Was large undervote in counties at issue result of machines or result of voters. (2) If a recount is necessary, what gets recounted. Dems claim only ballots they challenged, repubs claim much larger univers. However, even in a larger universe it is likley that with a loose standard for what is a vote, Gore will win because his voters most often messed up even in Repub counties. (3) Closely linked to 2 is what is the standard? Bush's potential largest differential vote gain would be to get Broward forced back to PB standard. If Bush gets a tight standard he may be able to win on a recount. Note also a couple of sleepers: Is a vote for presidential electors controlled by the contest statute? Can a recount be done in time What is standard of proof? "

Freeper aristeides " I believe I have read that the standard of proof is clear and convincing evidence. If that standard is applied to every ballot, it's not likely to lead to many added ballots. Witnesses: Dr. Laurentius Marais, statistician; man holding patents for voting machines; voter who made dimple because he decided not to vote for Gore; Mr. Burckhardt (sp?), a poll observer who observed overvotes and dimples not being counted where ballots already had punch. .." Freeper savedbygrace ". Boies just got slammed by Judge Sauls. In ruling on Boies' objection, the judge told him, "In Florida, we allow expert witnesses to testify of their expert opinions." " Freeper bigbob " With all due respect to the very impressive Dr. Marais, "Out Geek is kicking the crap out of their geek!" .." Freeper Mean Spirited "..Laurentius is completely refuting Gore's complaint! Blowing it out of the water! Devastating! .." Freeper OldDominion ".. Bois first objection shows what an idiot he is...said direct question was not in complain. The complain was read directly, and it is apparant that Bois has not even read his own complaint! .." Freeper Bilbo ".. Marais: Gore extrapolation in Miami-Dade not appropriate . . . " Freeper Carolinamom " THIS statisticion has both credentials AND gravitas! Love him already. Mature, calm, assured. What a change! What a contrast to yesterday's "expert". " Freeper Mean Spirited " Beck is now zeroing in on the "association" vs. "causation" principle. This should be good! " Freeper bigbob ". Boies has got to be squirming in his seat, having to listen to the "stork example" when he's had direct order to "speed it up"...and with an expert witness who actually makes sense... " Freeper truthkeeper " The statistician uses the example of the association between airplane turbulance and the seatbelt light going on in an airplane. Says a "false statistic" could show a causal effect between the two. I love this guy, he is so clear and understandable. .." Freeper Bilbo " Marais, excellent point about the distribution of the county averages; "more going on" to explain differences among counties. .." NoControllingLegalAuthority " Stork analogy: If you see the increase in baby births following an increase in the number of stork's nests found, can you assume that there is a statistical relationship between the two strong enough to assume babies come from storks? .." Freeper bigbob ". I love how Beck uses phrases such as "If a statistican wanted to do a thorough investigation..." - quietly undermining the credibility of Hengartner who obviously barely scratched the surface. Brilliant! .." Freeper gswilder "..Beck is now using the confusing Butterfly ballot as a potential cause for undervotes. Risky? Maybe not since FLSC has ruled it is OK. .." NoControllingLegalAuthority "..Yes, it is a false assumption. If the cock crows before the sun rises each morning, and the sun always rises, does the crowing of the rooster CAUSE the sun to rise? ..." Freeper Keith ". boies bitchslapped again...upset about leading the witness..Sauls say you have the right to lead your expert witness..."shut up and sit down" type of response. " Freeper bluefish ". I'm seeing such a rediculously exaggerated difference between the quality of lawyering, as well as the quality of the witnesses, from the Bush and Gore sides. It is almost like a characature. In fact, Gore's side has been so bad (entire testimony impeached / caught with 2nd false affidavit / obvious non-expert status of witness) that I am getting this weird feeling that are intentionally are throwing this. No way in Hell are they putting up a real effort. If that is the case, were they simply trying to get a directed ruling faster so they could appeal to the FLSC? If it isn't that, what is it? .." Freeper Keith " It's obvious that Bush team anticipated this long ago...witness says he has been working on this for 9 days... " Freeper cajungirl ".. ah he is getting to the gore team leaving out a sentence in the hengartner proffer

thus changing the thrust of it. ..." Freeper Mean Spirited " "Yes, the Vice President was WRONG on that!" That's what Dr. Marais just said with regard to Gore's rantings. " Freeper Cjacobs " One more thing. Al Gore's Attorney Boies objected to the Bush team talking about the ballot study they (Gore's team) admitted to court (and FSC). It is clear, their study was toast, and Gore's team is trying to CYA... by objecting to the treatment of their own study" Freeper Bob "..Ah,,he's bring up their stats guys stuff on the gov race,,the subject of the false proffer to the fla supremes. I was shocked at that,,that seemed unethical to me,, The unethical part was the false affidavit and proffer(sp?) filed by the gore team. Beck is crucifying the other side's expert with his own witness. " Freeper truthkeeper "Confident and strong ending. Beck: "Is there any basis to Gore's contention that people meant to vote for Gore but just couldn't push the stylus through the ballot?" Dr. Marais: "ABSOLUTELY NONE." Boies the snake up now for cross examination. .." Freeper Amelia ".It just cracks me up the way Boies' team can't get anything on the screen without Beck helping! " Freeper Mean Spirited ".Boies shot down again! Beck is now asking the court to admonish Boies!! Sauls didn't see the need for that...but it was interesting nonetheless! " Freeper AndyJackson "..Boies - did you testify in a lead paint case? Beck - objection - trying to associate this witness with a matter that is unpopular with the public. This is irrelevant to this case. Judge Sauls - sustained .." Freeper Timeout " I think he is trying to see if Bush did their own analysis and get it into the record... No...I think Boies is trying to leave the impression that, if you don't have your own study, then you can't throw stones at ours. A lame argument by the way. .." Freeper Cjacobs ".. This was great. The statistician points out that you have to analyze the PRECISE numbers in the study. The man stayed on point. It was GREAT" Freeper jackbill ".. After watching this guy I can only say that the students that he could have taught, had he not left academia, are really missing something. He is the personification of articulate! And he's got a brain fully engaged with his mouth. " Freeper OldDominion " Our numbers guy just gave Booze a look like a Bald Eagle would zero in on a RAT on the ground. " Freeper unix ".. Damn,,this witness is good. He's not playing gmaes with the "tranistory" meaning...Very clear cut and concise with what he can offer boyz. By his answer, it appears he stummped the direction of where boyz was going with the question.. .." Freeper Merovingian "This expert witness is the best of both worlds. He knows his subject matter and he knows how to communicate said subject matter. He is very, very good. PRECISELY....Extremely articulate, self composed without grandiosity or arrogance! " Freeoer webwide "..Boyz gets slapped down by hizzoner - guess what, the judge was awake AND paying attention! He rephrased the witness' question and the witness said he wished he had stated it that succinctly! (laughter in the courtroom) ." Freeper aristeides "..I think Judge Sauls's last question indicates that he sees the crucial question is what happens with a methodology statewide, not just in one county. That is the crucial issue in the case. ..." Freeper truthkeeper ".. MSNBC ALREADY has a copy of and has "analyzed" the "lead paint" case. (I'm sure we are all surprised...NOT.) Jarrett saying Boies contends that Marais had testified "lead paint does not harm children." Other MSNBC legal guy says that's not what he said. The MSNBC legal experts are, so far, surprisingly sticking up for Marais. MSNBC is usually the first out of the gate to start spinning the Big Lie du jour, IMHO. CNN is a close second, however. .." Freeper JENINMO " Just flew through CNN (so nauseating) to catch Tucker Askew announcing that the

DEM OPERATIVE bringing the Seminole County Absentee REQUESTS has given $50,000 to the Dems. Also noted that Warren Christopher made a call this morning "embracing" the Seminole/Martin lawsuits. Guess every vote DOESN'T COUNT, unless it's for ALGORE. " Freeper Timeout " MSNBC panel has already researched the witness' lead paint testimony. The CASE involved lead paint harms children. BUT all this witness testified to was: If there are 7 manufacturers of lead paint and lead paint causes harm, can one say the blame should be apportioned equally among the 7? Answer: no, one would have to determine interior vs. exterior usage, etd. MSNBC panel says "VERY CHEAP TRICK" by Boeis " Freeper WoodrowtKatt ". Rancher/Election Supply Co. guy now testifying for Republicans, regarding how dimples may be formed... " Pew research Center 12/3/00 "..The second wave of the latest Pew Research Center's survey, conducted Nov. 27-30, finds the public thinking Bush will have legitimately won, by a 48% to 33% margin. But the first part of this survey, conducted Nov. 20-26, showed a wider 54% to 28% margin thinking Bush will be a legitimate winner. A plurality of voters, both before and after the Nov. 26 certification, say a victory by Gore would be a matter of way the votes were counted rather than a legitimate win. ..." Freeper webwide " 1.5 million votes PER MACHINE, PER ELECTION. I don't think any one machine EVER took that many votes, ever. Gore team objecting merely for the cameras and to use it as a method for attempting to establish credibility problems for the witness early on.... " Freeper WoodrowTKatt " Ahmann is testifying that dimples and dings can be caused while the voter is standing in line, waiting to vote... " Freeper grunt "hahahaa...now we get dimples from tearing off the stub! Squirm Boyz squirm..... " CBS' Face the Nation (12-3-00) Freeper LadyLiberty " I posted this on the Sunday Morning News Shows Thread, but it was buried so deep in the comments that I was afraid many of you would not have caught it. I'm watching the show on AFN in Germany, and you could have knocked me over with a feather. Former Secretary of State and Gore spokesman, Warren Christopher, was the first guest on this morning's FTN. He was asked the usual litany of questions about possible court rulings in the various state and federal court cases that are pending. He cited the SEMINOLE COUNTY CASE to throw out overseas absentee ballots as one of the ones their hopeful to be ruled in their favor. My jaw dropped to the floor. The next guest was Republican attorney, Ben Ginsburg, who highlighted that admission. Of course, neither Gloria Borger nor Bob Schieffer seemed shocked and called Christopher on such a contradictory statement. All along, Team Gore has distanced themselves from that lawsuit; after all, on the one hand, they want "all the votes counted" and "every vote to count," but they see nothing wrong with throwing out the legal votes of 14,000 citizens because of possible misconduct on the part of GOP precinct workers who corrected their absentee ballot applications. " Trial Commentary Freeper Drumbo ".."When the rubber deteoriates it acustually makes it easier to punch the chad through." ROTFL! What? No Objections? .." Freeper Libloather ".. 1.5 million chad per machine... so the whole state of Florida could have voted on just FOUR votamatics before chad-buildup became a concern. This witness also had tested all 228 holes 15,000 times. Beck said, "Do the math." That comes to 3,420,000 punches on one template - without ONE HANGING CHAD ever being recalled occuring... " Freeper gswilder " This guy is a killer witness for Bush. It's amazing the Gore team keeps objecting to this guy as an expert witness. Judge Sauls keeps overruling saying, "he designed and built the things". It will be interesting to see what Boies does to him. .." Freeper Wlright " 1.3 million chad, brought up by the judge...the JUDGE IS LISTENING!!!! .." Freeper Libloather ".. The witness said it might take 50 years of voting, without emptying machine, for chad build-up to POSSIBLY occur. This is KILLER testimony... " Freeper AndyJackson " Now Zack is cross examining on Texas law. Beck objection. Saul - statement of counsel is not statement of fact. If you don't know just say you don't. Please ask the witness the question whether he has been asked by any election board to advise on any standard for

counting. Beck - funny thing - that was going to be my next question. " 39 Posted on 12/03/2000 09:19:12 PST by AndyJackson Freeper WoodrowTKatt "It's my understanding that Texas law is like the (new) PBC standard: dimples must be CONSIDERED in light of the rest of the ballot. But in Texas, dimples are NOT AUTOMATICALLY counted. .. Can anyone confirm (before Beck does, since he doesn't seem to mind Texas law coming up -- he asked for Zack to read the language). " Freeper Siouxz "Witness: "I am not being retained, sir. They only offered to pay for my air fare." .." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "Now Beck is reading a copy (the only one, apparently) of a patent certificate or patent application that Ahmann received. .." Freeper NoControllingLegalAuthority " Present controversy is over questions asked by U.S. patent office when Ahmann applied for patents in early 1980's. Beck objecting. Zack has copy just delivered to him in the last five minutes not provided to Beck. .." Freeper JEH_Boston "Please explain. I have no TV. As I understand from this thread so far, the inventor of Votomatics essentially blew away the theory that hanging chads are even possible. What about dimples? Please tell us more. Bottom line (as I see it): Stylus has a sharp point (50 thousanths of an inch). Other mechanisms (such as hanging chads blowing into next ballot while machine counting due to air seperation process) can cause indents from "blunt" objects. If there was an intention to vote from the stylus, there would be a pinhole in the pregnant chad. Even with the pinhole, the pressure would be so small that it could have been caused by just resting the stylus while reading and deciding not to vote at all. .." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..Ahmann did just testify that hand recount is called for in "very close election". .." Freeper KeatsforFirstDog ". One copy gotten 5 min. ago and no copies for Bush folks proves Zack/Boies flying by the seat of their pants.... Hate to disagree, but as an attorney, I believe Zack did this on purpose. He did it twice yesterday. By the Rules of Evidence, you can't do sh*t like Zack is pulling. Zack is trying to question the witness on documents that MUST be admitted into evidence. These documents HAVE to be given not only to the court, but to opposing counsel BEFORE it is entered in the trial hearing. Yesterday, when Zack pulled this, Zack actually tried to say that he didn't have to admit into evidence the document he questioned the Gore witness about...that was a lie and Sauls even admonished him. .." Freeper Singapore_Yank ".Yeah! Loved hearing Ahmman clarify that issue of those 9,000 ballots in Miami-Dade. Zach said they had not been counted, but he insisted that they have been counted twice and the machines found NO LIGHT coming through the ballots. " Freeper freepersup "..Damning point, witness testifies that hanging chad can close up giving a lesser vote count during a machine count or machine recount OUCH ! this was from judges questioning from the bench ......" Freeper McGavin999 "..The last point would indicate that hand counts were needed all over the state if at all. The fact that Bush ended up with LESS votes during the second recount could well mean that in a manual recount (excluding pregnant and dimples) would result in a net gain for Bush. The comment about the devices not being cleaned for 8 years sounds worse than it is, how many elections were they used for during those 8 years and how many people voted in them. " Michael Conlon 12/3/00 Reuters ".Lawyers for Republican George W. Bush tried to show a court on Sunday that a recount of some Florida ballots would not gain Democrat Al Gore the votes he needs to win one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history. . In the second day of a historic trial and with time running out for Gore to gain the recount he desperately seeks, a statistician called to testify by lawyers for Bush, the Texas governor, painted a dim picture for the vice president's hopes of a recount recoup. .. " Freeper bluefish ". Remember though that we have also had plenty of testimony demonstrating that hanging chads are created through ballot handling. We know that dimples have been discredited. Now we fear that hanging chads aren't counted b/c they fold back in and the machine doesn't catch it. BUT - We also

know that hanging chads are questionable b/c we don't know that the VOTER created it. Therefore, it is not possible to determine voter intent via HANGING OR DIMPLED chads. Given this, the most accurate count most closely demonstrating the intent of the voter is the machine count only recording CLEANLY PUNCHED ballots. Hanging chads and dimpled chads cannot give us the intent of the voter, save for a very clear standard whereby the voter intent is 100% obvious. Certainly, the county standards were more loose than those that should be applied, so any ordered recount is likely to include standards that would actually reduce votes for Gore. .." The Orlando Sentinel 12/3/00 David Cox ".Florida`s Republican presidential electors are getting hit with letters and telephone calls asking them to buck their party affiliation and vote for Democratic Vice President Al Gore. The writers` and callers` messages go something like this: Because Gore won the nation`s popular vote by about 300,000 votes, the electors should do the right thing and give him the Electoral College votes needed to be the next president. ." Trial Commentary Freeper cajungirl ".gore lawyer wanting judge to let them know if they will recount....time for the six shooter. .." Freeper truthkeeper ".Cop on the stand...this should be interesting. " Freeper Terry Mross ".This guy is saying he didn't vote and didn't want to vote. ." Freeper hole_n_one "..Witness: I walked into the voting booth, undecided....I then placed the stylus upon the ballot, still undecided " Freeper WoodrowTKatt "... witness decided at last instant not to vote or Pres... doesn't know if he dimpled or not... doesn't want his dimple to count if he made one... " and ".Judge asked witness if he saw any mark on back of ballot in Pres column... witness says he didn't notice any but dimples weren't an issue at the time... " Freeper WoodrowTKatt "Witness is testifying hpw the Miami-Dade precincts that were manually recounted before they quit were heavily Democrat... hadn't got to the Republican precincts yet... " and " Witness is now testifying about the Miami-Dade 1% sample recount... how they were heavily (90%) Democrat. " and ".. Now testifying that in these heavily Rat sample preincts, only 6 votes switched. This in precincts that went for gore by 10-1 marging (fyi gore got 53% overall in miami-dade). .." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..I think our lawyer is trying to prove that Miami-Dade canvassing Board used proper discretion to initially refuse a manually recount, then later to stop the recount after it started under pressure from Democrat lawsuits. .." Freeper Sungirl " THis is a good witness......they read excerpts of the dade county canvassing board on howthey objected to re-counting all the ballots iin Miami-Dade since the 3 most heavily Domocratic precincts only yielded 6 votes for Gore. I like the part where the one canvassing board person said he was there since 1974, and has lots of experience with this machinery and sees no reason to re-count. .." Freeper WoodrowTKatt " Now testifying that Miami-Dade canvassing Board decided not to cerify results from 20% partial reount because the recounted precincts were so unrepresentative and excluded hispanic and Cuban-American precincts... " Freeper ChadGore "..A Republican whitness is testifying to the ballot "manupulation" (people handling, shaking, snapping) he observed on Miami/Dade. The gore defence is whining like a stuck pig with the use of the word "manipulated", and they got overruled! ." Freeper gswilder "..Finally Bush team raised issue of double punched ballots. This is where you have a dimple AND a clear punch. Good point! .." Freeper Bob Evans " he wanted tossed out of the record what the witness had said about the boxin up and unboxing then thumping on the table like a deck of cards the ballots! .." Freeper A Citizen Reporter " No, actually the Judge admonished the Bush attorney from using the word "manipulates". However, Greenberg was trying his darnest to not let any testimony in that would say that the ballots have changed through the hand counts. Greenberg got slapped down. " Freeper scannell ".. If a dimpled ballot counts in the 10,750 then there were votes that counted for one candidate or the other that had a clear punch and a dimple. Not to mention that over 500 ballots statewide had a clear punch for Bush and his name also written the "Write In" section. Any question about voter intent

had a clear punch for Bush and his name also written the "Write In" section. Any question about voter intent there. They wern't counted and Gore dosen't mean to count those ballots when he says all he wants is for every vote to count.... Hummmm! .." Freeper Mercat ".. Notice how the Bush team is making a careful distinction between fraud (justifies a recount no matter who is doing it) and degredation of the ballots through repeated machine and manual handling. Making the case to the Judge that these ballots are hopelessly corrupted. I would like to see that term which "corrupted" used, not to modify the workers who are all "great Americans" but to refer to the physical condition of the ballots.... " Freeper CheneyChick "Atty is asking the witness re: what he observed on the machine recount that took place on the 19th. Talking about the chads on the floor and the refusal to allow any kind of counting of chads on the floor. How many chads on the floor? Saw substantial amount of chads on the rugs or floor at end of day - approx 1000 chads "minimum" accumulated around the machines, on the floor, being stepped on. ." Freeper Bilbo ".Sauls DEEPLY skeptical about recount: "If you put three new people in, you'd get a totally different count?" I haven't heard him say one positive thing about recounts in two days. .." Freeper budman_2001 "I think the judges questions have just established that the MD canvass committee was consistently fair, with decisions made impartially on the arguments present in the committee's mind. Very good questions and established facts that the Bush lawyer did not, by the Judge. ." Freeper don-o "..Judge has just asked yet another question, regarding the standards used to hand and eye count a vote. Witness testifies that each of the three ballot lookers uses a different method to arrive at their own decision. Some held it up to the light, some looked at other punches. Some looked at it sideways. Judge asked if the concensus of deciding was consistent. Judge is going to the subjectivity issue in the socalled hand recount. Big win for us!!! .." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..Judge asking if 2-1 votes by Miami Canvasing Board were always the same 2 people voting in the majority? Answer: No, the majority shifted with different ballots. ...,,: Freeper Cjacobs ".. Sauls' question: Would 3 different people get a totally different result? Answer: ABSOLUTELY! Bingo.... Grand Slam.. Home Run... " Freeper WoodrowTKatt ".. Witness telling judge how they used different standards in the full recount than the sample recount; and that different Board members used different standards. .." Freeper Mercat " I love the issue of a full punch plus a dimple... it builds the case for a recount of the entire 600,000 if you count dimples because if you're going to count one dimple, you have to count them all. DIMPLE LIBERATION. NO DIMPLE SHOULD BE IGNORED!!!!! COUNT ALL DIMPLES THE SAME. EQUAL PROTECTION FOR ALL DIMPLES. .." Freeper 6ppc ".The dim just pissed Saul off. Wants to bring in stuff from another trial where the witness (according to him) pleaded the 5th several times. Saul called an immediate 15 min recess. ...," Freeper Tamerlane ".. The Judge just threatened Coffee with Contempt charges. (Another hearing). The Gore lawyers are blowing it. " Freeper RightGuy "..Spargo (this witness) is bad news. He was involved with some shady shopping center deals in upstate NY, with improper dealings with local officials. Bad move to put him on as a witness. Sauls cut it off in the nick of time...but if he let's this info come in, it's not good for the home team. ." Freeper drlandman "..In summary, since lunch we have heard from Republican lawyers who were present during the recounts and subsequent transport of the ballots to Tallahassee. They have (are) testifying to how the ballots were handled for the purpose (in part) of laying the groundwork to the arguement that the ballots are contaminated. ." Freeper tailwheel ".Att'y is testifying that ballots were handled in the middle instead of on the edges as the workers were instructed. .." Freeper truthkeeper "Boy, this judge doesn't miss a trick. Has the lady explain why the boxes with the ballots were sealed up. "IT'S THE LAW," she says. .." Freeper Terry Mross "..This lady is pissed. She's willing to go back and count by hand if she has to to

prove the results she turned in are correct. .." Freeper drlandman "This is weak. The Gore attorneys are trying to hang their hats on the fact that the meeting wasn't properly noticed in the paper. Turns out the local rag wasnt published on Thanksgiving Day but the Jacksonville paper was. The Gore attorney says "AHA. It's not published in Nassau Co. It's published in Duval Co!" She says yes and its delivered to virtually every doorstep in Nassau County. So take that for your sophisticated lawyering!!! " Freeper bcoffey "..I LOVE IT! SHE WANTS EVERY VOTE TO COUNT! SLAM! Best sound bite of the day!!!! " Freeper drlandman "This Dade attorney (asking the questions)is a great witness for Bush. He shows that Dafde may have tried to do it right but still contaminated the pocess!!! .." Freeper truthkeeper ".Gore team DESPERATE to keep this last witness OFF the witness stand. She's a Dem supervisor of elections. Wonder if she's going to be a hostile witness? This should be gooooood... " NewsMax.com 12/3/00 " Echoing President Clinton, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt warned Sunday that contested presidential votes in Florida will be recounted under the Freedom of Information Act even if Vice President Al Gore loses all his court challenges and Bush is certified president by the Electoral College. . "Look, this is real simple," Gephardt told "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert. "We need to find out who won. You know, it would be terrible, a month from now, after this is all over, if Gore is not declared the winner - somebody's going to go back and recount these ballots and look, under the Freedom of Information Act, and look and see who actually won." " The Associated Press 12/3/00 "The Justice Department has sent representatives to Florida to gather information about alleged voting irregularities, a spokeswoman said Sunday. The department has received complaints that blacks and other minorities were impeded by voting officials when they tried to cast ballots in several Florida locations. ``We have two people in Florida, but this is still part of our inquiry to gather information to see what if any federal investigation is warranted,'' Justice Department spokeswoman Kara Peterman said Sunday. The NAACP says it has gathered 486 complaints and taken more than 300 pages of sworn testimony from people who say they were blocked from voting. The organization plans to file a lawsuit early this week alleging voter intimidation and other violations of voting rights. .." Washington Weekly 12/3/00 J Peter Mulhern "..The Supreme Court of the United States made a cameo appearance in Al Gore's theater of the absurd this week. It heard argument in the appeal George W. Bush filed from the Supreme Court of Florida (SCOFLA) decision that seven days actually means nineteen. Many people hope to hear from the Court sometime this week. Some seem to have an emotional need to have the Court play the part of deus ex machina, reaching down from on high to bring order out of our electoral chaos. It could happen. Then again the Court could avoid making any decisive decisions. It could also issue its opinion after Governor Bush takes office as the 43rd President of the United States. One never knows with courts. ..Sifting the transcript of an oral argument for clues about the Court's predisposition is a silly game, but right now it's the only game in town, so let's play. I make it five justices in favor of slapping the SCOFLA upside the head, three opposed, and Justice Souter, as usual, in favor of stasis. Justice Souter never met a status quo he didn't want to maintain. .." Nando Times 12/3/00 Jason Ma Corpus Christi Caller-Times of Texas "Lost in Florida's post-election morass is the significance of what some thought unimaginable: Republican protesters. But that promises to become less so in the atmosphere of escalating partisanship. Traditionally staid Republicans may have to take to the streets more often, national party officials said Saturday, saying the two major political parties are at war. Texas representatives to the Republican National Committee told a gathering of the state's top party officials that Democrats have been more vocal lately and Republicans need to speak up. .." UPI Via AheadNews 12/3/00 Kathy Gambrell " The owner of an election equipment supply company testified Sunday in a Tallahassee court that a manual recount of disputed president election ballots could be necessary if hanging chad prevented an accurate machine count during last month's presidential election. .. After four hours on the witness stand, John Ahmann testified that pinpoint indentations on the ballot or dimpled and hanging chad that could close over inadvertently when read by automated ballot readers would only be detected by a manual read out. Ahmann, an expert witness called by lawyers for Texas Gov. George W. Bush, appeared to score points for Vice President Al Gore in the closing moments of his morning testimony when he told Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Saunders Sauls that a manual recount would be necessary to detect indiscernible pinpoint indentations or holes on ballots , or if partially dislodged chad flattened back into place when read by a machine " Freeper Research 12/3/00 rwt60 ".. Duval County voting statistics show voting irregularities. .

Consider this: Duval County reported 21,942 overvotes for President. That equals 82 overvotes for every Duval County precinct. Are there 82 people in every precinct who voted for two presidential candidates? When looking at the statistics precinct by precinct, some amazing facts come to light. In precinct 07G, 788 votes were cast. Of those votes, 15 went to George W. Bush. In precinct 08N, the number of votes equalled 606, but Bush received only 10 of those votes. Want more numbers? Precinct Votes Bush Votes 08V.........176.......1 09C.........675......11 10.........1065......35 10G........1184.......7 10H........1122......17 10K.........845.......6 Is this a coincidence? I think not. Given the number of overvotes in the county, it looks like the dimpled chad workers were hard at it. These precincts are only a sample. Anyone can download the Duval County results and review them; however, it requires some effort since the text file for results is not delimited. I did it for the Presidential race using a text editor. " St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/3/00 Bill Lambrecht "Joseph Morris had no inkling of what he was about to unleash when he sat in front of a computer terminal in his law office in the Chicago Loop a few days after the election. .. Morris is not wise in the ways of the Web, although he knows politics and law. He is outgoing president of the United Republican Fund of Illinois and a former Justice Department official who is angling, some say, to become the U.S. attorney in Illinois' Northern District if George W. Bush prevails in the deadlocked presidential election. "These are people wedded to power who will only go down kicking and screaming," he wrote in an e-mail that asked people to "bombard the news media and public officials" with demands that Vice President Al Gore concede. He sent his e-mail to 30 friends and activists. Morris has a better understanding now of the Internet's power. His single e-mail exploded into a national campaign that now is credited -- or blamed -- with jamming switchboards in Democratic offices and forcing newspapers to install blocks on their e-mail systems. A White House spokesman said last week that President Bill Clinton's e-mail also was way up. " Freeper CheneyChick "..Bush atty saying that they are making a motion to throw out all of M/D ballots because no one could go look at the records today and be able to discern what the voters turned in... " Freeper snippy_about_it "..Demonrats tried to keep the two intervenors arguments out until a decision is made by the judge on counting the ballots. Judge says no, they represent voters and they can go ahead with testimony. .." Freeper nd76 "It just happened--Goron lawyer Deeno Kitchen moved the 9000 ballots into evidence. Bush lawyer Irv Terrell objected--I am unsure what the judge ruled. Interesting developments now--the two intervenors (who are on our side) are speaking--lawyer for one (I think he is the guy from DeFuniak Springs) is demanding that the judge look at all of the errors statewide (this must mean the Haitians, the Gadsden County fraud by the canvassing board, the double votes for Bush--vote on his line and vote on the write-in line), etc. " Freeper Torie "No, Boies was making the point that in the remaining precincts in Dade there are more undervotes in Dem precincts than GOP precincts, and therefore one can't look at the partisan balance of the uncounted precincts as a whole to project the Gore harvest. The odd thing though is that so far the harvest of new Bush votes has been at a higher percentage the the partisan balance of the precincts counted, and for PBC and Broward that is on a countywide basis. So maybe more undervotes are in Dem precincts, but the Gore Bush split on the new votes is enough more pro Bush to more than offset this effect. Statistics are such fun. .." Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "..Boies says FLSC says ruling means to count "all voter errors as votes" and that in CONTEST STAGE of Election doesn't allow for County Canvassing Board Discrection...only Judicial discrection. .." Freeper jackbill ".Boies is finished. Thanks. Barry Richard is up. " Freeper WoodrowTKatt ".citing McPherson vs. Flynn (sp) .." and ".. making a constitutional argument... Legislature ALONE has right to determine circumstances when their can be a manual recount,

and who can decide. " Trombone ". Listening to him talk about co-equal branches of Government and quoting the Constitution just gives me chills. .." Freeper AndyJackson " Barry Richards - no common law right to contest elections. Therefore right is only in legislation as strictly construed. ..No right by Feral or State Constitution to manual recount. Body that makes decision is county canvassing board - who may authorize recount - Mr. Boies conveniently forgot this provision. Canvassing board shall be one judge, one county executive and one member of the county counsel. ..That board alone has this authority. .." Freeper AndyJackson ".. Standard is whether board has abused discretion. If a reasonable person did what the board did, then the board did not abuse its discretion. There is no evidence of abuse of discretion. Review of Boiseeeez cases. Invited Boizzz to provide case cites. If you read these cases you will not find any discussion of the discretion of a canvassing board and the right to overturn. " Freeper Cjacobs ".. Barry Richards quotes the cases that Boies discusses... NONE.. repeat NONE... overturned the canvassing board's discretion. This case is OVER.... Slam dunk.... " Freeper Terry Mross ". I love when Barry said nobody believes the FSC is going to overturn the judge ruling for Bush. Not in those words but that's what he inferred. .." Freeper A_Niceguy_in_CA "..This attorney is brigging up Florida Attorney General Butterwoth's letter that states that manual recount are UNCONSTITUTIONAL because they create a two-tier system of counting votes..Two different systems by two different counties. .." Nd76 ".. It was outstanding of him to read in the Bob Butterworth letter which said that hand counts in some counties but no hand counts in other counties was unconstitutional. This is something the press never reported. .." Freeper bigbob "..Jennings makes two good points: 1. Who in their right mind would protest an election in a county he'd won by a big margin? 2. He reads the letter from Atty. General Butterworth that says a "two-tiered" voting system would create legal jeopardy. Finally!! .." Freeper LYNXcry ".. wow..Mr Klock was VERY impressive....he made more sense than any of them so far...put things into the proper perspective...in layman terms that the average person can understand. Love his "Trojan Horse" statement... he said the dems rolled in the trojan horse to stall for time to see the lay of the land,,,,and then to set up their bogus handcounts in all dem counties. He made a great case for the righs of ALL voters to have their ballots handcounted if they are going to do any at all. He was very good. ." NoControllingLegalAuthority "..Yes, I like that Klock brought the warfare issue in. I also appreciate his discussing the ongoing blizzard of continued legal filings. It pounds home the deliberate undermining of the conclusion of the election process as a political tool. It focuses away from mere legal issues to a more sinister plot to discredit the election which is much more in tune with the minds of the average American at this point. He raises the "sore loser" issue without being quite that direct. " Pure Country " I also thought Klock did a great job. He, in a very simple manner, confounded the issues of "Judging" the voter's intent as being not possible. That rules changed across the state. He went from county to county and back so quickly that one realized how ridiculous the whole situation was. Loved it!!! .." Magnolia ".Exactly! Klock pointed to the underhandedness of the Gore team by citing one issue after another. Sauls is not deaf, dumb & blind like some libs out there. He's perfectly able to connect the dots... thought Klock was awesome! .." Drudge 12/3/00 " As the nation waits for the US Supreme Court to rule, Justice Stephen Breyer found himself in the middle of complete controversy after Friday's historic oral arguments where he indicated how he had prejudice against Florida's Secretary of State. Breyer stunned watchers inside of the courtroom as he grilled Joseph Klock, a lawyer for Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Justice Breyer framed the debate by stating: Whether we win, whether your side wins. "And now the secretary has certified a winner," Justice Breyer declared. "And therefore, I guess, whether we win -- whether your side, the side your supporting wins or loses, it doesn't change that." The Justice's view that he is on the opposing side of Secretary Harris, who awarded George Bush the state's electoral votes, may be rooted in the fact that Vice President Gore is a personal friend -- who argued vigorously for the selection and confirmation of

Breyer to the Court. . On July 8, 1994, Gore said of Breyer: "Just speaking in personal terms, it is a great pleasure to be able to promote the virtue of this particular nomination. He is a friend and he is obviously an outstanding jurist... the more you know him, the more you come to appreciate what he is really like -- his wife and his family and he, himself, are really wonderful people... His whole approach to life, I think, is just a real model. I think he's a wonderful person." ..Breyer's "whether we win, whether your side wins" comment made in open court on Friday ignited nonstop conversations throughout Washington, even though the nation's main press has remained silent on the slip. .." Trial commentary Nd76 ".The Nassau attorney made a nice presentation. I think that if there is one thing that seems 100% certain, and that is that Sauls is going to rule for Nassau and leave in place their certification as to the vote total on election night. Thus, the Gorons are unsuccessful in knocking 51 votes out of the GW category. ." A_Niceguy_in_CA ". This is great Barry Richard just quoted FLSC ruling against "butterfly ballot"...FLSC said "Voter confussion or voter error is not enough. voter has obligation to do it right." ." WoodrowTKatt "Richards making "estoppal" (sp) argument regarding PBC: that gorons had a legal objection to file claim against PBC counting standard BEFORE they finished counting. "Clearly they aren't shy about seeking legal remedies!" It's too late now to ask a court to change the PBC counting standards. Cool argument. .." CheneyChick "Barry saying there is "No Evidence" for each of the other side's arguments. Leaving with two questions: What would this court do different in instructing the PBC Canvassing Board? And is FL prepared not to present their electors based on the testimony of the 2 witnesses. .." WoodrowTKatt "..Klock pointing out that with Nassau County, gorons are using pre-certification protest law to get judge to NOT "count every vote" in the post-certification contest. Excellent! Why oh why can't cnn pick up this obvious point? .." FrostFire "..Barry Richard has stated catagorically that the canvassing boards in the disputed counties did everything they could to get it right. No fraud. No bad machines. NO CASE for gore. .." Vbmoneyspender "BR has done a good job on Miami-Dade. Basic argument is burden was on Gore to show that full recount of Miami-Dade would make a difference and NO such evidence was presented. He also made other arguments about Miami-Dade did not commit an abuse of discretion in refusing to go forward with full manual recount. Finally, BR made a very interesting argument about Canvassing Boards being unique institutions in America in that they are composed of all three branches of gov't. Based on that, woe unto any judge who would overturn what the Canvassing Boards did - which is in line with what the Flapremes said in their decision against Bush. " Truthkeeper ".Ooh, ooh...he's bringing up the Pullen case (Illinois)! .." KeatsforFirstDog ".going into the IL case...rips those who misconstrued IL case ." WoodrowTKatt "Hurray! Barry is reciting Illinois case Boies cited to FLSC; case that says DIMPLES DON'T COUNT!!! .." Cjacobs ".Voter responsibility: Failed to get to precinct to vote.. Failed to go to right precinct. Incorrectly fills out ballot. What is the difference? Tremendous argument!!!! Do I hear TAPS playing in the background? " Bryan24 "His example of the '92 election was pretty persuasive. I had not thought about it like that. If Bush won Florida but lost the election, what OFFICE did he win in Florida? HMMMMMMM. .." Petronski " ROBERT VEZINA: Plaintiffs have 'no standing' as they are not the losing candidate, the elector is the losing candidate (and they did not join the democratic florida electors as plaintiffs). .." Hispanarepublicana "..Is he REALLY arguing that when a canvassing board does a "sample" hand recount, they are then locked in legally to doing a full hand recount? " mom_in_Georgia ".He said the circuit court ruled in the last few days, if you start a sample hand count,

mom_in_Georgia ".He said the circuit court ruled in the last few days, if you start a sample hand count, then you must finish the entire count, mandatory! ." WoodrowTKatt " I think Boies deep down actually knows the truth: gore's case is based on lies; he only wins if he can cherrypick dimples; that bringing down msft is one thing but if he overturns this election he will be one of the most hated men in America. I've never seen Boies ramble this much. He's off his game. I think at some level he wants to lose" Dan Day ". Boies himself brings up the issue made by almost every other party to this case (that recounting only certain, Democrat counties with a fine-toothed comb makes for an unfair, imbalanced vote count that dilutes the un-recounted counties). BUT, he doesn't do this to try to defend the practice as actually being a fair count of votes. No, his rebuttal is basically, "nyah, nyah, we contested those counties so we get to scrape them for extra votes, and the other guys didn't do the same with their counties, and nothing in the law requires a fair counting standard across counties, so they should quit their bitching -- surely you're not suggesting that we should be helping the Bush team by contesting his counties too?". I am NOT misrepresenting his argument, that's actually his point. .." upstatenyrepublican "..yes, I just heard the attorney for the Secretary of State list at least 4 of the cases Boise cited, and he explained in detail why they were not as Boise represented. He said that all of Boise's cases were misrepresented. I do have a lawyer sitting next to me...a family member, who was ooing and ahing over that one! .." Charleymane ".Boies just cited the Pullin case! He's got brass, I'll give him that. .." A Mississippian "Boies keeps going back to the same point. Citing the FLSC that the canvasing boards MUST determine "the voter's intent"..... babbling, babbling, etc.... " Citizen Soldier "..Want to hear something funny? CNN reporter just said Gore spent 58 minutes on the phone yesterday with Mr. Brace!!! Yes, the "expert" for his case!!! LOL!!! What a hoot! I wish I knew if it was before or after his "expert testimony" .." The Wall Street Journal 12/3/00 Robert Bartley " With its unerring sense of drama, fate has provided the perfect capstone for the Clinton Presidency. We always should have known the Clinton legacy would be ruleor-ruin politics, as now waged in Florida by his putative successor. .The Florida words may be new, but the melody is hauntingly familiar. Doesn't "dimpled chad" sound a lot like "what the meaning of 'is' is"? An official trying to do her duty, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, is smeared as "partisan," just as Whitewater investigator Jean Lewis was. Meanwhile, of course, partisan votes allocate ambiguous ballots to Al Gore. .Mr. Gore's echelons of lawyers run from court to court trying to bend the law into victory, mouthing claims as brazen as the "protective privilege" Mr. Clinton had his legal eagles invent. All this is cloaked in pious high-mindedness--we only want to count all the votes (except the military ones and maybe Seminole County absentees). Victimization--the "vast right-wing conspiracy"--cannot be far behind. .." Newsday.com 12/3/00 AP Ron Fournier "Lawyers for Al Gore and George W. Bush slogged through a second day of testimony about chads, voting machines and the vice president's pleas for a recount, while GOP running mate Dick Cheney said Sunday it's time for Gore to concede. Gore said he knows America is weary of the long election ordeal but counseled the country: ''It won't last forever.'' . As Democrats talked about the possibility of a gracious exit from the presidential contest, a circuit judge presided over a nearly 13-hour hearing Sunday on Gore's historic election protest and listened to closing arguments into the night. Judge N. Sanders Sauls said he would deliver his ruling on Monday morning. ..The vice president braced for the next round of legal action and attended church, where he heard a sermon titled, ''A Time for Waiting.'' " CBS News 12/3/00 "..Democratic lawyers said privately they expected Sauls to rule against them, and were preparing an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. Gore's advisers, frustrated by the pace and tone of Sauls' hearing, said they needed a quick ruling from the judge or a high court to sustain the vice president's White House aspirations. .As the Florida trial that could decide who becomes the nation's next president drags along, Al Gore once again is taking his own case to the airwaves. .." WFLA 970 -Glenn Beck show 12/2/00 Rick Alger " Glenn Beck: "From the Milliken case to the Microsoft case to the Presidential election protest/contest, Boies has cost the markets $1.7 trillion in losses."." New York Times 12/4/00 Richard Stevenson "Dick Cheney called today for Vice President Al Gore to concede the presidential election, saying history would regard Mr. Gore "in a better light if he were to bring this to a close in the very near future." Speaking on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," Mr. Cheney also said he believed that the nation was on the verge of a recession and needed the stimulus of a tax cut like the one proposed by the Republicans Both statements seemed designed in part to build public

pressure in different ways for an end to Mr. Gore's legal challenge of the vote in Florida. In the same interview, Mr. Cheney talked about troubling economic indicators and the importance of a new administration getting to work on them.." New York Times 12/4/00 Katharine Seelye "Vice President Al Gore remained determined today to press on with his legal case in Florida, holding a high- level legal strategy session that included Walter E. Dellinger III, the former acting solicitor general of the Clinton administration and a highly respected constitutional scholar. Today's meeting took on an air of urgency because of the ticking clock, the dwindling of Mr. Gore's legal options and the beginning of a potentially decisive week in the courts. Participants said no "fateful" decisions were made at the meeting, but they said they were bracing for a possible setback in at least one Florida court and considered how to counter a possible pre-emptive move by the Florida Legislature in awarding the state's decisive 25 electoral votes to Gov. George W. Bush, even as the tabulation of ballots might show a win for Mr. Gore." New York Times 12/4/00 David Firestone "Lawyers for Vice President Al Gore triumphantly used a lastminute, surprise piece of evidence to get a Republican witness - a designer of the disputed punch-card machines - to admit that the devices used in Miami-Dade County and elsewhere can malfunction and fail to properly record a vote. That is precisely the point that Mr. Gore's legal team has been making in an effort to get Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court to order the hand counting of 14,000 disputed ballots, in hopes of finding enough hidden votes to declare Mr. Gore the next president. " New York Times 12/4/00 David Firestone "David Boies, Mr. Gore's chief trial lawyer, said Mr. Ahmann turned out to be the Democrats' best witness, even though he was called by the other side. ``He made every point we were trying to make,'' Mr. Boies said. But George Terwilliger, a Bush lawyer, insisted that his side knew all along about the patent, and called the assertion of a coup laughable. Earlier in the day, a statistician brought in by the Bush legal team criticized an analysis presented on Saturday by Mr. Gore's statistician, who had said at the time that there were far fewer nonvotes for president recorded in counties using optical voting machines than in counties using punch cards. Democratic lawyers said this demonstrated that it was the voting system that caused the nonvotes by failing to record legitimate votes. ..The Bush statistician, Dr. Laurentius Marais, said that that was an example of assuming that two things that appeared to be associated with each other were in fact causally related, using the old statistics example of how storks' nests in a town sometimes increase with the number of births. In fact, he said, there were wide variations in the number of nonvotes in counties using optical scanners, just as there were in counties using punch cards, and there was no proof of a relationship between the two. .." New York Times 12/4/00 ".Following are excerpts from the closing arguments before Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee, Fla., yesterday about the Florida election results, as recorded by The New York Times. David Boies represented the campaign of Vice President Al Gore, and Barry Richard the campaign of Gov. George W. Bush. Mr. Boies "What is involved here is a question of a protest that the plaintiffs have made with respect to particular counties and particular ballots. There is nothing in 168 or in any precedent that says in order to have an election contest in a statewide election you must count all the votes. Indeed, there are many, many cases of election contests under Florida law in which the courts have counted far fewer than all the votes, sometimes as few as two or three or a dozen or 20. Sometimes several hundred, sometimes several thousand." Mr. Richard ".And I believe that a good beginning point to analyze that task is the statement of the Florida Supreme Court in the 1981 of McPherson v. Flynn, at 397 Southern Second 665, in which the court said since there is no common-law right to contest elections, any statutory grant must necessarily be construed to grant only such rights as are explicitly set outIn other words, among the three co-equal branches of our government, it is the legislature to which our Constitution has entrusted the right and the responsibility of determining the circumstances under which an election can be contested and there is none other than what it has stated. So too, the Constitution has entrusted the legislature - to the legislature the right to determine when, if ever, there shall be a manual recount, and I pause here to note that there is no right by the federal or the state Constitution to manual counts ever.. Now, the Florida Legislature has indeed told us in very explicit terms the circumstances under which there can be a manual recount, and what body makes that decision. It did it in Section 102.166, Subsection 4-C, a section which Mr. Boies conveniently ignores. And here's what it says. The county canvassing board may authorize a manual recount." Mr. Richard ".Now, The county canvassing boards are interesting bodies. They are unique within our system of government. The Legislature has provided that they shall be composed with - of a representative of each of the branches of government: a judge, a supervisor of elections from the executive branch, and a

member of the county commission, indeed, the chairman of the county commission, a legislative branch. All of them, with the singular exception of Dade County, elected officials and all them had the closest level of government to the people.. And it is that board and that board alone to which the Florida Legislature has entrusted the decision as to manual recounts, and I defy Mr. Boies to find for this court any other provision of Florida law that entrusts that decision to any other body.." Mr. Richard ". Just two weeks ago, the Florida Supreme Court, in Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris, told us this: The decision whether to conduct a manual recount is vested in the sound discretion of the board. And they refer to the county canvassing board. Once the county canvassing board has made that decision, there is only one other provision in Florida law for a person to challenge it, and that is a contest under 168Now if Mr. Boies is correct then what did the Supreme Court mean when it said the decision whether to conduct a manual recount is vested in the sound discretion of the board? What did it mean? Because according to Mr. Boies once that decision has been made and the next thing by statute you can do is an election contest, the court can disregard what the board did.Well that's not discretion, sound or otherwise. That's meaningless. Because as soon as the board acts the court can disregard it. I suggest to this court that that is not a proper construction of Florida law. .." Mr. Richard ".Now, again, I believe that the law clearly states that the discretion lies with the canvassing board. And that being the case it makes no difference - let me pause and point out here that there are 64 counties in this state that performed no manual recount. It wasn't requested by the Gore team, by the Bush team. .. What gives you a right to a manual recount is not chad buildup, it is not hardening of rubber. It is the decision of the canvassing board. . . . " Mr. Richard ".The issue is that the board told us, and it's in evidence, that its ultimate decision not to go forward was based upon two things. First that there was insufficient evidence from the 1 percent count that there would be an effect upon the ultimate result of the election. Supervisor of Election Leahy voted against going forward with the full count because of the fact that he was not convinced in the first place that there was such evidence. And the Gore team has not provided this court with a single item of evidence to suggest anything to the contrary. But the second reason, the second reason that the board voted not to proceed with a full count, unanimously, was an intervening act that occurred after they had begun and that was the decision of the Florida Supreme Court that said you must certify your results by 5 o'clock on Sunday, Nov. 26th. Period. . . . And Mr. Boies has no authority to suggest to this court that it can disregard what the Supreme Court did any more than the canvassing board could" 12/3/00 CBS Gore Speech, Freeper Commentary Cosmo ".He just said that Reps in Seminole threw out the Democratic ballot applications!!!! Talk to me. Did he just lie out of his A$$$? .." Sungirl "..He said that in Seminole county the Republicans allowed the Republican applications to be altered ( a felony he pointed out) and threw out the democratic applications.. IS this the truth? .." Wildwood "from november 30 wall street journal: "Both parties sent out many applications with these numbers already filled in by computer. But software error caused the omission of numbers from some sent out by the Republicans. . In some counties, the election officials themselves filled in the numbers. In Seminole, they declined to do so. However, they permitted Republican workers to fill in the numbers, sitting in the county election offices-without supervision .....She has been criticized for not inviting Democratic workers on the same terms as the Republicans. This may be a valid criticism, though there was NO SIMILAR PROBLEMS on applications mailed out by Democrats." .." http://www.abcnews.go.com 12/3/00 Freeper trackman "..... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I just checked abcnews.com to compare the SCOTUS transcript with Drudge's report, which I then also compared with my audio tape recording. The page of transcript with Breyer's controversial "whether we win" comment has been omitted. Start at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/scotuselex4.html and click on "next page." If you listed to the audio, you will find approx. 1 page of dialogue missing. Can anyone offer an explanation? ....." Freeper rvoitier "...Here is what ABC left out: KLOCK: I think they did rely in creating the remedy on the Florida Constitution. I believe they created a right that had not previously been seen there, which they have a right to do. But, Mr. Chief Justice, the issue again is whether or not the law that they articulated on November 21 is different than the law that existed on November 7, and how the secretary of state, in exercising her discretion, was to divine the standard that would be established on November 21.

SCALIA: Your position is, so long as it's different, it violates Section 5, and therefore we have a right to step in. KLOCK: Well, Justice Scalia, we have not addressed the federal issues, because, I mean, we're in a situation where you have... SCALIA: Well, this is a federal court... (LAUGHTER) KLOCK: I understand that. I apologize. But we have the secretary of state here, we have the attorney general here, and the legislature has filed by amicus, and of course the state has not appeared. So it's a little unusual. We haven't addressed those issues. But to answer your question, yes, sir. BREYER: Can you tell me, when this petition was filed here, the secretary had not certified anybody the winner. KLOCK: Well... BREYER: And now the secretary has certified a winner. And therefore, I guess, whether we win -- whether your side, the side your supporting, wins or loses, it doesn't change that. And I guess that's moot. KLOCK: Well... BREYER: But my question is, is there any respect in which this really makes a difference this case, how -- I'm thinking, if it does make a difference, numbers of vote, is that kind of thing right for us to decide now? How could it make a difference? What's the consequence of our going one way or the other now, in this case? ....." Newsweek 12/11/00 Howard Fineman "..... On the ropes: Gore needs a big win in court-fast-if he's going to reverse his fate and keep the White House out of Bush's hands. ....... At his ranch in Crawford, Texas, George W. Bush was looking at the world beyond Inauguration Day. Dick Cheney and Colin Powell had journeyed there, wives in tow, for lunch, a strolling photo opportunity on the prairie-and a serious discussion of the hot spots Bush will need to know about if he becomes president next month. ...... At his mansion in Washington, Al Gore was looking at a much smaller world-and longing for a surprise. The courts, he hoped, would order recounts, which would prove that he, not Bush, had won Florida-and, therefore, the White House. Or maybe they would throw out enough absentee ballots in one county, Seminole, to turn things around. ......... But time was running out. Federal law, and the Florida Supreme Court, had set Dec. 12 as what could be a drop-dead-or drop-out-date. Florida courts hadn't been moving quickly, or favorably, and Bush's lawyers were poking sticks into the always slow-moving wheels of justice. Perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court would give Gore a boost, politically if not legally, by blessing (or not preventing) recounts. Gore hunkered down to listen-intently, repeatedly-to the high court on audiotape. "They're going to be helpful," he predicted to an adviser, but didn't sound entirely convinced. ......" The Seattle Times Company 12/2/00 "...... After waiting 24 days, Sen. Slade Gorton on Friday received a final, unpleasant message from Washington's voters: He had lost his seat to Democratic challenger Maria Cantwell. Gorton, who represented the state in the U.S. Senate for 18 years, said goodbye to public office in a concession speech bereft of emotion and which lasted less than a minute. ....." CNN 12/2/00 "......Florida's Senate leader announced Saturday he will not call a special session Monday to deal with the selection of the state's 25 presidential electors. ....... The statement from Senate President John McKay came after Republican legislators had expressed confidence he and House Speaker Tom Feeney would sign the necessary proclamation on Monday. ....... "Contrary to news accounts, I will not call a special session on Monday," McKay said in the statement issued by his Senate office. "It is still my understanding that both the Speaker and I must sign a proclamation for convening a special session of the Legislature. Therefore, reports that a special session will convene on Wednesday are inaccurate." ...." Miami Herald (on a Guilt Trip) 12/2/00 Anabelle de Gale, Lila Arzua Curtis Morgan "....... In a race so tight, it may never be known for certain. But an analysis commissioned by The Herald of voting patterns in each of the state's 5,885 precincts suggests that Florida likely would have gone to Al Gore -- by a slim 23,000 votes -- rather than George W. Bush, the officially certified victor by the wispy margin of 537. ...... It's a hypothetical result derived from something that clearly doesn't exist in Florida or anywhere else in the nation -- an election where every ballot is fully filled out and every one of those ballots gets counted, an elusive ideal

going these days by the buzzword "the will of the people.'' ....... One fundamental flaw, Republicans argued, was an assumption that every voter actually intended to cast a vote in the presidential race. A large majority of ballots in the disputed counties of Palm Beach and Duval didn't even have a dimple on them, said Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew. ...... "If you want to divine voters' intent when there isn't even a mark on the ballot, you'd do better to hire a palm reader than a statistical analyst,'' he said. ....." LR.com 12/3/00 James Ostrowski "......So let us examine this lawsuit, Gore's last chance to be elected President by the vote of one Democratic judge. Oddly enough, Gore is not a party to the suit. He cannot be a party since the suit seeks to disenfranchise identifiable voters whose votes were unambiguous and already counted, while Gore has taken the position elsewhere that the unidentifiable votes of unidentifiable voters should be counted. Nevertheless, his allies filed the suit and Gore tacitly supports it. ...... Naturally, given the media bias against the Bush campaign, the facts of this case have been distorted. Contrary to media reports that Democrats were denied the chance to go in and correct their own faulty applications, there is no indication that Democratic applications, en masse, lacked ID numbers. The absentee vote totals-about two to one for Bush--are consistent with what one would expect from a Republican county. Further, the activities of the Republican operatives were no secret. The following report appeared on the web site of AM 580 WDBO on October 31st: .......... "If you mailed in a GOP postcard requesting an absentee ballot from Seminole County, there's good news today. Officials say you may get your ballot in the mail after all. The mailing labels are getting printed up at the election supervisor's office. You may recall that elections supervisor Sandy Goard was not able to respond to the GOP sponsored postcards because they didn't have a proper voter ID number. The Republican headquarters in Tallahassee got wind of it, they sent in a guy with a laptop and a database. Sandy says all he got was a chair. "There was no work done by any member of this staff. We permitted them to take the cards that were incomplete and from their database put the voter's ID number on that card. And so the absentee ballots are being sent out. Just make sure you get them back to the election office before 7 p.m. Tuesday." ........" LR.com 12/3/00 James Ostrowski "......Prior precedent involving technical irregularities is squarely in favor of counting the ballots. In Boardman v. Esteva, 323 So. 2d 259 (1975), the Florida Supreme Court held that, in the absence of fraud, absentee ballots should be counted. "Substantial compliance" with the statute is enough: ....... "There is no magic in the statutory requirements. If they are complied with to the extent that the duly responsible election officials can ascertain that the electors whose votes are being canvassed are qualified and registered to vote, and that they do so in a proper manner, then who can complain that the statute has not been literally and absolutely complied with?" Id. at 267. ..........Thus, if the Florida courts decide this case based on their pre-existing principles and do not make it up as they go along, the Seminole County case and an identical case in Martin County will be dismissed. If not, there may be two slates of electors competing for congressional attention on January 6, 2001. In that event, as reported first on LewRockwell.com, the slate certified by the Governor of Florida would prevail according to the tie-breaking rules of 3 U. S. C. 15. [http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/3/15.html] That certification has already been filed with the federal government. ......." LR.com 12/3/00 James Ostrowski "......In the meantime, Al A. Gore, Jr., is hunkered in his bunker, planning his transition, in a manner reminiscent of Hitler ordering non-existent armies to counterattack the Russians in the last days of World War II. "Senator Mitchell, this is imaginary President-elect Gore. Would you like to be the imaginary Secretary of State in my imaginary administration? Senator? . . . " USA TODAY 12/4/00 Joan Biskupic "..... But a thread moving subtly through the historic 90-minute session concerned whether the justices actually needed to resolve the case. "Is there any respect in which this really makes a difference?", Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked at one point, suggesting that because the Florida secretary of State already named Bush the winner under the new deadline, the case might be moot. ....... "If it were purely a matter of state law, I suppose we normally would leave it alone," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told Bush lawyer Theodore Olson. "You probably have to persuade us there is some issue of federal law here. Otherwise, why are we acting?" Later, Justice David Souter queried, "Why should the federal judiciary be interfering?" .......... But it appeared equally certain no five-justice majority was ready to adopt the same, single rationale to favor Bush. ...... At the same time, the justices have an incentive to speak in as united a voice as possible, given the stakes in the presidential election and given the court's own institutional concern for its reputation as a neutral forum. The justices have closed ranks before in disputes of national importance. ..........So, as the justices worked over the weekend and the nation waited, one possible outcome remains a decision that decides as little as possible (perhaps even dismissing the case) to bring about as much harmony as possible among the justices. ......A court spokeswoman said Sunday that she had gotten no word on when a ruling might be announced. Meanwhile, the office of Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth sent a letter to the court Sunday saying that Bush's argument "would appear to invalidate the overseas military ballots received after the deadline established by state law" but allowed because of prior judicial orders. ......"

USA TODAY 12/4/00 Martin Kasindorf "......Lawyers for Vice President Gore argued at the close of a historic trial Sunday that the will of Florida voters will not be known unless there is a counting of thousands of ballots in which no vote for president was registered. ... Gore asserts that many of these ballots have indentations or other signs of a Floridian's attempt to vote for him that a manual recount would detect. ..... Bush lawyer Barry Richard said Gore " brought in no evidence that there would have been a difference in the vote." ... Richard argued that Gore's team of lawyers had failed to carry his burden of proving that legal votes had not been counted. "There is no right by the state or federal constitutions to a manual recount - ever." ..... A ruling from Sauls on whether Gore is legally entitled to a recount may come today or Wednesday....." USA TODAY 12/4/00 Martin Kasindorf "...... One of the witnesses who appeared to boost Gore's case was an expert called to the stand by Bush. John Ahmann, owner of an election supply company in Napa, Calif., acknowledged that punch-card machines have the kind of problems Gore claims. ..... Ahmann, an expert who made dozens of improvements to the design of the machines before selling them over the past four decades, said recounts were the only way to identify valid votes that resulted in so-called hanging chads: ballots pierced by tiny holes or dimples. "You need either reinspection or manual recounts where you have that situation, yes, you do, where you have a very close election," Ahmann said ........." USA TODAY 12/4/00 Martin Kasindorf "......Lawyers for Bush ridiculed the idea of "chad buildup" and other technical problems in the machines. They argued, additionally, that Gore had to establish an "abuse of discretion" by county canvassing boards before a judge second-guessed their decisions on whether to do a hand recount and how to evaluate ballots......... If a recount is to be held, the issue of what standard to use in judging a ballot is another battleground in the case. Gore wants every indented chad counted as a vote if Sauls can determine that this was the voter's intent. Bush wants a stricter standard, demanding that at least some light be showing through a candidate's spot on the ballot card....... " USA TODAY 12/4/00 Martin Kasindorf "......Bush's team called Palm Beach County Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the county canvassing board, to question him about the county's process of recounting. Burton defended his initial vote against conducting a full countywide hand recount, and complained that Democrats have been pillorying him just because he had wanted any recount to be done in a "reasoned fashion."....Sauls sympathized. "I have to salute you as a great American, as a matter of fact," he said...." USA TODAY 12/4/00 AP ".....While Florida House leaders barrel ahead with plans for a special session to pick presidential electors, Senate leaders are moving cautiously, wary of appearing too eager to choose the country's next leader. House Speaker Tom Feeney plans to sign a proclamation Monday declaring a special session designed for the Republican-led Legislature to appoint a slate of electors for Texas Gov. George W. Bush. ......But new Senate President John McKay says he won't sign the document until he carefully reviews a legislative committee's final report recommending such a session. McKay still had not received the report by Sunday evening, said his spokeswoman, Karen Chandler. ....." Steve Miller 12/4/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES "......Carole Jean Jordan, one of 25 Republican Florida presidential electors, got an e-mail so disturbing she turned it over to Vero Beach police as evidence "It was ugly, threatening," Miss Jordan said. "It was telling me I would be sorry for this."....... The Florida election battlefield is spreading into the homes of these Republicans, who are pledged to make official the presidential election of George W. Bush when the Electoral College meets Dec. 18. Three defections among Republican electors could hand Democrat Al Gore the presidency. No wonder these hand-picked party faithful are being beckoned by the other side. Most of the Bush electors attribute the effort to organized Democrats........They have been barraged with letters and phone calls, some demanding, others more restrained............. Most of Florida's electors are aware that Bob Beckel, who managed Democrat Walter Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984, has publicly boasted, "I'm trying to kidnap these electors in states that [Mr. Bush] won that are not legally bound to him that have a right to vote how they want to." Mr. Beckel, who did not return calls from The Washington Times, has also said that the Gore campaign would be notified if he contacted any electors....." Washington Times 12/4/00 Bill Sammon "..... Attorneys for Al Gore and George W. Bush last night raced through closing arguments in the dramatic conclusion of an urgent trial over the vice president's lawsuit to overturn the outcome of the election. A ruling in the matter was expected today....... "Are there legal votes that have not been counted?" Gore attorney David Boies asked in his closing argument. The answer, he said, is yes. ..... The Bush team countered that there is no need to hand count ballots that have already been counted by machine at least twice. Bush lawyer Barry Richard renewed his call for Judge Sauls to dismiss the suit, saying the Gore team was "light years" away from proving its case........" Washington Times 12/4/00 Bill Sammon "..... In a second marathon day of testimony, sparks flew when Bush attorney Phil Beck accused Mr. Boies of "grandstanding." The exchange came as Mr. Boies tried to discredit Bush witness Laurentius Marais, a statistician who himself was trying to discredit a Gore statistician's

testimony on the error rate of voting machines. "You have testified that certain statistical analyses that link lead paint with injuries to children didn't meet your standards for statistical scientific analysis, correct?" Mr. Boies said. "No, sir," Mr. Marais replied. "You didn't do that?" said Mr. Boies, who appeared taken aback. "No." "Um, well sir, what did you testify?"........ Mr. Beck interjected: "Your honor, I'm going to object to the relevance of this. In any event, if time is short, why is he quizzing him about other . . ." "Your honor, I think it goes to his credibility," Mr. Boies shot back. "And I think it goes to the way he performs statistical analysis."....... Judge Sauls ruled it was "irrelevant" to include "testimony from some other case," especially one that had "absolutely no materiality" to the Gore lawsuit. "Would the court permit a comparison of the way he approaches whether the scientific statistical analysis in other cases with the way he's done it here?" Mr. Boies ventured. But the judge refused. The usually unflappable Gore attorney seemed momentarily flummoxed by the setback. As he hesitated, Mr. Beck jumped into the void........ "I'm going to ask the court to admonish Mr. Boies about his obligation not to go down that route unless he has a legitimately held belief that there is a difference in methodology," the Bush lawyer said. "Because otherwise all he's doing is grandstanding and saying that this man testified in cases that Mr. Boies thinks will be unpopular with the public. And that's not right." "Your honor, I'm not grandstanding," protested Mr. Boies, who nonetheless agreed to "abandon" that line of questioning......" Washington Times 12/4/00 Bill Sammon ".....Testifying at the request of Bush lawyers, Mr. Ahmann challenged the argument that Mr. Gore should get credit for ballots on which voters merely "dimpled" - but did not dislodge - tiny rectangles of paper next to the vice president's name. "It's quite possible that you can dimple the chad while having no intention of voting," Mr. Ahmann said......... To drive home that point, the Bush lawyers briefly presented a Florida policeman who said he might have dimpled his ballot, but does not want it counted. The witness explained that he began to push the metal stylus through the chad before he pulled back, deciding not to vote for president after all....." Washington Times 12/4/00 Bill Sammon ".....One witness was Shirley King, chairman of the Nassau County Canvassing Board, who challenged an argument by the Gore team that she deprived the vice president of votes. Specifically, Mr. Gore has argued that the Nassau board should have stuck with its machine recount, which gave him more votes, and ignored its original machine count.........But Mrs. King explained yesterday that she accidentally omitted 218 votes during the machine recount. That's how many presidential ballots, which bear a red stripe along one edge, were stored upside down in ballot boxes, prompting poll workers to overlook them during the recount......When she realized the error, Mrs. King reverted to the original count, which was certified by Florida's secretary of state. "I wanted every vote to count," Mrs. King said........Bush lawyers noted with irony that this is precisely the mantra of Mr. Gore in other counties, where he believes he can pick up more votes........" Washington Times 12/4/00 House Editorial "...... Representing Mr. Bush, Theodore Olson recalled that Congress passed legislation in 1887 in response to the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election, which was only ultimately settled by a special commission established by Congress after the election. The obvious and primary purpose of that federal statute, Mr. Olson persuasively argued, was to prevent a repetition of "the chaos and the conflict and the controversy and the unsettled situation that this country faced in 1876." Indeed, the effect of the judicial legislation that the Florida Supreme Court has attempted to enact has been to regenerate for today the very post-election chaos, turmoil, controversy and uncertainty that erupted in 1876................... The object of the 1887 legislation was to create conditions under which Congress would accept a state's electoral votes for president without dispute. Title 3 Section 5 of the 1887 law authorized state legislatures to enact rules regarding the counting of votes and the settling of election disputes. In the words of Title 3 Section 5: As long as those laws governing the "final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of [a state's] electors" were "enacted prior to" election day, "such determination . . . shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution." Moreover, Article II Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution expressly delegates to state legislatures the power to determine how a state's electors are appointed......." Washington Times 12/4/00 House Editorial "......Not only did the Florida legislature pass the very election laws Title 3 Section 5 invited it to enact; it is equally clear that the legislature did not transfer to the state judiciary the powers that were expressly delegated to the legislature by the U.S. Constitution. The laws enacted by the legislature specifically mandated that the election results had to be filed by the counties with the secretary of state within seven days. State law also provides for manual recounts, which are never required, but the legislature adopted the recount provision in the same legislation in which it set the deadline. It surely considered the potential conflict between the two, and in fact Florida law also allows the secretary of state to use discretion when deciding whether to accept county filings after the seven-day deadline.......... When the Florida Supreme Court arbitrarily changed the seven-day deadline to 19 days and required the secretary of state to accept highly selective manual recounts, the court rewrote the state's election laws after the election. In doing so, it violated Title 3 Section's requirement that those laws be "enacted prior to" election day. The Florida Supreme Court also violated Article II Section 1 of the U.S.

Constitution by usurping the authority, which the Constitution expressly gives to state legislatures for determining how a state's electors are appointed............The remedy is obvious. The U.S. Supreme Court should return Florida law to where it was on election day, Nov. 7. At that time, there existed no right to a manual recount. Such a decision would properly put an end to Mr. Gore's lawsuit in Florida demanding still more manual recounts in selective counties that would be conducted for the sole purpose of correcting voter error and in accordance with standards that never before existed....." USA Today 12/4/00 Judy Keen "......Warning that the nation might be on the verge of a recession, Dick Cheney said Sunday that George W. Bush will press Congress to enact his 10-year, $1.3 trillion tax-cut plan if he assumes the presidency. Cheney, Bush's running mate, said there's "growing evidence that the economy is slowing down." "We're seeing it in automobile sales and lot of other areas, earnings falling off for corporations. And we may well be on the front edge of a recession here," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. ....... Cheney was echoing remarks by Bush on Saturday. "I want to continue to talk about tax relief," Bush said before a private meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. The Texas governor said he sees "warning signs on the horizon about our economy, and I believe that the agenda that we will be bringing to Congress is one that will help the economic growth of the country." ........Since the election, there have been signs of problems in the economy, and some economists say there may be a slowdown next year. A series of government reports has shown unexpected weakness in consumer spending and factory orders, and those reports have fed uneasiness on Wall Street. ....." The Orlando Sentinel 12/3/00 Charley Reese " If we still lived under the rule of law, I could safely predict that by the time you read this, president-elect George W. Bush will still be the president-elect. The rule of law, however, has been destroyed by the greed of lawyers and politicians and by the mediocrity of judges. Therefore, going to the courts is like going to the casino. The outcome is always uncertain and unpredictable. .. Florida law is quite clear, and all of the Gore Gang's legal pleadings are worthless. No one was unlawfully denied the right to vote. No valid ballot was deliberately not counted. The law is clear that the responsibility for correctly voting the ballot is the voter's. No clean punch, no vote. In the case of absentees, no correct postmark, no vote. " NewsMax.com 12/4/00 Carl Limbacher ".. Al Gore's increasingly desperate refusal to admit he lost thepresidential election has some observers wondering if he is mentally ill. In fact, he fits the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder to an eerie tee. . According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), the bible of psychological problems, narcissistic personality disorder is marked by: "A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following: "(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements) "(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love "(3) believes that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions) "(4) requires excessive admiration ,p>"(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations "(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends "(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others "( is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her "(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes." .." Newsmax.Com 12/4/00 Christopher Ruddy "Congress is abuzz with a story that may have seemed fanciful a month ago, or even a week ago, but - as Al Gore continues to battle for the Oval Office congressional Republicans fear it may be true. There is a growing fear among Republican leaders and the Bush camp that Al Gore, if he fails to wrest the presidency from Bush, may attempt to become vice president. On Saturday, I spoke with Sen. Bob Smith, a Republican of New Hampshire. He confirmed to me that both Democrat and Republican lawmakers are talking about a Bush-Gore presidency. ." Newsmax 12/4/00 Carl Limbacher ".. An ABC News/Washington Poll out today shows that 65% of Americans disapprove of Gore's handling of the election controvery -- a 14% increase in his disapproval rating from just two weeks ago. Importantly, Gore's base within the Democratic party has seriously eroded. While 86% of Republicans approve of Bush's handling of the matter, Gore is receiving just 51% "approval" for his continued contest of the election. .." andrewsullivan.com 12/4/00 Rodger Schultz " Good catch by Matt Drudge on Justice Stephen Breyer's slip in Supreme Court questioning on Friday. I've met Justice Breyer and his wife several times - once at Marty Peretz's no less. I have no doubt that he's capable of putting his politics to one side to decide a case if

he tries hard enough. But, along with Ginsburg, he's pretty well entrenched in a Cambridge-Washington Democratic social circle, in which the notion that Gore might be out of bounds right now is - believe me unthinkable. If Breyer comes out against Gore for principled reasons, his social life is at least temporarily over. Still, at least he won't get fired. He should count his blessings. ." (Sullivan was fired as editor of the New Republic , by owner Peretz, for writing unflattering stories about Algore.) NBC-TV 12/4/00 Pete Williams Freeper Oldeconomybuyer " Pete Williams reports that Forida Attorney General Butterworth wrote the US Supreme Court on Sunday, urging the court to let stand the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court. Williams stated that the letter was "an unusual" event. .." Freeper alancarp "If the Fla. Supreme Court (SCOFLA) gets slammed by SCOTUS, then Butterworth _could_ (I'm speculating hopefully) be in line for an impeachment hearing. .. One of the jobs of the Florida Attorney General -- heck, any AG, is to support and defend the home state against any and all attackers in court, foreign or domestic. Butterworth has absolutely abrogated his sworn duty to the State of Florida by actively opposing the official position of the state with regard to this election. What else does he have to do all day? . Granted, the opinions he has are in conflict with what he'd have to do in this case, but: (1) Sec. Harris hired Democrats for her case; (2) Everybody knows that lawyers have to set ideology and personal opinion aside to defend the scum of our society. It happens all of the time. ..Impeach Bob Butterworth: he crossed a think line - not only being unsupportive of the Secretary of State in Court, but actively opposing her efforts. .." Miami Herald/Yahoo 12/3/00 Charles Savage " Scott Cowan, the 18-year county commissioner who resigned last week after being sentenced to six months in jail, is a complicated man who leaves a complicated legacy to Broward County. In expressing regret at Cowan's ignoble exit from public life -- for campaign finance abuses during his 1998 reelection campaign -- many in the political class of officials and lobbyists said they hoped people would remembere him for more than the way his brilliant but flawed career ended. ." Boston Globe 12/4/00 Lynda Gorov "..Stationed anywhere Al Gore takes a stand, they say they aren't budging. Outside the Leon County Courthouse and the Florida Supreme Court, they rebuff his calls for a ballot recount with sloganeering, songs, and insulting signs. A week ago, they were doing the same in Palm Beach and Broward counties. One afternoon in Miami, a group of protesters pushed through tight security to get into a room where votes were being tallied. ..Republicans are furiously standing firm for George W. Bush. .." Jewishworldreview 12/4/00 Amity Shlaes "Third-quarter profits on a trailing 12-month basis were up 50 per cent for computer and software companies in the S&P 500. (Such a trailing basis compares a quarter to the same quarter a year earlier.) Semiconductor equipment makers' earnings rose by more than 130 per cent. The Kudlow explanation for the downturn is a simpler one. Mr Kudlow blames superlitigator David Boies. . The argument for the Boies Index is straightforward. Mr Boies was the lead outside lawyer in the Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft. As recently as late 1999, Microsoft's stock was doing just fine, Justice's attentions notwithstanding. Then traders began to believe that Mr Boies's aggressive representation would sway Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. The market divined, perhaps correctly, that it was Mr Boies's legal gifts that persuaded the judge to draw and quarter the company. Microsoft shares plunged by half, and the rest of the Nasdaq tech index also snapped, dropping to 3,300 in the wake of Judge Jackson's ruling from a year high of 5,000-plus. ......" The Boston Herald 12/4/00 Howie Carr ". I watch TV, and except for Fox, it's all-Al-all-the-time, so I have a few questions about the coverage of the media's monthlong telethon for the man who invented the Internet. . For instance, how come, when the Florida Legislature has 58 Democrats among its 160 members, it's always referred to as ``Republican-dominated,'' which it is, but the Florida Supreme Court, which includes zero Republicans, is never called ``Democrat-dominated''? How come when the Republican Legislature says it will follow the Constitution as written it's a ``partisan political ploy,'' but when the Florida Supreme Court turns the law upside down to give Al Gore an extra 12 days to steal the election, it's an impartial judiciary just doing its job? How come it's not ``hate speech'' when Bill Maher says on national TV Thursday night that as the country watched the Ryder van with the Palm Beach ballots moving up the Florida turnpike, ``For a few brief moments, America held the hope that O.J. Simpson had murdered Katherine Harris''? And how come it isn't ``mean-spirited'' when Craig Kilborn freeze-frames a picture of George W. Bush with a caption that says ``Snipers Wanted''? .. How come looking into the sex life of Bill Clinton, when it involves perjury, obstruction of justice and sexual

harassment, is ``the politics of personal destruction,'' but, as Laura Ingraham noted, trying to dig up dirt on Katherine Harris' sex life is investigative journalism? How come when Bill Clinton gets 60 percent approval for anything it's a ``mandate'' but when 60 percent of the country wants Al Gore to throw in the towel the caption at the bottom of the screen is ``The Nation Divided''? How come George Bush has an MBA from Harvard Biz and he's a moron and Al Gore ``dropped out'' of Vanderbilt Law School and he's a genius? How come no one on TV can mention Katherine Harris without remarking on the fact that she worked in the Bush campaign, but outside a handful of newspapers, no one ever points out that Florida attorney general Bob Butterworth was chairman of Al Gore's campaign in the Sunshine State? How come so few media outlets picked up the Miami Herald story that hundreds, probably thousands, of excons illegally cast ballots in Florida? How come, after the Republicans lost their bid to convict Bill Clinton of high crimes and misdemeanors in the Senate, the left wing Ivy League chattering skulls said as one that it was time for America to ``move on.'' But now, even after Al Gore has lost recount after recount, you could forfeit your invitation to Renaissance Weekend by suggesting that it's now time for America to ``move on.'' How come, on election night, Al Gore ``won'' states but they always ``fell'' to George Bush? .." Washington Post 12/4/00 James V. Grimaldi and Ceci Connolly ".When attorney David Boies joined Al Gore's legal dream team three weeks ago, many inside and outside the vice president's camp presumed the hiring of the government's Microsoft prosecutor signaled a scorched-earth legal challenge of the vote in Florida. After all, Boies has assembled a remarkable string of victories over three decades by employing aggressive, innovative and relentless legal maneuvering. Any courtroom tactic that worked was fair game so long as it helped win the case. . But within days of naming Boies his chief field commander in the battle for the presidency, Gore set firm limits on the veteran litigator, rejecting, for example, his suggestion that Gore join an effort to throw out thousands of absentee ballots on the grounds they were altered illegally by Republicans in Seminole County. That gambit, Gore told Boies and key members of the legal team privately, would have undermined the vice president's plea to the nation to count every vote in Florida, according to people familiar with the discussions. " Salon.com 12/4/00 Jake Tapper ". Most legal experts doubt Judge Sauls will overturn Florida canvassing boards and grant more hand counts. But according to interviews with Florida legal experts, it's Boies who had the weaker case as he represented Gore in his contest of Bush's certified electoral victory in Florida. Boies and Co. did their very best with the very little they were given to work with, these experts say -but it probably wasn't enough. .. "They bit off more than they could chew to begin with," said Steve Uhlfelder, former chair of the American Bar Association's election committee and a Tallahassee attorney. "Gore's people had a tough burden to meet, and at the end of the day I don't think this judge" -- folksy, conservative Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls, a Democrat -- "will go with them," Uhlfelder said. "It's too difficult a task to go down their route." Furthermore, Uhlfelder thinks that the Florida Supreme Court will second Sauls' decision. " Florida Times-Union 12/4/00 Laura Diamond ".. Saying that "African-Americans were targeted to be disenfranchised," the Rev. Jesse Jackson preached to congregants at a Jacksonville church Sunday, urging them to report voting irregularities in Duval County. "The department of justice should have been here the very first day, not to determine the outcome but to protect our rights," Jackson said to a roaring crowd of about 200 people. ..Hours before Jackson addressed the crowd, the Justice Department announced that two representatives have been sent to Florida to investigate complaints that black people and other minorities were impeded by voting officials when they tried to cast ballots. The department did not say which counties were being examined. .." New York Daily News 12/4/00 " The Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives is ready to hand the state's 25 electoral votes to George W. Bush - even if a court-mandated recount gives the edge to Vice President Gore, House Speaker Tom Feeney said yesterday. "We're prepared to validate the law that existed on Election Day," the Orlando-area Republican said on "Fox News Sunday," one of three network shows on which he appeared.." New York Post 12/4/00 Nelson Lund " GOV. George W. Bush may not prevail in the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, thus triggering a political chorus declaring that his legal arguments have been authoritatively repudiated. That conclusion should be resisted because it's just not true. Contrary to myth, the Supreme Court is not the final authority on every legal question. The court does not decide every legal

issue it considers, and some of the decisions it does make are wrong." New York Post 12/4/00 Kenneth Lovett "The Gore campaign won't rule out joining a lawsuit that seeks to disqualify 15,000 Seminole County absentee ballots - at a time the veep has publicly called for the counting of all Florida votes. "Every lawful ballot should be counted, but if there's massive voting irregularities those serious issues can't be ignored," Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway told The Post yesterday. .." Congressman Billybob " As I write this, I am in receipt of a letter from the Clerk of the Supreme Court, notifying all counsel who have appeared in the Bush case of the Court's latest procedural actions. (I'm on the mailing list because I am one of the twelve attorneys who filed briefs in the case.) The simple fact is that no one simply "writes letters" to the US Supreme Court. The only ways to "talk" to that Court is to file a formal brief (which AG Buttersorth has done), or to participate in oral argument. Any letter from anyone, including a State Attorney General concerning any case will be rejected, will not be made part of the Court file, and will not be considered by the Justices. so, if AG Butterworth wrote such a letter, he is a maroon. Actually, since he is Gore's Campaign Chairman in Florida and also a potential Gore Presidential Elector, he is a maroon, whether or not he wrote such a letter. The letter just confirms it. .." The Associated Press 12/4/00 "..The U.S. Supreme Court ruled for George W. Bush in the Florida presidential recount case Monday, overturning a state Supreme Court decision that had let hand-counted ballots narrow his lead over Al Gore. .." Commentary: Hcmama "Remanded back to FLSC for "further proceedings in conformity with this opinion." ." ArneFufkin ".Unanimous. 9-0. Rather is close to tears. ." Dialup Llama ".. SP futures just jumped up 15 SP points. " UPI 12/4/00 Michael Kirkland "The Supreme Court of the United States Monday unanimously ordered the Florida Supreme Court to say why it extended the state's deadline for a final vote tally The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the earlier state court ruling and told the Florida Supreme Court to give it another try. The justices indicated they do not have enough information to rule whether the earlier state ruling violated federal law or the U.S. Constitution.. "After reviewing the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court, we find that there is considerable uncertainty as to the precise grounds for the decision," the U.S. Supreme Court said, citing a 1940 precedent. "This is sufficient reason for us to decline at this time to review the federal questions asserted to be present."." UPI 12/4/00 Michael Kirkland " The opinion signaled a possible out for any new decision by the Florida Supreme Court if it again is reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court "There are expressions in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Florida that may be read to indicate that it construed the Florida Election Code without regard to the extent to which the Florida Constitution could, consistent with Article II...'circumscribe the legislative power,'" the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday. In other words, if there was no federal consideration in the opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court might not be able to review it." UPI 12/4/00 Michael Kirkland " Any eventual final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on the narrow grounds before it is not likely to have a profound legal impact on Gore's challenge of the official election results now being heard in state court in Tallahassee, Fla., which is an entirely different case based on a different section of law. But a decision by the nation's highest court would at the very least have a powerful influence on public perception of the ongoing contest between Bush and Gore." Commentary PaForBush ". The USSC basically said... as a matter of professional courtesy we don't want to rule against you, although you're obviously very wrong in your thinking. Do yourself a favor and take it upon yourselves to reverse this so we don't have to publicly humiliate you. ." LarryLied "..It is a good decision. The USSC had to interfere in the Florida election but they wanted to do it in the most unobtrusive, least precedent-setting way they could. .." Paul in cape2 " I agree. I think they were going to vote for Bush 7-2, but as a courtesy to Ginsgerg and Breyer, and the Florida Supremes, "vacated" their ruling, meaning supply them with the case they used to overturn Sec. Harris. Of course they can't, but they've given them an "out" to do the right thing. .." Howlin "..US SCT vacated the FL SCT case, but did not rule on the merits; did so because FL SCT had

used the FL Constitution to usurp the FL Legislature and therefore violated the US Constitution. Vacated and remanded for further proceedings.." Dan Day "From the US SC decision: ..Specifically, we are unclear as to the extent to which the Florida Supreme Court saw the Florida Constitution as circumscribing the legislature's authority under Art. II, 1, cl. 2. We are also unclear as to the consideration the Florida Supreme Court accorded to 3 U.S.C. 5 ROFL! .. The "we are unclear" language is legalese for "this Court would like to know what in the hell you thought you were doing, because even we can't figure it out". LOL! . Seriously -- this is professional courtesy on the part of the US Supreme Court to its brothers/sisters on the FL Supreme Court. They don't want to come right out and say "your ruling makes no bloody sense", so they couched it in softer terms so as not to totally embarrass the FL Justices. . But the FL Justices will know EXACTLY what it means, and I suspect their faces are very red right now. Note that the USSC didn't say anything like, "we disagree with the interpretation used by the FL SC", instead they TWICE said that they were "unclear" (snicker) on how the FL SC managed to do what they did at all. What a hoot. .. And I highly doubt the FL SC will risk getting slapped down again. They'll be VERY careful to walk the straight and narrow from now on. ." Efoley "A NJ Superior Court Judge, Nicholas Napolitano, on FOX News Channel has noted that, in his opinion, the SCOTUS has reversed the FSC but it needs further clarification from the FSC as to why it ruled as it did. Therefore according to Judge Napolitano said that George W. Bush's lead is again 930 votes. .." Tbeatty "It was as big a victory a unanimous court could do. It cited MacPherson v. Blacker which is clearly in Bush's favor. The SCOTUS esentially said to the FSC "We don't see where your decision is grounded in either law, precedent or the constitution. Please issue a new ruling that is grounded in these things." Even Ruth B. Ginsburg agreed with this. If their next ruling isn't more lawful, they are n trouble. ." Cynicalman " Please look at the sentence from the FLSC that the SC of the US quoted "Because of our reluctance to rewirte the Florida Election Code, we concludethat we must invoke the equitable powers of this Court to fashion a remedy" read that sentence very closely. How is the FLSC going to fashion a remedy without using their equitable powers. " Drudge & AP Wire 12/4/00 Walter Mears ". With the calendar closing in, the U.S. Supreme Court set aside on Monday a Florida ruling that narrowed George W. Bush's minuscule margin over Al Gore in the state that will settle their presidential struggle - but without a clear decision to settle the issue. . That ruling in Washington led a Florida judge to delay his own verdict on Gore's case for hand recounts of ballots in two counties his lawyers argue would reverse the Bush edge for the decisive 25 electoral votes in the challenged and stalled presidential election. " UPI 12/4/00 ".Democrats in Congress may continue to support Vice President Al Gore in his campaign for the White House, despite a unanimous decision Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court that set aside an earlier victory for him in the Florida courts Gore lawyers denied that the ruling was a defeat for them. The Supreme Court of the United States ordered the Florida Supreme Court to say why it extended the state's deadline for a final vote tally in the most closely and bitterly fought presidential election in living memory. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the earlier state court ruling and told the Florida Supreme Court to give it another try. The justices indicated they did not have enough information to rule whether the earlier state ruling violated federal law or the U.S. Constitution" Freeper Gee Wally "Did the Dem spinners note that the Supremes gave Congress the go ahead to ignore what the Florida Supreme Court does. . Consider this "hint" from the US S Ct's opinion: "Since 5 contains a principle of federal law that would assure finality of the State's determination if made pursuant to a state law in effect before the election, a legislative wish to take advantage of the 'safe harbor' would counsel against any construction of the Election Code that Congress might deem to be a change in the law." Opinion at 6, emphasis added. .. Translation: Congress will decide if the Florida Supreme Court's construction of Florida law constitutes a change in law that violates 3 U.S.C. 5. .." Chicago Tribune 12/1/00 Jan Crawford Greenburg "A recount favorable to Vice President Al Gore in Florida's Broward County was partly the result of mistaken claims that a landmark Illinois case counted dimpled ballots, lawyers for Texas Gov. George W. Bush will argue in a complaint to be filed Friday against that county's canvassing board. .. The Republican nominee's lawyers said they are prepared to have a Chicago-area lawyer testify that he erred in signing an affidavit that Gore's attorneys used to urge the Broward canvassing board to count the disputed dimpled ballots. Republicans maintain that misrepresentation never was corrected in Broward and resulted in hundreds of votes being improperly counted for Gore. The vice president picked up 567 votes in the heavily Democratic county as a result of the recount, some 420 of which were from dented or dimpled ballots. .Bush attorney William Scherer said Thursday that the legal team is taking the extraordinary step of contesting the Broward results, even though

Thursday that the legal team is taking the extraordinary step of contesting the Broward results, even though Bush was certified as the winner of Florida's 25 decisive electoral votes, as a way to protect the Texas governor's interests if Gore gets a recount in other counties. " The Associated Press 12/4/00 Heather Clark "..Republicans planned to send volunteers to inspect the state's impounded presidential ballots before a Friday deadline for requesting a recount of returns that gave Al Gore victory in New Mexico. Republican National Committeeman Mickey Barnett said he hoped to have 12 teams of volunteers in place by Monday. GOP officials weren't sure how many counties the volunteers could visit this week. ``If (the volunteers) find ballots that were not counted, like the situation in Roosevelt County, we want to know it,'' Barnett said Sunday. .." Freeper Bonaparte "..My reading of the text of the USSC decision is that the FSC ruling is vacated, pending reconciliation of that decision with Art II, sec 1, cl. 2 of the US Constitution and with 3 USC sec. 5. There was no need for the USSC to bring in anything else, although they could have, and indeed they more than hinted at this. Since the FSC knows that this is an impossible burden, they will most likely not attempt to overcome it. As it stands, it's as though they never ruled on this matter at all. I think they will leave it that way. ." Freeper mtrott "You're right, and, furthermore, much of the rational Boies used before Judge Sauls in justifying his contest case involved supposed numbers of votes Gore would have gotten from the partial recounts in PB and Dade counties. Well, it seems to me we are now in a position where we again do not know if there ever should have been any recounting past 11/14 in the first place. So, it logically follows that the whole contest case is up in the air now. How can Sauls at this point consider all these numbers Gore is throwing at him until the Fla. SC revises its opinion? .." Freeper KeatsforFirst Dog "..... Baker: "The United States SCT addressed the two issues brought up by us...was sent back to the FL SCT to address specifically the issues we addressed...when you look back, and you were in this room on 11-9 when I was, wondering 'what are you doing? they will never take this case'...not only have they taken this case, but they sent it back to the FL SCT to address specifically the issues we brought up ............ reporter: are you saying Judge Sauls should not address contest because of this? ............. Baker: we are saying that the contest was not timely filed...Constitution very clear about paramount duty of legislature in picking electors for Presidential election...now wait and see what the FL SCT does in their new opinion and see if they meet test of fundamental fairness and the U.S. Constitution ........" Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..... I think Broward and the whole certification totals are in legal limbo now. It all depends on what SCOFLA does with the case. .......... If SCOFLA resubmits an opinion to USSC with the extended deadline and USSC upholds, then Broward would still be in. ...... If USSC eventually overturns, or SCOFLA reverses itself on remand, then Broward would be back out, and Gore would have to contest to get those votes back in. ....... So it all depends on what SCOFLA comes up with, and how USSC views it. And just 8 more shopping days till 12/12. ........" ABC News 12/4/00 Freeper Jomers "..... Just watched ABC World News Tonight where anchor Peter Jennings was as mournful as I read Judy Woodruff was. He's typically fairly animated and waited to the end to see whether he perked up, giving him the benefit of the doubt...why I even did that I d/n know. But he was just dripping with disdain about covering President Bush for the next four years. ......" Freeper homeschool mama "..... Tim Russert (political analyst on some network rag show) had the most tragic/angry look on his face after Judge N. Sanders Saul gave the verdict...as a mother i wanted to *slap* that look right off his face! LOL ......" Freeper Southack "..... Perhaps the Bush administration should consider breaking up the ABC/CBS/NBC federal broadcast license monopoly... " Freeper eggman "...... In flipping through the channels I saw their story on Dick Cheney. They couldn't stand to have all bad news for their side so they generated yet another story on Cheney's health. They talked about his medications, weight, and claimed he wasn't exercising enough. ....." Freeper L'enn ".... Judy Woodruff was incredibly mournful. And that idiot Bill Schneider was almost in a fight em mood. I am interested in how Miss Couric seems tomorrow. I had a feeling NBC saw it on the wall. Of course they would not come out and say it. They were still mouthing how good Gore presented his case over the weekend . (Also heard the term "Perry Mason moment" about 10 times today referring to Mr Ahmman's slip. Probably won't hear it again). One thing I noticed since the election, when I have had the Today show on when I get ready for work, every day was a Gore pep-rally from 7:30-8. Except today...they had Bill Gates on...from 7:30-8 nothing on Fla. I thought at that time if they were doing the best they could at a graceful exit. ....."

Freeper Rightone ".......As soon as the segment was over regarding Bush's win in Fla and his "neutral" win with the Federal Supreme Court, Jennings cut to Cheney's health and some doctor that was spouting off about the various meds Cheney is taking and saying that a heart attack is likely in Cheney's future. The segment was a relatively long one, as well. Wonder what they paid Cheney's "supposed" doctor to say all those things?! It was a sick attack in an attempt to take the edge of the Bush win today. ...." Freeper Jomers ".....Hillarious!!!! 20/20 Downtown is on right now and it seems Jack Ford, George Snuffleufugus and Terry Moran aren't mourning, at least they're cocealing it, seeming to be doing a fair job, but I feel uncomfortable even saying that. Jeffrey Toobin and Cokie Roberts look absolutely suicidal. ...." Florida Supreme Court 12/4/00 "...... The Florida 1st District court of Appeals has Certified the Appeal by the Gore team to allow them to request an appeal by the Florida Supreme Court. http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/00-2431_Certification.pdf Also, the Florida Legislature has asked the Florida Supreme Court to Intervene in the Case and to be allowed to present their case before the Florida Supreme Court: http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/MotionOfLegislature.pdf ......" usnewswire 12/4/00 Senator Patrick Leahy: "........ Everyone was looking to the Supreme Court for clarity and finality. Instead of punctuating this election saga with a concluding period, the Court has only given us another semicolon. .......... The Court did not hold that the Florida Supreme Court was right and it did not hold that it was wrong. It did not affirm and it did not reverse that decision. The decision is discussion -- what lawyers call dictum -- instead of binding legal authority. The Court even notes in its decision that it declines to review the federal questions "asserted" to be present. The result is that the election contest proceedings in Florida are continuing, with yet another distraction and another twist in the legal thicket. ......... In effect, the United States Supreme Court sent the case back to the Florida Supreme Court to clarify the grounds on which the Florida court rested its opinion two weeks ago, conceding today that "as a general rule, (it) defers to a state court's interpretation of a state statute." ........." ABCNews.com Politics Wire 12/4/00 "...... Al Gore"s prospects for winning the presidency dimmed Monday when a circuit court judge refused to overturn George W. Bush"s certified victory in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts. ........... Running out of options, the vice president"s team pleaded with Democrats to stick with him a few more days. "....... On Day 27 of the longest, closest presidential race in a century, running mate Joseph Lieberman and campaign manager William Daley called Democrats on Capitol Hill to explain the whirlwind legal developments and urge them to remain steadfast. One senior Democrat who participated in the talks said there was no sense of quitting from the Gore team. However, the vice president"s advisers said privately that their boss was running out of time and options. They said he would not concede the race before the Florida Supreme Court rules on Sauls" decision and a Democratic lawsuit is settled in Seminole County over irregular handling of GOP absentee ballots. If he loses both cases, Gore is almost certain to give up, said advisers _ most of whom insisted he had a decent chance of prevailing before the state high court with its seven Democratic appointees. .......... One Gore confidant, who said the cause is all but lost, argued that even if the vice president wanted to leave the race before his legal options are exhausted, internal pressures from the party"s base would not allow it. The advisers spoke on condition of anonymity. ......." The Associated Press 12/4/00 Tom Raum "......George W. Bush welcomed a pair of court rulings on Monday, including what he characterized as ``a very positive statement on our behalf'' from the U.S. Supreme Court. ``I do believe I have won this election,'' he declared as he forged ahead with planning for a government. ....... Still, Bush did not demand that a concession from Vice President Al Gore. That, he said, is ``a very difficult decision'' that only Gore can make. ........ He suggested Bush might be ready soon to begin naming appointments but probably will hold off until next week. ....... Bush returned to the state capital Monday after staying most of the past week on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, about 80 miles north of Austin. He dispatched running mate Dick Cheney to begin Tuesday making rounds on Capitol Hill in Washington to coordinate planning for a Bush presidency with congressional GOP leaders. ......Bush said Cheney will make a case for a tax-cut package as well as legislation on education and the military. ``We've got a very strong agenda,'' Bush told reporters during a picture-taking session at the governor's mansion. ``It's an agenda that I strongly believe has put me in the position I'm in.'' ....... Bush's all-but-certain choice for national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, will meet with Bush in Austin on Tuesday. Bush also will begin Tuesday receiving daily national security briefings, aides said. ........." Associated Press 12/4/00 Anne Gearan "......All eyes are back on the Florida Supreme Court, intersection for legal cases from above and below, and perhaps the ultimate arbiter of the disputed presidential election. .......... In a legal squeeze play Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed off part of the presidential election

dispute to the seven-member Florida court, while a state trial judge sent a far more momentous case to their chamber. ....... The net effect is to make Florida's highest court, which previously ruled in favor of Democrat Al Gore, the Democrats' last hope for overtaking George W. Bush's 537-vote lead, legal scholars said. ..... ``It's coming at them from both directions,'' said Thomas Merrill, law professor at Northwestern University. ``They can end it all now, or they can keep the turmoil going. It's not between Bush and Gore, it's between Bush and turmoil.'' ........ The nine U.S. Supreme Court justices surprised many scholars by agreeing to take the case, and then again by hanging onto it after fast-moving events in Florida had all but guaranteed that its ruling would not be the last word. ...... The court did not want to risk losing institutional luster by issuing a ruling that could be perceived as partisan, when it would have no practical effect on the election outcome, said David Kairys, a professor of constitutional law at Temple University. ``I think they knew they were hopelessly divided and this was all they could agree on,'' Kairys said. ``They probably couldn't even agree on what time to break for dinner.'' .......... In the end, the high court sent the case back to the Florida justices in a way that gave neither side a clear victory, said George Washington University constitutional scholar Mary Cheh. ``I'm very impressed with their creativity,'' Cheh said. ``It's a masterpiece of ambiguity.'' .......... " Reuters via ABCNews.com Politics Wire 12/4/00 ".....A former football star could score a top Pentagon post should Republican George W. Bush become the next U.S. president, according to Aviation Week magazine. The Bush team has talked to onetime Dallas Cowboy and Naval Academy graduate Roger Staubach about heading the Navy and has approached former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats about signing on as defense secretary, Aviation Week reported in a newsletter. Staubach, a Hall of Fame quarterback who led the Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories, now runs a Dallas real estate firm bearing his name. ....." Jim Abrams 12/4/00 Associated Press ".....With an apparent 50-50 split, Senate Democrats want to be treated as equal partners when the next Congress convenes. But Republicans say that while they'll make concessions in committee assignments, only one party can be in power and its going to be them. Both sides agree that how they resolve some key issues - choosing committee chairman, allotting committee seats and funds and setting the legislative agenda - will be indicative of how well the Senate adapts to its new parity. ........" Freeper MiamiFreePress "......Leftist Congressman Brad Sherman (d-CA) on O'Reilly tonight, compared alwhore's election contest to George Washington at Valley Forge. What a reach! What an idiot! They are in a melt down before our eyes folks. Yeeeehaaaa! ....." Freeper sedozob ".....Tom Brokaw,"So much for the 'Perry Mason moment' when the Bush witness testified to the inaccuracy of the machines". (Paraphrase) Brokaw is such a jerk. ...." Freeper ralph ".....Former judge extraordinaire Alcee Hastings on crossfire....."Blacks and Jews, disenfranchised". Too bad he isn't still a judge, and the cases were in his court. ....." Freeper zook "....CUOMO gets the CROWN tonight! Cuomo tells Chris Mathews "we still got Seminole!" ...." Freeper George W Bush ".....Brit Hume on his show today embarassed all the liberals. He brought up (In)Justice Breyer's little remark yesterday about how if the Court ruled against Gore that "we" would lose......... Hume was being hilariously tacky and asking the liberals just exactly who this "we" was that Breyer was referring to. "Who is this we anyway?" The libs were embarassed speechless and Fred Barnes actually had to dive in and explain that Breyer was a Clinton appointee......... Brit was having some real nasty fun there for a bit at the libs' expense. He was out for blood. Every now and then, Hume gets something like that which really exposes the liberals for what they are and he grinds everyone's nose in it. He's priceless. I wish everyone could see him every day. It would be good for the country......." AP 12/4/00 ".......In between a U.S. Supreme Court morning ruling that denied Gore a boost and a Florida circuit court judge's devastating blow at dinnertime, Gore dispatched running mate Joseph Lieberman to hold Democratic support behind them. ....... Lieberman and campaign chairman William Daley placed a conference call to Democratic lawmakers and gave no whiff of surrender. ``We're down but not out,'' said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. ``We continue to support Al Gore.'' ....... Gore kept a low profile Monday, convening a 55-minute meeting at the White House with an inner circle of advisers doing the hopeful work of putting a presidential transition in place for him.. ....... While advisers privately conceded he was running out of time and options, Gore juggled developments on other fronts: --He decided to ``definitely not'' join the lawsuit in Florida's Seminole county over the irregular handling of GOP absentee ballots, said spokesman Mark Fabiani. --He asked that his election contest, rejected on all counts by Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, be heard immediately by the Florida Supreme Court and instructed aides to make clear that this would be his last stand. ....

--As of early evening, Gore had not decided whether to mount a legal challenge to any move by the GOPcontrolled Florida legislature to appoint its own slate of Electoral College members backing Bush. .... --Lieutenants in Florida mobilized thousands of supporters who, Gore hoped, would rally outside the state capitol in Tallahassee if Republicans convened a special session to give electors to Bush. ....." Freeper ambrose "..... It would seem that Judge Sauls' ruling today will make the 11th Circuit case a slam dunk win for Bush, since as part of his ruling, Judge Sauls made a specific factual finding that the counting standard in Palm Beach had been changed, AFTER the election (in violation of Roe v Alabama)... " Hannity and Colmes 12/4/00 Freeper magellan "..... What has gotten into the liberal talking heads. I heard Russert and Mathews lost it this afternoon, now Juan Williams (FNS) is yelling that Bush "has stolen this election" on Hannity and Colmes. This is nuts. I watched Juan on Fox News Sunday over the last month, and I remember when he was saying Gore should concede. Now, the newly energized Williams sounds like a paid hack. Maybe that is it. Is the DNC paying these people? ....." MSNBC 12/4/00 Paul Begala "......It was the legal equivalent of a slaughterhouse. Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Saul rejected Al Gore's contest of the presidential election on every point. He ruled that it was okay for Miami-Dade County to start and then stop its recount, that it was okay for Secretary of State Katherine Harris to reject the Gore gains from Miami-Dade's partial recount before the Banana Republicans intimidated the vote-counters, that it was okay for Palm Beach County to use a very strict standard as to whether to count hanging or dimpled chads; he even ruled that it was okay for Nassau County to ignore the results of the machine recount. ......" UPI 12/4/00 ".......The Florida Supreme Court has started been accepting briefs in the presidential election case returned earlier Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court, spokesman Craig Waters said........ Waters said the court will be accepting briefs no longer than 20 pages until 5 p.m. Tuesday. The court has not decided to schedule oral arguments in the case......... The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the earlier state court ruling and told the Florida Supreme Court to give it another try. ...." CBSNEWS 12/4/00 Susan Walsh "........In a ruling rendered Monday afternoon after a marathon weekend bench trial, Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls rejected every argument made by the Gore campaign on the merits of the recount issue. Sauls said the Gore side failed to meet its burden of proof. As plaintiffs, he said, the Gore team needed to show that the result of the statewide election would have been different if the alleged counting irregularities had not occurred. "It is not enough to show a reasonable possibility that election results could have been altered," had the count Sauls said. ..... Sauls also found that county canvassing boards and state elections officials exercised their authority and discretion appropriately with respect to manual recounts. .......... The Supreme Court of Florida already has a full plate, having received an assignment from the United States Supreme Court Monday to rewrite its opinion that compelled state officials to include the results of some manual recounts in the certified statewide vote total. ....... Specifically, the justices said they were unclear about the "extent to which the Florida Supreme Court saw the Florida Constitution as circumscribing the [Florida] legislature's authority under the U.S. Constitution" to determine how the state's electors will be selected. ....... They also asked for clarification on the "consideration" accorded by the Florida panel to the federal law that says controversies involving electors must be resolved according to "laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of electors." ......" CBSNEWS 12/4/00 Susan Walsh "........CBS News Legal Consultant Jonathan Turley, a Georgetown University expert on constitutional law, said the Florida court's "sloppy" references to federal law "only complicated the issue." Turley said on the second go-round, the U.S. Supreme Court is looking for an opinion that "does not rely on federal authority, but entirely on an interpretation of state statutory authority." .......... "The Supreme Court has given the Supreme Court of Florida an easy road map for redrafting their order to avoid any likely U.S. Supreme Court review," Turley said. ........ " CBSNEWS 12/4/00 Susan Walsh "........Gore's running mate Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., held conference calls Monday with House and Senate Democrats, who returned to Washington for a post-election lame-duck session. Lieberman and Gore campaign chairman William Daley are expected to go to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to rally support. Bush's second-in command, Dick Cheney, will be there too, visiting with Republican members. ......... So far, there has been no meaningful erosion of party support for Gore. But Congressional Democrats tell CBS News that could change if Gore loses his appeal in the Florida Supreme Court. ........... "This now becomes a very personal decision for Gore as opposed to a referendum among Democratic leaders," said Garen. "There is still a grateful exit strategy for Gore. Conceding before the last strike is called is different from waiting until after the game is over." ....." newsmax.com 12/4/00 Wes Vernon ".....It isn't just "Wall Street" that is complaining about what Al Gore is

doing to the economy. Middle America is running out of patience, too. The uncertainty that hangs over the markets, in large part because of the uncertainty of the presidential election, has cost $4,768 "for every man, woman and child in the United States," according to UPI Business and Economics Editor Martin Hutchinson. ......" UPI Via AheadNews 12/4/00 Dara Kam ".....Unable to win agreement with his Senate counterpart, Florida's Republican speaker indicated Monday the courts might make it unnecessary for lawmakers to intervene in the disputed presidential race. At the same time, Speaker Tom Feeney believes ''there's still enough uncertainty'' to warrant a special legislative session that might choose presidential electors for George W. Bush, said Kim Stone, who is Feeney's spokeswoman. ''However, if the courts ... make the situation evaporate we won't step in,'' she said in an interview. ....." Independent/U.K. 12/5/00 Andrew Gumbel "...... With Al Gore's lawyers rushing to appeal the rejection of their election contest in a Florida district court, and the US Supreme Court reluctant to make a firm ruling, the spotlight in the four-week-old US election battle inevitably returns to the most controversial body to have entered the fray so far - the Florida Supreme Court. ....... The seven guardians of the Florida constitution, the only body to have thrown a significant lifeline to Vice-President Al Gore since election day on 7 November, will have to decide whether to save him once again after the resounding rejection of his lawyers' arguments before Judge Sanders Sauls in the Tallahassee district court. ....... Should it be inclined to show him further sympathy, however, it will also come under exceptional pressure of its own as Republican partisans prepare to sharpen their knives and the Florida legislature threatens to make its own intervention. ........ The Republican majority in the Florida legislature has made clear it is prepared to step in and appoint its own slate of presidential electors favouring Mr Bush. Although such a drastic step - in effect ignoring the voters - would be unprecedented in US history, legislative leaders say they are more than prepared for such a showdown. ...." NewsMax.com 12/4/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Constitutional lawyer and behind-the-scenes impeachment player Ann Coulter took aim at the Florida Supreme Court, which had its initial ruling allowing hand recounts vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court in today's decision. ....... "The Supreme Court decision was really a minor classic," Coulter told Hannity. "It read the way adults talk to small children when they're trying to discipline them.... They claim they don't understand the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court in order to allow them to save face and presumably to get Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg's vote on this." "It was a total blow-out (for Gore)," said Coulter about the nine-zip decision against Gore. "There's really no way to put a happy spin on this. I think this will be a big disincentive to the Florida Supreme Court ignoring the law next time." ......." The New York Times 12/5/00 William Glaberson ".....Time is running out and, as recent days have shown, the courts follow their own timetable, one that resists prodding even when the presidency hangs in the balance. ...... In addition, appeals courts give broad authority to trial courts to decide the facts of the cases before them. As a result, the Gore lawyers face a major challenge in trying to overturn the ruling yesterday by Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court that there was "no credible statistical evidence" or any other proof of a flaw in the election results. ......... Last night, some legal experts described the ruling by Judge Sauls as an almost insurmountable barrier for the Vice President. ......... The Supreme Court justices made their ruling less pivotal by framing it as a narrow demand that the Florida Supreme Court reconsider its own initial ruling in a battle over events leading up to the certification. ......"From the perspective of Gore, this is all unraveling," said Pamela S. Karlan, an election law expert at Stanford Law School. "The U.S. Supreme Court ruling was sort of a hole in the ship," Professor Karlan said after Judge Sauls's ruling. "This could sink it." ........ Appeals courts typically say they are willing to substitute their legal decisions for the legal decisions of trial judges because they are at least as competent as trial judges in discerning what the law is. But a fundamental legal principle is that fact-finders who see and hear testimony can detect the mendacity of liars and the veracity of honest witnesses. Appeals courts at a distance are reluctant to overturn the factual findings of trial judges. ....... Appeals courts typically say they require proof that a judge's factual determinations were "clearly erroneous" to overturn them. ...... "That's a killer factual finding," said Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "It's extremely unlikely that the Florida Supreme Court can do anything about it even if it wants to." If the Florida Supreme Court did want to reject Judge Sauls's findings, lawyers yesterday said the calendar suggested that might be impossible. ........." 11th Circut Court Website 12/4/00 Freeper Smogger "..... The U.S. 11th Circut Court of appeals is preparing tomorrow the hear oral arguments in the case of Ned L. Siegel, Georgette Sosa Douglas, et al. (GWB) vs. Teresa Lepore, Charles E. Burton, et al. ...... This is the 14th amendment claim that the Supreme Court through out presumably because it was still pending in circut court. ....." National Review 12/4/00 David Limbaugh Mark Levin "......A review of the Florida supreme court's decision makes it quite clear that the court relied completely on its state constitution, rather than statutory

interpretation, to justify suspension of the mandatory seven-day deadline for counties to file their returns with the secretary of state. ....... For example, at page 8 of its opinion, under the section, "Guiding Principles," the Florida high court said, "the will of the people, not a hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions, should be our guiding principle." ..... At page 14 of its opinion, the Florida court stated, "The abiding principle governing all election law in Florida is set forth in article I, section 1, of the Florida Constitution: SECTION 1. Political power. All political power is inherent in the people..." ....... At page 29 of its opinion, the Florida supreme court said that under the Florida statutory scheme the county canvassing boards are required to submit their returns within the seven-day deadline, and there is no way around it other than by resorting to the state constitution. In the court's own words, "To determine the circumstances under which the Secretary [of State] may lawfully ignore returns filed pursuant to the provisions of 102.166 for a manual recount, it is necessary to examine the interplay between our statutory and constitutional law at both the state and federal levels." The Florida court continued to dig itself into a deeper hole when at page 30 of its opinion it affirmed "the right of suffrage as the preeminent right contained in the Declaration of Rights" and in the state constitution (again, referring to SECTION 1. Political Power, as noted earlier). But the court hit its constitutional nadir when it went on to say that the state legislature's right to regulate the electoral process could not impose "unreasonable or unnecessary restraints on the right of suffrage." The U. S. Supreme Court emphatically disagreed, saying that the Florida supreme court appeared to ignore the federal Constitution's limitations on its power to "circumscribe the legislative power [to appoint electors]." At page 36 of its opinion, the Florida supreme court fully exposed itself when it turned the Florida legislature's statutory scheme upside down. Though there was an unambiguous deadline on the secretary of state for receiving returns, the court transformed the legislative rule (the deadline) into an exception, saying there were only two circumstances under which the secretary could enforce the deadline.......... The bottom line is that the U.S. Supreme Court has tied the Florida supreme court in a knot using the Florida supreme court's reasoning as the rope.. ....... The practical effect of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision is to strip Gore from asserting any argument grounded in the Florida constitution - such as voter intent, the will of the people, the rights of man, the French Revolution, or whatever. He's forced to argue the law, as passed by the state legislature, which makes his various claims in courts throughout Florida quite weak. And when the law, as passed by the legislature, is applied to Gore's claims, he cannot overcome his legal burden of proof. ......... This became clear when Florida Circuit Court Judge Sander Sauls denied Gore his request for recounts because he failed to demonstrate, as a matter of state law, evidence of illegality, gross negligence, or fraud in balloting and counting processes; and irregularities or inaccuracies in voting processes. Moreover, Gore could not show that, in any event, the results of the statewide election would be different if the court had ordered a recount. ...." The Associated Press 12/4/00 Jonathan Salant ".... With the fight over recounting Florida's presidential ballots entering its fourth week, Vice President Al Gore's campaign has begun a new fund-raising effort. The Gore campaign took in $3 million within a few days after Election Day, then stopped its fund raising. But the campaign's Web site now features a plea for more money, its first fund raising on the Internet for the recount battle. ......... George W. Bush's campaign already has raised more than $6 million for its recount expenses, and its Web site asks supporters to keep giving. ....... " The Associated Press 12/4/00 "....A federal judge will hear arguments Tuesday in a Republican effort to pad George W. Bush's slim lead in the presidential election with more overseas ballots, mostly from military voters. Republicans have sued canvassing boards in seven counties that rejected undated overseas ballots. Bush led Democrat Al Gore by about a 2-1 margin among overseas voters. GOP lawyer John Stargel of Lakeland said the undated ballots should be counted because ballot envelopes that must be signed by voters lacked a specific place for a date...." Fox News via AP 12/4/00 Judge Sauls "....Text of the decision by Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court on Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore's contest of Florida's certified election results: SAULS: All right. At this time we call the case of Albert Gore, et al, v. Katherine Harris, et al, case number 2000-2808. And at this time, an action having been tried, the court at this time will enter its rulings from the bench, due to the exigencies surrounding this case. These rulings and findings shall be incorporated in the

final judgment, to be immediately entered herein. At this time, the court finds and concludes as follows. The complaint filed herein states in its first paragraph that this is an action to contest the state certification in the presidential election of 2000, asserting that the state Elections Canvassing Commission's certification on November 26, 2000, is erroneous as the vote totals wrongly include illegal votes and do not include legal votes that were improperly rejected. Plaintiffs further contest the state of Florida's certification of the electors for George W. Bush and Richard Cheney as being elected. Plaintiffs further challenge and contest the election certifications of the canvassing boards of Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau Counties. As to the Dade canvassing board, plaintiffs seek to compel the Dade board to include in its certification, and the state Elections Canvassing Commission to include in the state certification, a six-vote change in favor of plaintiffs, resulting from the board's initial test, partial manual recount of 1 percent of the countywide vote total, conducted with respect to three precincts designated by the plaintiffs' designees; also additional votes manually hand counted in a further partial recount, total resulting from the board's discretionary decision to stop completion of a full manual recount of all of the votes in all of the precincts of Dade because of insufficiency of time to complete the same - these represent the result of the count of an additional 136 precincts of the 635 precincts in Dade County; and also, the results of any court-ordered manual review and recount of some 9,000 to 10,000 voter cards or ballots, which at the plaintiffs request have been separated or were separated as alleged undervotes by the Dade canvassing board or the Dade supervisor of elections as a result of all of the countywide ballots being processed through the counting machines a third time and being nonreadable by the machine. As to the Palm Beach canvassing board, plaintiffs seek to compel the Palm Beach board to include in its certification, and the state Elections Canvassing Commission to include in the state certification, additional votes representing the results of an attempted partial certification of results completed before the November 26, 2000, deadline mandated by the Florida Supreme Court, as well as the additional remainder of the results of the manual recount, which was completed after the deadline and the attempted certification thereof on December 1; and in addition, the results of any court ordered manual review and recount of some 3,300 ballots, which were objected to during the Palm Beach board's manual recount, which plaintiffs alleged should have been counted as valid votes because that board used an improper standard. As to Nassau, the Nassau County Canvassing Board, the plaintiffs seek to compel the Nassau board to amend its certification, and the state elections canvassing commission to amend the state certification, to reflect and include the results of the board's machine recount rather than the results of the board's original machine count, thereby resulting in a favorable net gain to plaintiffs of 51 votes. It is the established law of Florida, as reflected in State v. Smith, that where changes or charges of irregularity of procedure or inaccuracy of returns in balloting and counting processes have been alleged, the court must find as a fact that a legal basis for ordering any recount exists before ordering such recount. Further, it is well-established, as reflected in the opinion of Judge Jonas and Smith v. Tynes, that in order to contest election results under Section 102.168 of the Florida statutes, the plaintiff must that but for the irregularity or inaccuracy claimed, the result of the election would have been different, and he or she would have been the winner. It is not enough to show a reasonable possibility that election results could have been altered by such irregularities or inaccuracies. Rather, a reasonable probability that the results of the election would have been changed must be shown. In this case, there is no credible statistical evidence and no other competent substantial evidence to establish by a preponderance a reasonable probability that the results of the statewide election in the state of Florida would be different from the result which has been certified by the state elections canvassing commission. The court further finds and concludes the evidence does not establish any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes. Secondly, there's no authority under Florida law for certification of an incomplete, manual recount of a portion of or less than all ballots from any county by the state elections canvassing commission, nor authority to include any returns submitted past the deadline established by the Florida Supreme Court in this election. Thirdly, although the record shows voter error and/or less than total accuracy in regard to the punch-card voting devices utilized in Dade and Palm Beach counties, which these counties have been aware of for many years, these balloting and counting problems cannot support or effect any recounting necessity with respect to Dade County, absent the establishment of a reasonable probability that the statewide election result would

be different, which has not been established in this case. SAULS: The court further finds the Dade canvassing board did not abuse its discretion in any of its decisions in its review and recounting processes. Fourthly, with respect to the approximate 3,300 Palm Beach County ballots of which plaintiffs seek review, the Palm Beach Board properly exercised its discretion in its counting process and has judged those ballots which plaintiffs wish this court to again judge de novo. All cases upon which plaintiffs rely were rendered upon mandamus prior to the modern statutory election system and remedial scheme enacted by the legislature of the state of Florida in section 102 of the Florida statute, or chapter 102 of the Florida statutes. The local boards have been given broad discretion, which no court may overrule, absent a clear abuse of discretion. The Palm Beach County board did not abuse its discretion in its review and recounting process. Further, it acted in full compliance with the order of the circuit court in and for Palm Beach County. Having done so, plaintiffs are stopped from further challenge of its process and standards. It should be noted, however, that such process and standards were changed from the prior 1990 standards, perhaps contrary to Title 3, Section 5 of the United States Code. Furthermore, with respect to the standards utilized by the board in its review and counting processes, the court finds that the standard utilized was in full compliance with the law and review under another standard would not be authorized, thus creating a two-tier situation within one county, as well as with respect to other counties. The court notes that the attorney general of the state of Florida enunciated his opinion of the law with respect to this in a letter dated November 14, 2000, to the Honorable Charles E. Burton, chair of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, which in part is as follows: "A two-tier system would have the effect of treating voters differently depending upon what county they voted in. A voter in a county where a manual count was conducted would benefit from having a better chance of having his or her vote actually counted than a voter in a county where a hand count was halted." As the state's chief legal officer, I feel a duty to warn that if the final certified total for balloting in the state of Florida includes figures generated from this two-tier system of differing behavior by official canvassing boards, the state will incur a legal jeopardy under both the United States and state constitutions. This legal jeopardy could potentially lead Florida to having all of its votes, in effect, disqualified, and this state being barred from the Electoral College's selection of a president. The court finds further that the Nassau County Canvassing Board did not abuse its discretion in its certification of Nassau County's voting results. Such actions were not void or illegal, and it was done within the proper exercise of its discretion upon adequate and reasonable public notice. Further, this court would further conclude and find that the properly stated cause of action under Section 102.168 of the Florida statutes to contest a statewide federal election, the plaintiff would necessarily have to place an issue and seek as a remedy with the attendant burden of proof a review and recount of all ballots in all the counties in this state with respect to the particular alleged irregularity or inaccuracy in the balloting or counting processes alleged to have occurred. As recently stated by Judge Klein, with the concurrence of Chief Judge Warner in the 4th District court of appeal case of Fladell v. Palm Beach Canvassing Board, Section 102.168 provides in subsection 1 that the certification of election may be contested for presidential elections. Section 103.011 provides that, quote, "The Department of State shall certify, as elected, the presidential electors of the candidates for president and vice president who receive the highest number of votes." There is in this type of election one statewide election and one certification. Palm Beach County did not elect any person as a presidential elector, but rather the election was a winner-take-all proposition dependent on the statewide vote. Finally, for the purpose of expedition due to the exigencies surrounding these proceedings, this court will deny those portions of the pending motions to dismiss of the various parties herein not affected by or ruled upon in these findings and conclusions with those portions consisting solely of matters of law being reviewable upon such denial.

In conclusion, the court finds that the plaintiffs have failed to carry the requisite burden of proof and judgment shall be and hereby is entered that plaintiffs shall take nothing by this action and the defendants may go hence without delay. All ballots in the custody of the clerk of this court shall remain pending review. The judgment will be entered and filed with the clerk immediately following this hearing. All right. That'll conclude. The court will stand in recess. ....." Judicial Watch 12/4/00 "...... Judicial Watch, the non-partisan government watchdog, today praised Judge N. Sanders Sauls for his judicious conduct during the Gore election contest trial. Judicial Watch also noted that the court's ruling was soundly based on the facts presented to him over the past two days of testimony. Judicial Watch representatives were present in person during the proceeding, having been granted official observer status by Judge Sauls last week. Judicial Watch also made submissions in the case to try to ensure a fair and honest adjudication........... "Judge Sauls' ruling will, in large measure, be difficult for Gore to overturn. Much of his ruling hinged on the evidence Judge Sauls heard in person. Any higher court is thus likely to give Judge Sauls' analysis of the evidence great deference. Importantly, the witnesses presented by the Gore legal team did not have sufficient knowledge of many facts relevant to their case," stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman. (Mr. Klayman was present in Judge Sauls court room during the trial.) .......... "I think both sides can agree, Judge Sauls handled this historic dispute with a demeanor that brings credit to the judiciary," continued Mr. Klayman........" Freeper kazander ".......Perhaps its wishful thinking, but here's a possible scenario: FLSCT has read between the lines of the SCOTUS decision. Just like trial courts hate to be reversed, this court hates to be reversed. SCOTUS allowed FLSCT to retain face and do the right thing without making a reversal with instructions. To me, IMHO, it doesn't make sense that the FLSCT has to be briefed on what its decision means. It either knows or it doesn't. So, its asking for briefs for one of two reasons: 1)Gore--> you tell us a way to rule in your favor that will withstand SCOTUS scrutiny b/c we're too dumb and partisan to do it ourselves *grin*. OR Gore --> We're giving you a window to concede. You know and we know that you've now lost this thing. We're not going to "hoist our own petards" and rule again in your favor to get slapped down again by SCOTUS. You know that its just plain silly for us to ask for supplemental briefs on the issue of "What does our stinking opinion really mean????". So, take our quiet little message... AND ... Take Judge Sauls' shot across the bow and get the heck out of dodge. I don't know about you, but I like Option No. 2 a lot more. :) Freeper dpweiner ".......Yes. The FSC can read between the lines, and (as liberal as they are) they're not psychotic like Al Gore. They've already rejected the Gore attempt to force Miami-Dade to count, and they've already ruled that the butterfly ballot is legal. They went as far out on the limb as they possibly could in their originally decision, serving up the election to Gore on a silver platter. Gore failed to deliver enough fake votes; he didn't keep his half of the bargain. Now it's over. The Elector certification for Bush is on file with the National Archivist, and the Florida Legislature will step in if it has to. Why should they drown themselves with the rest of the rats in the sinking Gore ship? ........... It's CYA face-saving time. Which means it's time for Al to pack it in. That will be only a tiny repayment on the huge debt he owes the Florida Supreme Court, which can never be fully covered now that Al will never be President. ....." Freeper Uncle Fud "...... I heard that too, but in the followup he said only that the FLSC had agreed to revisit their ruling in light of the USSC decision. I think if they'd decided to hear Gore's appeal that Jennigs would make that VERY clear. ....." Freeper Defiant "......Bush briefs tomorrow to the SCOFLA should say that no action in response to the SCOTUS is necessary, unless and until the SCOFLA overturns the decision of Judge Sauls. If it does not, then the issue of certification timing and hand counts is moot. This will give the SCOFLA an out, and they will take it gladly, denying to accept the Sauls appeal, or if they take the appeal, ensuring they will affirm it. ....." United States Supreme Court 12/4/00 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

GEORGE W. BUSH, PETITIONER v. PALM BEACH COUNTY CANVASSING BOARD et al. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT [December 4, 2000] Per Curiam. The Supreme Court of the State of Florida interpreted its elections statutes in proceedings brought to require manual recounts of ballots, and the certification of the recount results, for votes cast in the quadrennial Presidential election held on November 7, 2000. Governor George W. Bush, Republican candidate for the Presidency, filed a petition for certiorari to review the Florida Supreme Court decision. We granted certiorari on two of the questions presented by petitioner: whether the decision of the Florida Supreme Court, by effectively changing the State's elector appointment procedures after election day, violated the Due Process Clause or 3 U.S.C. 5 and whether the decision of that court changed the manner in which the State's electors are to be selected, in violation of the legislature's power to designate the manner for selection under Art. II, 1, cl. 2 of the United States Constitution. 531 U.S. ____ (2000). On November 8, 2000, the day following the Presidential election, the Florida Division of Elections reported that Governor Bush had received 2,909,135 votes, and respondent Democrat Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., had received 2,907,351, a margin of 1,784 in Governor Bush's favor. Under Fla. Stat. 102.141(4) (2000), because the margin of victory was equal to or less than one-half of one percent of the votes cast, an automatic machine recount occurred. The recount resulted in a much smaller margin of victory for Governor Bush. Vice President Gore then exercised his statutory right to submit written requests for manual recounts to the canvassing board of any county. See 102.166. He requested recounts in four counties: Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. The parties urged conflicting interpretations of the Florida Election Code respecting the authority of the canvassing boards, the Secretary of State (hereinafter Secretary), and the Elections Canvassing Commission. On November 14, in an action brought by Volusia County, and joined by the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, Vice President Gore, and the Florida Democratic Party, the Florida Circuit Court ruled that the statutory 7-day deadline was mandatory, but that the Volusia board could amend its returns at a later date. The court further ruled that the Secretary, after "considering all attendant facts and circumstances," App. to Pet. for Cert. 49a, could exercise her discretion in deciding whether to include the late amended returns in the statewide certification. The Secretary responded by issuing a set of criteria by which she would decide whether to allow a late filing. The Secretary ordered that, by 2 p.m. the following day, November 15, any county desiring to forward late returns submit a written statement of the facts and circumstances justifying a later filing. Four counties submitted statements and, after reviewing the submissions, the Secretary determined that none justified an extension of the filing deadline. On November 16, the Florida Democratic Party and Vice President Gore filed an emergency motion in the state court, arguing that the Secretary had acted arbitrarily and in contempt of the court's earlier ruling. The following day, the court denied the motion, ruling that the Secretary had not acted arbitrarily and had exercised her discretion in a reasonable manner consistent with the court's earlier ruling. The Democratic Party and Vice President Gore appealed to the First District Court of Appeal, which certified the matter to the Florida Supreme Court. That court accepted jurisdiction and sua sponte entered an order enjoining the Secretary and the Elections Canvassing Commission from finally certifying the results of the election and declaring a winner until further order of that court. The Supreme Court, with the expedition requisite for the controversy, issued its decision on November 21. Palm Beach County Canvassing Bd. v. Harris, Nos. SC00-2346, SC00-2348, and SC00-2349 (Nov. 21, 2000), App. to Pet. for Cert. 1a. As the court saw the matter, there were two principal questions: whether a discrepancy between an original machine return and a sample manual recount resulting from the way a ballot has been marked or punched is an "error in vote tabulation" justifying a full manual recount; and how to reconcile what it spoke of as two conflicts in Florida's election laws: (a) between the time frame for conducting a manual recount under Fla. Stat. 102.166 (2000) and the time frame for submitting county returns under 102.111 and 102.112, and (b) between 102.111, which provides that the Secretary "shall ... ignor[e]" late election returns, and 102.112, which provides that she "may ... ignor[e]" such returns. With regard to the first issue, the court held that, under the plain text of the statute, a discrepancy between a sample manual recount and machine returns due to the way in which a ballot was punched or marked did constitute an "error in vote tabulation" sufficient to trigger the statutory provisions for a full manual recount. With regard to the second issue, the court held that the "shall ... ignor[e]" provision of 102.111 conflicts with the "may . . . ignor[e]" provision of 102.112, and that the "may ... ignor[e]" provision controlled. The court

turned to the questions whether and when the Secretary may ignore late manual recounts. The court relied in part upon the right to vote set forth in the Declaration of Rights of the Florida Constitution in concluding that late manual recounts could be rejected only under limited circumstances. The court then stated: "[B]ecause of our reluctance to rewrite the Florida Election Code, we conclude that we must invoke the equitable powers of this Court to fashion a remedy ... ." App. to Pet. for Cert. 37a. The court thus imposed a deadline of November 26, at 5 p.m., for a return of ballot counts. The 7-day deadline of 102.111, assuming it would have applied, was effectively extended by 12 days. The court further directed the Secretary to accept manual counts submitted prior to that deadline. As a general rule, this Court defers to a state court's interpretation of a state statute. But in the case of a law enacted by a state legislature applicable not only to elections to state offices, but also to the selection of Presidential electors, the legislature is not acting solely under the authority given it by the people of the State, but by virtue of a direct grant of authority made under Art. II, 1, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution. That provision reads: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress ... ." Although we did not address the same question petitioner raises here, in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 25 (1892), we said: "[Art. II, 1, cl. 2] does not read that the people or the citizens shall appoint, but that 'each State shall'; and if the words 'in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct,' had been omitted, it would seem that the legislative power of appointment could not have been successfully questioned in the absence of any provision in the state constitution in that regard. Hence the insertion of those words, while operating as a limitation upon the State in respect of any attempt to circumscribe the legislative power, cannot be held to operate as a limitation on that power itself." There are expressions in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Florida that may be read to indicate that it construed the Florida Election Code without regard to the extent to which the Florida Constitution could, consistent with Art. II, 1, cl. 2, "circumscribe the legislative power." The opinion states, for example, that "[t]o the extent that the Legislature may enact laws regulating the electoral process, those laws are valid only if they impose no 'unreasonable or unnecessary' restraints on the right of suffrage" guaranteed by the state constitution. App. to Pet. for Cert. 30a. The opinion also states that "[b]ecause election laws are intended to facilitate the right of suffrage, such laws must be liberally construed in favor of the citizens' right to vote ... ." Ibid. In addition, 3 U.S.C. 5 provides in pertinent part: "If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned." The parties before us agree that whatever else may be the effect of this section, it creates a "safe harbor" for a State insofar as congressional consideration of its electoral votes is concerned. If the state legislature has provided for final determination of contests or controversies by a law made prior to election day, that determination shall be conclusive if made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors. The Florida Supreme Court cited 3 U.S.C. 1-10 in a footnote of its opinion, App. to Pet. for Cert. 32a, n. 55, but did not discuss 5. Since 5 contains a principle of federal law that would assure finality of the State's determination if made pursuant to a state law in effect before the election, a legislative wish to take advantage of the "safe harbor" would counsel against any construction of the Election Code that Congress might deem to be a change in the law. After reviewing the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court, we find "that there is considerable uncertainty as to the precise grounds for the decision." Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551, 555 (1940). This is sufficient reason for us to decline at this time to review the federal questions asserted to be present. See ibid. "It is fundamental that state courts be left free and unfettered by us in interpreting their state constitutions.

But it is equally important that ambiguous or obscure adjudications by state courts do not stand as barriers to a determination by this Court of the validity under the federal constitution of state action. Intelligent exercise of our appellate powers compels us to ask for the elimination of the obscurities and ambiguities from the opinions in such cases." Id., at 557. Specifically, we are unclear as to the extent to which the Florida Supreme Court saw the Florida Constitution as circumscribing the legislature's authority under Art. II, 1, cl. 2. We are also unclear as to the consideration the Florida Supreme Court accorded to 3 U.S.C. 5. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered...." The New York Times 12/5/00 R W Apple Jr. "......Now, time is an even more formidable enemy, and so is the law. As of Tuesday, exactly four weeks after Election Day, only a week will remain until Florida's electors must be definitively chosen under federal statutes......... Mr. Gore's lawyers have still not persuaded anyone to order more recounts in Palm Beach and Miami- Dade Counties, the two big South Florida constituencies where they think the votes to erase Mr. Bush's ultrathin margin may lurk........ Tonight they asked the Florida Supreme Court to order such recounts. But that would involve overturning today's decision by Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court in Tallahassee. That ruling swept aside the arguments of the Gore legal team with unusually brusque language, declaring that they had produced "no credible evidence" to shore up their case. It left the Gore camp not even a legal crumb......." The New York Times 12/5/00 R W Apple Jr. "......Some Democrats warned darkly that sooner or later, someone or other, operating under Florida's Sunshine Law, would gain access to the ballots and find solid evidence that the wrong man was in the White House. Judge Sauls's decision, a prominent Democratic lawyer said, "built a much steeper mountain for our side to climb, because reversing a trial judge's findings of fact is much harder than reversing him on points of law." ....... The high court in Florida, six of whose seven members are Democratic appointees, sided with Mr. Gore once before, extending the time for earlier manual recounts. But it has also sided with Mr. Bush by refusing to order a Miami-Dade County recount and by refusing to order a new election in Palm Beach County because its "butterfly" ballot was confusing......" The New York Times 12/5/00 R W Apple Jr. "...... Even if Mr. Gore should prevail this time, it is hard to see how the high court can read briefs, hear oral arguments (if it chooses to) and issue a ruling in time to recount tens of thousands of votes before Dec. 12. So where else can Mr. Gore turn? He can hardly appeal to the Florida Legislature, in which Republicans have almost a two-thirds majority. He has argued from the beginning that the dispute is a matter for the state, not the federal, courts, so there would be problems in fashioning a new legal attack by way of the federal courts........One tiny opening may be offered by a case involving absentee ballots in Seminole County, near Orlando. ......It is an awkward case for the Gore high command, however, because he is fighting on other fronts to include rather than exclude questionable ballots....... " The New York Times 12/5/00 R W Apple Jr. "......Asked whether it was time for Mr. Gore to concede, Mr. Bush demurred, commenting that "that's a very difficult decision for anyone to make." ...... Nonetheless, some Democratic strategists expect today's developments to begin to produce defections in Democratic ranks - if not among the most prominent officials, like members of the Clinton cabinet and senior senators, at least among junior officials and rank-and-file Democrats. ..... "Gore needed a win to keep us all on board," a Democratic consultant said, "and he didn't get it." ........" The New York Times 12/5/00 R W Apple Jr. "......Today's United States Supreme Court ruling bought some time for the court, which was reluctant to make a substantive decision by a narrow margin, split along ideological lines. In fact, the divisive case that the nine justices sent back to their brethren in Tallahassee may never come back to them for decision. They may conceivably elect not to decide it if it does....... " New York Times 12/5/00 Richard Berke "..Several of Vice President Al Gore's legal and political advisers and leading Democrats expressed little hope tonight that the Florida Supreme Court would overturn a Leon County Circuit Court ruling, leaving Mr. Gore with no more options in his quest for the White House Many of these Democrats said that while they had braced themselves for an adverse ruling from Judge N. Sanders Sauls, the decision was more definitive - and dismissive - than they had imagined" Washington Times 12/5/00 Wesley Pruden "The educated good ol' boy with the improbable uptown name, N. Sanders Sauls, wrote finis in a Florida courtroom to Al Gore's improbable pursuit of a judicial presidency in plain and unadorned English, shorn of all but the necessary legalese that lawyers use to confuse us. The vice president, said Judge Sauls, "failed to carry the requisite burden of proof." George W.'s 537-vote margin is all he needs to win Florida's 25 electoral votes, certified by the State of Florida. That

certification looks ever more likely to stand. Al can hide for a day or two longer, but there's no place left to run.. The plain English employed by Judge Sauls was contagious. David Boies, Al's $800-an-hour mouthpiece who usually uses two dozen $1.98 words when two or three of the nickel-and-dime variety would suffice, said it with unaccustomed economy: "They won. We lost. We're appealing.".. Well, of course. But this time there seems to be scant grounds for appeal. Even this Florida Supreme Court will be limited to a consideration of the law, and whether Judge Sauls interpreted it correctly. But not the evidence. The evidence is wholly within the purview of the trial court. The trial court said Al had none. The law, as set out by Judge Sauls, looks clear enough..Not only that, but the Florida court is aware, at the cost of considerable pain and humiliation, that a higher court is looking closely over the shoulders of the men and women on the Tallahassee bench. If it's any consolation to Al, and it isn't, he's not the only player who got a spanking yesterday. The Florida supremes took an awful public licking at the hands of the United States Supreme Court, which barely disguised its contempt for the Tallahassee handiwork.." Washington Times 12/5/00 Fred Thompson "The following letter was sent by Sen. Fred Thompson, chairman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee to David Barram, head of the General Services Administration.Dear Administrator Barram: As Senate co-sponsor of the Presidential Transition Act of 2000 and chairman of the committee of jurisdiction, I want to express to you my concern about your decision to not go forward with the transition activities contemplated under the Act. I believe that anything less than full transition support runs the risk of damage to our country. First, I want to acknowledge that this is your decision to make under the statute. I am well aware that [White House Chief of Staff John] Podesta has made the position of the White House abundantly clear on numerous occasions. Also, I understand that the Department of Justice will soon render a "formal opinion" on this matter. I am surprised that Mr. Podesta has already announced on CNN that the Department of Justice agrees with his opinion. However, this is not a decision for the White House or the Justice Department in coordination with the White House. The decision is yours.. Clearly, these are unusual circumstances and I know you are doing your best, under your interpretation of the law. However, I believe you should grant Secretary [Richard B.] Cheney's request that you authorize his access to transition facilities, services and briefings for two reasons: first, because of the dictates of the statute itself and second, because of the damage that will be done if an orderly transition is hampered any further" Washington Times 12/5/00 Tod Lindberg ". To paraphrase the U.S. Supreme Court, addressing the Florida Supreme Court: "Would you mind telling us how the heck you reached that conclusion? We can't figure it out from your decision." The surface uncertainty actually masks a great moment of clarity in the post-election wrangling: In the end, there are constitutional and statutory requirements that do govern the process. You can't make the whole thing up as you go. If Democrats are sincere in the belief that more Floridians entered the polls Nov. 7 with the intention of voting for Al Gore, Republicans are no less sincere in the view that the only fair way to settle a dispute over the results is according to the law in place at the time of the election.. ". THE WASHINGTON TIMES 12/4/00 Mona Charen "The Rev. Jesse Jackson is certainly the jack-of-alltrades for the Democratic Party - sometime presidential candidate, sometime comforter of first families, and always-available agent provocateur. Before Florida's first recount had even concluded, the Reverend jetted off to Florida at Al Gore's bidding and instantly set about looking for black folks to say they had been harassed on the way to the voting booth. Alas for Mr. Jackson and Mr. Gore, they couldn't find any. No matter, they are still attempting to transform an election loss into just another chapter in the civil-rights struggle. Mr. Gore let it be known he suspected a racist plot. "The old and cheap outdated machinery is usually found in areas with populations that are of lower income, minorities, seniors on fixed incomes" the vice president suggested. Jackson was more direct, claiming that "African-Americans were fundamentally targeted" by voting irregularities. Within hours of the first recount, Mr. Jackson and Rep. Robert Wexler, Florida Democrat, began talking about "disenfranchisement" of voters in Palm Beach County. Frankly, it's a little surprising that Mr. Jackson gets away with this stuff without any protest from real leaders of the civil-rights movement. Why doesn't Rep. John Lewis, Georgia Democrat, express outrage that Mr. Jackson can possibly compare what happened years ago in Selma, Ala., with what is going on now? Isn't it rather a sacrilege to imply the real oppression suffered by black people in the Jim Crow South is like pushing the wrong circle on a ballot by accident? The word disenfranchisement is now bandied about so often that people claim to be "disenfranchised" when they don't like the choices offered by the two parties." Boston Herald 12/5/00 ".. The real question today is how many more rulings in how many more courts will it take for Vice President Al Gore to acknowledge that this is a fight he can't win? Gore's lawyers can keep spinning and spinning - and at their hourly rates, why not? But the fact remains that the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday handed them a major defeat - unanimously. .." Orlando Sentinel 12/3/00 Rene Stutzman "Harry Jacobs, the Democratic voter whose lawsuit asks that

all 15,000 of Seminole County`s absentee ballots be thrown out, called a senior adviser to Al Gore before filing a complaint that could put the vice president in the White House. Jacobs phoned Fort Lauderdale attorney Mitchell Berger, a Gore campaign insider and one of its biggest fund-raisers in Florida, Jacobs told attorneys Saturday during a sworn statement. . Berger also is one of the attorneys representing Gore in his battle to persuade a Tallahassee judge to order recounts in three Florida counties. Jacobs asked Berger as well as other lawyers connected to the Gore campaign or Democratic Party for advice on pursuing his complaint that Seminole Supervisor of Elections Sandy Goard allowed GOP workers to correct 2,130 absentee ballot requests. .." Boston Herald 12/5/00 Margery Eagan "..Anyway, by 4:45 yesterday afternoon some of us had transferred our Wise Person yearnings to the keen but pokey Leon County Judge N. Sanders Sauls. He came before the cameras, reading glasses toward the tip of his nose, and proceeded in an all-'round-the-garden-path-way to restate the plaintiff's entire pleadings. ``And in addition . . . '' he went on. ``And irregularities and inaccuracies,'' he went on, and on. No rush, no fuss. He finally got to his ruling - a big, broad, strong, definitive No, Al - and this from a Democratic jurist. ..``It was a tough decision. Definitive and without equivocation,'' said Democratic analyst Dan Payne, who watched most of the Leon counting proceedings and hoped for a different decision. ``But Sauls confirmed a national sense that judges make final decisions. He was not playing games.'' ``It was grand slam home run. One of the best things I've ever seen,'' said a clearly thrilled Charles Manning, a Bush partisan. ``He was great. He took his time. He just heightened the suspense . . . And he showed all those Northerners who think these guys are dumb.'' ..Guys, that is, like Sauls, he of the drawl and the aphorisms who preface remarks with, ``If I may . . . '' ``Circuit court judges in Florida,'' he told Gore's over-latted lawyers, ``we don't go 24-hours-a-day.'' . Then, ``We can't have people jumping on the horse and riding off in all directions . . . '' Then, ``They can count till everyone's slaphappy, but if they're not on the same page . . . '' .The U.S. Supreme Court, with its seriousness of purpose, was supposed to be the rescuing grown-up here. Yet just before noon yesterday, they punted. They split the baby in two. " St. Petersburg Times 12/4/00 Sydney Feedberg "State officials said Monday they are ready to start looking for voter fraud, an announcement that came the same day a judge threw out Al Gore's election challenge partly because Democrats failed to prove fraud. The state Division of Elections will refer seven cases of possible fraud to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ``within the next day or two,'' said Kristi Bronson, the division's assistant general counsel. The criminal referrals probably come too late to affect the outcome of one of the most hotly contested presidential races in history. ... Leon Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls ruled Monday that Gore's campaign failed to ``establish any illegality, dishonesty, gross negligence, improper influence, coercion or fraud in the balloting and counting processes.'' Bronson said there has been no delay in processing the complaints, made to the state's voter fraud hotline. .." The Orlando Sentinel 12/5/00 ".. Four years ago, employees in the Volusia County elections office altered 6,000 absentee ballots, re-marking them with a felt-tipped pen because a machine couldn`t read the marks made by voters. The loser in the race for sheriff, Gus Beckstrom Jr., sued. The case went to the Florida Supreme Court. The justices harshly criticized Volusia Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe for what happened, but they didn`t throw out the votes in that race. Incumbent Sheriff Bob Vogel held on to his win. .. Four years later, lawyers and legal experts predict the ruling in the Volusia case signals what is likely to happen in the lawsuit over Seminole County`s 15,000 absentee ballots. Longwood Democrat Harry Jacobs is asking that they all be thrown out. If he prevails, it could tip the election to Vice President Al Gore. Gerald Richman, Jacobs` attorney, said Monday that he had not analyzed the Beckstrom case. But legal experts have been saying for weeks that Jacobs is unlikely to win. .. In the Volusia case, the court ruled that elections officials don`t have to be perfect. All they have to do is substantially comply with the law, said Donald Lively, dean of Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville. .." New York Times 12/5/00 Linda Greenhouse "The United States Supreme Court avoided a definitive ruling in the Florida election case today by stepping back from the brink of disunity and asking the Florida Supreme Court to clarify the basis of its Nov. 21 ruling that permitted recounts to continue past a statutory deadline. The court's unsigned, six-page opinion was unanimous, though the sentiments among the justices on one or more issues in the case almost certainly were not. As a technical matter, the justices vacated the Florida Supreme Court's decision and sent the case back to that court's jurisdiction for clarification of one statutory and one constitutional point. The Florida court today ordered lawyers for both sides to file briefs by 3 p.m. Tuesday. The state court could respond very quickly to the justices' decision by adding a few sentences and reissuing its 40-page opinion. It is possible that the United States Supreme Court would then accept a request from Governor Bush to take up the case a second time. But if the state court follows the road map set out for it in today's ruling, the case might no longer present a federal question for the justices to review." New York Times 12/5/00 Linda Greenhouse "Article II of the United States Constitution provides for

presidential electors to be appointed in each state "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct." Interpretations of this provision, by the Supreme Court or elsewhere, are extremely scanty. Theodore B. Olson, Mr. Bush's lawyer, argued that Article II means that a state court cannot invoke the state constitution to trump an exercise of state legislative authority that derives directly from the United States Constitution. While it appeared during the argument that several justices agreed with him, the court today did not resolve that issue. The opinion simply noted that it was unclear exactly what the state court ruling was based on, without making clear itself what the consequences would be either way.. " Freeper qclose ".. What I can't believe all the newsheads so glibly passed over is that the united states supreme court is basically telling the fl supreme court to lie. The USSC is telling FLSC: "You can tell us one of three things. Only one of them is good. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. So what did you really do FLSC?" .." Washington Times 12/5/00 Frank Murray "The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday used intentionally fuzzy language to hold nine votes but did not hesitate to take the key steps that Vice President Al Gore's lawyers predicted it never would. The unanimous decision -handed out by court aides while justices concentrated on a Texas case involving a seat-belt violation - said the court has jurisdiction and granted George W. Bush's request to nullify the Florida Supreme Court order that gave heavily Democratic counties 12 extra days to perform disputed hand recounts.. To achieve the 9-0 vote that many analysts called crucial to acceptance in such an inflamed political climate, the high court's seven-page opinion said the state court "relied in part" on the Florida Constitution to counter dictates of the U.S. Constitution. It straddled the key issue of just how extensively the Florida court did so because the justices seemed split almost down the middle on that question. The order returned the matter to Florida's Supreme Court "for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion," an unexpected step that sent the seven Florida justices scurrying into conference to reconsider - and perhaps rewrite - their own opinion to better conform with federal supremacy.." Washington Times 12/5/00 Frank Murray " "What the Supreme Court was doing was being gentle to the Florida court. They said politely 'This decision's got to go. It sounds to us like you violated the Constitution. You figure out how to fix it,' " Bush attorney Theodore B. Olson said in an interview from Atlanta, where he was to argue another Bush appeal today before all 12 judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.The language used by the Supreme Court's anonymous writer, which was actually not gentle at all, straddled key issues to entice all the justices to speak with one voice while canceling the state court order, at least for now, with a Dec. 12 deadline fast approaching." Washington Times 12/5/00 Frank Murray "While Gore forces spread word that Mr. Bush was denied the "reversal" he asked from the Supreme Court, Mr. Bush's lawyers got exactly what they proposed, perhaps not expecting that route could reopen the case in Tallahassee....... "This Court should vacate the Florida Supreme Court's judgment, thereby reinstating the Elections Canvassing Commission's statutory authority to act in accordance with the clear and specific deadlines prescribed by Florida election law as of November 7, 2000. . . . Such a result would permit Florida's executive officials to perform their duties under the law as it existed on November 7, 2000," said the main argument brief Mr. Bush's lawyers filed Nov. 28..Gore legal strategist David Boies had predicted the high court would not hear the Bush appeal and, when the justices contradicted him, predicted they would not vacate the Florida judgment. But they did that yesterday." Freeper HeilToTheChiefNOT " As one former Jutice on MSNBC put it it was a thrashing with class and dignity. This dignified thrashing left the FSC with dignity intact to clean this up ASAP. In the judges social circle...they all know the FSC screwed up big time...it was 'cleaned up' and done with class to appease the liberal ugly version of Ruth Buzzi USSC Justice and the other leftist USSC judges. Why is it that liberal leftists are only kind to their own! " JohnHuang2 ". The oblique Message from the Supremes to Florida's Supreme Kangaroo Court: "Your decision is unacceptable as written. It is in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme law of the land. We could have chosen to completely humiliate you by overturning your decision outright, but we're giving you a face-saving way out of the morass you have made. But since you won't be able to justify your judicial activism by invoking state statue (you attempted to re-write them, remember?), nor by appealing to the state Constitution (that's what got you in the mess you're in) we're not holding our breath waiting for your "clarification", however. Good luck." That's how I understand the ruling. " Free2xl " Lieberman made a comment that he was almost certain the FSC would rule against Sauls findings and for gore and that if they did the Bush team would have no where to go with it. At least no where in the courts, that the FSC was the last say on it. Is this true? .." NYRepublican "..The issue here is that they are trying to limit the USSC's involvement by saying that it all comes down to the FLorida Supreme Court. This way if they get the FSC to rule in their favor they can spin it in such a way as to say that they won and how dare George W. Bush continue his legal maneuvering with an

in such a way as to say that they won and how dare George W. Bush continue his legal maneuvering with an appeal to the USSC. Pathetic. .." Wall Street Jounal 12/5/00 Robert Bork ". Two questions were before the court. The first was whether the Florida Supreme Court could change the state's procedures for appointing electors after the election had been held. The second was whether the Florida court had changed the way in which electors are to be appointed. An affirmative answer to either question would mean that federal constitutional and statutory requirements had been violated. The rules for selection have to be in place before the election and the legislature, not the courts, must decide the manner of designating electors. Florida law requires that the secretary of state certify the election results within 10 days. She refused to accept ballot returns beyond the deadline unless adequate cause were shown. The Florida Supreme Court, relying upon the right to vote contained in the Florida Constitution's Declaration of Rights, held that late manual recounts could be rejected only under limited circumstances, and followed that with the extraordinary assertion that "because of our reluctance to rewrite the Florida Election Code, we conclude that we must invoke the equitable powers of this Court to fashion a remedy," thus rewriting Florida election law while denying what it was doing. It extended the seven-day deadline for the return of ballot counts by an additional 12 days. ..Whatever else may be said of that result, it was not the election code established by the Florida legislature......." Wall Street Jounal 12/5/00 Robert Bork ".. Here, whatever the scope of the discretion allowed the secretary of state, the court had no authority to change the law so that the secretary of state "must" accept late ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court could have said as much and overturned the Florida decision without asking for clarification of its grounds. ......... The real question will be what happens if the Florida court forswears reliance upon its own constitution and reaches the same result by means of statutory interpretation. Will the U.S. Supreme Court take the case again, perhaps revealing deep fissures within its own membership, or will it let the rewriting of Florida's laws prevail? ......" Wall Street Jounal 12/5/00 Robert Bork ". Perhaps the most important litigation now pending is the Republican appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. That case will be heard this week by the court sitting en banc, which is to say by all 12 judges. This case, more than any of the others, goes to the heart of the problem of the Gore camp's endless requests for manual recounts. . Simply put, the fear is that manual recounts in heavily Democratic counties will prove to be a means of manufacturing Gore votes. The Bush campaign charges that the examination of ballots to determine the intent of the unknown voters is almost entirely subjective and proceeds according to different standards in different counties, and even by standards that change from day to day in the same county. The examiners have discretion whether to count a dimpled chad or one with a crease in it as a vote and, not surprisingly where the decision is made by a vote of two Democrats and one Republican, the net result is a gain in Gore votes. .........,The Bush position is that these disparities between voters in different parts of the state, and between those whose ballots are examined under shifting standards in the same counties, deny voters the equal protection of the laws and due process. That proposition seems difficult to deny. If it is sustained, manual recounts as presently conducted would be illegal. Mr. Bush was properly certified as the winner of Florida's electoral votes. ......" The Associated Press 12/5/00 Chad Roedemeier "Allowing Florida counties to recount votes by hand is simply stuffing the ballot box and federal courts have an obligation to stop it, according to lawsuits George W. Bush supporters filed in an Atlanta appeals court. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Tuesday in two separate but related appeals from Bush supporters who want the court to throw out any election results that include manual recounts. .. Even after decisions from the U.S. and Florida supreme courts, the cases before the appeals court in Atlanta are still ``alive and well,'' said Emory University law professor Richard D. Freer. The issues before the appeals court are different than those before the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled on extending the deadline for certifying the results. ...``The only place Gore can find votes is in Florida state courts,'' Freer said. ``If Gore can't find votes in the contest litigation down in state court in Florida, then the 11th Circuit case and the Supreme Court case are moot.'' .." CNN.com 12/4/00 Heather Clark AP "..Republicans planned to send volunteers to inspect the state's impounded presidential ballots before a Friday deadline for requesting a recount of returns that gave Al Gore victory in New Mexico. Republican National Committeeman Mickey Barnett said he hoped to have 12 teams of volunteers in place by Monday. GOP officials weren't sure how many counties the volunteers could visit this week. "If (the volunteers) find ballots that were not counted, like the situation in Roosevelt County, we want to know it," Barnett said Sunday. ." The Associated Press 12/5/00 Sandra Sobieraj "Dispatched to Capitol Hill by Al Gore, Joseph Lieberman stood Tuesday with supportive Democratic lawmakers and declared the Florida Supreme Court would be ``the final arbiter'' of the election dispute. . On the morning after twin disappointments from the U.S. Supreme Court and a Florida circuit court judge, Lieberman portrayed the state's high court as not only the Democrats' last chance for jump-starting recounts of the presidential vote, but their best one. .. ``This

is the court that we took our substantive argument to; they responded favorably. Their judgment has been frustrated by the actions of various parties along the way,'' Lieberman said. It was the Florida Supreme Court, its seven justices appointed by Democratic governors, who ordered the results of manual vote recounts Gore is counting on to overtake rival George W. Bush be included in the state's certified election result, which gave Bush a 537-vote lead. ." Newsmax 12/5/00 Carl Limbacher "Democrats who now look to the Seminole absentee ballot case as Vice President Al Gore's last chance and hope presiding Judge Nikki Clark's presumed anti-Bush sentiments will tip the case their way may be in for a disappointment. Yes, Judge Clark is an African-American whose decision could determine an election where 90 percent of African-Americans voted for Gore. .. And it's true Clark is a loyal Democrat who was appointed by Bush-family nemesis Gov. Lawton Chiles -- and that just two weeks ago Gov. Jeb Bush passed Clark over for an appointment to the First District Court of Appeals. And it's also true that Clark's legal resume suggests she's no conservative, having served as a public defender in, of all places, West Palm Beach in the late 1970's. .. But all that notwithstanding, it turns out that Judge Clark -- or at least her family -- owes a debt of gratitude to former President Bush. It was he who appointed her sister director of White House media relations in 1988. According to a much overlooked report buried deep inside Saturday's Newsday, Kristin Taylor Clark was the first African-American to hold that position and even wrote a book about it in 1993, after she was ousted by the Clinton-Gore administration. In "The First to Speak: A Woman of Color Inside the White House," Kristin Clark describes herself as a loyal Republican and praises President Bush as gracious and helpful to her. (On the other hand, she says she wished there had been "more people of color and women" in the Bush White House.) " Freeper Roco ".. +268 DJIA + 35 S&P +172 NASDAQ So a day after Gore is crushed, the markets rally. You figure it out. :^) Source: Chicago Tribune. Com.." NY Times 12/5/00 Bob Shacochis "......How much longer will it last? With Al Gore's defeat yesterday in the Leon County Circuit Court, we may soon be coming to an end of Tallahassee's reign as center of the universe. But for now, our hotels and restaurants are still full and our cellular phone links are still maxed out. My teenage daughter has been interviewed on national TV, and my wife, a constitutional lawyer - well, she's been thinking about suing the governor. In this pretty but not very interesting capital city of an indisputably screwball state, choosing the next president of the United States has become a family affair. ....... I want to personally thank the other 49 1/2 states (we in North Florida disavow any connection with South Florida) for taking the trouble to improve, however temporarily, the texture of my own rather humdrum life. My 13 years in Tallahassee have at times made me imagine I'd been embalmed in a New South Junior League museum, where erstwhile cheerleaders are forever serving pecan pie on verandas draped with Spanish moss. ......" Freeper BluH2o "....Watched GMA this morning ... Charlie, Diane and George Stephanopolis(sp?) in the first half hour were trying desperately to put positive spin on yesterdays bad news for Gore. George S. went on at length about what a fighter Gore was, a man who would go down fighting when it came to principal (barf), a man steady in his conviction who really shows his best qualities when the chips are down. Unbelivable! You can easily imagine what these liberal Gore schills would be saying if the situation were reversed and they were talking about Bush. It wouldn't be pretty... ...." jewishworldreview 12/5/00 David Horowitz "...... ONE INDISPUTABLE RESULT of the unconcluded presidential race is the confirmation that Al Gore is Bill Clinton's authentic heir. In his eight years as president, Clinton divided the nation, sullied the White House and diminished the authority of the Oval Office. And now, in an ill-advised and reckless post-election coup, Clinton's would-be successor has done comparable damage to the electoral process itself. By refusing to concede an election he had lost, and by dispatching -- within hours -- a small army of political operatives to four Florida counties to subvert the results, Gore has thrown the nation into electoral chaos and unleashed an unprecedented campaign to delegitimize the process by which Americans elect their president. ........Starting with a series of inflammatory protests over alleged voter "disenfranchisement," and ending with a series of legal sophistries, after-the-fact rule changes and dimpled ballot pirouettes, an armada of the vice president's operatives invaded heavily controlled Democratic enclaves to make a mockery of the American system. In doing so, they have turned the fate of an entire nation over to the chicaneries of a Chicago-style political ward. ......" CNSNews 12/5/00 Lawrence Morahan ".......A Democratic lawyer who is pushing for the disqualification of 15,000 absentee ballots in Seminole County in Florida says he is confident a Tallahassee court will rule in his favor when the case comes to trial Wednesday."This case is crucial as cheating by obtaining absentee

ballots requests are violations of Florida statutes," said Gerald Richman, who is representing plaintiff Harry Jacobs, a well-known trial lawyer and a registered Democrat."....." Freeper TheConservator ".... There is a presumption that the Judge looked at all the evidence, and the trial court's findings of fact should be upheld if they are supported by substantial evidence. ....... It was up to Boies to USE the ballots in his argument, and specifically point out to the Judge HOW the ballots themselves showed that a recount was necessary. He could have done this, for example, by showing some pattern of markings on the ballots that showed that their was some kind of tampering with them or conisistent error in their processing. However, Boies did NOT do this. Once again, I would think a Court following the rules of law would have little difficulty in affirming Judge Sauls' decision. But, the SCOFLA is, in the words of Ann Coulter, a "Kangaroo Court" that does not necessarily follow the law where it leads. Hopefully, the heat they took from the last decision will cause them to be a little more respectful of the law this time. ......" Freeper Catie "...... My sense is that the Gore attorneys want to put the cart before the horse. Because they didn't make out their prima facie case, i.e., state factual disputes sufficient to establish their right to a decision on the merits, the "evidence" is not relevant. As such, the Judge acted within his sound discretion not to review the evidence going to the merits. This is not a chicken and egg situation, as Boise would have us believe. Under the law, the Gore team had to establish the predicate right to a recount before they obtain the recount. They did not and it should be the end of the story, unless the FSC finds that Judge Sauls' legal standards (e.g., abuse of discretion by the canvassing boards) were incorrect. ...." Palm Beach Post 12/5/00 Jol Engelhardt "...... The next wave of lawsuits to be filed over the 2000 presidential election are for people like Ernest Duval. Duval, a Haiti native who lives in suburban West Palm Beach, said he will never vote again, not after his experience on Nov. 7. He voted by mistake for Pat Buchanan, saw his error and asked for a new ballot. .......He says he was denied. .....That's against the rules. Voters are supposed to get a new ballot if they mess the first one up. ...... But claims like Duval's are among a series of election irregularities cited by a coalition of voters' rights groups headed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. ...." Palm Beach Post 12/5/00 Jol Engelhardt "......Before the next election rolls around, they want improvements in Florida's antiquated election system, lawyers for the groups said. Among the irregularities they will try to prove: Registered voters showed up at polls only to be told they couldn't vote because their names weren't on registration rolls. Steered into long lines, many waited hours while phone calls to elections offices went unanswered. Many gave up and went home. Voters were stopped from voting because their names showed up on the list but in a slightly different form, such as with a misspelled middle name. Voters were denied a ballot because voter rolls showed an absentee ballot had been sent to their home. Poll workers could have let them file an affidavit swearing they had not voted by absentee ballot. But few knew to ask. Voters lined up to vote before polls closed at 7 p.m. but couldn't because the doors closed before they got in. Haitian voters complained that language difficulties kept them from understanding how to vote properly, and election workers wouldn't help them or allow them to bring a translator. Polling places closed without signs pointing people to the new location. Police demanded identification before allowing some voters to enter the polling place. Some polling places required a photo identification; others didn't. ....." The Associated Press 12/5/00 "......DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - State leaders officially certified Iowa's election results on Monday, declaring Democrat Al Gore the winner of the state's seven electoral votes by a margin of 4,144 votes over Republican George W. Bush. The results were approved unanimously by the State Board of Canvass, which includes Gov. Tom Vilsack, Secretary of State Chet Culver, Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge and State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald - all Democrats. ....." Fox News 12/4/00 Le Jeunesse ".....For United States military men and women serving far from home, the

Democrats' apparent efforts to have many of Florida's overseas military ballots rejected or discounted has been a slap in the face. "They ask us to be in harm's way. And if we're out there doing our part, why shouldn't our vote count back here?" said U.S. Army Sgt. Raymond Jenkins. But as outraged as Jenkins and his colleagues may be at having their votes discounted, they have to keep their opinions to themselves. ....." Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 12/5/00 Scott Wyman "......The bill for the grueling ballot-by-ballot recount of the presidential vote is in for Broward and Palm Beach county taxpayers: $500,000. That's overtime and meals for the employees who counted the million-plus ballots by hand, security to guard all those ballots and hanging chads around the clock and the price for the horde of government attorneys who watched the counting and filed legal briefs from Fort Lauderdale to the nation's capital. ..." Newsday 12/5/00 Chad Roedemeier "......U.S. Appeals Court judges asked a Democratic Party attorney Tuesday why it was constitutional to do hand recounts of presidential votes only in Florida's three largest counties, all of which are predominantly Democratic. ...... ''The essence of justice is everybody plays by the same rules and we have to know what those rules are,'' said Judge Stanley S. Birch Jr., who was appointed by George W. Bush's father, former President Bush. .........''This case was brought to bring consistency and equality to voting rights,'' said Theodore Olson, an attorney for Bush. ........ ''Why isn't this case moot? Why isn't this appeal moot?'' Judge Charles Wilson, appointed by President Clinton, asked Olson. Olson pointed out that Gore is still contesting the election in court. ''No one has won this election, as far as I know,'' he told the judges. ''It's still very up in the air.'' ...... ''It's quite clear that the judges, all 12 of them, were very, very well prepared'' and that they ''understood that this case is important,'' Olson said after the first hearing. .........." Freeper sav95667 ".....There is a very good article (editorial) in the Wall Street Journal by Robert Bork that relates to this issue. Especially last two paragraphs: "But whatever the outcome of the litigations in Florida, the deeper problem is that a spirit of inflamed partisanship is revealing fault lines throughout our society. An open and unashamed win-at-all-costs mentality has been let loose upon the land, due initially to Bill Clinton but now practiced, if possible, even more blatantly by his acolyte Al Gore. As the old unspoken restraints fail, we inevitably turn to courts to repair what has been broken. But that tactic will ultimately fail and will damage the judiciary in the process. Learned Hand was right: "[This] much I think I do know--that a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will perish."" There is the address. Sorry, I don't know how to make it a link. Help from anyone would be appreciated. http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=65000732 ....." Freeper Muttley "..... The SOCFLA is deciding if Judge Sauls made an error of law when he denied handcounts. If SCOFLA rules in favor of Bush, there will be no handcounts. If SCOFLA rules in favor of Gore, there will be handcounts. The 11th Circuit is deciding if hand counts are Constitutional. If the 11th Circuit rules in favor of Bush, there is nothing the SCOFLA can do. If the 11th Circuit rules in favor of Gore, the SCOFLA may order handcounts. Gore must win both cases just to get handcounts. If Bush wins EITHER case, game is over..." UPI 12/5/00 ".....In what could be Vice President Al Gore's last best chance for victory, the Florida Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will hear argument Thursday on whether it should overrule a circuit judge's refusal to order recounts of the state's crucial presidential votes. ......... In Tallahassee, the state Supreme Court announced through spokesman Craig Waters that it would meet at 10 a.m. Thursday to hear from both Gore's lawyers and attorneys for Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush. The court asked for briefs by noon Wednesday on whether it has jurisdiction in the case and, if so, what it should decide. ...... On a related issue, the court worked to respond to Monday's ordere from the U.S. Supreme Court, which vacated an earlier order by the justices extending the presidential vote certification deadline to include manual recounts, and asked for clarification. The state justices asked for briefs by 3 p.m. Tuesday and will decide after that how to resolve the issue, Waters said. ........ " Freeper FFIGHTER ".....A freshly chastened FLSC is seeking to assert itself back into the limelight, so shortly after their public reprimand by SCOTUS. Though not amazing by their action to take up Gore's appeal so quickly, it will be a test to see on what basis they took up the case, and what basis in law that they will use to once again prop up the Gore/Liberman ticket, to give them needed CPR and PR to mobilize the radical left and infuse much needed capital into their dwindling coffers. The tone of the oral arguments will answer what their response is to SCOTUS attempt to let them save face, it is in their court, and it is their ball, what they do with it is still out. ....." Freeper GOPRealist "...... There is news on MSNBC about a Mystery regarding thousands of absentee ballots that were already counted in Broward County (clearly, Pro-Gore Broward County is attempting to fish for even more votes for Gore). Supposedly the number of absentee ballot envelopes is far off the count of

for even more votes for Gore). Supposedly the number of absentee ballot envelopes is far off the count of the number of absentee ballots counted in the certified results. ........ Given the MSNBC report, it sounds as though there is a new Broward brouhaha regarding absentee ballots (so, we may have to add Broward County to the Seminole County and Martin County in regards to questions about absentee vote counts). ......" Freeper truthkeeper "...... Lawyers just stipulated to some facts right now. Motion to Intervene as an indispensible party by Speaker Thrasher (Republican elector) being heard right now. His lawyer is up and arguing his motion. States there's a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Judge Nikki is extremely hostile, "Are you suggesting when voters went to polls on November 7th they voted for an ELECTOR, not a CANDIDATE??" Lawyer: "Yes." (Argues the matter.) ...." And "...... Judge Nikki seemed pretty dismissive of the Motion to Intervene. She's now hearing another lawyer, who argues that Thrasher should not be let in as an indispensible party. Claims the statute says "candidate" NOT "elector." Judge Nikki asking Thrasher's attorney if she should let all electors in as indispensible party. He says one of them could be representative. Florida GOP joining in Thrasher's motion; attorney arguing it right now. Nikki is skeptical. Bet she won't allow it...seems incredulous at this argument. ......." AP 12/5/00 ".....Some results from polls released Tuesday on the disputed presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. When results don't total 100 percent, the remainder either didn't know or refused to answer. Do you think that George W. Bush has or has not won the presidency? (NBC) -- Has won the presidency, 63 percent -- Has not won the presidency, 25 percent The NBC News poll of 509 adults was taken Monday night and has an error margin of 4.5 percentage points. ...." Freeper truthkeeper Seminole "..... Judge Nikki says "If electors should be indispensible parties, why aren't they listed as such in 102.168(4)?" GOP attorney arguing the matter...sounds like he's hinting that she's looking at the wrong statute (but don't quote me on that). Wow, he's giving her an education on this matter right now, citing statute and caselaw. (She just keeps saying "Umm-hmmmmm.") ....." Newsmax 12/5/00 Jack Thompson ".......There is presently under way an effort by an influential legal organization to block Gore lead attorney David Boies from appearing this week before the Florida Supreme Court to argue the merits of his client. ..... The identity of the organization that is about to file these documents to boot Boies from the case is known to me, but it cannot be shared at this time. As soon as the court papers are about to be filed, however, they will be published at NewsMax.com. The basis for this effort is Boies' representation, three weeks ago in oral argument before the Florida Supreme Court, of the crucial Pullen v. Milligan "dimpled chad" case. Boies submitted to the high court the affidavit of a lawyer in Pullen, Mr. Lavelle, who swore that this Illinois Supreme Court case resulted in the counting of "dimpled chads." ...... The false affidavit was also provided by Boies to the Broward canvassing board and improperly relied upon to count dimpled chads and harvest an extra 600 votes for Gore. Boies was then given a corrective affidavit by Mr. Lavelle recanting the first false one. Mr. Boies, however, has continued to miscite the Pullen case, even in Judge Sauls' courtroom. Bush attorney Barry Richard, in his closing argument Sunday night, referred to Boies' misconduct in doing so. Boies is bound by the lawyers' Code of Professional Responsibility to inform the Florida Supreme Court that it relied upon a false affidavit to fashion its Nov. 21 order, in which Pullen is extensively cited. Because of Boies' continuing failure to correct the record, the Washington-based National Legal and Policy Center filed formal ethics complaints against Boies in Florida and New York. I have learned of an imminent filing with the Florida Supreme Court of a pleading that will ask the high court to revoke, immediately, David Boies' pro hac vice status before the Florida Supreme Court. ..... Boies, by virtue of his pro hac vice status, serves only at the pleasure of the high court and is, in effect, on probation as to any questions that can be raised about the ethical level of his lawyering. ..... Mr. Boies, aided by a false affidavit, led the Florida high court down a primrose path at the end of which the U.S. Supremes, yesterday, handed them their heads. ....." Boston Herald 12/3/00 Howie Carr "...... How come when the Republican Legislature says it will follow the Constitution as written it's a ``partisan political ploy,'' but when the Florida Supreme Court turns the law upside down to give Al Gore an extra 12 days to steal the election, it's an impartial judiciary just doing its job? ........... How come so few media outlets picked up the Miami Herald story that hundreds, probably thousands, of ex-cons illegally cast ballots in Florida? ........ How come, after the Republicans lost their bid to convict Bill Clinton of high crimes and misdemeanors in the Senate, the left wing Ivy League chattering skulls said as one that it was time for America to ``move on.'' But now, even after Al Gore has lost recount after recount, you could forfeit your invitation to Renaissance Weekend by suggesting that it's now time for America to ``move on.'' How come, on election night, Al Gore ``won'' states but they always ``fell'' to George Bush? .......... How come it's always germane to point out that seven of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court were appointed by Republican presidents (even though at least two of them have since flipped sides), but it's not even worth 10 seconds to say that basically all seven Florida jurists were appointed by Democrats? ....... How come all the Gore rumpswabs in the press keep referring to the Seminole County case as involving ``ballot tampering,'' when actually it's applications for ballots? And why do

you have to go to Florida newspapers to find out that the judge hearing the case had her campaign do exactly the same thing when she was running? ......." Freeper truthkeeper Seminole "....They just showed her face on screen. She looks dumbfounded that the successful candidate is the ELECTOR. Matt Staver, an attorney for the voters, is up arguing in defense of the motion right now. He says "Notwithstanding whether people know this (they're selecting an elector), this is the law." Judge Nikki: "It sounds to me like you're arguing a separate lawsuit." Staver: "No, it's NOT a separate lawsuit. One of the motions before the court is to dismiss...it's interconnected." (Slightly paraphrased.) Judge Nikki says she "can't imagine this is what the legislature meant." Please forgive my typos, grammer, and spelling everyone. I'm trying to get this out quickly. ......" Seminole Freeper AndrewC ".....103.011 Electors of President and Vice President.--Electors of President and Vice President, known as presidential electors, shall be elected on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of each year the number of which is a multiple of 4. Votes cast for the actual candidates for President and Vice President shall be counted as votes cast for the presidential electors supporting such candidates. The Department of State shall certify as elected the presidential electors of the candidates for President and Vice President who receive the highest number of votes. History.--ss. 2, 3, ch. 3879, 1889; RS 157; s. 4, ch. 4328, 1895; s. 3, ch. 4537, 1897; GS 174; RGS 218; CGL 253; s. 2, ch. 25383, 1949; s. 7, ch. 26870, 1951; ss. 10, 35, ch. 69-106; s. 32, ch. 77-175. Note.--Former s. 98.07. ...." Seminole Freeper truthkeeper ".....Judge Nikki still hostile to Thrasher's attorney. Says she doesn't understand how the elector could be the CANDIDATE. Attorney says she must either join Thrasher or dismiss the case. Nikki seems to be having a lot of problem with the language, and the attorney plainly doesn't want to step all over her toes. She just said she'd take the matter under advisement and will rule this afternoon. Guess she'll use the break to ask her clerk what this all means. ....." Freeper KellyAdmirer on FLSCT "...Technically, they have not accepted jurisdiction. That will be one of the issues to be addressed at oral argument. IMHO, that they have not done so automatically is a hopeful sign. ...." Freeper SONbrad of FLSCT "....They are NOT formally taking the case yet. They are going to hear oral arguements to DECIDE if they should take the case. Not surprising given the importance of the issue. ...." LA Times 12/5/00 ".....The attorney behind a lawsuit charging that Republican operatives altered flawed absentee ballot request forms in Seminole County spent more than $100,000 on Al Gore's campaign, including as much as $60,000 on a television spot attacking Dick Cheney. Details of Harry Jacobs' involvement in the Gore campaign--and the extent to which he has sought advice from Gore representatives-were revealed in a transcript of a deposition obtained Monday night. .... But Jacobs acknowledged that he spoke to several Democratic Party representatives in mid-November before filing his lawsuit, including friend Mitchell Berger. ......" Seminole Freeper truthkeeper "..... An attorney named Richard (no, NOT Barry) is up arguing a Motion To Strike the jury trial. Says there is no statutory authority for a jury trial in this instance. (I think based on "no disputed facts.") Now the GOP attorney is up citing statutes to counter the argument. Words like "fraud and collusion" being tossed around. She's demanding statutory authority, he says 102.168 does not say whether a jury trial is allowed. Nikki will take matter under advisement until all facts are stipulated to. Then she'll decide. Next motion being argued: A Motion in Limine. I forgot what this was...I'm only a lowly paralegal. Any lawyers out there? ....." Seminole Freeper truthkeeper "..... GOP lawyer still arguing. "Supervisor did exactly what was required under the law." Judge Nikki: "Does that prove or disprove a material fact?" Lawyer: "Disproves that there was fraud or collusion. Every other elections supervisor in this state was not reuiring the voter id #'s because they didn't want to disenfranchise their voters." "We believe it's probative and important." (Sorry, not sure what.) ....." Morningstar.com, wsj.com 12/5/00 Dave Runk ".....Technology stocks led the market higher Tuesday, rebounding from recent losses amid optimism that the U.S. presidential election will be resolved soon following court rulings Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 116 points, or 1.1%, at 10677 at midmorning, after gaining 186.56 points Monday. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 95 points, or 3.6%, at 2710.70 after dropping 29.54 in the previous session. Other major indexes also rose. ....." UPI 12/5/00 ".....A federal appeals court heard arguments Tuesday in two lawsuits that challenge the manual

recounting of votes in Florida's presidential election....... The full 12-member 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard cases involving rulings last month by federal judges in Miami and Orlando, who denied requests to immediately stop manual recounts....... During the hearing, Judge Rosemary Barkett, a former Florida chief ustice, asked Bush attorney Theodore Olson to show how the Texas governor had been "irreparably harmed" since he has been certified the winner in Florida. Olson said the outcome of Florida's election could still change pending other court decisions........ Another judge pointed out to Olson that the certified results included hand recounts from other counties. ...... Olson said the recounts in this year's presidential election were inconsistent, unfair and unconstitutional because they involved "changing standards and changing rules" and because they treated "different citizens in a different way."....... "It's quite clear that the judges, all 12 of them, were very, very well-prepared. They had read the briefs, they had studied the issues, they asked very intelligent probing questions," Olson said after the hearing......." Seminole court 12/5/00 Freeper antidisestablishment "..... This is incredible. The lawyer is giving her a lesson in the legal requirements for her decision and whether this should be a jury trial or a finding of fact by the judge. They are now arguing that the standard must be applied state-wide, since voter #'s are not required state-wide. ...." Freeper truthkeeper ".....Attorney for voters talking about how Jacobs is a Dem operative. Also tossing around terms like "fraud" and "collusion." FL GOP lawyer up again. Explains GOP contracted with a vendor to produce forms missing id numbers. Argues that "substantial compliance" is the issue before the court. ....." Freeper truthkeeper "....Okay, I think I know what they want to limit. The GOP lawyer wants the rest of the elections supervisor in the state to testify that they did not require the voter id numbers at all. Oh! Judge Nikki says she thinks it IS RELEVANT AND MATERIAL TO THE MATTER AT HAND....DENIES the motion in limine! We win one! ...." Freeper SunnyJim "..... The DEMs are trying to exclude evidence that other counties processed these without ID numbers, thus it's not a serious defect, even if they didn't have them, which these did. There is no defect in these ballot applications, technical or otherwise. This will be a good clue to where she will go. She just ruled for Bush on one issue in the DEMs motion in limine. ....." and "..... Now the DEMs are trying to get the judge to exclude evidence of the links between Jacobs and the DEMs and Gore. ...." Freeper truthkeeper "..... FL GOP's attorney up now saying he took Jacobs' deposition on Friday and it sounds like it's a timebomb waiting to go off. All kinds of serious involvement and collusion with the Dem party in this lawsuit. That Dem lawyer, Richard, is up now trying to keep this guy's testimony OUT of this trial. ....." Freeper Green "..... Sounds like he knew about this issue prior to the election and could have taken steps prior to the election to deal with his concerns instead of waiting until the election then asking for all 15,000 ballots to be discarded. presented like he waited on purpose to be able to overthrow the election in the event he needed to if Gore lost ....." Freeper truthkeeper "...... Judge Nikki DENIES the Dems' other Motion In Limine to keep out Jacobs' testimony. Yippety-Skippety, WE WIN ANOTHER ONE. ....." Freeper truthkeeper ".....Now arguing the FL GOP's Motion To Strike certain portions of plaintiff's complaint as immaterial. Says it reads more like a bad novel than a pleading. (Attorney is reading the pertinent passages now.) Cites 102.168(4)(e). ....." Freeper Mike Darancette in response to "Is there a specific legal problem w/ Jacobs being assisted or directly associated w/ the Dems? Or does Gore just not want to be associated with someone who is trying to disqualify votes? " said "....Only if the Dems or Jacobs had prior knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing when another remedy was available other than disenfranchisement of the voters. ....." Freeoer ftrader :..., Gore is saying Supv. Goard THREW DEMOCRAT REQUESTS INTO THE TRASH CAN and is saying she REFUSED Democrats ANY ACCESS while she let the Pubbies in. I hope the evidence in this trial PROVES HE IS LYING [AGAIN] TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!! ....." Freeper truthkeeper "..... Oh, this skunk Algore is unbeLIEVable. "I'm not a party to the action...but I've heard about it." Now he goes into a long diatribe about the Seminole county case and slams the Republicans. Now he's playing the racecard with the Jesse Jackson allegations to the DOJ. "Very serious allegations...(More insane giggling)..."I talk to Jesse Jackson regularly...Kwisi Mufume..." GET THE HOOK! ......"

Freeper ambrose in response to "She is allowing as much in as she can so when she rules against the GOP and voters, it will be more appeal proof... " said "....Wrong... when you allow into evidence the fact that most other counties allow applications with no voter ID no., it makes the proposed Democrat remedy both politically and legally impossible. ....." Freeper ftrader "......Let's check this statute out! 101.694 Mailing of ballots upon receipt of federal postcard application.-(1) Upon receipt of a federal postcard application for an absentee ballot executed by a person whose registration is in order or whose application is sufficient to register or update the registration of that person, the supervisor shall mail to the applicant a ballot, if the ballots are available for mailing. OK, these people would not have received a postcard from the Republicans if they were NOT someone whose registration was in order. Therefore, IF the application is SUFFICIENT to register...it would then follow that the application is SUFFICIENT to get a ballot, once the voter ID was verified and added to the card. The Supervisor SHALL mail ballots to those whom are REGISTERED or can be updated, therefore her job is seen as being one to FACILITATE getting legal, registered voters their ballots. The law FORBIDS the Supervisor to send out a ballot to a person who is not verified to be a legal, registered voter, but it makes NO statement as to HOW that information is verified. Her job is to FACILITATE franchising voters, NOT to be a bureaucratic "reject stamp." Also, the Supreme Court sure made a lot of flowery remarks about not letting "hypertechnical statute" come between the voter and his right to vote. ....." Freeper samkatz "...... yes, and in throwing out the Demsl BUTTERFLY Ballot suit last week, the FSC said that technicalitiesthat were not substantive were no reason to invalidate results. ..." Freeper angkor "...... "more than enough votes to make the difference (in Seminole) and the supervisor threw the applications into the trash cans. i don't wanyt to speculate on the remedy. more than enough votes taken away from democrats (again i'm not a party to it, i've read about it)." ....." Freeper newzjunkey "..... Wants all the votes counted. Doesn't believe the odds are against him. He's optimistic. Says the lawyers are too. Says US Supreme Court ruling was slightly favorable to him! Everyone knew Sauls' decision would be appealed so it didn't matter. Talks about their being more than enough votes but the applications were thrown out in the trash down in Sem. County. Says he's not a party to it but saying Dems weren't able to get the same access so they were cheated out of votes. Says Dems were denied access to the list of voters but Pubbies allowed to roam around and fix ballot applications. Says it's all unfair. Question about Jesse Jackson. He's troubled by the stories e.g. roadblock, activities there. Playing race card! Talked with Jesse, Mfume, others about this. Believes the allegations are serious and should be taken seriously. Doesn't know what will happen with those two cases and will likely end up appealed up to the FSSC. He's not going to speculate and doesn't want to deal with hypotheticals. All of the controversy will end up with the FSSC. Debunked the importance of public opinion polls, he said. Says a solid majority believes all votes legally cast should be counted and that the reason for them not counted shouldn't be excluded 'arbitrarily' mentioned Miami/Dade. Gore returned to White House. ......" Freeper Muttley in response to "The 11th Circuit is deciding if selective hand counts are Constitutional. There is a tremendous difference. But aren't they also ruling regarding changing the rules after election day? " said ".....There are actually two separate issues at the 11th Circuit. One is, as you say, whether *selective* hand counts are legal. But the stronger issue, the one on-topic with Roe v. Alabama, is whether counting anything but clearly punched ballots is Constitutional. (Basically that dimpled chads should not count as votes.) If the 11th Circuit remains true to Roe v. Alabama, the handcounts in Broward will be ruled unconstitutional. I think this second issue is to what you are referring when you say the court will rule if there has been a change in rules since election day because there was a policy *not* to count dimpled chads in previous elections. If dimpled chads had been counted in previous elections, they would be votes. But we all know that if Bush needed dimpled chads, the standing policy would have remained. Only because Gore needs dimpled chads is the policy changed. ......" Freeper ironman "...... Olson may not be the best on his feet but he is one hell of a Constitutional Attorney. He is also head of the Federalist Society and his wife is Freeper BKO. ....." FoxNews 12/5/00 Rick Fisk "......Speaking at a press conference today surrounded by members of the Senate's democratic caucus, Joe Leiberman re-affirmed Senate support for he and Al Gore's efforts to overturn the Florida Election. Leiberman urged the public to "have patience" with their efforts and that the democratic caucus was behind their efforts "100%"." ....... Leiberman also claimed that he and Al Gore had carried Florida by 22,000 votes according to an election expert hired by the Miami herald. Tom Daschle made a short statement affirming Leiberman's claims of Senate solidarity. ....."

UPI 12/5/00 Michael Kirkland ".....In rejecting pleas from the campaign of Vice President Al Gore that handcounts of disputed ballots begin, Saul's ruled Monday that Gore's campaign had not produced enough evidence to allow the manual counts.......... "(A)lthough the record shows voter error, and/or less than total accuracy," Sauls said in his ruling, "in regard to the punched voting devices ... these balloting and counting problems cannot support any recounting necessity with respect to Dade County (where most of the disputed ballots were cast) absent the establishment of a reasonable probability that the statewide election result would be different, which has not been established in this case." ......... But in a Nov. 21 decision that extended the state's vote-count deadline, the Florida Supreme Court accepted the contention by several other county canvassing boards that a sample hand count of several precincts indicated "an error in the vote tabulation which could affect the outcome of the election." ....... The Florida Supreme Court used that evidence to allow the hand counts and to order that they be included in any final Florida vote tally. Despite its own sample hand count, Dade eventually decided not to take advantage of the new deadline because of time constraints.......... In contrast, Sauls rejected the same evidence, saying it did not show a "reasonable probability that the statewide election result would be different."........." Freeper JohnMac on the above article "....... This is a different situation now. The vote has been certified and there has been a contest filed. The previous decision was prior to certification. The post certification standard cited by Judge Sauls is correct and was read verbatim from the case which sets forth the standard. ......" Freeper Timeout "..... HEADS UP!!! MSNBC reporting Broward County now reporting they've got "serious mathematical discrepancies" with their absentee numbers they reported! He-e-e-e-ere we go again! ......" Freeper nd76 "..... This is why they have the law that requires all counties to report numbers by a date and time certain--to prevent the type of shenanigans which have been going on. If there were errors, they had plenty of chances to correct them, thanks to the SCOFLA. Any changes adverse to Bush and favorable to Algore would be election tampering, nothing more, nothing less. ....." Freeper Go Gordon "..... Now that Gore has told the American public that there were democratic absentee ballot applications thrown away, but no republican applications, why not have the Bush attorneys subpeona Gore to testify under oath (even if it is only a deposition). Ask him the basis for his information. When he answers, subpeona the source. When that person passes the buck, subpeona that person. ...... In the alternative, Gore will have to admit he lied. So either Gore lied, or someone else has to take the fall. Any thoughts? ....." Freeper Reagan Man "...... I have always believed this specific case has been the one and only case that's always given Algore the most hope for a final victory in the presidential election. IMO, this is exactly why Gore-Lieberman has been carrying forth with the other litigations. They know that chances are very good especially with Nikki Clark on the bench, that this could go in their favor. Drag it out for as long as you can until one of the many legal outcomes goes their way. Whether this will actually happen is not clear, but is highly feasible. We shall see. Barry Richard's is talking right now. Bush has the very best fighting for him. Let's hope for the best in the long run! ....." Freeper zeaal ".... Barry Richards presenting for Dismisal. He is so good. ......" Freeper truthkeeper "...... Barry Richard is arguing for dismissal, citing Florida law. Now reading from a FL legislative report used in drafting legislation that states that ONLY voter's signature and address are important. Addressing allegation that supervisor didn't call the Dems to tell them of the same problem: "The law of this state" says you cannot invalidate ballots unless the supervisor's failure to give notice (to Dems) will change the results of this election." Now talking about how the ballots are separated from the envelopes to preserve the secrecy of the votes...it is now IMPOSSIBLE to tell which ballots were received as a result of this action. ....." Freeper truthkeeper "..... Barry Richard warning Judge Nikki that if she tosses these ballots, "it certainly violates the Florida Constitution and possibly violates the U.S. Constitution." NO LEGAL RELIEF CAN BE PROVIDED TO THESE PLAINTIFFS...COMPLAINT SHOULD BE DISMISSED. ....." Freeper nickdnger "........ I just read the 1996 Beckstrom decision by the FlaSC. It makes the Seminole and Martin cases a slam dunk for Bush unless either judge decides to completely ignore the FlaSC. It only requires election officials to have "substantial compliance" with election statutes. Beckstrom involved officials who re-marked actual ballots (not applications for same, but the real things). The court held they substantially complied with the statutes and there was no proof of fraud. They ruled that the ballots should not be thrown out. Judges Nikki and Terry have no choice but to rule for Bush. BTW, I'm a lawyer. ....."

Freepr truthkeeper "..... I believe the attorney arguing right now represents voters of Seminole county. In essence, he's saying, "Hey, it ain't their fault." The judge is questioning him about the request (101.62) and her tone sounds MUCH less hostile than this morning. ......" Freeper truthkeeper "...... Same lawyer: "Mistake. You may punish the supervisor, but do not punish the voter. Remember, when the ballots come back the signatures are compared at that time." Reads law: "No person acting under color of law may deny a person the right to vote...if such error is immaterial..." Talks about registration number...no allegation that the number is incorrect. ......" Freeper WoodrowTKatt "..... This is *less* hostile???? Maybe she's now read the statutes and case law that show what a waste of time this case is. ...." Freeper Green "...... I bet during the recess that she read up on the fact that the voters were voting for electors, not president. LOL Although that was shocking that a judge did not know that, it was actually pretty funny - and to have it televised at that! ....." Freeper Uncle Fud "...... My feeling is that if the FLSC and/or Sauls had held for Gore, then Judge Clark could pile on knowing that the recounts would offer her some cover. But I'm not sure she wants to go it alone. I'd be happy if she dismisses outright, but I doubt she will go that far for us. ...." Freeper truthkeeper "...... Too much to hope for? I think Judge Nikki is considering dismissal. She's quizzing the lawyer (not sure whose) about some procedural aspects of dismissal - says she can't go outside "the four corners of the stipulated facts," and says she cannot "yet" consider the motion for summary judgment. ......" Freeper Jackbill in response to ".... I'd be happy if she dismisses outright, but I doubt she will go that far for us. ....." said "...... She has said that she would not accept the current motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgement because she needed to compare the "stipulation" of the facts with the "complaint". I suspect that once she has a chance to do that comparison overnight, she might accept a motion to dismiss in the morning. As you said, I don't think that she has the cajones to go it alone. ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "....... Wow, Nikki just asked a pretty decent question: Legislature changed the law in 1998 (after Miaimi mayor absentee fraud fiasco); precedent cases are pre-1998; how can I (judge) rule on nature of new requirements without a hearing? Doesn't sound like she's inclined to dismiss (even though there's no legal justification for the requested remedy). ......" Freeper YaYa123 "....... This is another lawyer for the Seminole Canvassing Board. Judge Clark is asking about all the 9 new Voter Absentee Regulations that the Legislature added in 98. She is asking how she can rely on the old cases he's citing, (also the ones Richard Barry cited), because they ocurred before 98. I'm not sure the lawyer gave her a good enough answer. He should have said, "the new 1998 regulations were put in place to prevent voter fraud, this case does NOT involve voter fraud. The other side is not alledging voter fraud." ......" Freeper ftrader "...... Judge Labarga is bing quoted. Isn't he hearing the Martin case? He said he could not provide the contest remedy, because HE CAN'T OUST A SITTING PRESIDENT...therefore the statutes don't apply to a Presidential Election. Legislature left it out, so they knew a contest could not apply here. ELECTORS are different than office holders. THANK YOU LABARGA!! ....." Freeper San Jacinto "...... On two occassions today, I have seen Fox reporters being asked where Gore's claims of votes being thrown out came from. On each occassion, the reporter said he did not know. One reporter said he had been calling people for two days trying to find out where the allegations came from, and had not heard anything to corroborate Gore. In my opinion, Gore wants to benefit from the Seminole case if he can, but does not want to appear to support not "counting all the ballots." Therefore, he wants to couch this in terms of Dem ballots being "thrown out" in Seminole County. Apparently, it is just an outright lie. All the Dem spokesmen have correlated talking points. Yet, I have not seen the Lanny Davis types talking about Dem ballots being "thrown out" in Seminole County. Gore is apparently now a resident of lala land. ....." Freeper Mev "...... If the FSC court rules in favor of hand counts they will be ruling contrary to their previous ruling. As I remember when Miami-Dade stop the their recount the Gorons ran to the FSC and the FSC denied the Gorons and ruled in favor of Miami-Dade canvasssing board. If they rule in Gores favor they will absolutly look partisan. ......" Freeper ftrader "...... Interesting. Jacobs brought this before Seminole Canvassing Board as a protest AND IT WAS TURNED DOWN! Lawyer says he cannot now bring them into this contest. They had the authority to act back then. WRONG DEFENDANTS, he says. ....."

Newsday 12/5/00 Tom Raum "...... AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Keeping busy while awaiting a ''clear verdict'' from the courts, George W. Bush received his first regular national security briefing from the CIA on Tuesday and inched closer to announcing appointments. Dick Cheney reached out to Republicans in Congress. ''Hopefully, the (legal) issue will be resolved quickly, so that we can start,'' Bush told reporters. He said he was encouraged by recent court rulings. Cheney, in charge of transition planning, made the rounds on Capitol Hill, meeting GOP House members, lunching with senators and huddling individually with some GOP leaders. .....The Bush-Cheney team also launched a new Web site on the Internet: www.BushCheneyTransition.com. It offers visitors a chance to contribute up to $5,000 to help finance the transition or to apply online for a Bush administration job. ....." Freeper ftrader "...... The lawyer for the Seminole County Canvassing Board [being sued by Gore] said that Jacobs previously brought this up in the protest phase...I have no idea what the particulars of that were. He was saying that the canvassing board, being sued by Gore, IS THE WRONG PARTY to sue...it should be the Elections Board [Harris & Co?] as this is a contest and not a protest. I remember Judge Wapner on more than one occasion say, "You are suing the wrong person!" when the wrong parties are the object of the suit. This is indeed interesting. ...." Freeper ftrader "..... Bernie Shaw [CNN] just asked their talking head about that, and he said, reluctantly, that the Dems did NOT have this problem, and in the Martin case, the FEW that were lacking info DID get called by the Supervisor of Elections so that SHE could amend them. Sorry, Al, you lied again. ...." NBC 12/5/00 "..... Senator John Breaux, Louisian's 'moderate' senator told Lisa Meyers tonight that he would be open to serve in the Bush White House. He would consider it an 'opportunity to serve.' Hello, GWB. Bye Bye 50-50 tie. ...." Seminole Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "....Barry Richard is back on, and immediately drills the Boardman case... " Freeper ftrader "..... Barry Richard is talking about the Legislative memorandum as to what they intended with the statutes about the FRAUD laws. The whole thing was about BALLOTS. Unfortunately, I think Barry THINKS that she understands what he says. I am not sure she does. ....." Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "..... Legislature instructs the board to re-mail applications if there are errors, and NOT to "disenfranchise" the voter... " Freeper FrostFire ".....They have alleged fraud, but not alleged a change in the outcome. Too late now, dude. ...." Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "...... BINGO!!! Geraldo said they did not "specifically" alledge there would be a change in the outcome of the election...checkmate... " Freeper jackbill "..... Richmond is a Clymer - and Judge Nikki knows it. Now he wants to add allegations. Nikki, tell him to go home and come back when he finishes law school. ....." Freeper vbmoneyspender "..... Bingo! No allegation of election being changed. ......" Freeper Luther T "..... Nikki just nailed the Plaintiff's Council to the wall! ....." Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "...... Judge Nikki denies motion to dismiss by the Defendents, and motion for judgement to the plantiffs...sets hearing tomorrow morning... " Freeper Uncle Fud "...... Judge is a little slow (being nice here) but she has given a fair hearing to all the Bush team's motions for evidence and has ruled in favor of them all as far as I've seen. Bush team has made some VERY strong points. Request for immediate dismissal by Bush team now on the line - I do not think she will do so tonight but there may be a chance she will do so tomorrow. I feel somewhat better about this case than I did this morning based on the evidence she will be seeing. ....." Freeper ftrader "...... Lawyer bringing up the Civil Rights Act - IF she had thrown these out without attempting to fix some minor problem, SHE would have violated this act. Remedy barred by Section 1971. ....." Freeper nd76 "........ I wasn't able to watch the whole thing, but I'll try. The pre-trial conference convened sometime in the 1300 EST hour, there were proceedings until about 1445 EST, then there was a considerable recess, then proceedings got going again somewhere near 1600 EST, then proceedings continued through about 1745 EST. A recess was then taken--it is now 1814 EST and I don't know whether it has started up. ......... Basically, the entire proceedings have involved the motions seeking to dismiss the

lawsuit. Former Fla. House Speaker Thrasher, who made a similar motion in the Judge Sauls proceeding, moved to dismiss the case on the grounds that Florida law did not countenance a contest to the selection of Electoral College electors, only to "candidates for office"--the Judge resisted this notion for a while, but then it seemed that she started to understand the motion, when it was pointed out to her that if she ruled that Mr. Thrasher was not a "necessary defendant" by virtue of his selection as an elector (he argued that he should have been named in the complaint in lieu of Bush and that all GOP electors should have been served with process for the suit to proceed), and therefore had no standing to intervene, that she would be conceding the point (i think the law is 103.011 FSA) that Florida law did not allow a contest for electors. .........Jacobs, the Demo plaintiff, made two motions--one was to prevent the GOP from bringing in the testimony of other elections supervisors in other counties to show what the custom was in allowing the curing of absentee ballot application deficiences (motion denied, GOP can adduce such testimony); the other was to prevent the GOP from examining Jacobs as to his role in democratic politics (as it turns out, the GOP's deposition of Jacobs is juicy--it revealed his intimate role with the local Demo party, and that he was fully aware of the absentee ballot problems over a week before the election--which is crucial, because, for Jacobs to be entitled to the equitable remedy of the discarding of the 15,000 absentee ballots cast, he has to show the judge that he has "clean hands" and that he could have done equity when he was in the position to do so--he didn't. In the 1600 EST session, the canvassing board attorney was going through his motion to dismiss the lawsuit. That is all I have. ....." Freeper ftrader "........ What do you think about this fellow's argument about the Federal Civil Rights Act? He's pointing out Federal Elections [this is not a state election] "Constitution right to vote absentee" included in them. This is now a right, not a privilege. State laws, therefore, cannot make picky rules which violate this AND the remedy would totally obliviate all these basic rights in both the Florida and Federal Constitutions. ....." Freeper Green "..... I think I have figured out who this lawyer that was talking about voting rights was. He was representing the voters that have intervened. Am I right? ....." Freeper hellinahandcart "..... attorney Matt Taylor, representing Seminole voters, now arguing that the remedy sought is unconstitutional (tossing out votes). I guess he was the last to speak for our side. Now plaintiff's lawyer speaking. ....." Freeper truthkeeper "........ Judge Nikki asking Plaintiff's attorney what statute specifically entitles you to the relief you are seeking? He cites the "contest" statute: "Judge may allow any relief he/she deems necessary to correct..." Judge Nikki: "You're using the broad language?" Attorney: "Yes." ....." Freeper SGCOS ".....DEm lawyer arguing that porvision to "correct" the result includes "throwing out 15k votes". ........" Freeper FrostFire "...... He is trying to confuse her and she isn't going for it. ......" Freeper xlib "....... Just heard on NPR that Dems were not given same opportunity to correct apps as Repubs. They (Dems) were told by Seminole official that the letter of the law would be adhered to. Hearing that, Dems didn't ask if they could add missing info themselves. Can anyone speak to the veracity of this? ......" Freeper FrostFire "....... He is telling her that the Republicans committed a felony by filling out the ID on the ballots. also questioned Goard's credibility. He is really sinking the fangs in. ....." Freeper Selara "..... Plaintiff attorney is coming off as such a snake oil salesman, that Nikki is starting to show signs of irritation again. ....." FrostFire "......He is opening up a huge can of worms for the dems. If this is his case, then the dems in every other county are in deep doo doo ......" Freeper Dog "...... WHOA..she just told him the Legis..in 1997 ..did not overrule the 1996 Boardman case.. ....." Freeper truthkeeper "....... Did you all catch the look on her face when she asked him where the statute specifically states she could apply his remedy of tossing 15,000 ballots? She looked slightly disgusted. Good sign. ......." Freeper FrostFire '....... Essentially, his case is that if the Pubbies fixed their ballot applications, they should have fixed the dem ones too. ......"

Freeper Oldeconomybuyer "....... Nikki asked WHO should be prosecuted in this matter - - election officials or voters?...Bingo! This sleeze bag better have a doozie lined up on this question... " Freeper truthkeeper "......Judge Nikki asks: "Shouldn't the punishment go to the supervisor, rather than the voters who tried to vote?" Go Nikki! ......" Freeper ftrader "....... The law (101.62) does NOT say what this fool says it does. The Secretary of Elections MUST NOT issue a ballot UNTIL all of that information exists [name, SS#, etc] and she is liable ONLY if she does. It does NOT say that, prior to issuance, ONLY the elector may supply that information. ....... This guy is SPINNING THE LAW. She will have to take his argument and read it with the law in front of her. [Tonight?] That's what I would do to see if this guy is trying to mislead her. ......." Freeper RightGuy "......... The 2000 Florida Statutes Title IX ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS Chapter 101 Voting Methods And Procedure View Entire Chapter 101.62 Request for absentee ballots.-(1)(a) The supervisor may accept a request for an absentee ballot from an elector in person or in writing. One request shall be deemed sufficient to receive an absentee ballot for all elections which are held within a calendar year, unless the elector or the elector's designee indicates at the time the request is made the elections for which the elector desires to receive an absentee ballot. Such request may be considered canceled when any first-class mail sent by the supervisor to the elector is returned as undeliverable. (b) The supervisor may accept a written or telephonic request for an absentee ballot from the elector, or, if directly instructed by the elector, a member of the elector's immediate family, or the elector's legal guardian. For purposes of this section, the term "immediate family" has the same meaning as specified in paragraph (4)(b). The person making the request must disclose: 1. The name of the elector for whom the ballot is requested; 2. The elector's address; 3. The last four digits of the elector's social security number; 4. The registration number on the elector's registration identification card; 5. The requester's name; 6. The requester's address; 7. The requester's social security number and, if available, driver's license number; 8. The requester's relationship to the elector; and 9. The requester's signature (written requests only). ......" Freeper nd76 "......... I caught the last 30 minutes or so of the argument before Trikki Nikki incredibly denied the motions to dismiss and motion for judgment on the pleadings--her only comment was that "the complaint survived the motions". It was unclear whether Jesse Hi-Jackson or Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton were in the courtroom. However, this woman must enjoy the fact she is on TV, and will be on TV for another day. I do not intend to watch the spin shows on TV tonight (Notre Dame-Indiana starts in 95 minutes). Watch for Lanny "pweuff" Davis and the other sleazoids to be proclaiming a great victory that the Seminole case was not tossed out tonight......." Orlando Sentinel 11/13/00 Michael Griffin Doris Bloodsworth ".......Democrats did not formally challenge the action then, because they "didn`t want to look lawsuit-crazy," Florida Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe said Sunday. But now it`s possible that those ballots could alter the outcome of the closest presidential election in U.S. history. ............ "When you let a political party operative determine the validity of someone`s request for an absentee ballot, that`s a problem," said Tallahassee attorney Mark Herron, who is working with the Democratic Party. "The question is whether they allowed people to vote when they shouldn`t have been allowed to vote." ......... Goard said the Republican Party asked whether a staff member could add the

identification numbers. She agreed, and a GOP staffer spent days at the county elections office with a laptop computer, matching ballot requests to names and writing the identification numbers on the requests. ......... "The Republican Party asked if they could resolve that situation," Goard said. "They had an individual who had a database. We provided a chair -- that`s all." ........ Herron said no one other than the voter requesting the absentee ballot should have been allowed to alter the form. "You have a Republican Party employee sit down in a Republican official`s office and alter the request," Herron said. "Clearly, it`s not right.`" .......Poe complained weeks ago, but Goard refused to change her decision. Because the Democrats had just lost a lawsuit over the Republicans` use of the state seal on the ballot requests, he said, the party did not want to go to court again......" Orlando Sentinel 12/6/00 Debbie Salamone Wickham "......Election of the next president could hinge on a Tallahassee judge`s choice of words. But in the legal system, the right words mean everything. .......... In appeal briefs due today to the Florida Supreme Court, lawyers for Vice President Al Gore likely will say that Judge N. Sanders Sauls based his decision to refuse hand counts of South Florida votes on the wrong legal phrase. ......... The Tallahassee judge, who considered Gore`s challenge to the official election results, ruled that the Democratic candidate failed to show there was a "reasonable probability" that the election outcome would be different if about 14,000 disputed ballots were counted. Gore`s lawyers think the Tallahassee judge should have determined that the uncounted ballots "place in doubt" the results of the voting. .......... Even though there is some chance that this argument could succeed, it will be a difficult sell. Sauls backed up his reasoning with a crucial conclusion that was devastating to Gore. He found "no credible statistical evidence and no other competent substantial evidence" that the results of the election would have been different. ......... Gore attorney David Boies will argue that Sauls didn`t evaluate the most crucial evidence -- the ballots themselves. ............ While appeal courts usually are willing to look at the legal phrases or law that a judge applies when evaluating facts, they are less likely to second-guess a judge`s decision on what the facts are. That`s because trial judges, such as Sauls, actually see and hear the evidence and are in the best position to figure out what is right. To overturn findings from Sauls` two-day marathon court session last weekend, the justices would have to determine Sauls was "clearly erroneous." .........." Freeper T Jefferson "....... FSC cannot overcome Saul's legal points about the 2 tier voting implications , and cannot overcome US SC ruling. They will refuse to hear case. ...." Time 12/5/00 Frank Pellegrini "...... "There were more than enough votes to make the difference... that were thrown into the trash can," Gore said, because Democrats had not gotten the same chance to fill in missing information on ballot applications as Republicans had. "Again, I'm not a party to it, but I've been reading about it" Gore said, after musing for a good five minutes on the case. "It doesn't seem fair to me." ......... "I don't think there is any legal substance to their case at all," said Barry Richard on Tuesday before heading into Clark's courtroom. "It is much ado about nothing," added George Terwilliger. "It was an inconsequential mistake that made no difference." .........They tried to include Seminole in the Sauls case, and were turned down. They demanded Clark recuse herself (she was passed over for a promotion by Jeb Bush) and were turned down. Tuesday, they were asking that the case be tried before a jury - no word on that yet - and finally that it be dismissed. ....... However Clark rules, the case seems destined for higher ground, and Gore is trying to tell us to take it seriously. Because if a mass ballot-burning is the veep's only way into the White House, he's not going to say no until his "final arbiter" does..." Reuters/Zogby ".....If the outcome in Florida favors Democratic candidate Al Gore and he is elected president, less than one-quarter of those people responding to a recent survey said they would consider his presidency legitimate. While 21% would consider his election legal, another 60% said they would believe Gore stole the election. Not sure were 18% of the respondents in the nationwide Zogby/Reuters poll of 333 adult voters. ......." 11th Circuit & Attorneys 12/5/00 Freeper CWW "...... As most of you know, I practice law in the 11th Circuit. I am personally familiar with several of the Judges, and I closely follow the Court's opinions. ......... I have just finished talking to several very informed lawyers who were directly and indirectly involved in the oral arguments today. The judges (12 of them) on the whole were very aggressive with Gore's lawyers and essentially tore them a new Clymer, particularly on why Florida's recount scheme does not violate the rule of law regarding post-election changes enunciated in Roe v. Alabama. See Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor's 11th Circuit and Supreme Court Amicus Briefs at his website explaining Roe v. Alabama -www.ago.al.state.us ............ The general consensus at the end of the arguments was that the Court would likely issue an injunction very soon stopping all hand recounts in Florida. Stay tuned tomorrow. This decision will be very serious for Gore and, in effect, will trump anything that the Florida Supreme Court or Florida Circuit Courts may do with hand recounts. ....... For those who practice in the 11th Circuit who can appreciate this comment, Judges Tjoflat and Carnes shredded Gore's counsel and her arguments. ......."

Freeper aristeides "....... Roe v. Alabama also found there was a violation of due process where election rules are changed after Election Day. Is that also going to come out of the 11th Circuit Florida cases? This would matter because tossing the Seminole absentee ballots would probably represent changing the election rules. ....." Freeper lostinamerica "...... Judge Bork, in an article posted previously, said this would be THE case to watch. Of course, no pundits have even sneezed at this case. My confidence rests in what seems to be numerous Bush trump cards irrespective of ANY Florida court action. Thanks for the inside scoop. Freepers seem to be omnipresent! ......" MSNBC 12/5/00 Mike Brunker Tom Curry "...... Asked how he views his chances of prevailing in the state Supreme Court, Gore said he still gauged his chances at 50-50, adding, "I don't feel anything other than optimism and the team down in Tallahassee feels that way also." ......... He also appeared to back away from an earlier statement by his top legal adviser that he would let the court decide the fate of his White House bid. "When the issues that are now being considered in the Florida Supreme Court are decided that'll be an important point," he said when asked if he would concede in such an event. "But I don't want to speculate on what the Florida Supreme Court will do." ......" AP 12/5/00 "......George W. Bush (news - web sites) has raised twice as much money as Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) to pay for their Florida recount expenses, both campaigns reported Tuesday. Bush has raised $7.4 million, helped by the same benefactors that enabled him to raise a record $100 million for his presidential campaign. Gore has taken in $3.5 million to pay his recount expenses. Both presidential candidates continue to raise money. ....." MSNBC 12/5/00 Freeper Attila_the_Hun "...... Reporting now that Broward County has 1,371 more absentee ballots machine counted than they had applications for before the election. .......This is simply amazing that the DemocRATS down there will never cease in their attempt to steal this election. What is surprising is that this is even coming out. I would love to know who "discovered" this error, and I can only hope they are seeking personal protection for themselves. ......." Freeper 1OldPro ".....Sounds like they are manufacturing a "FRAUD" defense so the SCOFL can overturn Leon County based on the NEW EVIDENCE. ....." Freeper MississippiMan "....No cigar. They didn't contest Broward and can't bring up anything about it in the contest appeals. ......" Freeper Torie "...... I did a quite paste of the Broward absentee ballot precincts onto excel, and came up with 20,432 votes for Bush, and 27,285 for Gore. These figures are before any recounts. So hopefully a correction of the count for these ballots will not hurt Bush. ......." Freeper rstevens "........ Remember these people are getting ready for JW to inspect the ballots. One thing they did in PBC was check the tallies of the machine counts of 11/7 and recount of 11/8 and the manual hand recount. A descrepancy was found. ......... Broward county know they are next for the JW audit and will have a great variance between the last machine count and the manual recount. I suspect that is why they are now admitting to the 1300+ ballots being discovered. ........ Remember precedent has been made by Nassau county where 218 ballots were not recounted and the decision was made to revert to the 11/7 certification. If extra ballots are found to be counted in the manual recount, then it should be rendered worthless and the certification of 11/7 or 11/8 recertified. Good bye 500+ votes found in manual recount. ......Remember just before the hand recount was to be included they all of a sudden found 500 more ballots? There is big time fraud in the broward co manual recount and will be uncovered by JW. ...." Freeper algol "..... Adding those up (I assume you meant AV, not AZ) I get: BUSH: 20,432 GORE: 27,285 BROWN: 93 NADER: 588 (I didn't bother with the real fringe candidates). Sure, throwing them all out would be a net advantage of 6,853 to Bush, which ought to beat out Seminole County (I forget the exact numbers there). ........ It'd be interesting to know the average percentage of returned vs requested absentee ballots overall. Certainly it'd be less than the apparent 102% or so here! ......"

Freeper Uncle Fud "...... I am beginning to doubt this story. Checked the following sites: all the major south Fla TV stations the Miami Herald and Ft Laud Sun Sentinel Fox MSNBC ABC News No sign of it anywhere......." Freeper Doug from Upland "...... Thanks for the report. I had another discussion today with constitutional law professor, Dr. James Hirsen. He agrees that the 11th was very tough and Gore is in deep trouble. He believes it is a clear violation of the 14th Amendment when 3 of 67 counties are treated differently than the rest of the voters. He also saw it as a blow that the FSC is not meeting until Thursday. They know the time urgency and yet they delayed until Thursday. .......... The FSC is going to have to get its blessing from the SCOTUS and he believes there are at least five who will shoot them down. ...........Among the biggest problem for Gore is that there is a Certificate of Ascertainment for Bush's electors at the National Archives. It is signed by the governor. In a dispute over dueling electors, this is the one that is legal. ........" Freeper WoodrowTKatt "........ You know, it's amazing how the media has misrepresented the progress of the 11'th circuit case. When it was first filed, they said it was a long shot. Admittedly, Bush did lose the initial hearing. .....Then they said the 11'th circuit declined to hear an appeal, when in fact all they did was decline to say right away whether or when they would take it. When they did decide to hear it en banc, the media mysteriously started refering to the case again, never mentioning how it came back to life after they said it was dead. ..........Then, when the Supreme Court declined to hear the portion of Bush's appeal based on 14'th ammendment arguments, the media said this showed the USSC thought this portion of the case was weak. In fact, all the USSC was doing was letting the 11'th circuit hear it before they took it on. .......Sure seems like the media's "legal analysts" are morons -- the average Freeper can out-predict them, even without a law degree. Makes you wonder... " Freeper CatoRenasci "....... I disagree with your rose-colored glasses analysis. I have read the briefs from the bad guys. This FLSC will reaffirm their initial ruling and claim they are on normal interpretive grounds, not Florida consitutional, and that they did consider 3 USC 5. They will give it back to Gore, since all that does is restore the status quo ante the USSC ruling. ........... The real question is what they will do about Judge Sauls' ruling. I think they will be emboldened by the latest Demoncrat Sore/Loserman rantings and support from other Demoncrats, and reverse Sauls, at least in part. The confidence the Gorons are showing makes me fairly certain that the Gore camp already knows this, that the fix is in. ........ and yes, I am a lawyer. ......" Freeper Freethesheeples "...... CatoRenasci, your analysis frightens me, and it is plausible indeed. However, two Sup. Ct. former Clerks (for Rehnquist & Kennedy) were on TV the other night and they indicated that the USSC was close to absolutely overturning the FSC, and that they were sending a gentle hint back that the FSC had better change or they would be reversed, although maybe by a divided USSC........" Freeper laishly "........ On a different thread opining the opposite result, I pointed out that the Fla Sup Ct has an obvious way out of this mess that saves face and gets them out of this quagmire: If they sustain Judge Sands (maybe even by declining to formally take the appeal), the remand from the US Sup Ct can be dismissed as moot. Hence, they do not have to either admit their obvious error in their earlier opinion, or indulge in what would be patently absurd mental gymnastics to rewrite the basis of their opinion without reference to the Fla Constitution. ......... Your theory is also supported by the fact that the Fla Sup Ct has pointedly reserved decision as whether they would even take the Gorgon's appeal. They can sustain Judge Saul by refusing the appeal. Any innovations in law by Sands which the Court might be inclined to otherwise correct on appeal would not then be precedent beyond Judge Saul's local jurisdiction. This scenario is analogous to what the US Sup Ct did in side-stepping the merits while vacating the result. Courts engage in this passive-agressive approach all the time. .........." FoxNews 12/5/00 Freeper Packer Pete "...... Did you see the clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail moments ago? Showed the Black Knight getting his limbs chopped off one by one, and still pressing on with his battle. Brit Hume didn't directly compare it to Gore, but the comparison was obvious. ........." Freeper HeilToTheChiefNOT! "....... As one former Justice on MSNBC put it; it was a thrashing with class and dignity. This dignified thrashing left the FSC with dignity intact to clean this up ASAP. ......... In the judges social circle...they all know the FSC screwed up big time...it was 'cleaned up' and done with class to appease the liberal ugly version of Ruth Buzzi USSC Justice and the other leftist USSC judges. Why is it that liberal leftists are only kind to their own! ........." Freeper Freethesheeples "......One ex-Sup. Ct. Clerk (for Rehnquist)said she detected the hand of Scalia in the language of this decision. This means there is AT LEAST a 5-4 or 6-3 OUTRIGHT overruling on the next nonsense from the FSC that is sent to the USSC. ........" Frreper HeilToTheChiefNOT! "....... Don't worry it had to be done this way all around.This was a kind warning

shot across the bow.Next time it will be a battleship like hit with a 9-0 decision as they appeased and viewed the FSC "in the best light possible" as the ugly Rith Buzzi Justice marm said. ............. The Boies false affadavit from Illinois will be cited in the FSC statement as their sole scapegoat.Will they be kind or will they hold the slick Boies in contempt for perjury IS the question! ......... IMO:They will scapegoat him but barely slap his wrist because leftist liberals think that perjury 'is OK.' ............ On the other hand..think about it... can you think of any other way for them to 'save face'?Will it be their good standing and reputation held high, or Boies'?I do believe this is why they asked for briefs to see if Boies lies again and takes the scapegoat bait. ......... This is a no win situation for Gore unless he drops the appeal and concedes...history will not be kind to Gore with all of his whining and propaganda combined with a perjurious lawyer. .........: Freeper AntiScumbag "...... nah, a 9 zip was needed to stay above the spin wars, this is too important a case and, the end result is the same, a terrible ruling has been tossed onto the ash heap of history, where it belonged ..... we'll never know the details, unless one of the clerks has a big mouth, but, i suspect that after the first (and probably only) conference made it apparent to all 9 that it was 5-4 or 6-3 to tip it over, bill had his clerks write a draft of this per curiam and circulated it while the clerks whispered about what would happen if it didn't ultimately come back with 8 joins .............. any potential dissenters may have negotiated to change a word or two here or there, but, unless they wanted florida's 7 dwarfs to be hit with a ton of bricks instead of a 2x4, they had no choice ........ the first word that came to my mind after i heard the result was "elegant". the first word after actually reading it was "perfect" ...... for anybody who cares about such things, bob woodward wrote an interesting book about 20 years ago about the inner workings of the court called "the brethern" ........" National Review Online 12/5/00 Ronald Rotunda "....... Seminole County, unlike many other Florida counties, requires that those applications include voter ID numbers. In the case of the Republicans (but not the Democrats), that did not occur because of a computer malfunction. These are not ballots; they are applications for ballots. When the applications came in, and the Republicans realized the computer glitch, they asked the canvassing board for permission to insert the ID number on the applications. The board said: 1) you can only do it here, in our office; and 2) you must not use state records to figure out which ones to fill in; you have to use your own records. That's what happened. No one complained until after the election. ...... Plaintiffs want all 15,000 absentee ballots to be tossed out, invalidated, although there was nothing wrong with any of the ballots, which were all properly voted. No court decision in Florida allows all ballots to be disqualified because of an error in the applications for some of them. On the contrary, Florida case law concludes that courts may not use technicalities to prevent the counting of votes. No Florida statute or regulations even suggest the remedy that the Democratic voters want. Remember, there was no problem with the actual ballots themselves. If the court denies that remedy, that should end the matter. If the Florida trial court grants that remedy, then it has changed the "law," because it was not fairly anticipated from the prior case law. And that change violates that federal statute that forbids post-election changes in election law. ......" Media Research Center 12/5/00 "..... Burying the lead. The networks were clear that Gore lost in the Leon County courtroom of Judge Sanders Sauls, but viewers of ABC and NBC would have been hard pressed to know who won or lost the U.S. Supreme Court decision announced Monday. The court ruled that "the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is therefore vacated," but of the broadcast network evening shows, only the CBS Evening News mentioned the "vacate" order........" Manchester Union-Leader 12/6/00 Bernadette Malone Connolly ".......HINTING that the Freedom of Information Act would allow private citizens to continue to count ballots in Florida after George W. Bush is inaugurated, yesterday Joe Lieberman squandered any remaining moral capital he still possessed after spending the election season at Al Gore's side. ............. How could Lieberman sanction such a renegade, divisive activity, one designed to delegitimize the national election and the office of the President? Where is Lieberman's love of country? ........Surely Democratic operatives could dig up all sorts of bogus evidence in Florida that Gore won more votes than Bush. They could count dimples, pimples and pregnancies until 2004 and sue every tree and sidewalk in the state. ...... Some have dubbed the Gore-Lieberman ticket "SoreLoserman." Gore has long deserved this kind of ridicule, but it was a sad day Tuesday when Lieberman earned this label, too. ...." Leon County Florida Circuit Court Memorandum "...... These exerpts are copied from the Jacobs vs. Seminole County lawsuit in Judge Nikki Clark's Circuit Court of Leon County Florida. They lack a signature, but they were clearly marked as "filed" on Dec 4 at 12:36PM by Dave Lang the Circuit Court Clerk. Case No. 00-2816 MEMORANDUM OF FACTS AND LAW 1. Al Gore won the popular vote and because George Bush Jr refuses to let the manual recount continue,

1. Al Gore won the popular vote and because George Bush Jr refuses to let the manual recount continue, the American people have reason to believe that Al Gore won the election. Votes were never counted in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties. Additionally, ballots were altered or tampered with in Seminole and Martin Counties resulting in voter fraud. Americans pray that the court grant relief by throwing out the ballots as is just and proper. 2. During the 1988 election, George Bush Sr said, "Read my lips. No New Taxes." He lied and raised our taxes. As an approximate result, he was not re-elected in 1992 when he ran against Bill Clinton. 3. Under the George Bush Sr administration, interest rates were extremely high, people lost their jobs, filed bankruptcy, and lost their homes. Do we honestly need another Bush in the White House to wreck this good economy and steal this election? 5. Just recently, the American people find out that Dick Cheney had three (3) heart attacks before the election. Would you pick a running mate with extremely poor health? This proves poor judgement on the part of George Bush Jr. 8. The State of Florida had all of these problems prior to and after the 2000 election because Jeb Bush is the Governor. George Bush Jr should concede and Jeb Bush should resign. ........ Wherefore, the people of Florida prays that the court vacate George Bush's certification and declare Al Gore the winner of the 2000 election for all of the above-cited reasons. ......" Washington Times 12/6/00 Dave Boyer Sean Scully "....... George W. Bush received his first daily national security briefing from the Clinton administration yesterday while Senate Republicans urged his running mate, Richard B. Cheney, to reverse Clinton-era executive orders........ "It's going to be important to show . . . the American people that this administration will be ready to seize the moment," Mr. Bush told reporters during another busy day of transition planning in Austin.......... A CIA official met with Mr. Bush at the governor's mansion in Texas and gave him the same intelligence briefing that Vice President Al Gore receives daily. The Bush team had sought the reports for at least two weeks, arguing that Mr. Bush needs the information to conduct a responsible transition.........Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Mr. Cheney gave congressional Republicans their first taste in eight years of what it will be like to work with a Republican administration............. He greeted House Republicans in the morning and ate lunch with Republican senators, who encouraged Mr. Cheney in a free-wheeling discussion to have Mr. Bush overturn a long list of executive orders signed by President Clinton............The relationship with the White House "is going to be better than ever" under a Bush presidency, said Rep. Jack Quinn, New York Republican............After the luncheon in the Senate, Republican senators said they were reassured by the meeting. "His message was they feel a little bit better about things than they felt yesterday and they're trying to handle things in a statesmanlike way," said Sen. Tim Hutchinson, Arkansas Republican....Sen. Peter G. Fitzgerald, Illinois Republican, said Mr. Cheney expressed unhappiness that Mr. Bush had lost almost half the normal transition time, which could slow down the process of naming key officials..........Mr. Cheney suggested that Mr. Bush will concentrate on naming his top Cabinet officials and then delegate considerable authority to those nominees to name their deputies. That way, he said, Mr. Bush might avoid the slow nomination process that plagued the first Clinton administration......." FOX NEWS CHANNEL 12/6/00 Rodger Schultz ".. Brit Hume has apparently added a new segment to his "Special Report" on the Fox News Channel. Call it "Media Watch." A few days ago Hume aired a clip of the preposterously biased Dan Rather blustering while Katherine Harris certified Dubya as Florida's electoral vote winner. Last night he noted that, while the SCOTUS opinion handed down on Monday had "vacated" SCOFLA(W)'s earlier ruling that allowed hand counts, neither ABC News nor NBC News bothered to report that fact in their coverage, and the New York Times article avoided it until deep into paragraph four. ... In the show's finale, Hume announced he had a clip of a Gore forefather which explained his recount tenacity. It was the "Black Knight at the bridge" scene from Monty Python's parody, "Search for the Holy Grail." In this bloody scene a belligerent black knight loses both arms and legs to the sword. Even after being reduced to a legless stump he continues to call his victorious foe a coward for running off. Algore indeed. What a hoot.." Freeper Storekeeper Gallup Poll 12/6/00 "For the first time since Al Gore emerged in 1992 as Bill Clinton's running mate for president, the vice president is now viewed unfavorably by a majority of American adults. Fifty-two percent of Americans interviewed in a new Gallup poll conducted December 2-4 have an unfavorable view of Gore, compared to 46% who view him favorably. Just prior to the November 7 election, Gore's ratio of favorable-to-unfavorable ratings was much better: 56% to 39%. By contrast, attitudes about Republican nominee George W. Bush -- that were comparable to Gore's at the time of the election -- have remained positive in the weeks since the election, with a majority continuing to view the Republican nominee favorably. Today 56% have a favorable opinion of Bush and only 40% have an unfavorable opinion, virtually the same as the weekend before the election. ."

Law.com 12/6/00 R Robin McDonald Richmond Eustis " The 11th Circuit ruling could put an end to the round robin of Florida court claims and appeals, most of them centered on hand-counted ballots. If the 11th Circuit rules that hand counts are unconstitutional, it would supersede all rulings from Florida courts, even the Florida State Supreme Court. The Democrats' only recourse would be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which so far has been reluctant to intervene in the Florida vote. .. The 12 judges relentlessly questioned lawyers on two key issues during a three-hour session of the court. The key issues: whether a lack of uniform standards in recounting the ballots by hand resulted in a violation of due process and whether hand recounts gave too much weight to votes in the urban counties where Democrats requested them. ." Law.com 12/6/00 R Robin McDonald Richmond Eustis " Those questions are at the heart of two appeals by Republican voters from two federal courts in Florida. The Bush campaign united with sympathetic Florida voters in one appeal that originally sought an injunction to halt hand recounts in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Broward and Volusia counties and to exclude them from certified tallies. Siegel v. LePore, No. 00-15981 (11th Cir. Dec. 5, 2000). ...... The second appeal, from Bush voters in Brevard County, Fla., sought to have the state law governing hand recounts declared unconstitutional. Touchston v. McDermott, No. 00-15985 (11th Cir. Dec. 5, 2000). James Bopp Jr. -- an attorney with the James Madison Center for Free Speech, a conservative legal foundation in Washington, D.C. -- represented those voters. In an appeal independent of the Bush campaign, Bopp argued that the Florida statute illegally allows a candidate to demand manual recounts only in areas that might favor him. .." Law.com 12/6/00 R Robin McDonald Richmond Eustis "The Florida county canvassing boards' apparent lack of standards for discerning voter intent during the hand counts provoked sharp questions from the court. "What is the first piece of evidence you would examine to determine a voter's intent?" Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat demanded of Fahlbusch. He then answered his own question: "The instructions. You certainly would begin with them, would you not?" . Those directions, posted at the Florida polls and on the voting machines, instructed voters to punch cleanly through the ballot and remove any hanging chads. But, Tjoflat said, "There's nothing at all in Florida law that gives them [the county canvassing boards] counseling to determine voter intent. What authority has instructed the county canvassing boards what pieces of evidence to look at to determine voter intent?" " NationalPost 12/6/00 Alexander Rose "..The Florida Supreme Court has agreed to consider the Democrats' appeal of George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida tomorrow, in what is widely regarded as Al Gore's last shot at the presidency. While outwardly optimistic, senior Democrats and members of Mr. Gore's legal team are whispering that the Vice-President should be preparing an exit strategy should his appeal fail. . " Orlando Sentinel 12/6/00 Susan Clary "For weeks, legal experts haven`t given much credence to a lawsuit filed by Longwood lawyer Harry Jacobs that seeks to toss out 15,000 Seminole County absentee ballots. Today, Circuit Judge Nikki Clark will decide after a non-jury trial. The dispute is over thousands of Republican absentee-ballot applications that did not have voter-identification numbers or contained incorrect ones. .. Seminole Supervisor of Elections Sandy Goard allowed GOP employees to work for three weeks out of a back room of her office, writing the numbers on postcards from voters requesting absentee ballots. ."Voters would not have gotten the ballots if not for that misconduct," Jacobs` attorney Gerald Richman told Clark Tuesday. ." EIBN 12/5/00 Rush Limbaugh "That brings me to another point about the Democrats having no one to blame for these problems but themselves. There was talk on The Today Show about the Justice Department's civil rights division investigating voting irregularities to see if there was a systematic effort to exclude black voters in these heavily Democratic counties. . "Heavily Democratic counties"? That means the Democrats are in control down there! If they stopped their own people from going to the polls, then why isn't the Reverend Jesse Jackson going after his own party? Why is he blaming everyone for disenfranchising minority voters except the people in charge? .Does the Reverend Jackson want the Justice Department to rip apart the people in power of Democratic Florida counties? It's laughable, and it's another one of these distortions we need to get the word out on. If the civil rights division thinks that there were irregularities that resulted in the disenfranchisement of black voters, then hold the Democratic Party accountable, just as we should blame the Democrat who designed the infamous butterfly ballot if it was so confusing to so many people. " Tallahassee Democrat Online 123/6/00 John Sevigny ".. Judges begin hearings and trials today in Circuit Court on separate absentee ballot cases that might give Vice President Al Gore the White House, or could send him home. Circuit Judge Nikki Clark will hear a lawsuit filed against the Seminole County election canvassing board demanding that 15,000 absentee ballots cast Nov. 7 be thrown out. Down the hall, Circuit Judge Terry Lewis will hear a similar case over Martin County absentee ballots. Tuesday's pre-trial

proceedings at the Leon County Courthouse met with protest from Republican voters in Seminole County who don't want their absentee ballots thrown out. Today's court action sparked a rally set for 1 p.m. by Democrats on Gore's behalf at the Capitol. In the Seminole case, Democratic voters say Sandra Goard, the county's elections supervisor, allowed fellow Republicans to correct 2,130 absentee ballot applications she had set aside because of a computer error. The lawsuit asks that all the absentee ballots be thrown out because there is no way to tell which ones involved applications handled by Republicans. .." The Wall Street Journal. editorial page 12/6/00 James Lindgren ". Today in a Florida courtroom Judge Nikki Clark is scheduled to hear arguments in the oddest of many cases brought by Gore partisans to overturn the Florida election results. Al Gore is not a party to this case; it has been brought by a Democratic attorney who wants to throw out thousands of absentee ballots in Seminole County -- more than enough, presumably, to throw the election to Mr. Gore. " Accuracy in Media 12/5/00 Reed Irvine Cliff Kincaid ". At Accuracy in Media we are often asked for examples that prove our contention that there is a strong liberal bias in the mainstream media. The recent presidential election, and particularly the election night coverage itself, has provided a wealth of convincing data that such a bias exists. The evidence is overwhelming that a double standard was applied to the coverage of the two candidates on election night, definitely affecting the final numbers, and perhaps even determining who will be the next President of the United States. .. The early projection of Florida going for Al Gore may have convinced many that the race was over. It is likely that some unknowable number of people from both parties didn't vote, who otherwise would have. One study, by John Lott of Yale University, estimated that the loss of votes to George W. Bush in the heavily Republican Florida panhandle may have been as many as ten thousand. The week after the still undecided election, Republican Congressmen Billy Tauzin of Louisiana and Chris Cox of California announced plans for a Congressional hearing at which they planned to have the CEO's of the parent companies of the networks explain what happened. According to Tauzin, "there were early calls made, immediate calls made for Al Gore in every single one of the 11 states that he won by six or more, whereas in nine states that George W. Bush won by six or more they were delayed from 25 minutes till three hours and 15 minutes". .." The Detroit News 12/6/00 Brian Kalt ". Stand back in marvel of the spin from the Gore campaign. But before you do, know that Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County, Fla. was legally correct on Monday when he handed Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore a stunning defeat. Three holdings by Sauls were most important, and all were strikingly ironic. First, Gore's desperate plea - that there were enough votes for him to win Florida, if only they were counted - was just that, a desperate plea. Gore needed to prove the probability, not the possibility, that there were enough votes out there, and he could not do it. The alleged mother lode for Gore was Miami-Dade County, where a hand count of one-sixth of the county had turned up 157 votes for Gore. Relying on fuzzy math, Gore's team argued that the remaining five-sixths would yield votes at the same rate. .. But Gore's own statistician admitted on the witness stand that such an extrapolation was baseless. The fact is that the 157 votes came from the most heavily Democratic precincts of the area and were found under a dubiously liberal standard of divining voter intent. The rest of the county was, on balance, Bush country and presumably would not have yielded many votes for Gore, if any. Gore offered no retort to this deflation of his argument. ." The Detrtoi News 12/6/00 Thomas J. Bray ". The shabby end to eight of the shabbiest years on political record appears to be drawing to a close. If Al Gore's bid to reverse the Florida results goes down in flames, as appears to be the case, partisan Democrats may despair. But true Democrats can take heart. They may lose the White House, but a handful of brave individuals will have saved their souls. At the head of the list should come N. Sanders Sauls, the Democratic Florida circuit court judge who decided that enough was enough - and blasted Gore and his fancy lawyers to kingdom come. . Earlier in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion joined by the court's Democratic appointees, sent Team Gore and the Democrats on the Florida Supreme Court a roughly similar message: Don't bother us any longer with this "will of the voter" nonsense. But the message was so delicately phrased that Gore didn't seem to get it. " New York Times 12/6/00 " At a time when the presidential contest seems to be grinding toward resolution by the Florida Supreme Court, the last thing the nation needs is a disruptive ruling from trial courts over the absentee ballots in Martin and Seminole counties. But the argument against throwing out a total of 25,000 votes in the two counties does not depend on the fact that discarding them would be politically disruptive. It would be a gross distortion of Florida election law and basic fairness to dismiss so many votes that were cast in good faith by Florida citizens on the grounds that county officials used bad judgment in letting party workers fill out some absentee application forms. .. It was unfortunate that Vice President Al Gore equivocated yesterday when pressed as to how he would react if Judge Nikki Clark, in the Seminole County case, and Judge Terry Lewis, in Martin County's, disallowed the absentees, steps that could give him a net gain of 7,600 votes. Heretofore Mr. Gore has been right on principle, arguing that state election laws ought to be generously interpreted to permit the fullest possible count of all votes. He feels that such a count

would not only represent a triumph for democracy, but have the additional benefit of winning him the presidency. " Jewish World Review 12/6/00 Kathleen Parker " THAT SIGH heard round the world recently was the collectively expressed relief of members of the world's most-maligned profession: lawyers. Thanks to the admirable performances of attorneys in Judge N. Sanders Sauls' circuit courtroom in Tallahassee - as Sauls ultimately rejected Al Gore's request to overturn George W. Bush's certified victory in Florida - America's legal gladiators are entitled to at least a temporary moratorium on lawyer jokes. Specifically, the performances of David Boies and Barry Richard, attorneys for Gore and Bush, respectively, were a welcome shift from what we last witnessed as a nation glued to court proceedings during the O.J. Simpson trial. .." Washington Post 12/6/00 George Will "..With Monday's two swift strokes of judicial swords, Americans learned that they are at the end of, not the midpoint of, the Clinton-Gore era.. Al Gore's crushing, because comprehensive, defeat in Judge Sauls' court means that the faltering pulse of his campaign will at long last be extinguished unless he wins from Florida's Supreme Court a complete reversal of Sauls' ruling. And on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court put Florida's Supreme Court on notice: There is adult supervision. We are watching how mindful you are of federal law.. The next, and probably perfunctory, act in this farce will be in Florida's Supreme Court, author of the farcical opinion that dismantled the Florida Legislature's statutory provision for finality in elections. So notice what the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday about that opinion. It said the Florida court's reasoning was so awful -- or at least so awfully murky -- that it is unclear how that court reasoned, and hence it is unclear what that court actually did" MSNBC 12/5/00 Tom Curry " Rep. John Conyers, D- Mich. and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus complained Tuesday of what Conyers called a "totally inadequate" response by the Justice Department to complaints that the votes of thousands of black people in Florida were rendered void because they did not punch through ballot punchcards or voted for multiple candidates for one office. Contending that the invalidation of those votes was a potential violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, Conyers accused Attorney Janet Reno of "doing literally nothing" to look into the charges. "Thousands of black people never got to have their chads examined," he said at a Capitol Hill press conference with other members of the Black Caucus. " Seminole Trial Freeper William_Rusher "..Bristow, Bush Lawyer now saying that Democrats knew this was going on before the election. Yet he did nothing! Simply because he knew that the county went 2-1 for Bush and putting numbers on any ballot applications would have continued to produce a 2-1 margin for Bush, which is why he did not help or request to put numbers on absentee ballot aplications himself. It is only after the fact that he is now trying to get ballots thrown out after the fact based off of something he knew was taking place well before the election. "He hid behind the law while it was happening and only after the fact in order to change the outcome of the election did he file suit. .." Freeper DouglasKC ".Election official attorney outlining how partisian the person bringing the suit is...spent 50,000 of own money for dems, attacked Cheney...conversely, plaintiff is non-partisian, only care that the legally cast ballots not be thrown out... " Freeper snorkeler ".Pubbie attorney says pubbie operative filled in numbers for dems too! ......" A Citizen Reporter "..ONly 70- 80 people who sent in an absentee request form, didn't receive an absentee ballot. They did not receive one because their forms weren't signed, they were from a different county etc...... " William_Rusher "..GOP lawyer says that the number of ballot applications of folks whose ballot applications were not processed and did not vote in the election is only 70! Of all other ballot applications that were rejected or not processed, those folks DID vote in the election anyway, not using an absentee ballot. " Gee Wally ".Only heard about 10 minutes of this before the recess. The Repub lawyer (didn't catch his name) outlined their evidence. Dems have no chance, IMHO, if the Repubs bring this evidence. First, a matter of law, the Federal Voting Rights Act bars throwing out votes based on technical errors such as omitting the voter registration number. In other words, what choice did the election supervisor have? Should she have violated federal voting law? The evidence discussed was what I suspected from the beginning why Gore's team did not bring this lawsuit. That is, other Democrat counties did the same or similar things. Repub lawyer said they will have those county's elections supervisors testify that they either (1) corrected the problem themselves or (2) did not even require the voter id number to be provided on the application. With such evidence, a ruling for Gore would be such a nakedly partisan decision that I don't think any judge who knows they are being closely watched would attempt it. .." Seminole trial KeatsforFirstDog "..ok...attorney trying to discredit witness "your responsibility to file

[financial reports] in a timely manner"; Goard sent him a certified letter informing him that she had not received the report and he had 10 days to file it or he would be in voilation of a statute; Witness says he "didn't get the letter because he was 'out-of-town'"; he submitted report before final deadline and then magically got the letter; he was fined per statute because he was late with filing (about $900) and he is in the process of appealing that fine against Goard .." Jim-SC "..It seems that the whole of the testimony of this witness is to show that there was a systematic bias toward any democrat. The events that took place were back in August. .." Snorkeler " I really feel sorry for this nut...go ahead and shoot me but this guy is just an everyman who wants to run for office so badly he's willing to try over and over and pay thousands of dollars in fees and fines to do it. Either he is really nuts or else he really cares. I feel for him. He's just walked into the maelstorm. .." Freeper KeatsforFirstDog "summary: 1. Plaintiffs rolled-out a Dem. hack who was a campaign manager for an unsuccessful FL state house member in this election. Now, he's an unemployed painter. He's had triple bypass surgery and we started to hear all about that. The defense showed that he was a leader of something called "TAKE BACK THE HOUSE" a democratic program with pre-addressed absenttee ballot applications on the back of big post cards that were intended to be mailed back to the Democratic Party. These postcards would then be mailed to the proper authorities AFTER the dems had them in house 2. Second plaintiff witness could barley speak English. He ran for office 4 times (got 1 % of vote in one of those races). Said Goard unfair to him. Defendent attorney discredited him because he was late in filing mandatory financial statement in the race he was in this year. 3. Republican "witness" waiting for lung transplant mad because of what canvassing board supposedly did. We got to hear all about his health problems and work history beofre Richard cut his testimony off with an objection. Judge agreed that testimony irrelevant. " scupper "..Summary: Plantiff plans to show that Goard gave preferential treatment to Rep. and did not allows Dems the same convienance. Defendant states that voter id# on absentee ballots is not mandatory and no way effecting the voting cited three cases...Boardman..Beckstrom...Harrison...Each of these pertain to actual votes, but the votes were still upheld. . two witnesses questioned crossed examined, one who ran for mayor of sanford and received 56 votes..one deposition read for the court due to witness illness. Court in recess for 90 minutes why atty's figure out how to handle depostions without witnesses and lunch... More laughs coming up after that why JNC takes her 15 minutes of fame .." kazander "The judge has the discretion to permit it to accelerate the trial. So while this is unusual, it is not inherently bogus. It is bogus if the defense did not have the opportunity to cross-examine those witnesses on their depositions, though. For those of you who did not see this, everything is okay. After the 'rat lawyer finished his "direct examination" of the "witness" (by reading excerpts of the deposition), the judge turned to our guys and asked if they had anything to add from the deposition. After our guys replied in the negative, she moved on. ...... Obviously, as had been discussed, this witness' "testimony" wasn't all that relevant, but more to score PR points. Defense lawyers either (1) didn't believe the witness matter enough to put on contrary evidence; or (2) didn't want to waste time on an irrelevant witness; or (3) . Don't get too upset about this. Deposition testimony is admitted ALL OF THE TIME when the witness is unavailable to testify. Actually, in federal court, if a witness more than 100 miles away from the place of trial, the witness CANNOT be compelled to take the stand, and the testimony *will* come from a deposition. Like I said, don't worry too much about this particular issue of trial procedure. It just doesn't matter. " The Associated Press 12/6/00 Chad Roedemeier ".Lawyers for George W. Bush asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to throw out manual recounts of ballots in three Florida counties because they were "utterly standardless." "This case was brought to restore consistency and equality to voting rights," said Bush attorney Theodore Olson. "Under our Constitution, every person's vote must be weighed equally." .. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard related appeals in separate cases -- one initiated by the Bush campaign and another from three pro-Bush voters in Brevard County, Fla. "Why isn't this case moot? Why isn't this appeal moot?" Judge Charles Wilson, appointed by President Clinton, asked Olson. Olson noted that Gore is still contesting the election in court. "No one has won this election, as far as I know," he said. "It's still very up in the air." Another Bush appointee, Judge Stanley S. Birch Jr., lobbed the sharpest questions at Democrats, saying repeatedly that Florida law provides no clear standards for the recounts. "The essence of justice is everybody plays by the same rules and we have to know what those rules are," Birch said. Democratic attorney Teresa Wynn Roseborough insisted that standards for hand recounts exist. She said the recounts were used to make sure every person's ballot was counted.

." NewsMax 12/6/00 ". If you were as confused as we were Tuesday when Vice President Al Gore charged that Democrat absentee ballot applications were "thrown out" by Republican election officials in Seminole County, Florida, don't worry. You didn't miss what would undoubtedly be a bombshell development; one as yet unreported anywhere else. It turns out that no absentee ballot applications -- Democrat or Republican -were thrown out in Seminole. Gore simply made the allegation up out of whole cloth. "More than enough votes were potentially taken away from Democrats because they were not given the same access as Republicans," Gore told reporters outside the White House. . "Remember, according to what's come out in that case...Democrats were denied an opportunity to come in, denied a chance to even look at the applications and those applications were thrown out." "Now, that doesn't seem fair to me," Gore complained. Only the New York Daily News noted Gore's whopper, first citing the above quote then explaining to its readers: "The vice president misstated the central issue in the case.... The suit does not make that allegation (that Democrat applications were thrown out). The Democratic Party did not need to alter ballot applications because the forms it had mailed to voters included all the needed information." The New York Times and the New York Post simply reported Gore's comment without noting its inaccuracy. ." Yahoo! Via AheadNews.com 12/00 Reuters "The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) says a checkpoint set up by its troopers on Election Day on a road in Leon County did not hinder minority voters from reaching nearby precincts. The FHP ordered an investigation into the checkpoint after receiving a complaint from the state attorney general's office. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has alleged widespread harassment of African-American voters in Florida and elsewhere on Election Day and has asked the U.S. Department of Justice (news - web sites) to investigate...." AP via Drudge 12/6/00 Jackie Hallifax "Al Gore was asking Florida's highest court Wednesday to set aside George W. Bush's certified victory in the state and allow more counting of disputed ballots to settle the ''fundamental question'' of which candidate got more votes. ''If this state's contest provision is to have any meaning, the meaning must be this: it is a mechanism for determining if state authorities certified the wrong candidate as the winner of the election,'' Gore's lawyers argued in a 50-page brief to be filed with the Florida Supreme Court. .. Gore's team believes if the votes from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties are counted the vice president would overtake Bush in the statewide tally and win the state's decisive 25 electoral votes. The state Supreme Court last month provided Democrats their greatest legal victory to date when it extended by a week the date by which counties could conduct hand recounts. After the extension failed to put Gore ahead, he challenged the certified Florida results in court, forcing a marathon weekend trial capped by Sauls' dramatic ruling from the bench Monday. .. " Freeper Airfed "42 U.S.C Sec. 1971(Voting rights statute) provides, in part: ...No person acting under color of law shall...deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election... " Seminole trial Freeper sampai ".. It's going well. The judge is being patient with the Dem witnesses; but it's obvious that the dem lawyer is grandstanding. He's a personal injury trial lawyer and has problems distinguishing between facts and feelings. The most striking piece of information I've seen so far is that Dem absentee ballot applications were sent to the democratic party office rather than the supervisor of elections! That would have given them much more opportunity to tamper with applications than the pubs ever had (the pubs spent a few hours in the supervisor's office filling out the voter IDs)...... Some Freepers seem to think that this judge is against us because she's black and female. I disagree. She's one of the smartest, most competent, impartial judges I've seen in this mess (in the same class as O'Connor and Kennedy on the SCOTUS) .. She's letting both sides have their day in court so that truth and fairness, rather than legal maneuvering, will win. .." Snorkeler "..another observation about the dem demo...just noticed they built a stage!! Why is it that their leaders feel they need a stage and microphones while our leaders just joined in on the street with th rest of us? And why do the dems always need a band and entertainment to get people to show up? and why isn't the media showing pictures of their buses? OK.nevermind the last one .." SunnyJim ".. It is a HUGE problem for DEMs to have them sent to their headquarters. They are in a much greater technical violation than the REPUBS because you can't do this. If true, no court, not even this one, will find the REPUB violation more serious, or at least not serious enough to strike ballots. This is BIG. It is even more mandatory that you have to submit yourself than that you must have ID numbers. .." National Review 12/6/00 Mark R. Levin & Arthur F. Fergenson ". Even if we stipulate that absentee

ballots removed from the hand-numbered envelopes have a material error or omission merely because the envelopes they were delivered in were hand numbered (an absurd proposition on its face), it's undisputed that a large number of all the absentee ballots have no errors or omissions at all, i.e., most of the absentee ballots were not delivered in hand-numbered envelopes. Since the absentee ballots were removed from their envelopes in order to count the votes, it's impossible to match ballots with envelopes. It's undisputed that a large number of the absentee ballots cast in Seminole and Martin Counties have no errors or omissions at all. Clearly rejecting all absentee ballots, which is the only remedy available to the plaintiffs, would be illegal. You cannot cancel Arthur's vote because the envelope Mark used to cast his vote was hand marked and, therefore, said to be in error." On 12th Decision Freeper FrostFire " 128 pages with dissenting opinions. Looks as though case was pretty much MOOT since W already won the election and has been certified. next step, USSC. Ruled that while it wasn't ehtical, it was not unconstitutional to have picked three predominantly dem counties for recount. Ruled aginst 2 other counties who claimed their rights had been violated by selective handcount. it is really a NON case, but the dems will whip it til it breathes. .." Freeper sdkhaki ".Check out this language from Judge Tjoflat's dissent... Specifically, the (Florida) supreme court gave its imprimatur to a scheme under which a political party could obtain a manual recount of votes in select counties. By changing the "rules of the game" after it was played, the supreme court debased the votes of thousands of Florida voters and denied them the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. In this case, brought by voters of Brevard County, Florida, a United States district judge refused to enter a preliminary injunction enjoining the manual counting of votes in four counties selected by the Florida Democratic Party. The voters appealed. Now, three weeks later, this court affirms the district judge's ruling. Plaintiffs may return to the district court tomorrow and ask for a ruling on the merits of their claims. If they do so and the district court rules, which is likely given the obvious need for immediate and decisive action, the case will return to this court and the decision that some are reluctant to make today will have to be made. I dissent because, in my view, plaintiffs have established a case of serious constitutional deprivation. Contrary to th e majority's view that the record needs further factual development, the pertinent facts are well known and uncontested. "We cannot as judges be ignorant of that which is common knowledge to all men." Sherrer v. Sherrer, 334 U.S. 343, 366, 68 S. Ct. 1087, 1102, 92 L. Ed. 1429 (1948). The "man on the street" is well aware of the mischief the Florida Supreme Court's Harris decision has wrought. As I explain below, further proceedings in the district court are unnecessary. Plaintiffs' constitutional injuries are real; they increase in magnitude daily. We should delay no further. ." Freeper Smogger "..From my quick scan this does appear to be the case. The judgement reads on page 21: Because Plaintiffs still have not shown irreparable injury, let alone that the district court clearly abused its discretion in finding no irreparable injury on the record then before it, the denial of the preliminary injunction must be affirmed on that basis alone. Sounds like comeback after you are injured to me. .." Freeper winstonchurchill ".. Yes, that is the basis. BAsically, the Court decides that Bush and Cheney are winning at the moment and thus suffer no "irreparable injury". NOT a decision on the merits, only on the denial of a preliminary injunction. Lots of good stuff, though. No problems with "subject matter jurisdiction", abstension and other ways to dodge federal jurisidction. So, if things go south (no pun intended) in the state courts, the matter is well-positioned to get back to the 11th in a hurry. NOT ALL THAT BAD. .." Freeper Azzurri ".. Judge Sauls is the ONLY judge in this whole election fiasco with the guts to make a decision. All the other bodies have shown extreme cowardice in punting back to another court. This shows what a true American hero Judge Sauls was because he was unequivocal in his ruling and didn't practice "fuzzy law". " Guillam ". The USSC told the FLSC they could try again, but they (the USSC) reserved the right to kick their butts. The 11th. Circuit has told the FLSC to go ahead and rule and they (the 11th. Circuit), reserve the right to also kick butt. No biggy. .." Dialup Llama ".. The Dow suddenly went down 246 and the NASDAQ is down 75. Looks like Greenspan couldn't erase the Gore butterfly effect on the market. " Already in Exile ".. This is actually good news for the GOP (and this is not spin). 11th Circuit said they would act in this case if facts were appropriate and not abstain on Federalism grounds. However, because Bush is winning in other courts and has been certified by Florida there is no need for 11th Circuit to act now to grant him preliminary injunction. But this court laid the groundwork (in a unanimous opinion) to act on Bush's claims IF and WHEN other courts turn against him. Nice to see the Federalism underbrush cleared away leaving path to victory clear. .. Already in Exile, Harvard Law School, '72 and dedicated Freeper. ."

Hobey Baker ".I just scanned through the 128-page opinion. Court says that the lower court did not abuse its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction because Bush is winning and there is therefore no threat of "irreparable harm" if the preliminary injunction is denied. The court says it has the power to consider the merits of the Bush team's constitutional claims, but does not reach the merits of those claims at this time because the lack of threat of irreparable harm is itself sufficient to support denial of the preliminary injunction. . FYI, by upholding a denial of the preliminary injunction, the court does not prejudge the issue of whether permanent relief based on the Bush team's constitutional claims might be warranted at the appropriate time. .. Gore will paint this as a big victory for him, but it ain't. It just a court upholding the denial of extraordinary, preliminary relief without reaching the merits of the dispute. However, the claims are likely to be moot by the time the court takes evidence and is in a position to rule on the merits. .." AP via Yahoo! 12/6/00 "A federal appeals court refused Wednesday to throw out manual recounts of ballots completed in three Florida counties, rejecting an appeal filed by George W. Bush (news - web sites) at the height of the recount controversy in the state's contested election. . The court agreed with a district court ruling which held that Bush, as well as supporters in a second lawsuit, failed to prove they had been irreparably injured. Bush had sought a court order to stop the recounts, which were completed last month, trimming his certified victory margin over Al Gore (news - web sites) from 930 votes to 537 out of 6 million cast in Florida. . The judges emphasized that they had not ruled on the constitutional merits of Bush's argument and simply denied his request for an order stopping the recounts. .." Freeper Thanatos "..The part I would suggest you read is the following: "footnote 4: 4 Plaintiffs' request on appeal is thus broader than their request for an injunction pending appeal, which asked only that we halt manual recounts then underway. To the extent that Plaintiffs' request on appeal represents a petition for permanent relief, we must decline to convert this appeal of a denial of a preliminary injunction into a final hearing on the merits of Plaintiffs' claims. Our review of such a case is normally limited to whether the district court abused its discretion; however, we recognize that an appellate court under some circumstances may decide the merits of a case in connection with its review of a denial of a preliminary injunction. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747, 755-56, 106 S. Ct. 2169, 2176 (1986). In Thornburgh, the Supreme Court said that "if a district court's ruling rests solely on a premise as to the applicable rule of law, and the facts are established or of no controlling relevance, that ruling may be reviewed even though the appeal is from the entry of a preliminary injunction." Id. at 757, 106 S. Ct. at 2177. The Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court's decision to review the merits, rather than merely determine whether the district court had abused its discretion by entering a preliminary injunction, where it had the benefit of "'an unusually complete factual and legal presentation from which to address the important constitutional issues at stake.'" Id. (quoting Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 737 F.2d 283, 290 (3d Cir. 1984)). Additionally, the Supreme Court observed that appellate review was aided by three recent decisions from the same circuit on the constitutional issues. See id. at 75354, 757, 106 S. Ct. at 2174-75, 2177. Thus, it stated that "when the unconstitutionality of the particular state action under challenge is clear," an appellate court need not abstain from addressing the merits. Id. at 756, 106 S. Ct. at 2176. In so holding, however, the Supreme Court noted that "[a] different situation is presented, of course, when there is no disagreement as to the law, but the probability of success on the merits depends on facts that are likely to emerge at trial." Id. at 757 n.8, 106 S. Ct. at 2177 n.8 (citations omitted). This case clearly falls within this latter category, and thus represents the very situation in which the Supreme Court held that appellate review was not appropriate. The answer to the constitutional questions is anything but clear. And, in stark contrast to Thornburgh, we have before us a factual record that is largely incomplete and vigorously disputed. The district court based its ruling on Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction solely on limited affidavits and the submission of few documents, including news media reports. Moreover, there was no discovery in this case, much less a trial or a plenary hearing, and none of the scant evidence presented to the district court was tested by the adversarial process of cross-examination. The controlling relevant facts are fervently contested by the parties. These evidentiary infirmities are especially problematic given that Plaintiffs' major claims are as-applied challenges to the Florida statutes, arguments the validity of which depends upon the development of a complete evidentiary record. Mere expediency does not warrant this Court reaching the merits of Plaintiffs' claims in the absence of the necessary evidence by which to do so. Therefore, applying the reasoning of Thornburgh, the circumstances of this case as it currently stands require us to deny their request." The applicable sentence is "Mere expediency does not warrant this Court reaching the merits of Plaintiffs' claims in the absence of the necessary evidence by which to do so. Therefore, applying the reasoning of Thornburgh, the circumstances of this case as it currently stands require us to deny their request." .. The MAJORITY decision did not rule on the Constitutional Questions because they denied the Preliminary

Injunction and therefore they COULD NOT expound on the Constitutional questions.." Seminole trial Freeper Bitter Bierce "..Judge Nikki is overruling nearly every objection sputtered by the Dems trying to limit the damage Porky Statman is doing with every word from his gaping maw. He's already admitted that he didn't look at what would have occurred in the absence of the actions of the "Republican operatives." She'll be on good legal grounds to grant a directed verdict in favor of the defense after the plaintiff's case is complete. " Bitter Bierce "He was stuttering and sputtering 'til the bitter end. "That's all I have," the Pubbies lawyer said after forcibly extracting a concession that you can't determine whether the election results would have been different unless you also examine what whould have happened if the voter IDs hadn't been filled in. On redirect, they're desperately trying to rehabilitate him, but he's screwed. .." Freeper hellinahandcart ".. Richard: Wouldn't we all be better off if we just relied on you and your colleagues and just forgot about all this election stuff? ..Pinata busted wide open!.." Dog "..Stat Boy got Nailed..He wants to throw out 1900 votes based on a theory of his ....Hope Nikki aint Buying this crap.. " Mad Dawgg "..Heheheh Now The Bush Lawyers just asked Stat Boy "in order to prove your report do you not need to prove what would happen if these Applications had not been fixed!" And he answered "YES" hehehehehe GAME OVER! .." Citizen Soldier ".. Thank God and Greyhound he's gone!!! I saw the bailiff laughing earlier when the statman just wouldn't answer a question AFTER the Judge directed him to answer yes or no LOL! What a hoot! .." Fox 12/6/00 Freeper Lazamataz " Lousy Frankel, DemoWhore Extraordinarre, just confirmed that they will SUE the Florida Legislature to frustrate their necessary duty, as specifically iterated in the United States Constitution (in Article 2): Jenny Backus: "Republicans have no respect for the rule of law".... HEY YO JENNY!!!! TRY READING THE G.D. CONSTITUTION ONCE IN YOUR LIBERAL SOCIALIST SCUMBAG LIFE.." Dirtboy " Let 'em try. The Florida Legislature is its own branch of government exercising its own perogative - and they can damn well ignore the courts here. The libs will scream - but I really don't care - it's time to take back the powers lost to the courts and network television and restore them to their rightful place. It's about time we had a Constitutional crisis. " Geezerette "Just heard a radio interview with that Frankel guy referred to above. Our talk guy is down in Tally, he is a Libertarian. Asked Frankel about all the "bussed-in union members". Frankel admitted that they have all supported algor for a long time, and of course, Frankel had to bring up Miami-Dade and the Republican "mob" sent by Tom Delay and others from other states. Said that those Republicans got airfare and nice hotels to stay in for their trouble! The sound of his voice made me want to ... nevermind. Our Libertarian just kept leading him on in a very polite "radio announcer" voice. He will have a lot to say when he gets home!!! .." Associated Press 12/6/00 Jeffrey McMurray ".An Alabama congressman introduced legislation Wednesday to pressure a federal agency to release money and office space for George W. Bush's transition team to prepare for a Bush presidency. Republican Spencer Bachus wants to convince the General Services Administration that Bush should not be denied privileges afforded most presidents-elect merely because his opponent has contested the election results.. .. ''I'm trying to send a message to GSA that if they fail to act tomorrow or the next day, we hold this legislation over their head,'' Bachus said. ''They're handicapping George Bush's ability to be ready on day one.'' ......" AP, via The NYT 12/6/00 "Determined to support George W. Bush's pursuit of the White House, Republican leaders announced Wednesday the Florida Legislature will convene in special session beginning Friday to appoint its own slate of electors in the state's contested presidential race. Democrats instantly denounced the action as unnecessary, but the Republican leaders of the House and Senate said it was essential to avoid disenfranchising the state's voters in the presidential race. ``We're protecting Florida's 25 electoral votes and its six million voters,'' said John McKay, the president of the state Senate. .. ``I believe deeply ... that we have a duty to protect Florida's participation in the Electoral College,'' added Rep. Tom Feeney, speaker of the House, who had been urging a special session for days. Both men said they hoped that final adoption of legislation establishing a slate of electors would be rendered unnecessary through a final court resolution of the contested election between Bush and Al Gore. ...... But, McKay added, ``in the event there is not finality on the 12th, I think we will have to act.'' .."

Seminole trial KeatsforFirstDog ".Witness saying only 3 dems denied absentee ballot because of lack of voter id. One lived in Orange County. ." another one of the three was a situation where they found 2 people living at same address with same name, but different birthdate...one of those two women had already voted; no ballot given because strange; ok..so of those 3, one lived in Orange County, one in another county, and one rejected cause of weird circumstances; where is this plaintiff attorney getting the other 33? ." Hellinahandcart "They are objecting to the introduction of evidence regarding the breakdown of unprocessed ballots; Rat lawyer arguing, if you can believe it, about "the universe those ballots originated in" (not kidding--saying there's no proof that the ballots the witness examined are the same ballots that were in that famous "shoebox"). .." Relee "..I think the babe's summary says that many more Republican ballot requests were rejected than Democrat ballot requests. This is why the Democrat's lawyer is trying to spin the babe. ." KeatsforFirstDog " I couldn't even follow that...it sounded to me like about 100-200 times as many Repub applications were ultimately thrown out (only 3 dems thrown out, 33 indies, and 250+ repubs). Did anybody else catch that?? Are my numbers off? .." Newzjunkey "..Aff.'s are being tendered. 92 of them. Residents of Seminole who had absentee ballots issued based on the 'corrected' forms and would have voted anyway. Objection, of course. .." Newzjunkey ".She said the rules required her to exclude the 90-some aff's from actual voters who got absentee votes thanks to the hand correction but would have voted anyway. The Canvassing board rests. Richard has admitted some documents. .." AP 12/6/00 ".....Republican lawmakers need to use a special session of the Legislature to help clear up the uncertainty of the presidential election, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday. ...... GOP leaders announced the session beginning Friday to appoint the Legislature's own slate of electors in the state's contested presidential race. ...... Hours before the announcement, the brother of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush said Florida lawmakers ``ought to be focused on their constitutional duty in a time of uncertainty.'' ......." NY Post 12/6/00 Michael Kelly "......There also remain lawsuits brought by Democratic activists in Seminole and Martin counties; these beg the courts to throw out close to 25,000 absentee ballots on the grounds that election officials allowed Republicans to add voter identification numbers to a few thousand of the ballots. ......... But in these challenges, no one is alleging fraud or anything close to it; the information the Republicans added was correct, Democrats had access to the same information and the Republicans' actions in no way manipulated the vote. It would be remarkably radical for the courts to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters on the strength of this. ......" NY Post 12/6/00 Michael Kelly "...... Even if the state Supreme Court overturns Judge Sauls and rules in favor of Gore, and even if the Democrats win the Seminole and Martin cases, Gore still would have no real chance of gaining the White House. This is so for two reasons: First, either of these rulings would be appealed and the odds are that Gore would lose the appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court signaled in its unanimous ruling Monday that it is watching the Florida Supreme Court for any signs of overreaching. ...... Second, there is not enough time to recount the ballots before the Dec. 12 deadline for Florida to choose its electors for the Electoral College vote on Dec. 18. ....." New York Observor 12/6/00 Jason Gay ".....If George W. Bush wraps up this Presidential deal soon-as most people expected him To do earlier this week-that will be good news for the Fox News Channel. Because unlike Al Gore, Mr. Bush will sit down for an interview with Fox. Fox staffers were irate last week after the Vice President, in a marathon stretch of television appearances on Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 29 and 30, purposely blew off the Rupert Murdoch-owned news channel. Trying to bolster support for his re-count challenges, Mr. Gore appeared for a string of interviews on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, but passed on Fox's offer to appear on its airwaves.... Florida Times-Union 12/6/00 Bruce Friedland "...... A group of African-American elected officials from Jacksonville filed suit in Tallahasee Tuesday, contesting the results of the presidential race in Duval County. The 11-page suit argues that current margin of victory for Texas Gov. George W. Bush fell below the uncounted vote in Duval County. Therefore, if counted these ballots could determine the next president of

the United States, the suit states. The case was lodged against Supervisor of Elections John Stafford and those serving on the county's canvassing board. ......Those bringing the suit -- U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, the Rev. Jesse Jackson's civil rights organization, Jacksonville voter Julia Ann Cumming, former state Rep. Tony Hill and City Council members Pat Lockett-Felder, Gwen Yates, Reggie Fullwood and King Holzendorf -- seek to have a court examine thousands of dimpled and partially punched ballots that could not be tabulated by machine. ......" Lincoln Journal Star 12/6/00 Angela Heywood Bible "..... Daily Nebraskan humor columnist Karen Brown said she was "trying to do good" when, in Tuesday's edition, she threatened to shoot President Clinton. Instead, two Secret Service agents visited the offices of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's student-run newspaper, then sought out the columnist to discuss her threat, a federal offense. The commentary was tied to Clinton's planned visit to Nebraska Friday. ......."I honestly didn't know it was illegal," Brown said Tuesday evening. "You're not taught that. I know it's common sense, and I know I didn't use common sense. I realize it was my error in judgment, as well as my editor's." ....." Martin County night trial 12/6/00 Freeper commentary Hole_n_one ".... Motion to dismiss by defendants denied. ....." Squire ".... Who'd a-thunk that Alcee Hastings would be the lead plaintiffs' attorney? ......" RasterMaster ".....A case was cited in the Seminole case last night about that issue. A Dem election worker took the ballots home to review. Judgement was a slap on the hand, and no ballots thrown out. ....." MoMinTN "..... The judge basically said he didn't want to hear any opening statements, he's read the briefs......" Palmer "..... It takes alot longer than 5 minutes to explain how throwing out votes based on changing the ballot application is equivalent to throwing out votes based on punching the voting card incorrectly ....." Undecided "......The judge doesn't technically have to throw out any votes in a contest, he just has to rule that enough illegal vote were accepted to place the result of the election in doubt. If he (or the Seminole judge) does make that ruling, then he doesn't have to specify the number of votes, he just has to rule that if not for illegal votes, Gore would have won the election. I fully expect one if not both of these judges to make that ruling, the FLSC to uphold it, and two sets of electors (one from the Florida legislature) to send votes to congress. ....." Mnman "......They were only ballot applications that were physically removed...however, our attorney just said that the Dems recieved their completed ballot applications directly from the voters and THEN delivered them to the canvassing board.....that makes me feel better about this case. Therefore, even THEY had an opportunity to mess with their constituents ballot applications. ......" Green "...... Who was that repub lawyer that was just speaking? He sure hit the nail on the head....if these ballots are invalid then so are 2MM democrat ballots since they sent out the application with the voter numbers on them and had them sent directly back to them - to do whatever they wanted with them until they delivered them to the supervisor of elections. ......" KeatsforFirst Dog "..... I totally agree with what the defendant attorney just said. It makes no sense to throw out these ballots without throwing out 2 million democratic ballots across the state because ALL the democratic absentee ballot applications were mailed back to the Dems BEFORE the dems submitted them to the appropriate canvassing board; arguably, what the dems did was subject to even more possibility of fraud ......" Howlin ".......Both these cases have indicated there was a conspiracy to deny the Dems the votes; I haven't seen ONE shred of evidence of that. Not only that, I just saw a reporter on CNN say that everybody in Seminole and Martin County knew all about this BEFORE the election -- in fact, before October 31 -- and nobody said ONE word about it. He said that his station even went down there and did a story on it with Goard in the story! So the question is: did the Dems wait until they saw how bad the numbers were before they decided to complain? ....." Green "..... apparently, this witness is the person that was allowed to leave with the ballot applications. Sounds like he is trying to get the witness to admit to knowing that he was not supposed to alter the applications without the voter knowing ahead of time. Also, sounds like he is trying to get the witness to admit that he told the election supervisor that he was going to call all the voters but then didn't do that and instead used their own data base to get the numbers. ....."

KernFarmer "...... Sounds like the demo's are trying to set up some woman that was on a phone bank as doing something she should not have by filling ID numbers with out actually talking to people on the phone. ....." Vbmoneyspender "..... You're a good guy, but I think you are wrong on this witness. He sounds like he is doing a pretty good job to me. He is not acting defensive and he ain't pausing to answer [which is what you usually get when you have a witness thinking (i.e. lying) about his answers]. ....." Ivote2 "..... I have a question. This man is being questioned as a hostile witness. The lawyer has stated that another Republican might be or is a "Co-conspirator". (Taking public records out of the office.) I am getting the impression that this man is being questioned in order to be sent to the slammer. Does he have immunity? Why is he being attacked in this manner? Jen ....." Freepersup "....Goron counsel is trying to get witness to capitulate to the goron's theory, of the reasons for the alleged anomalies in the applications ...." Abigkahuna "..... This poor guy, (Thomas Hauck), is just a poor grunt getting crucified by the Dems. He's being made out as a major conspirator in an ongoing criminal enterprise (read repub party). Jeez. Look forward to being visited by the DOJ when Al takes over. Secret tribunals are being set up now to "question" voters about their part in the conspiracy to elect GWB over the objections of Algore. ....." Shezza "...... I believe the grand total is 25,504 ballots (65%-35% Republican) which our Grandly Delusional Veep is attempting to get chucked in the bin: 15,504 in Seminole and around 10,000 in Martin -- or at least that's what I heard earlier today. Don't quote me on that. ....." TheAmericanPeople "...... Point is, their trying to make this man out to have done something sinister, premeditated, and dastardly. I don't think they're making that case, even though he's a little bit of a bumbler. ....." Hole_n_one "..... Defense attempting to establish state of mind of witness....witness testifies that he felt he had the right to correct or add a registration number on the apps, but, nothing more. ....." Packer Pete "..... The Algore attorney is trying to show the Pubbie volunteer had sinister, conspiratorial motives. He's showing charts that "show multiple handwritings, clearly establishing the presence of multiple co-conspirators!!!" He is walking our friend, who is probably somebody's grandpa, through the steps of the crime, as if he were O.J. Our witness is a little nervous, but is answering the questions without backtracking or being hostile. Not a transcript, but I hope that will do for a few minutes. Can't type very fast. ....." LYONS67 "..... I keep waiting for Judge Lewis to bring an abrupt halt to this railroading of an innocent public volunteer....the more I watch this crucifixion of a helpless innocent the more angry I am getting with the Democratic party for putting this country thru all this crap...enough is enough!!! ....." Palmer "..... Redirect: "that card constitutes a request by the voter" "did you know the requests weren't logged?" "did you know that the only person who can make a request is the voter?" "Did you know it is a 3rd degree felony for anyone else to make the request?" "do you agree that since the requests were not logged, that means YOU made the requests?" (goes to state of mind of conspirator) ....." markfnkl ".... He is accusing him of applying for an absentee ballot on behalf of these voters, whereas it is apparently a felony for anyone other than the voter or member of his immediate family to apply for an absentee ballot. There is ZERO chance that this man's act of putting on the voter ID number will result in a criminal conviction on this basis. ...." Singapore_Yank "..... I'm glad our lawyer got in those last two questions. Just shows that this guy is innocent in intent. ....." Hole_n_one ".... If that was the plaintiff's best shot, they're doomed! ....."

Raven281 "...... I like Jim Angle's (sp) comment, "although Gore is not involved with these cases, because they can help him he is encouraging and embracing them." ....." Gore_sux "..... Between the little hottie in the Seminole case and this sweet innocent old man in Martin the Dumbocrats look like complete monsters. These lawsuits are so ridiculous I can't believe it. If we're going to look at conspiracies - perhaps we should look at precincts in urban areas that magically have 95% turnout. ..." and "....500+ in Martin (1 1/2 - 2 inches of apps) 2000+ in Seminole ....." DJ88 "..... Exactly. What this man did was what he was TOLD to do in front of a bunch of people. They are making it sound like he was caught with a voting machine in the back of his car. OOPS!!!!! That DID happen. Why aren't they prosecuting HIM? ....." Gore_sux "....Here comes another nice old man. These lawyers are such scum for subjecting honest campaign volunteers to the BS. ....." KeatsforFirstDog "..... this is so sad...now the Dems are prosecuting an 80+ year-old-man :( ....." LYONS67 "...... Stuart King up next....a republican committee man from Martin County. Former marine, lawyer, FBI....whoa!!!! ......" Clean_Sweep "...... My level of aggravation maxed when they called him a conspirator. ....." Helen "..... Charles Kane - ex-FBI, ex-CIA. Whoa! ....." Dog ".....There whole case is based on confusing 2 elderly Guys!!..Grrrrr I am so pissed.....I cant type.. " Mom_in_George "...... Seems like Hauck (sp) said some woman called him about her ballot. Now this guy is saying that he called Hauck. Oops-how can you prosecute either one of these guys? Dementia! ....." Sdkhaki "..... The Demo lawyer made a ridiculous claim that since the elections supervisor didn't log the ballot applications as "requests" until after the ID # had been fixed, then technically the request for the ballot came from the people adding the number, not the voter...and that would be illegal......... If that's the best the Dems have then we're in good shape. ....." Palmer "...... Sorry, it seems confusing to the witnesses too. They are being accused of conspiring to commit a felony because they didn't follow procedures that they didn't know about. ......" Pa.cker Pete "...... Dem lawyer now quizzing an elderly volunteer, a Mr. Kane, who is/was the Martin County chairman of the Bush campaign, and a person involved in the sinister conspiracy of placing voter ids on the ballot applications. The Dem lawyer is being polite, but is trying hard to establish that "violations" occurred not just once, but multiple times, and that the reason was to pump up the vote totals for Bush. The Bush lawyers keep popping up to object, that these are facts that have already been stipulated. The Pubbie witness, who may have great-grandchildren, and who may use a cane as well as being named Kane, is holding up very well. ....." Carolinamom "..... Lawyer even asked him if he recognised his own handwriting!! Even on his own check? Old guy says he was refering to numbers...couldn't identify handwriting of numbers....flumoxed lawyer! Honest man of mature years who isn't falling for this conspiracy theorist lawyer. ....." Hobson "...... A Prof from Georgetown was explaining why it is appropriate for the Florida Legislature to act and Chris, in a very hateful tone, says something like: "Well, these partisan Republicans will step in, regardless of what the voters want, and make George Bush the president." ....." SilverNblackcuban "..... Mr. Kane was a very good witness. He hammered the fact that it was not an alteration, but a correction of an error made by the Republican party. Attny Coleman is an agressive arrogant punk. Mr. Kane poilitely put him inm his place. ....." TheAmericanPeople "..... This judge, if he has a heart (and I think he does) has got to be feeling very uncomfortable with how these men have been treated. This guy seems particularly innocent. ....." Green "..... No Dem applications were thrown out (revealed in court today) Repub in Seminole actually corrected some of the Dem applications when correcting the repub applications (came out in hearing today) Dem applications actually went back to Dem office in mail and Dems turned them in "in bulk" to elections

office (new tid bit revealed in court today) Dem applications did not have this problem. Their applications had the number pre-printed. Not all republican applications had the problem, only some. Dems knew about this situation with the corrections on the repub applications prior to the election but sat on it (also came out recenlty in the court hearings) ......" JENINMO "...... Cameron on FOX said that BOXES of these "appplications" were sent to the DNC to be checked........ God FORBID we should bring suit against THEM........... This is SICKENING, I hope ALGORE rots in hell......... embrace THIS you LOSERMAN!!!!!!!!!!!! ......" Shezza "...... My cold-fuzzied brain seems to recall the following testimony: The Dim ballot applications were printed by and sent out by the DimocRATic party, with the return address having the ballot applications come to their party headquarters in Orlando, and were then hand-delivered by "Democratic operatives" to the Supervisor of Elections' office. The non-party identifed ballot applications which were received and subsequently rejected totalled 36, of which party affiliation was undetermined, and they were set aside for such infractions as the voter not being registered in that county, other vital information missing (address or SS#), no discernible signature, or sketchy information provided by which the SOE couldn't identify the voter properly. Out of 15,000+, there were 36 in that box that were subsequently rejected. NO DEMOCRATIC BALLOT APPLICATIONS WERE REJECTED, AS THEY *ALL* HAD THE CORRECT INFO ALREADY PRINTED ON THEM. So sayeth the law clerk from the SOE office in Seminole. (And remember, the Dim ballot applications were printed by, delivered to, and then hand-carried by those shadowy Democratic operatives.) ......" Green "..... This witness is much better than the first witness. He's not taking anything off the Plaintiff's atty. Lawyer: "You did alter public records, didn't you?" Witness: "those are your words, not mine!" ....." Carolinamom "...... The lawyer's constant and emphatic "ALTERED those public records" is jarring and while technically correct in that an ID was ADDED to the applications and thus a change from blank to ID, his use of the term "altered" has bad connotations. It is a deliberate attempt to paint the action as a CRIME....." Helen "...... Did I see that right? Did the Bush attorney stand as Mr. Kane walked by? He sat down again as Mr. Kane walked through the back door. If I'm mistaken, don't tell me. ....." Abigkahuna "...... Ah, Todd Schnick, the "youngun" must be the "ringleader" in this ongoing VWRCriminal conspiracy. How dare these "partisan operatives" "alter public documents". Ah, when does the case for conspiracy begin......." Luther T. "...... i think he's doing O.K.... this lawyer is asking the same question over and over... trying to get him to say something that he can embarrass him with later... he's a smart guy... " Palmer "..... Finally, an objection! And a good one. The plaintiff is not establishing (making up) law. Only goes to state of mind. ....." KeatsforFirstDog "....... Finally! The Bush attorney made an objection (though he didn't use the right language) and the judge asked the Bush attorney "Asked and answered?" Bush attorney nods head. Judge, "Sustained." Geez! The defense has to object more!!! Ugh. ....." and "..... Bush attorney rehabilitating the witness...honest intent to do things right, even checked with election board to make sure printed application was right ....." SunnyJim "...... I haven't watched the case, but I think it is unlikely that Lewis would be influenced much by theatrics. Even if they convince him something bad happened, they still have to show that the remedy is available. He seems too bright and thoughtful to be so easily misled. ......" Hole_n_one "....... Dem lawyer just screwed up......he just destroyed his conspiracy theory by having the witness admit that his only motivation was to correct a mistake. ....." Bootyist-monk "..... Sorry to disagree, but Schnick didn't give them anything. In fact, in his manner, he continually frustrated the democrat attorney to gain any traction with his line of questioning. He may have been nervous, but I think Schnick knew exactly what he was doing. His slow, deliberate answers, and his refusal to agree with any of the lawyers "tie down" questions, gave the rats nothing. ......"

Lady lawyer "....... The republicans aren't raising objections because to do so would just annoy the judge, who is trying like crazy to get this farce done. There is no need for objections. The judge can recognize the games the democrats are playing. ....." Steve_Seattle "...... Kane called them on the "altering public records" bit; he said we were CORRECTING ERRORS on a form designed and mailed by Republicans. Regardless of technicalities about when something becomes a "public record," this was not an official government form. ......" KeatsforFirstdog "....you've missed a very sad event...in my opinion, the first 3 witnesses bordered on having their due process rights violated...they are being prosecuted as though this were a criminal trial and the witnesses have no personal lawyers...the witnesses were harassed ....." SunnyJim in response to ".Tell me.....By accepting the absentee ballot and voting, isn't the voter ratifying the Pubbies action in their behalf????..." said "....That's one of the arguments in the WSJ op-ed on the "Silly Suit in Seminole." ....." Mnman "..... Ha Ha! The guy wanted to impeach the guy on the stand, but the judge said "I'll just read it!" ....." LawProf "..... Clearly the defense lawyers are trying to ambush the Bush team. Great line by the Bush lawyer about not needing to call an expert if this plaintiff's expert gives the same opinion as the the expert in Seminole County. ....." KeatsforFirstDog in response to "....Not my area, but I think the Voting Rights Act bars using technicalities on apps to bar otherwise valid voters to have their ballots counted. Florida law is very strong on this, too. If these had been dead people, or illegal aliens, the Dems would have a case. I don't know why, but I trust Lewis to some extent. This is not a rational belief, I know. ....... I think all the courts are doing OK (not great), whether ruling for or against Bush--except for the FLA SUP CT, which gave a totally incompetent argument, decision, and opinion. ...." And "...... Agree as to the FLA SUP CT...I was in shock when they gave their ruling because it didn't even come close to the actual law. Their opinion was perhaps one of the worst I've ever read as far as rational. Scalia must not have slept well that night. ....." WoodrowTKatt "..... Oral arguments before SCOFLA are at 10:00am Thursday -- at least that's what Barry Richards told JNC. Then the Seminole case resumes at 1:00pm. I think this Martin trial is supposed to resume early Thurs am -- didn't Judge say 7:00 or sleep in till 7:15? Or was he joking? And why do the Seminole & Martin trials have to share the same courtroom? ...." Hole_n_one "..... Goreons want a handwriting expert to testify! what a bunch of losers! ..." and ".... No handwriting expert.....I like this judge! ...." .....Court resumes at 8:00am est. Thursday, Dec. 7, 2000 New York Times "...Following is an excerpt from a news conference yesterday by the president of the Florida Senate, John McKay, as recorded by The New York Times:.....Good afternoon. Earlier this afternoon, Speaker Feeney and I signed a proclamation calling for a special session to ensure that Florida's voters are not disenfranchised from the 2000 presidential election......... The action taken today is done so with considerable reluctance on my part due to the potential far-reaching effects of any actions. What we will do may impact the course of our country, and that is why I've approached the Legislature's role in this matter with - in a cautious and thoughtful manner.......... My primary objective is simple, to ensure that the voters of Florida are not disenfranchised. I've been candid about who I've supported for the presidency. As a citizen of this state, I voted for George W. Bush.......... But as Senate president I took an oath to represent all the people and not one single person or group. I embark on a special session not to advocate either position of the two protagonists but as a constitutional officer with a responsibility to represent the best interests of all Floridians........" Dallas Morning News 12/7/00 Pete Slover "......Lawyers offered a Florida judge a way to give their Democratic client - and Vice President Al Gore - a win without the drastic step of throwing out all 15,000 absentee ballots from Seminole County. ....... A statistician testified that the court could throw out just 1,932 ballots, the number affected by allegations of Republican improprieties, using statistics to decide how many votes to take from Mr. Gore and how many from Gov. George W. Bush. ...... By his math, Mr. Bush would lose at least 1,404 votes and Mr. Gore would lose roughly 500, with a net difference that would erase Mr. Bush's 537-vote statewide lead. ...... Lawyers for Mr. Bush and state election officials said it would be wrong to take away votes based on an informed "guess" of whom they were for, and that case law and statutes provide no such remedy. ......The Bush lawyers rejected Dr. DeLong's remedy, saying it failed to account for those who would have voted in person if their absentee ballots hadn't been issued. They also said that he relied on exit poll data from non-absentee voters in other counties to estimate how many absentee voters in

Seminole County crossed party lines. ........"We would save a great deal of money if we relied on you and your colleagues, and skipped all this voting business?" asked Bush attorney Barry Richard. ......." NY Times 12/7/00 Douglas Jehl ".....Saying it was increasingly likely that Gov. George W. Bush would be the next president, a number of leading environmentalists have enlisted trial lawyers in a strategy to circumvent what they predicted would be the antienvironmental spirit of a new Bush administration. The strategy would rely on the filing of huge lawsuits against polluters as an alternative to the enforcement of federal regulations and would borrow heavily from the legal tactics honed in the tobacco wars. ...." NY Times 12/7/00 Kevin Sack ".....Ruling on narrow grounds, a divided federal appeals court today rejected Gov. George W. Bush's request that the manual recount of presidential ballots in Florida be barred, handing Vice President Al Gore a badly needed legal victory........In its 8-to-4 opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit here dismissed Mr. Bush's claim without ruling on the key question of whether hand recounts in selected counties violated the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection, due process and unfettered speech. It instead determined that Mr. Bush had not met the legal standard necessary to receive an injunction, which requires the demonstration of a threat of irreparable injury..........In essence, the court said, Mr. Bush could not claim that he would suffer such harm because he had been certified by Secretary of State Katherine Harris as the winner of Florida's balloting and its 25 electoral votes......" NY Times 12/7/00 William Safire ".....The Rehnquist court told the Florida judges in effect: Explain why you used the Florida Constitution to limit the powers its Legislature was given by the U.S. Constitution. Make clear, if you can, how you decided that the federal statute you cited in passing did not apply in this case. .........The Florida panel may say: Forget our citation of the Florida Constitution. We didn't mean it to be the basis for our decision, no matter how plain our language was. We included it only as a rhetorical flourish and not as a challenge to federal supremacy. And as to that federal law about not changing the election rules after the election: Our view was that we weren't changing the rules, but merely interpreting them broadly. .........If the Rehnquist court were to accept that, it would be remembered for failing to legitimate the incoming president and to set guidelines for future close contests. I cannot believe it will. ......." NY Times 12/7/00 William Safire ".....The Florida Seven could avert a slapdown from on high by making the issue moot: first, by turning down Al Gore's appeal from Judge Sanders Sauls' crushing decision this week against another recount, and later by reversing any other orders to throw out ballots for George W. Bush. .........In that way - by accepting the state's certification of Bush electors - the Florida Supreme Court would save itself national embarrassment. In a few weeks, it could seek to justify its earlier action that has been nullified by the U.S. Supreme Court; the justices in Washington could then choose to interpret the law for future close contests or let the matter drop as overtaken by events. All faces would be saved and roiled waters calmed. ......." NY Times 12/7/00 William Safire ".....But if Gore and his court supporters demand a fight to the finish, then these are among the possibilities: 1. The Florida Legislature acts to send a competing slate of electors. .... 2. The U.S. Supreme Court, its ruling ignored, demands the Florida court's response by a date certain. If that reply does not satisfactorily explain the vacated decision, the Supremes rule that the state court misread the federal statute and reverse the decision to delay certification. Result: Bush is elected president in December. 3. The dispute goes to the new House of Representatives, where the Constitution calls for a state-by-state vote and Republicans control a majority of the state delegations. Result: Bush is elected president in January. ......." Reuters 12/6/00 Yahoo Michael Conlon ".....- Attorneys for Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) argued in a written brief to Florida's Supreme Court on Wednesday that a state court judge made three errors of law in refusing to order a manual review of disputed U.S. presidential ballots that they believe could give Gore a win in the state. ...... ``The trial court dismissed the contest without ever reviewing even one of the contested ballots,'' said the brief to the Supreme Court filed by the Gore attorneys. It argued that Sauls did not look at key evidence and made three errors of law in this decision. ......It said these errors were: that the court was bound to review all ballots cast or no ballots at all, rather than just the contested ballots; that the court had to find an abuse of discretion by local election canvassing boards; and that the plaintiff had to establish a ``reasonable probability that the results of the election would have been changed'' before it would review contested ballots. ........." Washington Times 12/6/00 Bill Sammon "......Al Gore, whose post-election mantra has been to "count every vote," yesterday for the first time endorsed Democratic lawsuits seeking to throw out more than 20,000 absentee ballots in Seminole and Martin counties. The dramatic shift in strategy came just hours after the

Florida Supreme Court announced it might not accept the vice president's appeal of a lower court's sweeping rejection of his lawsuit contesting the election. Even if the case is accepted, legal professionals doubt the court would reverse Monday's ruling by Leon County Judge N. Sanders Sauls. ............ So while Democrats have agreed to take their fight no further than the Florida Supreme Court, yesterday they expanded their definition of that fight to include the Seminole and Martin cases. The expansion might buy a little more time for the Democrats, who are worried the Florida Supreme Court might swiftly reject - or perhaps not even hear - Mr. Gore's appeal of the Sauls ruling. "Those two cases are likely to travel the same route as the case that went into Judge Sauls' court and will end up in the Florida Supreme Court," the vice president said of the Seminole and Martin lawsuits. "All of the current controversy will end up being resolved, one way or another, in the Florida Supreme Court." ......" Newsmax 12/6/00 Carl Limbacher "....... The way the Gore team plays it, a Seminole County Democrat named Harry Jacobs took it upon himself and filed suit to have a Florida judge throw out thousands of absentee ballots. But Florida-based national radio host Chuck Harder argues in a court filing that Jacobs' suit is "part of a conspiracy with others to deprive millions of voters their rights."......... Perhaps "conspiracy" is an incorrect word. You decide if it fits. Jacobs has admitted that a lawyer for the Democratic National Committee helped him draft his court papers before they were filed Nov. 12. ...... In a deposition last week, Jacobs also admitted that he has been working with Mitchell Berger, a South Florida lawyer who has been a close adviser and major fund-raiser for Al Gore. ....." The Muskegon Chronicle 12/6/00 Steve Gunn "..... Those who follow the political drama in Florida have probably noticed the signs on television. "Sore Loserman 2000." The sign's logo mimics the one used by the Gore-Lieberman ticket in the presidential campaign and are a not-so-subtle poke at Vice President Al Gore's legal challenges to the vote in Florida. But here's a little-known election factoid: Those "Sore Loserman" signs were born in Muskegon. Rich Taylor, an agent for Carpenter Insurance Agency and an amateur graphic artist, said he designed the logo used on the signs with fellow members of the FreeRepublic.com conservative news Web site. ......" Palm Post 12/6/00 AP ".....Gov. Jeb Bush has appointed former Republican state Sen. Jim Scott to the Broward County Commission to replace a Democrat serving jail time for election law violations. Scott, 58, a Fort Lauderdale attorney, is the first Republican to serve on the commission in heavily democratic Broward since 1992. He served 24 years in the Senate, including two as Senate president, before being forced out this year because of term limits. Commissioner Scott Cowan stepped down Nov. 27 after being sentenced to six months in jail for misspending campaign funds. He was accused of writing checks to fictional people and buying furniture for his home with campaign money. Scott's appointment was announced Tuesday at the commission's weekly meeting. ...." Orlando Sentinel 12/7/00 Michael Griffin "......It became more apparent Wednesday that the election deadlock is grinding toward conclusion. Gore`s attorneys said as much in the briefs they filed before the court, arguing Bush`s efforts to block hand recounts have delayed the end of the election. ........ The call for a special session capped another day of legal wrangling and expressions of outrage from voters: ....... Circuit Judge Nikki Clark heard testimony in the Seminole case, including the reading of a deposition by Seminole Elections Supervisor Sandra Goard. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis heard testimony on the Martin County case. Both trials will continue today and, no matter the outcomes, both are likely to be appealed to the state Supreme Court. ...... Legal experts give little chance that Democrats will win either case, but a victory could swing the election for Gore, because Bush won absentee ballots in the counties by a 2-to-1 margin. ......... Arguing the "soul of America is on trial," the Rev. Jesse Jackson led at least 4,000 protesters in a rally decrying a host of Election Day problems. ........ Jackson and U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown told the crowd packed into the plaza between the state Capitol and the historic Old Capitol building that 16,000 black voters` ballots in Jacksonville were tossed out by elections officials. Both called on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the problems. .......Justice Department officials confirmed they are gathering information about the problems in Florida, but have stopped short of calling the effort an investigation. ......" Orlando Sentinel 12/7/00 Michael Griffin "...... Attorneys for Gore quietly began plotting a strategy Wednesday to continue his Florida legal challenge past the Dec. 12 deadline to name state electors, provided the state Supreme Court gives a go-ahead to hand recounts of disputed ballots. ....... But the Gore team and other constitutional scholars say that deadline may not be as pivotal as once thought -- if justices agree that a recount is needed. ......... "We think that if the vote count gets started, nobody is going to stop it," said the Gore adviser. "The way we look at it, the clock is moveable." ...... The Bush campaign undoubtedly would appeal this decision, either to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, or directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, although either action may do little to slow the hand count, attorneys say. ........ Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway on Wednesday night said Democrats had no plans to challenge the Legislature`s special session. .....Some Democratic lawyers had suggested that a federal lawsuit be filed challenging the Legislature`s authority if it sought to sidestep a new, court-ordered certification that could

emerge after a recount. ......... "If you get past Dec. 12, and all these factors fall into place, Gore could have the upper hand here," said Norm Ornstein, resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. Ornstein said, however, that if Gore`s legal contest follows such a path, it will be difficult to withstand increasing pressure for him to concede and avoid a protracted constitutional crisis. ....... "In this case, there`s the legal environment, but there`s also the political environment," Ornstein said. "If you get this going well past Dec. 12, the public won`t take it. But Gore`s team is obviously hoping that once you start counting the votes and they begin breaking his way, that no one will want to stop it." ......" USA Today 12/7/00 Martin Kasindorf ".....Legal warfare between Vice President Gore and George W. Bush climaxes in a Florida Supreme Court showdown Thursday. .... Gore won't take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if he fails to win Florida judicial review of about 14,000 disputed ballots in heavily Democratic counties, attorneys for Gore say. ....If he loses in Tallahassee, Gore's hopes for supplanting Bush as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes would rest on lawsuits by Democratic voters seeking invalidation of about 37,000 absentee ballots in three heavily Republican counties. The Florida Supreme Court is expected to hear any appeals in those three cases, too. ...." USA Today 12/7/00 Martin Kasindorf ".....The issues: ........Whether the Florida Supreme Court should exercise its "discretionary jurisdiction" and agree to decide the case.......Whether the court should affirm or reverse the opinion rendered Monday by Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls. ....Above all, the recount must start at once, Gore says. ......Bush argues that getting a fair count completed by Tuesday is "all but entirely unfeasible." Lawyers for Gore say it can be done in time. ......" USA Today 12/7/00 Martin Kasindorf ".....Gore bases his appeal on contentions that Sauls erred on three conclusions of law: .......... Sauls said he couldn't look at the contested ballots because Gore hadn't established "a reasonable probability" that they would change the result. The proper standard, Gore says, is whether the ballots will change "or place in doubt" the result. .......... Sauls ruled that in an election contest, it's necessary to review every ballot cast in Florida. Gore cites cases in which Florida courts have limited review "to the contested ballots only." ................ Rather than launch his own recount, Sauls ruled that he first had to decide that county canvassing boards had committed "a clear abuse of discretion" in deciding whether and how to do manual recounts. He ruled that they had acted properly. But Gore says an election contest is an original judicial proceeding in which judges do a fresh review of ballots without considering county actions. ....." USA Today 12/7/00 Martin Kasindorf ".....Bush insists that the trial court made no factual or legal errors. "This court should not second-guess its judgment," Bush says. ............In Atlanta, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's finding that Bush - and his supporters in a second, related lawsuit - failed to prove that they had been irreparably harmed by the manual recounts. ........The Court of Appeals explicitly stated that the justices did not decide the merits of the plaintiffs' constitutional arguments - leaving open the option of getting involved at a later date. ...." USA Today 12/7/00 Donna Leinwand "......Lawyers for Texas Gov. George W. Bush rested without calling witnesses Wednesday, following testimony over whether a Seminole County elections supervisor violated election codes by allowing a Republican campaign worker to fill in missing information on absentee ballot request forms. "The plaintiff didn't prove a case," Bush lawyer Barry Richard said. ............ The case, along with a similar one from Martin County argued late into the night, challenges about 25,000 absentee ballots cast in counties that helped Bush to a thin lead over Vice President Gore. A third complaint involving about 12,000 votes has been filed in Bay County. ....." USA Today 12/7/00 Donna Leinwand "......Lawyers for the plaintiff interpreted the absent defense as admitting the case for wrongdoing.......Closing arguments were scheduled for 1 p.m. today............. A ruling is expected to hinge on two issues that Leon County Circuit Judge Nikki Clark told the lawyers to address: whether the completion of the ballot forms by the campaign worker is enough to invalidate the ballots and whether the elections supervisor treated Democrats and Republicans differently........." USA Today 12/7/00 Donna Leinwand "...... A week before the election, the local Democratic chairman called Goard to object to the additions to the form by the Republicans. Goard did not take action. ..........Jacobs says the Republicans should not have been allowed to touch the request forms after voters signed them. When Republican campaign workers filled in request forms unsupervised in the elections office, "there was opportunity for mischief," Jacobs' lawyer Gerald Richmond said .......... Democrats, he said, did not have the same chance as Republicans to correct rejected forms. "I think we have the facts and the law," Jacobs said after the defense rested. "The difficulty is finding the appropriate remedy." The lawsuit asks the court to throw out all 15,000 absentee ballots cast in Seminole because the alleged misconduct involving 1,932 ballot request forms tainted the entire pool. ........" Freeper Gee Wally "......

Freeper Gee Wally "...... Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, (2) No person acting under color of law shall **** (B) deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election; 42 U.S.C. 1971(a)(2)(B). The omission of the voter id # in this situation was not material because the application already had the voter's name, address, SSN, DOB and signature. It would be a violation of federal law to throw these ballots out. ....." WorldNetDaily 12/7/00 Julie Foster "..... As Vice President Al Gore attempts to maintain a positive outlook on his chances of overturning Gov. George W. Bush's victory in the presidential election, Democrats in the House of Representatives are jumping ship and say they will support the Texas governor should Congress be required to choose the next president. ........A report in yesterday's print version of Investor's Business Daily by John Berlau and Sean Higgins reveals the breakdown of cohesion within the Democrat Party, despite the united-front exterior being portrayed by the party's leadership. ....... A spokeswoman for North Dakota's only House representative, Democrat Rep. Earl Pomeroy -- who spent the campaign season blasting Bush's Social Security plan -- said if the House were forced to pick the next president, the congressman would vote for Bush. ......Likewise, Texas Democrat Reps. Charles Stenholm and Ralph Hall said they would support their state's governor in a House vote. ......Other Democrats, though not committed to Bush, have put some distance between themselves and the vice president. But a source in the Gore recount committee told WorldNetDaily most Democrats jumping ship are in states or districts that supported Bush on Nov. 7. ......" Law.com 12/7/00 R Robin McDonald "...... The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined Wednesday to stop hand recounts of votes in Florida or strip them from certified vote tallies. But dissenting judges left the door open for such action if recounts are shown to harm George W. Bush. ......... The Appeals Court explained that the Bush campaign had not shown it had been "irreparably harmed" by Florida hand counts because he has been certified as Florida's presidential winner. ...... The opinion drew sharp, lengthy dissents from four judges -- Gerald B. Tjoflat, Stanley F. Birch Jr., Edward E. Carnes and Joel F. Dubina. They derided Florida's hand counts as a clear constitutional violation of due process and equal protection. ...... In his dissent, Tjoflat invited Republican voters to return to U.S. District Court in Florida to have the case considered on its merits. "Plaintiffs may return to the district court tomorrow and ask for a ruling on the merits of their claims," he wrote. "If they do so and the district court rules, which is likely given the obvious need for immediate and decisive action, the case will return to this court and the decision that some are reluctant to make today will have to be made." ......" Freeper Trust but Verify "...... I hardly watch MSNBC anymore, but i did catch a little of Chris Matthews last night. He looked like he was going to have a coronary each time a guest said there is no way that 25,000 ballots are going to be thrown out to give Gore the WH. I wish they'd ALL go away! ....." Freeper yikes "...... He did this yesterday, too. At the same time, he blasted a CBS radio news guy for not getting his facts straight and allowing his personal bias into the story. He went on to say that news people have no business doing news if they don't know what they're talking about. He also went through the MSNBC news team, rating them on their performances, through the use of the word "okay." His inflections said oodles about how he thought of them. Greg Jarrett seemed to be at the top of his list for worst reporter. Obviously, Imus is on a tear about this if he's doing it again today. ......" Martin Hearing Truthkeeper "..... Defandants now presenting their case. Peggy Robbins, Martin County Elections Supervisor, is on the witness stand. Questioning just beginning. ....." Bob Evans "..... they had to give the judge a copy so he could see the depostion could not find what they wanted to impeach her on ...." Siouxz "..... The judge doesn't seem to happy with this line of questioning--objections from the defense lawyer. ....."

RooRoobirdl4 "...... Did you catch the bald bearded plaintiff lawyer yesterday stating to the judge that what happened was a "sinister Republican conspiracy?" (those were his exact words) What an ass!!!! ....." Jim-SC "....... Testimony continuing: Trying to get witness to state that she gave more than the Republican ballot request forms to GOP. ie..handwritten request, dems request, etc. Witness stated earlier that the forms were in a bin, but said they were not intermingled. ....." Siouxz "...... Judge has to tell the lawyer AGAIN that he has all this info in the deposition. The lawyer is just trying to get this stuff on TV to make it look to the Sheeple like a big conspiracy. ....." Jim-SC "...... Witness says that they did not give the GOP any request that were not from their mass mailing. ....." Siouxz "...... She said it only seemed logical to permit the Republican party to correct the prining mistake, seeing as they were responsible for the mistake in the first place. ......" Jim-SC ".....The whole point of this testimony is to try to get the witness to say that it was illegal, she knew it was illegal, and the GOP knew it was illegal. Plaintiff is not getting anywhere....." Siouxz "....... "You wouldn't affix someone's signature to a preprinted application.....WOULD YOU????? Hmmmmm?" You wouldn't want the Republican party to affix the signature, WOULD YOU???? Even if the Republican party was responsible? But you know that the Republican party affixed numbers on here without speaking to the voter. That must have troubled you because it was inconsistent with your practice." Trying to equate putting the numbers on with forging a signature. ...." Jim-SC "...... Plaintiff now trying to get court to assume that the GOP had the tech and the ability to facsimile the voter's signature on the request form, and to imply that they may have done that. ......" Howlin "....I tell you this -- and I am speaking as a court reporter -- that guy is the WORST I have ever seen, the worst! He's plain and simple a creepy personal injury lawyer who is out of his depth. I wish the whole country could have seen him bashing that poor woman who obviously made a decision in her own office to do what she thought was right. There is NO WAY this judge will throw these ballots out because the plaintiff attorneys are completely misconstruing this whole thing! ...." Siouxz "...... Witness said they did not want to disenfranchise the voters. The voters thought everything was filled out correctly and would be expecting a ballot. "Why did you allow Republican party reps to solve this problem" It seemed logical at the time. Some of the request forms were correct, some weren't. It seemed logical to have the people who had it done incorrectly correct the problem. "Do you run your office in a non-partisan manner?" Absolutely "If this had happened to the Dems, would you have allowed them to fix the error?" Yes. ...." Siouxz "..... Bush lawyer: Allegations of a "secret Conspiracy." Are you aware of a secret conspiracy? No Are you involved in a secret conspiracy? Did you ever tell anyone this is to be kept quiet, it is just between us? No ....." DJ88 ".....Did you ever tell anyone to keep this quiet? No. Did all of these discussions etc. occur in public? Yes. Do you believe you committed any crime with this decision? No. Do you remember the date you gave this deposition? Do you know that you have 20-30 days to check your deposition to check it and correct it? "No, I did not know that." "Have you been provided with a ? sheet to correct mistakes?" "I don't know what that is." (obviously, the other side did NOT give her that sheet, dorks. Nailed them on that one.) ....." Siouxz ".....Asking witness if she was aware she was allowed to modify/correct her deposition. She was not. He asked if she was provided with an "errata" sheet. She did not know what it was. Makes her look like a non-legal, normal type person who was just trying to do her job. ...." BigNate "..... If I had just randomly tuned in last night, I would have thought I stumbled across a Court TV

special about some horrible scheme to physcally injure thousands of people. The Dem attorneys are outrageous. If I was treated the way the witnesses were treated, I swear to you that, once we were dismissed and back out in the hall, there would have been some serious personal injury inflicted on those buffoons! I was hoping Grandpa would get out of the witness box and slap their silly young asses around the bench a few times! ....." Howlin "...... I heard Wolf Blitzer interviewing a TV reporter last night from somewhere down there last night. The reporter said that this was ALL known to everybody in that county and Seminole County by October 31st. He said that his station had even been down there and done an on air interview with this woman and with Ms. Goard. Wolf asked him why he thought nobody said anything about it before the election and the reporter said that he guessed it was because after the election they saw how many it was and saw the opportunity to throw out those ballots. The point is BOTH THE PARTIES knew about this before the election and the Democrats did NOT object to it then! They make me sick. ......" DJ88 "..... Also made the plaintiffs look VERY BAD, IMHO, in front of the judge, because she was not afforded due process of the law by being able to change her deposition if she felt it was incorrect. Howlin, Truthkeeper, am I correct in that line of thinking? (Jeez, I am starting to TYPE like a lawyer!!) ....." Siouxz "...... As of election day there were 0 absentee request forms that didn't get sent out. As of election day there were 82 request forms that didn't get sent out. Blows out of the water the dem allegation that a bunch of dem request forms were purposely not taken care of. ......" Howlin "....... I hope you all heard that: AFTER the GOP took them out and put the voter ID number on them, she STILL threw out 82! This is amazing. It was a clerical mistake, she let them fix it, and THEN she STILL vetted the applications the way she is suppose to!!!!! ......" Siouxz "..... That's -0- DEM request forms and 82 REPUBLICAN request forms. ..." Jim-SC "...... This is an argument of our side and will be taken into consideration by the judge. "Opportunity to Cure" ....." AFPhys "...... The bald bearded plaintiff lawyer yesterday stating to the judge that what happened was a "sinister Republican conspiracy?... and... The judge is getting impatient with this lawyer. For those not watching this Martin trial, the most salient feature is that this lawyer is being very confrontational and aggressive. He is trying to prove that this situation was a felonious conspiracy. I believe that this is pretty much the necessity in order to totally throw out these ballots. Believe me, almost witness grilled by an attorney in this way would be stumbling and nervous. Regarding the judge, I don't think it is too wise to read anything into the way this judge looks or acts on the bench. I'm surprised at how much latitude he has allowed the plaintiff's lawyer in the manner of questioning. In the long run, the evidence is what he is interested in, though, and it seems he's not real impressed with the way the witnesses are being questioned. ...." Jackbill "..... Good move. If you give the Elections Board a wrong number, they can't, in all cases, confirm it so they would assume that it's right! ..." Howlin "..... I'm surprised at how much latitude he has allowed the plaintiff's lawyer in the manner of questioning. I see judges do this all the time; it's called giving him enough rope to hang himself. He's also allowing them to ask EVERYTHING they want to ask so he can't be overturned on appeal. ...,: CinFLA "...... Just the change is not enough. They also have to prove fraud or willful intent. That is why the lawyers are out on a limb with their claims. ....." Markfnkl "...... I'm encouraged by Judge Lewis' own question as to the details of the 108 ballot applications that were ultimately discarded. He wanted to confirm that 82 of them were the GOP mass mailing applications and the remaining 26 were a hodgepodge, the party affiliation of which could be determined if he wished. ........ Makes me think he could be heading toward a ruling saying the Dems were NOT hurt by anything done. Almost all the applications ultimately rejected were REPUBLICAN applications. No Dem mass mailing applications were rejected, and at most a handful of non-mass mailing Dem applications. ......: Howlin "...... He's WAY out on a limb there. It looks like to me that in her mind, she just let somebody correct an error that they had made -- and then she looked at the corrected applications as a "finished" request for an application. ......"

Howlin "......The Democrats had THEIR voters return the requests to their office and then they carried them over to the election board. That's NOT from the voter or the family member! ......" Alancarp "...... Oh, I get it: a witness is permitted to make (minor) corrections to a sworn deposition statement, but campaign types are hauled into court, grilled on national TV, and threatened with felonies for making minor corrections to an absentee ballot application form. Yeah, makes perfect sense to me. ..." Miami Herald 12/7/00 Terry Jackson "...... No matter what happens in courtrooms in Tallahassee and Washington, disputed ballots in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties eventually will be counted -- by the media and public interest groups. ......The Herald and other organizations have told election officials in those Florida counties and at least two others they want to inspect as many as 15,000 ballots that, according to a machine tally, showed no vote for president. ......" FoxNews Online 12/7/00 Deb Riechmann "..... Bill Clinton says he would have been tempted to run for president again if the Constitution would have let him. And, he says, he would have won. "Oh, I probably would have run again," Clinton tells Rolling Stone in an interview. Does he think he'd have been a three-time winner? "Yes. I do. But it's hard to say, because it's entirely academic," Clinton said. He adds that as life expectancy rises, there may be a reason to change the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two four-year terms. Maybe it should just limit presidents to two "consecutive" terms, Clinton ........" Detroit News 12/7/00 "......Al Gore's bid for the presidency is running headlong toward an Electoral College deadline for states to certify electors, but the law is untested in court, and some question whether that deadline will stand. ......Federal law specifies a state's electors should be certified by Dec. 12 if that state's choices are to be "deemed conclusive." Experts on the Electoral College admit they don't know exactly what that particular language means. ..... Gore staffers believe that Dec. 12 date may have some wiggle room and give Gore some leeway to finish the manual recounts he still seeks -- if he wins that right. ....." Martin Hearing: AP 12/7/00 Katherine Pfleger ".....At least a third of Al Gore's hand-picked electors in Florida say he should concede if the state Supreme Court rules against him. ''When you go to the Supreme Court, and if the Supreme Court goes down against them, it is over,'' said Jon Ausman, the vice chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, one of would-be 25 representatives to the Electoral College should Gore win the state. ....." Freeper Jim-SC "..... Same going over exibits. Getting rejected ballots identified. Judicial notice of Fla code, missed the sect. New witness, Kristine Moody Attorney working with Supervisor's staff. ....." and ".....Had 1222 pre-printed GOP forms, 766 forms were "altered". 684 of those forms were returned to Martin County. 11 of those were rejected. 673 votes were actually cast. ......" Florida Supreme Court Hearing: JEH_Boston ".....Chief "Judge" is quoting Blacker and lack of both sides to have used that in previous arguements. I wonder if he is also going to question the false quoting of the Illinois case by Boies. ....." Nora "...... Boise is arguing. Chief Justice Ct questions re federal case argued to SCOTUS. Wants to hear from each counsel about applicability. Courts can only be involved in resolving matters in which Fla Legisalture gives courts explicit authority. And which court is given authority will matter ....." Rolling_stone ".....Judge wants to hear arguments on Blacker case which no side argued before but was argued before USSC. That's how these dummies got their pp's whacked. ....." WoodrowTKatt ".....Chief justice is asking Boies about implications of Blacker case, the one SCOTUS used to remand 1st case back to SCOFLA. ...." Al B. "...... Looks like the FLSC is in full CYA mode....trying to blame the lawyers for not raising federal issues...LOL! ......" WoodrowTKatt "...... Chief justice asking on what basis Boies can even appeal: State Constitution gives right of appeal, not election statute. ....." Nora "...... Issue is whether there is appellate jurisdiction unless the statute gives is - the general rules of procedure are insufficient per Justice's question. Analogy to sovereign immunity. ....."

WoodrowTKatt "...... Chief justice asking, "why isn't this like Sovereign immunity..." SCOFLA is making Boies provide them with a solid argument guaranteeing that SCOTUS won't make them look like bozos again if they take this case... ....." Ironman "....... Boies makes distintion between manner of appointment and time of appointment (set by Congress). Chief Justice again says doesn't Legislature have plenary power? ....." CPL BAUM "...... Judging from the questions re the McPherson case - SCOFLA(W) has it's "out" claiming that the case wasn't brought to its attention. Boies and Sore Loserman are TOAST! ....." Michaelt "..... I think Boise's reply is basically: anything the legislature does is assumed to be reviewable by the judiciary. Therefore the SCOFLAw can take over the electoral duties of the FL Legislature. ......" Ironman "..... Justice points out that "category of undervotes" exists statewide. ....." Joathome "...... Looks like this Supreme read the Federal Court of Appeals brief. Yeah! ......" The Wizard "... The State .... It must be the whole state..." WoodrowTKatt "...... Another Justice drills Boies on the issue: what's different about the undervotes in your counties? Boies is selling, but they ain't buying today! ....." Michaelt "..... Now Boise is interpreting Butterworth's letter regarding manual recounts (I think) that Sauls used in his opinion. I think Boise can make himself believe anything. Not sure if he can work his magic anymore on people other than himself and his client.... ......" Ironman "..... Chief Justice: In 1981, there is no common law right to manual recount. Lowered threshold in Bekstrom if substantial non-compliance. Now you are asking Court to get involved if legal votes not counted. Judge says somebody who lost by 130,000 votes then would be able to ask for recount. ......" CPL BAUM "....... You nailed it! Boies is the scapegoat - I LOVE IT! This no common law right to protest stuff sounds like a shot across the bow of Judge Nikki and Lewis. ......" WoodrowTKatt "...... Chief Justice: "no common law right to an election contest." Beckstrom case lowered the bar to "substantial noncompliance." But aren't you arguing that whenever the result is closer than the number of undervotes, we have to start up a contest? (paraphrase). ......" DouglasKC "...... One of the judges made the distinction that "undervotes" are a distinct category of vote type. Said that there are undervotes state wide, and seems leery of "counting" under votes only in specific counties.... " AFPhys "..... This seems like a COMPLETELY different set of Justices!!! They seem to actually be referring to LAW! Absolutely! ......Can you believe the judge even said the words "judicial restraint" and (paraphrased)"you're asking that we ask the courts to step in anytime voting improprieties are alleged." ...." Al B. "..... You know, I've been saying that SCOTUS punted and wasn't hard enough on FLSC in their opinion. Looks like I was wrong 'cause this is one chastised group of judges this AM. ....." LawProf "....... The change in tone from these judges is startling....at least so far. Agreed. The key is that they are asking critical questions (that reveal they understand the legal issues they are confronting) and not asking Boies "couldn't you also argue something like this. . ."-type helpful questions. ....." WoodrowTKatt "....... Justice Pariente asking, yet again: why recount only punchcards in your counties, what's different about them. Boies answer (in so many words): because we only asked you to look at those counties. His argument is incredibly lame. I swear, he's been working closely with Gore for weeks now. He knows Gore. He wants to lose. ......" Ironman "...... Justice Shaw: Sauls says 'no probability recount would change outcome'. Is that a finding of fact or law? Boise - a combination. ...,,: JEH_Boston "....... Judge asking Boies about the "experts". Did anyone else read into his tone of voice "the alleged experts"? ....." Djf "...... Shaw just hammered Boies with Sauls ruling ... the FLSC is stuck from both sides, USSC above and

Saul's court below! ....." Nora "...... I love the question about why Boies didn't bring out even one ballot to talk to Judge Sauls about.....That's key. You can't swamp a judge with a ton of unsorted mess and make him sort it out. ......" A Citizen Reporter "...... First question from the CJ to Richard is the same as to Mr. Booze. Why didn't anybody argue McPherson v Blacker when you where here the last time, and why aren't you arguing today? Esp when it was argued to the USSC on behalf of Bush. ......" Nd76 "..... Discussion regards jurisdiction of Supreme Court over this matter. Richard says jurisdiction for recounts is expressly limited by statutory language, since there is no common law right to a recount. ....." Ironman "......Richards: 168 gives 5 ground for contest, and close election where votamatic machines were used is not one of them. LOL! ......" LawProf "...... Richards ia taking the right position. The circuit court IS subject to appeal. It better be and he is dead on. Whew!!! That was close. Hmmmmm seems the Republicans decided to give Richards more than 5 minutes to argue this time. I wonder why? *s* ......"............"...... Watch out here. Anstead is on a roll--brings up that Sauls admitted the 9000 ballots into evidence, but didn't examine the ballots. Now "Olive Oyl" Pariente is going after Richard. ......." Timeout ".....Lady judge seems to be arguing that in order to prove you deserve a recount...the court must do a recount. ......" Truthkeeper "...... Barry going toe-to-toe with that flaming lib, Anstead. Anstead definitely not as snotty as he was in the first go-around. Barry stands FIRM. Pariente now digging; ragging all over Sauls' decision. Pardon me, but is this what they should be asking about at this point? ......" Sedozob ".....Now you know where this is going - to the Florida Legislature. SCOFLAw has more guts than brains, which is not saying much. ....." Ctonious "...... But - Richards effectively countered that first the plaintiff has to FIRST prove malfeasance of the canvassing boards - which they absolutely failed to do. ...." Nd76 "....... TV camera just showed Richard with a very disgusted look on his face. Lewis now questioning. Richard points out the obvious--canvassing boards are administrative agencies, and the standard for review is "abuse of discretion". ....." Nora "....... Impact of admitting the ballots into the evidence but didn't examine them A: admitted thousands into evidence/embargoed, yes. Q: did the court examine the ballots? A no plaintiff never carried the burden of showing a need to examine the ballots Q What does the statute mean when it says that each allegation must be investigated etc, if not that the judge must take a look at the ballots? A the Circuit court has no greater power than this court to disregard legislative scheme which gives the canvassing board the discretion to decide whether to conduct manual recount. ..... Q: If the canvassing board has the discretion, doesn't that mean that you must always have a protest before contest? A: No ......." Commish ".......... One thing I caught on the Ballot thing was the questioning of Boeis .. They asked him repeatedly - DID YOU PRESENT A SAMPLE BALLOT? DID YOU HOLD IT UP AS AN EXAMPLE? DID YOU DO ANYTHING WITH ONE AT ALL? ........... Basically they were saying - How can you ask us to overturn on the basis of the Ballots being Evidence when you never presented one as an example in the courtroom. Isn;t that a failure on your part and not an error by the court? ........." MississippiMan "....... I think a critical point that they're totally ignoring, which was laid out nicely in the Bush brief, is the fact that unless this joke of a court can find a way to make their earlier ruling pass muster with SCOTUS, this is all irrelevant because the contest was filed past the deadline and should be treated as if it

never happened. ......" Truthkeeper "......I love the way Richard keeps telling them "This has been the law since time immemorial." TELL 'EM, BARRY. ....." Ironman "....... Richards - Miami-Dade not required to conduct in futile act (to continue manual recount) to meet SCOFLA deadline of Nov 26. ......" Prognostigaator "....... "The Canvassing Commission exercised its decision-made its determination to stop counting after making that decision on investigating 1% of the ballots. The deadline imposed by this court also caused them to stop. Not the commotion outside of their office."--Richards. ....." The_Victor "..... Don't blow a gasket... They did the same thing to Boies. Richards clearly has more case law to cite and is not seem nearly as flustered as Boies. Relax ....." LawProf "...... Richards just nicely finessed the legal standard issue by saying that there was NO evidence of any uncounted votes so this would meet any standard. ......" Ironman "...... Justice: paraphrasing, in this contest period is it not in the perview of the court to count the undervote. Richards - not after the canvasing board has decided not to. ......." Truthkeeper "....... God, I can't stand this Pariente woman. She is really hung up on the 9,000 Miami-Dade "votes." Barry has to tell the law over and over and over. ......" Glennaro "..... FLSC justices are plenty smart, but they have a tough row to hoe if they plan to reverse Sauls. They're searching for reasons and asking Barry to help them, but he's standing solidly behind the clear reasoning of Sauls. ......" Djf "..... Richards just hit them with it's not judicially reviewable if the canvassing board makes a decision and there is no abuse of discretion... Florida statutes say the same... Score!......" ctonious "..... Unbelievable - the Chief Justice just asked whether the 9000 ballots had been thru the machine. Apparently - he's swallowing Gore's lies as well. ...,,: WoodrowTKatt "...... Barry answering Pariente: no basis in this case to reexamine those 9000 baloots NOW; Miami-Dade canvassing board properly used their discretion; ....... i.e. law doesn't let you look at those ballots yet again; because Pariente wants to isn't a sufficient legal reason. ....." JEH_Boston "........ Just remember that if they do overturn Sauls, they cannot allow the request for clarification from SCOTUS to wither on the vine. They may just be asking the right questions to ensure that upholding Sauls decision cannot be brought to SCOTUS by the Dems. ....." Ironman "...... Richards makes great comeback saying there are 64 counties didn't make manual recount. Justice - how does one demonstrate outcome would be in doubt, what standard. Richards - plantif must make burden of proof in court. ......" Magnolia "....... Excellent! Richard argued that the difference between the Palm Beach ballots & Miami/Dade is that Palm Beach changed the standard, therefore more questionable ballots were read. ....." Katie_Colic "....... I love how the justices are trying to argue that their own deadline should have been disregarded. BWAAAHAHAHAHA! ......" WoodrowTKatt "....... Barry just nailed it: if you adopted that standard, you would be saying that any close election where votamatics were used would require a manual recount. (paraphrase). Florida has NOT done this routinely in the past. If they try now, they will get nailed for the "safe harbor" violation. ......" "....OK, Klock is arguing the "safe harbor" provision... " Glennaro "....Klock: Review the decision, but don't change the law! ......" LawProf in response to "...Yes, this court is going to be brazen and let these lying scumbags count those NON-votes. ..." said ".....No one knows but them, and you could be right, but somehow I doubt it. I think some of them have had enough. Those justices are asking the questions they need to ask to rule against Gore. A couple justice seem like they did before, however. ....." Timeout "....Klock: This court, when it gets into "interpretation", is carrying a lot of BAGGAGE. LOL. ....."

Glennaro ".....Justice: Just because we change the language of the law doesn't mean we change the law, does it? Klock: Yes it does, your honor. ....." Jackbill "...... Klock: "Going from seven days to 19 days is a lot of baggage". Gotta love his guts. ....." DouglasKC "...... Klock telling them that in the Harris ruling, they kind of messed up on interpetation of law...deadline from 7 days to 19 days.. ......" Eureka! "...... Yep. Can't tell what they are going to do from the questions. Klock is holding his own very well-"interpretation can't carry too much gbaggage or it is a change in law" and unconstitutional.... " Nd76 "...... Klock did a great job today--demonstrated that the Florida Supremes would have to make new law in several respects to have Sauls count the 9000 votes. ....." WoodrowTKatt "...... Justice Lewis zeroing in on "sufficient legal votes rejected to place election in doubt..." Klock: problem is you need to create a mountain of new law to do this... county recounts in statewide elections... recount standards where none existed previously... Great answer, Mr. Klock! ....." Timeout "...... Boeis caught misleading the court: Palm Beach County had 215 votes already counted at deadline....JusticeLady: Didn't that number change to 177?....Boies: Uhhh, yeah. ......" WoodrowTKatt "..... Even Pariente is calling Boies on his "215 PBC number" -- says audited number is 174. ...." Lazamataz "...... This is the only 7 minute "One Minute" I have ever seen. Different rules for Boies as opposed to any GW lawyer. Neat. ....." Nd76 "...... Actually, Boies had like 10 minutes reserved for rebuttal, and, because they gave Richard and Klock 31 minutes in the aggregate, they gave Boies 1 extra minute to balance out the time. ..." AustinTparty "........Somehow it seems as though the different liberal threads in these justices are unraveling...there are the unrepetant, I'll-do-anything-to-win ones, and the others who are at least keeping in mind that Gore can't win and see no reason to fall on their sword for him. The latter ones are the ones most likely to respond to pressure from SCOTUS. We should also not forget that the 11th Circuit RESERVED judgment...they were attempting to apply their own pressure tactics IMHO. ......" Lazamataz "....... I do not appreciate the clear bias and favor towards Boies. 13 minute "one minute" and counting. ......" Specktron "....... amstead: how can we resolve the timing if law says we must recount all votomatics? Boies: 1.never been a rule where every ballot must be recounted 2. Bush never asked for a recount. ......" Ironman "......Justice - How can we resolve that we have to recount ALL the ballots. Boise - in contest phase, you don't have to. Bush doesn't need to be protected from his lawyers if he didn't ask for recount. Court in recess. ..." OK "...... When the Chief Justice said the only recount they can order is to recount all Florida votes and there is not enough time for that, I figured it is over. ....." Michaelt "....... Paul Rothstein (?) on FNC just said that Barry Richard missed a golden opportunity - provided via a question by the FL Sup Soviet justices - to tell them that they had no business being there, and that Richard missed it. Well, I missed it too, but then I'm not a lawyer. But if they think they have no business being there, and its in the law, does the defendant have to make the case for it specifically? ......" Michaelt "...... Andrew Napolitiano (sp?) just replied to Rothstein's argument - said that it would have been foolish for Richard to tell the justices that they had no appealate jurisdiction any longer. Rothstein just said that he doesn't think they'll rule for Gore. I wish someone could have kept track of all the predictions made by all the legal beagles on all the news channels. They'd probably have a worse record than the Chicago Bulls right now. ....." WoodrowTKatt ".......Actually, I don't think Chief Justice's argument poits to recounting all 6 million ballots. But it does say you'd have to count all the "undervotes" in all the punchcard counties. The only basis Boies could provide for a recount is "there are legal votes in them-there undervotes." The only difference Boies

could make between PBC/Miami-Dade and the many other punchcard counties is "we only asked for recounts in these counties." Boies' argument didn't fly with Sauls, and SCOFLA won't buy it, either. And there's no time to re-recount the punchcard undervotes statewide. ......" LawProf "...... Rothstein on FOX is accusing Bush team of making a big mistake by failing to take the SC's suggestion that they lacked jurisdiction. This is idiotic on 2 counts. First, because the law is otherwise (as is the SCOTUS opinion) and counsel has a duty to argue the law not just the outcome they want, and second, it is contrary to the interests of their clients who need the SC to review any bad decisions coming out of Leon County. ....." Seminole Hearing WoodrowTKatt "...... JNC: Is it the voters who are in substantial non-compliance, or Ms. Goard? Richman: Both! (Bzzzz.. wrong answer). ...... I don't think we need to worry about JNC. She clearly "gets it." ....." Native American Female Vet "...... Dont ya just love this: Clark: Are you asking me to presume things happened that are not in evidence here? Richmond No I am asking... Clark speaking over Richmond: because they have unfettered access? Richmond: No I am not asking your honor to presume anything. Im asking your honor to presume one thing, and that is that this goes to the integrity of the process to allow a person from one party unsupervised to be in there. Thats part of the overall picture of what happened here. ........." DJ88 "....... Did you just hear him say to her in response "that since the Supervisor of Elections didn't follow the law, presuming she knew it, that doesn't mean that she should be the one that is punished and not the voters?" and he responds "No, the voters should ALSO be punished..." I think she's gonna hand him his head here soon. ......" Newzjunkey ".... Judge asking under what authority did Goard allow the pubbies in her office? ....." Michaelt "..... Lawyer for the Seminole Cnty Canvassing Board is up. ....." Newzjunkey ".....he seems to be quoting an opinion of the state Board of Elections that politcal parties can add information, e.g. the voter ID number, to the request. ....." Truth_eagle "...... SCORE!!!! Points out the fact that the DEMS printed the voter number on the form for the voter. ......" Siouxz "....... Richman: Sandra Goard-knowledge of the law, coverup, unlocked nonpublic area. Eleanor Baily deposition: Confirms when Pub operative came in Sandra Goard held a meeting to tell her people what they would be doing. Asked her people to assist the Pubs. The whole office was at the meeting. Gist of meeting: We were going to start receiving these in, and it was something that was done through the Republican Party. Bonnie Eaton deposition: Were you instructed that the Voter ID was important? Yes. Cannot process form w/o number? Yes. Did you always follow that instruction? Yes. Mr. Joiner deposition: Who physically did the separation of mail? Me. Which request forms are you referring to? Republican request forms. Did you segregate Pub request forms from other absentee ballot request forms? Yes. ...." Supreme Court Liberals are Evil Socialists! "......Bizarre FSC hearing. First, they blame the lawyers for not mentioning the federal law they missed. Gee, I'll bet they just beat their own clerks over that. Second, they can't figure out whether to take jurisdiction because they can't figure out if a 168 contest action expressly extends to Statewide Presidential elections and even if it did, it seems that there is some question about the entitlement

to a hand recount and the scope of any recount. It seems clear to me the Judges thought Sauls created a higher standard for the plaintiff to prove a "reasonable probability" that there would be an effect on the election. The activist judges (Pariante and Quinn) clearly were in lockstep that the standard should be a "sufficient change to place in doubt the results of the election." So, the point is, even if Sauls was wrong on that one standard, was there enough to reverse him on the facts? They thought his findings were still factual but obviously there were also mixed questions of law and fact in the application of his standard to the findings that no recount go forward. ...... Pariante also went off on some tangent about needing to look at each allegation of the Complaint, but she did not seem to get that threshold questions may be answered which knock out the whole case. I think she was clearly troubled by not counting the votes in Palm even though the standards changed, but this is a canvassing boards discretion. In the end, there simply is not enough time to fix this even if Sauls used the wrong standard. However, the usual remedy is to remand to apply the right standard to the findings and, in that event, Sauls will likely find the same way on the facts applied to the new standardm and send it back. ... Personally, I think this case allows the court to save face if it denies the appeal and order recounts. If it does this, then it can easily say to the US supreme Court that the federal appeal is moot. It also seems clear that the CJ is more conservative than the activist women Judges. I'd be worried about their undue influence. But at worst it may be 5-2 or 4-3. Otherwise, even if they remand, there is no time to fix this count issue and have another appeal before 12/12. A lot of the problems in these cases are inept lawyering by Boies. First, not letting the court know about the Illinois case. Second, putting on horrid evidentiary case before Sauls and finally, not giving Sauls the correct standard based on a change in the statute last year. Boies ahs also shot his credibility with this court by getting them into trouble for following his argumetns last time. I don't see a majority of them falling into that trap this time. But we'll see how activist they really are. ......" Seminole Hearing: Helen ".....Attorney for the canvassing board is stating, based on common sense and the law, why the verdict should not be based on their actions. He's not saying anything controversial which is why you are not getting any feed-back. He is refuting, point by point, Richmond's protestations. He's talking about the seriousness of the job done by the board and those who helped them. ......" Bobzeetwin "...... Bad guy blabbed on infinitum. Said we have been wronged. Judge Nikki seemed like she was on our side with her questions. (Maybe she was giving him a chance to better make his case.) Good guy comes on. He is on now. Doing a good job. Her questions are leading him to either make a stronger case for him, or maybe justify her upcoming ruling. All in all, looks good for us. My wife says he is better than Matlock. ......" LawProf in response to ".... Re Prosecution of Goard and the GOP "operatives"... I am not well versed on criminal law... but I believe that if the judge actually believed that those "operatives" had committed felonies, she would have needed to admonish them re their 5th Amendment rights prior to testifying. Please clarify. ..." said "....I am not entirely sure of the answer to your question but I doubt an admonishment is required. But do not worry. No criminal prosecutions will follow. This is the very least of our concerns. ....." Jackbill "...... Testimony yesterday showed that on at least one DemocRAT application (that went through the DemocRAT HQ) had information on it in handwriting other than that of the voter. ...." Ftrader "...... Not really, because the State Election office, the lawyer for Kathryn Harris, APPROVES all of these mailings BEFORE they are sent, for compliance with law. This came out last night in testimony in the Martin case. It is the practice of the parties to do so. THAT is legal, sending them to a 3rd party, the campaign. ......" Gee Wally "...... JNC had similar exchanges with the Dems lawyer as those she's having now with Goard's attorney. E.g., multiple times she told the Dem lawyer he was asking her to speculate that something wrong was done behind closed doors when there was nothing in the evidence to support it. She also made a telling point to him that to prove disparate treatment he would have to show that the other situations involved the same circumstances and she didn't seem to think they did. I don't think she's tipped her hand by her questions. ....." Orlando Sentinel 12/7/00 Karla Schuster "......Attorneys for Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday won a bid to move into federal court a lawsuit that could disqualify thousands of overseas ballots. The move keeps the case away from a state judge who questioned the legality of overseas ballots in another case. The lawsuit, filed last week by several South Florida Democrats in Leon Circuit Court, seeks to toss out overseas absentee

ballots in 10 counties because they were received after Election Day. ....... Florida law states only those ballots received by Election Day can be counted in the final results. But in a 1984 consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, Florida agreed to accept overseas absentee ballots for up to 10 days after an election -- if postmarked by Election Day. ...... As a result, lawyers for Gov. Jeb Bush convinced U.S. District Court Judge Maurice M. Paul that the case should be heard in federal court because it involves a federal consent order as well as the governor`s duty to certify presidential electors, which is part of the U.S. Constitution. ......Paul will hold a hearing on the lawsuit, and a similar one filed Tuesday, at 1 p.m. today. ......" Time 12/7/00 Jessica Reaves "....... Thursday morning, in his oral argument before Florida's Supreme Court justices, Gore lawyer David Boies looked like a man who has reached the end of a very long road. Drawn and pale, Boies took some time to get warmed up - and really only scored points at the end of his rebuttal, when he insisted there was precedent for limited recounts. In order to rule otherwise, Boies argued, the court would have to do the unthinkable: Alter existing law. ....Did Judge Sauls, the Court asked, use the correct standard to arrive at his ruling? The Gore team argued the negative, pointing out that because Sauls depended upon old election statutes from 1974 and 1982, rather than using a 1999 precedent which allows a looser interpretation of "contest" requirements, the Circuit Court decision is untenable. The Bush lawyers, on the other hand, insisted that Sauls ruled the only way he could: The Gore team, after all, did not satisfy existing standards for a recount, which require a plaintiff to prove there is "reasonable probability" that a recount will yield a changed election results. ........" National Review 12/7/00 Mark Levin "....... But here's the little secret no one has whispered into the 14 ears on the Florida supreme court: On November 26th, upon receiving the certified election results from Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, carrying out the will of the state legislature, signed a "certification of ascertainment" appointing George W. Bush's slate of electors to the Electoral College. On November 27th, he forwarded the slate to the Archivist of the United States. In fact, the certified document appears on the National Archives' website (look under Florida). The election is over. Rosie O'Donnell has sung. Case closed. Well, you might ask, can the Florida supreme court order Jeb Bush to certify a second slate of electors - Gore electors? Not according to an 1870s Florida supreme court decision, State of Florida v. Drew. ...... Since Jeb Bush didn't wait for a contest period before certifying the slate of electors, doesn't that violate state law? No, because state law allows contest and protest periods in elections for public office. Electors are not running for public office. ......." AP 12/7/00 "......Plans by a conservative law group to inspect Broward County ballots stalled Thursday when a judge decided it wasn't as easy as just showing up with permission at the warehouse where the punch cards are stored. ......... Broward Circuit Judge Patricia Cocalis wants one of the Tallahassee judges handling election lawsuits to clarify whether the ballots can be released to Judicial Watch. ...... William Scherer, attorney for Republican George W. Bush, doesn't want anyone fiddling with the disputed ballots until Florida courts decide what to do about challenges by Democrat Al Gore. .........." AP 12/7/00 David Espo "....... Al Gore's lawyer pleaded with a seemingly skeptical Florida Supreme Court on Thursday to order selective manual recounts of ballots that could revive the vice president's fading quest for the White House. George W. Bush looked to the state's justices to finally count his rival out. ........ "We believe the ballots can be counted in the time available,'' Gore's lawyer, David Boies, said when Chief Justice Charles T. Wells noted the state's presidential electors must be picked by Dec. 12. "Obviously time is getting very short.'' ........But lawyers for Bush and GOP Secretary of State Katherine Harris both said Gore was asking the state's highest court to exceed its legal powers. ......Joseph Klock, representing Harris, said the court would have to "create a pile of law'' to grant Gore's request. ......." The Associated Press 12/7/00 Brigitte Greenberg "......The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is taking up the question of whether black voters in Florida were denied their right to vote because of intimidation, discrimination, fraud or other alleged improprieties. The organization's general counsel, who went to Florida to investigate allegations of voting irregularities, is to report to the commissioners Friday. Although the eightmember panel can hold hearings and subpoena witnesses, it has no enforcement power and is considering no action that could affect the presidential race ......" Yahoo Reuters 12/00 James Pierpoint "......The elections supervisor in Florida's Martin County, where Democrats are seeking to invalidate thousands of absentee votes and swing the election to Vice President Al Gore testified in court on Thursday there was no conspiracy to alter ballot requests from hundreds of Republican voters. ...... Peggy Robbins, a Republican who has headed the county elections office for 23 years, told the court she allowed Republicans to correct erroneous voter registration numbers on absentee ballot applications printed up by the party, to avoid ''disenfranchising'' voters who submitted them. .......... ``The mistake that was made on them was made by the Republican Party. It only seemed logical to allow the Republicans to correct that mistake,'' Robbins testified. ``We did not want to disenfranchise the voter. They

thought when they mailed that in it was right.'' ......" The Associated Press 12/7/00 Alan Clendenning "......Dick Cheney is a Wyoming resident and therefore would be constitutionally qualified to serve as George W. Bush's vice president, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The ruling came from the bench after an hour-long hearing in which lawyers for three Texas residents argued that Cheney had moved to Bush's home state of Texas when he took a job there in 1993. ...... The three-judge appellate panel took a short recess after the arguments, then Judge Patrick Higginbotham returned to say without elaboration that the panel was in agreement that Cheney clearly is a Wyoming resident. ......" Agape Press 12/7/00 Bill Fancher "......The conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch has won approval to begin counting the disputed Presidential ballots in a second Florida county. The tabulation began in Broward County this morning at 9:00. ..............Meanwhile, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton says he has found evidence of possible voter fraud in the Sunshine State. He says it appears the ClintonGore Administration pressured the Immigration and Naturalization Service to quickly process applications for citizenship in hopes of helping the Democrats' cause. ........" Seminole Jim-SC "......Boardman and Beckstrom cases are being cited by our side. Judge ask if there is a difference between illegal and void. Our guy talking about all the violations in the Beckstrom case and that those violations did not result in throwing out a single ballot. ...." MrFred "....... Judge Clark:"Suppose a busload of folks was on their way from an apartment complex to the polls, the bus breaks down. The bus does not get to the polls until 7:02. The will of the people is known because they were talking about it on the bus and they intended to vote." ..........And if the polling judge let that busload of people vote, then shoud we throw out all of the votes from that precinct? If so, lets go to Missouri and thow our all of those votes from ST Louis polling places that stayed open late. ......" Citizen Soldier "...... Barry Richard up now!!!!! Disagreeing about the bus invalidating the ballot. He says if the polls are open and they vote then they can validate the votes. ....." Newzjunkey ".......RICHARD is up! talking about the bus. talking about the polls being kept open late if the line is long and if the polls were still open and they voted so it would be substantial compliance. If the polls were already closed, they couldn't vote and it would not be substantial compliance. ....." Nd76 "..... Has anybody on the GOP/Seminole Co. side raised Griffin, and the point in Griffin that once a voter receives an absentee ballot and votes and timely sends it in, to disqualify his ballot after the election for some pre-election problem is to perpetrate a fraud on the voter--obviously, if the voter knew beforehand that his absentee ballot would not be counted, he would still have the right to show up at his polling place on election day and vote. ......" Ftrader "...... BEST ARGUMENT YET!! The 1998 laws to help avoid fraud had a letter attached, clarifying that there were MANDATORY statutes and DIRECTIVE statutes, so that the applications can be looser in their information. ONLY the ballots have the absolute requirements of voter id. ......" McGavin999 "..... Richard is a joy to listen to. He just sites the law and there's no arguing. He lays it all right out, just like a blueprint to Justice. ......" Michaelt "...... Richard: "If the ballots were not compromised, the election was not compromised." ....." KarlH "...... Richards is quoting law and the judge is listening, not interrupting. He is making a good closing. Indicating that plantiff has not provided any evidence of wrong doing, specifically that the ballots could not be compromised because they were not there (in the office) when the Republican "operatives" were there, only the ballot requests were there. Judge now asking another hypothetical. ......" Newzjunkey "...... talking about how the facts call for an inference of innocense (definitely!) but he's, for this purpose, accepting the idea there was something nefarious. He's pointing there's no evidence or suggestion as to what might have been compromised. Richards is saying the only thing that matters when it comes to something being compromised and tossing the ballots it is compromising the ballots. if the ballots weren't compromised, the election wasn't compromised. Judge asking questions...asking about the missing information if the supervisor filled it in for one party but another, would that affect the outcome of the election. He's saying it matters what the specific other circumstances were. He's conceding there might be many other issues which could affect the integrity of the election but that's not the situation in this case. He's talking about the different treatment. ......"

JettyJumper "...... Good job answering the question about disparate treatment. Good job talking about how this is not an Equal Protection violation. What did she say in response to his admission to being a registered Dem? I couldn't hear it. ....." KarlH "...... Bringing up the instance that Demos applications were returned to the Demo office so that they could fix any problems and then turn them into the election office. No disparate treatment. ......" Mnman "...... Now Barry is saying that, although Plaintiff says that Reps had "unfettered" access to the office, he introduced NO evidence of what "could have been compromised". Now Barry is saying that the Dems had their ballot requests sent back directly to Dem headquarters and that THEY had unfettered access to alter. Now he is saying that election supervisors did not treat Dems different because she did not deny Dems opportunity to come into office, and she did not contact the Republican party about the missing ID#'s. It was the Republican Party that contacted her. ....." Karl H "..... Interesting that the judge is listenting, not interrupting and is being quite deferential. Asks if she can ask a question. Continues to quote law, examples, etc. No evidence that any person who was not qualified cast a vote that was counted and vica-versa. ...." Ftrader ".... McPherson .vs. Flynn - about contests. It requires that this fraud or misconduct changes the outcome of the election. SINCE not a single person, from this, cast a single illegal ballot, there is no issue here. The plaintiffs have not proved that this happened. ...." Newzjunkey"....Talking about McFerson (?) vs. Flynn. Only rights specifically set out exist. Mentions USSC and this mornings argument and what the legislature can do regarding electors selection. Mentioned the 102.68 contest of elections and how all these say only 102.68 contest (sub-section 3a) lets you contest on fraud, etc. but only sufficient enough to place in doubt the election. Goes back to the ballots and saying these were all qualified. There's no evidence otherwise. And saying it's not possible to conclude there's evidence the election would change. He's predicting what the argument will be and how it undermines 102.68 because they'd say, 'i want to challenge all the ballots because there might be enough affected out there to change the election'. Saying that's not been proved. Talking about remedy. ....." Ftrader "..... I like the way he makes a statement, then suggests what the rebuttal will say about that, and then destroy the rebuttal, BEFORE they get the chance. Truly excellent. ...." WoodrowTKatt "..... Barry is now refering to his comment to the StatMan yesterday (why don't we just let you decide the election and save a lot of time effort and money). Arguing that we do not decide elections by statistical projection in this country. ....." Libertyfreedom "..... Barry Richards is brilliant. I'm hacking his quote a bit here, but the force of it is undeniable: "You don't violate equal protection by treating people differently, you violate equal protection by treating them differently in the SAME circumstances" Because the dems mailed absentees to themselves instead of the elections supervisors as the Republicans did, there was no violation of equal protection. Damn! ....." Mnman "..... Military Ballots COUNT in Bay County, FL......breaking from Fox News ...." Pooler "....Bristo made a good point though....Leech put ID numbers on republican apps even though they voted democrat....no conspiracy... " Newzjunkey "..... Referencing a 1st Circuit court decision. ...." Ftrader "...... That Federal Statute he is referencing is powerful law. ...." AP 12/7/00 Katherine Pfleger Douglas Kiker "..... At least a third of Al Gore's hand-picked electors in Florida say he should concede if the state Supreme Court rules against him. ``When you go to the Supreme Court, and if the Supreme Court goes down against them, it is over,'' said Jon Ausman, the vice chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, one of 25 would-be representatives to the Electoral College should Gore win the state. ....." FoxNews 12/7/00 Rodger Schultz "..... Clark then addressed "disparate treatment," asking Richard if one party was denied the right to make changes that another party was allowed to make, did this allow disqualification? "Very possibly," responded Richard. But, he argued, the voter ID number was printed on the Democrat application forms, and they were returned to Democrat party headquarters, not to the board of elections as Republican applications were, "where Democrats also had unfettered access". Since there were no errors on Democrat applications, the supervisor of elections had no reason to notify Democrats of an

error as she had Republicans. There is no evidence that any Democrat application was treated any differently than a Republican form, he said. ...... Finally, Richard argued that it would be an abomination to allow some ballots to be disallowed based on slippery statistics. "If any ballots are disqualified, then all ballots must be disqualified," and there is no provision in Florida law that would permit it. ....." UPI 12/7/00 Peter Roff "....The National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative public interest group, has filed a complaint with the Florida Bar requesting that David Boies and Mitchell W. Berger, attorneys for Vice President Al Gore, be investigated for professional misconduct....... The complaint alleges the two attorneys employed a misleading and allegedly false affidavit in Florida courts. ............. "As part of their argument in favor of a liberal standard for judging contested ballots in Palm Beach and Broward counties, (Gore attorneys) Boies and Berger made use of an affidavit by Illinois attorney Michael Lavelle that claimed dimpled ballots had been counted in a contested 1990 election," NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm said.........., The affidavit in question "addressed one of the most important issues in one of the most important cases of out time. Boies had a duty to correct the record, once it was brought to his attention that the affidavit was in error and he failed to do so," Boehm told United Press International......" Newsday 12/7/00 ".....About 2,400 overseas ballots that arrived after the presidential election and were counted should now be rejected, Democrats argued before a federal judge Thursday. ..... Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul heard arguments after combining two almost identical cases filed on behalf of individual Democratic voters. .....Bernstein's case was combined with another on behalf of seven voters from Okaloosa, Duval and Palm Beach counties. A third overseas ballot case is pending before another federal judge in Pensacola. The Republican Party and Bush's campaign have asked for a declaratory judgment that could result in counting more than 600 overseas ballots rejected by election officials. Some county canvassing boards did not count those ballots for reasons that include bearing a domestic rather than overseas postmark or lacking any postmark or date to indicate when they were mailed. Other counties, however, accepted such ballots. U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier heard arguments Tuesday. .......Kenneth Sukhia, a lawyer for Bush, contended the right to vote is paramount and that the 10-day extension has the force of federal law because it was endorsed in a 1984 consent decree between the state and federal governments. Bernstein disagreed, pointing out neither the Florida Legislature nor Congress authorized the extension. ....... The decree resulted from complaints that Florida was violating a federal right of overseas citizens to vote because they did not have enough time to request, receive and return absentee ballots before Election Day. .......... Lawyers for Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, also argued against throwing out the disputed ballots. Jeb Bush's attorney, George Meros Jr., contended courts have no authority to tell the governor which electors he must certify to Congress. ......." NBC 12/7/00 Freeper Yikes "...... I apologize in advance if I am wrong about this, but while making dinner tonight, I was watching NBC Nightly News. David Bloom had the first report, and I could swear that I heard him say that 12,000 ballots had been transferred in secret from Saul's custody to the custody of the Florida Supreme Court. ......" cpdiii "....You heard it correctly. I heard it too. I do not like this. ......" eureka! "...... They were admitted into evidence. They are part of the "record on appeal". I also heard the SCOFLA went home at 5:30 this evening. I'll be more worried when they announce that they are ready to rule... " Bob Evans ".....NBC News did mention that they were quietly transfered yesterday ... in the first opening segment! ......" FoxNews (Carl Cameron) 12/7/00 Freeper LS "...... Carl Cameron, reporting for FOX from Austin, said that "on record," the Bush attorneys are "hopeful" about the FL SC ruling, but privately they refused to even use the term "cautiously optimistic." ......The Bush team had already planned two lines of appeals---back to the 11th Circuit and to the USSC. ...,,: Newzjunkey Seminole "....Mentioning the Voting Rights Act (42 USC ?1971?) and how the right to vote for US President via absentee is a *right*, not a privledge. Mentions how the state statute does not specify the ballot should be void specifically for leaving off the voter ID # off anywhere. Reading from an affidavit from a former Nazi Youth female and talking about her right to vote. ......" Michaelt "...... Plaintiff atty just pronounced hyprocracy "highpocracy." He just tried to bring up Harris' refusal to extend recount deadlines. Judge just shut him down, at the behest of the defendant I think. ......" Oldeconomybuyer "..... Powerful message by Judge Nikki, "my job is not to send a message, but to make a judgement"...Sorry Jesse, Al, and Kweezie, can't help you out! ......" AP/Capital Hill blue 12/7/00 Sanra Sobieraj ".....With tension apparent in their ranks, Al Gore's advisers worked well out of the public eye on a presidential transition he still hoped he could pull off. Aides said Gore wanted proceed with transition matters only in private while several lawsuits unfolded in the Florida courts to determine whether there could be any presidency for Gore at all. ...... ``With these next 48 to 72 hours being so critical, so definitive, it's best to see what happens there'' in the Florida Supreme Court, senior Gore adviser Carter Eskew said on Wednesday, the second straight day that Gore did no announced work with his

adviser Carter Eskew said on Wednesday, the second straight day that Gore did no announced work with his transition team. ...... Outside the vice presidential mansion at the Naval Observatory, a woman in Scandinavian dress put into song the stakes facing Gore at this critical point in his overtime campaign for the presidency. ``Just look how far you've come. Just give up, just give in,'' sang Juanita Dickinson, of Bedford, Mass., who said her serenade was sponsored by a radio station. ....." ABC News 12/7/00 Geraldine Sealey Chris Vlasto "..... FLORIDA SUPREME COURT WILL NOT ISSUE A RULING TONIGHT ......ABC Headline from main page, but unsubstantiated by facts contained in story link. .......But once you enter, there is this quote.... "The Florida high court gave no indication when it would rule, but made clear it understood the timeliness of the matter." ......" Freeper Latina_abogada adds "...... Jusst saw this too. Some talking Dem head on MSNBC stated that the Martin County judge would rule at noon tomorrow. The Dem talking head then went on to "opine" that "whether or not that meant the judge was having dinner, drinks and a movie with the Bush-Cheney team or not, he didn't know" Did anyone else hear this? I almost came unglued! ......" Freeper MississippiMan in response to "Didn't their earlier opinion that SCOTUS slapped down have to do with a recount BEFORE certifcation? They are in the POST certification CONTEST phase now How does it become a SCOUTUS issue ? " ..... adds ".....Team Bush argued in their brief that the FLSKC in fact could not decide Gore's contest appeal at all until they had resolved the SCOTUS issue, and it made sense. Remember, their earlier ruling is presently vacated. Does not exist. Never happened. If it stays that way, the certification date will be November 14th. And if that be the case, the GoreGang missed the window of opportunity for even filing their contest. Therefore, if the FLSKC previous ruling does not exist, the current contest action is null and void. You can read the brief, but I think that's the nutshell version of the argument. ......" Freeper AFPhys response to this from Dog: "...."They looked like they wanted to take on the USSC again.. Man would that be a big mistake." and "You got that right. The SCOTUS may have been split before, but trust me, if the SCOFLA(w) ignores their gentle suggestion they will take it as a direct slap by an inferior court. You will see a unanimous decision come out of SCOTUS that will boil the paint off the walls of every courthouse in Florida. " said ".......This is exactly right. And SCOFLA _knows_ this. ..... Remember: all the "talking heads" and probably they (SCOFLA) were VERY surprised that SCOTUS took the case. (Ann Coulter wasn't.) And they realize that they somehow have to write a response to SCOTUS if they intend to continue this by overturning Saul. In addition, they have now been put on notice that ALL the federal apparatus is watching them. If they don't overrule Sauls, they can simply say to SCOTUS in a very small voice ... 'oh ... never mind' ......... They are certainly not unanimous. They would rule tonight if they were. In addition, I believe it would be very surprising if they definitely have the votes to rule for Gore... they would have a big push on burning the midnight oil to get things set up for a recount. ...... I believe it is nearly certain they are going to rule for Bush. The CJ has let everyone go home to see if the minority justices really want to put their names to dissenting opinions ... to let them "sleep on it". ......" UPI 12/7/00 Mark Benjamin ".......Arguments concluded Thursday in two cases challenging the validity of absentee ballots cast in Florida's presidential election, and key decisions on the cases expected tomorrow could potentially decide the presidential election........... In both cases, Republican operatives filled in voter identification numbers on absentee ballot request forms left off because of a computer error. But the operatives did not tamper with the ballots themselves. Democrats were not informed of the activities........ In the Martin County case, judge Terry Lewis could toss out nearly 10,000 votes, most of which went for RepublicanTexas Gov. George W. Bush. In the Seminole case, judge Nikki Clark might throw out some 15,000 ballots, again mostly from Bush voters. Since Bush's lead is not more than 930 votes, a decision against him in either case might hand the election to Vice President Al Gore, depending on the outcome of a likely appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.......... However, the judges might also choose other remedies in the cases besides excluding the ballots from the final vote tallies....... Moreover, the plaintiffs have a high bar to get over to win their cases. In past cases, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that "substantial compliance," rather than strict compliance, "is all that is required to give legality" to absentee ballots. If the courts agree with the GOP's case that the lack of voter ID numbers on the request forms was simply a technicality, the absentee ballots will remain valid.........Yet a further bar is represented by the need to show good reason to overturn election results. The state high court has set three criteria for making such judgments: fraud, gross negligence, or intentional wrongdoing; "substantial compliance"; and whether the irregularities affect "the integrity of the election." Thus, the court will have to

decide whether the irregularities in Seminole County justify changing the apparent outcome of a presidential election......... Lewis said from the bench that he would issue his opinion Friday by noon, and would confer with Clark given the similarity of their cases....." Newsmax 12/7/00 "......Threats from President Clinton and other key Democrats to prove Al Gore actually won the state of Florida by conducting endless vote recounts may fall flat - thanks to the efforts of the Washington, D.C.-based legal watchdog group Judicial Watch....... While planned recounts by Democratfriendly media organs like the Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News may lump questionable ballots with dimpled, pregnant or taped-on chads into the overall Gore vote - the audit currently under way by Judicial Watch is cataloging votes according to how clearly they were cast.......What's more, Judicial Watch recount volunteers are keeping close track of adulterated or "recreated" ballots, something Gore-friendly media organs may decide not to do. ....." AP 12/7/00 ".....With his state's presidential election still unsettled a month later, Gov. Jeb Bush wants to create a special panel to study Florida's voting procedures. Bush said he wants to work with House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay to create a task force that would suggest new ways to count votes and to study whether election supervisors ``should have unbridled flexibility as they do now.'' .......``The focus of the task force is to look at the process of counting votes,'' he said Wednesday. ....." FoxNews 12/8/00 Hannity and Colmes Freeper Nat Turner "..... On Hannity and Colmes, Dick Morris refers to Gore as "Hitler in the Bunker" . . . " moving around imaginary armies"-- what a fitting description for a National Socialist :) Gore has adopted a bunker mentality (i.e. he has lost his grip on reality) .... ABCNews 12/7/00 Carter M Yang "......As the legal wrangling between Vice President Al Gore and George W. Bush drags on, the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature is poised to take a controversial action that could render moot all of the courtroom quarreling over manual ballot recounts. ......."My primary objective is simple: to ensure that the voters of Florida are not disenfranchised," Senate President John McKay said Wednesday as he announced that a special legislative session would begin at noon on Friday to consider appointing a slate of presidential electors. "It would be irresponsible of us if we failed to put a safety net in place under the current court conditions."......" MSNBC 12/7/00 Freeper LongsforReagan "...... Norah O'Donnell just said on Hardball that that the Bush team has been told to expect to lose Seminole case tomorrow. Presumably, Martin would follow. She indicated her "sources" had told her FWIW....." Freeper Moosehead "..... What I heard her say was that the Bush team had told Bush that he may lose the Seminole case. This didn't come from the court. It isn't a big deal; just lawyers keeping their client from being surprised. Clark seems fair to me. The remedy is too harsh. Lets not get paranoid until it is time. ....." Freeper otterpond "..... Only a judge begging to be overturned would rule in favor of gore on this one. Those voters in Seminole and Martin counties have HUGE federal protection in these cases. Punish the folks who screwed up the procedure, but not the innocent voters is the law. No way this is going to be the final ruling. But, just in case I am wrong, anybody have a bridge they want to sell me? ...." Freeper hoosierRn "..... I hope that Judge Clark sees this as an opportunity to show the Gov that she would have been a good choice to appoint and she does so by being fair and upholding the law. If she throws out the valid votes over a clerical, or printing error she will show the Gov that she wasn't worthy of the appointment because she places her personal politics above the law. ......" Freeper encm(ss) "..... Fox Cable News - Napalatano says just the opposite. I'm with the Judge. To throw out 25,000 voters legal ballots is to drastic for the crime. I prefer to be an optimist. ...." Freeper go star go "...... Not only that but there was an almost exact lawsuit dismissed today in Florida. The judge ruled that "You cannot disenfranchise votes because of the acts of someone out of their control.". This is the precedent that these two judges have to meet. ....." Associated Press 12/8/00 Vickie Chickadee "......A Florida judge expressed reluctance Thursday to toss out votes as two courts neared decisions on whether to discard 25,000 absentee ballots that lawyers allege were tainted because Republicans altered election documents.....Decisions were expected as early as Friday in the cases from Seminole and Martin counties that could erase George W. Bush's paper-thin lead over Al Gore. Both cases were being heard by judges in the state's capital........... Meanwhile, a third judge dismissed a lawsuit alleging Republican misconduct in absentee ballot voting in the Florida Panhandle, saying the allegations didn't justify nullifying absentee votes in Bay County. An appeal was expected....... "Why should I not find there was substantial compliance by the voters and accept their vote?'' Leon County Circuit Judge Nikki Clark asked Democratic lawyer Gerald Richman during closing arguments in the Seminole

case........... At another moment, Clark read part of the election law aloud and said it seemed to say that the failure of election workers to comply with portions of the law did not necessarily nullify votes......... ''If the canvassers can tell the intent of the voter, why should the vote not count?'' she asked......... In Bay County, a voter filed suit challenging a Republican mailing that featured a picture of Gov. Jeb Bush and a seal that resembled the Florida seal. The lawsuit said the mailing falsely gave the impression that the state of Florida officially encouraged absentee voting...........But Judge Ralph Smith on Thursday refused to throw out nearly 9,000 votes for Bush and more than 3,000 for Gore, saying voters had done nothing wrong and the ''sanctity'' of the ballots had not been compromised......" New York Times 12/8/00 David Firestone ".....Mr. Boies had barely introduced himself when the chief justice, Charles T. Wells, asked if the court even had the right to hear the appeal. After all, Chief Justice Wells said, the state law says simply that a circuit court can hear contests of elections and does not say whether they can be appealed. The United States Supreme Court, he noted, has given complete power to state legislatures to set election rules. "Why is not judicial review given to the circuit court and not this court?" he asked.......... In contrast to their demeanor 16 days ago, when they handled a different election challenge from Mr. Gore, several justices seemed far more concerned about whether this case truly belonged in their hands, and they struggled with questions of the precise role of the state courts and the legislature in a matter governed by the federal Constitution......." New York Times 12/8/00 David Firestone ".....Justice Leander J. Shaw Jr., considered one of the most liberal members of the court, repeatedly asked whether the court was in any position to overrule the findings of fact by the lower court judge, N. Sanders Sauls, who issued a sweeping ruling against Mr. Gore's contest on Monday....... When you put on experts and the judge listens to these experts and then he makes a determination based upon that, normally isn't that a question of fact?" Justice Shaw asked. Yes, Mr. Boies responded, but Judge Sauls had both ignored important testimony and misinterpreted the law. He had refused to even look at the 14,000 punch card ballots that the Democrats believe could reveal votes for Mr. Gore if they were manually counted, Mr. Boies said, even though the ballots were his side's most important evidence.......... Justice Major B. Harding jumped in, asking whether any of Mr. Gore's lawyers had tried to show Judge Sauls one of the disputed ballots that had been rejected by a tabulating machine. No, Mr. Boies said; they were locked up........... "But nobody asked the court for permission to do that or showed him one of those ballots?" Justice Harding asked, implicitly admonishing the Democrats for not having done so......... ....." New York Times 12/8/00 David Firestone ".....Two other justices, R. Fred Lewis and Peggy A. Quince, along with Justice Harding, wondered why they were being asked to manually count votes from just two counties, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, and not from all other counties, or at least those that use punch cards. That position was taken by Judge Sauls, who did not cite any settled law in making that determination, but the justices asked Mr. Boies to explain his side's reasoning in picking only two counties, both of which are Democratic strongholds......." New York Times 12/8/00 David Firestone "..... The questions from the justices did not necessarily mean they looked harshly at Mr. Gore's case. Rather, they seemed to reflect the pressure bearing down on the court from many directions. The court was chastened by the United States Supreme Court this week for an opinion on a related case that did not have a proper legal foundation. Next door, the Republican leaders of the State Legislature have threatened to appoint electors for Mr. Bush no matter what the court decides.........Mr. Gore's lawyers are demanding that the court not only agree that 14,000 disputed ballots should be counted but also set a procedure for counting them over the weekend, and then declare Mr. Gore the winner if the ballots bear that out. If the court does order the ballots counted, Mr. Bush's lawyers will file an appeal with the United States Supreme Court within minutes.........." New York Times 12/8/00 David Firestone ".....Two justices who did not speak during Mr. Boies's appearance, Harry Lee Anstead and Barbara J. Pariente, dominated the questioning of Mr. Richard, boring in on Judge Sauls's refusal to count the ballots....... "Isn't it highly unusual for a trial court to admit into evidence certain documents that one party claims will be controlling," Justice Anstead asked, "and yet never examine those documents before making their decision?" ....... Mr. Richard cited a case that left counting to the discretion of county election boards and said the Gore team never convinced Judge Sauls to overrule that discretion......."We had an absolute failure on the part of the plaintiffs here," Mr. Richard said. "This court gave the plaintiffs the opportunity to have a trial to prove their case, and it was an absolute failure in the record of this case to establish an abuse of discretion by any of the challenged canvassing boards."......" New York Times 12/8/00 David Firestone "...... But Justice Quince seemed annoyed when Mr. Richard said there was no reason to believe that any voter was denied the right to vote because of the voting process,

rather than because of the voter's own errors. "Where in the statute is that standard, that you have to show that a mistake was made through no fault of the voter?" Justice Quince asked. "It seems to me that we've gotten off of what the standard is for showing the rejection of votes."...... She said she was "really having a problem" with Judge Sauls's reasonable probability standard........" New York Times 12/8/00 David Firestone "..... Justices Wells and Pariente asked the only questions about what might be the most pressing logistical issue facing the court if it rules for Mr. Gore: how to count the 14,000 ballots in the limited time left. Justice Wells expressed doubt that a remedy for Mr. Gore could be completed by Tuesday, and Justice Pariente wondered how it could possibly be done.......... But Benjamin L. Ginsberg, Mr. Bush's general counsel, said a decision to count - particularly if the court decided to count dimpled ballots as votes - would immediately raise federal constitutional issues that his side would take to the United States Supreme Court......." Washington Times 12/7/00 "...... The race card appears to be the last ace in the Democrats' dwindling deck. Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Joe Lieberman and their associates have resorted to racial and religious polemics in order to counteract America's growing impatience with election-related legal maneuvering. .......... Last week in Ottawa President Clinton said he had Mr. Gore winning the Florida election by 100 votes, even if you don't count "the butterfly ballots from Palm Beach. Or the Holocaust survivors who supposedly cast their vote for the anti-Semitic Pat Buchanan. Or the blacks voting for the first time who were given the wrong instructions and double-punched." As America's commander in chief, Mr. Clinton's words carry particular weight. Since there is no evidence that a single Holocaust survivor voted for Mr. Buchanan or that blacks "were given the wrong instructions," his statements were particularly reckless. Mr. Jackson, meanwhile, has made similar statements. While in Tallahassee, Fla., Mr. Jackson said there has been "a clear pattern of voter suppression of African-American votes" throughout Florida. ...." New York Times 12/8/00 Dana Canedy "......Judge Nikki Ann Clark of Leon County Circuit Court knows a thing or two about toughness and politics, having witnessed the Detroit race riots and having made her way to the bench after serving as a top aide to Gov. Lawton Chiles. ...... Appointed to the bench in 1993 by Governor Chiles, a Democrat, Judge Clark is hearing what will no doubt be a defining case in her career, a lawsuit brought by local Democrats who say Seminole County elections officials improperly allowed Republican workers to add missing information to hundreds of absentee ballot applications from Republicans.........Known for her even-tempered, businesslike manner, Judge Clark, 48, is the first AfricanAmerican and the first woman named to the Second Judicial Circuit. She is widely considered to have a sharp command of the law and of her courtroom. But Judge Clark, who was unavailable for comment, is also described in legal circles as either a too-liberal political appointee or an independent-thinking stickler for legal precedent, depending on whether you ask a Republican or a Democrat..........Judge Clark was nominated in September to the First District Court of Appeal, but passed over for the job by Florida's governor, Jeb Bush. The judgeship became an issue in the ballot case when lawyers for the Bush campaign asked Judge Clark to recuse herself, arguing that some people might question her objectivity because of Governor Bush's decision. Judge Clark declined to step aside, saying she was "not persuaded" by the defense's argument.......... Mr. Rivas, who has appeared before the judge, considers her "judicially conservative." ....... "She works very hard to just apply the law without intentionally being creative, just trying to determine what the precedents are and sticking by them," Mr. Rivas said. ....." New York Times 12/8/00 William Glaberson ".......A last-minute count ordered by the court dominated by Democrats would inflame the Republican-dominated Legislature and Florida's battle would rocket into Congress's lap..............Chief Justice Wells's suggestion that the court might lack any power to review the decision by Judge Sauls of Leon County Circuit Court was one rather extreme way to read the Dec. 4 ruling by the United States Supreme Court. The idea might have reflected a certain gun-shyness by a justice not anxious to get back into the line of judicial fire............ His reasoning was that the state law mentioned only the trial court when it provided for contest lawsuits in a presidential election and did not specifically say a trial court's decision could be reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court. But neither side in the Gore lawsuit had argued that, and even Mr. Bush's lawyer, Barry Richard, did not embrace the idea fully. Although he would have the most to gain if the State Supreme Court deferred to Judge Sauls, he suggested only that the court's power to review Judge Sauls was limited......." New York Times 12/8/00 William Glaberson "....... some justices seemed willing to consider opening those boxes of ballots that were trucked up to Tallahassee.........Justice Peggy A. Quince suggested that Judge Sauls had set too high a legal standard when he insisted that the Gore lawyers had to prove "a reasonable probability" that the election results would have be changed to win a new count. .......If other justices agree, that could take the Democrats down the road they want to travel because Judge Sauls was making a legal decision when he set the reasonable-probability standard. ........Justice Harry Lee Anstead wondered whether it was not "highly unusual" for a trial judge to admit into evidence documents like the ballots "and yet never examine those documents before making a decision." If other justices agree, that could take the court

into the heart of the Democrats' argument that in a battle over ballots, the ballots themselves should be examined........" New York Times 12/8/00 William Glaberson ".......A few seemed troubled by the Republican argument that in a statewide race it was not fair to recount ballots only in a few counties. Joseph P. Klock Jr., the lawyer for the secretary of state, Katherine Harris, scored a solid point when he told the justices "you need to be careful" not to seem to change the election law in any decision. That was not a very subtle threat that the United States Supreme Court could well add to the Florida justices' discomfort by flatly overruling them if a pro-Gore ruling seemed to change the law. Still, the justices kept toying with the idea of opening those boxes of ballots.......... Justice Barbara J. Periente, who was a thorn in the side of the Republicans' lawyers during the last argument, wondered whether Mr. Richard could really mean that the courts should close their eyes to the votes in a case about votes......" American Spectator 12/7/00 Byron York "...... But there was another side of the story. At the same time the justices asked challenging questions to Boies, they asked others that indicated a mindset firmly on the Gore side. For example, when she was discussing which votes to count, Justice Barbara Pariente said to Bush lawyer Barry Richard, "Let's stay with Dade County, where it is not disputed that 9,000 votes have been the subject of request since November 9 have never been counted." .......... David Boies or Ron Klain or Doug Hattaway or Al Gore himself could not have said it better. "I think it is disputed," Richard responded. "All we know in Dade County is that the voting apparatus, which nobody proved was defective, determined that 9,000 votes were not properly recorded by the voter." ...... "But we know that in the first 20 percent, that 434something, more or less, legal votes were recovered," Pariente argued. "Are you really saying that the votes, the 9,000 votes in Dade County, which were the exact same votes that were looked at in Palm Beach County and Broward County, should not be looked at in a contest action?"........."Not at this point," Richard said. "The canvassing board made the judgment that at the deadline that this court set for everybody, they could not conceivably complete their count....And this court has no basis in this record to determine that the canvassing board abused its discretion in making that decision." .......Things looked even worse when Justice Harry Lee Anstead suggested that the Gore camp had already proved that the contested ballots might change the outcome of the election -- exactly the opposite of what Judge Sauls found. "....." Freeper bduet ".... .. I heard Judge Andrew Napolitano last night and he said it wouldn't be easy for them to order recounts. He said they would have to "walk through a minefield to decide for the tree. Also, what happened to the SCOTUS case. I thought, surely, they would have to address it being their last decision was vacated. It seemed to me that Pariente, Quence, and Anstead looked to the camera and gave the SCOTUS the finger. Did anyone else get that impression? They have 4 days to count the ballots, order the decertification of the election, and certify the robot as the winner. I have to say, it didn't seem as though this court had it's tale between their legs. It look like their biggest problem was time, not Saules's decision or even the SCOTUS decision. ......" Jewish World Review 12/8/00 Thomas Bray "...... THE SHABBY END to eight of the shabbiest years on political record appears to be drawing to a close. .......If Al Gore's bid to reverse the Florida results goes down in flames, as appears to be the case, partisan Democrats may despair. But true Democrats can take heart. They may lose the White House, but a handful of brave individuals will have saved their souls. At the head of the list should come N. Sanders Sauls, the Democratic Florida circuit court judge who decided that enough was enough - and blasted Gore and his fancy lawyers to kingdom come. ......" Newsmax 12/8/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Clinton-Gore footsoldiers are already making plans to exact revenge against any Bush White House, should Vice President Al Gore be forced to concede a presidential election which they say he won. .......Appearing Tuesday night on CNBC's "Rivera Live," Harvard professor and Clinton-Gore legal waterboy Alan Dershowitz announced: "I think it's really important that when and if a concession comes from Gore that we not have a honeymoon, that we not put this behind us, that this be the beginning of at least a many, many month investigation into the circumstances that led to this presidency," said Dershowitz, according to the Media Research Center. ....."Oh, I agree," replied Rivera, who has spent years decrying the lengthy investigations into Bill and Hillary Clinton....." Boston Herald 12/8/00 Maggie Mulvihill "...... Escalating pressure on GOP electors in Florida to switch their presidential votes has prompted one Vero Beach woman to ask for help from the police following a ominous e-mail message. ``I'm not a fraidy-cat, I'm not a big door locker, but I just had a bad feeling about this,'' said GOP elector Carole Jean Jordan. ......... Jordan received an e-mail on her home computer stating, ``In the end, you will pay for what you have done . . . You know that you are going to look very bad for the partisan way you are approaching the recount of the ballots. It is very apparent that you will try to win at any cost . . . Does the truth mean anything to you?'' ......" Freeper Catie ".....Just heard on MSNBC that Bush team filed a supplemental brief this a.m. arguing that the

contest provisions do not apply to Pres'l elections. ....." World Net Daily 12/8/00 Paul Sperry ".......In a new blow to Al Gore's claim that clogged voting equipment prevented hundreds of Miami-Dade County voters from cleanly punching the ballot for him, the county's No. 2 elections official told WorldNetDaily that his office received no reports of such voting problems on Election Day or since then. Lawyers for Gore have argued that chad -- the little perforated squares on the ballot that count as votes when removed -- piled inside voting-booth trays to the point where they backed up against ballot punch-holes and blocked the insertion of styluses. "I have not heard anyone complain about that, and I hear a hell of a lot of problems that go on at precincts," said John Clouser, Miami-Dade County assistant supervisor of elections. ....." "Good Morning America" 12/8/00 Freeper LS ".....It wasn't pretty if you were an Algore supporter watching GMA this morning. Both Prof. Lash (who has a 99.99% batting average on his court predictions, as I recall) and Alan Dersowitz agreed that Algore's chances of getting a favorable ruling out of any of the three courts were slim. Dersowitz tried to spin it as best he could, but even he admitted that "time is working against the FL SC, even thought the law is on Gore's side." (hurl). Lash disagreed, saying that both the law and time are working against Gore. In the end, both said it was entirely likely that Gore would lose all three cases today. ...... If that wasn't good enough, Georgie Snuffleupagus confirmed that thought, saying that Algore would probably concede by the end of the day if all three cases go against him. ....." Florida Supreme Court 12/8/00 "..... LEANDER J. SHAW, JR. Appointed1983- Mandatory retirement 2003 MAJOR B. HARDING Appointed 1991- Merit retention vote 2004 CHARLES T. WELLS Appointed 1994- Merit retention vote 2002 HARRY LEE ANSTEAD Appointed 1994- Merit retention vote 2002 BARBARA J. PARIENTE Appointed 1997- Merit retention vote 2006 R. FRED LEWIS Appointed 1999- Merit retention vote 2006 PEGGY A. QUINCE Appointed 1999- Merit retention vote 2006 ...." Today Show 12/8/00 Freeper MNMan "...... OK, why do i torture myself? NBC News legal analyst Dan Abrams was on the Today Show and said that 25,000 ballots could be thrown out in court decisions today, giving the presidency to Gore, and that THAT is the reason WHY the Florida legislature is meeting to select a Bush slate of electors......Why do I torture myself? Now I know the reason why "Today Show" sheeple hate Republicans so much. ....." NY Post 12/8/00 Gregg Birnbaum Kenneth Lovett "......Florida's top judge said yesterday there won't be time for a recount even if Al Gore wins his case - and Democratic pols began to admit it's all over but the shouting. ...... Chief Justice Charles Wells expressed serious doubts about the Gore campaign's timetable during a dramatic, last-chance hearing in which the vice president's lawyers begged the Florida Supreme Court to throw out Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls' ruling against a new count. ...... "We don't have a remedy here that can do that by Dec. 12," Wells told Gore chief lawyer David Boies regarding 13,000 disputed and uncounted ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. .......The hearing came as even some Democrats began openly saying the end is near. "This is coming to an end," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, urging Gore to concede if Florida's high court denies him the recounts he believes will overcome Bush's certified 537-vote lead in the state. ....." Freeper truthkeeper ".....Thank you for this post. It was just announced on Fox News, as a bulletin, that the Bush legal team has filed "a rare clarification" with the FLSC, telling him they have "no authority to order any more hand re-counts." ....." Freeper kazander "......Richards clarified several issues relating to appellate jurisdiction and Boys' lie about the number of Palm Beach Ballots, to name a few. ......" Freeper kevkrom in response to "Barry Richard was wrong when he said yes, in respose to a question by the SCOLFA regarding if the court has jurisdiction for the review of Sauls. The Bush postition is now that the SCOFLA DOES NOT, citing the law. " said "....I don't think the original response was wrong, so much as it was incomplete. The argument is that the FLSC has limited jurisdiction over the case, in that they can review only the legal/procedural actions taken bu Sauls, but that they have no authority to over-rule his verdict.

According to this, the most the FLSC could do is to find that Sauls made some form of procedural and/or legal error, and to remand the case back to his court in order to correct the error and produce a new judgement. ...." Freeper attyatlaw001 "...... I found it interesting that, apparently, Florida law (as previously on 11/20/00 interpreted by the courts) doesn't provide for a contest of a presidential election. Separate statutory scheme for state elections and presidential elections. ....." Freeper anti_Bubba "..... Quote: "Simply put, then, this is an action by the wrong parties, seeking relief under the wrong statute, brought against the wrong defendants. And for this Court, or any Florida Court, to now extend Florida statutes to reach it, would run afoul of Article II of the U.S. Constitution, McPhereson v. Blacker, and 3 U.S.C. 5." ....." Freeper coramdeo in response to ".... What this say is, Barry Richard was wrong when he said yes, in respose to a question by the SCOLFA regarding if the court has jurisdiction for the review of Sauls. The Bush postition is now that the SCOFLA DOES NOT, citing the law. ..." said ".....Actually, its a little more nuanced than that. He was right the FSC has jurisdiction to hear it, but the scope of review is extremely narrow. What this clarifies is what that scope is. By the way, I feel a little better after reading this. Whether FSC does or not, it pretty well assures a federal overturn if the FSC overreaches. ......" Freeper WoodrowTKatt in response to "Is all this related to the so-called "brass ring" that was offered to Richard yesterday during oral argument by the SCOFLAw, and the "mistake" he made in not taking it, as some legal "experts" like Paul Rothstein on Fox News (and I'm sure there were others) pointed out yesterday? " said "....I don't think so. I took Rothstein to say that SCOFLA was asking whether they were allowed to even hear the appeal. That's taking the SCOTUS remand too far imho. Sometimes Rothstein strikes me as just silly. ......I think this clarification is more in response Klock's "mountain of new law" remark. SCOFLA has jurisdiction to review Saul's decision, but not to grant the requested remedy. That's the distinction. Even is Sauls mis-applied the "reasonable probability" standard (which would indeed be grounds for reversal), SCOFLA still can't order the recounts to begin. The statutes don't call for it. ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt ".....Also, this clarification brief gives SCOFLA the courtesy of saying, "If you order recounts to begin, this is the appeal we we will be taking to Scalia & Co. So make sure you have good answers for these issues." Tick tock, tick tock.... ......" Freeper Tickle Me Pink "....Bush Clarification - 12/8/00 - SCOF POINTS OF CLARIFICATION I. This Court Cannot Grant the Relief Requested In response to Chief Justice Wells' questions at oral argument, Respondent George W. Bush hereby clarifies his position on this Court's jurisdiction over this challenge to the certification of the presidential election and electors. Under McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892), the Supreme Court made explicit that Article II authorizes the states to appoint electors only in "such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" and thus the federal Constitution "operat[es] as a limitation upon the State in respect of any attempt to circumscribe the legislative power" of the State. U.S. Slip Op. at 5 (quoting McPherson, 146 U.S. at 25).(1) Regardless of whether the Florida Election Code allows for some form of an appeal from a contest in these circumstances, it is absolutely clear under Florida and federal law that this Court does not have authority to grant the relief sought by apellants. Appellants ask this Court to: 1) completely substitute itself for both the county canvassing boards and the state canvassing commission; 2) engage in a selective recount of certain ballots in a few Florida counties; 3) adopt an unprecedented "standard" for divining voter intent; and 4) declare the results of a statewide election of federal electors based upon this selective recount. This Court does not have authority to grant such relief under Florida law or federal law..... " Freeper WoodrowTKatt "......They aren't saying SCOFLA has now jurisdiction for appeal. SCOFLA can find Sauls wrong on the law if they want to. .....The brief says that SCOFLA can't grant the requested remedy; i.e. there is nothing in the statutes that allows SCOFLA to get the recounts fired up. ......I'm sure the media is blurring over this disticntion, but it is important. This brief in no way implies that we couldn't appeal Seminole. (Also, there are Federal Voting Rights Act issues in Seminole so we could file a federal appeal. But that's another matter). ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "......The Gore reply makes a strong acase that SCOFLA does indeed have appelate review of Saul's decision. Unfortunately for the gorons, this misses the heart of the Bush team's clarification: that SCOFLA has no authority to grant the requested relief (more selective recounts). Gore team's reply

barely addressed this at all. Whether SCOFLA is "supposed" to consider extra briefs or not, they have to know that these are the arguments that would be presented to SCOTUS on appeal. So they will consider them. It's time for them to go... I think even SCOFLA will begin to see this. ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt in response to "....... So what kind of appeal -- if any -- is available to Judge Sauls's ruling? ...." Said ".....Ok, here's an example. One of the issues on appeal is wheter the "reasonable probability" standard that Saul's used is the legally appropriate standard. Barry Richard argues that it is, but no one, including Barry, is saying that it is not SCOFLA's proper role to determine whether "reasonable probability" is indeed the correct standard. What the brief is saying is that even if Sauls used the wrong standard, he (and SCOFLA) has no legal authority to grant the relief sought (more recounting). THE RELIEF. THE RELIEF. THE RELIEF. This brief is about the relief, not mere appelate review. ....." Freeper nd76 "...... You know something, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the SCOFLA had its staff (i.e., law clerks and secretaries) working all weekend to count the 9,000 ballots which are in evidence in the Judge Sauls proceeding--and then make a legal conclusion that Judge Sauls' factual decision was in error, because the ballots are in evidence, and they show anywhere over a net 931 extra votes for Algore. They could then withhold a decision until late in the day on Tuesday, December 12, and not only reverse Sauls, but issue an order declaring Algore the winner in Florida. I, like most on here, have the utmost in contempt for David "Prof. Irwin Corey" Boies, but he made have pulled off a masterstroke by getting Sauls to admit these ballots. The Florida Supremes are free to examine them and make their own conclusions as to what they represent. They can make a count, and there will be no GOP observers around when they do. ......" From the Bush side: Points of Clarification I. This Court Cannot Grant the Relief Requested In response to Chief Justice Wells' questions at oral argument, Respondent George W. Bush hereby clarifies his position on this Court's jurisdiction over this challenge to the certification of the presidential election and electors. Under McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892), the Supreme Court made explicit that Article II authorizes the states to appoint electors only in "such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" and thus the federal Constitution "operat[es] as a limitation upon the State in respect of any attempt to circumscribe the legislative power" of the State. U.S. Slip Op. at 5 (quoting McPherson U.S. at 25). (footnote 1) (footnote 1: 1 In particular, as the Supreme Court also made clear in McPherson, "[t]his power is conferred upon the legislatures of the States by the Constitution of the United States, and cannot be taken from them or modified by their State constitutions . . . ." 146 U.S. at 34 (quoting Senate Rep. 1st Sess., 432 Cong. No. 395). Notwithstanding the preexisting Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure allowing appellate review of Circuit Court judgments generally, it is plain that, as Appellants plead this case, this case is before this Court jurisdictionally only by virtue of Article V, Section 3(b)(5) of the Florida Constitution.) Regardless of whether the Florida Election Code allows for some form of an appeal from a contest in these circumstances, it is absolutely clear under Florida and federal law that this Court does not have authority to grant the relief sought by Appellants. Appellants ask this Court to: 1) completely substitute itself for both the county canvassing boards and the state canvassing commission; 2) engage in a selective recount of certain ballots in a few Florida counties; 3) adopt an unprecedented "standard" for divining voter intent; and 4) declare the results of a statewide election of federal electors based upon this selective recount. This Court does not have authority to grant such relief under Florida law or federal law. Moreover, doing so would clearly constitute a change in the manner in which Florida selected its electors, thus violating both the Federal Constitution and federal statute. This "judicially selected" slate of Presidential electors would not be validly chosen and, unlike the presently certified slate of electors, their votes would not be "conclusive" under 3 U.S.C. 5 and the judicial mandate would be contrary to cPherson v. Blacker If, as Vice President Gore contends, this Court may conduct a de novo review of ballots, without deferring either to the manual recount decisions of county canvassing boards (such as Palm Beach) or to certified election results (such as the manually recounted votes certified in Volusia and Broward Counties), it must conduct a de novo review of the 176 votes counted by Palm Beach, as well as all manually recounted votes in Volusia and Broward. The Court plainly cannot erect a dual standard of deferring to canvassing boards when it helps Vice President Gore (for the 176 "votes" in Palm Beach and the 567 additional "votes" in Broward), but engage in de novo review of manual recount decisions challenged by Vice President Gore (e.g. the ballots rejected in Palm Beach and in Dade counties). Moreover, since a determination of who received the "highest number of votes" throughout the state is the only basis for determining which presidential candidate won and may be certified, the Court must also count every vote not registered by a machine. (footnote2)

(footnote 2: In addition to common sense, the plain language of 103.111 mandates this rule because it requires certification of the "candidates for President and Vice President who received the highest number of votes." Consequently, the court cannot order or undo a certification unless it knows who received the highest number of votes - which it cannot do if that question is in doubt.) Additionally, for the first time in their brief to this Court, Appellants make the remarkable assertion that this Court should exercise original jurisdiction in this matter. They then ask the Court to engage in its own selective recount of certain ballots, declare a winner to the statewide Presidential election on this basis, nullify a previously certified result and actually direct the Secretary of State to "'certify as elected the presidential electors of' Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, under Section 113.011." Such a course of conduct would clearly violate the United States Constitution and federal statutes, (footnote 3) (footnote 3: Moreover, this Court is barred as a matter of federal law from "nullifying" a certification of an election by executive officials in the State of Florida or choosing its own set of judicially designated electors. After certification of an election pursuant to Florida law, which has now occurred, the manner of voting and the validity of the votes of Presidential electors is governed by federal law. Pursuant to 3 U.S.C. 6, it is "the duty of the executive of each State" to communicate the selection of a slate of presidential electors to the Archivist of the United States. Under 3 U.S.C. 15 it is onlythe votes of presidential electors "whose appointment has been lawfully certified according to section 6 of this title" that are deemed conclusive in the face of congressional challenge. Moreover, if two slates of electors are presented from any State and a dispute ensues between the two Houses of Congress, "the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted." 3 U.S.C. 15 (emphasis added). Thus, appointing a competing judicially-selected slate of Gore electors is not an available form of relief as a matter of federal law. It would result in a contest in Congress, which 3 U.S.C. 6 and 15 make clear would be won by the electors certified by the executive pursuant to the election itself - in this case the 25 Bush electors certified on November 26, 2000.) and, just as clearly, it is not authorized by Florida law. Since, as the Vice President acknowledges, this All Writs power is derived from "Article V of the Florida Constitution," the Court would violate Article II of the federal Constitution by exercising a power not given it by the Florida legislature. Mandamus or other equitable relief cannot lie because, as this Court has frequently noted, "the original and appellate jurisdiction of the courts of Florida is derived entirely from article V of the Florida Constitution, not by the Florida legislature." Allen v. Butterworth, 756 So.2d 52, 63 (Fla. 2000). See also, Dresner v. City of Tallahassee, 134 So.2d 228, 229 (Fla. 1961) ("This Court derives its appellate jurisdiction from article V, Florida Constitution."). Ultimately, it is not the Florida Constitution nor is it the view of other State Supreme Courts that control the disposition of this matter. Nor is this matter amenable to resolution by resort to this Court's equitable powers, derived from the State Constitution or otherwise, to alter Florida's laws in effect as of Election Day. Nor can this matter be definitively resolved under any Florida caselaw that was not decided under the modern Florida election code. Instead, it is the Florida Election Code, as enacted by the Florida Legislature pursuant to Article II of the U.S. Constitution - and that alone - that controls this case, and the relief that can be granted. II. Under the Florida Election Code, Section 102.168 Does Not Apply to Presidential Elections, and to Apply it now Would Violate Article II of the U.S. Constitution, McPherson v. Blacker, and 3 U.S.C. 5. In addition to the question whether this Court has statutory jurisdiction over this appeal, there is no basis or precedent in Florida law for applying the ultimate judgment of a successful Section 102.168 contest proceeding at all to a presidential election. Indeed, by its terms, the Section 102.168 remedy does not apply to presidential elections. This issue was recently addressed by the Circuit Court in its Order of November 20, 2000 in Fladell v. The Elections Canvassing Comm'n of the State of Fla., (15 th Judicial Circuit).(footnote 4) (footnote 4: On December 1, 2000, the Florida Supreme Court concluded that rulings by the Fladell court on this issue were unnecessary and affirmed on other grounds. See Fladell v. Palm Bch. County Canvassing Bd., Nos. SC00-2372 & SC00-2376, at 4 (Fla. Dec. 1, 2000).) The court, after an extensive analysis of the Legislature's intent in drafting Sections 102.168 and 103.011, held that Section 102.168 was not intended to apply to Presidential elections. See id. at 10-15. The Fladell court noted that the provisions for certifying the election of presidential electors are set forth elsewhere in the Florida Statutes: "The Legislature of the State of Florida, pursuant to the authority granted by Congress, enacted 103.011, Florida Statutes, in an effort to codify the procedure or mechanics for

conducting elections for Presidential electors." Fladell, slip op. at 6. The Court further noted that Section 103.011, entitled "Electors of President and Vice President," makes no provision for a "contest" of the Presidential election. The Court concluded from this omission that the Florida Legislature did not intend for Section 102.168 to apply to Presidential elections. (footnote 5) (footnote 5: Various provisions of Chapter 103 provide means by which presidential electors can be replaced. For example, when an elector is "unable to serve because of death, incapacity or otherwise . . . the Governor may appoint a person to fill such vacancy . . ." 103.021(5), Fla. Stat. (2000) (emphasis added). Similarly, if an elector is absent from the meeting of electors, the remaining electors can vote to appoint a replacement. 103.061, Fla. Stat. (2000). However, while Florida law provides these mechanisms for replacing "presidential electors" after the election is certified, it does not provide for any "contest" of that election.) Id.at 15. Rather, the Court held, "[a] review of the statutes that immediately follow 102.168 point to the conclusion that 102.168 was intended to apply to elected officers other than the Presidency." Id. at 9, n.3 (emphasis added). As the Fladell court compellingly observed, "[s]urely, this Court is without authority to enter a judgment of 'ouster' against the President and Vice President of the United States." Slip op. at 9, n.3. Simply put, then, this is an action by the wrong parties, seeking relief under the wrong statute, brought against the wrong defendants. And for this Court, or any Florida Court, to now extend Florida statutes to reach it, would run afoul of Article II of the U.S. Constitution, McPhereson v. Blacker, and 3 U.S.C. 5. III. Palm Beach County's Final December 4 Results Would Reflect a Net Gain of 176 Votes for the Vice President, Not 215 Votes. Counsel for Vice President Gore repeatedly argued to this Court that the final net gain for Vice President Gore in Palm Beach County is 215 votes. Plaintiff's Exhibit 49 is a copy of the final posting of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on December 1, 2000, plainly indicating that the proper total was a net gain of 176, not 215. (footnote 6) (footnote 6: Appellants' counsel cite the testimony of Judge Burton for the 215 vote figure. That testimony, is simply a casual recollection of the approximately number, not the final Canvassing Board submission. Transcript at 278, ll. 8-19.) IV. Miami-Dade Did Not Terminate its Recount Solely because of Time Constraints At oral argument, Appellants' counsel represented that the sole reason the Miaimi-Dade Canvassing Board stopped its manual recount was that it had insufficient time to complete it. (footnote 7) (footnote 7 Appellants also argued that the Circuit Court erred by utilizing a standard of "reasonable probability" for measuring their burden of proof of an effect on the election outcome, instead urging they need only establish rejection of legal votes sufficient to place in doubt the election result. "Place in doubt," however, is the required showing, not the burden of proof. Appellants still bear the burden of demonstrating a reasonable probability that the election result would be placed in doubt. Without such a standard, an election contest is merely a judicial recount to which a contestant is automatically entitled by mere allegation of tabulation error. The reasonable probability standard used below is well established under Florida law for contest proceedings. See Smith v. Tynes, 412 So. 2d 925, 926-27 (Fla. 1st Dist. Ct. App. 1982). Moreover, the recent amendments to Section 102.168 merely codified existing contest case law. See Comm. On Election Reform, H.R. 99-399, Final Analysis on HB 281 at III. A. (Fla Jul. 15, 1999). The "reasonable probability" standard was part of the existing case law and thus continued in effect. See, e.g., Davies v. Bossert, 499 S. 2d 418. 420 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. Appl 1984). That representation was incorrect. On November 22, the Board decided to terminate the ongoing manual recount because of concerns (1) about the ability of the Board to complete a full manual recount, and (2) that anything short of a full manual recount of all of the ballots would be unfair, and could disenfranchise the Cuban/Hispanic community in Miami. As the Chair of the Board explained: We cannot meet the deadline of the Supreme Court of the State of Florida, and I feel it incumbent upon this Canvassing Board to count each and every ballot and to not do a hand recount [that] would potentially even under the proposed plan of this morning, could disenfranchise a segment of our community.

Pltfs Ex. 31 at 27:11 to 27:20. Finally, Appellants have identified nothing about these Miami-Dade votes that distinguishes them from the undervotes in the other counties in Florida. If the mere failure of counting machines to pick up a potential vote requires a court in a contest action to count them by hand, then fairness and accuracy require that all such votes must be counted. Respectfully submitted, Newsmax 12/8/00 Dan Frisa "........ With two of three major court rulings handed down so far today, Al Gore received a double-barreled blast to the body as two Florida Circuit Court judges ruled against a transparent attempt by Gore plaintiffs to disenfranchise more than 25,000 Floridians........ Judge Terry Lewis presided over the case concerning absentee ballot applications in Martin County and Judge Nikki Clark heard a nearly identical case in Seminole County. ......... Gore supporters brought these suits in an attempt to overturn the election results - for the first time in U.S. history - by seeking to literally toss out tens of thousands of votes in what the courts deemed unacceptable remedies for mere technical concerns with regard to completing forms requesting that absentee ballots be sent them........" FoxNews 12/8/00 Freeper Lazamataz "..... The Florida Supreme Soviet, in a vote of 4-3, ordered immediate recounts of "undervotes" in all 67 Florida counties. ....."Because time is of the essence, the recount will commence immediately," said the court's spokesman, Craig Waters. Undervotes are ballots that register no vote for president when run through Votomatic counting machines. .....The court also added 383 votes to Gore's total from recounts already undertaken, cutting George W. Bush's lead to just 154 votes. ...." Freeper kevkrom ".... Four articles of impeachment. Four contempt of court citiations. Four indictments and convictions of using the "color of law" to disenfranchise voters. Is that too much to ask? ....." Freeper apackof2 "...... The court also added 383 votes to Gore's total from recounts already undertaken, cutting George W. Bush's lead to just 154 votes. I thought that after SCOTUS ruling that the count went back to 930?? ....." Freeper mlo "..... I've just had a chance to quickly review the decision. I'm sure I'm not the first but I haven't seen what anyone else has had to say about it. This is my take. 1. The FSC orders Judge Sauls to immediately count the Miami-Dade undervotes. 2. They order Sauls to order all other counties to manually count their undervotes. 3. They do not order Palm Beach to do another count, but do order their late count to be accepted. They acknowledge a dispute about what that final number is and leave it to be determined by the judge. 4. The acknowledge that because of time constraints this may all be a pointless excercise, but claim it is thier responsibility to try. 5. The Chief Justice has written a pretty scathing dissent. ......" Freeper jackbill "......Look at it this way. The SCOFLA extended the date of certification. The USSC told them that they hadn't given them (USSC) a good enough reason to think that they could do that. ....... The SCOFLA hasn't answered the USSC, and now they extend the date of certification again. If you were a Justice of the US Supreme Court, how would you feel about that? Notice that the Chief Judge of the SCOFLA dissented. He knew better than to try that trick again. The black male judge and one white male judge dissented with him. ...." Freeper Mahone "...... I heard good old Judge Naplitano on Fox, calmly saying that what will probably happen TODAY is that an emergency appeal will go to the USSC Justice that is assigned this area of the country just for such emergency situations, it is Justice Kennedy. I also hope as many people as possible PEACEFULLY take to the streets, especially of Tallahassee to protest! ......" Freeper kazander "..... SCOFLA's Chief Justice, in a blistering dissent, laid out the groundwork for the appeal to the Supreme Court. Its worth a good read. Basically, it points out that the majority was full of crap and this changes the law not from what it was on 11/7, but from what it was on 11/26! Further, the majority opinion runs contrary to the Constitution and Blacker when it allows a partial manual recount when the legislature requires a full manual recount. Other good issues too. ....." Freeper kevkrom in response to "Will SCOTUS be unanimous or will they break 6/3? " said "....Normally, I would expect the latter. However, given that the SCOFLA(w) basically spit in the face of the previous USSC

would expect the latter. However, given that the SCOFLA(w) basically spit in the face of the previous USSC order, it wouldn't surprise me that they get slammed on a 9-0 reversal with no comment. (The most scathing rebuke the Court can give -- i.e., "we unanimously believe there was absolutely no merit to your decision".) ...." Freeper Armenian Commando "...... I read the opinon (more like scanned it quickly). I can give a somewhat abreviated "legal opinion". First -- The majority ordered the PBC # be included, but said it was up to Sauls to decide whether it was the 215 number or the later revised lower numbers. Second -- the reversed "in part" refers to the fact that the SCOFLA did not reverse Saul on the Palm Beach 3300 votes (i.e. the more restricted standard) or on Nasau County. Third -- It seems that the Majority tried to CYA by arguing that the legislative statutes that existed on 11/7 provided authority for a full recount. Fourth -- The dissents were pretty strong. They pretty much chided the Majority for continuing to prolong this entire process, going too far, and found that the legislature did not provide this type of relief. ....." Freeper erkyl "..... In reading the decision, I notice the following quote: ....... "However, a final decision as to the result of the statewide election should only be determined upon consideration of the legal votes contained within the undervote or "no registered vote" ballots of all Florida counties, as well as the legal votes already tabulated." ...... Doesn't that mean that nothing will count unless they all recount? Couldn't Republican counties refuse to conduct the count, thus nullifying any additional counts? ......" Freeper rogers21774 "..... Can somebody please explain how (roughly) two weeks ago the FSC can rule that Miami-Dade County is not required to proceed with a recount, but now orders them (and others) to immediately start to recount undervotes? What the hell have they been smoking? ....." Freeper Daisymay "...... Carl Cameron (FOX) stated, minutes after the decision was announced, that the Attorneys for Bush were EXPECTING this decision and even named correctly the Judges who would go for Gore. They had their appeal ready and were expected to file it with the US Supreme Court before the end of business TODAY. They also stated they would ask for an EMERGENCY STAY to stop any counting of ballots until the US Supreme Court rules on this case. I hope the US Supremes hear this case TOMORROW and put an end to this madness. ....." Freeper Vermonter "..... Orin Hatch is on CNBC right now with the retired FLSC judge. Hatch is going ballistic in his contempt of the FLSC decision. He almost makes you think he might be really, really, really mad this time for real! ....." Freeper PSYCHO-FREEP "..... Legal advisors on Fox say that the SCOFLA really stepped in it big this time. This may wind up with federal charges being filed against them. This is one-step too far. ....." Freeper right-sidedNYer "..... If all of you have not had the chance yet - I urge you to read CJ Wells' dissenting opinion which opens with: "I also believe that the majority's decision cannot withstand the scrutiny which will certainly immediately follow under the United States Constitution." I am no attorney - but it seems to me that CJ Wells has stated his case QUITE well. ...." Freeper Armenian Commando "..... FOX is reporting that the FLA Legislature says it will certify the slate for Bush UNLESS either SCOTUS rules otherwise, OR if there is FULL recount of all 6 Million votes cast in FLA ....." Freeper pushforbush "..... Yes, I just finished reading the opinion and the two dissenting opinions. The opinion by the Chief Justice is a road map and flashing beacon for the US Supreme Court to use to overturn the Florida Supreme Court decision. The Chief Justice specifically says that the majority opinion violates federal law. So we should be thankful for that. ........... The majority opinion tries to mouth the right words to avoid a claim that they are violating federal law and inventing new standards, but doesn't try very hard to defend itself. ...... If Bush had to lose, this is the weakest possible vote 4-3, and the weakest set of opinions imaginable to lose upon. Imagine---the Florida Chief Justice is saying in his dissent, in so many words---"don't listen to those other guys on the Court, they are breaking the U.S. Constitution, federal law, and they are going to ruin this court." ........ Most importantly---the majority opinion just says----go forth and count, right now, starting tonight, Friday night and over the weekend. The SCOFLA majority says we are sorry that you have to work over the weekend, but you should to carry out our will. THE BIG QUESTION, WILL ANYONE LISTEN TO THE DECISION? WHO IN THE LEON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, TO WHICH THE CASE WAS REMANDED, WILL START COUNTING TONIGHT? OR OVER THE WEEKEND? WILL JUDGE SAULS DO IT?

WILL THE JUDGES JUST BLOW IT OFF? ....." Freeper wkcoop ".... In CJ Wells dissenting he writes: "...I could not more strongly disagree with their decision to reverse the trial court and prolong this judicial process. I also believe that the majority's decision cannot withstand the scrutiny which will certainly immediately follow under the United States Constitution." ...." MNBC 12/8/00 Freeper Elkiejg "...... ACTION ALERT!! Just heard MSNBC give a report that Dems. are sending a plane load of their operatives back into FL to "oversee" the hand counts. The newscaster thought the Repubs. were coming back into FL also. The discussion followed that the Dems. had their "trench warfare" plan waiting. ...... Folks, we all know what they are going to do.....they're going to try and steal the election - again! I faxed a request to Judge Sanders Sauls - 850-410-3381 to conduct the hand counts under the direction of the county courts with NO political operatives allowed. This is the only way to keep the Dems. from dirty tricks. If Judge Sauls recueses himself, we must fax the Judge replacing him. ....... Hopefully,the US Supremes will overrule and throw it out - but don't count on it. Gore is planning even now on legal moves to stop Bush in any injunction he files. They are also -and have been - looking for ways to stop the FL legislature. WE MUST ACT. ......" Freeper machman "...... Agreed, blistering, from the dissent: WELLS, C.J., dissents with an opinion. HARDING, J., dissents with an opinion, in which SHAW, J., concurs. NO MOTION FOR REHEARING WILL BE ALLOWED. WELLS, C.J., dissenting. I join Justice Harding's dissenting opinion except as to his conclusions with regard to error by Judge Sauls and his conclusions as to the separateness of section 102.166 and 102.168, Florida Statutes (2000). I write separately to state my additional conclusions and concerns. I want to make it clear at the outset of my separate opinion that I do not question the good faith or honorable intentions of my colleagues in the majority. However, I could not more strongly disagree with their decision to reverse the trial court and prolong this judicial process. I also believe that the majority's decision cannot withstand the scrutiny which will certainly immediately follow under the United States Constitution. My succinct conclusion is that the majority's decision to return this case to the circuit court for a count of the under-votes from either Miami-Dade County or all counties has no foundation in the law of Florida as it existed on November 7, 2000, or at any time until the issuance of this opinion. The majority returns the case to the circuit court for this partial recount of under-votes on the basis of unknown or, at best, ambiguous standards with authority to obtain help from others, the credentials, qualifications, and objectivity of whom are totally unknown. That is but a first glance at the imponderable problems the majority creates. Importantly to me, I have a deep and abiding concern that the prolonging of judicial process in this counting contest propels this country and this state into an unprecedented and unnecessary constitutional crisis. I have to conclude that there is a real and present likelihood that this constitutional crisis will do substantial damage to our country, our state, and to this Court as an institution. On the basis of my analysis of Florida law as it existed on November 7, 2000, I conclude that the trial court's decision can and should be affirmed......" Freeper CT FOR BUSH "...100,000 in 27 counties (so says Orin Hatch on HARDBALL 5:15 est) ....." Findlaw Enlightiator ".... Text of Judge Sauls recusal of himself from the Florida Supreme Court order for his circuit court to conduct a manual recount: ORDER The Supreme Court of Florida having issued its order this day in the above styled case, the undersigned for good and sufficient cause hereby recuses himself and requests the reassignment of this cause for all further proceedings herein. DONE AND ORDERED in Chambers this 8th day December, 2000 N. SANDERS SAULS CIRCUIT JUDGE ....." Ednlightiator "...... Judge Sauls, I salute you as a man of honor and utmost integrity, a man who has done his duty in the law. May God bring your justice to light! I also posted this in another thread, in case anyone missed it: The Bush defense is in motion on several fronts:

The Bush defense is in motion on several fronts: * Petition of Bush and Cheney for Stay of Court's Order Pending Review of Petition for Writ of Certiorari has been filed with the Florida Supreme Court * Bush legal team is reportedly moving for emergency hearing by 11th circuit court per their earlier willingness to hear the equal protection and due process clause of the Fourtennth Amendent to the Constitution * Bush has reportedly authorized his attorneys to contact USSC Justice Kennedy asap for an temporary order to halt the manual recounts The "Petition of Bush and Cheney for Stay of Court's Order Pending Review of Petition for Writ of Certiorari" to the Florida Supreme Court contains a hint of what Bush will argue before the Federal Courts: Pursuant to Rule 9.310 of the Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure, 28 U.S.C. 2101(f), and this Court's authority to control the issuance of its own mandates, Petitioners George W. Bush and Richard Cheney request that this Court stay its decision to begin a partial manual recount of selected votes in Miami-Dade County, as well as the remaining counties of the State, pending resolution of a petition for a writ of certiorari to be filed with the United States Supreme Court. The arguements in the petition are under the following headings: I. There Is A Reasonable Probability That At Least Four Members Of The United States Supreme Court Will Conclude That This Case Warrants Plenary Consideration. II. The Supreme Court Is Likely To Reverse This Court's Decision As Violative Of The United States Constitution And Federal Law. 1. This Court's Decision Violates Article II Of The Constitution Of The United States 2. This Court's Decision Fails To Comply With 3 U.S.C. 5 3. This Court's Decision Violates The Equal Protection And Due Process Clauses Of The Fourteenth Amendment III. Petitioners Will Suffer Irreparable Harm In The Absence Of A Stay, And The Balance Of The Equities Clearly Favors The Issuance Of A Stay. WEAR-TV3 Pensacola 12/8/00 "...... Text of 5:00 pm lead news item on Pensacola WEAR-TV 3: Federal Ruling ....... Attorneys say today's [Florida] Supreme Court ruling could make a decision by a Pensacola judge even more critical in the presidential race. ......This afternoon, federal Judge Lacey Collier issued a 28page ruling in a lawsuit the Republican Party filed against five canvassing boards. .....The judge ordered those boards... Which include Okaloosa county's... To accept certain overseas absentee ballots that were previously rejected. Collier says the ballots should not have been thrown out for not having a foreign postmark. He also says "federal write-ins" should be accepted even if there was no request for an absentee ballot. Republican party attorney Ed Fleming expects all 67 counties to send their rejected overseas ballots to Tallahassee to be counted. ......" Freeper Don'tMessWithTexas ".....They are currently determining how to count in Judge Lewis' courtroom in Fla. No, I repeat, no votes are being counted at this time. The other thread was in error. ...." Freeper billhilly ".... All twelve judges on the 11th circuit court of appeals in Atlanta have agreed to hear this case tomorrow morning. ...." Freeper shezza "..... What the h*ll does he mean that there is to be no objection to the individual ballots, that there will be observers there but that they will not be allowed to interfere with the counting process in any way--that they can observe but not look at, see, or otherwise slow down the ballot counting process? What good does it do to have a Republican observer there who sees fraud or blatantly partisan "interpretation" of a mythical vote, but can't object to it?? Good Lord! ......" Freeper Laverne ".... THis is an absurdity. The standards are as follows: 1. NONE! 2. Count starts tomorrow at 8am, finishes by 2pm on Sunday 3. No direction as to how or who to count, discretion of canvassing boards

4. Protocol "they" intend to use should be sent to Judge Lewis by noon tomorrow. 5. How to count: leave to discretion of persons doing the manual counting. 6. Ask for canvassing boards once completed to forward counts to SOS or division of elections. ...." Freeper CurlyBill "....I agree! Pat Caddell did bring up a good point tonight ... he feels that Bush may well win a recount because of all of the undervotes in heavily Republican areas. The point is though that there are no standards, and the process is far too subjective! ...." Freeper Timeout "...... Hey, blam: Rich Lowry made my favorite observation of the night: In it's ruling at 4pm today, SCOFLA decided the canvassing boards had abused their discretion. Now, at midnight, Judge Lewis sends the decision back to those same canvassing boards and leaves all decisions to their discretion. ...." Freeper Kangaroo Court "..... Well, there you go. No standards, severely limited observors, no objections except after the fact and at some future time the judge will look at them. Nothing to insure the integrity of the ballots or reconcile the numbers. Can you say President Gore? Well, I never will! What can we do? There are almost 50 million of us, surely we can do something. ....." Freeper MHT "...... Sam Goldman on Fox just indicated that Kennedy might be trying to get a majority to issue the stay rather than going out on a limb. Also, to issue the stay, proof is needed that the recount does irreparable harm to Bush, and so far the only harm is the pr damage that might result---HOWEVER, Florida's votes are already certified and in DC--AND the Legislature is the only branch authorized to certify federal electors---so, we may be down--but we ain't out yet! Even if the rights of the None of the Above voters have been violated as assumed Gore votes! ....." Freeper disraeligears "..... This is my first attempt to post, so please bear with me. It appears that the Fl Sup Ct has committed an ultra vires act. It is ultra vires in that the Florida justices did not have the authority today to order that those 300 or so additional votes previously found for Gore be added to the first (and only legitimate) recount. Remember, the US Sup Ct vacated Fl Sup Ct.'s first ruling extending the time, therefore disallowing the additional manual counts which produced the additional 300 votes. This action will highly inflame the sensibilities of the US Sup Ct. And it should also cause them to act quickly, lest their federal perogative be irreparably diminished. ....." Freeper alancarp "..... Patience, patience. The longer the wait, the more painful the 2x4 that is coming down on this court. I posted this on another thread, but I think it appropriate here as well: ....... The United States Supreme Court had put SCOFLA on notice this week. They were very carefully kind to SCOFLA, while at the same time outlining the law that they must follow. In response, SCOFLA has now spit into the SCOTUS' collective faces. With malice and intent. They were obviously warned off from doing this by Chief Justice Wells. But they did it anyway. ......Now: what would be the proper remedy for a renegade court that has blatantly ignored the authority of the highest court in the land? A simple stay of their order? Perhaps. Something more forceful? Definitely - but this will require some time, and that's what we're waiting for. ........ I would like to see the entire court (SCOTUS) unite for a single sweeping rebuke: (1) Reversing the order of SCOFLA, citing C.J. Wells' dissent; and (2) Declaring all contests of this election null and void; ending the election subject to the authority of the Fla. Secretary of State. THAT would send the appropriate message! It will happen; SCOTUS *cannot* permit this to stand against its own authority. ......" Freeper timeout ".....They did one other thing. SCOFLAW said the Dade county canvassing board abused its discretion. So 6 hours later Judge Lewis turned this matter back over to Dade county to use its discretion. ...." Florida Law 12/8/00 Freeper lowteksh "..... I couldn't understand why the Bush camp went back to the Florida Supreme Court tonight to stay their own ruling. After reading the appropriate law that the Florida Supreme Court cited in their 4-3 decision I now know why the Bush team did this. ........ The Florida statute governing the contest phase that the Florida Supreme Court cited over and over in their 4-3 decision that, they claim, gives them the authority to do what they did is 102.168.8 (I have included a link to it below). That statute states implicitedly that the only person who can provide the remedies is the circuit court judge who heard the contest. That person, of course, is Sander Sauls who is now no longer hearing the case. Judge Terry Lewis DOES NOT have the authority to do anything under Florida law. ........... If the Florida Supreme Court doesn't

stop this they will have changed the law as it stood on November 7 - that will give the Bush team what they need to go to the US Supreme Court. .........Statute: 102.168.8: The circuit judge to whom the contest is presented may fashion such orders as he or she deems necessary to ensure that each allegation in the complaint is investigated, examined, or checked, to prevent or correct any alleged wrong, and to provide any relief appropriate under such circumstances. ....." Freeper lowteksh ".....You make a good point, but actually the contest would have to be RE-HEARD in the event that he died. The point of the law was that they only wanted the person who had the facts of the case being the person seeking the remedies. The point is only trivial if the law hadn't addressed your point by being so implicit. Besides, my point was to try and understand why Bush would go to the Florida Supremes tonight to get them to stay their afternoon decision. ...." UPI 12/9/00 "......Attorneys for Texas Gov. George W. Bush sought an emergency hearing from a federal appeals court on Friday in an attempt to block the manual recount of thousands of ballots in Florida. Bush's lawyers filed a petition for a writ of certiori with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. They asked the appeals court to issue an emergency injunction against any recounts until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case. ...... They also filed a request for a stay with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who oversees the Atlanta appeals court. .....The 11th Circuit gave lawyers for Vice President Al Gore until 7 a.m. on Saturday to respond to Bush's petition, which was filed about 6 p.m. on Friday. ...." Freeper abundy ".....The original decision was vacated, therefore the count starts at the Nov. 14 number of 930. They did not address this issue in their opinion, merely addressed the instant issues (Saul's decision) and tried to justify their activism on Florida law. They have yet to address the extension of the deadline issue [see second point below] and/or the issue of manually recounting ballots when the statutoraly required circumstances do not exist. (let alone the issue of different standards for what counts as a vote in each county) Second, the "counts" that they ordered included did not even make their judicially legislated deadline, therefore they cannot be included without re-addressing the extension of the deadline issue. They cannot justify, by Florida law, the judicial extension of the deadline, therefore their decision cannot be squared with the USSCt's order. (Further, how in the hell can anyone know if the ballots in counts ordered included, one of which stopped short of a full re-count have been segregated from the ballots trucked up to Tallahassee - if they haven't they will be counted twice) ............ BTW - I'm a Maryland Attorney, and ashamed to admit it after the performances of some of my brethen during this Cluster. Especially that hate-filled Socialist, Alan Dershopiss. ....." Freeper Tree of Liberty ".....According to Fox, there is a change in procedure in Leon County. 8 judges at 4 different tables will look at the ballots themselves. If there is a dispute between the judges, it will go to Terry Lewis. My own presumption is that these 8 judges are from the Leon County circuit court. ...." UPI 12/9/00 "......A panel of eight Leon County Circuit Court judges has taken over the ballot recounting from 25 teams of circuit court clerk workers. The judges will coint all 9,000 contested ballots from Miami-Dade County - so-called undervotes. Leon County Circuit Court Clerk David Lang said the judges made the change shortly after the count started. ``We just heard about it this minute'' ..... Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis ordered the change, Lang said, because ``They want this to absolutely beyond approach'' ....... " FoxNews 12/9/00 Freeper Freedom of Speech Wins ".... In the Duval County meeting where they are awaiting software and hardware to be flown in from Miami to "identify undervotes" is on Fox News. The lawyer for the Gore team admitted that the software and hardware has never been used to "identify undervotes" until this election. This is the first election it will have been used for. ....." Freeper shezza "...... An MSNBC reporter said that there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in Duval, but that the county went heavily for Bush in the Presidential race. Which also puts into doubt that "if they voted for other Democratic candidates, they MUST have meant to vote for Gore" argument used in Broward to determine the 'true' intent of non-votes. ....." Freeper annie oakley "..... The Duval County Supervisor of Elections is John Stafford, a Republican. The other two members of the canvassing board are Judge Brent Shore and Rick Mullaney. Don't know their party affliation, but Mullaney is the one suggesting a full county wide hand count, so my guess would be he is a Republican. ...."

Freeper Dane "..... Just heard on Fox News that the Gore camp just filed it's brief with SCOTUS. This could be the delay with Justice Kennedy deciding to stay the hand recounts. They said that we now must wait for a decision by SCOTUS. ....." 12/9/00 7:30 pst Freeper mombonn "Justices arriving at USSC now. " billhilly "..... The SCOTUS has been badly insulted by the FLSC. They stuck all five fingers in the eyes of the supremes. Don't expect them to get away with that. ....." Freeper sdkhaki "..... I'm watching Fox and they are showing the Pinellas canvassing board punching ballots with a Votomatic to see what they look like afterwards. They are trying to determine what their standard will be. This is probably good because they will come up with next to no dimples. ....." Freeper Steven W 12/9/00 7:45 pst "..... The SCOFLA has denied Bush's motion for stay (as expected). This motion was filed last night with the Kangaroos pending consideration by the SCOTUS. ........NOTE - CNN / I am reporting that the SCOFLA - NOT THE SCOTUS - has denied Bush's stay. ....." Newsmax 12/9/00 Carl Limbacher "..... NBC'S SHIPMAN GOT HEADS-UP ON RULING ....... Loyalty has its rewards, as NBC's Claire Shipman found out on Friday when she became the first reporter to break the story about the renegade ruling by Florida's Supreme Court.......... Shipman, perhaps the most Gore-friendly reporter on the White House beat, even scooped the court's official spokesman Craig Waters with the news. .....The raven-haired journalist is making no secret of how she pulled off her coup, telling the NEW YORK POST ON SATURDAY THAT, MINUTED BEFORE WATERS WENT PUBLIC, SHE GOT AN URGENT CALL FROM "A GORE CAMPAGN SOURCE" WHO INFORMED HER, "WE WON!" ....." Freeper djf "....That's what got me. Seems like SCOFLA, by issuing the order without responding to the SCOTUS ruling, contradicted themselves, and in doing so, told SCOTUS to go pound salt. I wonder if the four who voted for it can be held in contempt of court. ....." Freeper WoodrowTKatt "......I don't think SCOTUS will hand the election to Bush -- Rehnquist/Scalia/Thomas are too restrained for that. ....... I believe they will excoriate SCOFLA for their unconstitutional decisions, then declare that SCOFLA has made such a hash of Florida election law and procedures that this matter is no longer judiciable. It's now for the Florida Legislature and Congress to decide, as the Constitution directs. ....... SCOTUS is smart enough not to undermine their own legitimacy by deciding this election unilaterally. Expecting them to is a false hope. They'll do their part by legitimizing the role of the legislative branch, but that is all. ....." Freeper slimer "..... Beck was just on and described the situation in Florida counties as chaos and confusion. Is this anyway to get a full, fair and accurate count of all the votes? ....." Freeper lilgeneral2000 "..... bush lawyers now stating the vote count is 930 Bush lead,per msnbc ...." Freeper Peach "..... And CNN just reported that Miami-Dade expects to be finished in approx. 8-9 hours. So far, most of the ballots are non-votes. ....." Freeper demkicker "..... I just hope that Bork is wrong. He supposedly has the inside skinny that the SCOTUS will go 5-4 Gore and not issue a stay. Pepto Bismol here I come. ..." Freeper bitcoder "...... Saw somewhere that Cleta Mitchell, Republican lawer, said that the longer the SCOUTUS delays in granting a stay, the less likely it is to be granted. Makes sense to me, a stay after dem operatives have harvested enough votes, which is now only ~150, means nothing. So the longer they delay, the less skin they will have to put in the game, which I think is their plan. ....." Freeper HardStarboard "...... My question exactly - shouldn't Bush's base figure be 930 votes ahead per the SCOTUS vacating the FLSC's first ruling?? Is this fact or are the networks quoting Bush's lead at 154 votes (537-PBC&Dade early recounts) correct? Seems to me that we need Jim Baker to come out and set the record straight. The RATS will find 155 votes for Gore in 30 minutes at Dade!! ....." Freeper scannell "..... Not only does the real count stand at 930 since SCOFLA has not responded to the remanding (and probably won't) the reason it is at 930 is because the changed the legal certification date and the fruits of that count that took the count down to 537 are the same counts that now are perported to take it down to 154. What gives. How can the SCOFLA add votes from an activity that was (as it stands) reversed by SCOTUS? ....." The Drudge Report / Yahoo 12/9/00 David Lawsky ".....(Reuters) - At first glance, the Florida Supreme

Court's decision to order a manual recount of thousands of ballots looked like good news for Al Gore, but a fresh analysis of voting data on Saturday showed that the Democrat actually may lose ground to Republican George W. Bush. ``Gore may not be clearly advantaged by the statewide recount of the undercounted ballots,'' Harvard University professor of government Jasjeet Sekhon told a group of fellow academics in an e-mail after crunching numbers into the wee hours of Saturday morning. A copy of the e-mail was provided to Reuters. ............Sekhon is one of a group of government and statistical experts from Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell University and Northwestern University who have closely followed voting irregularities in Florida's 67 counties since the Nov. 7 election. ...... The latest conclusion: It's anybody's ballgame, although the pattern suggests Bush may gain more votes than Gore. ......" Freeper Kimlee ".... I was just watching FOX and they had a spokesperson at the Leon County is reporting that the Miami Dade recount going on is showing that the majority of the votes are true no-votes. The rate he quoted was about 1000 ballots per hour. ....." Freeper MinuteGal "..... The Florida Democrat party is now (Saturday) flooding the state with a recorded phone message urging people to contact Jeb Bush that every vote should be counted. I got my call a few minutes ago. You have to hand it to the Rats, they are right on the ball. Leni ...." FoxNews 12/9/00 Freeper Samizdat "..... Turn in to Fox News. Barbara Boxer is being shouted down while trying to speak. ......" Freeper p. henry "....ABC Radio has reported that the recount is complete in Orange County and that Gore gained four votes. ....." Chicago Tribune 12/8/00 AP "......Two Florida judges today threw out lawsuits seeking to throw out thousands of absentee ballots cast in Martin and Seminole counties, handing George W. Bush a victory in his bid to close out the state's contested presidential election. ...... The Judges, Nikki Clark and Terry Lewis, ruled that "despite irregularities in the requests for absentee ballots, neither the sanctity of the ballots nor the integrity of the elections has been compromised," a court clerk read from a prepared statement. The elections "reflect a full and fair expression of the will of the voters," the clerk, Terre Cass, read. ......." UPI 12/9/00 Mark Benjamin ".....Vice President Al Gore's lead attorney David Boies told United Press International Saturday that despite the hand count of ballots that could take place in counties across Florida, Democrats might ask the courts to certify the Florida vote based only on the added count of some 9,000 ballots from Miami-Dade County alone. ....... Boies told UPI Democrats would prefer that a final tally include a count of as many ballots as possible from across the state, as ordered by the Florida Supreme Court Friday. But final tallies are due by 2 p.m. Sunday, and many counties have not even started their counts by mid-day Saturday. ..........." MSNBC 12/9/00 Freeper Republican Extremist "..... They'll hear 90 minutes of oral arguments Monday!! Thay're taking the case!! ....." Freeper DugwayDuke "..... SCOTUS grants emergency stay to stop recount. SCOTUS to hear the case on merits on Monday. Hour and half arguments for each side. Reported on Fox. ...." Freeer winsomeone "..... Will hear hour long arguments on Monday at 11 am. ...." Freeper Physicist "..... They must have been waiting with one finger on the button for the 11th Circuit Court to make its decision. Update: 5-4 Stephens, Souter, Ginzburg & Breyer dissenting......" Freeper Theresa ".....CNN reports that a Bush appointee at 11th circut stormed out the building got in his car and peeled off. Lots of friction among these judges. This is awful. ....." Freeper Armenian Commando "..... According to FOX and AP Wire, it sounds like the dissent was pretty PO'd and said that the Majority was creating a further "crisis." I am paraphrasing. ......" Freeper eat it, gore "..... SCALIA: The petitioner (BUSH) has a SUBSTANTIAL PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS!!! ......" FoxNews 12/9/00 Freeper kattracks "..... Bush camp brought complaint against gore camp release of numbers against Lewis' order. ....." and "..... Phil Beck just quoted Boise comments during this afternoon's press conference. ....." Freeper selara "..... We have seen it all now. Judge Lewis is not present in the courtroom. He's on the

Freeper selara "..... We have seen it all now. Judge Lewis is not present in the courtroom. He's on the telephone. What an amazing series of events. ....." Freeper kattracks "....Gore lawyer claiming that gore camp did not understand it to be a gag order. ....." Freeper Vermonter "..... Boise's lawyer saying we didn't do anything wrong and we won't do it again. ....." Freeper Textide "..... Just heard Lewis say, "...not sure what I can do to further enforce this," before Fox went to break. ....." Freeper GI Jane "....On CNN, they look like they're attending a funeral. ....." Freeper RightOnlinesWife "..... MSNBC has pointed out countless times that it was a 5-4 decision, and how close it was, blah, blah, blah. I don't recall hearing about how close the FLSC decision was... " CNN freeper hawaiian 12/9/00 "...... "Under the state Supreme Court ruling, Bush's lead was 154 votes, but Palm Beach County's canvassing board Saturday declared the actual number of votes Gore had gained under its manual vote recount to be 176 -- 39 votes less than its original number, putting the revised Bush lead at 194 votes." ...... Just how pathetic is the Florida Supreme Court? They took David Boies at his word when he said that Gore had gained 215 votes in Palm Beach when in reality the number was 176. The Palm Beach Canvassing Board themselves called in to make that statement. ....." Freeper KC_Conspirator ".....Once again, the official certified lead is 537. If the SCOTUS comes down again on the SCOFLA, the lead should go back to 930, and if you want to throw in those 300 absentee votes that just got reinstated, the lead goes to over 1,200. The media is and the Democrats are just making up numbers. ...." SCOTUS 12/9/00 Justice Scalia "..... Though it is not customary for the court to issue an opinion in connection with its grant of stay, I believe a brief response is necessary to JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent. I will not discuss the merits of the case, since they will shortly be before us .... On the question of irreparable harm, however, a few words are appropriate. The issue is not, as the dissent puts it, whether "[c]ounting every legally cast vote ca[n] constitute irreparable harm." One of the principle issues in the appeal we have accepted is precisely whether the votes that have been ordered to be counted are, under a reasonable interpretation of Florida law, "legally cast vote[s]." The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does not in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner, and to the contrary, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election. Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires. Another issue in the case, moreover, is the propriety, indeed, the constitutionality, of letting the standard for determination of voter's intent - dimpled chads, hanging chads, etc. - vary from county to county, as the Florida Supreme Court opinion, as interpreted by the Circuit Court permits. If the petitioner is correct that counting in this fashion is unlawful, permitting the court to proceed on that erroneous basis will prevent an accurate recount from being conducted on a proper basis later, since it is generally agreed that each manual recount produces a degradation of the ballots, which renders a subsequent recount inaccurate. For these reasons I have joined the Court's issuance of a stay, with a highly accelerated timetable for resolving this case on the merits......." Freeper StarFan ".....'It suffices to say that the issuance of the stay suggests that a majority of the court, while not deciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner has a substantial probability of success'... Justice Scalia (Per Drudge) ....." SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 00-949 (00A504) _________________ GEORGE W. BUSH ET AL. v. ALBERT GORE, JR. ET AL. ON APPLICATION FOR STAY [December 9, 2000]

JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE SOUTER, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting. To stop the counting of legal votes, the majority today departs from three venerable rules of judicial restraint that have guided the Court throughout its history. On questions of state law, we have consistently respected the opinions of the highest courts of the States. On questions whose resolution is committed at least in large measure to another branch of the Federal Government, we have con-strued our own jurisdiction narrowly and exercised it cautiously. On federal constitutional questions that were not fairly presented to the court whose judgment is being reviewed, we have prudently declined to express an opin-ion. The majority has acted unwisely. Time does not permit a full discussion of the merits. It is clear, however, that a stay should not be granted unless an applicant makes a substantial showing of a likelihood of irreparable harm. In this case, applicants have failed to carry that heavy burden. Counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm. On the other hand, there is a danger that a stay may cause irreparable harm to the respondents and, more importantly, the public at large because of the risk that the entry of the stay would be tantamount to a decision on the merits in favor of the applicants. National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 434 U. S. 1327, 1328 (1977)...." FOX NEWS 12/9/00 Freeper Yankee ".....Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt told John Gibson that the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to ballots. He said that ballots are sealed and destroyed intact. They will not be counted again at some future date, as DemonRats, from Clinton on down, have claimed......" CNN 12/9/00 "....CNN, in a live remote report, just emphatically announced that a hearing was in progress in Judge Lewis' court. According to the report "the Republicans are hopping mad and have asked Judge Lewis to find a Gore spokesman in contempt of his order". Anyone watching the Fox feed of the hearing was well aware that the Bush team went well out of it's way at the hearing to emphasis that no punishment was being sought, simply a clarification......" Newsday 12/9/00 Sandra Sobieraj "......Prayer and champagne propelled Al Gore through whiplash-inducing changes in the presidential race. ''Years from now, we'll be telling our grandchildren about this,'' he said Saturday. As if hitting ''replay'' on last month's undecided Election Night, Gore was all but consigned to concession, given one last chance on Friday afternoon, bolstered by a fresh recount on Saturday and then, within minutes, stopped dead in his tracks. ......... Reporters waited in vain outside the vice presidential mansion for a promised photo-op with Gore decorating his Christmas tree. They were sent away when the U.S. Supreme Court put a halt to the vice president's last-hope vote counts in Florida......" Newsday 12/9/00 AP "...... Remarks by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, an adviser to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, after the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday ordered hand recounts of presidential votes to stop in Florida, as transcribed by eMediaMillWorks, Inc.: ........ I have just spoken to Governor Bush, and of course we are pleased by the United States Supreme Court's decision this afternoon to stay the mandate of the Florida Supreme Court, and to grant our petition for a writ of certiorari. ......... This means that the partial manual recount system created yesterday by the Florida Supreme Court will not now proceed. As the three dissenting justices of the Florida Supreme Court emphasized, their four colleagues risked violating federal law and the United States Constitution by developing an alternative and flawed recount system. ........... The United States Supreme Court's action confirmed the foresight, I think, of Florida Chief Justice Wells, who stated that the decision of some of his colleagues, quote, ''cannot withstand the scrutiny which will immediately follow under the United States Constitution,'' close quote. ..........Therefore, we're very pleased that we will have the opportunity to argue the merits of our case before the United States Supreme Court on Monday. ....." AP 12/9/00 Ron Word ".....Scarcely under way, the manual recount of thousands of contested presidential ballots stopped abruptly Saturday by order of the U.S. Supreme Court, but not before election judges were thrust back into the world of dimpled ballots and undervotes. ....... The court's 5-4 order was issued in Washington, and spread elation throughout the Bush campaign and concern among Democrats, who had been celebrating Friday's split state Supreme Court ruling that ordered the recounts to proceed. .......In at least one county, the order came as the work was wrapping up. ``We've wasted a whole day,'' said Cora Sue Robinson, elections supervisor in Gulf County. Local officials had recounted all 43 undervotes in their jurisdiction, and ``it did not change the vote anyway whatsoever,'' she said. ......... ``The judges will be looking to discern the clear intent of the voter,'' Ion Sancho announced shortly before the seals were broken on envelopes stuffed with ballots cast Election Day and at the center of dispute ever since. Sancho presided over the counting of Miami-Dade County's estimated 9,000 so-called undervotes - ballots on which counting

machines detected no vote for president. .........The process and the timetable varied from county to county, but the instructions from Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, appointed to implement the Florida high court's order, were uniform: Finish the counting by 2 p.m. Sunday so the state's 25 electoral votes could be awarded by Tuesday. ........ Even as the counting began, Bush sought to shut it down, in federal and state courts. ``What is about to transpire in counting rooms all across the state of Florida is chaos,'' they argued in court papers filed in the Florida state capital. ``These ballots have degraded to the point that they are not the same ballots that were counted and recounted on Nov. 7 and 8, 2000,'' the Bush team said of the Miami-Dade County votes. ``The `evidence' is not sufficiently trustworthy for any election, and certainly not for the election of the president of the United States.'' ..... The only fair way to proceed was to complete a full statewide recount of all the ballots, the Bush lawyers said. ...." MSNBC 12/9/00 Bryan Alexander "...... New York Gov. George Pataki has just read the judges court order enjoining ANY party from issuing partial recount numbers. He pointed out that he was STUNNED to hear Ron Klain clearly violating the court order. ....." Newsmax 12/9/00 Dan Frisa "...... In yet another stunning development, the U.S. Supreme Court today issued a stay requested by the Bush campaign, ordering an immediate halt to all hand counting being conducted pursuant to the controversial ruling by the Florida Supreme Court yesterday. ......... Just moments before this major announcement, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order restraining any certification of results in Florida, pending action by the U.S. Supreme Court. ..... This one-two punch by the top federal courts in the land sets the stage for a knock-out rebuke to the out-of-control majority on the Florida high court, which has persisted in usurping its authority under both the U.S. and Florida constitutions. ......" WorldNetDaily 12/8/00 Jon Dougherty "...... In a victory for Republican George W. Bush, a U.S. district judge yesterday ordered all Florida counties to reexamine discarded military absentee ballots and to count them in final vote totals if they were properly signed and dated. The Bush campaign had sued five Florida counties for discarding the ballots initially because they did not have a postmark when they arrived. ....... However, U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier, in a 28-page ruling issued Friday, ordered the canvassing boards in those counties to accept some absentee ballots that were previously rejected by local elections officials. ...... According to unofficial tallies, 1,547 overseas absentee ballots -- about 40 percent of the total Florida received -- were thrown out by county elections workers, mostly because they lacked either a date or a signature, or in some cases because they were not filed by registered voters. ...... According to the order, Collier said the ballots should not have been discarded simply because they had no postmark. Furthermore, he ruled that federal write-in ballots must be accepted, even if there was no formal request for a write-in ballot. ......" FoxNews Freeper Eternally-Optimistic "...... Duval county official says that the machines are coming up with more "under votes" this time when the ballots are run again. This points out that the hanging chad problem is in full force. Voter responsibility to ensure that the card chads are fully punched is still the rule that should be followed under this system. Another reason to mistrust the manual recount process based on punch cards. However, the real issue is that the non counted votes (undervotes) can not be identified from one running to another. So some votes may be counted twice when recounted. ....." Freeper jackbill ".....Markey Shields is again spinning the Dems "someone will count the votes". That's BS and Jenny Dunn told him so. Roy Blount said it today. The ballots will be destroyed as soon as the election if finally over. They are not subject to FOIA. Ha Ha Ha Ha ....." US Supreme Court 12/9/00 CWW "..... FROM A LAWYER'S PERSPECTIVE The SCOTUS decision is a double death blow: 1. The Stay will remain at a minimum until the end of oral arguments on Monday. There will be insufficient time to court the votes by the 12th even if SCOTUS were to rule in Gore's favor on the merits. 2. The standard for an emergency stay requires that the Petitioner (BUSH) demonstrate a "substantial probability of success". The 5 in the majority WOULD NOT HAVE VOTED THAT WAY IF THEY WERE GOING TO RULE FOR GORE ON THE MERITS!!!! 3. Finally, in his concurring opinion in the result, which , BTW, is very rare on a Petition for Stay, Justice Scalia tells us all that BUSH has the votes; that the mjority 5 agree that Bush has a "substantial probability of success" on the merits this coming Monday. Like Bruce Willis' character in "The Sixth Sence", Gore is dead. He just dosen't know it yet.

The rule of law prevails, for once!!! Thank GOD!!! ....." Freeper CWW "......It will be Ted Olson for Bush; I don't know about Tribe arguing for Gore, but he should wear his asbestos britches if he will argue because Justice Scalia has a little present for him!!BTW, Tribe charge $150,000 just to put his name on your petition for certiorari!! ....." and ".....Monday's arguments will make the last hearing before SCOTUS look like tea party. SCOTUS is going to destroy Gore et al. Also, it is possible that Breyer will go with the Bush majority. Although the stay order was a 5-4 split, any one of the four in the minority may have merely objected to the emergency stay, rather than object to Bush's position on the merits! ....." and "...... Pullen v. Mullligan is a case setting out the standard for obtaining an emergency petition. It does not concern the substance of the merits. It's a case concerning procedural issues, deference to the lower cour, and not taking action that may, in effect, screw the other party. And make no mistake, Gore is screwed! ......" US Court of Appeals 11th Circuit Freeper Amerigomag "...... Almost simultaneously with the Supreme Court ruling the 11th Circuit enjoined the Florida Secretary of State and the canvassing boards to withold the vote counts until the Supreme Court has visited the matter. The order does not stop the counting. ....." Associated Press 12/9/00 Anne Gearan "......Fractured along a familiar liberal-conservative fault line, the Supreme Court positioned itself Saturday to settle the unresolved presidential election next week. ....... ``We'll be ready Monday morning,'' George W. Bush's chief adviser in Florida, former Secretary of State James Baker, said after the justices scheduled oral arguments, suspending a hand recount of 45,000 disputed ballots in the meantime. ..... `Whatever tabulations result from this process will be incurable in the public consciousness and, once announced, cannot be retracted'' no matter how flawed, Bush's lawyers argued in papers submitted earlier Saturday. ....... Dissenting were two Republican appointees, Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter, and Clinton appointees Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ....... In asking that the counts be stopped, Bush lawyers called them unfair and dangerous. ``If this confusing, inconsistent and largely standardless process is not stayed pending this court's review, the integrity of this presidential election could be seriously undermined,'' they said in their legal papers to the court. Kennedy has jurisdiction for emergency requests from Florida, but he had passed Bush's request on to the full court. ......." Associated Press 12/9/00 Kalpana Srinivasan ".....Republicans and Democrats rode the election seesaw Saturday, both sides pinning their hopes on a court battle that could send their candidate to the White House. .......GOP lawmakers, quick to cite potential flaws in a state court-ordered recount of thousands of Florida ballots, breathed a sigh of a relief at the Supreme Court's decision to halt that process until hearing arguments. ....... ``I think it's time the Supreme Court stepped in and brought some judicial order to this matter,'' said Rep. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. ``Everybody's entitled to a full and fair hearing, but this has created a crisis.'' ........Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, called the Supreme Court's intervention ``an outstanding victory for the rule of law over judicial activism by the Florida state supreme court.'' ........ He urged the vice president to end his ``addiction to fishing for new votes and holding America and the next administration hostage.'' ....." Atlanta Constitution 12/10/00 Cynthia Tucker "...... Human Events 12/8/00 Ann Coulter "......At least now we'll be able to find out whether the Supreme Court of Florida (SCOFLA) is corrupt or just stupid. On Monday, December 4, the real Supreme Court unanimously presented SCOFLA with the option of reversing itself or being reversed with considerably less tact by the court next time......... In a face-saving gesture, the real Supreme Court pretended not to "understand" just what the SCOFLA had done. But we sure hope you guys weren't thinking you could ignore Article II of the Constitution!!! You weren't doing that were you?? Just to be on the safe side, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the SCOFLA's ruling and cited various provisions of the Constitution and federal law that the state court might consider helpful resources on its next try........It may not be unanimous, but the U.S. Supreme Court might not be so nice about it next time.........Whatever the SCOFLA thought it was doing, the real Supreme Court was pretty clear on the point that the U.S. Constitution trumps some oafish "rules of interpretation" concocted by a Kangaroo Court. "[A]mbiguous or obscure adjudications by state courts do not stand as barriers to a determination by this court of the validity under the federal constitution of state action."......" Human Events 12/8/00 Ann Coulter "...... Law Prof. Lis Wiehl of the University of Washington was absolutely indignant with fellow panelist Joe DiGenova on "Rivera Live" for questioning the great and inscrutable wisdom of the SCOFLA. "When he-when he talked about the Florida courts' actions being questionable, I'mI'm so tired of that." The tired Prof. Wiehl exasperatedly continued: "If you look at the Florida Supreme Court opinion, what you'll see is that they took two conflicting statutes and they did what courts all over the country do every day. They interpreted two statutes, and they chose to go with the statute that was the more recent

statute and the one that is more particularized. That is just common, everyday, judicial interpretation." The real Supreme Court looked at the Florida Supreme Court opinion-just as Prof. Wiehl advised-and they unanimously pronounced it: "Vacated."............. Ron Klain, attorney with an organization considerably less partisan than any of the nation's law schools-the Gore Campaign-supported the erudite law professors' position that the Supreme Court could not review the SCOFLA's ruling because, as he explained on CNN"the case raises only issues of state law."........ But as the U.S. Supreme Court said, those state laws were enacted by a legislature that is "not acting solely under the authority given it by the people of the state, but by virtue of a direct grant of authority made under Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution." The United States Constitution is not a state law, though this may be a tricky legal concept to grasp if you already have trouble distinguishing between "seven" and "19." ........... After the court heard arguments in the case, Tony Mauro-a legal writer who is so famous for getting the law wrong that one lawyer told me it would be uninteresting even to include him in this article-described his impression of the mood of the court during oral argument: "It seemed the Supreme Court might rule unanimously to uphold the Florida Supreme Court and hand Vice President Al Gore a much-needed symbolic victory in his legal battle for the presidency." Yes, either that or-"Vacated."....." AP FoxNews 12/9/00 Bill Kaczor ".....A federal judge Saturday refused to throw out about 2,400 overseas ballots, most of them cast by military personnel, that were received up to ten days after the Nov. 7 election. The decision was immediately appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, said Roger Bernstein, a lawyer representing six of 13 individual Democratic voters who brought the suit. He said a request had been made for oral argument Monday. ....... Republican George W. Bush received 1,575 votes among the contested ballots, compared with 836 for Democrat Al Gore. The difference is more than enough to change the outcome of the election. ....." US News & World Report 12/18/00 John Leo "....... We are once again in the midst of a great wave of overheated racial rhetoric. Jesse Jackson, of course, is in the lead. Black voters didn't double-vote, mismark ballots, or run into any normal Election Day foul-ups. No, they were victims of "a systematic plan to disenfranchise black voters" and "a clear pattern of voter suppression." Attempting to repair his relationship with Jews, Jackson identified three targets of ballot oppression: Holocaust survivors, Haitian boat people, and American descendants of slaves. Other black leaders seemed in no doubt that something had been intentionally perpetrated upon blacks. "African-American voters were disenfranchised-period," said Congresswoman Corrine Brown. Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager, was quoted as saying that "in disproportionately black areas, people faced dogs, guns, and were required to have three forms of ID." The weird reference to dogs and guns obviously linked the Bush brothers with Bull Connor, Birmingham, Selma, and the hard-core racism of the past. This theme came up during the campaign too, thanks to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP's National Voter Fund ran ads on black radio stations, saying: "There are many ways intimidation was, and still is, used to keep African-Americans from voting. Mobs, guns, and Jim Crow. Ropes, dogs, lies, and hoses." And the NAACP was responsible for the TV ad that recreated the horrific dragging death of James Byrd and all but accused George W. Bush of the murder. This disgraceful ad, which had some of the tone of Nazi propaganda films about Jews, played a central role in undermining Bush's appeal to black voters. In Texas, Bush got 5 percent of the black vote, compared with about 25 percent in his reelection campaign for governor. ....." Newsmax 12/9/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Respected legal expert Mark R. Levin reports that the recent Supreme Court stay has essentially ended the election nightmare. ....... Levin, president of Landmark Legal Foundation and a former law clerk to Chief Justice Warren Burger, told the National Review, "Because the stay makes it almost impossible for the recount to be finished and certification to be achieved by midnight Tuesday, December 12th - the federal statutory deadline for the appointment of electors to the Electoral College - the U.S. Supreme Court's majority must be resolved to decide the case ultimately in Bush's favor. Otherwise, it will risk the Court's own legitimacy." ....... Levin said even if the Court lifted the stay, there would not be enough time time for a recount, "The Court would look absurd. . . the legal nightmare in Florida should soon be over." ......" NY Times 12/10/00 Richard Berke "...... Expressing disbelief at the United States Supreme Court's order to halt the recount of votes in Florida, several prominent democrats today said they feared that even if a count resumed, it was nearly impossible to finish it in time for Vice President Al Gore to wrest the White House from Gov. George W. Bush. One after another, Democrats lashed out at the Supreme Court, and in interviews accused justices of inappropriately injecting themselves into the election. "Right now, I'm not optimistic about anything," said Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. "This is the first time I have felt that what is evolving is a morass of uncertainty. It's hard for me to believe that the United States Supreme Court has a role in this. It just increases the polarization. How do we put the bricks together and work for the benefit of this nation?" ...." Washignton Post 12/9/00 Terrence Hunt "........Gore attorney David Boies expressed keen disappointment, speculating that if the counting were to go forward "it looks like Vice President Gore and Senator (Joseph)

Lieberman would win the popular vote in Florida just like they won it outside of Florida." ...." FoxNews 12/10/00 Roger Schultz "...... On FOX NEWS SUNDAY, Brit Hume asked legal expert Jonathon Turley the magic question - (paraphrased) Hume: Last Monday the United States Supreme Court vacated the original SCOFLA order which allowed recounts. On Friday, without responding to the court's order to explain themselves, SCOFLA ordered a new recount and awarded ballots to Al Gore that were the result of the reversed count. Weren't these ballots thrown out? Turley: That does seem to be a legal problem ... SCOFLA seemingly resurrected these ballots .... Exactly so. Incredibly, this is the first time the question has been broached by anyone in the media, that I'm aware of. The Broward County "500" are in ashes. The Miami and Palm Beach counts are null. Bush's start point is 930. Add 739 Bush votes gained from 2411 previously uncounted absentee ballots and the Bush lead is 1669. In addition, a credible leak of the Miami-Dade recount shows Bush picking up 45 before the count was halted (Al Gore had claimed a mother lode 600 Miami votes were his to be found.)....." Freeper Mississippiman "...... I think you need to re-check your facts on the 2,411 previously uncounted overseas ballots. Those ballots had already been counted. The lawsuit was a lawsuit by Democrats to have previously counted, already-in-the-totals ballots thrown out. ........ There is a separate suit, which we have already won, that we filed to get previously uncounted military ballots included. I think the total number of rejected overseas ballots is 1,547. Around 600 of those were legitimately rejected. 900ish will now be counted but have not yet been counted. I agree about the SCOFLA4 putting null votes back into the process, though. ....." Freeper Freethesheeples "..... Tim Russert also, to his credit, asked David Boies today if he heard that the Miami-Dade recount had yielded a "net 44" votes for Geo. W. Bush? Boies asked Russert, twice, incredulously, "A net 44 votes for Bush?" Clearly, Russert's numbers had been unknkown to Boies! ....." Freeper Pharmer "...... This was the amazing point to me. I was fuming in anger when I first heard the ruling as I was amazed that any court would intentionally order a riot. But as I thought about it when I was driving home I remembered this exact point and started screaming at the windshield "How can they do this?!!! How can any court blatantly defy the supreme court of the US by reinstating votes that were obtained by a vacated court order?!! These clowns are in contempt of the highest court in our country!" ......" Freeper Yankee "...... There were two separate Federal Court decisions dealing with overseas ballots, that everyone seems to be confusing. The first case, before Judge Maurice Paul, the "739 votes for Bush" are votes that have already been certified. Democrats went to court to have those thrown out, because state law requires that "all absentee ballots must be received by the date of the election". The judge ruled that they stay, because the State of Florida had previously entered into a consent decree, with the US Government, to accept overseas absentee ballots for 10 days following the election. The consent decree controls in this case. ....... The second case before Judge Lacey Collier, was brought by the Republicans, to have other previously rejected ballots (approx 1200) reinstated. These are ballots that lacked a postmark, and were the targets of Democrat operatives. The Judge ruled that they need not bear a postmark and that they are to be reinstated. These ballots have not been counted as of yet. The number of votes for each candidate are not known. They are obviously not reflected in the official certification. To sum up, DO NOT add the 739 to any totals, as they already constitute part of Bush's standing total. As to the other ballots, it remains to be seen what their results show, and whether the certified totals will be ammended. I hope this clears up the confusion. ......." WSJ 12/10/00 Anne Marie Chaker Jess Bravin "......The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered that more than 12,000 Florida ballots contested by Al Gore be sent to Washington along with other legal papers in the case of Bush vs. Gore.......Bush lawyer Phil Beck said that "it's routine for [the Supreme Court] to get all the exhibits and it so happens that in this case the ballots from these cases are exhibits." For that reason, "the justices may not even know that they've got the ballots coming." ........Gore lawyer Laurence Tribe, however, saw the request for the ballots as hardly typical. He said he had heard a Florida Supreme Court clerk joking with a counterpart at the U.S. Supreme Court about the possibility of taking the ballots off of Florida's weary hands. But he was surprised to learn that such an order actually had been issued......." Opinion Journal 12/10/00 Al Hunt "...... George W. Bush will be the 43rd president of the United States. He'll

be a weak chief executive. We'll still see notable legislative achievement next year. .......The first of this political trinity is a virtual certainty, the second a probability, the third a possibility. Even by contemporary Washington standards this situation is extraordinary and in virgin territory. Never has there been such an evenly divided government or such a lack of mandate. .......A Bush presidency, despite its unseemliness, doesn't lack legitimacy. He did not steal the election or use "thugs" to secure the victory, the sort of vitriolic charges Republican hit men have recently hurled at Al Gore. Both knew the prize was the Electoral College, which is why Mr. Bush was in West Virginia, rather than New York, four days before the election. ......" NBC 12/10/00 Freeper Mnman "...... David Boisies said that the country ought to unite behind the man who is sworn in in January, regardless of whether it is Gore or Bush and regardless of whether the votes are counted or not. Anyone besides me think that he is now kissing up to GWB? ....." Freeper copycat "..... Russert hit Boies with the question about the "false affadavit" referred to by the Gore team. (IMHO, the false affadavit thing has clinton written all over it) The best Boies could do is brush it off as an ad hominem attack and claim that everyone in the Gore camp believed it to be true at the time. I didn't hear him address the real issue of why Boies had not filed the amended affadavit. ....." Freeper holden "...... I'd say the only significant message there is that Team Gore won't really give up unless W can climb the scaffold steps and get into camera view. ...... The implied threat of that is 1) bribing/blackmailing electors, and 2) a bitter, partisan fight in Congress, including the fodder of manipulating committee chairmanships, "power-sharing," and 3) FOIA ballot-counting, whining, etc. etc. We aren't nearly finished with the Democrats. They intend to hold firm for a full four-year onslaught of presidential delegitimization. ...." Freeper Lazamataz 12/10/00 "...... Just when I think they can go no lower, they go lower. * Mario Cuomo, New York Loser, says that the 5 Conservative Judges of the United States Supreme Court are mistaken and wrong in their 'effort to conceal the count from the American People.' (paraphrased) * Senator Pat Leahy, blank-faced moron: "The US Supreme court, but involving themselves in this matter, tarnish their reputation in a way that will need to be countered by decades or rehabilitation". * Senator 'Dungheap' Harkin attacks the SCOTUS, saying that "they will be regarded in history as a partisan interloper". My only question is where is Larry Flynt and Don Moldea??? ....." Freeper go star go "...... This is good. Let them call names. It will not help Gore. You do not convert justices to your side by calling them names. Someone needs to ask one of these liberal freaks "If a 5-4 decision is not appropriate here then why is a 5-4 decision appropriate for abortion?". ....." Freeper Leroy S Mort "...... an aside: Fox reports that the USSC does NOT want the ballots sent from Tallahassee at this time and that Olson and Klock will share time before the Justices tomorrow 20-10 minutes... " Freeper golitely "......My quick take on all this--they know they're going to lose, so they're trashing them ahead of time. If they thought they had an ice cube's chance in you-know-where of winning, they'd be less vicious. This is straight out of the Clinton playbook--when you already know or at least suspect they're going to act against your interests, trash them viciously. It's not quite the nuts and sluts campaign, but it's close. We can all take heart in their rantings. ....." Freeper A Citizen Reporter ".... Fox News is reporting that Boies will argue before USSC. Started reporting it about 15 mins ago. Strange isn't it that Boies went on all the talking head shows this morn, but they waited until they were all taped to announce this. ....." Freeper Galtoid "....... Boies probably grudgingly took this assignment. He risks losing not only the case, but his reputation as well. I believe he'll be eaten alive by Scalia and perhaps Rehnquist, when he attempts to justify Gore's election contest. The basis of Boies argument will lie in the vacated Florida Supreme Court orders and their subsequent in-you-face 4-3 ruling in favor of resuming hand recounts for their buddy, Al. Both premises from which Boies will argue have already been shot down by the SCOTUS, and fly in the face of Florida election scheme law visavis the legislative branch. Therefore, he simply has no chance tomorrow to change any minds other than those who wrote their dissents yesterday. If he flips Stevens, Breyer, Souter, or Ginsberg for Bush--he is going to be the laughingstock of the legal community for decades. ....." Freeper WL-Law "...... In the original FLSC case before the USSC, the FLSC discovered, at Boies's urging,

an "ambiguity" in the statutes that in reality did not exist. In the statutory scheme "May" expands upon "shall", but it is not ambiguous in the sense that it could be construed to mean "must". That's why the FLSC referred to it's Florida-Constitution-based equitable powers in its first decision -- because the decision could not stand by itself on the FLSC's power to interpret ambiguous sections of Florida statutes. ............ All of this was done by the FLSC at Boies's urging, and since there was, in reality, no ambiguity, and so in reality the FLSC was relying totally on its Florida Constitutional power in reaching its decision, the USSC rightfully overturned. ............ This all goes to the question as to Boies's role now before the USSC. His easy, breezy, but intentionally inexact facility with the statutes, impressive to a majority of the FLSC, has been pierced by the USSC for what it truely is, which is garden-variety smoke and mirrors. There IS NO AMBIGUITY in the Florida statute. THERE IS NO BASIS, therefore, for the FLSC to rewrite the statutory deadlines. (And writing a second decision by salt-and-peppering the word "statute" doesn't change anything -- the USSC will pierce the veneer for the substance, believe me) The initial foray by the FLSC has now POISONED the rights of the non-contesting party (Bush)in the contest phase of the statutory scheme -- and the USSC will now provide Bush a remedy by shutting the process down, once they are satisfied that "all the votes have been certified". .........All of this mischief was created by Boies and a supple compliant politicized majority on the FLSC. And ALL of this is evident to the USSC. .......So -- is Boies now the right person to show his "knowledge" of the statutes? Hmmmmm.... " Newsmax 12/10/00 Carl Limbacher "....A study by the Miami Herald shows that a statewide recount of undervotes ordered by the Florida Supreme Court on Friday could actually backfire on Vice President Al Gore, undermining Democrat claims that more Floridians went to the polls Nov. 7 "intending" to vote for him than for President-elect George Bush. ...... "While (Gore) fought hard for recounts in three Democratic South Florida counties, the precinct-by-precinct analysis suggests he may not reap enough votes across the rest of the state to overcome Bush's current 154-vote lead," the Herald reported Saturday. ......Repeated assertions from Gore lawyers and Democrat-friendly media commentators to the contrary, a projected recount of 60,000 undervotes under the standards employed in Palm Beach County, where most dimpled ballots were excluded, shows Bush picking up a net total of 40 votes. ...." Fox News "Alert" Freeper kazander ".....Fox's notorious election alerts states that SCOTUS told Florida *NOT* to send the ballots up to Washington......" Fort Worth Star Telegram 12/10/00 Bill Thompson "..... For a minute -- OK, an hour -- the other day, when the justices of the Florida Supreme Court were grilling the lawyers for Al Gore and George W. Bush, there was a glimmer of hope that the seven judges might collectively be able to muster up half a brain. It's now official. The Florida Supreme Court is populated by morons.......... Well, make it four morons. Three of the court's members wisely dissented Friday when the majority concocted its idiotic opinion calling for more recounts in Florida's portion of the 2000 presidential election...... It's a shame that Florida's highest court is dominated by people who are either fools or conniving partisans, because at least some of the Sunshine State's lower-court benches seem to be occupied by jurists who are capable of clear thinking and painstaking impartiality......To name three: Circuit Judges N. Sanders Sauls, Nikki Clark and Terry Lewis. Sauls was the judge whose decision the Supreme Court overruled in ordering further recounts, while Clark and Lewis presided over separate trials in which Gore supporters unsuccessfully sought to throw out thousands of absentee ballots in counties that voted strongly for Bush........The people of Florida -- and the rest of the United States -- would be far better served if the likes of Sauls, Clark and Lewis could step up to the Supreme Court and some of the nitwits who are there would go back to law school......" Accyracy in Media 12/8/00 Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid "..... Readers of the Washington Post on Sunday, November 26 were greeted with a color photo in the center of the front page, just above the fold, of five people holding Gore-Lieberman signs. The cut-line read: "Supporters of Vice President Gore gather across the street from his residence in Washington, near where a pro-George W. Bush demonstration was held. Demonstrations in favor of both nominees also were held in Florida." There was no story about either the pro-Gore or the pro-Bush demonstrations. ......" Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor 12/10/00 Freeper CWW "...... NEW SCOTUS AMICUS BRIEF JUST FILED BY THE ALABAMA ATTORNEY GENERAL BILL PRYOR. IT'S NOT EVEN AVAILABLE ON HIS WEB SITE YET. BTW, THEY ARE CCORDINATING WITH THE BUSH LAWYERS, SO THESE ARE THE ARGUMENTS YOU WILL SEE. HERE ARE THE ACTUAL QUESTIONS ACCEPTED FOR REVIEW BY THE COURT, AND I'LL SUMMARIZE THE BUSH ARGUMENTS FROM THE BUSH BRIEFS AND THE ALABAMA AG BRIEFS: QUESTIONS PRESENTED: 1. Whether the Florida Supreme Court erred in establishing new standards for resolving presidential election contests that conflict with legislative enactments and thereby violate Article II, Section I, Clause 2 of the

contests that conflict with legislative enactments and thereby violate Article II, Section I, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, which provides that electors shall be appointed by each State "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." 2. Whether the Florida Supreme Court erred in establishing post-election judicially created standards that threaten to overturn the certified results of the election for the President in the State of Florida and that fail to comply with the requirements of 3 U.S.C. 5, which gives conclusive effect to state court determinations only if those determinations are made "pursuant to" "laws enacted per to" election day. 3. Whether the use of arbitrary, standardless and selective manual recounts to determine results of a presidential election, including post-election judicially created selective and capricious recount procedures, that vary across counties and within counties in the State of Florida violates the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.<P. BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENTS BY BUSH AND ALABAMA AG: ARGUMENT #1. Material post-election changes in state canvassing procedures violate Due Process. This argument is based on the 11th Circuit's 1994 holding in Roe v. Alabama, which held that the due process clause prohibits post-election changes in election procedures. If post-election changes to election procedures in Florida are approved by the Court, other states will be flooded with similar post-election litigation. Any disgruntled candidate will have an incentive to file an election contest, argue for a new set of rules, and then keep counting and changing the rules until the requisite votes are "found." Other cases invalidating post election changes in election procedures -- Briscoe v. Kusper, 435 F.2d 1046 (7th Cir. 1970); Griffen v. Burns, 570 F.2d 1065 (1st Cir. 1978; Brown v. O'Brien, 469 F.2d 563, stay granted, 409 U.S. 1 (per curiam, vacated as moot, 409 U.S. 816 (1972); Duncan v. Poythress, 657 F.2d 691 (5th Cir. Unit B. Sept. 1981), cert. dismissed, 459 U.S. 1012 (1982). These cases all underscore that the right to vote is a federal right. If a state election procedure is so flawed as to be fundamentally unfair, that process violates due process, e.g., material changes made by the Florida Supreme Court in the election procedures. ARGUMENT #2 -- The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida Violates Article II of the Constitution, 3 U.S.C. 5, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments. ? The Judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida retroactively changed Florida election procedures -AGAIN. 1. Change #1 - Acceptance of Dimpled Chads 2. Change #1 -- Altering the standard of review by giving no deference to the decisions of executive officials who implement Florida's election laws. 3. Change #3 - Authorizing manual recounts of so-called "undervotes" as part of the election contest, when Florida law only allows such manual recounts in the protest phase, not the contest phase AND ordering a manual recount of only "certain" ballots. ? Counting partially punched ballots without clear, uniform standards attributes political speech to voters without their consent and dilutes proper votes by "stuffing the ballot box." By requiring the circuit court to accept the untimely manual recounts and include them in the certified election results, the Florida Supreme Court adopted a standardless procedure and "stuffed the ballot box" in violation of the voters' First Amendment right to freedom of expression and the Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. Changing the rules post election to allow counting of partially punched ballots is fundamentally unfair, especially to voters who followed the instructions on the ballots, which read as follows: "AFTER VOTING CHECK YOUR BALLOT CARD TO BE SURE YOUR VOTING SELECTIONS ARE CLEARLY AND CLEANLY PUNCHED AND THERE ARE NO CHIPS LEFT HANGING ON THE BACK OF THE CARD." Where there is no clear standard by which to evaluate inadequately marked ballots, election officials and judges will inevitably place political speech in the mouths of voters unwilling to vote for either candidate. The government cannot compel voters to speak when they have chosen to remain silent. In the absence of a clear standard, the divination of these improperly marked ballots ultimately says more about the intent of the election officials than the intent of the voters.

? By changing the definition of "Valid Vote" and the statutory contest periods, the Supreme Court of Florida gave an unfair advantage to a campaign that chose to "front load" its challenges into the protest period. Had the candidates known that Florida's statutory election system allowed the selective mining of votes through its manual recount system, they might have made use of the system to request at least some of the 180,000 ballots containing non-votes in the presidential race be examined. . . The post-election changes benefited the "front loading" campaign by lowering the standards for determining a "valid vote" and then giving it the majority of time for its challenges while reducing time available to the other campaign to respond in a contest. ARGUMENT #3 -- The Florida Supreme Court unleashed arbitrary recounts that violate due process and equal protection. ARGUMENT #4 -- This case illustrates the imperative of legislative, not Judicial, Supremacy in establishing election rules to ensure fundamental fairness. MSNBC 12/10/00 Freeper notaliberal "..... Chip Reed MSNBC reporter was giving an update in front of the Vice President's house when I heard that infamous Freeper tune, na na na na na na na na hey hey,goodbye, I knew it was the DC Freepers!!! Way to go! You came in loud and clear. Reed also said he had gone up to the Vice Presidents house and "make no mistake they can hear all the chants from there". DC Freepers have great lungs. ....." CSPan Interviews 12/10/00 J Newton "...... The law states, "ONE MAN, ONE VOTE". Every voter registers with the state and is allowed to in the privacy of a booth make his one vote; there is no provision in the law for a voter to give power of attorney to another to make his vote for him, but that is exactly what happens when another person comes along after the votes have been counted and decides with his judgement, (not the origional voter) what the "intent of the origional voter was"....." Newsmax 12/10/00 Carl Limbacher "...... GOP pointman James Baker suggested Sunday that President-elect George Bush was winning a statewide undervote recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court Friday before the U.S. Supreme Court halted the process Saturday afternoon. Baker made the comment to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "Late Edition": ........ BLITZER: Yesterday Gov. George Pataki of New York was down in Florida watching this manual recount. And at a news conference he suggested that - he said, 'I was very pleased with the results that were going forward.' He didn't release specific numbers but implied that Gov. Bush was actually gaining votes over Vice President Gore. BAKER: I think we were. I think we are. But that's really not what the issue is here, Wolf. The issue is, is the system appropriate and proper and constitutional? Or does it represent a change in the law after the game has been played? No one can know what the ultimate result of this would be if we kept on going here with partial recounts here and no standards and different rules in different counties. We might very well end up, after we go through that, still winning. Baker declined to say how many more votes were added to Bush's lead Saturday, charging that Democrats who went public with their own vote tallies had violated a court order. BAKER: I don't want to talk about vote totals because we're under court orders not to speak about that, even though I think the other side was throwing a lot of numbers out there yesterday. There is a specific court order telling the parties that you're not to talk about what the results of these are showing. ......" Florida Times-Union 12/10/00 P. Douglas Filaroski and David DeCamp "...... A wide majority of Duval County's undervoted ballots came from precincts won by George W. Bush, making it likely that Bush would receive more votes than Al Gore if hand counts resume here. ...." Bush Summary of Argument "..... I. The new standards, procedures, and timetables established by the Florida Supreme Court for the selec-tion of Florida's presidential electors are in conflict with the Florida Legislature's detailed plan for the resolution of election disputes. The court's new framework thus violates Article II, 1, cl. 2 of the United States Consti-tution, which vests in state legislatures the exclusive au-thority to regulate the appointment of presidential elec-tors. See McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 27 (1892). A. The multiple ways in which the Florida Su-preme Court's decision has cast aside provisions of the statutory scheme governing elections also constitute vi o-lations of Article II, 1 because they usurp the legisla-ture's exclusive authority. These judicial departures in-clude: the elimination of the Secretary of State's author- ity to maintain uniformity in application of the election laws; disregard for the statutory

provisions that require manual recounts to include "all" ballots; the substitution of courts for canvassing boards in determining ballot va-lidity; and the imposition of de novo judicial review by courts of canvassing boards' certified judgments. B. Because state constitutions cannot alter Article II's direct and exclusive grant of authority to legisla-tures, and because the Florida Legislature did not dele-gate to it the power to do so, the Florida Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction or authority to decide this case. The Florida Legislature has granted jurisdiction over election contests only to Florida circuit courts. C. The Florida Supreme Court's decision repeat-edly relies on its November 21 decision, which this Court had already vacated, and the consequences of that decision. This magnifies the Article II violations that the November 21 decision produced. II. The Florida Supreme Court's revision of Flor-ida's statutory system for resolving election disputes also violates 3 U.S.C. 5, which gives conclusive effect to determinations of controversies or contests concerning the appointment of electors only if those determina-tions are made "pursuant to" "laws enacted prior to" election day and within the federally mandated Decem-ber 12 deadline. Section 5 is intended to "assure" States of "finality" in the determination of their presidential electors, and this Court has already cautioned the Florida Supreme Court "against any construction of [state law] that Con-gress might deem to be a change in the law." Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, No. 00836, slip op. at 6. Although the court below acknowledged to the "stringent calendar controlled by federal law," Pet. App. 16a n.11, it ignored federal law altogether by imposing multiple changes on the statutory system for resolving election disputes. Among other things, the Florida Su-preme Court provided an extraordinary remedy that has no statutory basis, and its novel exposition of the contest provision essentially reads out other more specific pro-visions in Florida's Election Code. III. The new set of manual recount procedures con-cocted by the Florida Supreme Court is arbitrary, standardless, and subjective, and will necessarily vary in ap-plication, both across different counties and within indi-vidual counties, in violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. A. The Equal Protection Clause forbids the state from treating similarly situated voters differently based merely on where they live. See, e.g., O'Brien v. Skinner, 414 U.S. 524 (1974). Yet the various manual recounts ordered by the Florida Supreme Court will necessarily result in such differential treatment in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The lack of uniform standards for counting "votes" means that voters who cast identi-cal ballots in different counties will likely have their bal-lots counted differently. This is also true of the com-pleted manual recounts that the Florida Supreme Court has compelled, or attempted to compel, the Secretary of State to include in the certified election results. The new multi-tier recount scheme ordered by the court imposes several inherently different standards that also violate equal protection guarantees. It includes all newly identified "votes" from about one-fifth of the pre-cincts in Miami-Dade County, but only orders the re-count of a fraction of ballots identified as "undervotes" from the other 80 percent of the county. And, while so-licitous of under-votes, the decision does nothing to ac-count for "over-votes" in the machine count (which are also recorded as non-votes). Furthermore, by adopting varying levels of deference to the conclusions of differ-ent county canvassing boards, the court introduces even greater disparities in treatment. B. Due process requires the application of clear and consistent guidelines based on prospective rules. See Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 432 (1982). Yet the Florida Supreme Court's new election procedures are retroactive and anything but clear and consistent. In fact, they substantially deviate from prac-tices established before election day. Changing the legal status of ballots after the election on the basis of selec-tive, subjective, standardless, and shifting methods of manual recounting is fundamentally unfair. See Roe v. Alabama, 43 F.3d 574, 581 (11th Cir. 1995). Under the particular circumstances imposed by the court for the manual recounts, due process is further compromised because ballots are inevitably degraded during repeated machine inspection of ballots to segregate under-votes and by the manual recounts themselves. Moreover, the prescribed procedures adopted to implement the Florida Supreme Court's judgment deny parties any meaningful opportunity to object to subjective ballot determinations or to receive judicial review of those determinations. Finally, the Florida Supreme Court has also fundamen-tally changed the meaning and legal consequences of vote certification. Newsweek 12/10/00 Howard Fineman "..... ...Al Gore. He got his good news first-in the sunlit library of the vice president's mansion. He reacted to the Florida court's ruling by inviting guests in for champagne and by

joining Joe and Hadassah Lieberman for a Jewish welcome-the-Sabbath ceremony. (They'd brought candles and challah for the occasion.) Later, Gore chairman Bill Daley and other aides got a standing ovation at the Palm Restaurant. "We live for today!" said a giddy aide, Tom Nides. The party balloons burst the next afternoon. .... Gore canceled dinner and hunkered down to make calls. .... Nides summarized the Gore team's new position-"f-ed"-and its game plan: "Hold our breath, polish our resumes." ...." CNN 12/10/00 Tom Watkins ".....Even if Florida's 25 electoral votes go to Republican George W. Bush, that doesn't mean the election has been decided, said Mario Cuomo, the former Democratic governor of New York. When the nation's 538 Electoral College representatives meet in their respective states to vote for president on December 18, independent moves by several of them could change the outcome, Cuomo told CNN's "Late Edition." ........ "If the Supreme Court were to beat Gore, there is no guarantee that three or four electors who were supposed to vote for Bush wouldn't turn around out of anger and confusion perhaps and say, 'We're going to go with Al Gore.' " ......... Gore's complicity is not needed for such an upset to occur, Cuomo said. The U.S. Supreme Court's stay Saturday of a Florida Supreme Court order to begin the hand count of disputed ballots could push a few electors to vote counter to their states' popular votes, he said. ....... " Gore Summary of Argument "..... This Court should immediately vacate its stay and affirm the Florida Supreme Court's judgment. I. The Florida Supreme Court's decision is fully consistent with Article II, 1, cl. 2. Petitioners' primary argument to this Court - which is flatly contrary to petitioners' position in the Florida courts - is that the mere assertion of appellate jurisdiction by the Florida Supreme Court violated Article II, 1, cl. 2. This argument lacks merit because Article II, 1, cl. 2 presupposes the existence of authority in each state to structure the internal processes and organization of each of its governmental branches; judicial review and interpretation of Florida's election statutes is a necessary legislative assumption. In any event, the Florida Legislature itself drafted, proposed, and approved through bicameral passage the very provisions of its constitution that provide for appellate jurisdiction. The grant of jurisdiction contained in those provisions, as much as an ordinary Florida statute granting courts jurisdiction, thus was accomplished by the Legislature. Further, petitioners' newfound argument is also foreclosed by this Court's longstanding precedents. See, e.g., Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355 (1932); State ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U.S. 565 (1916); McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892). In addition, petitioners' pejorative characterizations of the Florida Supreme Court's decision are unfounded and highly irregular. In its ruling, the Florida court did not "make law" or establish any new legal standards that conflict with legislative enactments. Rather, the court engaged in a routine exercise of statutory interpretation that construed the Florida Election Code according to the Legislature's designated "manner" for choosing electors in a statewide election. See Fla. Sta. 103.111. II. Petitioners' argument under 3 U.S.C. 5 is insubstantial. It is not at all apparent how petitioners' current incarnation of this argument even raises a federal question: it is clear - and not now contested by petitioners - that 3 U.S.C. 5 simply establishes a safe harbor for States that wish to make use of it. There is no dispute here about the meaning of 3 U.S.C. 5. And there can be no doubt that the Florida Supreme Court was attentive to the terms of the statute and took into account the relevance of 3 U.S.C. 5 in determining the intent of the Florida Legislature. In any event, nothing in the decision below even remotely creates "new law" in a manner that runs afoul of the terms of 3 U.S.C. 5, or that affects Florida's entitlement to that provision's safe harbor. The court engaged in a perfectly ordinary exercise of statutory construction, and it surely cannot be the case that the law "changes" when a jurisdiction's highest court settles the meaning of state law. In fact, because the circuit court's decision departed from the plain language of the Florida Election Code, under petitioners' theory reversal of the judgment below will deprive Florida's electors of the safe harbor of Title 3. III. Finally, the Florida Supreme Court's judgment is fully consistent with equal protection and due process. Until now, petitioners have steadfastly taken the position before the Florida courts that, consistent with settled Florida law, a contest action is the proper means by which respondent should challenge the vote count in this election. It is inconsistent for them now to object to the very contest procedure they previously endorsed. Moreover, contest actions under Florida law relate only to the ballots which one side or the other contests virtually every Florida election contest case involves a small fraction of the votes cast in the contested election. In any event, the Florida Supreme Court's order to review the ballots from Miami-Dade County is consistent with established state law. The Florida Supreme Court's order of a manual tabulation of ballots that were recorded as "no votes" is also consistent with state law. Nor does the "voter intent" standard set by Florida

recorded as "no votes" is also consistent with state law. Nor does the "voter intent" standard set by Florida law violate the Equal Protection Clause. The Florida Supreme Court has ordered not the "selective" recount of which petitioners have complained but a statewide recount of all uncounted ballots in every Florida county that had not already completed a manual recount. Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court expressly granted petitioners the relief they sought with respect to a statewide recount; petitioners are in no position to complain about a point on which they prevailed. Petitioners' allegations about the manner in which they say the manual counts have been conducted have no support in the record and are based on unsubstantiated rumors, untested "evidence," and biased ex parte submissions. In fact, the recounts have been conducted in full public view by counting teams made up of representatives from different political parties, with the supervision of a three-member canvassing board that includes a sitting county judge and review by the Florida judiciary. The circuit court developed lengthy and detailed guidelines to ensure uniformity and accuracy. If there are anecdotal instances of isolated mistakes or inaccuracies during recounts, petitioners have ample remedies available to them under Florida law and Florida procedure to secure full redress. In the end, petitioners' argument amounts to a charge that the system of manual recounts, expressly authorized by Florida statute and previously used in innumerable instances over the years by Florida (and States throughout the country) is unconstitutional on its face. Such an ambitious and far-reaching claim has no legal support whatsoever. The judgment should be affirmed. Because of the pressing need to complete the counting of votes, we ask that the stay be lifted immediately. Pittsburgh Tribune Review 12/10/00 "......To many of us, the meaning of the words, "From now on all will be sweetness and light," has changed from what it once meant. It has turned into a sarcastic rejoinder, or a funny line in some Madison Avenue publicity jingle. ........ So, while some politicians believe that their immediate future is secure and rosy, those more cautious are saying, "We can't expect sweetness or light for the next four years." ......Bill Clinton would love the promise of sweetness and light, but would be relieved to settle for a pardon for all his criminal actions. The word is out in Washington that the desperate bids by Al Gore to steal the presidency are at the urging of our incumbent president. ......... The immense costs of Gore's maneuvering and the scorn being heaped on America from abroad because of the delay in naming a new president could have been avoided. The legal actions would never have happened if the vice president had asked Gov. George W. Bush to give a blanket pardon to the president for any charges, criminal or civil, related to Bill or Hillary's abuses of power or federal election law violations. Compensation would have been offered to victims by a government always generous with taxpayers' money. Al Gore could have conceded; George Bush would be president-elect and Slick Willie would be home free! ......" Electronic Telegraph 12/11/00 Philip Delves Broughton ".....THE cost of America's post-election legal battles has forced both Al Gore and George W Bush to extend the begging bowl again and plead with their contributors for money. With Mr Gore employing more than 30 lawyers full-time and Mr Bush about 20, the legal fees alone are in the millions. There are also the costs to Florida's canvassing boards and courts, which have had to shoulder thousands of pounds worth of overtime payments and unexpected administrative costs....." Times Newspapers 12/11/00 "....After a post-election battle that has lasted as long as the average general election campaign in this country, the US Supreme Court may act today or tomorrow to bring events to a conclusion. It will undertake its decision with a heavy collective heart. The notion that a matter of such importance as the presidency itself could rest on a 5-4 split among nine justices is profoundly unsatisfactory. ........The Supreme Court, however, probably had little option but to enter this quicksand. The ruling produced by the Florida State Supreme Court on Friday evening was not merely surprising, but shocking. Despite an earlier, unanimous, warning from the highest court in the United States to tread carefully, a narrow majority of the Florida bench charged ahead recklessly. In imposing an entirely novel (and imprecise) set of regulations for what in effect is a new form of recount, the Florida judges went miles beyond their task in this appeal - namely the identification and resolution of any conflict or contradictions in the election laws passed by the Florida legislature. In the process, they have raised questions that the Supreme Court is obliged to settle. .....All this was anticipated by the powerful dissent written by Chief Justice Charles T. Wells, a Democrat, a line of argument also echoed by his two most senior colleagues in their rebuke to the majority opinion. Judge Wells stated bluntly that the new ruling "cannot withstand the scrutiny that will certainly immediately follow under the US Constitution". He further claimed that the court's dramatic intervention "propels this country and this state into an unprecedented and unnecessary constitutional crisis". He was absolutely right. The dilemma for the US Supreme Court is that while it can avert a constitutional crisis by striking down the Florida ruling, it can only do so at the price of placing itself at the very centre of a vast and bitterly partisan controversy. ...." Chicago Suntimes 12/10/00 ".....The U.S. Supreme Court fortunately has acted to rein in the out-of-control

Florida soap opera. The divided 5-4 decision reflects the national divisions over the presidential race. But four justices of the Florida Supreme Court had left the nation's highest court with no choice. The 4-3 Florida decision had set off a mad scramble for dimpled chads, pregnant chads, hanging chads, this chad, that chad and any chad to determine who won the state's vital electoral votes. The Florida justices had recklessly ignored higher legal authority and the law to plunge the election and the future of the presidency into uncertainty and perhaps a constitutional crisis. ........ Consider the damage the unwise statewide hand recount could have done. Only one outcome, a recount confirming George W. Bush's lead, would have been altogether satisfactory. But suppose the Carnac-the-Magnificent divining of the intent of those Floridians who didn't register clear votes for president had produced enough new ballots to give the state to Al Gore. At least half the nation would have thought Gore got to the White House thanks to a suspect vote recount. On the other hand, Florida's Legislature probably would have rejected such a questionable recount and used its constitutional authority to approve a slate of Bush electors. That scenario ultimately might have ended with Bush becoming president through a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. But this Bush presidency would be stained by doubt lingering from the Florida recount. It was even possible that the Tuesday deadline for Florida naming its electors might have come without the recount completed, creating yet another scenario of uncertainty. ....." The Associated Press 12/10/00 "....Senate leaders from both parties pledged cooperation Sunday to do the nation's business under difficult circumstances - a 50-50 split. They parted ways on the prospect of passing a big tax cut under a Bush administration. ``While we are willing to work with them, I don't think that we'll ever go to the magnitude that George Bush has proposed,'' said the Senate's top Democrat, Tom Daschle, referring to the proposal of Republican George W. Bush to cut taxes by $1.3 trillion over 10 years. ...." FoxNews 12/10/00 Adrienne Mand Freeper xlib "..... ...Many also agreed with Bush's assertion that machine counting of votes is more accurate. Sixty-seven percent said so, while 19 percent said hand-counting of votes is more accurate, 10 percent said it depends on the circumstances and 4 percent did not know. ...." Reuters Yahoo 12/10/00 James Vicini ".....Lawyers for Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore battled on Sunday over hand counts of ballots in Florida, a day before a historic U.S. Supreme Court showdown that may finally decide the next president. ....... Bush's lawyers argued the state high court overstepped its authority, creating new rules after the Nov. 7 election, contrary to the 1887 Electoral Count Act and part of the U.S. Constitution which grants power over the selection of presidential electors to state legislatures.' .....The case illustrated ``what will inevitably occur in a close election where the rules for tabulating ballots and resolving controversies are thrown aside after the election and replaced with judicially created ... remedies without regard for uniformity, objectivity or finality,'' they said. ....The Florida Supreme Court ``has created a regime virtually guaranteed to incite controversy, suspicion and lack of confidence'' in the process and the outcome, lawyers for the Texas governor said. ......" Reuters Yahoo 12/10/00 James Vicini ".....But Gore's lawyer pleaded for the highest court in the land to allow the recounts to resume. The vice president needs the recounts to go forward to have any chance of overcoming Bush's razor-thin lead in the state and of winning the presidency. ......Gore's lawyers said, ``This case raises the most fundamental questions about the legitimacy of political power in our democracy.'' Lawyers for the vice president said there was little doubt that a count of the still uncounted ballots will occur at some time. ``The only question is whether these votes will be counted before the Electoral College meets to select the next president or whether this court will instead relegate them to be counted only by scholars and researchers ... after the next president is elected,'' they said in the 51-page filing. ......... They said the high court will decide whether the presidential electors ``will be chosen by ascertaining the actual outcome of the popular vote in Florida'' or whether the president ``will instead be chosen without counting all the ballots legally cast in that state.'' ..." The Orlando Sentinel 12/10/00 Ron Fournier AP ".....On the eve of historic U.S. Supreme Court arguments, Al Gore's attorney said today the vice president urgently needs a legal victory to recount Florida's votes or "that's the end of the road" for his dogged drive to the presidency. A chorus of jittery Democrats agreed. ...... "Voters have important rights to have their ballots counted, and the magnitude of those rights dwarfs" any legal arguments raised by Bush, the vice president's brief said. Though confident, Gore's attorneys conceded publicly and privately that the odds are stacked against them. ...... Gore, who trails Bush by less than 200 votes out of 6 million cast, wants to recount about 45,000 "undervote" ballots throughout the state. Bush argues there is no fair way to count the ballots that didn't register presidential votes in a machine count, and the legislative branch of government - not the courts - should determine the nation's 43rd president. ......" The Orlando Sentinel 12/10/00 Ron Fournier AP ".....Boies said the high court's action Saturday suggests he has "a hill to climb" Monday. "I think that you've got five justices there that have decided that there is a substantial probability that Governor Bush is right on this issue," Boies said. Gore is betting that written and

oral arguments will "convince them that we are right and that those votes ought to be counted," Boies said. ....... Strikingly more confident, Baker refused to say Bush would concede if the Supreme Court ruled against him. He also warned that Republicans could try to swing Gore electors to their side if Democrats try to turn GOP electors against Bush. ... "Maybe we ought to consider doing the same thing to theirs," Baker told CNN. "What's fair for one side seems to me is fair for the other." ......Gore has denied any involvement in attempts to sway electors, who traditionally are loyal to the candidate who selects them. If Bush wins Florida's 25 electors, he will be just one electoral vote over the 270 needed to claim the presidency. ........." Bob Brinker 12/10/00 Freeper motife ".... QQQ fell around 5% in after market trading following the FSC decision. But as of tonight, following the Supreme Court ruling stopping the recount, both the S&P and Nasdaq are up the limit on futures. Bob Brinker interpolates this as an opening of up 2% and 6% respectively and it's due entirerly to the ruling of the U.S.S.C. That would be a raise on QQQ of around 15% since the close on Friday. ...." US NEWS/Washington Whispers 12/10/00 "..... The monthlong delay in picking a president hasn't just messed with the public and the financial markets-the East Wing staff of ushers and maids fears it won't have enough time to get the house in order for the new first family. ......The issue is far bigger than swapping out clothes and housewares during the four-hour inauguration and parade. Normally the Usher's Office has long chats over weeks to determine every need and desire of the new president, from favorite snack to Charmin versus Scott. And having the full 10 weeks to plan isn't always enough. ...... There's a benefit to having Al Gore or George W. Bush moving in, however: Both are familiar with the living quarters. But sources say the staff prefers Bush: They recall him being friendlier than Gore. ..." Assicuated Press 12/10/00 "....A former Clinton White House counsel suggested Sunday that conservative Justice Antonin Scalia may want to recuse himself from the Florida recount case because his son works for a firm that represents George W. Bush. Eugene Scalia is a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Ted Olson, also a partner there, will represent Bush for a second time in oral arguments on Monday, when the Supreme Court considers whether to allow hand counting of ballots in Florida to resume. "Under that circumstance, Justice Scalia at the very least should disclose the relationship, the presence of his son in Ted Olson's law firm, and explain why recusal, at least for appearances' sake, isn't desirable," said Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton. ....... Eugene Scalia said Sunday he is not working on the Bush case. ...... Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the court would have no comment on the matter. Scalia did not recuse himself the first time Olson argued this case, so it seemed unlikely he would do so this time. ......" Chicago Tribune 12/10/00 ".....Saturday's vote by the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a subjective recount of ballots in Florida is a mighty blow for law and common sense. The 5-4 vote is the federal court's second repudiation within one week of the amateur Earl Warrens of the Florida Supreme Court. Their reckless leaps of illogic not only have threatened the integrity of the election, but also have risked tossing the nation into real turmoil. Once again, the Florida judges are being told that their activism has misled them into rewriting established law--and into flouting the U.S. Constitution....... Democrats hastily argued that the U.S. Supreme Court's move would somehow disenfranchise Floridians whose votes haven't been counted. Baloney. The ballots in Florida where voter intent is clear have been counted at least twice, which is more than you can say for votes in the other 49 states....... Saturday's federal decision follows a warning that two dissenting Florida justices issued Friday. Breakneck recounts under "such chaotic conditions," they argued, would have no credibility, yet could decide a presidential election. The truly baffling failure of the majority of justices in Florida to set uniform standards for recounts only aggravated that chaos......" NY Times 12/11/00 David Sanger ".....In public, Mr. Bush's army of lawyers, advisers and aides, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, were careful not to assert that victory would be theirs after the Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday morning. In television talk show appearances today, Mr. Baker said "it absolutely is not a foregone conclusion" that Mr. Bush would prevail. ...... But should the court decide in Mr. Bush's favor, the campaign already has a plan for assuming power. After waiting for what one adviser said would be a "decent but short interval" for a concession speech by Vice President Al Gore, Mr. Bush would appear on national television, probably before an audience of supporters, and deliver a speech laden with talk of reunifying the country. Drafts of the text are already changing hands among top aides here, in Florida and in Washington. ......Mr. Engler dismissed any suggestion that Mr. Bush's authority would be undercut if he took office through a judicial ruling that permanently halted the hand recount. "People will move on," he said. "I don't think this will linger." ...." AP 12/10/00 Leroy Mort ".... Some results from a CNN-USA Today-Gallup on the unsettled presidential election taken Sunday of 735 adults with an error margin of 4 percentage points. ...... After the U.S. Supreme Court holds its hearing on the unsettled election, what do you think it should do,

should it allow manual recount of votes to continue or not? -Should allow, 47 percent -Should not, 49 percent (Nine of 10 Gore supporters say continue) Do you think the U.S. Supreme Court will be fair or unfair in deciding this case? -Fair, 72 percent -Unfair, 17 percent (Gore backers said the court would be fair by a 54-31 margin, while nine of 10 Bush backers felt that way.)..... Regardless of whom you support, who do you think will become the next president of the United States? -Gore, 11 percent -Bush, 81 percent Who would you most prefer to be the next president? -Gore, 40 percent -Bush, 45 percent -Unsure, 13 percent WSJ 12/10/00 WSJ/NBC News Freeper Rodger Schultz "...... Responses to a national poll taken over the weekend: ...... Q: If George W. Bush wins the election, do you think that he will or will not have won the presidency legitimately? Will have won the presidency legitimately 63% Will not have won the presidency legitimately 29% Not sure 8% Q: If Al Gore wins the election, do you think that he will or will not have won the presidency legitimately? Will have won the presidency legitimately 48% Will not have won the presidency legitimately 43% Not sure 9% Q: Taking into account everything that has happened over the past few weeks, who do you think ought to be president? George W. Bush 51% Al Gore 40% Not sure 9% ...." The Associated Press 12/11/00 David Royse "..... While the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments over whether Florida should recount disputed presidential ballots, state lawmakers are gathering to hear testimony on whether they should enter the fray and name 25 Electoral College voters. The House and Senate in the Republican-dominated Legislature are considering resolutions to choose electors. Constitutional experts and members of the public were called to testify to committees Monday about whether

lawmakers have that power and should use it. ...." NY Times 12/11/00 William Safire ".....You cannot spit in the eye of the nation's highest court without suffering consequences. The Florida Supreme Court ignored the U.S. Supreme Court's order nullifying its deadline-breaking action and in effect told the nation's final judicial tribunal to mind its own business. ....... Florida's four-judge majority, not content with taking over the lawmaking function of its state's Legislature, and brushing aside the dire warning of creating an unnecessary crisis from its own chief justice, arrogated to itself the power to pursue its political course - despite direction to the contrary a few days before from the top of the nation's court system. Not in living memory have Americans seen such judicial chutzpah. Our political process was almost subverted by a runaway court. ....." NY Times 12/11/00 "...Following are excerpts from briefs filed yesterday with the United States Supreme Court by the Bush and Gore campaigns. Italicized parts show emphasis in the originals: FROM THE GORE BRIEF ........... This case raises the most fundamental questions about the legitimacy of political power in our democracy. In this case, the court will decide whether the electors for president of the United States, and thus the president of the United States himself, will be chosen by ascertaining the actual outcome of the popular vote in Florida in the election of Nov. 7, 2000, or whether the president will instead be chosen without counting all the ballots lawfully cast in that state. The Florida Supreme Court has determined, in a way that would be unremarkable but for the stakes in this election, that in order to determine whether lawfully cast ballots have been wrongfully excluded from the certified vote tally in this election, they must be examined. This is basic, essential, to our democracy, and to all that gives it legitimacy. The central question posed by this case is whether any provision of federal law legitimately forecloses the Florida Supreme Court from interpreting, applying and enforcing the statutes enacted by the Florida Legislature to determine all election contests and ascertain the actual outcome of the popular vote in any such election........ FROM THE BUSH BRIEF...........On Dec. 4, 2000, this court unanimously vacated the Florida Supreme Court's Nov. 21 judicial revision of Florida's election laws. The court remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with its concerns regarding the Florida court's awareness of and compliance with federal constitutional and statutory constraints on the authority of the Florida judiciary to revise the Florida Legislature's method for appointing presidential electors...... Just four days later, without a single reference to this court's Dec. 4 decision, the majority of the Florida Supreme Court announced sweeping and novel procedures for recounting selected Florida ballots to determine anew the winner of the Nov. 7 presidential election in Florida. This latest manual recount regime would be conducted according to varying - and unspecified - standards, by officials unspecified in Florida's election law, and according to an ambiguous and apparently unknowable timetable. The Florida court's wholesale revision of Florida statutory law, adopted in part to address the problems flowing from its earlier abandonment of the system crafted by the Florida Legislature, ignores the obviously intertwined nature of the protest and contest provisions and overrides numerous legislative choices embodied in the Florida election code. ...... The court below not only failed to acknowledge that its earlier decision had been vacated, it openly relied on manual recounts that had occurred only because of that opinion as a predicate for changing the secretary of state's certification of the election and as the foundation for its statewide recount plan. ...... It compounded that manifest overreaching by overriding its own "equitable" deadlines, created two weeks ago, as well as the Legislature's carefully wrought timetable. The Florida court's decision imposes its decree on counties that were never part of the proceedings below, overrides statutory authority explicitly vested in the state's chief election officer and local canvassing boards, designates new officials to supervise in place of the officials specified in Florida's election code to discharge that function, establishes a standard for the instigation of recounts not recognizable under Florida law, requires manual recounts of undervoted but not overvoted ballots and mandates inconsistent recounts within certain counties, in violation of fundamental principles of equal protection and due process........" New York Times 12/11/00 Michael Cooper Dana Canedy ".....Elections officials had tallied less than a tenth of the ballots when the United States Supreme Court halted the vote recounts across Florida on Saturday afternoon. ......Ron Klain, a senior adviser for Mr. Gore, said on Saturday that partial results in 13 counties had given the vice president a net gain of 58 votes. Barry Jackson, a Republican observer who watched the recounting of a little more than a third of the ballots in Miami-Dade County, reported that Mr. Bush had gained 42 votes there..... An unofficial statewide tally reported by The Associated Press, based on reports

culled from some of Florida's 67 counties, found that Mr. Gore had gained a net of 16 votes on Saturday before the count stopped..... So what is the real figure? It is difficult to say with any certainty. The problem lies with the ground rules that Judge Terry P. Lewis of Leon County Circuit Court set on Friday night to govern the recount. "No partial counts will be done or reported, formally or informally," Judge Lewis wrote in his order....... Republicans, ignoring the reports of their own observer at the Miami- Dade recount, complained that the Democrats had violated the court's order. Judge Lewis declined to sanction anyone. But today people were cautious. The effect was that Democrats and Republicans alike had the same basic message today: off the record, our guy is winning....." Washington Times 12/11/00 Thomas Sowell "..... In the old movie classic "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," armed men confront Humphrey Bogart claiming to be police. If you're policemen," he asked, "Where are your badges?" "We don't need no stinkin' badges!" was the reply. ...... Long before this election, the Florida Supreme Court was notorious for its headstrong judicial activism. They have gotten away with exceeding their authority for so long that it may be hard for them to accept that they are still under the law, just like everyone else. As far as they are concerned, they don't need no stinkin' badges. .....One of the reasons judicial activists get away with ignoring the law and imposing their own pet notions instead is that much of the mainstream media treat the actions of judges as automatically legitimate and all criticism of them as undermining the rule of law. Even after the United States Supreme Court said that the Florida legislature has every right to select who to send to the Electoral College as the state's electors, great outcries continue about what a terrible thing this would be.......It was not the Florida legislature, but the Florida Supreme Court, which has turned a simple close election into a constitutional confrontation. ...."Harris Supreme Court Brief 12/10/00 Freeper Liberals are Evil Socialists! "...... If you read no other brief for this appeal, read the Harris Brief. It is crystal clear and dead on the fact about how the Secretary has the discretion to determine the interpretation of Florida Election laws. It also shows how in a contest action no legal votes can be shown to be rejected because there are no ballots other than human error ballots to count. Human error is not an error in the vote tabulation system and there is no right to a handrecount unless you can show a tabulation sytem or machine error as the SOS opined. ...... The SOS also points out that the standard on determining the intent of the voter only comes from a statute on counting damaged or defective ballots 101.5614(5): "a legal vote is one in which there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter." Obviously in damaged or defective ballots you need a clear way to determine the voter's intent, but without a damaged or defective ballot, you cannot count human error as a vote. There is no other statute which addresses any standards on hand recounts because hand recounts contemplate a machine breakdown and only if there is such a breakdown then clear votes have to be counted by hand. Without such a showing there is no right to a handrecount. The brief goes to great lengths to explain the process of elections in Florida and is excellent. ...... http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/harrismerits.fdf ......." Washington Times 12/11/00 ".....The Florida Supreme Court can't say it hadn't been warned. Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court vacated one decision of the state's justices because they had overstepped their bounds in rewriting election laws more to their - and Al Gore's - liking. Apparently they didn't get the message......The Florida high court's judicial adventurism began Nov. 21 when it unilaterally extended the deadline for the vote certification by 12 days and required Florida's secretary of state to accept the results of highly selective manual recounts. The recounts took place in overwhelmingly Democratic counties, which, to make matters worse, were employing newly created, utterly different standards to divine the intent of voters who had improperly cast their ballots........The ruling was dubious constitutionally as well as politically. In all likelihood, it violated Article II Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which expressly delegates to state legislatures the power to determine how a state's presidential electors are selected. Put another way, if Florida lawmakers set one election deadline, the Florida justices don't have the authority to reset it to something more politically suitable. The ruling also almost certainly violated Title 3 U.S.C. Section 5, a federal statute that prohibits changes in election laws after the election........" Washington Times 12/11/00 ".....Accordingly, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Florida court's judgment and remanded the case "for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."....... Thus chastened, the Florida justices took up a circuit court decision dismissing the Gore campaign's renewed demands for selective recounts, overturned it and ordered a new round of recounts. In a nod to the U.S. high court's earlier complaints about judicial overreaching, Florida's justices said they were "cognizant of the federal grant of authority derived from the [U.S.] Constitution and derived from Title 3 Section 5." "Cognizant" of the federal grant of authority? That seems to be a rather cavalier way of addressing the concerns of the U.S. Supreme Court that were so distressing that they unanimously vacated the Florida court's earlier decision......." Washington Times 12/11/00 Steve Miller "......State legislative committees will convene today to consider reappointment of Republican electors with one question in the air: Is this session necessary....... Given the resolve of the 102 Republican lawmakers, only a rapid decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to end the manual recounts of more than 45,000 disputed ballots likely would assure them that they do not need to

protect the state's 25 electoral votes........"The court ruling would resolve only one case," the senator said yesterday. "We still have other cases on appeal, and the Gore team is not a party to all of them." ....... Prevailing wisdom is that the states' houses will choose a slate of electors that will favor Mr. Bush, although Senate President John McKay said he would support the selection of Al Gore electors if the state's vote showed the vice president to be the winner......." Washington Times 12/11/00 Ralph Z Hallow "...... Regardless of how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Bush vs. Gore case it hears today, partisans in both parties are calling for a restoration of comity and civility in Congress and the rest of the country But that will be easier said than done........ "The Democrats slap us around, we have to be bipartisan and if we hit back, they say that's partisan," said Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican. "These calls for bipartisanship are the groundwork for the constant refrain we'll hear from them for the next four years - that the Republicans have to give them what they want because the election was stolen." "No matter how much you concede to them, they always want more," Mr. Barr said. "You can never be bipartisan enough to satisfy them."...David A. Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, agrees........."The calls for bipartisanship have always been a scam, and the Republicans got rolled. But now it depends on whether Bush is going to be looking for Democrats who want to support what he wants to do or whether he is going to compromise with the Democratic leadership," he said......." Washington Times 12/11/00 Frank Murray "...... The lawsuit of the century - or at least so far of this century has received a makeover, with a new name worthy of the first nationwide election decided by a court. This case to resolve the nation's 54th presidential election no longer travels under names like "Palm Beach County Canv. Bd. vs. Harris," "Jacobs vs. Seminole County," "Siegel vs. LePore," and "Katz vs. Elections Canvassing Commission." The case officially has become "George W. Bush et al vs. Albert Gore Jr. et al," or, as it will become known in the law books and future election contests: "Bush vs. Gore."...... Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski pioneered the tactic of using a name to claim the high ground in 1974 when he renamed the Watergate tapes lawsuit with a "style" intended to imply the moral might of a nation against the dubious actions of one man standing alone: "United States vs. Richard M. Nixon."....." Nando Times 12/11/00 Laura Meckler AP ".....Some 100 million citizens cast ballots for president on Election Day, but the decision may ultimately come down to just one voter: Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor, a Republican who has provided the fifth vote for a host of important high court decisions, again joined the 5-4 majority in stopping the hand count of ballots across Florida, as Republican George W. Bush had requested. But Supreme Court observers believe she is the jurist most likely to switch sides after oral arguments are heard Monday in the case likely to decide whether Bush or Democrat Al Gore becomes the nation's next president. ......" Washington Times 12/11/00 Bill Sammon ".......Some Democrats, wary of having this political hot potato land in their laps on Capitol Hill, are hoping the vice president gives up if the high court rules against him. But others suggest he should fight on, even if that means trying to persuade Republican electors to defect. ........But Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, said a Bush win in today's Supreme Court case is not necessarily the end of the line for Mr. Gore. "I don't know that it is entirely over," Mr. Harkin said on CNN's "Late Edition." "I think it presents another step in the process." One of the next steps, according to former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, might be persuading two or three Republican electors to defect from Mr. Bush, which would result in a tie in the Electoral College or even a win for Mr. Gore. If the Texas governor ends up prevailing in Florida, he will have 271 electoral votes - or one more than he needs to become president. ......" Florida Times-Union 12/11/00 Marcia Gelbart Knight-Tribune "...... From run-ins at the airport to phone calls and e-mails, Republicans as well as Democrats tasted a sampling of constituents' wrath when they returned to their districts for the weekend. ........."The e-mails just pour in," said Broward County State Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat. "They say, 'You got to make sure our vote counts.'" By contrast, outraged Republican lawmakers and their supporters said it's nearly certain that the Florida Supreme Court won't soon hear the end of it. ......... "The Republican base voters believe Democratic judges are rewriting the law to steal the election for Al Gore," Republican Sen. Locke Burt of Ormond Beach said. ........GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami predicted gloomy days ahead for the state Supreme Court, saying its 4-3 ruling was not based on law. "The concept of an independent judiciary is now discredited," he said. "This Supreme Court has really lost any credibility it had." ....." New York Post 12/11/00 ".....The case that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court this morning should put an end, once and for all, to the madness that has erupted in the wake of the presidential election. We say should put an end, because one never knows if Vice President Al Gore will honor even a U.S. Supreme Court ruling if it goes against him. ..... This whole madness, after all, could have been avoided had Gore

Court ruling if it goes against him. ..... This whole madness, after all, could have been avoided had Gore respected the results of the Nov. 7 election, which showed Gov. George W. Bush as the winner. .....Or had Gore honored the machine recount, which reaffirmed those results. Or even the wrongly extended Nov. 26 count, which also showed that Gore lost and which was subsequently certified by the state of Florida. .......Gore refused to honor those results. Instead, he called in his beloved lawyers and dragged the election into the courts, which he believed would help him whitewash his theft of the White House. Make no mistake: That is how this election landed in the nation's highest court today. In defending himself from Gore's ploys, Bush rightly objected to the Florida Supreme Court's practice of making up rules as it goes along. ......" New York Post 12/11/00 John McGinnis "........ THE partisans of Al Gore have already begun a drumbeat of criticism of the Supreme Court even before that court has made a decision in the current election controversy. Three lines of attack are notable both for their pervasiveness among liberal commentators and their utter lack of merit. * The first is that a failure of consensus on the court would discredit its decision-making and that therefore the court should do nothing unless it acted unanimously or nearly unanimously. ......... This claim is belied by both logic and American history. ..... More recently, the justices sharply disagreed on cases involving abortion - perhaps the most momentous moral issue of our time. Many of those who have worried about the lack of unanimity today are the same people who praise those recent rulings, however divided and divisive they are. ......" New York Post 12/11/00 John McGinnis "........ * The next complaint is that the court would be guilty of judicial activism in overruling the Florida Supreme Court. .....Therefore, to determine whether the Supreme Court is acting properly, we must look at the meaning of the provision of the Constitution the court is charged with enforcing. Those who criticize the abortion cases, for example, do so not because the court has invalidated a state law, but because they can find no right of abortion contained in the Constitution. ......In contrast, a constitutional provision at issue in this case provides a rule for the Supreme Court to enforce against state courts: Article II provides that the electors in each state shall be appointed "in such a manner as the legislature shall direct." ...... Thus, the plain language of the Constitution itself requires that the Supreme Court assess whether the Florida Supreme Court has disregarded the Legislature's will and thus usurped the Legislature's federal constitutional role. ......" New York Post 12/11/00 John McGinnis "........ * Some criticize the high court's decision to review the lower state court decision as inconsistent with the solicitude the court has shown in recent years for state prerogatives. This neglects to acknowledge that the provisions in those past cases were completely different from that contained in Article II. ....... The only way we can get beyond using the label "activist" as a term of partisan abuse is to consider the merits of each case in relation to the provisions of the Constitution and federal law at issue. ..... Unfortunately, many who would rush to judge the court forget that a nation of laws depends on our shared ability to reason from a common text. Sustaining a constitutional republic requires more careful reading and fewer reckless accusations. ....." New York Post 12/11/00 Vincent Morris "......David Boies, the friendly legal hot shot who is heading Al Gore's court efforts, lost his temper yesterday - snapping at interviewers after returning home to New York. ....... The exchanges occurred when TV questioners asked about the allegation by a conservative group that Boies knowingly submitted an incomplete deposition about voting machines in a Florida case last week. ....... "I'll bet you haven't even read that deposition," Boies snapped at Fox host Tony Snow, after being quizzed about the allegation that he misled the court. Boies called Snow "irresponsible." Snow insisted he did read the deposition, although he did not offer any specifics from it. ........... On NBC's "Meet the Press," Boies and host Tim Russert talked over one another repeatedly until ending the conversation on a polite note midway through the show. "To suggest that somehow we submitted [an edited deposition] to the Florida Supreme Court simply has no basis in fact," Boies told Russert, who followed the same line of questioning. Warming up, Boies called the allegation a "reckless and irresponsible ad hominem attack" and flashed Russert a nasty look when the edgy host asked Boies if he was "confident" he'd escape a misconduct ruling. ...."I am very confident," Boies said. ...." WorldNetDaily.com 12/11/00 ".......I'm no economist, but judging from economic indicators since Vice President Al Gore began his legal assault to steal the presidential election after Nov. 7, it's clear only he can bring the current market and economic instability under control. How? He can best serve U.S. economic interests by conceding his loss to George W. Bush now. .......... Finally -- though the markets closed up on Friday -- for the year, Bloomberg News said, the Nasdaq has lost 29 percent, the S&P 500 has dropped 7 percent and the Dow has fallen 7 percent. Despite these worrying economic trends, the vice president -- as of Friday -- had not conceded his defeat to Bush, which means he still plans more court battles that will produce more uncertainty -- the very thing Wall Street detests. This, even though Democrats lost a pair of lower Florida court rulings; lawyers instead decided to appeal. Big surprise......"

Dallas Morning News 12/11/00 "......Another day, another courtroom. At least, the U.S. Supreme Court has the chance today to perform a feat that no other court has been able to do so far: end the legal wrangling that has afflicted Florida's election. ........ The more the state's election winds its way through one hearing after another, the more it becomes apparent that elections must have firm deadlines. Otherwise, political parties can shop their cases around until they find a preferred court. .......Of course, Florida's election code contains a drop-dead date for certifying election votes, but we passed that point way back in mid-November. Ever since, the election sadly has been the province of competing lawyers and conflicting judges. ......" US Supreme Court Hearing Freeper commentary WoodrowTKatt "....Summary so far (according to Greta v.C. on cnn, fwiw): Lots of questions regarding "what's the federal question", including from O'Connor & Kennedy. ...... Souter started questions regarding: what if we order a recount with standards? What would the standard be? Could we have SOS set a standard? Other justices followed up on this. Stevens: isn't fact that SOS has never set a standard itself a standard? Thomas and Rehnquist asked Olson no questions. .... Breyer: on the assumption that it (recount) starts up, what would be a fair standard? ...." Timeout ".... Breyer is asking for a "uniform standard" IF THE COUNT WERE TO START UP AGAIN...I don't think this is going to happen, though/ ...." Truthkeeper "..... Souter not a happy camper. "Why didn't you let the process run instead of asking for a stay?" Kennedy points out that due process clause was being violated during the recounts. Breyer seems to be open to the idea that the recount standards that were previously employed were "unfair." ....." DictatorMA ".... breyer eluding/trying to craft new standard for more recounting between now and dec 18... ughhhhhhhhhh ....." Snorkeler ".... Breyer...what should be the standard..fairest.most uniform Olson...penetrating the ballot O connner....what did the sos set Olsen..she didn't set one..that's the problem..that plus the chnging standards ...." Truthkeeper ".... O'Connor to the rescue..."Well, wouldn't the starting point have been the STANDARDS THAT THE SOS USED?" THANK you! ...." WoodrowTKatt "..... Kennedy: is there a limitation on SOS authority to set a standard in the contest phase... Olson: not sure, I don't think so... " Truthkeeper ".....Oh no...Souter wondering if the case were remanded to the lower court for a "fair standard," wouldn't that be acceptable? What part of changing the rules after the game is over does he NOT understand? ...." WoodrowTKatt ".... Stevens: was PBC standard ever applied statewide? Olson: I don't think so? Stevens: Does that not imply that the SOS thought "intent of the voter" was an adequate standard? ...." WoodrowTKatt ".... Ginsburg: if anything was added to the Legislature's "intent of the voter standard", wouldn't you object to that as a change in the law? ....." MagnusMat ".... His answer was good, it is the job of th e legislature ....."

WoodrowTKatt ".... Ginsburg: pointing out that 168 gives courts broad, seeping authority to resolve contest disputes... Stevens: asked isn't fact SOS never set a standard itself a standard? (according to Greta on cnn) ...." Neenah ".....Fox is just now reporting from the Court room....The court asked Olsen if this is not a state issue instead of a Federal issue. Court asked why dimpled ballots should be counted, because the voters had instructions HOW TO VOTE...<< that question was from Scalia. ...." KsSUnflower ".... Go Scalia!! Asking questions about voter instructions to punch the chad out completely, so if the chad isn't clear it wouldn't be a clear intent of a vote! ....." The_Republican "..... O Connor and Kennedy asking about "What's the Federal Question" is scary to say the least... " WoodrowTKatt ".....Souter asks Klock to address question of what standard should be. Klock: begin with instructions supplied to voter (PUNCH HOLE IN BALLOT, etc.) Democrat argument assumes it's a legal vote no matter what you do with the ballot. ....." Oldeconomybuyer "..... Klock arguing voter responsibility for ensuring their vote was "legal"...good. ....." WoodrowTKatt "..... Breyer asking again what a FAIR standard would be (doesn't seem too concerned with Florida LAW or PRACTICE)....." Soccergirl "...... . KLOCK TO THE RESCUE! Standard is as given to the voter when going into booth!!!!!! Homerun!! ....." Leroy S Mort "..... Breyer asks Klock what a fair uniform standard would be across all Fla. Klock says there are many schemes available...ducks the question Breyer comes back asks if Palm Beach is fair. Klock says punch through the ballot would be fair....anything else is failure of the voter to follow instructions. ....." Green "..... What is it with Breyer's obsession with trying to get these lawyers to tell him what their "opinion" would be regarding a fair standard. What difference does it make what their opinion is? ...." WoodrowTKatt "..... KLOCK: If I were a LEGISLATURE I would say you must punch a hole in the ballot... imho Klock is standing up to Breyer very well. ....." JimmyBob'sUncle ".... He's trying to get Klock to admit that a "fair" standard cannot be set across the 33 states using punch-card ballots. This would allow him to reject the equal protection portion of the Bush claim. ....." Corkoman "..... 90% of all questions deal with establishing or identifying a STANDARD. Why the hell would they spend so much time on standards if they weren't thinking of IMPLEMENTING ONE?? YIKES ....." A Citizen Reporter "..... Klock calls the Gore brief, an "omelette" selecting different statutes. ...." WoodrowTKatt "..... Breyer: asks Klock why court can't order a recount just to INVESTIGATE whether there are legal votes that haven't been cast... Klock: you are assuming that these are legal votes... cites previous election where court "refused to have any of it" regarding hanging/pregnant chads, did not order manual recount, even though the difference was THREE VOTES. Great job, Klock! ....." Snorkeler "..... Breyer really having at it with Klock Askeing repeatedly what should be the standard. Klock NOT backing down. With repect, your honor.NO COURT has the right to set that standard..it's up to the legislature. Breyer continues to press...making klock define a standard. Klock says penetration....says all this is because voters did not follow directions. Klock has big brass ones! ...."

WoodrowTKatt ".... Klock points out that protest provision talks about determining "intent of the voter" for DAMAGED ballots, not ballots in general. ...." Boatlawyer ".... Klock is the only one with the courage to state the obvious. If you don't properly punch the ballot, then it's not legal! "Intent" standard comes from issue of what to do when the ballot is damaged. Since this is found in the "protest" statute, this relates to F.S. 166 which contemplates broken tabulating machines that have damaged the ballots! Otherwise, there is no need to develop a standard other than the instructions in the voting booth! I LOVE JOE KLOCK! ....." Oldeconomybuyer ".... In any close election, just send the ballots to Tallahassee - Klock ....." Snorkeler "..... Boyz up and doesn't get five words out till Kennedy starts asking about jusidiction of scoflaw to interject ....." The Vast Right Wing "..... It is definitely a positive that scalia has not taken a major role in this. Many times the questions that the justices ask are a way of conversing with other justices. Scalia must feel confident that his argument is being put forward by the other Justices or that they are on the same page as him. ....." Kattracks "..... Kennedy: didn't FLASC create new law when they changed time limit? ....." WoodrowTKatt "..... Boies: whether or not there is "new law" has to be determined by SCOFLA... Lib justices focusing on standards on the hope they can set one and send it back to SCOFLA. Conservative justices focus on changing standards to justify overturning SCOFLA. ....." Snorkeler "...... Kennedy asks if the fla legislation could have changed the rules by new legislation after the election..without violating fed law.section 5 Boyz.....it would be unusal...probably not ....." Markfnkl "..... Kennedy just nailed Boies - got him to admit it would be illegal for FL legislature to do what FL Supreme Court has done. ....." Glennaro ".... Kennedy: "If the legislature does it, it's new law. If the Supreme Court does it isn't?" ...." A Citizen Reporter "..... Kennedy is still grilling Boils. He is not sure that SCOFLA has not re-written the law. Boils says that the SCOFLA HAS NOT re-written law. ....." Paraclete ".... Kennedy's getting to the unarguable bottom line. The Court can't make new law anymore than the legislature could. ....." Leroy S Mort "..... Scalia - then youre in agreement. If the SCOFLAW interpreted incorrectly it would be new law. Boies says yeah if that was the case I guess it would be..... " Unspun "..... Scalia's questioning of Boies indicates he is winding up for what he believes is a very conclusive opinion. ....." Truthkeeper "..... O'Connor talking about "the plenary power of the legislature"...courts must show deference. GOOD. ....." DJ88 "..... Now Scalia is getting him....this should be fun. O'Conner steps in..."and especially in light of concerns of Section IV...." Timm "....O'Connor and Kennedy don't seem convinced by Boies' claim that the Florida Supreme Court didn't make new law. ....." Hellinahandcart "..... Boies continuing to insist that FSC did not create new law, only interpreted existing law, two conflicting statutes, yada yada, same old sh*t...gag me. USSC should continue to give due deference to FL Supreme Court. O'Connor now suggesting that perhaps the FL Spreme court should have given due deference to the FL Legislature...Hot damn!....." Glennaro ".....Boies: Legislature has plenary power if FLSC errs on interpretation. O'Connor: Selection of electors is Legislature's responsibility. Did not find adequate response to remand! ....." EastBayPatriot "...... Boies is getting DRILLED - By O'Connor no less. She's disagreeing with him. This is going 7-2 or 6-3 for Bush. I guarantee you. Boies is horrible. He's stumbling, stuttering. They're constantly interrupting him. He can barely get out a sentence......." A Citizen Reporter ".... O'Connor....NO response to the USSC remand in the SCOFLA !!! ....."

WoodrowTKatt "..... O'Connor to Boies: you are responding as if there is no SPECIAL burden to respect Legislatures... isn't there a big "red flag"... that's a concern that we have... GO SANDY BABY! ...." Holden "....... O'Connor is screwing Boies into the ground, showing that if the Legislature had plenary powers, nothing outside the scope of Legislative authority could be employed by SCOFLAw. He's already agreed that if the Legislature had enacted what SCOFLAw had, it would've been new law. ......" WoodrowTKatt "..... O'Connor (interupting Boies): didn't SCOFLA include votes tabulated AFTER the original cerification date, even though their ruling had been vacated? I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THAT WORKS! Laughter in the court! ......" 1OldPro "..... Contravenes our vacating of the order. HUGE !!! ....." glennaro "..... Scalia: Votes have to be certified. Boies: I don't think so, this is a contest of the cert. Scalia: Oh, yes they do. ....." Green "...... Now Scalia in on the FSC ignoring their vacating the ruling ....." WoodrowTKatt "...... fwiw... Boies arguing that PBC/Miami Date/Broward can be counted as part of the CONTEST, even though they were counted during the vacated certification extension... Scalia immediately opens fire! ......" 1OldPro ".... Scalia beating up boyz. If it were a Prize fight they would stop it. ....." LS "...... Scalia is HAMMERING him on the FL SC's thumbing its nose at the USSC. Boies is going to curl up in a fetal ball any minute. ....." Hellinahandcart "..... Scalia to the rescue--SCOFLAW ordered inclusion of the 168 vote partial count from Miami Dade to be included in the certification, even after they VACATED the first SCOFLAW decision...aw, this is too good. Boies arguing this happens all the time in a successful contest. Lame! ....." Truthkeeper "...... Scalia absolutely NAILING Boies AND the FLSC on adding those votes after the SOS's certification. He's having nunofit! ...." Snorkeler "..... RENQ IS GETTING MAD.....boyz is sinking.....SCOFLAW certified on their own word and added the partial Miami Dade gore votes! ....." WoodrowTKatt "...... Scalia: the SOS certification DID NOT INCLUDE those additional votes for your client. Boies: but, but, but, Scalia: You aren't making any sense to me. ....." Clean_Sweep "..... The lack of logic in the Gore argument is coming through. It is so because I say so. LOL ...." SAMWolf "..... USSC: We told them "NO Way" and the FLSC ignored us! ....." Leroy S. Mort "..... haha Kennedy: "Even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and kicked" ...." Truthkeeper "..... Kennedy: "Should there be a uniform standard during the contest period?" Boies: "Yes...and there is one." Kennedy VERY disturbed about differing standards re: "intent of voter." Talks about "reading voter's mind." Go, Tony, GO!! ....." 1OldPro "...... Boyz says there is a standard. SCOTUS is incredulous saying they can have different standards form table to table. This is 7-2 at a minimum for Bush. ....." Guillam ".... I'll bet The Gore's didn't decide to substitute Boies for Tribe. Cookie to a donut that Tribe decided he wanted no part of this. Like him or not, Tribe has his scholarly reputation to protect. Boies will do anything as long as he gets paid. ....." Oldeconomybuyer "...... DOW 1:42PM 10738.70 +25.79 +0.24% NASDAQ 1:42PM 2996.83 +79.40 +2.72% ...."

Samkataz ".... BOIS BLOWS IT - HE RAISES THE FACT THAT EVEN TWO TABLES OF COUNTERS MAY HAVE DIFFERENT STANDARDS .i.e. NO DUE PROCESS ....." DoughtyOne "..... Glennaro, I don't think too many people would hold up well under this onslaught. He has no answers. He knew he'd have no answers. I walked in there knowing he was going to get mauled. He is. It's a tough position to be in. This would take it's toll on any of the great lawyers. Most of them wouldn't have bought on to such a flawed loosing case. ......" B4its2late "..... Even Souter is concerned about the lack of standards from count to county. WOW. He's trying to help Boise out I think. Variations would be an equal protectin variation? Boise is stumbling. Souter interrupted him again. ....." WoodrowTKatt "..... Souter (yes Souter!): Why shouldn't there be one OBJECTIVE rule that applies across all counties? And if there isn't, why ISN'T this an equal protection problem. 6-3, minimum... Boies: "jury - to -jury ..." Souter: but there is no 1 objective standard that applies to all juries. We are talking here about the same physical object (ballots) in all counties... " Truthkeeper "..... Is this really Souter grilling on denial of equal protection argument? CNN is showing his picture, but the voice sounds like Rehnquist. If it IS Souter, he may well come over on this issue. ....." TheAmericanPeople "...... Even the left-leaning Justices seem concerned about the differing of standards; Boies thinks all the different standards are just fine, but can't seem to explain why. ....." Leroy S. Mort "...... Souter: in your opinion what should we use as standards? Scalia: You'd tell em to "Count Every Vote" laughter..... " WoodrowTKatt "..... Souter (to Boies, after asking him how he's set a standard): You'd tell them to count every vote! Courtroom: LOL!!! Boies is getting hammered! ....." TheAmericanPeople "..... YES! Sandra asks the $64,000 question - WHY ISN'T THE STANDARD THE ONE GIVEN IN THE VOTER INSTRUCTIONS? ....." Gee Wally ".... O'Connor: Why, for goodness sake, isn't the standard what the voter instructions say? Bravo! ...." Anton "....O'Connor says: "It couldn't be clearer" (how to vote). ....." Markfnkl "......Thrust of Rehnquist's argument: "wait a second, Boies. You're relying on Judge Sauls' judgement???? Didn't Sauls kick you out without any relief???" Boies answer, "uh, yes, but". ....." WoodrowTKatt "..... Scalia asks Boies why SCOFLA applied de novo standard to most counties but accepted discretion for Broward and PBC recounts. Boies gives a very misleading if not deceptive answer regarding Broward (it wasn't part of the contest). ....." ReleasetheHounds "..... Much attention to the mixing standards of accepting Broward County and Palm Beach County -- big "no no" according to both Renquist and Scalia (no surprise) but I think that view is probably widely held... Boies continues to hold for a "de novo" standard according to the protest and contest provisions. "De Novo" (as I understand it) is making up new law -- that's the crux of this argument and the SCOTUS isn't buying! JMHO..." Glennaro "..... Scalia: FLSC required acceptance of different standard ballots violates de novo review criteria. Boies: No, this is a contest. Again, arguing with Scalia on what is a "contest" vis-a-vis certification of the election. Not getting anywhere,

though. ....." GeaugaRepublican ".... OMIGOD Boise just lied again! He stated that the Volusia and Broward returns were not contested by anyone! That was an affirmative charge made by Bush and they are contested!!! ...." WoodrowTKatt "..... Scalia: re-questioning Boies: they accepted Broward and Volusia recounts, but not other counties. Why are other counties de nova but not other counties. Boies: because we didn't contest Broward? Scalia: But the CERTIFICATION is ontested. Scalia is on to Boies's doublespeak... I love it! This boils down to: Boies: BALLOTS are contested. Scalia: the CERTIFICATION is contested. Scalia is right... " Truthkeeper ".... I haven't a clue what Boies is spinning about the contested ballots. Does anyone? I think he's just rambling at this point. If he thinks he's going to snow these guys, he can forget it. Rehnquist asking how many contested ballots in this matter: Boies: 60,000. Stevens now asking about overvotes. "Is it your contention that there are 110,000 overvotes?" Kennedy asking about Broward county, has concerns about the overvotes as well. ....." Jackbill ".....Kennedy is skewering Boies. You give one answer to Scalia and another to Stevens. Boies is going to need a few Advil after this. And a lot of Preparation H. ....." Wrhine "..... Now Kennedy is bringing out the partisian manner the FLSKC included votes in Broward and excluded the double counted votes. ....." DouglaskC "...... Great Point...Scalia asks why only undervotes counted...why not overvotes? Boise: Because nobody contested them. Scalia: Well, nobody contested the undervotes around the states, yet FLSC wants them counted? Boise now giving BS answer... " WoodrowTKatt "...... Scalia: why would anyone bother with a PROTEST if the whole thing begins again with a CONTEST, if the certification is meaningless? ....." Samkatz "...... AH THE KEY!!! Kennedy: THIS CONTEST WAS TRUNCATED BY 19 DAYS by the FSC NOW IT'S TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!! Bois: uh uh uh ....." NicoleGTalum "..... did you notice Stevens' question about the FSC allowing all the undervotes Statewide for fairness? IE, shouldn't the over votes be allowed for fairness even tho Boies says they shouldn't b/c they weren't contested? SLAM ....." TonyInOhio ".....O'Connor mentions FLSC ignores Boardman case (precedent in Florida). Boies rambles. Lots. Souter asks another questions regarding Equal Protection issues. Rehnquist extends Boies' time twon minutes; Olson up for rebuttal next. ....." WoodrowTKatt in response to "Is that O'Connor bailing out Boyz on the protest v. contest question after Boyz stumbles? " said ".....I didn't think so, it was a rhetorical (almost sarcastic) question. That was my take. She knows that there really is a purpose to the protest phase. ....." Kattracks "..... Olson up.. pointing out that standards have been changed from moment to moment. ....." Clean_Sweep "..... Dumb question by Ginz. on different ballot types. ....." JurlieRNR21 "....... Ginsburg speaks......Olson is doing good...talking about the variety of standards in all the punch card counties...he's HOT! ....." Pettifogger "..... Ginsberg: Don't you need many different standards because there were different kinds of

machines used, different forumaltions of the ballot used . .. Olson: Even within any particular county, standards were different . . . (she's letting him answer . . .) ...." Laseneca ".... Rush is cheering Olsen on as he fires back at Ginsburg's weak questions, Rush says that Olsen is hitting a Home Run every sentence ..." WoodrowTKatt "..... Notice, the "11'th circuit" equal-protection argument is getting a very receptive audience in SCOTUS. ....." Truthkeeper "..... Ginsberg: "Should we the USSC decide what FL law is, since, according to you, FLSC is so misguided that it does not know its own laws?" Olson: "Not sure...but the law was clearly violated." ....." TonyInOhio "..... Ginsburg sticks up for FLSC, just like last time. olson replies that there is a clear Constitutional issue. States that the authority of the Legislature is plenary, implying it is not subject to review. ...." KsSunflower "..... Olson's rebuttal time...zeroing in on Due process standards. Quoting FL attorney general saying standards are evolving. Ginsburg talking about different types of ballots. Olson smacks her down saying that if two counties use the same type of ballot, they should certainly have the same standards. Documented history saying that there have been differing standards just since Nov. 7. Citing Palm Beach standard change. ........ Now, something worse than changing within a county, but undervotes are being counted and overvotes aren't. In Miami-Dade, 20% all recounted, while the remainng 80%, only undervotes aren't. Ginsburg asking if the USSC should overturn what the FLSC did. FLSC said they hadn't changed rules. Asking if they should defer to the judgement of the FLSC. Olson replies that what the USSC said last week that the constitution of the US requires that the legislature set the rules and that the point where the FLSC steps in and changes that, it becomes a Federal question. Olson finished strongly! ........" LS "..... Olson must have drunk some coffee. He came out smoking, and they let him talk. FLSC changed the rules, over and over and the standards were changed TO PRODUCE A WINNER in Gore. Don't know what Ginzy's little reading of a law had to do with anything, but to my untrained ear, Olsen knocked it out of the park. ....." WoodrowTKatt "...... I'd bet the ranch they overtirn SCOFLA... the question is, then what? What's the remedy. I doubt they will set a standard and restart recounts -- too activist for Scalia & Co. ....... I still think they will say that because of changing laws and standards (caused mainly by SCOFLA), this election is no longer judiciable. According to the constitution, it is for the Florida Legislature and then Congress to decide. As I posted on an earlier thread, that's my UPSET SPECIAL OF THE WEEK! ....." Drudge AFP ".....The United States will face a "civil rights explosion" if the US Supreme Court refuses to allow a recount of disputed ballots in Florida as part of a solution to the US presidential election impasse, a prominent civil rights leader warned Monday. "Even if this court rules against counting our vote, it will simply create a civil rights explosion," said the Reverend Jesse Jackson as he emerged from the historic hearing, in which nine justices heard oral arguments from lawyers for Republican George W. Bush and his Democratic rival, Al Gore. "People will not surrender to this tyranny," he stressed, pointing out that civil rights and labor organizations had agreed to launch a protest campaign at 5:00 pm (2200 GMT) Monday with demonstrations and prayer vigils in front of federal buildings here and in other cities. "This people will not stand by and accept this with surrender," Jackson warned. "We can afford to lose an election -- you win some, you lose some. You can't afford to lose your franchise." "People will be fighting for their right to vote and for their vote to count," the civil rights leader said, adding that the protest would only be expanding. "The same forces that were against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ... seek to disenfranchise us in 2000 and do not want to renew the Voting Rights Act in the year 2007," he added without specifically naming Republicans....." Freeper CWW 12/11/00 "....LEGAL ANALYSIS OF 12-11-00 SCOTUS HEARING. As you will recall, yesterday, I posted the Alabama AG's brief that set forth the 3 issues to be addressed by SCOTUS in today's hearing. It was unmistakably clear that BUS wins 7-2 (maybe more) on the Third issue of Equal Protection and Due Process. HERES THE PRECISE EQUAL PROTECTION QUESTION: 3. Whether the use of arbitrary, standardless and selective manual recounts to determine results of a presidential election, including post-election judicially created selective and capricious recount procedures,

that vary across counties and within counties in the State of Florida violates the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. ? The Court grilled Boise on the equal protection issue. Justice Souter & Bryer, along with the 5 Conservative Justices, expresses extreme skepticism as to how Florida's standardless manual recount procedure could possible survive Equal protection and Due Process challenges. The specific Equal Protection violations set out by the Justices during oral arguments are as follows. 1. VIOLATION #1 -- Other than the vague, general "intent of the voter standard", Florida counties have no objective standard for manual recounts. The standards admittedly varies from county to county (Broward vs. Miami-Dade, vs. Palm Beach, etc.) 2. VIOLATION #2 -- The second Equal Protection/Due Process violation occurred when the FLSC ordered that the Broward and Palm Beach recount totals be added by the Secretary of State to the Certification totals without any judicial review (as the other county ballots would undergo) and despite the fact that they were counted using different standards. 3. VIOLATION #3 - The FLSC ordered that only the under count votes be recounted, completely ignoring the 110,000 overvotes, i.e., different treatment of ballots to determine voter intent. ? Justice Souter grilled Boise for 15 minutes on Equal Protection and expressed his, and Justice Breyer's, concerns regarding the clear violation. ? Justice Ginsberg clearly saw the Equal Protection route as a way to rule in favor of Bush without slamming the FLSC for Article II violation, a kind of gentlemen's way out of this mess. ? Striking down the Recount Statute of Equal Protection/Due Process grounds will be a clean remedy because it invalidates the recount statute as unconstitutional and it does not require SCOTUS to send the case back down to the FLSC to invent some new "objective", uniform standard, which would likely be subject to more Article II, 1 challenges as post-election rules changes. In other words, finding the recount statute unconstitutional will end the game here and now. ? Finally, if the Court invalidates the recount statute on Equal Protection/Due Process Grounds, as noted by Justice Ginsberg, the other two arguments (concerning Article II, 1, cl. 2 and 3 U.S.C. 5) become academic and do not have to be addressed. Bush wins on the 3rd issue alone, and the liberals on the Court can blame it on the Florda Legislature for a lousy recount statute instead of a lieberal, activist FLSC. IN SUM--BUSH 7-2 maybe even 8-2, with the great dissenter (Stevens, J) dissenting, and only reaching the merits on the Equal Protection issue. ...." Yahoo 12/11/00 Reuters ".....The U.S. Supreme Court appeared deeply divided Monday on whether hand counts of ballots in Florida should resume and what standard should be used in a case that could determine whether Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore becomes president. ......... With lawyers for Bush and Gore vigorously questioned during 90 minutes of historic arguments, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, considered a key swing vote on the nine-member court, questioned the standard that had been adopted. ``Why isn't the standard the one the voters were instructed to follow, for goodness sakes? Why don't we go to that standard?'' she asked Gore's lawyer, David Boies. ......." Leroy S Mort "...... Florida House just voted to start the process to approve a slate of electors. This will wind up in the State Senate on Wednesday for final apporval according to Fox. ...." WoodrowTKatt "..... Levin on Hannity: in the unlikely event that 5 Justices voted to rule for Gore and uphold SCOFLA, they would vacate the stay even before they released an opinion? If this analysis is correct, then the more time that passes before we hear from SCOTUS, the better for Bush. ....." Blam "..... Fox News: "Rumors are that a decision will come this evening." ...." Pittsburghcopguy ".... I nominate for best moment of liberal bashing: KENNEDY: Do you think that in the contest phase there must be a uniform standard for counting the ballots? BOIES: I do, Your Honor. I think there must be a uniform standard. I think there is a uniform standard. The question is whether that standard is too general or not. ........ The standard is whether or not the intent of the voter is reflected by the ballot. That is the uniform standard throughout the state of Florida.

KENNEDY: That's very general; it runs throughout the law. Even a dog knows the difference in being stumbled over and being kicked. You know it. ......" UPI 12/11/00 Mitchell Prothero ".....Appeal briefs arrived at the Florida Supreme Court Monday in two wildcard legal cases that could invalidate as many as 25,000 absentee ballots in the state, and tip the outcome of the fiercely disputed presidential election there....... Democratic voters last week argued unsuccessfully in two county courts that thousands of absentee ballots were illegally distributed to Republican supporters after applications for them were modified by GOP officials in Seminole and Martin counties.......... In a single decision on the two cases, the Leon County Circuit Court ruled Friday that the irregularities in the ballot applications did not damage the fairness of the election and refused to grant any relief. The Florida Supreme Court asked for interested parties to file briefs, but it remains unclear if it will consider the case........." UPI 12/11/00 Mitchell Prothero ".....In making its ruling, the lower court found that the modifications, though technically illegal, were not sufficiently egregious to warrant overturning the outcome of the election. The court held that the right to suffrage was pre-eminent. "Despite these irregularities," the court found, "the sanctity of the ballots and the integrity of the election were not affected." .......... The plaintiffs claim that modifying the ballot applications violated Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal treatment under the law for every legally cast vote...... They further argues that the pre-eminence of the right to vote did not warrant the lower court overriding what they called the "clear intent of the Florida legislature" to provide a mechanism for protecting the integrity of the absentee ballot request process......" AP 12/11/00 ".....An appeals court on Monday agreed with a federal judge who refused to throw out 2,400 of Florida's overseas ballots, mostly from military personnel, because they arrived after Election Day. A threejudge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul in Gainesville, Fla., was consistent with recent comments by Florida's highest court about the workings of the absentee ballot law. ....... The lawsuit brought by Democratic voters sought to eliminate enough ballots to change the election results in Vice President Al Gore's favor. Republican George W. Bush led by less than 200 votes as election challenges continued in the U.S. Supreme Court and elsewhere Monday. ..... ''While Florida law seems to favor counting ballots, this change would take away the votes of thousands of Florida citizens -- including members of America's armed forces on duty outside of the country pursuant to the nation's orders -- who, to cast their ballots, just did what they were told by Florida's election officials,'' the appeals court said. ....The appeals court rejected the claims of lawyers representing 13 individual Democratic voters whose lawsuits were combined before Paul....." Townhall 12/11/00 Ann Coulter "..... Just because the door is closing, every legitimate legal process available to you has been shut down, Warren Christopher has returned to his formaldehyde jar, David Boies is getting hives, and even Alan Dershowitz has finally admitted that your cause is hopeless, this is no time to quit if you care about your country -- as I think you do, Al. ........... You and your mentor Bill Clinton have done more damage to the Democratic Party than Newt Gingrich could have done in a lifetime. But in the past month you have really outdone yourself. Once merely comedic, you have now entered delusional nutcase territory. ......... The kangaroo court might even decide to throw out thousands of ballots in Seminole County. Its ruling could last a full day or two before being summarily reversed by either the real Supreme Court or the Florida Legislature. You will have single-handedly discredited as many Democrats in two months' time as it took Bill Clinton to discredit in eight years! ....I say: The more Democrats Gore can take down with him, the better. It's a fine line between the typical Democrat lies and demonstrably psychotic behavior. In the past week, many Democrats have shown themselves willing to bound across that line. The longer this lasts the better. ....." UPI 12/11/00 Peter Roff ".....Arizona's John Shadegg is a Republican from the 4th Congressional District. Prior to being elected to Congress in 1994, he served as an election law attorney in the office of the state's attorney general, advising two Arizona Democrat secretaries of state on election law and procedure......... Because of his background and special knowledge in this area, Shadegg's views on elections and election law carry special weight with his House colleagues, who at some point may actually have to pick a president of the United States in something more than a perfunctory fashion for the first time since the late 19th century............ Shadegg has followed the election issues closely. "Based on (Monday's) argument before the Supreme Court, it is unclear," he says, "how the court will rule." But he believes that there will not be another clear 5 to 4 decision........ "I think you could see certain trends in the oral argument questions that provide guidance to what the Justices may be thinking," Shadegg told United Press International. "It appears 5 Justices are confident that the Florida Supreme Court changed state law and, more than that, seven eight or all of nine of them are troubled by equal protection questions. They focused today on a number of these questions about equal protection, the biggest one being the standard or absence therefore for determining what should be counted as a legal vote."............... "If the Florida Supreme Court believes such a recount is

necessary," Shadegg wrote, "why is it ordering it now rather than weeks ago?" Shadegg asked prior to the stay issued by the United States Supreme Court. "The Florida Supreme Court has had three prior opportunities to order such a manual recount and did not do so." ....... "Finally, and most significantly," Shadegg asked, "why didn't the Florida Supreme Court order a manual recount of the entire under vote when the Gore Campaign appealed the decision by the Miami-Dade canvassing board to stop its manual recount? The Florida Supreme Court did not order a manual recount at that time, in fact, it did the exact opposite; it upheld the decision of the Miami-Dade canvassing board to stop its manual recount."......." Florida Supreme Court Announcement after the U.S. Supreme Court Hearing: Oldeconomybuyer ".....1) Ballots still in custody of FLSC 2) By a vote of 6-1, they said their earlier Manifesto was based on statutory Florida law. STUPID... " It'salmosttolate "..... Ballots in secure room and will stay there. They responded to USSC--- their opinion was rooted in STATE LAW. (TAKE THAT--MY WORDS) ...." FrostFire ".... Yes. I do believe thet ARE insane. They cannot save their butts. Wells dissented. ....." TheBigB "....So they didn't say anything about Martin/Seminole Counties?? ....." FrostFire "..... They are going to use this flim-flam to overturn Seminole and Martin. ..... Nothing about Seminole and Martin. But they think they have given themselves an air of legitimacy in this *statement*. They are wrong. But they will use it to throw out the Seminole and Martin votes. ....." Choozer "..... If I were on the U.S. Supreme Court, I would be taken aback and personally offended. Proper protocol and respect for the higher court would've dictated this response, at minimum, simultaneous with, if not before the ruling Friday. To do now, while the USSC is deliberating, is an insult to the higher court. ....." FrostFire ".....I hope ginsberg, souter, and breyer see it that way too. It might just p*ss them off. ....." Freethesheeples "..... A high-ranking GOP Congresswoman who was IN the room for the US Supreme Court Hearing today, said her observation was that the US Supreme Court was CLEARLY VERY ANGRY with the Florida Supreme Kangaroo Court (the "Florida 'Roos"), fro NOT even bothering to respond to the USSC's reamnd of last week. .....Her observation was they were quite visibly angry at the FL 'Roos, which does not bode well fro their boy Gore, she observed. .....The 'roos have made the REAL Supremes hopping mad!!! ....." Terry Mross ".....The FSC must have been listening. They just issued an explanation but the former head of elections from Florida just said all they did was basically re=issue the same oppinion. Said you have two courts thumbing their noses at each other. I hate to say this but I'd like to see the USSC remand it back to Florida and tell them to count fully punced chads only. Gore would have no recourse but to concede. If they counted under those standards he'd lose. So, Bush could refuse to accept his concession and say, "I want every vote to count." ....." FoxNews 12/11/00 Freeper old-ager ".... Kangaroos claim earlier opinion was properly based! Wells dissents. ...." Skeptical constituent "..... That won't fly. Their decision was vacated, and they were required to issue an opinion, not only as to what they based their decision on, but they were required to justify their decision with state law. ....." GI Jane "..... Wells even said he didn't think they should be issuing an opinion while the other court is in conference. ....." Mlo "..... Following is the entire dissent of the Chief Justice: WELLS, C.J., dissenting. I dissent from issuing a new decision while the United States Supreme Court has under consideration Bush v. Gore, No. 00-949 (U.S. order filed Dec. 9, 2000), and I do not concur in the reissued opinion. ......" GI Jane "...... I just read the opinion; it's a "dodge and weave, ropa-a-dope," ridiculous account of themselves. At the end Chief Justice Wells basically says it's not right for us to be answering this right now since SCOTUS is in conference, and as well, he does not agree with the majority's opinion anyway. ....."

Go star go "..... The problem is that the legislature set a 7 day deadline. They changed that. That means they lied in this decision by saying they intrepreted the law. Changing the deadline is new law. OOPS! They screwed up again! ...." Atticus "..... I am shaking as I write this. I can barely type. Scalia must be bursting a blood vessel. This court is openly doing the Rats' bidding. The 4-3 split looked bad for the scofflaws and made it impossible for the Rats to get any spin value from a 5-4 SCOTUS decision. What an insult. ....." Armenian Commando "...... I haven't read the decision yet. However IMHO (as a lawyer!!), the first opinion clearly stated that they were relying upon the FLA. Constitution. I agree. I don't see how they get around the fact that the Legislature clearly meant that there would be a seven day deadline, and invested the discretion in the SOS, not the Court. ......" Mlo "...... How do you like this quote from the opinion: ....'The November 26, 2000 date was not a new "deadline" and has no effect in future elections. It was simply a date in accordance with the requirements that had been established prior to the election and in order to construe all the provisions of the Code as a consistent whole. ...' Hah. Really, it wasn't a deadline. ...." MississippiMan "..... Priceless language from page 33 of their new "opinion" follows: ...... 'We have construed the provisions providing for a time table as directory in light of what we perceive to be a clear legislative policy of the importance of an elector's right to vote and of having each vote counted. Hopefully, our unbroken line of cases identifying and relying on these legislative policies have not missed the mark. Further, if anything, more recent legislative changes have been crafted not only to be consistent with these policies, but also to ensure adherence to them. '........ GOOD GRIEF! ......" A Citizen Reporter "...... All on Brit Hume's panel agreed (including Mort and Moira) agreed that no matter what the Kangaroos recently said, they still have WAY to many other problems. It's a nothingburger. ....." Number_Cruncher "...... Earlier today from the USSC hearing: "SCALIA: It said that those votes had to be certified, which certainly contravenes our vacating of their prior order."....... I don't think that comment would have been made if the FLSC had really replied to the earlier USSC decision."......." Ftrader "...... I just reread the Supremes vacating of the SCOFLAw's decision and they REQUIRED them to prove they considered the FEDERAL IMPLICATIONS [in addition to their state law versus State Constitution issue.] In this reply, they LAMELY say they followed state law, but said NOTHING about the main point, the impact of the Federal law on their first decision. Unacceptable, IMHO. ....." SPECIAL REPORT with BRITT HUME 12/11/00 Freeper Rodger Schultz "...... Tonight, on Fox News Channel's Special Report, Britt Hume played a pivotal snippet from today's orals at SCOTUS. The clip involved Justice Kennedy and Gore lawyer David Boies. Kennedy asked - if the Florida legislature enacted the same law as the Florida Supreme Court mandated, would it be legal? Boies reluctantly replied "probably not." Hume asked Taylor, "why is this important?" Because, said Taylor, Kennedy got Boise to admit that it wasn't legal for the Florida legislature to enact post election law, so how, then, can the Florida Supreme Court create that law? Taylor had no idea why the obvious problem of partial recounts in Miami-Dade - which resulted in a "gross violation of equal protection" had not come up in the orals, but noted the subject had been well developed in the Bush brief. ......." Freeper olinr "..... Yes, Jim Angle could not contain himself. He must be real tired and had to let his emotions show! .......... Sounds, from his report, that the ruling was as poor as the others. No reference to the Florida Constitution and blame to the SoS and legislature. They are history!! Names, actions and what a way to go. ....." Ohioan "...... In more years of practice than I like to admit, I have never heard of any Court, whose decision was under review, attempt to inject a PR statement into the middle of that review! The correct procedure, of course, is to put in the original opinion whatever you feel is necessary to show how you came to the decision announced in that opinion. In deciding the merits of that decision, the reviewing Court will consider whether that decision is based upon the application of correct legal principles to the record that the Court had before it (in this case, the record before Judge Sauls). ........... This, after the decision, PR statement--as so much

else in this election--is very, very strange indeed. I continue to believe that the Florida Supreme Court is acting in a manner that really does pose a threat to Republican Government, and as such creates a Federal issue (Article IV, Section 4, Constitution Of The United States). ..............." Yankee "...... Jim Angle just reported to Brit Hume and the panel, that the opinion states that they didn't change the law. That the law will be in effect henceforth. ......Angle laughlingly said "Brit, this was a one time special". Barnes, Liasson and Kondrake plus Hume were laughing at this. It won't pass the smell test, folks. ...." WoodrowTKatt "......Finished reading the SCOFLA revised opinion to Bush v Gore I. It's much better reasoned than the first try. I'm not saying it's persuasive, just that it's a much closer call. Here's what I see as the weaknesses: 1. The "real" deadline is 10 days after the election, not 7. Not sure where they get this from the statutes. Why does a consent decree regarding overseas absentee ballots affect the deadline for certifying normal ballots? 2. Limits on SOS discretion. The SCOFLA opinion makes it hard to think up any real situation where SOS could use her discretion to reject late returns. But clearly the law provides discretion (SOS may reject...). If ruling doesn't leave her any discretion, something must be wrong. 3. Never before were manual recounts ordered to hunt for hanging/dimpled chads. Klock made this clear in an answer to Breyer today. In the only similar Florida case, candidate was denied a manual recount to detect hanging/dimpled chad, even though he only lost by 3 votes! So granting a manual recount based on the slight discrepencies detected in the PBC/MD/Broward sample recounts was unprecedented. So I still think SCOTUS might have overturned the original decision had SCOFLA supplied this revised opinion instead of their original "right to have every vote counted is paramount" opinion. But it's a much closer call......" Freeper nralife "..... The SCOFLAw court threw a monkey wrench into the works tonight by issuing their revised ruling. It will just take the USSC a little longer, that is all. :) ....." Bloomberg 12/11 Greg Stohr "......Two Supreme Court justices who voted to stop manual ballot recounts in the U.S. presidential election in Florida questioned today whether Texas Governor George W. Bush's appeal of a state Supreme Court ruling belongs in federal court. .....The questioning by Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor offered a glimmer of hope for Vice President Al Gore in his challenge to Bush's victory in Florida, which will decide the presidential race. ......... They were part of a 5-4 majority that on Saturday halted the recounts and suggested Bush is likely to prevail in the dispute. Later in the hearing, they directed a barrage of questions at Gore's lawyer and said they are bothered by a number of aspects of the lower court decision. .......The justices, hearing arguments in the presidential election fight for the second time in 10 days, gave no indication of how soon they will rule. No ruling is likely tonight, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. ........ The high court is reviewing a 4-3 decision of the Florida Supreme Court that statewide hand recounts were necessary to assess Gore's challenge to the election results. ......." Bloomberg 12/11 Greg Stohr "......Kennedy suggested he might see a basis for a federal court role under a different Republican theory. The justice pointed to a federal statute, cited by the Florida Supreme Court, that encourages states to appoint presidential electors on the basis of rules in place on Election Day. ......O'Connor later suggested the U.S. Constitution might put a special limitation on state courts in the area of presidential election law. ...... ``In this one context, isn't there a big red flag out there - - `watch out?' '' she asked Boies. ......" Bloomberg 12/11 Greg Stohr "......Several justices, including liberals David H. Souter and Stephen Breyer, said they were troubled that the Florida Supreme Court ruling will lead to different standards for assessing ballots in different parts of the state. Bush's lawyers say that would violate the U.S. constitutional requirement of equal protection under the law. ...........``Why isn't the standard the one voters are instructed to follow, for goodness sakes?'' she asked. ...........A decision resting solely on equal protection grounds might send the case back to the Florida courts to come up with a single standard that would apply statewide. ....."

Bloomberg 12/11 Greg Stohr "...... O'Connor also said she was troubled that the Florida Supreme Court had failed to respond to an order from the nation's highest court to clarify the basis of its earlier decision that extended deadlines for certifying returns to provide more time for a manual recount in three counties. ........... Less than six hours after the high court arguments ended, the state Supreme Court issued a 34-page opinion that reinstated its earlier ruling with some more explanation. Voting 6-1, the state court justices said their previous ruling was based on ```a narrow reading and clarification'' of state election law. ......" Bloomberg 12/11 Greg Stohr "......The Republicans contend the Florida court committed a myriad of errors, ranging from its assertion of jurisdiction over the dispute to the standards it set to determine the validity of individual ballots. Gore's team says the Florida Supreme Court did nothing except interpret an ambiguous election code. They also argue that the state legislature specifically gave the Florida high court that power. ......Gore's lawyers told the high court in court papers that the recounts ultimately will take place, if only by curious historians and members of the media. ..... AP 12/11/00 "....... A quick ruling was expected from the nation's highest court on Bush's argument that the Florida Supreme Court unlawfully ordered recounts of votes cast across the state.. .......By early evening, the court's public information staff decided to leave for the day, and indications were that a ruling before Tuesday was unlikely. ...." Newsmax 12/11/00 Carl Limbacher "....Tempers flared this weekend in Washington, D.C., as protesters for and against Gore gathered outside his home at the Naval Observatory. ......On Saturday night a Gore supporter had a sign ripped out of her hands while witnesses say a pro-Bush protester was the victim of a deliberate hit and run driver. ......An anti-Gore demonstrator from the website FreeRepublic.com gave this account of the altercation: ......"A female Bush supporter was intentionally hit by a car driven by a Gore supporter who steered his car over a corner knocking the woman over. The woman was not seriously injured, but no arrest was made because the driver, accompanied by a woman who cursed at and gave 'the finger' to the Bush supporter, drove away." .....D.C. police were given a description of the car along with its license plate number but its not clear whether the offending driver has been arrested. ...." Drudge 12/11/00 "......"We will take to the streets right now, we will delegitimize Bush, discredit him, do whatever it takes, but never accept him." Those are the threatening comments made by Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday to reporters outside of the US Supreme Court in Washington. ......... Jackson also accused Bush's brother Jeb of stealing the election by intimidating black voters all over the state of Florida. ........ Jackson made the stunning comments to two reporters from HUMAN EVENTS magazine -- who captured the exchange on tape..." ABCNews 12/11/00 AP "....The Florida Supreme Court, answering a U.S. Supreme Court query, said Monday in a 6-1 opinion that it relied on state law but did not change it when it extended a deadline last month for recounting ballots in the state"s contested presidential election. ....... The lone dissenter was Chief Justice Charles T. Wells. ........Democrat Al Gore had asked for recounts in three Democratic-leaning counties over the objections of Republican George W. Bush and Florida'"s GOP leaders. The recount trimmed Bush"s state-certified lead from 930 votes to 537 out of 6 million cast statewide. .......The U.S. Supreme Court, after hearing oral arguments Dec. 1, last Monday vacated the ruling, telling Florida's high court to explain why it ruled as it did and expressing concern the state court was making law instead of interpreting it. ......" ABCNews 12/11/00 AP ".... The Florida court on Monday clarified its reasoning, saying it did not change law to extend the deadline for submitting the results of hand counts. It said it merely gave counties the time they lost after Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris wrongly told the counties that hand recounts were only justified to correct machine malfunctions. "As a result of this opinion, Palm Beach County and potentially other counties were thwarted in their efforts to complete the manual recount," the Supreme Court said. The court described itself as "the ultimate arbiter of conflicting Florida law" and said it was not making new law but instead was interpreting laws "enacted long before the present election took place." ...........Despite the extension, the hand recounts didn't put Gore ahead of Bush, who was declared the certified victor. Gore then launched a legal contest of the election and the Florida Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision reversing a trial court judge's decision against the vice president, ordered recounts of disputed ballots statewide. The U.S. Supreme Court halted those manual recounts over the weekend and heard oral arguments in the Bush v. Gore case on Monday. ......" ABCNews 12/11/00 AP "....Florida Chief Justice Wells, who strongly objected to the statewide recount resulting from Friday's ruling, dissented in Monday's 6-1 ruling as well and said he didn't think the justices should consider the matter "while the United States Supreme Court has under consideration Bush v. Gore." .........Gore lawyer Dexter Douglass said he didn't know how the new decision by the Florida high court would affect his client's chances at getting the count restarted. "We"ll just have to see how it plays out," he said. "It seems like there's something new every day, every hour." ............Bush lawyer Barry Richard said he

doubted that Monday's state high court ruling would have much effect on anything the U.S. Supreme Court does. "It didn't seem to be a major issue with them today," he said. ....." Freeper Democrats are liars ".....Fox news reported that Jesse and Gore have meetings everyday. Gore is in on this racial divide crap. Gore is in essence calling for riots! Where is the liberal media?? Why is no one reporting this???...." Steve_Seattle ".....They have a right to take to the streets for peaceful demonstrations, as many of us have done over the last few weeks, but if this turns into another Rodney King riot, or riots, Jesse will share a good part of the blame. ...." WorldNetDaily 12/11/00 Joseph Farah "..... Dear Reverend Jesse Jackson: I have something to say in response to your not-so-veiled threat to provoke riots if the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't rule to your liking in the matter of the presidential vote count: Grow up, do something constructive with your time, get a life. This game you play -- shaking down the American corporate and political establishment by invoking fear -- is getting old. Your credibility -- if you ever had any -- is threadbare at best. There is a growing consensus in America that you are little more than a joke -- and this kind of political extortion will not work any longer. "Even if this court rules against counting our vote, it will simply create a civil rights explosion," you said after leaving today's Supreme Court hearing. "People will not surrender to this tyranny. This people will not stand by and accept this with surrender. We can afford to lose an election -- you win some, you lose some. You can't afford to lose your franchise. People will be fighting for their right to vote and for their vote to count. The same forces that were against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ... seek to disenfranchise us in 2000 and do not want to renew the Voting Rights Act in the year 2007." We know what you are saying. We understand the code words. We all know what you mean by "civil rights explosion." And it doesn't scare many of us. The real civil rights explosion would occur in this country if the Supreme Court bowed to your brand of coercion and intimidation. I hear from people everyday sickened by the way their votes are being stolen by courts, by voter fraud and by attempts to change the rules in the middle of the political game. I know you are desperate. It shows in the words you choose, in the hyperbole you invoke, in the intensity of the rhetoric you employ. You're right about something else: People will not surrender to this tyranny -- the tyranny you would like to impose on the freedom-loving, law-abiding, rules-respecting people of the United States. In closing, let me remind you of one more fact you seem to have forgotten. In suggesting those opposing your shameless, partisan pandering on behalf of Vice President Al Gore, are the same folks who opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, please recall that Sen. Al Gore Sr., your favorite candidate's father, was among the many congressional Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Joseph Farah National Review 12/11/00 Larry Kudlow "...... A hand recount could have favored Bush. ...... Before the U.S. Supremes stopped the latest Florida recount late Saturday afternoon, all the usual pundocracy suspects kept chanting that since Al Gore would win this recount - just as soon as the early tallies were posted - the public tide would shift back to Gore. In other words, W. was destined to lose, either in the court of public opinion or in the court of the final recount. ......But wait just one minute.......... A couple of news articles posted on the web last Saturday morning suggested that the pundits might well be wrong, and Bush might well win the recount. Now, don't get me wrong on this. For all the good conservative constitutional reasons including equal protection, due process, and separation of powers - I'm hoping that the U.S. Supremes shut down Al Gore's recount water completely. But there is a part of me that would like to see a totally clear-cut vote-count victory for Bush - even if it would be his fifth recount victory. ......." Freeper Steven W. analysis of the Oral Arguments in Bush v Gore, Jr.: It's clear that sometime between last week's oral arguments before the SCOTUS in Gore v. Harris and the stay granted in Bush v. Gore last weekend, Anthony Kennedy came off the fence. Today's line of questioning indicates that Kennedy had his questions of jurisdiction answered and the SCOFLAW has

questioning indicates that Kennedy had his questions of jurisdiction answered and the SCOFLAW has placed itself squarely in judgment of the US Constitution & federal law. Last week Kennedy posed several questions as to whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction over something that the Gore team has portrayed as a "States' Rights" issue rather than one involving judicial activism. When the court previously vacated the Harris opinion, expanding the deadlines, etc., and remanded back to the SCOFLAW, as to not even having passed their standard laugh test, it was made clear that the SCOTUS needed to consider the ramifications of various applications of constitutional and federal law. But, possibly, seemingly, in the process of trying to be just a little too cute, the SCOFLAW seems to have fallen into a trap! In the most recent SCOFLAW decision, overruling the trial court & ordering further manual recounts, the SCOFLAW left no doubt has to Kennedy's question of appropriate jurisidiction. Let's go to the interchange that began before Gore attorney David Boies could even finish his first sentence before the justices: KENNEDY: The Supreme Court of Florida said that it took -- that it was cognizant, and the legislature was cognizant, of 3 U.S.C. Section 5 . And for convenience sake, let's call that "new law." KENNEDY: That's not exactly this, but -- when the Supreme Court used that word, I assumed it used it in a legal sense. Cognizance means to take jurisdiction of, to take authoritative notice. Why doesn't that constitute an acceptance by the Supreme Court of the proposition that 3 U.S.C., Section 5 must be interpreted in this case? BOIES: I think, Your Honor, and, obviously, this court and the Florida Supreme Court is the best interpreter of that opinion, but I think a reasonable interpretation of that opinion is to say that what the Florida Supreme Court meant by cognizance is that it was taking into account the desire to get the election over in time so that everyone would have the advantage of the safe harbor, and I think that goes throughout the opinion. KENNEDY: The language used in 3 U.S.C., Section 5 is garden- variety language, so far as the courts are concerned. We can determine whether or not there is a new law or an old law. That's completely susceptible of judicial interpretation, is it not? BOIES: Yes, I think it is, Your Honor. KENNEDY: All right. And it seems to me that if the Florida court, and presumably the Florida legislature, have acted with reference to 3 U.S.C. Section 5, that it presents now a federal question for us to determine whether or not there is or is not a new law by reason of the various Florida Supreme -- the two Florida Supreme Court decisions? BOIES: Except, Your Honor, what the Florida Supreme Court did, I think, in its opinion is to say that in terms of looking at how to remedy the situation, it needed to be cognizant of the fact that there was this federal deadline out there that was going to affect Florida's electors if that deadline was not met. KENNEDY: Well, of course, the deadline is meaningless if there's a new law involved, and that's part of the equation, too. BOIES: Yes, but what I would say is that whether or not there is a new law -- that is, whether there is a change in the enactment in the language of the statute or the Constitution -- is something that has to be decided in the initial instance by the Florida Supreme Court interpreting Florida law. And that's... REHNQUIST: Mr. Boies, there are really two parts to that sentence of Section 5. One is the law in effect at the time, and the other is, "finally determined six days before the date for choosing electors." Do you think the Florida court meant to acknowledge -- it seems to me since it's cited generally, they must have acknowledged both of those provisions. Last week, Kennedy and others had a question. Does the SCOTUS have jurisdiction here? The original SCOFLAW (Harris) decision read like a bunch of liberal activist mumbo-jumbo and was rightly vacated by the SCOTUS as insufficient. So the SCOFLAW spits in the face of the Supreme Court and says, in essence, in their latest decision, ordering new & furthered recounts, "fine, you want us to go give lip service to the US Constitution and associated federal statutes & precedent, we will. We'll pack this full of garbage about this and that, whatever we think you need to get this stuff by so we can get Algore elected". But in their zeal they placed the matter right at the feet of the Supreme Court. The SCOFLAW declared, in blazing defiance, that, indeed their actions were related & subject to jurisdiction under the US Constitution and various federal statutes & case law. Thus, when the Application for Stay arrived on Anthony Kennedy's

desk this past Friday evening, and he opened it up, two questions were answered. The fist was that the SCOFLAW, while spitting at the same time, placed themselves squarely under jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. The second thing that was subsequently & immediately made clear is that, it would seem, then, they're just the guys to take care of it, as the final arbiter, in our country, of such great issues of constitutional scrutiny. The icing on the cake, at least as far as the fate for these rulings by the SCOFLAW are concerned, may also be that on Monday afternoon, following arguments earlier that day before the Supreme Court, the SCOFLAW had the audacity to rewrite their original Harris decision with similar language to try and reconnect their attempts at judicial "interpretation" with Algore giveaways. But, again, in so doing, they've seemingly replaced such squarely before the justices, as within their jurisdiction and, as they say, ripe for proper judgment forthwith. CNN 12/11/00 ".....With a U.S. Supreme Court ruling expected on disputed Florida vote recounts, that state's Legislature will press ahead Tuesday with a special session aimed at appointing 25 delegates to the Electoral College. ......Meanwhile, special committees of both chambers of the Florida Legislature approved resolutions Monday that could lead to the appointment of delegates to the Electoral College -- as an insurance policy, supporters say, to assure Florida's participation in the Electoral College. The state House of Representatives is scheduled to move ahead with its version of the resolution at 10 a.m. Tuesday. ....Committees in the Republican-majority Florida House and Senate approved resolutions to appoint their own slate of electors -- as an insurance policy, supporters say, to guarantee the state's participation in the Electoral College, which meets December 18 to select the president......"Our intent right now would be to move forward," Feeney said at a late-afternoon news conference. "It would be my great hope that we are given some specific advice from the U.S. Supreme Court. ... I know that they are well aware of the deadline. ... If we haven't heard anything, we would proceed as planned." Feeney called the election controversy "not just a hot potato, it's a radioactive hot potato. We're all looking forward to December 18th, when if it is still a radioactive hot potato, it will be in somebody else's lap." ...." CBSNews 12/11/00 "...... The special session of the Sunshine State's legislature edges ever closer to formally joining the battle for the White House. ......... On Monday afternoon, Florida House and Senate committees voted for resolutions that name a slate of the state's 25 presidential electors loyal to Republican George W. Bush. The resolutions now go to the full House and Senate. Republicans outnumber Democrats 77-43 in the House and 25-15 in the Senate. ...........House Speaker Tom Feeney said his chamber was prepared to vote Tuesday to approve the resolution, calling it "a radioactive hot potato." The more cautious Senate meets Wednesday. ........Senate President John McKay would not be pinned down on whether the chamber would vote Wednesday on the resolution - which names the same electors already certified by state officials and signed off on by Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. ......."If we have to act we will, and if we don't have to act we won't, because there are not going to be 6 million votes cast aside," McKay said. ....." New York Times 12/12/00 Michael Cooper Richard Perez-Pena "...... Democrats filed briefs here this morning asking the Florida Supreme Court to overturn the decisions of two lower court judges who decided on Friday not to throw out nearly 25,000 absentee ballots from Seminole and Martin Counties, where Republican workers were improperly allowed to fix Republican ballot request forms that had been rejected. If those ballots were thrown out, it would put Vice President Al Gore over the top............And Republicans looked once more to the issue of overseas absentee ballots, especially from members of the military. They said that if any more recounts were done in Florida, the county canvassing boards should also recount overseas absentee ballots using a new, more lenient standard that was ordered by a federal judge in Pensacola on Friday. Those ballots overwhelmingly favored Gov. George W. Bush, and he would stand to benefit if more were counted......... The Florida Supreme Court gave no indication of whether it would take up the Seminole or Martin County suits. ...... On Friday Mr. Bush won a partial victory when a federal judge in Pensacola ruled in a lawsuit that Mr. Bush had filed charging that seven counties had rejected overseas absentee ballots that should have been counted.......The ruling by Judge Lacey A. Collier of Federal District Court could add to Mr. Bush's slim lead in the Florida count. Judge Collier rejected several of the Bush camp's arguments for reinstating votes, but agreed in two areas. He ruled that any signed absentee ballots that were rejected solely because they lacked a postmark, or solely because there was no record on file that the voter ever requested such a ballot, should be declared valid votes........ The seven counties involved invalidated a total of 337 overseas ballots received after Election Day. ....." New York Times 12/12/00 David Firestone "......The new opinion, in a 6-to-1 vote, stated that the Florida Supreme Court was simply interpreting two conflicting election statutes written by the Legislature, not making new law or basing its opinion on the State Constitution. .......... Tonight's opinion from the Florida court does not directly affect that case, which is now under deliberation by the United States Supreme Court, but at this morning's oral arguments in Washington, a key justice expressed annoyance that the Florida court never responded to the United States court's demand for a new opinion........The Florida court's response came

out about seven hours after those complaints, and its importance now seems to rest on the degree to which its new reasoning affects the United States Supreme Court...........In a footnote to today's opinion, the Florida court said that it has been busy working on the contest lawsuit, on which it issued an extraordinary opinion mandating a new set of recounts that were halted the next day by the United States Supreme Court........"We have issued this decision as expeditiously as possible under the foregoing time constraints in order to timely respond to the questions presented by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dec. 4, 2000, opinion and its remand instructions," the footnote said.........The dissenter, Chief Justice Charles T. Wells, said the majority's timing was bad, and also disagreed with the substance of the opinion. The dissent did not explain why Justice Wells now disagrees with what is functionally identical to the unanimous opinion issued on Nov. 21.............Republican lawyers said they, too, disagreed with the opinion, and found the timing suspicious. "It's curious that less than eight hours after their opinions came in for some rough sledding in the United States Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court decided to respond," said Benjamin Ginsberg, Mr. Bush's lawyer. "What they've done is rewrite the whole statutory scheme, putting in deadlines and dimples that didn't exist before, no matter how much they try to rationalize it."......." CBSNews 12/11/00 Andrew Cohen "......Meanwhile, justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor the two key swing votes on this court in this case - tipped their hands in so many different directions that it's virtually impossible to tell which way they will go. ...... Alone among the Justices, I thought, Scalia didn't seem even remotely receptive to any part of the Democratic argument that, at a minimum, the court should send the case back to Florida with instructions to that court to set good standards for ballot counting. ........ But I also found it interesting that on at least two occasions other justices (including O'Connor) stepped in and answered questions posed by Scalia in a way which helped the Gore attorneys. This suggests to me that perhaps Scalia is not necessarily leading four other justices down the path to a Bush victory but is instead (probably with the silent Thomas) somewhat isolated on many of these key issues. ........ " CBSNews 12/11/00 Andrew Cohen "......For Bush attorneys, the best news of the day was the persistent pressure put on Gore attorneys on the issue of the standards - or lack thereof - to be used to determine when a ballot is a vote in Florida. ........ Clearly several justices - especially centrist David Souter - are troubled that the counting would be too arbitrary and subjective under the state standard endorsed by the Florida court, which suggests that vote counters should look for the "clear intent" of the voter. ...... If a majority of those justices can't overcome this legal and logical hurdle, it is likely Gore will lose this case, and the presidency, on what the court likely would describe as equal protection and due process concerns......... But talk of those standards wasn't all bad news for the Gore team. The court spent an inordinate amount of time, it seems to me, exploring the practical contours of a future recount after a remand of the case back to the Florida Supreme Court with instructions on how to perform that recount. ......... Souter even told Boies, "I think we would have a responsibility to tell the Florida courts what to do about" those standards if the court were willing to embrace the Democrats' position. .........Gore still faces an uphill battle with this court. It won't be easy getting a majority of these justices to authorize hand recounts in any circumstances and clearly there are institutional pressures at work to close down this fight once and for all. ....." Creators Syndicate 12/12/00 David Limbaugh "...... Commentators are wringing their hands with consternation over whether the nation can heal. That is the wrong question. The question is whether Al Gore and his forces will ever lay down their arms. Wounds cannot heal when they are constantly being re-injured. ..........It is immensely ironic that the candidate who has caused all this post-election discord is the one asserting victimhood. ...." CBN News 12/5/00 George Thomas ".....It was November 8, 1876, and the battle for the White House pitted Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, against Samuel Tilden, a Democrat, in a contest that historians later called the longest and most disputed presidential race in American history. .....Early returns on Election Day that year showed Tilden, the Democrat, winning both the electoral and popular vote. But the electoral count was too close to call and a recount followed in several crucial states including, South Carolina, Louisiana and, yes, Florida. ..... In Florida, there were allegations of widespread voter irregularities and to make matters worse, Florida was apparently the last state to complete its election counts. ........ "It's a terrific parallel to today," emphasizes Harvey Oyer, a historian. "The same region of Florida is holding up a national election that is very tight!" Oyer is the great great great grandson of Captain H. D. Pierce, the first white settler in what is today Palm Beach County. Oyer says that not only were there reports of voter fraud but the ballots cast in what was then Dade County, were delayed getting to Tallahassee to be counted.. ......."Absolutely they were (impatient), the way the nation is growing impatient with Florida today!" says Oyer. After weeks of recounts and bitter accusations, Hayes was finally declared the winner on March 2, 1877, two days before Inauguration Day! The race, which left the nation breathless for nearly four months, was decided by a special commission created by Congress to handle the disputed election. Hayes won by a single electoral vote: 185 to Tilden's 184. In Florida, Hayes beat Tilden by 967 votes. But ironically, Tilden

won the popular vote by three percentage points. Sound familiar? ....." Freeper commentary while waiting: WoodrowTKatt on NYT article ".....I listened to the audio and read the transcript. I didn't hear Scalia, or even Kennedy or O'Connor, searching for middle ground. ....... I did hear Souter and Breyer desperately trying to fashion and argument that might lure one of the conservative 5 to their side. I didn';t hear anything to indicate Kennedy or O'Connor were convinced. ......" Dotcomtom "..... I'm a little sick of hearing about the need for a "unanimous" ruling. ..... Roe v. Wade was a 72 decision and I have NEVER heard anyone from the left minimize the fact that the ruling wasn't unanimous. .....No, they simply say that a woman's right to choose is the law of the land and then lie that this "right" is protected by the constitution, which of course it is not. .....I'll take a 5-4 decision tomorrow and laugh all the way to the inauguration! ......" WoodrowTKatt on remark ".... Truth: Not allowing someone to vote is disenfranchisement. Handing someone a ballot and letting them vote is enfranchisement regardless of whether they fill out the ballot right or not. ...." Replied "Yes!!! Media people, who should care about the use and misuse of language, let spinners get away with language abuse like this all the time. Yet another example of bias (as if we need any more). " Piasa in response to "Enter Joseph Klock, who suggested that there is a standard for what constitutes a vote statewide: the voter instructions, which require all loose chads to be removed. At least two of the justices suggested that this could be the standard - Scalia, in a question to Olson, and O'Connor, who in one of the more frank exchanges of the day asked David Boies, attorney for Gore, why the standard wasn't "what the voters are told to do for goodness sake?" ... replied "...About time someone points out that the voter's instructions are themselves the proper standard, and if treated as such there would be no doubt as to 'voter intent.' (Of course, this standard wouldn't give lawyers all those loopholes to allow for more income from all the litigation confusion spawns) ...." Freeper BillyBob ".....Nope, I haven't posted a prediction, so here goes: ...... Even before the Fla. SC's lame excuse that "the dog ate my legal reasoning," which they came out with today, I expected a 6-3 or 7-2 decision in favor of Bush on the case in chief (today's argument), as opposed to the emergency relief, 5-4 on Saturday. The standards for proof are higher for emergency relief. ........ Adding the latest from the Fla SC, which is a cold dead mackerel across the face of the US SC, and I feel even more certain of that result. The fact that there is no decision today makes it pretty clear that the "count that wouldn't die" is now over and done with. Expect the US SC decision early tomorrow. In wrestling terms, it will be a "smack-down." .....The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob, cyberCongressman from Western Carolina ....." WoodrowTKatt "...... I agree that SCOTUS will overturn the SCOFLA recount. But I've seen very little analysis of what SCOTUS is likely to do then in the way of a remedy. Any ideas? Some possibilities: 4. Overturn SCOFLA completely, reinstate Judge Sauls' decision. Game over. 5. Uphold SCOFLA's decision to overturn Sauls, but find an Article II problem with the recount apparatus SCOFLA created. Not sure what happens then -- who if anyone gets to decide what a valid recount procedure would be? 6. Uphold SCOFLA's decision to overturn Sauls, but find an "Equal Protection" problem with SCOFLA's recount apparatus (i.e the lack of an objective uniform standard). Then what -- who gets to decide and implement an objective standard? 7. Overturn SCOFLA on Article II and/or Equal Protection grounds, and find that because of the actions of SCOFLA to date, there is no way to determine the outcome of this election using the laws as of Nov 7. Declare the matter no longer judiciable, and leave it to the Florida Legislature and Congress to clean up the mess, as the Constitution requires. I'm sure there are other possibilities I haven't fathomed. I'd like to see the "game over" outcome as much as anyone, but I fear SCOTUS is too restrained to issue a decision that gives it to Bush......" Associated Press 12/12/00 Robert Tanner ".....The liberal standard sought by Democrats for recounting questionable punch-card ballots in Florida was put aside by most of the local election boards who tried,

briefly, to conduct a statewide recount.........Four of the 14 counties that used the most problematic voting equipment said they would only narrowly consider so-called dimpled ballots - ones where a clean punch did not break through the ballot card. Four more counties barred considering dimples at all. ..........Whether those standards will be put back in play depends on the U.S. Supreme Court. But if the high court allows the recount to begin again, the approach chosen by election officials may determine whether Republican George W. Bush keeps his small lead - or Democrat Al Gore pulls ahead. ........ Boards in many of the 64 counties came to no conclusion in the chaotic hours on Saturday as they tried to comply with a state Supreme Court-ordered recount issued a day earlier. And there appeared to be a dozen different standards. ......" Washington Times 12/12/00 Audrey Hudson "...... The Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday predicted a "civil rights explosion" if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against Vice President Al Gore. ...... Mr. Jackson likened the forthcoming high court ruling on whether a full recount of Florida votes should continue to the 1960s civil rights demonstrations in Selma and Birmingham, Ala......"All that we bled for and suffered for the last 25 years is now in the balance here today. This case is up there with the Dred Scott level of case; did the black man have a right the white was bound to respect? ...... "If this court rules against counting our vote, it will simply create a civil rights explosion. People will not surrender to this tyranny. We will fight back," Mr. Jackson said after attending the high-court hearing. The civil rights leader's comments came after Gallup released a nationwide poll showing three-fourths of Americans believe the high court will be fair........" Washington Times 12/12/00 Audrey Hudson "...... Another Republican strategist said the rhetoric is getting precarious and should be toned down. "They can disagree with the lawyers, candidates and staff, but to start making baseless accusations against the highest court in the land is getting into dangerous territory," said Cheri Jacobus, president of Capitol Strategies........ Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington Democrat and a lawyer who has argued before the Supreme Court, said she has faith in the court. Mrs. Norton said questions from the justices were evenhanded and did not reflect bias for either side as to whether the recount of Florida votes should resume. "I do believe there is more than a good-faith effort on the part of most of the justices to avoid actions that appear political," she said......." Washington Times 12/12/00 Audrey Hudson "...... While this narrow majority is criticized as being political, liberals have overlooked the same split on causes they champion, said Todd Gaziano, constitutional scholar for the Heritage Foundations. Other noted 5-4 split rulings include a June decision by the court to overturn Nebraska's partial-birth-abortion law. The court also struck down a Colorado law that overruled special protections for homosexual rights on a 5-4 split. Mr. Gaziano said the same split occurred in a 1972 decision to overturn all state and federal death-penalty statues, and the 1966 Miranda vs. Arizona case that stated those arrested must be informed of certain constitutional rights upon arrest before they can be questioned......" Washington Times 12/12/00 Rowan Scarborough "...... Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle is blocking passage of a bill that would authorize polling places on domestic military installations and ease the obstacles some service members face in absentee balloting. ...... The Clinton administration also opposes the bill, which the House approved in a 297-114 bipartisan vote Oct. 12. Many Republicans accuse Democrats of stopping the bill as part of a larger strategy to suppress the military vote, just as the party did in Florida in challenging hundreds of overseas military ballots........" Todd Gillman 12/12/00 "...... TALLAHASSEE, Fla. .....So what's so important about the Dec. 12 deadline for naming electors? Plenty. Under a federal law enacted after the scandalized 1876 election of Rutherford B. Hayes, electors named by Tuesday cannot be challenged when Congress counts votes and names the next president in January. If the Florida slate isn't settled by then, and a set of Gore electors ends up being named, Congress can decide which candidate gets the state's decisive 25 votes. ......To ensure a slate of their choice, the Legislature can try to put a stamp of finality on the issue, but not until Tuesday's deadline has passed........ After that, legally the Legislature would be authorized "not only to name electors but to cut off any recounts or ongoing court proceedings," said UCLA law professor Daniel Lowenstein, who wrote a textbook on election law. ...... The U.S. Constitution doesn't set dates, but federal law does: Members of the Electoral College must cast their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year, that is Dec. 18. The same law says that if a state has made a "final determination" of any electoral dispute six days before that - Dec. 12 - that determination "shall be conclusive." Congress can't challenge a slate selected by that time. That's the "safe harbor" provision lawyers and judges have mentioned. ..........Electors can be chosen or replaced after Tuesday. Congress just doesn't have to accept them. So time is running short. ......." The Sierra Times 12/12/00 J.J. Johnson "........ A Nation Divided: A Response to Jessie Jackson By J.J. Johnson - Posted: 12.12.00 Thank you, Jessie for finally showing your hand and showing your true colors

(no pun intended). But, before you play the last trump card of the typical socialist (i.e. violence), it's time to lay our cards on the table. You claim there will be a 'civil rights explosion.' Take to the streets, sir, and you might find a different kind of resistance against you..............To us, Mr. Jackson, it isn't about skin color. It's not even about George W. Bush. It's about the Constitution and the Rule of Law. That is what your side has sought to destroy. And before you throw the first punch, perhaps you should take a look at what your side as done to our side over the past few years. One of the reasons your 'Massa' Gore lost is because he lost every state of the Old Confederacy (including Florida). .......... Some of these states were usually democratic strong holds - until now....." The Sierra Times 12/12/00 J.J. Johnson "........ Please do not consider yourself a "Civil Rights" leader. If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, I submit that he would have been the first to speak out against your actions. You, Jessie Jackson are leading what many considered a noble Civil Rights Movement into the sewer, and the actions of your ilk only make race retaliations worse. You seem to have no problem using people as a weapon against others. You insist on waging class warfare - but you've never had an 'exit strategy'. Perhaps this is why you simply can't just go away. .........And no, I'm not just referring to black people, either. There are just as many narrow- minded whites, and illegal immigrants who'll rally around you or march to your orders. ..........But this time, it'll be different. Your opposition no longer fears your threats. In fact, you were probably talking so loud you didn't hear gun safeties being released around the country after your words were spoken. You, Mr. Jackson, and those who support you have become predictable. Your propaganda has become intolerable. ........Rather than fearing you will "take to the streets", we're banking on it. ..... " Newsday 12/12/00 AP ".....Attorney Joseph Klock said Tuesday that it was just plain weariness that caused him to slip up on the names of two Supreme Court justices in arguing about Florida's vote count before the high court. ''I was so tired that I was happy I didn't call one of them 'Justice Gore,''' said Klock, representing Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who has certified George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's electoral votes. ......... In Monday's tense hearing that could wind up deciding whether Bush or Al Gore becomes the next president, Klock slipped up twice. He addressed Justice Stephen Breyer as ''Justice Brennan'' (who died in 1997) and called Justice David Souter ''Justice Breyer.'' ..... Said Souter: ''I'm Justice Souter. You've got to cut that out!'' Replied the abashed Klock: ''I will now give up.'' ......... That brought laughter, and caused Justice Antonin Scalia, when his turn came, to say, ''Mr. Klock, I'm Scalia.'' ........." Freeper Seruzawa "......I don't think that much should be made of this. I'd bet that the USSC justices hear a lot worse gaffes from nervous lawyers, and quite frequently too. After all, what could be more intimidating for any lawyer than arguing before the USSC in a case like this? ....." Freeper A+Bert ".....It was a back handed slap in the face to a couple of liberal judges. Can you imagine their schock at someone forgetting their name. Klock will never admit it but it is a great ego busting technique. ...." Freeper gulfcoast6 "......I actually think it was a welcomed slip, kind of broke the ice a little. it showed that the best of them and slip up and its no big deal. At least he told the truth and put burden on the voters not follwing instructions, a one simple sentence answer to a complex question. ....." Freeper Deep_6 "..... Gore attorney Boies on the other hand, remembered all the justice's names, he just forgot Constitutional law......" Chicago Tribune 12/12/00 "....... That distant thud you heard over the scrape of your snow shovel Monday reverberated all the way from the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the sound of Al Gore's "count every vote" mantra collapsing under the weight of piercing questions from several of the nine justices. ......... The interrogation left Gore's lawyer, David Boies, stammering for answers. The justices pressed Boies on the most disturbing premise of the Gore campaign's push to keep vote counts going until they produce a Gore victory. Lawyers call this issue "equal protection," but any schoolchild familiar with playground justice would tell you it's just a question of fairness. ......Had the U.S. Supreme Court not halted these subjective recounts Saturday afternoon, any new Florida outcome would have violated the constitutional notion of equal protection: different Florida voters would have had their ballots evaluated in different, and unequal, ways. .......Forced by the U.S. justices to confront that unfairness, Boies wasn't free to agree. To do so would undermine the Gore team's strategy of grabbing votes any way it can, uniform standards be damned. Boies tried to evade the line of questions, and when that didn't work, he at one point went uncharacteristically speechless. ......This newspaper has said from the get-go that ballots must be counted in a uniform way, whether by hand or--as with the original count and statewide recount-- by machine. Boies' embarrassing attempt to suggest otherwise has knocked Gore off the high moral ground he's tried to secure: "Count every vote" turns out to be a platitude that obscures an eagerness to invent whatever--and however many--new

rules it takes to win. ....." FrontPage 12/11/00 David Horowitz "...... JUST AFTER THE SUPREME COURT stopped the vote count and effectively delivered the presidency to George W. Bush, an African-American Democrat from Baltimore named Elijah Cummings summed things up for the losing side: "I just find it incredible. It shocks the conscience. Scores of African-Americans and Jews and so many other people have been deprived of their vote being counted. You want to believe that the courts are not politicized but I think the American people have got to begin to wonder what's going on here." .......... From the moment Al Gore broke the most hallowed unwritten rule of American politics -- that the loser concedes on Election Day -- incalculable damage to the body politic and to the civic order of American life was inevitable. It will take generations to register the full negative ramifications of this one greedy and reckless deed. To sum up for the winning side: In one campaign, Al Gore has done more damage to American government than our most lawless president, Bill Clinton, has managed in two administrations. ........But Elijah Cummings is also correct. Paranoia already an ingrained American political style -- is now going to be the rule of the land. ...This was an election of a hundred million. But Al Gore chose to open Pandora's box in just a handful of Democrat-controlled Florida counties, where African-Americans and Jews are prevalent. He did this not to get a fair result, not to see that "every vote is counted," as he and his minions so hypocritically claimed, but to get the vote he wanted. This is what losing candidates do in banana republics. They refuse to concede; they claim they were robbed. This is what Al Gore did to ours. ......." FrontPage 12/11/00 David Horowitz "......According to Pat Caddell, in at least one West Palm Beach County precinct with a heavily African-American population, Bill McCollum, a white bread House impeachment manager and candidate for Senate, outpolled George Bush two to one. Statewide, McCollum ran behind Bush, even among white voters. Is this disparity plausible? Or was there some hanky-panky behind it? To ruin a Bush ballot, all one has to do is punch the Gore hole. Republicans only mobilized 80 poll watchers for a county with 450,000 voters. Black turnout nationwide broke all records, and, in Florida, blacks were a greater percentage of the voter pool than of the population itself -- a fact at odds with the claims of the NAACP and others that there was disenfranchisement of blacks. It raises the question - now that paranoia has become the national rule - of whether those record numbers aren't themselves an indication of irregularities in the process. In Philadelphia, there are reports that black precincts experienced 70% and even 100% voter turnout. In Florida, at least 2,000 felons, many of them black, voted illegally - thanks perhaps, in part, to the NAACP's voter drive in the prisons. On the Sunday before Election Day, in Congressman Jay Dickey's Arkansas district, black preachers told their congregations that there would be no sermon that day. Instead they were all going to the polls, which had been specially (and illegally) opened for the purpose, to cast their votes. Is anyone confused about whom the votes might have been for? ......." Opinion Journal 12/12/00 Thomas Bray "........ Liberals have suddenly discovered judicial restraint. Even before the U.S. Supreme Court hands down its fateful decision in the case of Bush v. Gore, they are stridently attacking it and accusing conservatives of hypocrisy for being willing to countenance an "activist" ruling. This is, of course, nonsense. The Florida Supreme Court ruling the justices are reviewing affects a presidential election and seems to fly in the face of both statutory and constitutional federal law. .........Here's how ABC News reporter Terry Moran, writing on ABC's Web site, frames the question: "At bottom, this has been a struggle of 'rules' vs. 'fairness,' pitting those who demand a strict and regular adherence to preestablished procedures against those who claim there are values and interests that transcend mere formal obligations." ...... Mr. Moran, reflecting the politically correct prejudices of the American newsroom, hastens to make clear what he thinks of rules: "It is no accident that the biggest champions of rules in general are white men," he asserts. "We wrote them, after all. For centuries, we were the only ones allowed to write them. So rulemaking is something white guys have been very comfortable with and very good at throughout our history." ........... In other words, rules--laws--are just the cultural artifacts of the tribe that writes them. And if George W. Bush's election victory is allowed to stand, it will represent no more than a conspiracy by what Mr. Moran so elegantly calls "white guys," who are using the rules to resist "the will of the voters" as expressed in those dimpled and pregnant chads. ........" Freeper Demidog "...... SCOTUS Decisively Asserts Authority Over SCOFLA (satire) TALLAHASSEE, FL - While the eyes of the nation were riveted upon the United States Supreme Court awaiting a ruling on Florida ballot recounts that could finally end the month-long election battle, a physical battle broke out in Tallahassee when the 9 members of America's highest court barged in on the 7 members of the Florida Supreme Court, obviously taking the state justices by complete surprise. Few words were exchanged before fists started flying, said eyewitnesses, and within seconds total mayhem

ruled. The fight broke out, apparently, over the issue of last week's Supreme Court ruling which remanded a previous ruling by the Florida court, and the state court's failure to adequately respond in a manner that satisfied the 9 Supreme Court justices. According to eyewitnesses, it was Chief Justice William Rehnquist who led the charge, barging through the huge, wooden double doors of the Florida Supreme Court's main courtroom where the Florida justices were straightening their robes in preparation for a photo shoot for Newsweek Magazine. With black robes flowing behind them, the other 8 members of the federal court quickly entered and soon had the cowering Florida justices surrounded. "You call that a response?" screamed Rehnquist at the terrified Florida magistrates. "Do you know who you're dealing with here?" Justices Harding and Lewis then moved quickly behind Florida Chief Justice Wells who was heard to mumble, "I warned you guys, but you wouldn't listen." Justice Antonin Scalia then stepped forward and, according to one eyewitness, flashed a blackjack. "You look at the Chief Justice when he's speaking to you!" Scalia yelled, "We've come here on federal business and we're not in any mood for your blatant disrespect!" While brief glances were exchanged by the lower court, justice Anstead of the Florida court stepped forward and began to make a claim about state's rights before a hard right hook by Justice Clarence Thomas sent Anstead flying backwards, knocking over several photographers. "You want state's rights, buddy? That's the only right this state court is going to get," blasted the normally quiet member of the high court. While Justice Shaw of the Florida court turned to run for cover, Justices Souter and Stevens tackled him from behind and soon wrestled the elderly Shaw into submission. With Souter and Stevens holding Shaw in a spread eagle postion, Justice Breyer gave Shaw a noogie while hissing, "Naughty, naughty judge! You had this coming, you know." The remaining Florida court members appeared panicked, but Chief Justice Rehnquist appeared calm and in control, making quick glances and motions, signals for the rest of his colleagues to enter the fray. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor appeared only too eager to mix it up, grabbing justice Pariente by the hair and giving the younger arbiter a quick head butt. "Does the term 'rule of law' mean anything to you kangaroos down here?" queried O'Connor to Pariente who was bleeding from the forehead. When no answer came, O'Connor quickly got Pariente into a headlock while Justice Ginsburg offered a series of swift kicks to Pariente's black-robed behind. "This court is a disgrace!" impugned the elderly Ginsburg before one last kick that sent Pariente crashing through the railing at the front of the courtroom. "Judicial restraint! Judicial restraint!" pled Justice Quince who was quickly joined by the remaining members of the Florida Supreme Court not already sprawled on the floor. But their pleas fell on deaf ears as Quince was met with a quick Kennedy karate chop to the throat followed by another hard Thomas right hand, this time to the midsection. Rehnquist and a visibly angered and red-faced Scalia then made quick work of the remaining state magistrates. Scalia, known mostly for his quick legal mind, showed equal quickness, witnesses said, with his footwork and his fists. Even the Chief Justice, 76, landed several satisfying uppercuts which appeared to silence the Floridians. Rehnquist appeared pleased with his own performance and was later heard to say with a smile on his face, "I almost forgot the pleasures of a good legal tussle." The whole legal battle, one that many court observers have already compared to the most decisive landmark decisions in history, lasted a mere 2 minutes. With the 7 members of the Florida Supreme Court laid flat and left groaning, Rehnquist whistled sharply and headed for the exit, followed obediently by his grinning colleagues who exchanged high-fives and butt slaps. Judge N. Sanders Sauls was among the first to greet the high court justices, shaking their hands and offering glasses of cold Gatorade. Neither Mr. Gore nor members of his legal team could not be reached for comment, but it is rumored that a concession speech from the Vice President is expected at any moment.

Freeper Alex P. Keaton ".... On Election Day, the pundits say, black Floridians turned out to vote in record numbers. In total, it is calculated that 893,000 black voters showed up at the polls, a 50% increase over 1996. There is only one problem with this theory. There aren't 893,000 registered black voters in the state of Florida. According to the website for the Florida Department of State, 875,135 registered voters in Florida identified themselves as African Americans -- 10.7% of those who chose to describe their race. A further 145,980 voters declined to state their skin color. Assuming 15,000 of these voters were African Americans, that leaves us with 890,000 black voters. The projected black turnout, based on these numbers: 100.3%. A precinct-by-precinct analysis of some of the counties with the largest black populations shows that not only did African American turnout not match the media hype: it wasn't even close. For now, never mind the fact that all black registered voters (and them some) would have had to vote to make up 15% of the voting population. Instead, keep in mind this stat: black turnout would have to be 40% higher than turnout among the rest of the electorate. Looking at these precincts, did it even come close to that? Nope. In Palm Beach County, site of the imfamous butterfly ballot, 39,898 people were registered to vote in precincts that were more than 50% black -- and 21,720 showed up to vote, a 54.44% turnout. Turnout in the rest of Palm Beach County was 62.95%. Not only was black turnout not higher -- in Palm Beach County it was eight points below the average -- and the total number of voters factors in both the undervotes and the overvotes which supposedly occurred the most in black precincts. Miami-Dade County is home to one fifth of Florida's African American population. If there was any surge in the black vote, one would see it here first. In 1996, 97,504 voters in Dade's majority-black precincts cast votes for President. In 2000, 101,866 voters in these same precincts voted -- a 4.5% increase. Countywide, this statistic was 12.5%. In the Cuban community, there were 12.7% more voters in 2000 than in 1996. In all, these black precincts saw a 60.97% turnout, nearly four points lower than the 64.7% turnout countywide. (Because precinct-level under- and overvote data is not available for 2000, this data compares the number of ballots that were legally cast in the Presidential election, not how many voters showed up at the polls.) The same pattern holds in Duval County, where a confusing ballots allegedly stymied the votes of thousands of African American voters. Here, we have the benefit of knowing precinct-level data for spoiled ballots and including it in the turnout figures. However, since we do not have demographic data for these precincts, we will consider all precincts where Al Gore got 80% or more of the vote as the majority-black areas. Here too, turnout was lower (63.97%) than it was countywide (68.79%). In total, these three counties represent 36.5% of the state's African American voters. No evidence of a surge in black voter turnout could be found. Since black turnout was actually slightly lower than overall turnout, it is safe to assume that around 10% of Floridians who went to the polls were black -- not 15%. So where did this mythic 15% figure come from? The answer is the same exit polls that caused us so much agony on Election Night and were responsible for the faulty Gore victory call early in the night. Those exit polls showed that 15% of Florida's voters were African Americans -- 50% more than the true figure. Now we see why Gore was called the winner. Gore won overwhelmingly among black voters and the exit poll dramatically oversampled those same voters. Just to show you how lazy the media actually is, do you want to know where they came up with the notion that 893,000 blacks had voted in Florida? Simple. They just took the total votes cast for President in Florida (5,958,643 or thereabouts) and multiplied it by 15%. The figure that popped up in the collective calculators was 893,796. Incredible. Rather than conducting sound precinct-level analysis, the media actually placed blind trust in exit polls which turned out to be totally bogus. The intellectual sloth in evidence here is completely astounding. ......" Freeper Brandon "......Greta on CNN is spinning frantically. She says it was a mistake for the FSC to release their decision on the remand last night. In her view, the remand wasn't relevant to the case the USSC is deliberating on right now, and releasing their decision on the remand only confuses the public. Maybe

someone should inform Greta that the FSC decision last Friday was based on the presumption that their vacated order of November 21 was still in force. Someone should also point out to her the blatant unfairness of requiring attorneys to argue against a vacated order, and only releasing their reasoning in reinstating that order after the hearing is over. She also is moaning and wringing her hands that Justice Thomas should recuse himself. She sounds pretty desperate .... " FoxNews - Gorons contemplating appealing Seminole/Martin County decisions to the U.S. Supreme Court! Freeper the general maximus "..... Freeper tedh90 remarks "....I hope they do. I was secretly hoping that SCOFLA would overturn the Seminole/Martin decisions. It makes the other side looks so bad - hypocricy of "count every vote". Remember, we still hold the trump card of the FLA legislature and the US House of Rep. ...." FoxNews 12/12/00 Freeper Outraged at FLA "...... The Florida Supreme Court will not hear two lawsuits asking for 25,000 absentee votes to be thrown out. On a pair of 6-0 opinions, the justices upheld the rulings of two state judges, both of whom had said the ballots should count even though local election officials had permitted GOP activists to add information to their absentee ballot applications. ...... The decision closes off one more route to victory for Al Gore, who was not a party to either suit but would have benefited enormously if the appeals were successful. .......The cases, brought by Democrats in Seminole and Martin counties, center on a 1998 absentee ballot law enacted by the Florida Legislature after fraud was unearthed in a Miami mayoral race. To make sure absentee ballots were obtained by the actual voters, the state began requiring a voter identification number to get a ballot, but not to cast it. ..........." Freeper kazander adds ".....Gotta love the ignorance of reporters. Newsflash: The Florida Supreme Court did "hear" these two lawsuits. They rejected the appeals on the merits based on the legal briefs that were filed. Oral argument isn't necessary to "hear" a case. As the supreme court says at the end of both of its opinions: NO MOTION FOR REHEARING WILL BE ALLOWED. How can there be a rehearing if there was never a hearing? Perhaps, in the same way that we need to "count" all of the votes that have been recounted. *grin* ....." UPI VNY 12/12/00 Paul Singer "....The U.S. Justice Department may investigate allegations that minority voters were blocked from casting votes in the presidential election, according to several voting rights advocates.......... A Justice Department spokesman refused to comment on the department's activities other than to say that officials there are reviewing the complaints to determine whether a formal investigation is warranted........... Civil rights advocates say thousands of minority voters were disqualified from voting because they were erroneously listed as having been convicted of a felony. Other voters claim they were sent away from their designated polling place to another location; that their names were not on voter rolls at polling places despite the fact that they had recently registered to vote; that they were turned away for lack of proper identification; and that in some cases, polling places simply closed early............ But DOJ spokesman Kara Peterman would not confirm that the department has sent investigators to the Sunshine State. "We have gotten allegations into the department," and are "gathering additional information" Peterman said, but department officials "have not opened an investigation" into the Florida allegations......... Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, told UPI Tuesday that she is preparing a letter to DOJ asking the department to "impound all [voting] machinery and equipment" in key districts, "so that as the case advance we will have evidence to examine," without fearing that it has been tampered with........." Associated Press 12/12/00 Larry Margasak "......The Republican-run Florida House on Tuesday approved 25 electors pledged to George W. Bush, acting even as the U.S. Supreme Court deliberated the fates of Bush and Democrat Al Gore. The vote was 79-41 as Republicans easily muscled their resolution through the House and set the stage for a historic Senate session on Wednesday. Two Democrats voted with Republicans. While the Senate is Republican by a 25-15 margin its president, John McKay, would not be pinned down on when the chamber would vote. ....." UPI VNY 12/12/00 "......Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Florida's election laws need a major overhaul before the next election in 2002 because of all the problems that continue to linger after the last election Nov. 7. "Felons voted, there were allegations of people not being on voter rolls, there were the whole question of the chads and all that. ....." CNN 12/12/00 Freeper report "..... Greta Van Sustern on CNN right now making case that both Scalia and Thomas should recuse themselves, citing Scalia's son who works for a law firm representing Bush and Thomas's wife who works for the Heritage Foundation. ...." LA Times 12/12/00 Ronald Brownstein "......At the core of the case that George W. Bush presented Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court was a legal argument that Democrats believe could reshape America's voting

system in ways that ultimately benefit Democrats more than Republicans. ... The reason: Voters using punch cards are far more likely than those using optical scanners to have their votes rejected by tabulating machines. ... .. . If the recount was conducted under the Palm Beach standard, Gore could potentially lose nearly 400 of the votes he gained in Broward, and about 100 of the 168 he earned during the initial recount in Miami-Dade. It's far from clear whether Gore could make up such a loss elsewhere in the state. ......" MRC 12/12/00 L. Brent Bozell III "........ When the Florida Supreme Court split 4 to 3 on Friday in demanding yet another hand recount, liberal justices put the state's election laws into a blender and hit "puree." In reporting the story, the networks had no taste for exploring the views of the dissenters, and zero interest in exploring the ideological agenda of the liberal Democrat majority. On Friday night, ABC, CBS and NBC did not once mention the ideology of these four judges....... But when the U.S. Supreme Court halted recounts with a stay the following afternoon, suddenly the same media found wild-eyed partisanship, deep division, and public-relations damage. Network reporters made sure viewers knew of the "conservative/liberal split" on the court and realized "conservatives" were behind the stay order. The Washington Post and The New York Times both made no mention of division in their Saturday Florida headlines, but both found a "split" or "divided" court in the Sunday headlines..........CBS was more outrageous. ...... While CBS never mentioned the all-Democrat-appointee lineup of Florida's Supreme Court, Rather quickly warned of partisan nature of the enemy in Washington: "Bush will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a majority of Republicanappointed justices. The Republican-controlled Florida legislature is now almost certain to choose its own slate of Bush electors, setting up a possible constitutional and political showdown." ........" MRC 12/12/00 L. Brent Bozell III "........ On Friday afternoon, in ABC's special report, Sam Donaldson even warned Republicans not to highlight the liberal Democrat judges in Florida: "If the Republicans complain that this was a Democratic court in Florida, that's a little dangerous ground because seven of the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court were appointed by Republican Presidents." Sam suggested labeling is best left to the "objective" media, and dangerous business when done by Republicans...... " MRC 12/12/00 L. Brent Bozell III "........ Throughout five weeks of this electoral mess, the networks have followed one unmistakeable pattern: every court, politician, or activist who supported Al Gore is not to be labeled a "liberal," or even a "Democrat." But conservatives and Republicans should be labeled early and often as partisan politicos. ....." Freeper CWW ".......The fact of the matter is that the Court is addressing 3 different, complex constitional issues. Each question may be answered with a different vote. For example, the Article II question may produce a 5-4 split; whereas the Equal Protection/Due Process question may produce a 7-2 split. Then, after the majority opinion is written, the other Justices may respond with dissenting and concurring opinions. This takes time because the drafts are circulated among the Justices. It is only after this process is complete and the opinion published that there is a decision publicly reported. In sum, CHILL OUT -- This is not the Florida Supreme Court. Its the UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. ...." Freeper blutobob "......SCOTUS will cite the case of Broward County v. Hogan, 607 So.2d 508, a 1992 Florida case that directly held that hanging chads and dimples are not legal votes: On March 12, 1991, appellee, Alfred S. Hogan lost an election for a council seat on the City Council of Oakland Park in Broward County, Florida. In the election, Douglas P. Johnson was the winning candidate. A total of 2,609 votes were cast, which included fifty-eight overvotes and forty-two undervotes. On first count, the election resulted in appellee receiving 1,016 votes and his opponent, Johnson, receiving 1,019 votes. On the same evening as the original computer count, a computer recount was obtained, in which appellee received 1,014 votes and his opponent, Johnson, received 1,019 votes. The total votes cast remained 2,609; however, two votes previously cast in favor of appellee in one precinct were this time classified as overvotes thereby causing appellee to lose by five votes. The result of the recount was certified by the appellant, Broward County Canvassing Board. The following day, appellee requested a hearing to contest the results and requested a manual recount of the election results. The request for a hearing was granted. The minutes of the hearing reveal that appellee stated that he wanted a recount because of the closeness of the election and the differences between the two machine counts. Appellant explained that voter errors in the piercing of computer ballot cards created loose or hanging paper chads which, although present on the first count, subsequently fall away on a recount, thereby causing the difference in count. Such voter errors, the board explained, are caused by hesitant piercing, no piercing, or intentional or unintentional multiple piercing of computer ballot cards, creating what are referred to as overvotes and undervotes. The board thereupon denied appellee's request for a recount. Appellee timely filed this action in the circuit court pursuant to section 102.168, Florida Statutes (1991).

Although there was no evidence adduced that the machines were malfunctioning, improperly used, or improperly calibrated, nor any evidence adduced that there was fraud or impropriety in the manner in which the election was held, nonetheless, the trial court reversed the denial of appellee's request for a manual recount and ordered one to be held. This appeal followed. The Florida court went on to reverse the trial court, holding: All that should have been considered by the lower court was whether appellant failed to perform some mandatory statutory act or whether there were any electoral improprieties which had, not possibly might have, an influence on the ultimate choice of the voters. Appellant acted within its discretion in this case; and the trial court erred in reversing the initial denial of the manual recount request made by appellee. Thus, since the rules were changed, Florida's election is in doubt. SInce the election is in doubt, the legislature had to act. Since the legislature acted, the case is moot because the legislature's determination is conclusive on Congress. This ruling will validate Bush's election under the old rules, confirm the legislature's decision as binding and will moot out all other election cases. If SCOTUS did anything else, it would be going too far. Why? Because the Florida Supreme Court may well have the power to change the rules. But if it does so, the choice will not be conclusive. The existing Bush electors may not be conclusive, becasue the Florida Supreme Court could enforce its order invalidating it. You heard it here first! ......" After the US Supreme Court Ruling Freeper DugwayDuke "....... Tribe says that the remand is like a bequest from a paupers will, ie, it is meaningless. SCOTUS also said that there is no way a consitutional recount can be done prior to the 18Dec. This is a major, major victory for Bush. ....." Elenchus File 12/12/00 "...... Notwithstanding the Demoncrats spin attempts to the contrary, the decisions by both the Florida Supreme Court and the U. S. Supreme Court split not along partisan lines, but were completely nonpartisan. Democrats on both Courts split evenly and voted with the Republicans. Three of the seven Democrats on the Florida Supreme Court found that the majority decided illegally to upend the laws enacted prior to the election by the Florida State Legislature, and one of the two Democrats on the U. S. Supreme Court also found the Florida Supreme Court decision was unconstitutional since it was in violation of the Equal Protection clause of the U. S. Constitution. ...... This was by the numbers a bipartisan judgment on the part of both Supreme Courts, and in no respect undermines the legitimacy of the prospective Bush presidency. ........ The rule of law has prevailed, and Democrats must accept reality of the Bush win and the concurrence of a significant portion of the Democrat Supreme Court Justices. ......." MSNBC 12/12/00 Freeper hispanarepublicana "...... David Bloom of MSNBC just gave it away to Brian Williams. He has visited with Gore aides in Florida tonight who keep saying, "The holes are there. Gore COULD fight on, if he wanted to. He doesn't HAVE TO concede." Friends, this is the game of low expectations. The only way for Gore to look magnanimous now is to appear as if he doesn't HAVE to concede......." Boilermaker86 "...... Let Gore have a chance to momentarily save face on his way out tomorrow. We really need to put an end to the talk of faithless electors, and get on with setting up a George W. Bush administration. If Gore can muster a "We fought hard for a cause I believed in, but I accept the decision of the USSC and now it is time to move on and unite behind George W. Bush as our next President", then that's the way our system is supposed to work. He may have come to that conclusion 5 weeks too late, but if he does get there, give him a brief bit of credit. ...... The credit Gore gets for this will be fleeting. In the end, Gore's 5 week temper tantrum has cost him any viability he might have had for a future run. And the bitter irony for Gore is that his friends will turn on him more viciously than we would ever be capable of. The Dems will start distancing themselves from his losing cause beginning tommorrow, and in six months he will be more of a pariah in Democratic circles than Carter and Dukakis. ....." Big Ezy "...... Earlier tonight I heard Tim Russert on MSNBC explaining how Bush has won there is really no recourse for Gore. He had that greaseboard he uses with the Electorial College and added the 25 to Bush. As he was doing so he said President-Elect Bush has 271. ........ The others at MSNBC just looked at him like he was crazy. Russert said it is 12:03AM in Florida and Bush is now President-elect Bush. Bush's electors are all in place as of today. I have to give Russert credit he is the first National news person to call Bush President-elect. ......"

Theresa "...... I tend to agree. It is going to take awhile for this to soak in but I think Gore will give up and make a satisfactory concession speech. We all know Dubya will be gracious to Al Gore... that's Dubya. So while it is great for us to vent here on these threads I know we expect Dubya to behave better than we are and we admire him for it. But we should always remember this. We should remember how we all stuck together and how when we present a unified front against the dems we can win. We've been through the worst and we survived and we are stronger and the GOP is going to be stronger. Never again will I cringe when I hear Dem spin or liberal media spin. I just laugh at it now. It does not bother me near as much as it use to. We've got to stop having an inferiority complex!! Let's do our daily affirmations: We smart enough, we're strong enough and doggone it people like us!! ......" Boilermaker86 "...... You are right that we should not mistake being magnanamous for being weak. This has been a wake-up call to me that there are people out there who don't think of 'fairness' in the same terms as we do. I have always considered myself fairly 'bi-partisan', and have been shocked at how far that Democratic politicians I had respected were willing to go in support of creative counting. ........ Before the election, I could never have envisioned myself donating to the Bush campaign, the RNC, and the Republican Senatorial Campaign committe. Before the election, I could never have envisioned relying on an unmoderated internet site as my primary source of unfiltered news. Before the election I could never have imagined myself putting up politcal signs in my yard each day, only to have them stolen each night. Before the election, I could never have envisioned myself standing outside the Naval Observatory chanting. In the past five weeks, I've done all those things. And I don't intend to take it for granted in the future that a sense of fair play will triumph without the aid of a lot of work. ......" CNN Freeper Patriot "...... CNN is saying that Jackson is outraged at the USSC decision and will hold a press conference in Memphis where Dr. King was shot. ....." Rintense "....The fact that he would even try a subtle comparison to Dr. King makes me even more sick. ....." Patriot "...... CNN is starting to play the race card. They say that African Americans will be angry tomorrow and this decision could cause backlashes.....Here we go...." StoneColdGOP "..... Jesse Jackson equates the SCOTUS ruling with the King assassination? What an ass. What an absolute abomination of a human being. How the hell did he ever get the title "reverend"? Can we please send him away to Red China and see if he fights REAL civil rights abuses? ......" Rintense ".....Jackson is now saying his Rainbow Coalition with get the Florida ballots and count them. Jackson also refered to the SCOTUS as "crowning" an winner, and that he would find the real winner. WEll, Jesse, I can tell you where the real LOSER is right now... " Leroy S Mort "...... Brit Hume says Rainbow will have to get in line behind Larry Klayman LOL ......" Parsifal "..... I say more power to Jesse! The bigger scene he makes the dumber all Dimocrats look. He has a completely illogical argument! Even the idiot press is going to have a hard time swallowing the lie that blacks were "dis-enfranchised." But in the meantime, you go ahead and raise a racial ruckus! ....." Amerigomag "........ It gets worse. CNN just went to great lengths to portray to their national audience that Jesse Jackson's attitude represents the feelings of most blacks. This is the only network to legitimize the Jackson posture. ......" Vicki "...... Martin Luther King is probably rolling in his grave. Jesse Jackson uses his people for his own financial and political gain. He probably had been offered a cabinet position with algore in exchange for rallies and threatening civil disobedience if the USSC ruled in favor of Bush. Jesse Jackson is a dangerous man. He is a divider of races. ......" Nsmart "...... Worse yet, Jesse just compared this ruling to the Dred Scott ruling. The one that said Blacks weren't citizens. Unbelievable and CNN says most blacks feel that way? I don't think so! ....." Azzurri "...... Tonight on MSNBC, Jesse Jackson equated this Supreme Court ruling with the 1857 Dred Scott Decision. The Dred Scott decision, for those that don't know, declared that no black -- free or slave -- could claim US citizenship. It also stated that Congress could not prohibit slavery in US territories. Jackson basically compared a decision that deals with hanging and dimpled chads to slavery and bigotry. Wow, this man is a moron. ....." MD5 "..... CNN just had on Lawrence Tribe, backpeddling that he said time to give up and concede. Jeff read

him his own statement via the news service as he said on NBC. .....First DNC and now Tribe. Seems the dems have gotten regrouped and trying to push the loose cannons in line......." Ravison "...... The Gore people obviously told him to stop it, but I have to give Tribe credit for admitting that (a) dissenting opinions often contain harsh overstatement and (b) the stay didn't run out the clock because 7 justices agreed that the way the latest recount was being conducted violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Also, despite the hesitancy of Gore to concede, this portion of the majority opinion puts the last nail in Gore's coffin: ........ "Because the Florida Supreme Court has said that the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the safe-harbor benefits of 3 U. S. C. 5, JUSTICE BREYER' s proposed remedy - remanding to the Florida Supreme Court for its ordering of a constitutionally proper contest until December 18 contemplates action in violation of the Florida election code, and hence could not be part of an "appropriate" order authorized by Fla. Stat. 102.168(8) (2000)." ......" Torie replies "....This is the nail the Gore militants will try to pry loose. The theory is to get the FSC (the final arbiter of Florida law presumably) to say otherwise. ....." Tbeattny replies ".....Not going to happen. The US Code and U.S constitution trump Florida law. The Florida Legislature codified its Constitutional plenary power into Florida Law. The SCOTUS ruled today that there is NO remedy that the SCOFFLA can come up with that runs afoul of the intent of the Legislature. Indeed, SCOFFLA has already ruled that the 12/12 date was the date the Legislature was intending to hit in its codification. The SCOTUS put the SCOFFLA in a box. I suspect the SCOFFLA will "in light of the guidance from the SCOTUS, remand it back to trial court." And then refuse an appeal from that court when it rules for Bush. ...." L'enn "...... Well the Dems had their chance in 1999 to put Gore in the White House and Republicans would have accepted, but they passed. Be careful of what you might want, you might get it. Backing Clinton during impeachment ended up screwing the Dems big time. They traded a great chance of 6 years, possibly 10 years of Gore in the White House for 2 years of a lame duck Clinton. Hahahahahhaa. You blew it losers!! Was it worth it? LOLOLOL If you listened to us you wouldn't be here now ....." F.U.Baseyev "........ Bernie Shaw read the comments he made on NBC/MSNBC, and he was really making himself look foolish. Look, he is probably pissed more about not getting to argue the SCOTUS round II hearing. There is no way Tribe could have held up under the grilling Boies got on Monday, it is now clear pulling Tribe was a bit of brilliance on Ron Klain's part (although it was all doomed from the start). ......" Dellschick "........CHRIS MATTHEWS & BRIAN WILLIAMS GORE IS NOT CONCEDING going to Fla Sumpremes tomorrow!! INSULTING THE U.S. SUMPREME COURT!!! THIS IS SCARY!!! MATTHEWS SAID GORE WILL NEVER CONCEDE!!! ....." Billybob ".....There's a lot of misreading of the US SC decision going on. Some of it, in the lamestream media, is deliberate. What's happening here on FR is, I'm sure, accidental. ........ Even if there is time for a recount (which there isn't), it would have to be under a standard that "existed prior to 7 November," That means no "dimples" and no "pregant chads" because neither of these were accepted as votes in Florida, prior to 7 November. The time limit of 12 December is in the FEDERAL LAW, not in the florida law. So, it is beyond the reach of the Florida SC. .............So, your comment is corect, that flipping Bush-pledged Electors is the only route left. But trying this is also a failure, since the only election in which a flipped Electoral College vote mattered was in 1876, and Congress simply put the flipped vote back in the column where it started. (It was an Elector from Oregon pledged to Republican Hayes, replaced with a Tilden Elector, but Congress gave the vote back to Hayes. Hayes won by a single vote. ......... If Gore continues to fight, the Repubs should challenge the election that led to the appointment of the Widow Carnahan. It takes only one Senator to challenge that result, and as long as the challenge is unresolved, the Senate will consist of 50 Republicans and 49 Democrats, and Vice President (for now) Gore will have no vote. ............,That will assure Repubs of control of BOTH Houses at all times, both before and after the Electoral College votes are counted and accepted. Then, Bush should niminate Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana to a Cabinet post. (Breaux is a Blue Dog Democrat -- conservative and a good guy genereally.) Breaux will be readily confirmed by his fellow Senators. Then, the Republican Governor of La. will appoint a Republican to take his vacant seat. Permanent end to the "tie" in the Senate, and to the power-sharing arguments. ........ The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob, cyberCongressman from Western Carolina ....." ABCNews 12/13/00 Nightline Freeper SpiritofTruth "...... ABC News.....Nightline: Gore's lawyers: "If there is anyway to fight this on the remand, this is what we are going to do..." Freeper gaijin "..... Naz100 futures shooting up now; 71 points up now on Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight! ......"

LincolnLover "......Johnathan Karl said on CNN (@ 11:30 EST) that a "high ranking aide to a senior Dem Senator" has told him that the Senator and other Dems of note will jump ship as soon as Wed. if Gore presses on and fights. ...." Torie "....... Gore's lawyers found the weakness which I found, which is that SCOTUS is interpreting the FLorida law as requiring the matter be wrapped up by the 12th. The FSC could say otherwise. But by the time this all gets back in play, the 18th will also have been blown for wrapping up the recount under a new regime (which would be quite time consuming). I think the FSC has probably had enough. It may be able to climb Mt. Whitney for Gore, but not Mt. Everest. There is not enough oxygen on the top of Everest to allow the FSC to get there. ......" WoodrowTKatt ".......He's not going to concede Wednesday, he'll be back before SCOFLA. Larry Tribe was explaining the basis on CNN: 1) SCOTUS said Florida Legislature intended for safe-harbor date (12'th) to be met. But THIS IS FOR SCOFLA TO DETERMINE -- it's purely Florida law. (Larry Tribe, on cnn) 2) Recount could extend past the 18'th (day electors are supposed to meet and vote). (Frank Sesno, quoting Gore sources, CNN). 3) SCOFLA has already affirmed principal of counting every vote (Frank Sesno quoting Gore sources again). In other words, Gore may try to claim that SCOFLA is the CONTROLLING LEGAL AUTHORITY! It's crazy, but so is Gore. I say he doesn't quit......" WoodrowTKatt "..... There is a remand, but the SCOTUS 5 majority said that another recount is not an available remedy. So there's not much even SCOFLA can do with this, now. ......" Whoozit ".....Fox now reporting that Ed Rendell has spoken too soon. DNC wants more time to explore what Gore should do... sheesh... " AP 12/12/00 "......A U.S. Supreme Court as divided as the nation's voters ruled for George W. Bush in the Florida presidential election case Tuesday night, reversing a state court decision that had ordered new recounts sought by Al Gore.............. In an extraordinary late-night decision that unfolded on national television, the justices said the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated equal rights and there was not enough time to conduct a new effort that would meet constitutional muster.......... The court's unsigned opinion said seven justices agreed that there were constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida court, but that they disagreed on the remedy........``It is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work,'' the court said.......... But the majority said that because Florida lawmakers intended in effect to complete the choosing of electors by Dec. 12 an order requiring a new recount ``could not be part of an appropriate'' remedy............ " AP 12/12/00 "......Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas went further in a separate opinion, saying the Florida Supreme Court also violated the Constitution and federal law in ordering the recount........ In a blistering dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens called the Bush legal appeal a ``federal assault'' on the laws of the state of Florida......``Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law,'' Stevens wrote in a dissent joined by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Also dissenting was Justice David Souter......."

AP 12/12/00 "......If Bush won in the Supreme Court, aides said, the Texas governor would keep appointments on a slow track, proceeding first with a series of actions to show the country he could heal divisions created by the marathon election......... He would be likely to deliver a high-minded unifying speech, then meet with congressional leaders, including Democrats, and perhaps President Clinton before making public his transition plans, advisers said.........." Reuters 12/12/00 "......Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, a legal adviser to Vice President Al Gore, said on Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the case of George W. Bush vs Al Gore, handed a victory to the Republican presidential candidate.......... "I think that the gracious thing is to accept even if one disagrees with the decision of the Supreme Court," Tribe, one of the leading constitutional experts in the country, said in an interview broadcast on NBC and MSNBC........ "I'm sure that Vice President Gore has the kind of reverence for the Supreme Court as an institution that he will really not undertake to be less than complete and gracious in his acceptance of this result," Tribe said......" Hardball Freeper ambrose "...... Patrick Caddell: "Gore would get his clock cleaned in a fair recount"...." And "...Caddell also pointed out that Bush has 300 more military votes in the bag because of a Federal Judge's ruling on Friday... Matthews was like "Oh, that's interesting..." and ".... Caddell also said that Gore is being "used" by some of his advisers for their own cynical purposes. He practically begged Gore to call it a day because if he does manage another count under fair rules, he will be absolutely humiliated... " Structure "...... Caddell just blamed the Florida Supreme Court for blowing up this whole election into a giant mess. He was countering Liz Wiehl (yuck!!!) and the usual Dem spin against a "partisan" Supreme Court. Also interesting that Lawrence O'Donnell was claiming the Dems were jumping all over Rendell because it can't look like Gore has been pressured to concede---his concession will then be anticlimactic......." UPI 12/13/00 ".......The White House's general services division was set to hand over transition space and federal funds to Texas Gov. George W. Bush on news of the Supreme Court ruling against Vice President Al Gore. "I think that we've seen something happen that is a major marker in this process," said General Services Administration spokeswoman Beth Newburger, who hinted that the high court's block of Gore's Florida recount request was enough confirmation of Bush's apparent victory to free $5.3 million in federal transition resources that have remained in limbo since Nov. 7. ......General Services Administration chief Dave Barram is expected to make a statement sometime Wednesday. Barram has total discretion to release the funds once a winner is "apparent," according to federal law. So far, Barram has left the transition resources on hold while the legal challenges to Bush's certified Florida victory play out. ....." T.Hall 12/12/00 "....... If reports from Gore's aides are to be trusted, Gore is now considering going back before the Florida Supreme Court, and trying to get it to cooperate with further efforts to recount votes. The aides are talking about a "crack in the door" of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. I still don't see that the USSC leaves any room but for concession. Here, though, is the Gore case. As I read the USSC decision, Gore's case would be to get the FSC to find that the Florida legislature did not intend for Florida's electors to be certified by December 12 if all the legal votes in Florida were not counted by that date. Gore will also have to get extensive changes made in the Florida recount system. He will then either have to get those changes and the recounts done before December 18, or get the FSC to rule that the Florida Legislature did not intend for Florida's electors to participate in the electoral college if that interfered with a legal contest to an election. Here are the details behind Gore's crack in the door: In its opinion, the USSC relies on the FSC's opinion that the Florida Leglislature intended for Florida to take part fully in the federal election for president, including enjoying the safe harbor protections of federal law. The deadline for enjoying that protection is, of course, December 12. The USSC is careful not to make its own finding on what Florida law is. The USSC cites as evidence for its understanding of the FSC's opinion the following from the recent _Palm Beach Canvassing Board vs. Harris_, released on Dec. 8 (quoted from the FSC's opinion): [quotation] The Legislature of this State has placed the decision for election of President of the United States, as well as every other elected office, in the citizens of this State through a statutory scheme. These statutes established by the Legislature govern our decision today. We consider these statutes cognizant of the federal grant of authority derived from the United States Constitution and derived from 3 U.S.C. 5 (1994) entitled "Determination of controversy as to appointment of electors." That section provides: [[from 3 U.S.C. 5]]If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment

of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes asprovided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned. [[end 3 U.S.C. 5] end quotation] The FSC quotes the federal statute, just to be clear, in its own opinion. Here's more of what the FSC said in the _Harris_ opinion. Apart from what I've quoted above, the FSC says in more than one footnote that time (on December 8) is "desperately short". The FSC says that the "imminent" deadline will require state workers to work over the weekend of Dec. 8-10. It also says that while the practical considerations caused by the deadline may determine the outcome workers should try to count votes nonetheless. Still, in Gore's defense, the FSC doesn't actually produce a sentence that says explicitly that the counting should stop by December 12. Nonetheless, it's hard to understand what other deadline the FSC might be thinking of when it says that workers must work over the weekend, etc., and which it says threatens to arrive before counting can be completed. This itself is an impossibly high hurdle, in my view. This fight to get the FSC to rule in apparent contradiction to what it believes in _Harris_ is just the beginning, though. The USSC explained in its opinion what would be required for the Florida recounts to meet equal protection standards: [quotation] It would require not only the adoption (after oppor-tunity for argument) of adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote, and practicable proce-dures to implement them, but also orderly judicial review of any disputed matters that might arise. In addition, the Secretary of State has advised that the recount of only a portion of the ballots requires that the vote tabulation equipment be used to screen out undervotes, a function for which the machines were not designed. If a recount of overvotes were also required, perhaps even a second screening would be necessary. Use of the equipment for this purpose, and any new software developed for it, would have to be evaluated for accuracy by the Secretary of State, as required by Fla. Stat. 101.015 (2000). [end quotation] Gore would have to get these, or comparable, things done in Florida _and_ either (1) get votes recounted in time for Florida to certify electors by the 18th of December, or (2) get the FSC to find that the Florida Legislature did not intend for its electors to vote in the electoral college if all of the legal votes in Florida could not be totalled by that time. (On (2), Gore could then just try to win on the basis of the electoral votes cast minus Florida, or attempt to have Florida's electors accepted by Congress in early January.) Just taking the language of the USSC language literally, obviously Gore has no chance of getting these things done by December 18. The suggestion of the USSC, furthermore, is that it will view with great skepticism any attempt to rush a new recount process in Florida. They are hinting strongly, I think, that recounting before Congress recognizes the electors in January is through. What will Gore do? If he doesn't concede, he's going to suffer "irreparable harm" politically. And he'll still end up losing. We'll see if Gore concedes tomorrow. ....." Freeper JeepInMazar "..... Sheperd Smith just called Bush "president-elect even if no one wants to hear it" and that the Supreme Court voted "7 to 2, that's right 7 to 2"! ....." Wall Street Journal 12/13/00 Robert Greenburger Joni James "...... In a highly confusing decision born of intense division, the U.S. Supreme Court all but sealed the election of George W. Bush as the 43rd president of the United States.......... The dramatic ruling, issued shortly before 10 p.m Eastern Standard Time Tuesday night, reversed a decision by the Florida Supreme Court to order a manual recount of thousands of ballots, saying "it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work."..........The unsigned ruling came after 14 hours of deliberation and contained six different opinions. But its principal conclusions appeared to have the support of the court's five conservative members, who apparently agreed that Florida law "cannot reasonably be thought to require the counting of improperly marked ballots." ......... The court held out an

extremely thin reed of hope for Vice President Al Gore, by remanding the case to the Florida court to search for a remedy that would be consistent with the opinion. But it was clear the majority of justices believed no such remedy could be put in place in time to meet Tuesday's deadline for selecting electors........" Wall Street Journal 12/13/00 Robert Greenburger Joni James "In addition to the five conservatives, this view was shared by Justices Breyer and David Souter. But, the opinion added, Justices Breyer and Souter disagreed as to the remedy. Justice Breyer proposed sending the case back to Florida's top court for it to order "a constitutionally proper contest" that would conclude by Dec. 18. But the five conservative justices added such an action would violate Florida election code............In a dissent to the majority opinion, Justice Breyer, appointed by President Clinton, said: "There is no justification for the majority's remedy, which is simply to reverse the lower court and halt the recount entirely." Wall Street Journal 12/13/00 Robert Greenburger Joni James "....... "Based on a preliminary review without a chance to read the opinion thoroughly, it appears that we've won, and that the court agreed that the recount procedures were unconstitutional and violated equal protection," said Philip Beck, a GOP attorney, who was part of the trial team that won the lower-court ruling in Tallahassee initially throwing out the Gore contest. The court, Mr. Beck continued, "held that given this late date, those problems cannot be cured and still secure the voters of Florida the benefits of the safe harbor" that comes from meeting the Dec. 12 deadline........Former Secretary of State James Baker, Mr. Bush's point man in Florida, stopped short of claiming victory, saying only that Mr. Bush was "very pleased and gratified" by the decision......" Wall Street Journal 12/13/00 Robert Greenburger Joni James " In the meantime, Democrats displayed confusion and defeat. "I'm in a room with a lot of people who don't know what the hell this means," shouted one man into a cell phone as he paced the corridor outside the offices of the Gore lawyers in Tallahassee. Meanwhile, "massive confusion" reigned at the Democratic National Committee on Capitol Hill, according to one Gore staffer, "with lots of people watching different networks trying to figure out what was happening, followed by a dawning realization that it was not good news." ...... Not good at all. What it seemed to mean was that Mr. Gore's hopes for the presidency, nurtured since he was a child, were over, at least for this election......." Wall Street Journal 12/13/00 Robert Greenburger Joni James " ........At the home of Judge N. Sanders Sauls, whose ruling against Mr. Gore had been overturned by the Florida court, Judge Sauls and his wife Cindy watched the TV results with some satisfaction. "It supports what I did," Mr. Sauls told his wife, who repeated the remark to a reporter over the phone. "They also denied the relief, the same as he did," she added......." Wall Street Journal 12/13/00 Robert Greenburger Joni James "Robert C. Post, a constitutional-law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the opinion was a victory for the Bush legal game. ......... Mr. Post, a former law clerk to the late Justice William Brennan, said that conservative justices on the federal court had managed to turn the Florida court's opinion against itself. "They got the Florida Supreme Court to commit to the proposition that the Florida Legislature intended to meet the Dec. 12 date."........ The federal court found constitutional problems with the lack of adequate standards for the recount, Mr. Post said. Then it said, "you could possibly remedy this by a recount, but if you do that, that would be violating the intent of the legislature, which you have told us fixes the Dec. 12 date." Although his name was absent from the unsigned majority opinion, Mr. Post said the order had the mark of Justice Kennedy. "The language here is the language from Kennedy's questions," he said -- language that focused on the fairness of the method of counting votes. Mr. Post said that the opinion could have implications even beyond the wrenching dispute over the nation's highest office. The high court threw out Florida's state standard of evaluating ballots by the intent of the voter. Since "that's the standard in many states, it means that the laws in many states is going to have to be reexamined in light of the objectivity of their standards for reading reading votes. It's pretty remarkable stuff."......." Freeper Azzurri ".....Well, the Supreme Court ruling is in and it's a 5-4 decision to end the recounts. Let's evaluate the records of how the Justices voted and which President appointed them: Reagan 3-0 (Scalia, O'Connor, Kennedy) Nixon 1-0 (Rehnquist) Bush 1-1 (Thomas, Souter) Ford 0-1 (Stevens) Clinton 0-2 (Ginsburg, Breyer)....." New York Times 12/12/00 "......In the short term, Mr. Bush and Vice President Al Gore bear great responsibility for bringing the nation together in spirit if not in immediate political agreement. Mr. Bush needs to be gracious and unifying in victory, and Vice President Gore must master the difficult task of placing the national need for continuity ahead of any bitterness he may feel......... This will long be remembered as an election decided by a conservative Supreme Court in favor of a conservative candidate while the ballots that could have brought a different outcome went uncounted in Florida. ..... These days will also be recorded as a time of struggle between the nation's highest federal court and a Southern state supreme court that, in a reversal of the old states' rights routine, showed the greater sensitivity to protecting the franchise. Finally,

these will be remembered as days of bitterness between Republicans and Democrats. ....The resolution depends greatly on what the nation sees as it begins to examine the man who upon the stroke of a ruling from an ideologically divided court stands to become its 43rd president. Mr. Bush faces first the task of speaking healing words to a nation that cast 300,000 more popular votes for his rival. ....." 12/12/00 lil 'ol me "......If you read the dissenting opinions in GEORGE W. BUSH, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ALBERT GORE, JR., ET AL., you will note that they all end with the following sentence: I respectfully dissent. All of them, that is, except for one dissenting opinion - that of Justice Ginsburg. Hers ends as follows: I dissent. To me, this appears to be a full-on, open-handed, brutal slap in the face. In other words, I dissent, and I sure as hell don't respect you. BITE ME! ....." mlo in response to "....If the SCOTUS ruled 7-2 that there was a violation of equal protection and that the laws on the books the day of the election should be followed, then how can the FSC create uniform standards without violating the existing election laws? ...." Said "....I can answer this. It was really quite brilliant of them. They found something in Florida law that nobody else had made an issue of. It is that the Secretary of State has the specific power delegated to her by the Legislature to see that elections are carried out uniformly. So SHE can decree a standard. Nobody had asked her to do that. I guess that's why they are the Supremes. :) ...." Freeper WoodrowTKatt in response to "CNN encouraging riots now " said "....I'm watching the live feed, you aren't exagerating. Judy and Bernie are practically urging African Americans into the streets... Now Bill Schneider talking about Jeb Bush ending affirmative action in Florida. ....." Dyno35 "..... Judy Woodruff on CNN was literally crying, tears in her eyes crying, during the midnight to 1 am show as Bill Schneider was talking, telling us how many democrats would never accept Dubya. Unbelievable!!! The Unknown Republican "....My God! I can't believe what CNN just did...that was the most irresponsible reporting I have ever seen! What they HELL do they think they are doing? It's as if they said: "Hey Black People, you're mad as hell and you aren't going to take it are you?" I am at a loss for anymore words... ...." LieFreeGov "..... I *do* hope someone is taping CNN currently....what they are saying is essentially attempting to incite a riot, etc...I am thoroughly pissed.... " Ironman "...... Andrew Napolitano is my favorite analyst. The best part of SCOTUS decision IMHO is the remand back to SCOFLa. In your face! ....." Ironman "...... Got to give credit where credit is due, NBC's Dan Abrams was the first I saw (and I was channel surfering very fast) that found the key sentences in the majority opinion and said "It's over." ......" JP Jones "..... If you watch CNN, they are calling for civil war essentially.">>>>>>>>> Criminal behaviour, bill shnieder, Judy woodcliff, bernard shaw, FCC watching? ...." Associated Press 12/13/00 Robert Tanner ".....Bleary eyed and hoarse, Florida election officials reacted with cautious glee to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling foreclosing further recounts......... Watching television just before bed, veteran elections supervisor Kay Clem saw the news of a pending court announcement scroll across the screen. ``I thought, `Hot dog! This is it,'' the Indian River County official said. After she saw reports on the complicated ruling, however, she said: ``I think it's over.'' Others were even more cautious. ...... ``As nothing in this election has been cut and dried, I'll have my attorney look this over in the morning,'' said Marilyn Gerkin, Sarasota County's election supervisor. Still, she was hopeful. ``The election has lasted five weeks. It's kind of nice to see that there may be some closure to this.'' ......" Associated Press 12/13/00 Sandra Sobieraj ".....Al Gore faced a gathering consensus that it was over. Alone with his wife and children, he weighed the unhappy next step. After 35 days of fighting to recount Florida's presidential vote, the vice president was not quick to surrender. Campaign chairman William Daley gave him some breathing room. ......... ...... Gore conceded to Bush once before, in a telephone call in the wee hours of Nov. 8, but called back to retract it as the decisive Florida vote appeared more and more uncertain. With those two phone calls, Gore, who won the national popular vote by more than 300,000, set this unprecedented - oftentimes unthinkable - election battle spinning. ......... Partial recounts in scattered Florida counties whittled Bush's unofficial lead to a mere 200 votes or less. ..........." Freeper KC_Conspirator ".....Williams also rattled off a bunch of critical 5-4 decisons such as Miranda and Planned Parenthood and said no seems to remember what the splits were on those decisions. ....." and ".... Williams called what Jackson said "Hyperbole" and I actually think Matthews was pissed at the the race

baiting. ...." Washington Times 12/13/00 "..... Anti-establishment activists and liberals are planning to flood the District with massive protests on Inauguration Day, prompting city police to brace for the deluge with an unprecedented level of security. .......Many of the groups that demonstrated against the World Bank here in April intend to return to the District with their puppets and mantras, regardless of who takes the presidential oath of office on Jan. 20. ....And supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore, led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, are planning a "civil rights explosion" if Republican George W. Bush is officially named the winner. ......."We're not planning civil disobedience, but we are planning to fill the streets of Washington with thousands of people," said Brian Becker, co-director of the New York-based International Action Center, which is coordinating the protests. ....." Freeper met "...... Three honest people stopped the theft of this election! Thanks to Katherine Harris for being strong and refusing to break the law. Thanks to the Honorable Charles E. Burton, chair of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board for not assigning votes to Al Gore on ballots that recorded no votes for president. If Mr. Burton had not been a honest man and if he had cheated for Al Gore the media would have created an atmosphere that probably would have made Gore the next president. Think about it! Thanks to Judge Sauls for not being willing to over rule Charles E. Burton. We came within an inch of loosing a lot more than just an election. ......" Truthkeeper "....Judge Terry Lewis needs to be on the list, too. Don't forget his ruling that Katherine Harris did not abuse her discretion. ...." Kimlee ".... Dont forget Judge Clark, and those fine democratic lawyers for the Bush team. ...." Common Tator "..... I was especially impressed with Judge Clark. She had and has a lot to lose by following the law. She did what she thought was right. She did not do what would make her popular or even tolerated in her own community. .......... It think it is much easier for a Sauls, or Lewis to rule for the law. They don't have to face the black community anger that she faces ......It took incredible guts to rule as Judge Clark did. It would have been easy for her to rule the other way. The media would have supported her ruling against Bush completely. Judge Clark is a great American. Judge Clark obviously believes in the rule of law. To paraphrase Dick Cheney, this nation owes her big time. ......" Madmaxx "..... Pat Caddell was pretty cool as well. ....." Demidog "...... The deadline for voting passed. And Bush was declared the winner. Gore conceded. And then he renegged. Our Vice President the "Indian-giver." (heavy emphasis on vice). A legislatively-mandated recount was ordered. And Bush was declared the winner. A sore loser demanded manual recounts in cherry-picked, heavily democrat-leaning counties. And Bush was declared the winner. And Katherine Harris certified George Bush the winner and consequently President-elect. A lawsuit was filed, the certififcation vacated, and a new recount deadline extended by the Florida Supreme Court. And the votes in the cherry-picked counties were recounted again. Palm Beach couldn't finish in time. And Bush was declared the winner. Democrats tried to get the military ballots thrown out in all counties. Charging that republicans mishandled absentee ballot requests, they asked the courts to render all absentee ballots in Seminole and Martin as moot. In Seminole county, Nikki Harris, while having her character utterly and viciously impugned by some of George Bush's supporters, ruled that the Gore case had no merit. Similarly, Gore was rebuffed in the Martin county court house. George Bush was still the winner. Bush took the recount decision to the U.S. Supreme Court which promptly remanded the case back to the Florida Supreme Court. George W. Bush was still the winner. The Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, certified Bush the winner as mandated by the legislature

and the Florida Supreme Court's new certification deadline. George W. Bush was now officially certified as the winner and President-elect. Judge Sauls ruled against yet another recount of "disputed" ballots in a delayed (by the Florida Supreme Court) election contest suit brought by Gore's attorneys, saying that Gore and his lawyers hadn't produced a scintilla of evidence that the election results would change even if the votes were recounted. George Bush was still the winner. The Florida Supreme Court overturned Judge Sauls, and ordered a state-wide recount. They also refused to hear arguments regarding the discarding of some 15,000 absentee votes in Seminole and Martin Counties. George Bush lost a ruling about something he was contesting in the 11th circuit of appeals in Atlanta, Georgia. It didn't matter. He was still the President-elect. Gore's lawyers appealed to the Florida Supreme Court regarding the Seminole and Martin absentee ballots. The Florida Supreme court passed. George Bush was still the certified winner in Florida. Al Gore's lawyers appealed to the 11th circuit in a last ditch effort to get military ballots thrown out. They were denied. George Bush was still the President-elect. George Bush's lawyers applied for a stay in the Florida Supreme Court. They were denied. They tried again in the U.S. Supreme Court and were granted both a stay and a Writ of Certiori. George W. Bush was still the President-elect. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Florida Supreme court had erred based on the interpretation of our Federal Constitution, and 5-4 to vacate the Florida court's ruling, remanding the case back to the Florida Supreme Court. George Bush was still the certified winner of Florida and President-elect with 371 Electoral college votes. At no time since November 7th, the night of the election, did the outcome of the election ever change. At all times, George W. Bush was President-elect of the United States of America. Nothing happened. Everything happened. It's now December 12, 2000. The state deadlines have passed. No recount can occur, even if the Florida Supreme Court issues an early morning "clarification" which sets a state-wide standard, The Florida legislature also on December 12th, passed a joint-resolution certifying a second set of electors for Bush should they be necessary. Of course they weren't necessary. There is only one possibility left. And that is if three of the originally certified electors for Bush change their votes on December 18th. That is as likely to occur as is a Gore concession before George Bush's inauguration as President of the United States of America. ......" Washington Times 12/12/00 "......Senior Gore advisers, one of whom CNN identified as campaign chairman William M. Daley, said several members of the vice president's staff believe he has to drop out of the race. But aides said they do not know whether Mr. Gore will concede......Other key supporters, including Laurence H. Tribe, the lawyer who argued Mr. Gore's first Supreme Court appeal, also signaled that the election was over. The first blow came from Ed Rendell, the Democratic National Committee's general chairman, who called on Mr. Gore to concede. "Checkmate," added Rep. James P. Moran, Virginia Democrat. "It's over." .........Mr. Moran said the decision leaves Mr. Gore with "nowhere else to turn" and that Mr. Gore will likely concede the race today to Texas Gov. George W. Bush......Mr. Bush "now needs to be gracious" to heal the nation's wounds, he said......" Washington Times 12/12/00 "......Mr. Bush's spokesman in Florida, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, said the Texas governor and his running mate, Richard B. Cheney, were "of course very pleased and gratified that seven justices of the United States Supreme Court agreed that there were constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court." Mr. Baker did not declare victory in the brief statement and appeared to purposely leave Mr. Gore room to step aside..........

Washington Times 12/12/00 "......Sen. Robert Torricelli, New Jersey Democrat, sounded fatalistic. "It appears to me that the last vote has been counted in Florida," he told CNN. That prompted a bitter rebuke from Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani, who said the vice president deserves time to study the ruling......."In every party there are people who would rather get on TV than be fair and reasonable," he said......." New York Post 12/13/00 ".....Put this fiasco in perspective: On Nov. 7, a majority of Florida's voters backed George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. After a full machine recount confirmed Bush and Cheney's victory, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman still refused to concede. Instead, they challenged the election results, prompting hand recounts in selected areas - in a blatant attempt to manipulate the results. ...... After several court cases, the official responsible for elections in Florida - Secretary of State Katherine Harris - tried to certify the results of the election, including any recounts completed by the statutory deadline, Nov. 14. Then, in an unprecedented display of judicial activism, Florida's Supreme Court had the temerity to block Harris from carrying out requirements set by the Legislature.........In so doing, the court deliberately ignored the U.S. Constitution's explicit language - in Article II - giving state legislatures the power to decide the "manner" in which presidential electors are to be chosen. ........ How did the court cross the line? By changing the Legislature's deadlines and procedures. It altered Harris' deadline to Nov. 26, from Nov. 14. And so she included all amended recounts completed by that deadline. The upshot: Bush and Cheney were still the winners. ...... It was on that basis that a slate of electors was chosen, pledged to the Republican candidates. And it was on that authority that Florida's Legislature yesterday began moving to select its own electors - which it had every right to do. ....... But the lawmakers' slate, remember, would not be necessary - except that Florida's justices seemed set on disqualifying the slate chosen by popular vote. .... The jurists went ahead last Friday and arrogantly ordered yet another recount - this one statewide and with no uniform standard for evaluating votes. ..........So the case went to the court of last resort - the Supreme Court of the United States. And that court last night dealt the fatal blow. ......" New York Post 12/13/00 ".....The high court found several constitutional problems with the Florida court's recount order. On that, seven of the nine justices concurred. "The recount process, in its features here described, is inconsistent with the minimum procedures necessary to protect the fundamental right of each voter . . ." said the court. ........ The court said that too much work was required to develop any process that would pass constitutional muster within the time left to get the job done. And, most significantly, it said that Florida's Legislature had explicitly sought to have the process wrapped up by Dec. 12 - yesterday. "Because," the court said, "it is evident that any recount seeking to meet the Dec. 12 date will be unconstitutional for the reasons we have discussed, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida ordering a recount to proceed." ....... Most notably, though, the court reaffirmed the Legislature's right - and responsibility - to act today to secure Florida's participation in the Electoral College. ....... " CNN 12/13/00 "......Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, whose ruling against the vice president was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, "felt his opinion had been upheld," his wife, Cindy, said. "We feel good there's closure for our country." ........... She said her husband watched news coverage of the Supreme Court decision, concluded he'd been correct in his initial decision and promptly went to bed. ....... After the state Supreme Court reversed his ruling, Sauls recused himself from the case without saying why, forcing the county to appoint another judge to supervise the recount that was quickly halted by the U.S. Supreme Court. .......On Tuesday night, Mrs. Sauls told CNN that he felt the ruling by the state's high court was unconstitutional. "I don't see why the court has the power to do that," the judge's wife quoted him as saying. "They are going against the Constitution of the U.S. I've got to recuse myself. I can't in good conscience go forward when I feel everything within me says it's against the (U.S.) Constitution." ..........Mrs. Sauls said her husband did not think it would be appropriate to explain his recusal until after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case. ...."He didn't say it publicly at the time because he knew another judge would be assigned," she said. "Now he feels it's over." ....." Brer Fox ".....Judge Sauls reminds us that once upon a time, long, long, ago, there were actually Democrats who cared about the constitution. ...." Carolinamom "....Here's this Giant among pygmies address N. Sanders Sauls Leon County Circuit Court Leon County Courthouse

301 S. Monroe Street Tallahasse, FL 32301-1803 Goseminoles in reply to "Let's not forget Judge Lewis and Judge Clark, who both did the right thing, probably against their own self-interests, under intense pressure. " said "....And their addresses are all the same as posted in post #44. Just direct it to the approprite magistrate. ...." Reuters 12/13/00 Alan Elsner ".......Democrat Al Gore signaled Wednesday he was abandoning his fight for the presidency against Republican George W. Bush, instructing his aides working for a recount in Florida to shut up shop and scheduling an evening address to the nation. ...... The Gore's campaign chairman William Daley said in a statement: ``The vice president has directed his recount committee to suspend activities. He will address the nation this evening.'' ......... Louisiana Democratic Sen. John Breaux, asked on NBC's ''Today'' show whether the country could afford to give Gore a few days to make up his mind, said: ``I think it's going to be difficult ... I think the American public are ready for it to end.'' ......... The tone in early television shows, as well as in the main newspapers, was that even if there might be a narrow legal window still open to pursue a Florida victory, Gore would find it tough to maintain political support to carry on. .......The New York Times, which has supported the vice president, said in an editorial that the Supreme Court had ``brought the presidential election to a conclusion in favor of Gov. George W. Bush.'' ........ Bush's lawyers said the ruling appeared to be a victory, but Bush scrapped tentative plans to give a televised address on Tuesday night, opting instead for silence while he and his staff awaited Gore's next move. ........ The Bush camp was careful not to call on Gore to give up his legal quest for the presidency or to claim total victory. .........." Washington Times 12/13/00 Mona Charen "...... The New York Times and The Washington Post fretted audibly on their front pages Monday morning, worrying that the Supreme Court was "risking its legal credibility" by deciding Bush vs. Gore. The Post took a poke at Justice Antonin Scalia, wondering about how the tribune of state's rights was going to justify a federal override of the Florida Supreme Court. .......This is rich - on many levels. In the first place, far from urging courts to remain aloof from political squabbles in the past, liberals have invited and welcomed judicial intervention and usurpation. Name any of the newly-minted rights - the right to purchase contraceptives, the right to abortion, the right to die - and what they amount to are judicial power plays. These vexing questions rightly belong to state legislatures where they can be debated, regulated and altered as the electorate sees fit. ......But liberals have been discontented with ordinary politics because, at least for the past 30 years or so, they have cared more about outcomes than procedures. If the court could get universal abortion for them by finding a "right" in the Constitution - great. It's so much trouble to try to convince millions of people who may have annoying religious convictions to legalize abortion - far easier to persuade just a few individuals in robes. ......" Freeper LS 12/13/00 "...... Folks, an incredible thing has happened. We may not appreciate the gravity of this for many years. But the Republican Party made as big a shift as it had back in 1860 when it went with an unknown named Lincoln to battle the forces of the establishment. How did Bush, and the GOP, win the "East Front" campaign in Florida? There is cause for celebration because a GOP candidate stood up to the Clinton/Gore/Media/Dem spin machine . . . and won! Despite the demonization and the media bias, Bush beat them---not once, but three or more times. Here are some of the keys to that victory: 1) By fighting, fairly, consistently, and calmly but tenaciously, the Bush team helped encourage Judge Lewis, Judge Labarga, Judge Burton, Judge Sauls, and even Chief Justice Wells to stand their ground. While these all strike me as honorable men, one never knows what would have happened if the sense was that Bush's "heart wasn't in it." 2) FREEPERS and GOP activists should be praised for not just sitting there and "taking it." You cannot underestimate the PR value of the demonstrations. Freepers, you defanged Jesse Jackson, and you claimed the PR offenseive so that the Gorons could NOT claim the "public was on their side." For the first time since the YAF, conservative activists took to the streets in an election. 3) SAY WHAT YOU WANT ABOUT PATAKI, DOLE, AND WHITMAN. They were on the ground, in the trenches, when (for good reasons) Delay and Gramm and others were on the sidelines. Folks, this is one reason it is good to have people like Pataki and Whitman in the party: There are times you need diplomatic "moderates" to be able to go in and act without the mantle of "extremism" being draped on them. No one has ever accused Pataki or Whitman or Dole (since 1974) of being "extreme." So for them to be in on the "recounts" was HUGE. It signalled that the entire GOP was involved in this battle. 4) Conservatives whipped out their wallets. We may not like that Bush spent lots of money in CA---too early to tell if that was wasted---but he also outspent Gore in W VA and TENN!! When the call went out for money to fund the recount battle, the green tide rolled in.

5) We flat have the better babes. As "sexist" as this sounds, it is a huge advantage to have Ann Coulter, Barbara Olsen, Laura Ingram, and some of the other conservo-babes on the tube than screechy hags like Doris Kearns Goodwin or fat Rosie. 6) The party didn't implode. McCain was (IMHO, deliberately) put in quarantine. The good news is that he was useless. But the bad news is that he was useless. Had he been more of a team player, he easily could have nuked the "military ballots" issue, and had credibility doing it. But others, such as Alan Keyes got on board (late, but on board). Steve Forbes, when he couldn't say something good about Bush, talked about Bush's GOOD POLICIES. 7) Nerves of steel. Katherine Harris did not flinch. The FL LEG did not flinch. Well, they flinched, but they fired anyway. The SUPREME COURT, despite wishing it were anywhere but in Washington yesterday, did its duty. 8) James Baker, Phil Beck, and Barry Richard were awesome beyond belief. Ted Olsen, somewhat overcome by his two USSC appearances, rallied for a killer summation. Mr. Klock ("the Glock") was devastating. For these attorneys to go toe-to-toe with Boies---in NUMEROUS different settings, some in different states in the same day---was simply amazing. For once, the legal system and the lawyers worked in our favor. 9) The candidate himself. Can anyone other than the most partisan hack from the "Village Voice" claim that Bush was anything but presidential throughout this? Not a whine, not a gloat, but pure, measured dignity. Confidence, consistency, but always keeping the nation's best interest in focus by emphasizing the transition as necessary to the protection of the country---that was Bush. We will debate in the next months whether a bigger Bush victory was possible (as I predicted) or whether he was blessed just to escape with a one-vote margin. KEEP THIS IN MIND: ......... The majority didn't come close to voting for either Algore OR George W. Bush---half the public stayed home. Let us not forget that in the coming months our job will never be to convince the Gorons that they should have voted for Bush, but to convince the non-voters that next time they need to participate, and be on our side. THAT is where the big bonus of votes comes, and if Bush can govern with the same measured confidence and dignity that he has shown during this "contest," he will be a great president that will attract those voters. ......." Washington Post 12/13/00 Benjamin Wittes "......Last week's disclosure that independent counsel Robert Ray will re-interview Monica Lewinsky removes any doubt that he is seriously contemplating the prosecution of Bill Clinton when the president leaves office next month. .......Whether Al Gore or George W. Bush becomes president, the new president should preempt any indictment by pardoning his predecessor. .......The strongest reasons not to prosecute Clinton rely on political, not law enforcement, considerations: The country has had enough of this affair, and Clinton has already been roundly humiliated. ....." Judicial Watch 12/13/00 ".....Late yesterday evening, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision which doomed the quest of Vice President Al Gore for the Presidency. .... In effect, Vice President Al Gore has been tantalized by the reasoning of the Court, only to learn that any further efforts would be futile in any event, particularly given the statutory deadlines. ........ Judicial Watch will continue with its efforts to uncover the apparent massive irregularities and voter fraud in Florida, not with the purpose of rewriting election results, but uncovering any inherent flaws in our voting system so that they can be corrected for the future. Ballot irregularities in Palm Beach County and elsewhere, where Judicial Watch did its own inspection, were discussed in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision..........Judicial Watch is nonpartisan and, as it takes no positions on elections, did not support or oppose either President-elect Bush or outgoing Vice President Al Gore. ....." MSNBC 12/13/00 "......Al Gore on Wednesday abandoned his quest for the White House, ordering staff members working on the recount effort in Florida to suspend operations, aides told NBC News. Two senior advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press Gore will drop out of the race in the address Wednesday night. "The race is over," said one official who had talked to Gore Wednesday morning. "We're done."...." Politicalusa.com 12/13/00 Scott Gillette "...... It is understandable why the Gore people fought as hard as they did in order to keep the definitive outcome in doubt, as no result since November 7th has been decisive as a victory for the Bush camp in size. But the laws on the books concerning the election should never have been tampered with, least of all by the Florida Supreme Court, the one institution that should be expected above all others in Florida not to invent new election procedures on the fly. In short, the process should trump all other considerations in an election, and the process has made Bush the definitive winner, if not by a definitive amount. ...........But Justice Stevens' prescription of continuing a recount would have marked the second time that the procedure in the state of Florida would have been undermined by judicial fiat.

Moreover, the final recount would have been marked by a complete absence of rules, which would have sullied any Gore "victory" permanently. Justice Stevens, if he had his way, would not be lifting any clouds, but dousing gasoline into the fire. ...... When the Florida Supreme Court made its first decision to resume the recount, it was a textbook example of judicial overreach, but at least that decision was based on the pretense that the recount, as biased as it was in favor of the Democrats, would ensure that Florida's electors would be consecrated by the December 12th deadline. .......The rule of law matters: it provides a modicum of stability when political passions rage. To disregard it when politically convenient is to reject the notion that there are higher principles than mere self-interest, which is the basis for everything transcendent. Al Gore may have found some people for a short period of time who were willing to abdicate the rule of law for transparent political aspirations, but this aggression has been thwarted, for now. Hopefully, it will dawn on the courts and all the participants that calls for further recounts in the coming days only can diminish the election results further. ....." Washington Post 12/13/00 George Wil "......Given the spirit of contemporary liberalism, and given the culture of the trial lawyers' profession, in which the spirit of judicially driven liberalism is distilled to its essence, it indeed probably has never occurred to Boies that, in a republic, legislatures might have policy-making powers equal to, let alone superior to, those of courts. Recovering his equilibrium, Boies replied to Kennedy that, yes, it would be contrary to the federal law for Florida's legislature to have done what Florida's highest court did because that "would be a legislative enactment, as opposed to a judicial interpretation of an existing law." .......... Note well: Boies said it would have violated that federal "prior to Election Day" law if Florida's legislature had created precisely the same post-election facts that Florida's court created. This sad and awful month will be partly redeemed if it brings to a rolling boil a new chapter in America's political argument, a chapter concerning government by courts. ......" Newsmax 12/13/00 Carl Limbacher ".......Is this the next ploy by Al Gore's political machine, to challenge the rules governing electors in each state so that 271 of them can vote for him later this month? It may be so, starting with a 17-page lawsuit filed Tuesday by Reno lawyer Carter King in U.S. District Court seeks a restraining order to prevent Nevada's four electoral voters from casting all their ballots for George W. Bush when they meet Monday in Carson City. Under state law, all Nevada's electoral votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes. Bush won the state 49.5 percent to Gore's 46 percent, according to results certified by the state Supreme Court. If the rule is changed, Gore would receive one of Nevada's electoral votes because he won in one congressional district. ...." Newsmax 12/12/00 Carl Limbacher "...... America's most influential black leader charged Monday night that Texas Governor George W. Bush's likely election victory over Vice President Al Gore would be illegitimate because he won by taking a page from the playbook of Hitler's Third Reich. ....... "He would preside but not govern because he took this by Nazi tactics," Rev. Jesse Jackson told Fox News Channel's Rita Cosby, in remarks that went completely unreported in the print press and were ignored by all the other major TV networks. ...... Jackson's explosive invocation of the German dictator's genocidal regime represents the ugliest and most divisive rhetoric yet employed by either side in the 35-day post election standoff. ...... Over the weekend, House Majority Leader Tom Delay was excoriated by Democrats and mainstream pundits alike for calling Friday's decision by Florida's Supreme Court to overturn a key ruling in the election dispute an act of "judicial aggression." Yet in the 24-hours since Jackson attempted to link Bush to Hitler, his remark has barely been reported, let alone roundly condemned. ......The lone exception was Cosby's own network, which covered Jackson's charge hours after he made it, and then followed up Tuesday on "The O'Reilly Factor." ....." Reuters aol.com 12/13/00 "......The Florida Supreme Court had no immediate reaction on Wednesday to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling against a disputed manual recount in the presidential election, a court spokesman said. .....The justices, who last Friday ordered a hand review of thousands of ballots that could have given Democrat Al Gore a win in the state, arrived at their offices across from the state capitol building in Tallahassee to find a copy of the ruling waiting for them. ......... "We have developed no response to what the Supreme Court has done at the present time," said court spokesman Craig Waters. ...." Associated Press 12/13/00 ".....The government will wait until after Al Gore's concession speech to turn over $5.3 million in taxpayer money and an office to help George W. Bush plan his administration, officials said Wednesday. ``I want to respect both candidates' desire to speak to the country tonight before I make any decision about transition space and funds,'' said David J. Barram, administrator of the General Services Administration. The GSA is in charge of aiding the presidential transition. Noting that Gore had scheduled an address to the nation Wednesday night, Barram said in a statement, ``We have been working with both campaigns so that we are prepared to move quickly.'' He did not say when the money and office would be turned over. ......."

Reuters Excite.com 12/13/00 Thomas Ferraro ".......Democrat Al Gore, stung by a devastating U.S. Supreme Court defeat, has decided to end his presidential run against Republican George W. Bush, Democratic sources said on Wednesday. They said the vice president will announce his decision in a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday, expected to begin at about 9 p.m. EST. Sources said Gore was writing his own speech and would call for a healing of the nation following the highly divisive and protracted White House race. One source said, however, Gore may not actually use the word "concede" to describe the end of his race against Bush, and may instead merely say his campaign is over. Gore has long argued that he likely won the most votes in Florida, which officially went to Bush, as well as in the nation on Election Day, Nov. 7. ......" GOPRealist "...... The dissents by the ultra-liberal USSC Justices are truly inappropriate, misguided, and deeply divisive. Just take a look for yourself: Justice Stevens: "The majority [of this Court] effectively orders the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters ..." Justice Ginsburg: "The Court surely should not be bracketed with state high courts of the Jim Crow South ..." (That's clearly race-baiting from the race-baiter Justice Ginsburg.) Justice Breyer: "... the appearance of a split decision runs the risk of undermining the public's confidence in the Court itself. That confidence ... has been built slowly over many years, some of which were marked by a Civil War and the tragedy of segregation." (That's more race-baiting, this time from Justice Breyer.) Justice Souter: "... the sanction for failing to satisfy the conditions of [3 USC 5] is simply loss of what has been called its 'safe harbor.'" ("Simply?" Souter ignores the risk of gravely disenfranchising all six million Florida voters -- common sense says that loss of the safe harbor is not a "simple" matter to six million Florida voters.) My conclusion is that these four ultra-liberal Justices simply have no common sense. They may be booksmart and may be able to recite from memory hundreds of precedents but the "simple" fact is that they are disingenuous and lack common sense. My suggestion for these four ultra-liberal Justices is to do the following: 1. Read the Per Curiam opinion. 2. Think over the Per Curiam opinion ... over and over and over again ... maybe you'll learn something. 3. Read the concurring opinion by Justice Rehnquist. 4. Think over the Rehnquist opinion ... over and over and over again ... maybe you'll learn something. I conclude that (even the smartest) ultra-liberals just don't get it. No common sense whatsoever......" CNS News 12/13/00 Susan Jones "..... Al Gore's lead attorney David Boies Wednesday said he did his job, the Supreme Court justices did their job, and "it is now time for us to get on with other business." Boies also indicated that Tuesday night's Supreme Court ruling is the end of the line for Al Gore.Speaking to reporters outside his home in Westchester County, New York, Boies said, "We've said from the beginning that when the Supreme Court makes its decision, we were going to accept that decision, whether we agreed with it or not...." Newsmax 12/13/00 Carl Limbacher "......With the Supreme Court considering the oral arguments earlier this week, Jackson went to the steps of the high court to talk about a civil rights "explosion" if the court did not rule his way -- that is for Gore......Reacting to the court ruling, Jackson said the ruling had created a situation where the "Supreme Court was over the supreme vote." ....Adding that he was "deeply troubled" over the court's ruling, Jackson said he planned to go to Tallahassee today to protest the court ruling. ............His group, Rainbow/PUSH, he said, is planning to use freedom of information law in Florida to prove Gore won. And later this month, around Dr. King's birthday, Jackson said he is planning to unleash "massive, nonviolent demonstrations." ...." Government Executive Magazine 12/14/00 "..... After Vice President Al Gore conceded the presidential election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush Wednesday night, General Services Administration chief David Barram announced that GSA would release transition funds and provide office space to the Bush transition team. ......The 2000 Presidential Transition Act, passed in October, allocates more than $5 million for the transition and expands GSA's role in it. GSA will publish a transition directory with information on each agency, and will help arrange briefings and furnish appointees with information on topics such as ethics and

financial disclosure regulations. .....GSA's transition office is at 1800 G Street NW in Washington. ......" The Telegraph (UK) 12/14/00 Tony Harnden "..... DURING the difficult weeks between her husband's prematurely declared victory and Al Gore's belated concession, Laura Bush has remained in the background. ...... While Tipper Gore was part of her husband's decision-making circle, Mrs Bush seldom gave an opinion on what George W Bush's next move should be. She concentrated instead on keeping her husband's spirits up and busying herself with the practicalities of life at their ranch in Texas. ......If one had to select a First Lady who was as different as possible from her predecessor, Hillary Clinton, then it would be difficult to do much better than the former librarian and schoolteacher who grew up in Mr Bush's home town of Midland. She once said: "I've always done what really traditional women do and I've been very, very satisfied." ........" The Telegraph (U.K.) 12/14/00 "......SHYSTERS a-shystering, seven judges judging, six stays a-staying, five dimpled chads, four suing Jews, three hand counts, two certified results, and an indent in a punch card! Next verse, everyone! All together now! On the 37th day of the election, Al Gore gave to me: 37 disqualified military ballots, 36 expedited hearings . . . Hey, wait a minute! Who stopped the music? What do you mean, there's only 36 verses to this song? Who sez? Let's get a recount! ...." Government Executive Magazine 12/13/00 Sydney Freedberg Jr. "...... George W. Bush could make major changes at the Pentagon if he capitalizes on three realities and two early opportunities. The first reality is that executive power simply is greater in national defense than in many other areas. The second is that partisan divisions over the military are small right now, and a consensus exists to spend more money. The third is Dick Cheney. ....... The first opportunity is the fiscal 2002 budget, said David S.C. Chu, a RAND analyst who worked for Cheney in the Pentagon. The second opportunity, he said, will be the Quadrennial Defense Review, the key planning document that the military draws up every four years to update the national military strategy. Although both the budget, which is due to Congress in February, and the QDR, due in September, have already been extensively drafted by the bureaucracy, "that doesn't mean that, at the level of the Secretary of Defense and the President, you can't begin to make major changes," Chu noted, citing Cheney's cuts. ...." Vice President Gore Concession Speech: "...Good evening. Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd President of The United States, - and I promised him that I wouldn't call him back this time. I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so that we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we've just passed. Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Steven Douglas told Abraham Lincoln who just defeated him for the Presidency, "Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you." Well in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains a partisan rancor must now be put aside and may God bless his stewardship of this country. Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road. Certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came and now it has ended. Resolved as it must be resolved through the honored institutions of our Democracy. Over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, Not under man, but under God and law. That's the ruling principle of American freedom, the source of our democratic liberties. I've tried to make it my guide throughout this contest, as it has guided America's deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt. While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our Democracy, I offer my concession. I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new President-elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends. Let me say how grateful I am to all those who supported me and supported the cause for which we have fought. Tipper and I feel a deep gratitude to Joe and Hadassah Lieberman who brought passion and high purpose to our partnership and opened new doors not just for our campaign, but for our country. This has been an extraordinary election. But in one of God's unforeseen pasts this belatedly broken impasse can point us all to a new common ground, for its very closeness can serve to remind us that we are one

people with a shared history and a shared destiny. Indeed, that history gives us many examples of contests as hotly debated as fiercely fought with their own challenges to the popular will. Other disputes have dragged on for weeks before reaching resolution. And each time, both the victor and the vanquished have accepted the result peacefully, - and in a spirit of reconciliation. So let it be with us. I know that many of my supporters are disappointed. I am too. But our disappointment must be overcome by our love of Country. And I say to our fellow members of the world community, let no one see this contest as a sign of American weakness. The strength of American Democracy is shown most clearly through the difficulties it can overcome. Some have expressed concern that the unusual nature of this election might hamper the next President in the conduct of his office. I do not believe it need be so. President-elect Bush inherits a nation whose citizens will be ready to assist him in the conduct of his large responsibilities. I personally will be at his disposal, and I call on all Americans - I particularly urge all who stood with us to unite behind our next President. This is America. Just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done. And while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the one we owe to political party. This is America, and we put country before party. We will stand together behind our new President. As for what I'll do next, I don't know the answer to that one yet. Like many of you, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family and old friends. I know I'll spend time in Tennessee and mend some fences, literally and figuratively. Some have asked whether I have any regrets. And I do have one regret. That I didn't get the chance to stay and fight for the American people over the next four years. Especially for those who need burdens lifted and barriers removed. Especially for those who feel their voices have not been heard. I heard you - and I will not forget. I've seen America in this campaign, and I like what I see. It is worth fighting for, and that's a fight I'll never stop. As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe, as my father once said that no matter how hard the loss, defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out. So for me this campaign ends as it began, with the love of tipper and our family, with faith in God and in the country I have been so proud to serve, from Vietnam to the Vice Presidency, and with gratitude to our truly tireless campaign staff and volunteer including all those who worked so hard in Florida for the last 36 days. Now the political struggle is over, and we turn again to the unending struggle for the common good of all Americans and for those multitudes around the world who look to us for leadership and the cause of freedom. In the words of our great hymn, "America, America," - let us crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others, it is time for me to go. Thank you, and good night. President Elect Bush Acceptance Speech: ".... Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening, my fellow Americans. I appreciate so very much the opportunity to speak with you tonight. Mr. Speaker, Lieutenant Governor, friends, distinguished guests, our country has been through a long and trying period, with the outcome of the presidential election not finalized for longer than any of us could ever imagine. Vice President Gore and I put our hearts and hopes into our campaigns. We both gave it our all. We shared similar emotions, so I understand how difficult this moment must be for Vice President Gore and his family. He has a distinguished record of service to our country as a congressman, a senator and a vice president.

This evening I received a gracious call from the vice president. We agreed to meet early next week in Washington and we agreed to do our best to heal our country after this hard-fought contest. Tonight I want to thank all the thousands of volunteers and campaign workers who worked so hard on my behalf. I also salute the vice president and his supports for waging a spirited campaign. And I thank him for a call that I know was difficult to make. Laura and I wish the vice president and Senator Lieberman and their families the very best. I have a lot to be thankful for tonight. I'm thankful for America and thankful that we were able to resolve our electoral differences in a peaceful way. I'm thankful to the American people for the great privilege of being able to serve as your next president. I want to thank my wife and our daughters for their love. Laura's active involvement as first lady has made Texas a better place, and she will be a wonderful first lady of America. I am proud to have Dick Cheney by my side, and America will be proud to have him as our next vice president. Tonight I chose to speak from the chamber of the Texas House of Representatives because it has been a home to bipartisan cooperation. Here in a place where Democrats have the majority, Republicans and Democrats have worked together to do what is right for the people we represent. We've had spirited disagreements. And in the end, we found constructive consensus. It is an experience I will always carry with me, an example I will always follow. I want to thank my friend, House Speaker Pete Laney, a Democrat, who introduced me today. I want to thank the legislators from both political parties with whom I've worked. Across the hall in our Texas capitol is the state Senate. And I cannot help but think of our mutual friend, the former Democrat lieutenant governor, Bob Bullock. His love for Texas and his ability to work in a bipartisan way continue to be a model for all of us. The spirit of cooperation I have seen in this hall is what is needed in Washington, D.C. It is the challenge of our moment. After a difficult election, we must put politics behind us and work together to make the promise of America available for every one of our citizens. I am optimistic that we can change the tone in Washington, D.C. I believe things happen for a reason, and I hope the long wait of the last five weeks will heighten a desire to move beyond the bitterness and partisanship of the recent past. Our nation must rise above a house divided. Americans share hopes and goals and values far more important than any political disagreements. Republicans want the best for our nation, and so do Democrats. Our votes may differ, but not our hopes. I know America wants reconciliation and unity. I know Americans want progress. And we must seize this moment and deliver. Together, guided by a spirit of common sense, common courtesy and common goals, we can unite and inspire the American citizens. Together, we will work to make all our public schools excellent, teaching every student of every background and every accent, so that no child is left behind. Together we will save Social Security and renew its promise of a secure retirement for generations to come. Together we will strengthen Medicare and offer prescription drug coverage to all of our seniors. Together we will give Americans the broad, fair and fiscally responsible tax relief they deserve. Together we'll have a bipartisan foreign policy true to our values and true to our friends, and we will have a

military equal to every challenge and superior to every adversary. Together we will address some of society's deepest problems one person at a time, by encouraging and empowering the good hearts and good works of the American people. This is the essence of compassionate conservatism and it will be a foundation of my administration. These priorities are not merely Republican concerns or Democratic concerns; they are American responsibilities. During the fall campaign, we differed about the details of these proposals, but there was remarkable consensus about the important issues before us: excellent schools, retirement and health security, tax relief, a strong military, a more civil society. We have discussed our differences. Now it is time to find common ground and build consensus to make America a beacon of opportunity in the 21st century. I'm optimistic this can happen. Our future demands it and our history proves it. Two hundred years ago, in the election of 1800, America faced another close presidential election. A tie in the Electoral College put the outcome into the hands of Congress. After six days of voting and 36 ballots, the House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson the third president of the United States. That election brought the first transfer of power from one party to another in our new democracy. Shortly after the election, Jefferson, in a letter titled "Reconciliation and Reform," wrote this. "The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor; unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner. We should be able to hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom and harmony." Two hundred years have only strengthened the steady character of America. And so as we begin the work of healing our nation, tonight I call upon that character: respect for each other, respect for our differences, generosity of spirit, and a willingness to work hard and work together to solve any problem. I have something else to ask you, to ask every American. I ask for you to pray for this great nation. I ask for your prayers for leaders from both parties. I thank you for your prayers for me and my family, and I ask you pray for Vice President Gore and his family. I have faith that with God's help we as a nation will move forward together as one nation, indivisible. And together we will create and America that is open, so every citizen has access to the American dream; an America that is educated, so every child has the keys to realize that dream; and an America that is united in our diversity and our shared American values that are larger than race or party. I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation. The president of the United States is the president of every single American, of every race and every background. Whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests and I will work to earn your respect. I will be guided by President Jefferson's sense of purpose, to stand for principle, to be reasonable in manner, and above all, to do great good for the cause of freedom and harmony. The presidency is more than an honor. It is more than an office. It is a charge to keep, and I will give it my all. Thank you very much and God bless America. Freeper rintense "...... Well Fox seemed a bit harsh. Sounds like they expected him to walk on water or something. Either way, Bush's speech would have received criticism anyway- no matter what issues he chose to address. Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't. I hate to say it, but Bush is now the media target (yes, even FOX) for the next four years. ......" Freeper Ken "...... Barry Richard on Larry King Live states biggest election reform needed is to get rid of punch ballots. He will be on LKL tomorrow and will TAKE PHONE CALLS. ...." New York Times 12/13/00 David Stout "......Vice President Al Gore formally ended his quest for the White House tonight, conceding to Gov. George W. Bush 36 days after the election and one day after the United

States Supreme Court killed his last hope by ending a recount of votes in Florida. ...... ``I say to Presidentelect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside,'' Mr. Gore said, wishing the victor well. ...... The Vice-President, looking relaxed and smiling frequently, managed a joke or two. He said he had just called Mr. Bush to concede. ``I promised him that I wouldn't call him back this time,'' he said, a reference to his Election Night on-again, off again concession while the fateful state of Florida was in doubt. ........ ``I offer my concession,'' Mr. Gore said, offering to help Mr. Bush unify the country. Referring to the high court decision that ended his quest, Mr. Gore said, ``While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of the outcome.'' ....." Freeper Pototo1 ".....Peter Jennings was simply ridiculous. fighting back the tears, he found it necessary to preface the speech with "Al Gore, a man who won the popular vote." " a corageous fighter." ....." UPI 12/13/00 Peter Roff Shaun Waterman ".....The firestorm of political controversy that has erupted in the wake of Tuesday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the presidential election has led to many to ask whether the reputation of the nation's judicial system has been permanently damaged....... Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent - an extraordinary attack on his fellow judges which has already attracted much attention will doubtless be cited repeatedly over the coming days. The leading liberal justice effectively accused the court majority of undermining public confidence in the American judicial system........ Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin, writing for the Boston Globe on Tuesday suggested that the high court was merely the latest in a long line of national institutions to have suffered as a result of the election imbroglio. "Like some dreadful pestilence," he wrote, "the presidential election of 2000 seems to eat away at the legitimacy of every institution it touches. The US Supreme Court has become its latest victim." ....... A CBS news poll of over 1,000 adults over the weekend asked "how would you describe the way the courts have handled the lawsuits about the Florida vote? It found that 61 percent of Americans believe the courts were making decisions based on politics. A majority of Bush and Gore supporters, as well as a majority of people who voted for neither man, all hold the same view......." UPI 12/13/00 Paul Singer ".....Supporters of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who expected to assume the title of President-Elect Wednesday night, emphasized Wednesday his ability to reach across party lines to heal the partisan divide that the prolonged dispute over the outcome of the election has exacerbated...... But in Florida, and elsewhere, civil rights leaders said there remains a deep suspicion within the black community that Bush won the election largely by using the courts to prevent the counting of the votes of black Floridians. These leaders said they hope to see Bush make reaching out to black Americans one of the first priorities of his administration......." UPI 12/13/00 Hadley Arkes "......In the style befitting an appellate court, the Supreme Court remanded the decision to the Supreme Court in Florida, with the comic understatement that this court would be obliged to do some "additional work" before it could arrange a system of recounting purged of all of the constitutional violations that these judges, in their zeal, managed to produce. As the commentators sped through their reading, they apparently failed to notice the requirements that were spelled out in that "additional work." ........ In the words of Mrs. Malaprop, the Supreme Court was "laying conjunctions" on their counterparts in the court below. For this is what the highest court mandated: --The Supreme Court in Florida would have to come up with a system of counting, clear and consistent in its standards, throughout the counties of the state, rather than leaving a system unguided by any precise standard, or with different standards in play at the same counting table. --But before the court came up with those standards, it would have to hear arguments from both sides. And if the court endorsed anything arguable-such as the counting of the notorious, "dimpled" ballots-then they had to make provisions for an appeal. --At the same time, under Florida law, the secretary of state would have to certify the machinery used in the counting, and if Katherine Harris had any doubts on that score, she could presumably hold matters up there until the issue were properly argued and weighed, with ample time for her office to release a decision. As the court noted, these kinds of contests over local elections had taken the local courts as long as a year to resolve. --And yes, by the way, all of this had to be done by the end of the day of Dec. 12, which was two hours after the decision of the Supreme Court was released......" Even for a court in Florida, untethered from the restraints of lawfulness, it is simply impracticable to meet these requirements. ...."

UPI 12/13/00 Hadley Arkes "...... In his [Stevens] Olympian disdain, he seemed not to notice that he was replicating precisely the vice he was condemning, as he freely expressed contempt for the work of his own colleagues............ But that was hardly the least of the ironies. The most poetic, surely, was the fact that the majority took, as the ground of its decision, the concern for the Equal Protection of the Laws, and it offered as its leading precedents those cases in the 1960s on the reapportionment of legislatures............ The signal cry in those cases was "One Man One Vote." And to vindicate that principle of counting all votes equally, the court entered dramatically into the "political thicket." Even beyond the cases on segregation, those cases marked the willingness of the court to invade the domain usually ruled by elected politicians. The work done later by such luminaries as Lani Guinier would build on the foundation of those cases, and it must be no small satisfaction for the conservatives that they could throw, in the face of their liberal critics, their dearest cases and doctrines......... Of what, then, could the liberals complain? The only grievance remaining is that the Supreme Court had deftly blocked the schemes afoot to engineer the election of Al Gore....." UPI 12/13/00 Hadley Arkes "...... But the hypocrisy runs even deeper, to the root of things. The liberal ethos, in the colleges and the schools of law, has been to deny, radically, the existence of moral truths, cutting across cultures, and lasting through time.......... And yet, we found a Supreme Court in Florida invoking its "equity" powers, the powers that permit an appeal beyond the statutes to those enduring principles of justice and equity that do not depend on the written law. Throughout the controversy, the liberal demand has been to "count every vote," as though every vote had the same moral claim to be counted....... But what principle underlay that standard? The Founders thought it was "all men are created equal," for all humankind were "endowed by their Creator" with certain "unalienable rights."....... Yet, the postmodernists on the bench, and in the academy, have insisted that the Founders were simply white male racists, that their so-called principle was merely a slogan of their own age and culture, not a moral truth applicable, as Lincoln said, to "all men and all times."...... This election will long be remembered for revealing, in terms now unmistakable, the deep fissure that marks the "culture war." ...." Opinion Journal 12/13/00 John Fund ".....Republicans have control of both the presidency and Congress for the first time since 1952, but under conditions of rancor and a possible recession that will make governing a chore. Democrats, who think President-elect Bush is a legal fluke and believe their party can take Senate control in two years, must nonetheless worry over how they managed to lose the White House in a time of peace and prosperity. ....... For every inflamed congressman on chat shows, there are two or three pragmatic members who want to show the folks back home they are working to accomplish things in Washington. George W. Bush will enter the White House with an ocean liner's worth of baggage, but also low expectations for what he can accomplish. He may well surprise his critics. ....." Wall Street Journal 12/13/00 "..... In 1990, then-Mayor Marion Barry of the nation's capital dismissed the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson in a single phrase, saying, "Jesse don't wanna run nothing but his mouth." And run his mouth he certainly has. In the last week, the Reverend Jackson has jumped from metaphor to metaphor, here inveighing against George W. Bush's "Nazi tactics," there suggesting that the protesters outside the Supreme Court were reminiscent of Selma, where civil rights workers were beaten by authorities. ........Judging from his last 48 hours on TV, however, the metaphor he is sticking with now is Dred Scott: likening the Supreme Court's resolution of the Florida election spat to the infamous 1857 ruling that the Negro could not be a U.S. citizen. ........Now it is a relatively easy exercise to go through the law and point out that Bush v. Gore comes nowhere close to Dred Scott, that the Nazis were inclined to settle things with storm troopers rather than courts or that, unlike Selma in 1965, Mr. Jackson's protests met not with batons or tear gas but obliging TV cameras. ......" Reuters 12/13/00 James Vicini "......Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas sought to make clear on Wednesday that politics plays no role in the Supreme Court's decision-making, a day after the deeply divided court effectively gave Republican George W. Bush the presidency. ...... In an appearance on the C-SPAN cable television network, Thomas was asked by high school students how party affiliation influences decision-making at the court. ``Zero,'' he replied. ''I've been here nine years. I haven't seen it.'' ...... Rehnquist then showed up in the Supreme Court's public affairs room, where reporters watched Thomas on television. .......Asked about Thomas' remark and whether it was especially appropriate in view of what just happened in the ``Bush v. Gore'' case, Rehnquist replied, ``Absolutely.'' He paused and repeated, ''absolutely'' and then left the room. .....``Don't try to apply the rules of the political world to this institution,'' Thomas told the students. Thomas said he never has heard a discussion of ``partisan politics within this court.'' ......" CNN Gallup Freeper report "...... A poll released by CNN-Gallup finds the following: Do you accept Bush as the legitimate president elect? Yes:80% No:18% What are your feeling about the election of George Bush Thrilled: 15% Pleased:33% Dissapointed:31% Angry:11% ....."

Original Sources 12/13/00 Mary Mostert "...... It's over. For about the 5th time, it appears, George W. Bush has won the November 7th election. This time the U.S. Supreme Court has in effect declared him the winner. It is a victory that has been won in spite of incredible efforts on the part of powerful forces to defeat George W. Bush.......... The announcement that Gore was the winner was made 10 minutes before the polls closed in Eastern Florida and 1 hour and 10 minutes before the polls closed in the Panhandle, where much of Bush's support was concentrated. ......Al Gore was pronounced the winner of enough electoral college votes to win the presidency at 4:50 P.M. in California. Throughout the critical drive time on the West Coast what voters heard on their car radios was the announcement that Al Gore had won in the State of Florida, in New York and in Pennsylvania, a clear win, with the state of California, in electoral college votes. From that point on, the voting was light in traditionally Republican voting precincts, costing George W. Bush hundreds of thousands, perhaps as high as a million, votes in the West. The Gore victory announcement certainly affected the size of the popular vote in Western states. ..........For thirty-five days we have been told time after time that Al Gore "really" won, in spite of counts, re-counts, selective recounts and even the meanspirited effort on the part of Democrats to throw out military absentee ballots which were known to be heavy Bush votes. Hundreds of lawyers for the Democrats combed the law libraries in search of loopholes to disfranchise people who voted for George W. Bush, while Democrat spokesmen said over and over on TV they wanted "every vote to count." ......." Original Sources 12/13/00 Mary Mostert "......Only Monday we were warned by Jesse Jackson, as he left the U.S. Supreme Court building after listening to oral arguments in the Bush vs Gore case, "Even if this court rules against counting our vote, it will simply create a civil rights explosion. People will not surrender to this tyranny." ......... Democrat leaders such as Senator Tom Harkin, of Iowa warned that a decision favoring George W. Bush would tarnish the reputation of the Supreme Court. Even one member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Stevens, joined the propaganda parade in his dissent. While recognizing "that aspects of the remedial scheme (of recounting votes) might ultimately be found to violate the Equal Protection Clause," Stevens ended his dissent with: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." .......... Unfortunately, Judge Stevens, a rather large segment of the people lost their confidence in the impartiality of many judges long ago. All yesterday's Supreme Court decision has done is to confirm the suspicion for many people that judges are among the most political people in our society. However, this also has shown those watching carefully that there are many judges, and many of them are Democrats, who risked their reputations among other Democrats by actually doing their best to make decisions based on the law - not on political opinions. Democrat judges in Florida, N. Sanders Sauls, Terry Lewis, Nikki Clark, and Florida Supreme Court Judge Wells all upheld the law, rather than their own political party's views. In the end, even the highly partisan Florida Supreme Court ruled against fellow Democrats in opposing a scheme to disenfranchise nearly 25,000 absentee voters by claiming it is a privilege not a right to vote by absentee ballot......" The Daily Telegraph, UK 12/14/00 Toby Harnden Ben Fenton "......GEORGE W BUSH finally became President-elect of the United States last night after his rival Al Gore telephoned him to concede the election and offer to meet him to "heal the divisions" after their long and bitter battle for the White House. Spurning the advice of some of his advisers to fight on in the courts or refuse he had lost in Florida, Mr Gore said bluntly: "I offer my concession." He added that he would not call back to withdraw as he done 36 days earlier, after election day....." UPI 12/14/00 Dan Olmsted "....The last and longest presidential odyssey of the 20th century reached safe harbor Wednesday night as Democratic Vice President Al Gore eloquently conceded to George W. Bush, who accepted the mantle of president-elect by saying that "a spirit of cooperation ... is the challenge of our moment." ...... Gore pledged to work with Bush to heal the divisions that the election battle caused among the American people, suggesting that "this belatedly broken impasse can point us all to a new common ground. For its very closeness can remind us that we are one people with a shared history and a shared destiny." ...... Said Bush: "I am thankful to the American people for the great privilege of being able to serve as your next president." "Vice President Gore and I put our hearts and hopes into our campaigns. We both gave it our all. We shared similar emotions. I understand how difficult this moment must be for Vice President Gore and his family." "We agreed to meet early next week in Washington and we agreed to do our best to heal our country after this hard-fought contest," Bush said....... "Whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests, and I will work to earn your respect," Bush said........ " UPI 12/14/00 Dan Olmsted ".... Longer-term, the protracted struggle over the 43rd presidency exposed problems that all parties vowed to address -- voting equipment not ready for the 21st century which begins in 19 days; election night exit polls that projected Florida for Gore while some real-life polls in the state were still open (subsequently retracted), then projected Florida -- and the election -- for Bush thanks to a Bush cousin who, come to find out, was at the controls of a major network's election night coverage (subsequently

retracted). And so on and on and on....." UPI 12/14/00 Dan Olmsted ".... It was a fair question how long the amity could be expected to survive: Gore mentioned the word "fight" several times in his concession and seemed to position himself for a run again in four years if he decided to do so......... Bush spoke in the Texas House of Representatives chamber, dominated by Democrats, to make the point that he planned to reach across the aisle and forge a bipartisan consensus in the U.S. Congress. ..... Gridlock could ensue as easily as good will....... For one night, anyway, no one wanted to think about it. Gore was reported back at the vice president's residence, partying with Sheryl Crow and Jon Bon Jovi, with Tipper on drums....." UPI 12/14/00 "....The two men have agreed to meet in Washington next week to, in Gore's words, "start to heal the divisions of the campaign, and the contest through which we have just passed." ...... "We have discussed our differences. Now it is time to find common ground and build consensus to make America a beacon of opportunity in the 21st century," Bush said in a speech from the chambers of the Texas House of Representatives in Austin......... Vice-president elect Richard Cheney met with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday to plan the transition and to discuss legislative priorities for the coming 107th Congress. "We talked about legislative issues that would have bipartisan support," said Sen. Sen. Arlen Spector, R-Pa., who characterized Cheney as "very direct" and "very responsive."........ " UPI 12/14/00 "....Andrew said Democrats "will always fight to see that all votes are counted ... because that's how you heal wounds in a democracy." The party chairman also said he hopes that Bush "will call for those votes to be counted" because it will "add to the legitimacy of his presidency."..... The Rev. Jesse Jackson led a march in Tallahassee Wednesday calling for all ballots to be counted, and warned that Bush would have no "moral authority" to lead because minority voters believe he was "crowned by the court, not the people." ...... The president-elect added, "I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation." .......... Whatever the fate of the Bush presidency, the nation's capitol Wednesday night returned to its traditional transition planning to welcome him. The General Services Administration announced that it would turn over to Cheney Thursday morning the keys to the official presidential transition office that has remained vacant while the courts sorted out who was entitled to occupy it.... And workers Wednesday afternoon continued construction of the wooden risers in front of the White House that will serve as reviewing stands for the Jan. 20 inaugural parade, a parade that finally now has a guest of honor....." AP 12/14/00 Deb Reichmann "..President Clinton urged the nation on Thursday to abandon the bitter divisions of the postelection fight for the White House and unify behind President-elect Bush ``without rancor and personal attack.'' Speaking from British Prime Minister Tony Blair's country retreat, Clinton thanked the American people ``for their patience, passion and patriotism'' during the protracted legal battle between Bush and Vice President Al Gore. He promised to do everything he could ``in the days of service left to me'' to help Bush get off to a good start. .He invited Bush to the White House ``and will see him some time next week,'' Clinton spokesman Jake Siewert said. ``I pledged to President-elect Bush my efforts and the best efforts of every member of our administration for a smooth and successful transition,'' Clinton told reporters. The president's White House invitation came during a four-minute phone call to Bush after the president-elect's acceptance address. Clinton talked to Gore for six minutes after his concession speech, Siewert said. Clinton said he was pleased to see that the president-elect ``responded with generosity in kind.'' ``The American people, however divided they were in this election, overwhelmingly want us to build on that vital center without rancor and personal attack,'' he added. The president cheered the members of Congress of both parties who pledged to work on reforming the nation's elections system to ensure that all votes ``can be easily cast and easily counted'' in the future - an issue at the heart of the disputed election outcome in Florida. .." Original Sources 12/14/00 Mary Mostert ". Perhaps the most important part of President Elect George W. Bush's speech last night was not mentioned in any of the media reports I have seen since his speech. It wasn't what he said, it was what he demonstrated that was both refreshing and historic. He spoke from the podium of the Texas House of Representatives after being introduced by Speaker of the House - James E. "Pete" Laney, a Democrat. In Laney's brief introduction of his governor he observed that when Bush was first elected Governor, six years ago, after a hard fought battle with the sitting Democrat governor, he and many others in the legislature: "wondered what kind of leader he would be. We wondered how he would bring everybody together after a hard fought election. .."Tonight many people in our country are asking the same questions about George W. Bush. When he became governor he reached out to members of the legislature of both parties. We didn't always agree on issues. But we found we could have policy differences without having gridlock. We could have debate without bitterness. And we could reach agreements, solve problems, without sacrificing our principles. ."Above all, we learned that Governor Bush is a leader you can trust and respect. It's my honor to introduce to you a man who is has earned my trust and respect, the

Governor of Texas, my friend and the President Elect of the United States the Honorable George W. Bush. .A man you can trust and respect" Las Vegas Review Journal 12/14/00 "It's time for somebody -- anybody -- with status and influence in the Democratic Party to politely but firmly ask the Rev. Jesse Jackson to lay off. Moments after the Supreme Court heard arguments in Bush vs. Gore on Monday, he told reporters a "civil rights explosion" would ensue if the courts refused to allow ballots in Florida to be re-counted for a third or fourth time. He also accused Florida Gov. Jeb Bush of personally orchestrating a campaign to prevent blacks from voting in the state. Then on Tuesday the Rev. Jackson told MSNBC the court's Bush v. Gore ruling "goes down in infamy with the Dred Scott decision (denying rights to fugitive slaves) -- both disenfranchised black voters." He also claimed that the "Supreme Court has ignored the supreme vote" and that the justices should have been less concerned with "equal protection (of the law) than equal opportunity." ..Reaction to the Rev. Jackson's ill-conceived hyperbole was swift but selective. Supreme Court watcher Stuart Taylor of National Journal called the comparison between Tuesday's ruling and Dred Scott "an obscenity." Even Brian Williams, the even-tempered MSNBC anchor, said the statement was "an unfortunate nadir." ..Yet the silence from senior Democrats has been deafening. .." Washington Times 12/14/00 Kenneth Smith ". Democrats can't say Charles Wells didn't warn them. Himself a Democrat and chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, he warned his colleagues that their decision to allow state canvassing boards to go prospecting for additional votes for Al Gore would not survive the judicial scrutiny to come. He was right, and it wasn't even close.. Notwithstanding attempts by the media to portray Tuesday night's U.S. Supreme Court decision as a bitterly divided, fractured, end-ofcivilization-as-we-know-it, 5-4 ruling, seven members of the high court actually voted to toss out the Florida court decision on which the Gore campaign's faint electoral hopes rested. (One had to read 15 paragraphs into The Washington Post's lead story Wednesday to learn of the court landslide.) The seven-member majority, 78 percent of the court, included "conservatives" William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as "swing votes" Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor and "liberals" David Souter and Stephen Breyer. Given the constitutional violations the majority found, the wonder is that Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't sign on too." Jewish World Review 12/14/00 Wooten "......The reality today is that the election is over and the nation is far more divided than need be, as Stevens' dissent expresses, precisely because four naive and activist judges on the Florida Supreme Court interrupted with judicial adventurousness the nation's process of accepting the election outcome........... As chaotic and litigious as the process had been, it was essentially over last Friday with the rulings in two Florida counties not to throw out absentee ballots. The country was poised to accept the election of George W. Bush. The country had come to accept the results and to a consensus that hand recounts were impractical because the reading of intent depended on the interpretation of the beholder. .........The nation, therefore, had moved from surprise and denial into acceptance of the reality of the results and the impossibility of achieving a fairer or more accurate count of miscast ballots. Until Friday. Until four judges on the Florida Supreme Court reopened all the partisans' wounds and dangled the absurd proposition before them that, hey, maybe it would be possible to win this election in the courts. .......... Their decision pushed the nation toward crisis and, suddenly yesterday's incomprehensible notion -- that the Florida Legislature and Congress would intervene -- became today's appropriate remedy. They should not have taken us there. ............So now we have the boundaries pushed, a judicial system that has been drawn deeply and, in the case of the U.S. Supreme Court reluctantly and regrettably, into presidential election politics -- something that can do the judiciary no good at all because it engenders distrust and bitterness. ..........." The Associated Press 12/15/00 David Pace "...... President-elect Bush's first priority may be healing wounds and reuniting the country, but that's not the aim of conservatives who backed him. Having finally wrested the Oval Office from the Democrats, some finally see an opening for their agenda. ...... The attorney general's post is a top priority. Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore and defeated Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft head conservatives' list of candidates. ...... They're also pushing for one of their own at the helm of the departments of Health and Human Services, Interior, Education and Labor, and for appointments to the dozens of White House and sub-cabinet level positions that influence social and economic policy. .......And they are looking for Bush to reverse controversial policies such as the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the pill that allows women to abort early pregnancies without surgery. ......" Wall Street Journal 12/14/00 June Kronholz "....... President-elect George W. Bush soon will be stamping his own brand on the capital's culture. "You'll see a very different White House and social style," says Georgette Mosbacher, a New York businesswoman and socialite friend of the Bushes. The new first lady, Laura Bush, is "very traditional," she says. One likely result: more state dinners....... But also look for lively informal entertaining in Washington as the Bushes' home-state followers come to town. "Texans are party people," says Ms. Mosbacher, who adds that she may spend more time here now that the GOP is in power. (If rumors

of a top-drawer ambassadorship for Ms. Mosbacher pan out, she may have to rethink her schedule.).....In other words, don't look for a bandanna-draped mantel in the White House like one that Mr. Bush sat before during a quick press conference at the governor's mansion in Austin last week. Besides, the White House staff, and the committees of preservationists who oversee the decor, keep personal touches to a minimum.......... One Democrat who will be welcomed at the White House is Robert Koch, senior vice president of the Wine Institute and a former aide to Democratic House leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri. Mr. Koch is married to Mr. Bush's sister, Doro. Indeed, soon it may seem that behind every bush is a Bush. "You inherit with the Bushes a huge extended family, between cousins and nieces and nephews," says Ms. Mosbacher. "It is a very close family. They vacation together, and they holiday together. And there are lots of them."....... The celebrity list will be revamped. Barbra Streisand will be crossed off and replaced by the Oak Ridge Boys and Wayne Newton, among others. Actress Bo Derek will be a "10" after giving a nominating speech for Mr. Bush at the GOP convention.......... For the women, Big Hair comes with the territory in Texas, but the women in the Bushes' circle of friends look more natural, like Laura Bush herself......... The president-elect is likely to continue the same casual living style he practices in the governor's mansion. The first in the family to get up in the morning, he pads downstairs to make coffee, feeds the dog, Spot, and two cats, then takes coffee and newspapers upstairs to share with his wife. He likes the official government-seal windbreakers just as his father did, but is likely to wear suits to the Oval Office. He puts in a morning's work and breaks for a two- to three-hour light lunch. Then he jogs or works out before heading back to the office........" Wall Street Journal 12/14/00 June Kronholz "....... "There used to be society," says Ms. Beale, who estimates she attended 500 parties a year. "Now it's business, business, business," she laments, with everyone either raising money from one another or lobbying for legislation. The burst of new Bush people may not be good for gossip either. Ms. McLellan, the social columnist, remembers the first Bush administration as being "secretive" and its staffers as being reluctant to go out "because they were afraid of blabbing." They concentrated on private entertaining that never made the social columns.......Now, Ms. McLellan wonders if George W. Bush will follow his father's button-your-lips tradition. The former president and CIA director, she says, "hated gossip, and he hated leaks, and that's what Washington's made of."....." Frank J. Murray 12/15/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".....In his concession speech Wednesday, Mr. Gore assured Americans that the Electoral College would ratify Mr. Bush as president-elect when electors meet Monday in 50 state capitals and in the District of Columbia. But there is nothing in the law or Constitution that can prevent "faithless electors" from deserting their candidate. That has sparked speculation since November, when a veteran Democratic operative said that he was "trying to kidnap" Bush electors who might be willing to switch to Mr. Gore........ And in the five weeks since Election Day, tens of thousands of e-mails, letters and phone calls bombarded 172 Bush electors as a result of an Internet campaign engineered by two California college students, who say the popular vote should prevail over the Electoral College........Mr. Gore would have to get votes from three "faithless electors" to achieve the 270 electoral votes needed to become president. ......,There are 140 Bush electors totally unbound either by state law or signed pledge - including 11 in Mr. Gore's home state of Tennessee, where the electoral vote is by secret ballot. The remaining 131 including 59 in other states using secret ballots - know that no "faithless elector" has ever been prosecuted for switching sides........... "I take Secretary Christopher at his word. Mario is dreaming," countered John Sununu, former Republican governor of New Hampshire and President Bush's first chief of staff. "Republican electors aren't leaning one iota toward changing their commitment."......" Frank J. Murray 12/15/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".....That was the view from Bush headquarters in Austin after supportive conference calls urging Republican electors to stay true, according to campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan. "It's certainly unusual for one side to contact the others. We were disappointed with the Democrats' efforts to investigate Republican electors and try to pressure them into switching," Mr. Sullivan said....... " Frank J. Murray 12/15/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".....The Gore campaign consultant, who asked not to be identified, also said the now-defeated Florida slate of Democratic electors still could meet Monday and mail their vote to Washington without certification. If that happened, according to a National Archives official, the competing slate also would be placed before the Joint Session of Congress on Jan. 6........The Times learned yesterday that Florida Democrats had a contingency plan to do precisely that. Until Mr. Gore's concession speech, the plan was so solid the Democratic Party reserved a meeting room in the state Capitol........" Frank J. Murray 12/15/00 THE WASHINGTON TIMES ".....Dozens of Bush electors contacted by The Times uniformly reported barrages of phone calls, e-mails and letters. About one-third were from Democrats urging them to switch sides, and most of the rest asked them to stick to their guns, they said........."No one has been so indecorous as to be threatening or to say they'd open a seven-figure bank account for me in the Caymans, but a lot of callers seemed to come from the shallow end of the gene pool," said West Virginia

elector John McCutcheon, executive director of the Bush campaign in that state.......Much of that uprising was the Internet-based brainchild of government majors David Enrich, 21, of Boston, and Matt Grossmann, 21, of Columbia, Mo., at Claremont-McKenna College in California......... We hope that two or three electors will agree with our logic," said Mr. Enrich, who said he and Mr. Grossmann side with neither candidate. He also said they do not endorse the implied threat of investigating electors' backgrounds that was raised by Democratic consultant Bob Beckel of Alexandria during a cable-television interview......."I'm trying to kidnap these electors in states that [Mr. Bush] won that are not legally bound to him that have a right to vote how they want to," said Mr. Beckel, whose plan was publicly disavowed by Mr. Christopher.......... While conceding that Mr. Beckel would not break any laws so long as he avoided coercive acts that look like extortion, constitutional law professor Paul Campos, of the University of Colorado, countered with a war of words against the crusade. ....... Mr. McCutcheon, the West Virginia elector, agreed and said the modest Beckel plan to find three votes may fail only because he went public, galvanizing Republican slates nationwide. "Beckel might have succeeded if he hadn't been open and notorious," Mr. McCutcheon said. "What the coordinated effort by the other side has done is make us all stick together."....." CNN 12/14/00 "......As President-elect George W. Bush made plans to travel to the nation's capital, his transition team received the keys to the official transition office here today, a move signifying that the protracted presidential election was over and the peaceful transfer of power has begun. ........ With an abbreviated transition period, Bush will be holding a series of meetings with potential Cabinet members over the coming days, Cheney said. "We will move as rapidly as we can to have a Cabinet in place by the time of the inauguration," Cheney said, adding that he did not want to set artificial deadlines. "Expect the first announcement soon." ........ With its members scattered in Florida, Texas and Washington, the Bush transition team is expected to regroup before wading through the thousands of resumes it has received. ........ Cheney promised Thursday that the transition would continue apace and work would be split among the official Washington location and privately rented space in McLean, Virginia. To that end, Democratic Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana was to meet with Bush in Austin on Friday, generating speculation that he is among those under consideration for a Cabinet position. ....... The Bush legal team has signed agreements with the FBI regarding employee background checks. "The FBI understands how unusual the circumstance is and they've attached extra resources to expedite this," said Clay Johnson, a longtime Bush aide who is currently serving as Bush-Cheney transition director. "Everybody seems to be rising to the occasion to take care of things in the time available." ..........The Bush-Cheney transition team privately raised $1.5 million, set set up a Bush-Cheney Transition Web site and taken in 18,000 resumes. There is little more than five weeks left before Bush assumes the presidency on January 20, and the team will quickly set up shop in the official offices located in the heart of Washington and begin selecting candidates for more than 6,400 administration jobs -- including 1,125 that require Senate confirmation. ....." New York Times 12/15/00 Alison Mitchell ".....On the first full day in which even Democrats recognized him as president- elect, Gov. George W. Bush heard a prayer today to let "reconciliation flow like a mighty river" and began reaching out broadly beyond his Republican base........ Mr. Bush planned to meet on Friday at the Governor's Mansion with Senator John B. Breaux, the centrist Democrat from Louisiana who had produced a plan for Medicare reform similar to Mr. Bush's own........Mr. Bush's communications director, Karen P. Hughes, described the session as part of the governor's efforts to hear from Democrats and said simply that the men would cover a "wide range of issues," leaving open the possibility that the talks could include a cabinet post.......... At the same time, Mr. Cheney, who is running the transition effort, said that now that Vice President Al Gore had conceded, the Republican transition team could be "much more aggressive" in seeking Democrats for high-ranking administration jobs. Such discussions, he said, had been "awkward while there was still a contest under way."......" New York Times 12/15/00 Alison Mitchell ".....Mr. Breaux, known in the Senate as a dealmaker who can reach across party lines, has refused to foreclose the idea of serving in a Bush cabinet. At the same time, he is a member of the Senate Democratic leadership.......... Today, he took congratulatory calls from world leaders, spoke to the leaders of Congress, including the senior Democrats, Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House minority leader, and Mr. Daschle, and met with the Secret Service......... The Rev. Jesse Jackson was one of those who called the governor to wish him well. Ms. Hughes said the two men spoke of the need for healing and for election reform......"He was very gracious," she said of Mr. Jackson. "They had a very good conversation."....." New York Times 12/15/00 Alison Mitchell ".....Mr. Cheney's own round of calls included one to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democratic candidate for vice president. Mr. Cheney praised a speech Mr. Lieberman made today in the Senate, in which he said the election "puts a special burden not just on Governor Bush but on all of us here in Congress to work on a bipartisan basis and in a cooperative spirit." ........ Aides say Mr. Bush is poised to name some of his senior staff in the next few days.......At the church this morning, where Mr. Bush had gathered for a special service with several hundred friends and staff members, the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell introduced Mr. Bush by saying the service was being held at the

"urging of the president-elect, governor" and then he paused as laughter filled the church. "The honorable George W. Bush," Mr. Caldwell finally said.......... Another pastor, the Rev. Mark Craig, delivered the sermon and compared Mr. Bush to Moses, saying, "He was chosen by God as you have been chosen by God, to lead the people." ......... Mr. Craig, too, had served a special role in the past for Mr. Bush. For it was in a service for Mr. Bush's second inauguration as governor in January 1999, when Mr. Bush was still ambivalent about seeking the presidency, that the pastor spoke of a calling for public service. Barbara Bush leaned over and said to her son, "He's speaking to you." ....." http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/313/nation/Forecasting_system_backfires_on _TV+.shtml Forecasting system backfires on TV By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 11/8/2000 In a bizarre turn of events that mocked the television networks' high-tech powers of prognostication, the decisive state of Florida moved from the Al Gore column to the George Bush column and ultimately back to ''too close to call,'' as anchors, pundits and viewers went on a dizzying election-night ride that had not ended as dawn approached. ........Late last night, the networks were still scrambling to explain what had gone wrong with the Florida information provided by the Voter News Service consortium. ''It became clear as time went on that some of the data we got from Florida was bad data,'' said CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius. ''We don't know if it came from exit polling information or precinct counts.'' ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said: ''We were no longer certain of our projections because we were told by VNS that there were some problems with the data.'' ''Simply put, VNS was wrong,'' added Fox News Channel spokeswoman Dana White. VNS officials were not available for comment. --http://www.hoffman-info.com/votefraud.html Vote Fraud in America Copyright (c)1996 by James J. Condit, Jr. For decades now, NBC, ABC and CBS have pretended on election night to be in hot competition to project the "the winner and loser." We know the act well: Dan, Peter or Tom comes on the air and solemnly intones, "We can now project that President X is the winner in Florida." As a viewer I imagined bespectacled analysts sweating in back rooms; perhaps 30 accountants nervously crunching numbers--all in an attempt to get their anchorman on the air first with the projected winner. But now we know it was all a hoax. For all of the networks (CNN included) have been getting the exact same numbers at the exact same time from the exact same source--from a company that the networks appear to own jointly: Voter News Service (VNS). ..... But perhaps the best summary of this subject is found in Votescam: The Stealing of America ((1993) by James and Kenneth Collier. --http://www.votescam.com/interview.html WHO COUNTS THE AMERICAN VOTE? Despite the wide-spread, and perfectly reasonable belief that the government counts the national vote on election night, the reality is entirely different: The vote is counted by a little-known private corporation named Voter News Services (VNS) located in New York City. VNS is a major media conglomerate comprised of all the major networks, including Fox and CNN, and also the wire services, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. All of the vote results tabulated in each county, mainly by computer, are transferred to VNS where they are tabulated in secret and disseminated to the public, who accepts them without question. The computer tabulated votes at the county level leave no paper trail. Only the corporations who program the software to count votes in each state know for sure if the results are fair, or if fraud has indeed been been committed. There are no checks and balances. The software is not open to public scrutiny. Neither is VNS. Created in 1970 as News Election Services (NES), VNS has existed in near total secrecy for thirty years and may well be the most powerful corporation in the world. Most people who know of their existence incorrectly believe they are little more than a polling organization. The fact is that they have co-opted the vote count in America, despite their claims that the results they disseminate are "unofficial." These results are accepted across the board on election night by Americans and election officials. VNS is very well aware of this uncontested power. ...... http://www.votescam.com/frame.html We will describe the operations of the secretive NES later on, although it is noteworthy here to mention that this corporation, which fanatically guards its people and processes from the public view, is a consortium of the three major television networks: ABC, NBC and CBS, plus the Associated Press wire service, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other news-gathering organizations. --WorldNetDaily.com 11/25/00 " We have been told over and over again that Al Gore won the popular vote -- but by a rather small margin. This is supposed to mean that the nation is divided right down the middle, politically and ideologically. But this may not be the true picture at all of what happened on Nov. 7. A study of the map showing the national vote county-by-county tells a surprisingly different story. That map shows that Bush won 2,434 counties nationwide to Gore's 677. It shows that the population of the Bush counties is 143 million as opposed to Gore's of 127 million. It also shows that the Bush counties covered an area of 2,427,039 square miles as opposed to Gore's 580,134 square miles. . From the county point of view, it looks like a huge Bush landslide. So why didn't the popular vote reflect that? If you study the map, it tells us quite clearly what happened. The map shows Bush's counties in red, Gore's in blue. The red counties virtually cover the entire country. The blue counties are like islands in a sea of red. They are mainly

concentrated along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and form an archipelago down the Mississippi valley. There are islands of Gore-blue along the Mexican border. Also, some of the big counties in New Mexico are blue. What it means is that in areas of heavy minority concentration Gore won. And he won not because of the size of the minority population but because they voted virtually as a bloc, giving Gore as much as 90 percent of the black and Latino vote. . " WSJ 11/7/00 Glenn R Simpson John Harwood "......Suddenly, it seems, everybody is looking for new ways to avoid the voting booth to cast ballots. But the challenge for elections officials across the country, especially critical in the close 2000 presidential race, is avoiding the old-fashioned plague of vote fraud. ....... Oregon, which has shifted to voting entirely by mail, is merely the most conspicuous example. Looking for ways to prevent turnout from falling further, more than 20 states have turned to "early voting" periods or liberalized absentee-voting procedures to give their harried residents wider options for voting. To help overseas military personnel exercise their franchise, the Pentagon is even overseeing a small experiment in Internet voting. In vast Alaska, some citizens far removed from polling places are even permitted to vote by fax, notwithstanding the state's warning that by doing so "you are voluntarily waiving your right to a secret ballot." .........Bush campaign aides say they are particularly worried about West Virginia, a normally Democratic state where the GOP ticket has been leading. "We have a kind of a tradition in southern West Virginia to try somehow or other to get around the law," concedes West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler. "It's a lot better than it used to be, but I can't really say that things are squeaky clean yet." ....." WSJ 11/7/00 Gil Troy "..... While George Bush may find vindication through his son's election, Barbara Bush has already achieved it. Derided in the 1990s by many reporters for her passivity, dismissed today by many first lady experts, Mrs. Bush now appears to be the model presidential spouse. By all indications, the next first lady will emulate Barbara Bush, not Hillary Clinton. ...... As both the Democratic and Republican campaigns have made clear, co-parenting is in, the co-presidency is out. Both prospective first ladies have paraded as cheerleaders, not strategists, as partners in life but not in power. They are doing what most Americans want first ladies to do -- shape the president's image as a warm family man, not dictate his policies. ......" New York Post 12/15/00 Brian Blomquist Leonard Greene "..... Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel said yesterday he'd "strongly support" a move by Al Gore's supporters to go after George W. Bush's electors. "I don't think there's any need for him to rush into anything if there's a possibility that electors may not support George W. Bush and a couple of those electors could be flipped," the veteran Democrat said. ....... "I don't see that America is so anxious to close this saga until we fully appreciate everything that has taken place. One thing we know is that Al Gore got the popular votes. We have every reason to believe that he won Florida as well," Rangel told CNN. ........Rangel was referring to an effort by some Democrats, including operative Bob Beckel, to try to get some of Bush's 271 electors to defect to Gore - throwing the presidential contest into Congress. ......" The Times (U.K.) 12/15/00 "......George W. Bush is destined to surprise the world. He cannot help but do so. To foreigners, the least travelled President-elect in modern times is an enigma. On the campaign trail, he confined himself to a few deliberately broad principles concerning foreign policy. That vagueness was perhaps all to the good since his firmest pledge, to pull American troops out of Bosnia and Kosovo, evoked as much scorn as alarm in Europe because of the ignorance it betrayed. Mr Bush appeared to believe that the Europeans had left US troops to carry the peacekeeping can alone in the Balkans. In fact, although American firepower had dominated the Kosovo air campaign, the US accounts for less than a fifth of the total manpower on the ground. America's allies, and its enemies too, should remember that they had similarly low expectations of Ronald Reagan. They would be gravely mistaken to assume that a Bush White House will be either reticent or vague......" Freeper GotDangGenius 12/15/00 "...... Few understand this new dynamic of having a Republican controlled house, senate and Presidency- especially the Democrats. ......This is redistricting year. The GOP hasn't been in this position in the states and bodies that decide where to draw the lines since 1920. .......Already, the flat-out, unarguable gains the GOP will make from re-districting is 7 to 8 seats in the house. Further, 14 U.S. Senators are up in 2002 and they are from states that voted for BUSH. That's no small concern for Democrats. ........ Freeper GotDangGenius 12/15/00 "...... Since Democrats have been in the minority with a Democrat president, they could much more easily vote lock-step with the DNC party line on issues that either hurt their own state and the people back home, or if a bill would have helped them, they could vote against it and along party lines. The reason was that they had political cover in a Presidential veto when they went back home and were asked why they voted against the interests of their own state and in favor of the DNC party line. ......They can't do that anymore. They have no cover anymore in a Presidential veto. ......"

Freeper GotDangGenius 12/15/00 "...... Watch the Republicans drill home a series of bills that FORCE the Democrats to break ranks, especially those Senators up for re-election in 2002 in Bush voting states. Especially there. Watch closely the Senate Democrat leadership. I'm sure Daschle will attempt to start off lock-step, then deteriorate the dynamics into his same old slop, but when the Republican good legislation starts getting enacted by the President and the news is honestly beneficial about the good things Congress and the President are actually doing, the Dems will fall apart- they have no excuse anymore for opposing such things. ......So, don't get so confortable with the idea that the Democrats are going to be required to be catered to because this is a tight margin for majority until 2002. They'll cave. Make a lot of noise to be sure, but they'll flop around like a fish on the ground the closer we get to 2002. ......." Freeper GotDangGenius 12/15/00 "......Also, the house is going to be run by Republicans and moderate Democrats- the Blue Dogs will have 40-60 Dems voting conservative fiscally with the majority. Anyway, none of the Democrat media will tell anyone this, and they'll try to make it seem like the same old same old bickering, but there is nothing but momentum into 2002 for the GOP both in redistricting, issues, and the passage of bills that American's like. ......" Gallup Poll: 80% of Americans see Bush as Legitimate, 18% don't Freeper hawaiian ..... Timesink adds "....I'd like to note that today NBC was hawking a poll saying that the percentage of people who consider Bush legitimate was about 55-45. I knew I couldn't believe it. ...." And structure adds "....There's a Zogby/Reuters poll that goes something like that. However, what made me really steamed was hearing Alan Colmes claim that the poll said that 70% felt that Gore would have won in Florida if all the votes were really counted correctly. Turns out the poll really reported that out of the people who disagreed that the votes were counted fairly, 70% said Gore would have won. I think I need to write a letter to Fox -- Colmes never used to be that bad! ......One other thing -- this Zogby poll used a small sample: about 520. Polls should use at least 1000 to be fairly accurate. As it was, it claimed the margin of error was a whopping 4.5% anyway. ....." knrs radio-salt lake city 12/14/00 Freeper Zachary 1985 "..... Congressional democrat leaders, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt are running a secret campaign according to one of thier party members on Capitol Hill.(I forget his name). This man claims that any Democrat who accepts a cabinet seat in the new Bush administration will have all future campaign funds cut off. ....... The hypocricy according to some is huge. Both Daschle and Gephardt have been talking with Republican Congressional leaders about possible joint leadership. Now that the oppurtunity for true bipartisanship is in place, High placed Democrats are blackmailing them to keep them out of the Bush cabinet (This is what the conservative radio man said) ....." Freeper WOSG "........The Leftwing Media is grasping onto any straw possible. Now that we have won, it is no mandate, unlike any election a Democrat has won, large or small, it was simple: Do what you campaigned on. The Media fails to admit the obvious truth: Republicans control the House, the Senate and the Presidency. They can control the agenda for 2 years. Only media harping and scare-mongering/posturing could stop the majority from acting on their convictions. ......... Well, guess what? In Bush's speech he said he wanted to work together, but he will advocate and work to move HIS AGENDA forward. That was the model he used in Austin, and that is what he will do in Washington. Yes, the Dems in DC are a nightmare compared to Dems in Texas, but (a) Bush knows it and (b) bush has a pro team, especially Cheney who know how to work the system to get things done. They will not push a Hard Right agenda, but a 'compassionate' Conservative agenda - middle-right, moderate enough to keep RINOs and blue dogs on board and freeze out the Socialist Democrap whiners. ........ It will be a pleasure to see Bush constantly underestimated and the media constantly instisting what he should or should not do. I expect he will do the Right Thing with class. I do not expect my wished-for Right-Wing Rule (we need about 10% more of the electorate on our side to get to that stage), but this is the closest we have had since early Reagan years to a Conservative era. (1980-1982, 1994-1996 were the 4 most conservative legislative sessions in DC since 1946-48. Anyone disagree? I think 2000-2002 will match that if we get both Soc Sec and tax cuts. Anything above that is gravy.) ......." CNN 12/14/00 "......After legal battles that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme court over the way Florida counts its votes, the state's Republican Gov. Jeb Bush announced Thursday the creation of a special task force to study the state's elections process and recommend improvements. ...... "With its help, we will ensure the fairness of our system, that our voting and counting mechanisms are fully modernized," the Florida governor said at a press conference. .......Bush said the task force would make recommendations to the Florida Legislature on how to improve the system, which came under fire in the weeks after the presidential election. ........." Independent/UK 12/15/00 Paul Waugh and Andrew Grice ".....Tony Blair moved quickly yesterday to forge strong links with President-elect George W Bush amid British fears that the new US administration could retreat into isolationism. The Prime Minister was the first foreign leader to telephone the former Texas

retreat into isolationism. The Prime Minister was the first foreign leader to telephone the former Texas Governor to offer his congratulations. The two men, who had never met or spoken previously, agreed that Mr Blair should visit Washington for talks in the New Year......" CNN 12/14/00 "...... "Whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests, and I will work to earn your respect," Bush said Wednesday night in a televised acceptance speech from Austin. .....With those aims in mind, Bush is expected to announce his first Cabinet appointees within the next week. The first slots filled will likely be those concerned with international affairs and defense -- intended as a signal that the disputed November 7 election will not result in a disruption of U.S. international policy...... Card will likely oversee the influx of new Republican faces at the White House, most of whom have served as members of the Texas governor's inner circle for the past six years. It is widely believed that Bush campaign chief strategist Karl Rove will remain Bush's top political advisor, either on the White House staff or with the Republican National Committee. Another member of the Texas governor's "iron triangle" of advisors, senior communications director Karen Hughes, is likely to retain a similar post in the Bush White House. And Bush campaign and transition spokesman Ari Fleischer is all-but-certain to be named as White House press secretary. ......Another longtime Bush friend, Don Evans, is believed to be the next secretary of Commerce -if he wants the job. ......" The Washington Times 12/14/00 Laurie Kellman ".....George W. Bush's campaign is floating names of conservatives for White House staff and Cabinet positions that could soothe prickly relations with that wing of the GOP. Those under consideration include outgoing Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft, Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, former Reagan administration civil rights commissioner Linda Chavez and social conservative Kay James, according to people familiar with the campaign's deliberations. Whether any or all receive jobs is nearly beside the point. Just mentioning them could give Bush some protection from further criticism by suspicious conservatives......." Human Events 12/14/00 Phyllis Schlafly "..... In waging his contest of the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore's mantra is "Make Every Vote Count" (except the votes of servicemen). But Gore's pious platitude should be subject to qualifications. .... We want to count only one vote per person. We want to count only votes cast by citizens eligible to vote. We want to count only ballots containing votes that can be objectively read, not votes that permit election officials to speculate about or "discern" (in David Boies' word) what may have been in the voter's mind. .......We do not want to count phantom votes or re-created votes. And, of course, we want a scrupulously honest count monitored by observers from both political parties. ......" Human Events 12/14/00 Donald Lambro "..... It was difficult to tell on election night and even in the days that followed just which party came out ahead in the larger national political picture, both here and in the 50 states. ....... But now, stepping back and looking out over the entire political battlefield that has been fought out over the 1990s in the age of Clinton and Gore, the bigger picture is beginning to come into focus. .......Barring a dramatic, court-driven upset in Florida, it appears George W. Bush will be the next president of the United States. And what is equally important, he will be the first Republican president to have a GOPcontrolled Congress in nearly half a century. ......" Human Events 12/14/00 Donald Lambro "..... In the House, the Republicans will have 221 seats and the Democrats 212, with two independents who are divided between the two parties. The Democrats, who needed just seven seats to take control, are now five seats away from winning a majority. The chances of that happening in two years are much more difficult because of two big factors. ..... Many of them will be retiring in two years, opening up a lot more seats to Republican challenges. The second factor is reapportionment under the 2000 census. The Democrats will gain a few seats in California, where they control the governorship and the legislature; but Republicans, who remain stronger in governorships and legislatures elsewhere in the nation, will likely pick up more when new congressional district lines are redrawn to adjust for population changes. ......." Human Events 12/14/00 Donald Lambro ".....This will be the first time in more than a century that the Senate will be tied. .......The most dramatic sign of the Senate's 50-50 power struggle is going to occur on January 3, when the new members are sworn in. For a unique 17-day period, the Democrats will be in control. The reason: The administration does not leave office until noon on January 20, and until that time Vice President Al Gore will remain the Senate's presiding officer. ........ Democratic leader Tom Daschle (N.D.) has promised Majority Leader Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) that he will not use this period to take power or run the Senate. But the possibility that the disputed presidential election will be fought out in Congress when the electoral votes are to be counted on January 6 has the Republicans squirming. ......" Human Events 12/14/00 Donald Lambro ".....Outside Washington, however, the Republicans hold most of the political power in the nation's governorships. The GOP has a huge 29-19 advantage in the states. The state legislatures are virtually tied, with the Republicans picking up two more statehouses. .......In the end, the Democrats have not fared well under Bill Clinton and Al Gore. They entered 1993 with strong majorities

in the House (261-174), the Senate (58-42), the governors (31-17), and in the state legislatures. But that has all changed dramatically. ........" Time 12/14/00 Frank Pelligrini ".... President-elect George W. Bush does not ride in on a high horse. Introduced at 10 p.m. Wednesday night in the Texas House of Representatives with a glowing recommendation from its Democratic Speaker, Bush spent little of his 15-minute speech on the subject of the past 36 days and not much more on the subject of himself. Laura Bush. Dick Cheney. Al Gore. His supporters. Gore's supporters. Democrats in Texas. Democrats in Washington. His late friend and mentor Bob Bullock. These were familiar notes from before Nov. 7 - the uniter, not the divider. And Wednesday night, in his final victory speech of the five weeks that came afterward, Bush struck the pose of the hopeful innocent, ready to heal the nation and its capital with a gentle hand for every shoulder. ......"The spirit of cooperation I have seen in this hall is what is needed in Washington," Bush said. "It is the challenge of our moment." "I believe things happen for a reason, and I hope the long wait of the last five weeks will heighten a desire to move beyond the bitterness and partisanship of the recent past." Gore got better ratings, and better reviews. He was the story of this Wednesday, the vice president who had fought and fought until everyone ached and who had finally let go an hour before with a jaunty eloquence that left many watching - especially his sympathizers - wiping away a tear. Bush seemed to recognize that. He didn't give the best speech of his life, as Gore had, but it didn't have to be. The words didn't soar, but they performed what Bush evidently considered a more important task on this Post-Election Day 36 - they nudged the nation forward, to subjects long forgotten. Education. Social Security. Medicare. Prescription drugs. Tax relief. Foreign policy. The military. Common ground. And some boilerplate. The man who will become the 43rd president of the United States on Jan. 20 seemed to want to build a bridge not only between the parties, but between his campaign and tonight - and over the "long and trying period" in between. His concession to the problems with the Florida election was two mentions of race relations - no talk of electoral reform. No talk of ballots uncounted, or time run out. Gore had quoted Lincoln; Bush quoted Jefferson. "The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor... Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom and harmony." As does Bush hope - that is obvious. If America was waiting for a strong, commanding leader to ride out of this long televised civics lesson, they were disappointed. If they were instead hoping for a man made humble by limbo and wary by the poison of political warfare, they got one in George W. Bush. Of course Bush the neophyte couldn't leave without saying something unintentionally funny on the first day of his election - "I ask for you to pray for this great nation..." - but he also made sure that that when he arrives in Washington next week and next year, the tone will not be bitter by any of his doing. "I was not elected to serve one party, but one nation," Bush said. "The presidency is more than an honor, it is more than an office. It is a charge to keep, and I will give it my all." Drudge 12/14/00 "...... Vice President Al Gore refused to watch George W. Bush's acceptance speech on Wednesday night, choosing instead to mingle with about 100 close friends, aides and family members who had gathered under a white tent at his residence for a hastily planned party. .....The party broke up near 3 a.m., the vice president and his wife spent much of the evening dancing, clearly happy with a "sense of release," the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report in Friday editions. ........The TIMES has learned that Gore personally lobbied top newspaper and newsmagazine editors and television news executives during the past month. "Gore made two rounds of telephone calls, once when he feared Harris would certify the Florida results on Nov. 18 and again when she was about to certify on Nov. 26." The vice president personally urged editors and executives not to join Harris in declaring Bush the winner. The TIMES outlines a memo written by Gore spinner Mark Fabiani' which detailed a weeklong plan that left little to chance in a crusade to "create news relentlessly, especially news that is televised." He suggested ways to plant stories in the TIMES and prescribed "a strict schedule of two televised press events each day,'' including a Thanksgiving-eve visit to a homeless shelter. .... " CNN 12/14/00 ".....Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters said Wednesday the justices are studying the high court's order so they can decide how to comply with it.....The Florida Supreme Court also accepted briefs Wednesday in the appeal of a case challenging absentee ballots in Bay County.......A federal appeals court on Monday agreed with a federal judge who refused to throw out 2,400 of Florida's overseas ballots, mostly from military personnel, because they arrived after Election Day. .......A three-judge

panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul in Gainesville, Florida, was consistent with recent comments by Florida's highest court about the workings of the absentee ballot law......." CNN 12/14/00 ".....NAACP leader Kweisi Mfume says the civil rights group plans to file a number of lawsuits against the state of Florida, alleging that voting irregularities denied blacks the right to vote......A number of groups are asking the courts to let them examine the thousands of disputed ballots that at the center of the Bush and Gore teams' legal dispute....... The Miami Herald filed a Freedom of Information request to see the ballots from Miami-Dade County and plans to do a state wide manual recount. The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is asking Florida's Court of Appeal for the 4th District to grant timely access to Broward County's ballots as part of its state wide review. The Rev. Jesse Jackson said the Rainbow Coalition also will seek to examine the ballots......" Freeper email 12/14/00 Katherine Harris "....Dear Fellow Citizen: Thank you for your encouragement and support. I am deeply humbled by the compassionate communications we have received. Your kind words and generous advice have been an inspiration to the employees of the Florida Department of State and to me. We have worked diligently to execute our responsibilities for the citizens of our state with independence, deliberation and integrity. It is my sincerest hope that this great nation will unite under the rule of law. Thank you again for your support and may God bless America. Yours truly, Katherine Harris Secretary of State ...." US News and World Report 12/18/00 John Leo "...... We are once again in the midst of a great wave of overheated racial rhetoric. Jesse Jackson, of course, is in the lead. Black voters didn't double-vote, mismark ballots, or run into any normal Election Day foul-ups. No, they were victims of "a systematic plan to disenfranchise black voters" and "a clear pattern of voter suppression." Attempting to repair his relationship with Jews, Jackson identified three targets of ballot oppression: Holocaust survivors, Hai-tian boat people, and American descendants of slaves. Other black leaders seemed in no doubt that something had been intentionally perpetrated upon blacks. "African-American voters were disenfranchised-period," said Congresswoman Corrine Brown. ............Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager, was quoted as saying that "in disproportionately black areas, people faced dogs, guns, and were required to have three forms of ID." The weird reference to dogs and guns obviously linked the Bush brothers with Bull Connor, Birmingham, Selma, and the hard-core racism of the past. This theme came up during the campaign too, thanks to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP's National Voter Fund ran ads on black radio stations, saying: "There are many ways intimidation was, and still is, used to keep AfricanAmericans from voting. Mobs, guns, and Jim Crow. Ropes, dogs, lies, and hoses." And the NAACP was responsible for the TV ad that recreated the horrific dragging death of James Byrd and all but accused George W. Bush of the murder. This disgraceful ad, which had some of the tone of Nazi propaganda films about Jews, played a central role in undermining Bush's appeal to black voters. In Texas, Bush got 5 percent of the black vote, compared with about 25 percent in his reelection campaign for governor.........." Washington Times 12/15/00 Samuel Wright "...... The media and the Internet are crackling with anger about the Democrats' concerted challenge to military voting rights in Florida. This is not the first time that the Democrats have sought to overturn an election result by disenfranchising the brave young men and women who are away from home and prepared to lay down their lives in defense of our country......... In 1996, Texas Rural Legal Aid (TRLA) sought to overturn the election for the offices of sheriff and county commissioner of Val Verde County, Texas. The Democrats may have been emboldened to challenge military voting rights this year because they got away with it four years ago. If only Election Day votes were counted, Democrats won those two offices. When 800 military absentee ballots were counted, Republicans won. Using federal tax dollars (through the Legal Services Corporation), TRLA brought suit against the county and the successful candidates in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. TRLA contended that the 800 military personnel were not "real residents" of the county.........." Boston Globe 12/15/00 Joan Vennochi ".......How Bush arrived at the doorstep of the presidency is not as important as what kind of president he will be. During the Wednesday night speech he delivered after Gore conceded, Bush spoke of another close election in the year 1800. ''A tie in the Electoral College put the outcome into the hands of Congress,'' he reminded us. ''After six days of voting and 36 ballots, the House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson the third president of the United States.'' ........ Jefferson is remembered today as a tremendous thinker and a man of rare accomplishment, not as a president who crept into office via the back door. Historians hold him in the highest regard. A ranking of US presidents based on surveys of 58 historians and released last President's Day put Jefferson at No. 7. ........ You don't have to go back as far as Jefferson to find another example. In 1960, another man considered by at least half the country to be a dilettante, an intellectual lightweight, and the tool of a rich and powerful father beat a sitting vice president to become president. In another parallel to the present-day scenario, some people contend that John F. Kennedy stole the election from Richard M. Nixon,just the way some people believe Bush stole the election from Gore in Florida......."

Rush Limbaugh freeper rhoden 12/15/00 "..... Rush has just verified with ballots and machines how dimpled chads can only be created by pressing on multiple ballots. He could not dimple a single ballot in the machine. So the many of us who speculated about this just after the election have been shown by direct empirical methods to have been correct. ...." Freeper afraidfortherepublic in response to "so what is rush implying...that someone manufactured these dimples by pushing the stylus into a batch of virgin cards ??? " said "....Yeah!! Or by pushing the stylus through a stack of ballots that already had votes punched for someone else (monogomous ballots) -- thus creating the famous OVERVOTE for the top part of the stack and DIMPLES for the bottom part of the stack. ...." The Palm Beach Sun Sentinel 12/15/00 AP "..... Marc B. Richter, 41 and Steven R. Solomon, 43, admitted stealing the machine on Nov.9, two days after the election, from his neighborhood community center, which was his polling place, authorities said. The machine was being stored until election officials picked it up. The pair then listed the machine on eBay, authorities said. An undercover officer from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement originally bid $2,000, but after several phone calls the price had risen to $20,000, authorities said. Richter and Solomon then met with the officer, who first negotiated the price down to $4,000, then arrested them. ....." AP 12/15/00 Tom Raum ".......President-elect Bush has selected Texas Supreme Court Justice Al Gonzales as his White House counsel, the Associated Press has learned. The selection comes as Bush worked on assembling a new government Friday and planned to meet with a leading Senate Democrat. ...... Gonzales, who had been Bush's counsel in his first term as governor, has told court associates that he had been offered the job and had accepted it, said Republican officials close to the process. .....Texas Supreme Court spokesman Osler McCarthy said any announcement would have to come from the president-elect's office. Bush aides did not publicly confirm the selection but did not dispute it. ......With the selection of Gonzales, Bush has all but completed his White House staff. He could announce his choices as early as later Friday, Bush advisers suggested. .... However, they also held out the possiblity of Saturday announcements at Bush's ranch, a two-hour drive north of here. Those announcements could be the White House staff or, possibly, the formal naming of retired Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state, Bush advisers said. ....." Western Jounalism Center 12/15/00 Kenneth Timmerman "..... House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert is putting together a task force to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the November 7 election that will be nationwide in scope ........ In Wisconsin, you can just show up at the polls on election day and vote without being registered by saying that you have just moved into the precinct. In some predominantly Democratic precincts in Texas, we had 125 percent of registered voters cast ballots. .......And in Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles, allegations are surfacing of roving bands of voters who were taken in buses from precinct to precinct to vote in place of registered voters who had moved away or who had never voted before. ........." Western Jounalism Center 12/15/00 Kenneth Timmerman "..... How can someone vote in place of another? Actually, it's fairly simple -- for the fraudulently inclined. In many states, including Maryland, it is illegal to ask voters to present identification, on the pretext that would be construed as voter intimidation. Election officials in Maryland and in many other states are allowed to ascertain a voter's true identity by asking only for their name, address and date of birth. ...... ......Repeated attempts by Republicans in Maryland to pass legislation that would require voters to present identification at the polls have been blocked by the Democratic majority in the state's House of Delegates. ...." The Associated Press 12/15/00 ".....House Speaker Tom Feeney apologized for calling Al Gore's concession speech ``evil'' and deriding the vice president as a ``loser.'' ``I was at a private victory party. ... I was joking around and I learned a lesson: When you're speaker of the House, even dumb jokes become news,'' Feeney said Thursday at a news conference announcing an election reform task force. ``I apologize to the extent my remarks offended anyone.'' ....." NewsMax 12/15/00 Carl Limbacher "...... Mario Cuomo, New York's former Democratic governor, took to the air waves after the Supreme Court ruling suggesting that Al Gore should have taken his battle to the Electoral College. .....Cuomo's statement has drawn the ire of New York's powerful Catholic Church. ....In a letter dated this past Wednesday, and obtained by NewsMax.com, Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn, pastor at Cuomo's East Side parish, St. John the Evangelist Church in New York City, counseled Cuomo: "I believe that as your pastor, I should write to you regarding your recent statements with reference to the Electoral College .... "If the word conscience is used in the traditional sense to refer to one's best judgement about what one ought to do," then Cuomo is right about what electors might be able to do, Wrenn advised. "But if conscience is used in the popular contemporary sense to refer to one's preferences, which may well be incompatable with moral truth, then of course, the answer is no," warned the New York priest......"

Scripps Howard News Service 12/15/00 Greg Gordon David Westphal "....They won the White House by the thinnest of margins, barely held an already-narrow majority in the House and will keep running the Senate only because the vice president can break 50-50 ties. ...... And yet, with George W. Bush and running mate Richard Cheney laying undisputed claim to the White House, the Republicans have realized a dream they've been chasing for half a century -- majority control of both the executive and legislative branches. ....While Americans divided their votes almost precisely equally between the Republicans and Democrats, the bottom line is that the GOP pulled off a sweep. ....While experts warn that the Republicans' slim margins in Congress will make their legislative clout iffy, some of the GOP's biggest institutional backers say they're expecting quick and significant results through the executive branch and its regulatory agencies. .......``Federal agencies over the last eight years have issued seemingly arbitrary rulings that have had a very negative impact on American business,'' said Rob Schwarzwalder, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers. ....." Accuracy In Media, Reed Irvine, Editor 11/00 Reed Irvine "......Feelings were running high, and the differences between Bush and Gore were too great for their supporters to suggest that their man concede defeat if he was behind on Nov. 17 if he had any legal basis for challenging the tally. ....... One ardent Democrat said his biggest concern was that Bush would appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe vs. Wade. While they were not part of our informal poll, we learned of two black Cub Scouts who told their white den mother that if Bush were elected, they would starve. Apparently that is what they were hearing at home. A civilian Defense Department career employee was fearful that a Gore victory would mean a continuation of what he considered to be tremendously wasteful policies pursued by the Pentagon under the Clinton-Gore administration. A veteran Justice Department lawyer who was hoping for a change explained, "I have been with the Justice Department for 18 years, and I have never seen such an unlawful administration. They ignore the rule of law. They create their own law." Neither candidate tried to convince a majority of the swing voters that their opponent was a bad person who would make a bad president.........This worked to Gore's advantage because in a negative campaign he would have been vastly outgunned. There is a lot of evidence in the public record of serious violations of the law by Clinton and Gore and deliberate efforts to cover up their crimes. On the other hand, the worst crime committed by Bush that the pro-Gore reporters in the media could find was his arrest in 1976 for driving under the influence. ....." Dallas Morning News 12/16/00 ".....Vice President-elect Dick Cheney tossed around names for possible appointments Friday with Michigan Gov. John Engler and formed policy groups to help push President-elect George W. Bush's agenda through a closely divided Congress. ......The teams will prepare Cabinet designees to work with the House and Senate so Mr. Bush can make good on his campaign promises, BushCheney transition spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday. ......... The groups of campaign and congressional staffers and policy experts will help educate Cabinet members about Mr. Bush's proposals and collect information from government agencies. ...... Before they can begin contacting agencies, though, legal agreements must be signed. Mr. Fleischer said those agreements, and others permitting the FBI to begin background checks of job applicants, are still being worked out. ...........The private sector will also be able to weigh in on the transition through special advisory teams that will help the policy groups. ...These teams, chaired by former Rep. Bill Paxon, will consist of 30 to 50 individuals from the public sector and private companies. ....." Dallas Morning News 12/16/00 Michelle Mittelstadt ".....Faced with a Bush administration they fought to prevent, leaders in the abortion-rights, environmental and gun-control movements recognize they may have to reshape their policy agendas and advocate less-dramatic proposals. .......As they prepare for less influence on the White House, they fear social conservatives and corporate interests will call in markers earned during the bruising campaign, demanding that President-elect George W. Bush press conservative policies and stock the bureaucracy and the courts with like-minded appointees. ......"He is performing one of the greatest high-wire political acts ever," said Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute, a conservative public policy research organization. "He has an evenly divided Senate that can obstruct most anything he does. On judicial appointments, he can't get a Marlo Thomas through the Senate, much less a Clarence Thomas."......" Agapepress.org 12/15/00 Fred Jackson Jim Brown "...... A leading voice in the conservative community says having George W. Bush confirmed as the next President does not mean the battle for traditional family values is over. Jerry Falwell sees two challenges ahead for conservatives. Despite the public comments of Democrats who say they want to work in a bipartisan fashion with Republicans, Falwell says Christians must remain alert to the fact that their real agenda is to win the House and Senate in 2002, and regain the White House in 2004. Falwell's other concern is that Christian conservatives who helped elect Bush may think they can now rest on their laurels. ....He says Bush is inheriting a political environment in Washington that is hostile to Christian values. An environment, he says, that "believes parents should have little or no say in their children's education... that promotes abortion.. and that has told Christian conservatives to keep their

collective mouths shut while our nation's moral fabric is devastated." ....." New York Times 12/16/00 Gustav Niebuhr "....The two speeches that closed the presidential campaign on Wednesday night - Vice President Al Gore's concession and President-elect George W. Bush's acceptance provided fresh evidence that expressions of personal piety have become embedded in political discourse......Mr. Bush asked the public to pray for the nation, the leaders of the two major parties, and for him and Mr. Gore. And he said he saw the country moving forward "with God's help." Mr. Gore, for his part, ventured onto theologically more intriguing terrain......He suggested that divine purpose - not mere partisan politics - could be discerned in the contest's end, lending a universal significance to what might otherwise be a passing and (for him) painful moment....." Opinion Journal 12/15/00 Elizabeth Mitchell ".....And indeed, although Mr. Cheney did suffer a heart attack-which should earn a man more days off at the ranch than a mysterious boil deserves--he was been far more visible than President-elect George W. Bush, at least until Mr. Bush took to the airwaves Wednesday night. This led critics to hoot that, no matter how you count the chads, Mr. Bush would be doing little more than flipping hamburgers in a Cheney presidency. ......In fact, such grumbling undervalues one of Mr. Bush's more decisive leadership qualities--one that for him was hard-learned: letting others handle the details of procedure so that he can work to retain the bigger perspective. ..... "I remember being struck that he was a sponge soaking up information and he wouldn't be squeezed until it was the right time," said Mr. Card. He thought George W. had learned who he didn't want to become by watching the "know-it-alls" in politics--those people more interested in mouthing off about an issue than understanding it. ....... Like George W., Al Gore has exhibited the way personality dictates politics. A type-A wonk's obsession with details and constant achievement translates into a Democrat who believes in interventionist government. That adds up to a vice president who micromanages hand-counts and keeps his own counsel. .....Mr. Bush is the laid-back slacker who believes there's no reason to fret the complexities since government shouldn't be involved at that level in the first place. That adds up to a candidate who in an election dispute lets Jim Baker handle the legal challenges and Dick Cheney absorb the partisan punches, and saves himself to try to charm consensus on another day. ........... " New York Times 12/16/00 Eric Schmitt "......In the ornate Senate dining room earlier this month, Dick Cheney was basking in a standing ovation from Senate Republicans who had gathered to hear from Gov. George W. Bush's running mate. "You can't imagine how good this makes a former House member feel," Mr. Cheney said, deadpan....... In one neat gesture, Mr. Cheney subtly tweaked the aura of superiority that many senators are wont to lord over representatives in the Congressional pecking order, and reminded them ever so gently that he is a veteran player on Capitol Hill. Not that senators needed much reminding.......As vice president, Mr. Cheney will cast any tie-breaking votes in the evenly divided Senate. Beyond that visible role, many Republicans say Mr. Cheney, a former White House chief of staff, congressman from Wyoming and defense secretary, will use his stature and experience to be a powerful force behind the scenes on Capitol Hill, and to serve as a bridge between his administration and like-minded Congressional Republicans that Mr. Bush needs to court early on......" Agapepress.org 12/15/00 Fred Jackson Jim Brown "...... A leading voice in the conservative community says having George W. Bush confirmed as the next President does not mean the battle for traditional family values is over. Jerry Falwell sees two challenges ahead for conservatives. Despite the public comments of Democrats who say they want to work in a bipartisan fashion with Republicans, Falwell says Christians must remain alert to the fact that their real agenda is to win the House and Senate in 2002, and regain the White House in 2004. Falwell's other concern is that Christian conservatives who helped elect Bush may think they can now rest on their laurels. ....He says Bush is inheriting a political environment in Washington that is hostile to Christian values. An environment, he says, that "believes parents should have little or no say in their children's education... that promotes abortion.. and that has told Christian conservatives to keep their collective mouths shut while our nation's moral fabric is devastated." ....." New York Times 12/16/00 Gustav Niebuhr "....The two speeches that closed the presidential campaign on Wednesday night - Vice President Al Gore's concession and President-elect George W. Bush's acceptance provided fresh evidence that expressions of personal piety have become embedded in political discourse......Mr. Bush asked the public to pray for the nation, the leaders of the two major parties, and for him and Mr. Gore. And he said he saw the country moving forward "with God's help." Mr. Gore, for his part, ventured onto theologically more intriguing terrain......He suggested that divine purpose - not mere partisan politics - could be discerned in the contest's end, lending a universal significance to what might otherwise be a passing and (for him) painful moment....." UPI News Article 12/15/00 Peter Roff ".....Two top staffers in a Democratic consulting firm have resigned in a disagreement over a plan to contact Republican presidential electors in an effort to sway them to vote for Al Gore when electors cast their ballots on Dec. 18. ...."

Associated Press 12/19/00 Tom Raum "....President-elect Bush greeted the man he will succeed on Tuesday, saying as he met with President Clinton "I'm here to listen." The outgoing Democratic chief executive said his only advice to the Republican was "to get a good team and do what you think is right." ....... Although Bush had pledged in campaign speeches to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House a reference to Clinton scandals - the two spoke congenially as they met for the first time since the election. Bush called his visit with Clinton "a high energy moment." He was to meet later in the day with his former rival, Vice President Al Gore. ....." New York Times 12/19/00 Marc Lacey ".....Eight years ago, the first lady, Barbara Bush, invited her successor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the White House for tea. The two women chatted amiably upstairs in the residence in what had to have been an awkward session. Today, the scene repeated itself - except Mrs. Clinton was the hostess and another Mrs. Bush, Laura, was arriving....." New York Post 12/19/00 Dan Mangan Milton Goldstein "...... Thousands of metropolitan-area residents are illegally registered to vote in both New York and Florida, a Post investigation has found. .....A review of voter registration databases turned up more than 14,000 voters in New York City, Nassau and Suffolk counties who are also registered to vote in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties, in South Florida. New York City has 11,642 voters with illegal dual registrations. Nassau has 1,454; Suffolk has 1,400. ....... "You are not allowed to be registered in two places at once," said Eleanor Sciglibaglio, associate chief clerk of the Nassau County Board of Elections. "They could face a criminal prosecution." .......... The Post compared databases from New York City, Nassau and Suffolk to the databases of the three Florida counties, provided by Strategic Technologies & Research of Fort Lauderdale. .... " Yahoo News 12/19/00 ".....(Reuters) - President Clinton said on Monday that after eight years in Washington he was not surprised the U.S. Supreme Court halted the contested vote recount in Florida in the U.S. presidential election because ``they had the power to do it and they did it.'' ...... On the core ruling halting the recount at the urging of lawyers for Republican George W. Bush the court was split along strict ideological lines, with the narrow conservative majority prevailing. .....``I think most lawyers, or a lot of them, were surprised they took the case,'' Clinton said. ``Even those (who) were surprised they took the case were shocked when the vote count was stopped.'' ...... But Clinton, an attorney and veteran of many partisan battles during his two terms in office, said he was not shocked, though he stopped short of saying outright he felt the decision was politically driven. ``No, not after eight years in Washington, I wasn't,'' he said. ``They had the power to do it and they did it. And it's done and we should accept it.''...." 12/18/00 Washington Times Tony Snow "......And now, some gratuitous advice for the next president: Pay off the slogan: George W. Bush promised to serve as a "uniter, not a divider." His most important early challenge as president will be to explain that treacle.He has two main choices: He can behave like an amiable pile of slush, striving to offend no one, resolving to take no great risks and hoping he can prevail through sheer affability - or he can embrace a Reaganesque politics of joy, appealing directly to the nation's optimism and idealism in making the case ..." Newsmax.com 12/19/00 Carl Limbacher "...... The media's own Florida recount is just getting underway and already there are indications that representatives for various news agencies are bending over backwards to interpret questionable "undervotes" for Vice President Al Gore. ...... Vote counters from the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Associated Press are squirreled away in a Broward County warehouse this week tallying up hanging chads and dimpled ballots. ...... Predictably, some of media recounters are apparently giving the vice president every break they can. ..... "One ballot in precinct 26A was tallied as a dimpled chad for Vice President Al Gore by the Associated Press and a member of another news group," the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. "While yet another member of the group and Judicial Watch decided there was no vote." "This is crazy," said George Lemieux, a Broward County Republican official on the scene. "Now we have 30 people with different standards." .....Maybe. But imagine what the standards would be if Judicial Watch wasn't there....." HoustonChronicle.com 12/`9/00 AP "....Amid a whirlwind tour of the nation's capital, President-elect Bush laid the groundwork for his Cabinet-in-the-making, approving the nominations of longtime friend Don Evans as commerce secretary and former Cuban refugee Mel Martinez as housing secretary, Republican officials said today. ....Bush planned to announce the appointments Wednesday in Texas, said several GOP officials involved in the deliberations. ...,: Orlando Sentinel 12/19/00 David Damron, Ramsey Campbell and Roger Roy ".....An inspection of more than 6,000 discarded presidential ballots in Lake County on Monday revealed that Vice President Al Gore lost a net 130 votes that were clearly his even in a conservative, GOP bastion that president-elect George W. Bush dominated as a whole. ......The review found 376 discarded ballots in Lake that were clearly intended as votes for Gore: In each case, an oval next to his name was filled in with a pencil and the voter mistakenly

filled in another oval next to a spot reserved for write-in candidates, writing in Gore's name or running mate Joe Lieberman's there as well. Another 246 such ballots showing clear votes for Bush and running mate Dick Cheney were thrown out. Had all such ballots been counted, the result would have been a net gain of 130 votes for Gore. ..... Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew said the Sentinel was engaged in "mischief making" by treating "illegal votes" as legal votes. He argued that a 7-2 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court agreed such tallies should not count, and the Sentinel would only be irresponsibly "inflaming public passions" by playing the numbers up as certain or clear. ...... "To publish illegal votes as legal votes would be to mislead the readers and the public," Eskew said. "These are illegal votes, and your paper is publishing them as legal votes." ......" Orlando Sentinel 12/19/00 Scott Maxwell ".... Orange County Chairman Mel Martinez will be the country's next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a source close to the selection process told the Orlando Sentinel Tuesday afternoon. President-elect George W. Bush is expected to announce Martinez's selection at a press conference in Austin, Texas Wednesday, the source said. ....... " Sun Sentinel 12/18/00 Jeremy Milarsky ".....We may remember it, in terms of the final result, as the count that didn't really count. All the same, a determined group of statisticians, accountants and journalists gathered around a dining room-sized table in a downtown warehouse on Monday to inspect disputed Broward County ballots in an election that is no longer disputed -- by the candidates, at least. ....... By the end of the day, 424 of an estimated 13,600 "questionable" ballots had been inspected. The count will resume today, then will be suspended until January because of a lack of staffing at the Supervisor of Elections Office. ....... Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group based in Washington, was the first organization to file a formal public-records request with the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. ........ Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch chairman and general counsel, clashed with staff members early in the day after James Cherof, an attorney for the supervisor's office, declined to immediately provide printed standards used by the canvassing board during the hand count. "We are providing ballots," Cherof said. "That's the process that's going on." .......Klayman announced: "For any members of the media who are here, this county should have nothing to hide. It shouldn't be keeping from the American people how they did the counts." ..... Members of the media who crowded into the room included those documenting the event as well as eight media representatives who signed up to count votes. .......A consortium of counters included reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Associated Press and Tribune Publishing Co., which represented the Sun-Sentinel. ......." Sun Sentinel 12/18/00 Jeremy Milarsky ".....Republican Party observers predict counting chaos. "What's interesting about this is the U.S. Supreme Court called Broward on the carpet by saying the standards here were inconsistent," said George LeMieux, chairman of the Broward GOP. "Now we have 20 news organizations with no standards, so I think we'll have 20 different results." ....... But Judicial Watch President Thomas J. Fitton said his organization is seeking to categorize questionable ballots. That includes Broward's estimated 6,600 "undervotes" -- in which a tabulation machine recorded the voter not having chosen a candidate for president -- and 7,000 "overvotes," in which a machine recorded two or more votes. "Our point is to find out what went on here, to see what the ballots look like," Fitton said. "How many hanging chads were there?" ......" Houston Chronicle 12/19/00 Lanny Davis "...... I remember the moment well: About 33 years ago, George Bush (we never used the "W" back then) was sitting among a group of us in a college common room at Yale, engaged in one of our late-night comment-on-everyone sessions. ........ Someone made an acerbic comment about a fellow student who was considered one of the biggest nerds on campus. There was laughter. Then George said: "Hey, it's not so easy for him. He's a good guy -- leave him alone." We all quieted down. .....Looking back, I can see the quality of empathy that has been central to George's political success and will be important as he assumes the presidency. ...... I have often been asked whether I consider President-elect Bush smart, and my answer is yes, without any doubt. But I mean street-smart, quick-witted, savvy, commonsense smart and, especially, smart about judging and understanding people. What I don't mean is academically ambitious or anxious to analyze deeply any subject or substantive issue....." AP 12/19/00 Ron Fournier "....Amid a whirlwind tour of the nation's capital, President-elect Bush approved the nominations of longtime friend Don Evans as commerce secretary, former Cuban refugee Mel Martinez as housing secretary and Californian Ann Veneman as agriculture secretary, Republican officials said Tuesday, predicting a blitz of pre-Christmas appointments. Bush, soon to be the nation's 43rd president, planned to announce the selections Wednesday in Texas, said several GOP officials involved in the deliberations.." New York Times 12/20/00 Dexter Filkins "......In one of the first signs of political fallout from the bitter struggle over the contested presidential vote here, a Republican-led group is seeking to unseat three Florida Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of hand recounts sought by Vice President Al Gore. The group,

the Emergency Florida State Supreme Court Project, has sent letters to some 350,000 voters inside and outside of Florida asking for donations to help oust Chief Justice Charles T. Wells and Justices Leander J. Shaw Jr. and Harry Lee Anstead. ....." Boston Herald 12/17/00 Tom Mashberg ".....George W. Bush's presidency will likely resemble an amalgam of two recent administrations - those of Ronald Reagan and, of all people, Bill Clinton - historians and White House experts predict. Emerging from the debris of Election 2000, scholars say, Bush will not be shy about drawing on the winning tactics of those two living two-term chief executives. In Reagan, the 43d president-inwaiting has a role model for his honeyed preachments about "the promise of America." In Clinton, he has a politically wily predecessor who was at his best when he positioned himself astraddle the capital's partisan political poles. "Bush talks of being a unifier and I think he means it," said Paul G. Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. "He has borrowed liberally from Reagan by speaking with optimism about 'lifting up America's spirits' and 'restoring esteem' to the U.S. presidency." .......Still, said Jerald Podair, professor of history at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., "Under Bush, the political style of the White House won't change much from that of Clinton. Bush and Clinton share a lot of the 'charming bad boy' persona that is the subject of so many country music songs. As with Clinton, Bush will be one of the least ideologically-driven presidents of our time." ....." Reuters/Yahoo 12/17/00 Carol Giacomo ".....It would be hard to overstate the significance of Condoleezza Rice's selection -- long expected but officially announced on Sunday as President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s national security adviser. ... As a black woman, she is a rarity in the Republican Party and her appointment shatters the glass ceiling that has for years kept this powerhouse White House position out of the hands of a major segment of the U.S. population. ......... Analysts predict her elevation to the highest echelon of U.S. policymaking will give her rock-star status as well as a practical clout that is expected to be wielded with what one admirer called ``velvet-gloved forcefulness.'' ........But there is also an element of daring in the appointment, some say, because for all her charm, poise and coolly analytical intelligence, her high-level diplomatic experience is not extensive and her area of expertise is somewhat limited. ......" CNN live NEWS 12/17/00 Freeper Bob Evans "....CNN just ran a news piece on "Faithless Electors" ... and the gist of the piece was that this still could (Or should) happen. It would only take 3 or 4 electors to swing the Presidency to (Barrrrrrrrf) Al Gore. The two people that were talking both warned against it, but the man said he would understand why one could or would change their vote. NBC is also supposed to run a piece tonight on this same subject! ....I have never in my life seen this much bull-shit over an election or the electors ... while some have said there is nothing that can be done should the votes swing for Gore to become our next President, I believe this would go well beyond a Constitutional Crisis and could well plunge America into our second Civil War! ......" Freeper sonsofliberty2000 ".....Andrew Card was on MTP saying all the Bush electors were contacted and faithful. ..." Palm Beach Post via www.woldnetdialy.com 12/16/00 George Bennett ".....Palm Beach County's infamous butterfly ballot design was chosen from among three or four possibilities and, in retrospect, was "probably . . . not the wisest thing to do," Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore said Friday. But LePore, in her first interview since the Nov. 7 election, said voters still should have been able to mark their ballots properly. And she rejected the idea that confusion over the county's two-page ballot design might have cost Al Gore the presidency. ......... LePore's argument for voter responsibility also extended to the "dimpled," "pregnant" and "hanging" chads that were a central part of the recount drama in Palm Beach County and throughout Florida. ........Although she cast the deciding vote on the county's canvassing board in favor of a countywide hand recount, LePore, 45, said she now has serious doubts about the accuracy of such recounts and the wisdom of studying dented or partially punched chads to try to determine voter intent. ......" UPI 12/18/00 Les Kjos "....As members of the Electoral College voted for president around the nation Monday, 15 organizations in south Florida began recounting ballots from the Nov. 7 election...... Among those counting were the Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the watchdog organization Judicial Watch. Members of the organizations are not allowed to handle the ballots......Schotanus said the organizations were counting about 6,000 so-called undervotes Monday, and said nobody knew whether they would finish by the end of the day....... In Miami-Dade County, a recount of undervotes was expected to begin Monday, but plans were incomplete. .... In Palm Beach County, officials said the ballots have not been returned from the state capital of Tallahassee yet and plans for a recount are incomplete. Last month, Judicial Watch looked at 630 ballots in Palm Beach County........ Several organizations planned recounts ballots in the entire state, but plans were still being made......." Human Events 12/17/00 Ann Coulter "....Though there was no evidence that any legal votes had been

surreptitiously shredded or illegal votes carted in on a wheelbarrow, Gore needed more "recounts" in order to finally concoct some "count" that would make him the alleged winner. In order to establish that he had grounds to demand a "recount"-Gore demanded a recount. This made a lot of sense to the Kangaroo Court....... But not to the real Supreme Court. As Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in his concurrence: "No reasonable person would call it 'an error in the vote tabulation,' or a 'rejection of legal votes,' when electronic or electromechanical equipment performs precisely in the manner designed, and fails to count those ballots that are not marked in the manner that these voting instruction explicitly and prominently specify." ........But the SCOFLA rewrote Florida's election code to permit itself authority to order a recount as it saw fit. The recount would occur in only certain counties and only for certain types of votes-the type most susceptible to manipulation and fraud....... In particular, the Kangaroo Court limited the "recount" to divining voter "intent" from ballots that had registered no vote for President-the so-called undervotes. (And the vote-counters knew exactly where dimples needed to be placed to create a vote for Gore, whether or not any succumbed to the temptation to manufacture "dimples.") Meanwhile, the court specifically prohibited the recount from being used to count "overvotes." Whenever and wherever they came from, either a "dimple" is a vote or it isn't. But the SCOFLA ruled that dimples would be used only to register new votes formerly unrecognizable as votes. Those same "dimples" could not be used, however, to disqualify the vote as a double-voted ballot. That seems fair......" Yahoo/AP 12/18/00 Terry Spencer "..... About a dozen reporters, lawyers, a statistician and county residents Randy and Judy Cernick crowded around tables in a warehouse as two county employees held up each disputed punch-card ballot for their inspection. ........ The observers were trying to determine if each presidential ballot had a dimpled or hanging chad or no marks at all. The count moved slowly, taking almost four hours to tally slightly more than 200 ballots. ....... As the Broward recount began, Larry Klayman, an attorney for Judicial Watch, demanded that county attorneys produce written standards detailing how the canvassing board counted the disputed ballots. The county attorney has refused, telling Judicial Watch that would require a court order. ......``What we want to know is what standards were used,'' said Thomas J. Fitton, Judicial Watch's president. ....... In Broward and Palm Beach Counties, he said, no clear standards were used to recount the ballots. ....." AP 12/18/00 Heather Greenfield ".....At 73, Barbara Lett-Simmons doesn't care if people call her a ``faithless elector.'' What she does care about is the District of Columbia not having a vote in Congress, and she made her point by casting a blank presidential electoral ballot. ``Taxation without representation is tyranny,'' LettSimmons said Monday after firing her symbolic protest shot.. ..." USA Today columnist 12/17/00 Richard Benedetto ".....Having known and covered President-elect George W. Bush for more than a decade, here are some personal observations and thoughts: Bush clearly loves being around people. ...... He moves through crowds with ease, striking up friendly conversations with those he meets and listening carefully to what they have to say. In the course of the campaign, he patiently signed thousands of autographs and cheerfully posed for many more thousands of snapshots. ......When you ask him a question, you can count on a direct answer. One reporter at World Series time asked him if he preferred the designated hitter or letting the pitcher bat. Without a hitch, he responded, ''I like real grass, wooden bats and letting the pitcher bat for himself.'' .....The same question was asked of Al Gore that same day. Gore, clearly thrown by the nonpolitical query, hesitated, saying, ''I hadn't really thought about it.'' When he finally replied, he went off on a Hamlet-like soliloquy. ......Bush says what he means, and means what he says, and doesn't try to wiggle off the hook when called for saying something controversial. ....." Chicago Tribune 12/18/00 Charles Krauthammer ".... Democratic partisans are complaining that the presidential election has been settled not by the people but by judges. This is amusing. Who turned this into a lawyers' contest anyway? Within hours of election night, the Gore campaign parachuted dozens, ultimately hundreds of lawyers into Florida with one objective: To find judges to undo their loss. They went judge shopping, court shopping, venue shopping, loophole shopping. They sued everywhere and anywhere... " The Independent (UK) 12/19/00 Mary dejevsky ".... Laura Bush took tea at the White House yesterday morning with Hillary Clinton, in the customary courtesy call by the incoming first lady. What was never expected to be a meeting of minds began badly when the door of Mrs Bush's limousine refused to open, delaying her emergence at the south entrance of the White House. "I'm glad to see you," said Mrs Clinton without great warmth, as she tried to steer Mrs Bush away from cameras. But Mrs Bush seemed content to bask for a few moments in the limelight, smiling benignly and answering a few shouted questions before being ushered in. ....." ABCNEWS 12/18/00 Peter Dizikes "....President-elect George W. Bush has gained every one of the 271 Electoral College votes he was due to receive today, as unyielding support from Republican electors has ensured his grasp on the White House. Although the votes will not be officially tallied by Congress until Jan. 6, all the state delegations slated to vote for Bush announced the results of their ballots this afternoon.

Despite speculation that "faithless electors" might switch their votes to Democrat Al Gore, who won the popular vote, the Republican slate remained intact and gave Bush one more vote than he needed...." New York Times 12/19/00 Alison Mitchell ".....President-elect George W. Bush courted Republican and Democratic leaders in the Capitol today and promised to salve "whatever wounds may exist" from the election........ Yet Mr. Bush also emphasized that he planned to push for his full campaign agenda, including a broad tax cut, and would use "head knocking" and "gentle arm-twisting" to prevail.......On Capitol Hill, Mr. Bush stood side by side with all four Congressional leaders of both parties. Glancing often at the two Democrats, he vowed that "this isn't a single photo opportunity" but the first step in building a working relationship....... " New York Times 12/19/00 Alison Mitchell ".....To Mr. Bush's right stood the Republicans, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the majority leader. To his left stood the Democrats, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the minority leader, and Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the minority leader. Mr. Bush had met with the Republicans before, but he made a point today of spending time one-on-one with each of the two Democrats........ "There's going to be a lot of discussions, a lot of head-knocking, kind of gentle arm-twisting," Mr. Bush said. "I'm sure they'll be twisting my arm and I might try to twist a few myself to reach what's right for America." ..... " New York Times 12/19/00 Alison Mitchell ".....Mr. Gephardt, perhaps sending Mr. Bush a message about how far the Democrats are willing to bend, said, "We will be there coming 50 percent of the way, sometimes even further, to the middle to get things done for the people that sent us here and hired us."....... But unlike on the Sunday talk programs, when Mr. Gephardt danced around the question of whether he recognized Mr. Bush as the legitimate president, today he showed no hesitation. Noting that the Electoral College was meeting this very day to elect Mr. Bush, he said, "I don't know how you can get more legitimate than that." ......Mr. Daschle said, "Absolutely, President-elect Bush is a legitimate president of the United States......." Miami Herald Online 12/18/00 Cal Thomas "..... In what may have been the most gracious speech of his life, Vice President Al Gore conceded to Gov. George W. Bush of Texas on Wednesday night and acknowledged that Bush is the president-elect. .....For all the rhetoric about unity, the humor, the mention of God five times, the talk of how partisan feelings must yield to patriotism and how we must honor the new president-elect by bringing the country together, Gore's fellow Democrats won't buy much of it. They were too close to winning all three branches of government and are not about to lie down with the lamb. They smell the red meat. After a brief period of superficial unity, they will dedicate themselves to ensuring, with the help of their media friends, that Bush II suffer the same fate as Bush I. ...... Jesse Jackson will continue to foment racial and political division. He's not about to unite behind anybody. His own political self-interest and financial future rests on sowing tares among the wheat and keeping his face on television. .....Incredibly, Gore made no mention of Bill Clinton, to whom he owes much and from whom he received little (Clinton lied to him about Monica Lewinsky and who knows what else). ...." Miami Herald Online 12/18/00 Cal Thomas "..... In his beautifully crafted and flawlessly delivered address, Bush sounded and looked presidential. He touched on some of the same themes Gore did, acknowledging with humility that Republicans and Democrats want the best for the nation. ``Our votes may differ, but not our hopes,'' he said. ....... In the best lines of the night, Bush said, ``I was not elected to serve one party but to serve one nation. The president of the United States is the president of every single American, of every race and of every background. Whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests, and I will work to earn your respect.'' ....... Bush is a good and decent man, but he's entering an arena where good and decent men (and women) are eaten for breakfast. ...... Bush II should learn from his father's false hope. His adversaries, of whom there are many, are more likely to accuse him of evil motives and ugly policies. ......" The Associated Press 12/18/00 Terry Spencer ".....Nearly a week after the presidential election was settled, news organizations, a conservative legal group, and a local couple started reviewing 6,600 disputed Broward County ballots Monday, trying to determine if officials properly counted them last month.. ....Reporters from The Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Washington Post were conducting a two-day preliminary inspection of the disputed ballots to determine whether a full statewide review would be feasible. ...... Others reviewing the ballots were The Miami Herald, The Wall Street Journal, and Tribune Publishing Co., which represents the Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, The (Baltimore) Sun, and Newsday of Long Island......The various news organizations and Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group based in Washington, were splitting a $300-an-hour fee being charged by the county for the recount, which was scheduled to last two days. ......Mark Seibel, the Herald's assistant managing editor, said his newspaper plans to recount ballots in all 67 counties and has hired an accounting firm to tally the ballots. .....As the Broward recount began, Larry Klayman, an attorney for Judicial Watch, demanded that county attorneys produce written standards detailing how the canvassing board counted the

disputed ballots. The county attorney has refused, telling Judicial Watch that would require a court order. ...... After Monday's recount ended, Klayman said Judicial Watch also would ask that a judge order the county to use more employees to display the ballots and speed up the process. ...... Fitton called Florida's disputed ballots ''the primary documents of history'' and said his group intends similar recounts in all 67 counties. In Broward and Palm Beach Counties, he said, no clear standards were used to recount the ballots. ......." A.P. 12/18/00 Barry Schweid "..... Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, leaders of President-elect Bush's national security team, are likely to turn the country's foreign policy inward with a robust missile defense and a reluctance to use peacekeepers in ethnic conflicts abroad. Compounding their conservative philosophies, Bush's inexperience in international affairs is apt, at least at the outset, to produce a less- expansive role than Bill Clinton's as president over the past eight years...." UPI 12/18/00 "....Members of the Electoral College Monday handed Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush his election victory, giving him 271 electoral votes, one more than needed to capture the presidency. One elector pledged to Democrat Al Gore in the District of Columbia withheld her ballot to protest the city's lack of voting representation in Congress. ...." UPI 12/19/00 Paul Singer ".....Watchdog groups in Washington attacked First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday for signing a blockbuster book deal with a entertainment conglomerate that she may be called on to regulate in her new job as U.S. Senator from New York....... In a strongly worded letter, the Congressional Accountability Project argued that the $8 million deal with Simon & Schuster - a subsidiary of communications giant Viacom - may be "a way for that corporation to place money into your pockets, perhaps to curry favor with you.".......... Activists say that with no book yet written, the $8 million contract is excessive. Several groups pointed out that then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) signed and then abandoned a $4.5 million book deal after a storm of public protest and calls for the deal to be reviewed by the Ethics Committee. ....." Washington Times 12/19/00 ".....Foreign policy will take on a stronger face in the new Bush administration, providing continuity by fulfilling previous commitments and ingenuity by building up a military that is severely overtaxed and which lacks the necessary resources. Former Gen. Colin Powell, George W. Bush's pick for secretary of state, and Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser-to-be, have the resources to do it. Miss Rice was the top Russia expert on the National Security Council during the previous Bush administration. ..... Both have been trusted Bush advisers, and their unified new foreign policy platform calls for reassessing peacekeeping missions in collaboration with U.S. allies and bolstering national security.......What the new platform does not spell is isolationism. Rather, it calls for carefully selecting which conflict areas the United States is best equipped to handle. The peacekeeping and military forces will have better resources, and greater ability to enter conflict areas with a defined mission and exit strategy.......,,Unlike the Clinton administration, which used the reduced threat of the Cold War as an excuse to scale back military funding, the Bush foreign policy platform addresses the realities of terrorism, and the demands continually being placed on the United States to intervene in conflict areas around the globe......This will mean getting the national missile defense system back up to speed, a job President Clinton decided in September to leave to his successor...." Washington Times 12/19/00 Wesley Pruden ".....George W. Bush is well on his way to disarming his critics in Washington. Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle finally conceded yesterday that he's a legitimate president, although not entirely without equivocation. Others can measure how grudging their concessions were. But at least they said the words........ The president-elect may have harder work ahead of him in Europe, where the French, as usual, are stirring up toil and trouble.......The French, whose contribution to modern warfare is the art of the surrender, are terminally envious of the United States (and the special relationship between the United States and Britain), and they're determined to join in the creation of a European army to rival NATO. The British - or at least Tony Blair - seem determined to tag along in a French orbit. But the British prime minister has had to insist, in the wake of that not very nice European summit in Nice where the French and Germans pushed their scheme of a European army, that NATO would continue to be "the linchpin" of European security. Some linchpin. The United States would continue to do the heavy lifting, the Germans would get fancy uniforms and brass bands and the French would get to drink the champagne. NATO would shrivel......." U. S. News & World Report 12/25/00 Jeff Glasser "......When the history of the 2000 election is written, the Bush brothers could go down as victor and vanquished. George W.'s controversial presidential win in Florida has made his younger brother, Governor Jeb, enemy No. 1 of minorities. "We're mad as hell about what happened. We were robbed," says Tony Hill, a former state representative who is already working with Jesse Jackson to unseat Bush in 2002....."

U. S. News & World Report 12/25/00 David Whitman "..... THE SYSTEM'S BROKE But there's no money to fix it If there is one lesson from the election that just about everybody agrees on, it is that states and localities must update their antiquated voting systems. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows 95 percent of respondents favor setting standards for a uniform nationwide ballot; more than 80 percent back federal and state subsidies to help cities and counties buy new voting equipment. Already, federal lawmakers and state election officials have introduced measures to fix the voting process and phase out the use of punch-card ballots......" Associated Press 12/16/00 "....Most Americans say George W. Bush can be an effective president and should not scale back his plans despite losing the popular vote and facing divisions in Congress, a poll released Saturday finds. Only 13 percent of those surveyed by Newsweek magazine said the way Bush won the presidency against Democrat Al Gore will prevent him from being an effective leader. In contrast, 44 percent said he could be somewhat effective and 39 percent said he could be very effective. Almost threequarters of those polled said Bush should pursue his political goals despite his slim victory ........" The Sunday Times [London] 12/17/00 Matthew Campbell and Tom Rhodes "...... AMERICA'S new presidential administration began to take shape yesterday as George W Bush appointed a black military hero as his secretary of state and basked in the homage bestowed on him by world leaders. John Sununu, his father's old chief of staff, has taken to calling him "President Bush the second" and the regal ring to this title seemed apt for the son of the last Republican leader as he prepared to govern the world's most powerful country by dispensing jobs in his court......" Associated Press 12/16/00 Pete Yost "......A half-hour after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its electionsettling ruling, James A. Baker III picked up the phone in Tallahassee, Fla., to deliver a cautious message to the new president-elect. ...... He told the Texas governor the lawyers had carefully reviewed the ruling and believed it might leave Democratic opponent Al Gore slight ``wiggle room'' to attempt to go back to court to count more votes. ...True to prediction, Gore's advisers considered the option into the wee hours of Wednesday morning until the vice president concluded it was time to concede the election to his Republican rival. ......." Associated Press 12/16/00 Pete Yost "... Those who worked closely with Baker said one of his most important decisions came during the Thanksgiving holiday when some Bush advisers, cheered by a decision to stop vote-counting in Miami-Dade County, considered dropping Bush's first appeal to the Supreme Court........ With Miami-Dade ending its recount, some calculated that Gore couldn't pick up the votes he needed to overtake Bush's lead, and the courts were unlikely to force the issue. ..... Some of the advisers also were afraid of losing in the Supreme Court, further emboldening the Florida courts to help Gore, said one lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity. ......Baker and the higher-ups decided, however, the team couldn't take the chance of walking away from the nation's highest court. It paid off -- the Supreme Court stung its Florida counterpart by vacating a ruling against Bush. ......``I believe the decision to continue the federal court case was the most significant in the contest period and Jim Baker deserves the lion's share of the credit for the decision,'' said Frank Donatelli, a longtime Baker friend and Washington attorney who helped the Bush team in Tallahassee. ......" Associated Press 12/16/00 Pete Yost "...When Gore made his first legal strike, Baker went on television to warn there was no easy way to end the election once it reached the unpredictable legal system. The Bush team kept that message for days as it played defense in the state courts, fending off Gore maneuvers and sought to persuade the federal courts to trump Florida. ...... Stung by a unanimous Florida Supreme Court ruling against Bush, Baker openly invited the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature to step in and preserve Bush's win. ....... The court ``has invented a new system for counting the election results,'' he said. ``So one should not now be surprised if the Florida Legislature seeks to affirm the original rules.'' ......Each message was carefully calculated -- even the last one delivered the night the U.S. Supreme Court assured Bush's victory by forbidding further vote counts. After briefing Bush on the 5-4 decision, Baker went on TV for a brief statement that expressed pleasure at the justices' ruling, but which avoided claiming final victory. ......" The London Telegraph 12/17/00 James Langton Ian Ball "..... AS George W Bush and Al Gore continue counting the cost of the most expensive election in American history, some of the 67 counties in Florida where the protracted legal battles occurred are considering selling ballot papers to recoup some of their costs. ...... Five weeks of legal wrangling have left several counties with bills running into millions of dollars for lawyers' fees, civil service overtime and security expenses. Selling disputed ballot cards, with pregnant, dimpled, hanging or swinging chads, is the brainchild of David Lang, clerk of the Leon County circuit court in the state capital of Tallahassee, which impounded 1.16 million ballots. ...... " Capital Hill Blue 12/17/00 Larry McShane ".....There will be no recount on this one: President-elect George

W. Bush (news - web sites) was named Sunday as Time magazine's Person of the Year. As in this year's razor-thin presidential election, the Texas governor received the nod over Vice President Al Gore (news web sites). According to Time Managing Editor Walter Isaacson, the magazine decided last week that the new president-elect - either one - would receive its annual honor. ....Why? ``The survivor would not only be the next president but a symbol of a historic showdown that would be remembered and cited a century hence,'' Isaacson wrote in explaining the magazine's choice. ......As for Bush, Isaacson wrote, ``He remade and united the Republican Party and defeated a talented Vice President who had the wind at his back after eight years of wallet-popping prosperity.'' ......``His amiable demeanor,'' Isaacson continued, ``tapped into a desire to end years of meaningless partisan rancor.''....." Capital Hill blue 12/17/00 Patricia Wilson "..... (Reuters) - President-elect George W. Bush who campaigned on a vow to change the bitter tone of Washington politics, heads to the U.S. capital Sunday to begin mending fences after the divisive White House race. ........ Bush, who has promised to assemble an ethnically and politically diverse Cabinet, nominated retired Gen. Colin Powell to the powerful job of Secretary of State at an emotional ceremony in the tiny central Texas town of Crawford Saturday attended by almost all of its 700 residents. .........``Yes, it was emotional because I so admire Colin Powell,'' he told reporters. ``I love his story ... It was a great moment and he's going to do a fantastic job.'' .....Bush called Powell, 63, who rose from humble origins to be the first African American nominated to the nation's top diplomatic job, as ``an American hero, an American example, and a great American story.''....." Capital Hill Blue 12/16/00 Muriel Dobbin "..... Once dismissed as a dull choice as running mate for Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney is now being hailed as the "guy to go to," the wise man of the incoming administration. Of the two, Cheney is far more familiar with power. ...... While Bush has 6 1/2 years as governor of Texas on his political resume, over the past three decades Cheney has known the corridors of power as secretary of defense, White House chief of staff, and an influential member of Congress. ....." AOL 12/17/00 Michael Duffy "..... Until last summer, Andy Card didn't even have a passport to Austin. Though he had served President Bush off and on for 20 years, he had never been close to the son and even remarked privately that he felt left out as the Bush Restoration unfurled last spring. Then, out of the blue, came the call: Would you like to run the Republican National Convention? ...... Both behind the scenes and on TV, Card did such a good job organizing a convention with no hard edges and plenty of "new Republican" faces of color that by September he was in line, all by himself, to become White House chief of staff. ...... You can see in Card's ascent all the habits and practices that the President-elect most prizes when choosing aides and advisers: the family tie, the first-term credential, complete loyalty, uncommon discretion and the diligence of a draft horse. Bush prides himself on being a good judge of people - those who have worked with both men say he is shrewder than was his father about aides' weaknesses as well as their strengths. That is a good thing, because he must choose a Cabinet that balances the many factions in his party - without running afoul of the other one. And he has consciously constructed a White House staff to avoid the mistakes that he believes limited his father's presidency to a single term. ....." The Washington Post 12/17/00 James V. Grimaldo, Robert Suro ".....The notion that the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws would apply to the vote-counting in Florida was a premise initially thought so weak that in the early hours after the election, when Texas Gov. George W. Bush's front-line attorneys were asked to draft a federal lawsuit, the lawyers came back and said there wasn't a federal case. .......... ... Yet with the clarifying benefit of hindsight, the decision to push an equal-protection argument in the federal courts emerges as one of the most significant strategic choices of the Bush legal team. ... " Washington Times 12/18/00 Ralph Hallow ".....House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle joined Jesse Jackson yesterday in refusing to say that George W. Bush's election was legitimate. In what critics saw as an extraordinary display of partisan rancor beyond anything in recent memory, the Democrats also declined to say that that his presidency, when it commences on Jan. 20, will be legitimate.......Republicans said the three leading Democrats thus appeared to put the lie to Democratic leaders' claims that they will strive for comity and bipartisan cooperation with Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress......." UPI 12/17/00 ".....Time magazine named Texas Gov. George W. Bush its person of the year Sunday, saying the job he won -- and the tough job ahead - make the president-elect the person its person of the year...... In an interview published in the Dec. 25 issue to be on the stand Monday, Bush told Time the close and hardfought race gives politicians ``a chance to show we can rise above a divided house, that there are some issues - educating our children, taking care of our seniors, making sure the retirement system is working, protecting the peace and our economic strength - that are more important than that which has divided the house.'' ...... Bush said he would push for major tax cuts, vowing but to compromise with Democrats, who hold 50 seats in the Senate and are a slim minority in the House...... He also vowed to move to reform Social Security.......... And despite barely eking out an Electoral College victory - if all electors in fact vote as

pledged Dec. 18 - and losing the popular vote by more than 300,000, Bush said he feels he has a mandate......... Despite the post-Election Day battle for electoral votes, Bush said he does not resent Vice President Al Gore......" YAHOO News 12/17/00 Lori Santos ".....(Reuters) - Top advisers to President-elect George W. Bush (news web sites) declared on Sunday there would be no retreat from his conservative policy agenda. ...... Denying Bush's presidency would be weakened by the narrowness of his victory, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said the new administration would seek support from wherever it could in pursuing the agenda outlined by the Texas governor. Leading the list, he said, was a big tax cut, followed by education, Social Security and Medicare reform. .......``It's his program, his agenda and we have no intention at all of backing off of it,'' Cheney told the CBS ``Face the Nation'' program. ``It's why we got elected. So we're going to aggressively pursue'' it. ..... Appearing on the ABC ``This Week'' program, Cheney said, ``It would be dishonest in some respects if we backed off now .... And I think, frankly, we'll take support wherever we can find it.'' ....." The Associated Press 12/26/00 ".....One of every six ballots in the presidential election was thrown out in many black precincts of Chicago, while almost every vote was counted in some of its suburbs, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Voters in Chicago's Cook County confronted an array of complications, including a lengthy and confusing ballot - 21 pages with 400 candidates. They also used punch-card voting machines that can be difficult to operate, according a precint-by-precint analysis of the vote. ......" Houston Chronicle Article 12/27/00 Freeper GOPcapitalist "State District Judge Jim Wallace sentenced Ronald Allen Hinge, 67, to two years in a state jail and made the term probationary for three years, effectively forcing Hinge to live under the probation conditions for three years. Prosecutor Roberto Gutierrez said if Hinge violates the judge's ruling, Wallace could put him in jail for two years. Hinge, who was GOP chairman and election judge in Precinct 615 in northwest Harris County, pleaded guilty in January to one charge of tampering with a government document. Two other charges were dropped in the plea bargain. .. Evidence showed Hinge, who was sorting early ballots, had punched a ballot giving a vote to mayoral candidate Rob Mosbacher . Testimony during Friday's hearing revealed that Hinge marked at least 10 other early ballots days before his arrest, Gutierrez said. Presumably, those ballots also were marked to give Mosbacher votes, but prosecutors weren't certain. " RaoulGram and Tray.com 12/26/00 "..... COMPARISON OF INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS: Gore $133,822,260 in individual contributions 51,238 contributors $2,611.78 average individual contribution Bush $192,394,799 in individual contributions 117,13051,238 contributors $1,642.57 average individual contribution So what party's loyalty are the rich people buying with their contributions? ....." Denver Post 12/17/00 Al Knight "...... The U.S. Supreme Court decision last Tuesday, which ended the battle over the presidency in favor of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, was the object of intense criticism from the instant that befuddled television reporters began to leaf through it. The passage of time hasn't improved the quality of the criticism. If anything, the chorus of complaints is merely louder. The general theme in the uproar is that the case was decided on political rather than legal grounds. ........ But just because a claim is repeated endlessly doesn't make it so. The sad truth is many of the court's harshest critics haven't read it. ......" USA Today 12/15/00 Al Neuharth (columnist) "....... Al Gore prophetically said it all with these final words in his affable concession speech Wednesday night: "It's time for me to go." Sure, most Democrats feel sorry for him because he lost the roll of the dice in the courts. Many think he deserves another chance. ......But

him because he lost the roll of the dice in the courts. Many think he deserves another chance. ......But realists realize Gore ran a dreadful campaign. After a short period of mourning, he'll be bye-bye. Gone and gradually forgotten. ....." Newsmax.com UPI story: 12/16/00 ".....Two top staffers in a Democrat consulting firm have resigned in a disagreement over a plan to contact Republican presidential electors in an effort to sway them to vote for Al Gore when electors cast their ballots Monday. ...........Ben Chao, one of two men who resigned from the firm of Bob Beckel and Associates, told United Press International Friday that "Beckel is compiling a report he will send, or may have already sent, to Republican electors on voting patterns, allegations of fraud in the election" and other political and demographic information about the 2000 election. His letter will include "an editorial comment from him reminding the electors they have the option of abstaining from voting in the Electoral College." ......."I did not think it was in my best interests or those of my clients to be associated in any way with this activity, so I resigned," Chao said, adding that it was an amicable separation. ............ " Center for DEmocracy & Tech 12/16/00 ".... Matt Grossman ...... Matt, a Sophomore at Claremont McKenna College, is in Washington taking a full course load and working full-time for the Internet Education Foundation (IEF) and CDT. For IEF, he is assisting in the development of One-Click Away, a user empowerment alternative to Internet censorship, and working with the Congressional Internet Caucus and its Advisory Committee to educate Congress on Internet-related issues. For CDT, he is studying domain name policy and unsolicited commercial e-mail. .......... " MSNBC/Washington Post 12/16/00 Thomas Edsall "........The war between the populist and centrist wings of the Democratic Party broke out into the open yesterday as they struggled to set the direction of the party. THE OPENING GUNS were fired by officials of the Democratic Leadership Council - a bastion of loyalists to Vice President Gore's running mate, Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a centrist and possible candidate himself for the White House in 2004. ......... At a morning briefing, the DLC charged that the populist themes of Gore's campaign were a major factor in his loss to George W. Bush, scaring away just the voters he needed to achieve victory. ......" New York Post 12/15/00 Dick Morris ".....Don't believe anything you have heard or seen on television in the past 48 hours! Despite their claims of the end of partisanship, House and Senate Democrats are going to go after President Bush II - big time. ........ Disguising their carnivorous intentions behind smiles of conciliation, Sens. Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone; Reps. Charlie Rangel, Dick Gephardt and David Bonior - all will do their best to bring George W. Bush down. ..........Their animus will not be motivated by the close presidential race or any doubts about the outcome in Florida. The Democrats in Congress could care less. What matters to them is that they are within one vote of controlling the Senate and a handful of taking the House. ......." FoxNews 12/16/00 ".....Calling him an "American hero," President-elect George W. Bush named former Gen. Colin Powell the first African-American secretary of state on Saturday. Powell, 63, was the first cabinet appointment in Bush's transition period. Bush made the announcement at a school in Crawford, Texas. ...."Gen. Powell is an American hero, an American example and a great American story," Bush said. "Wherever he goes and whomever he meets," he said, "the world will see the finest of the United States of America." ....... Powell, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President George H.W. Bush, will be the highest-ranking African-American official to serve in a presidential administration in history. ....." YAHOO news 12/16/00 Reuters ".....Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell (news - web sites) said on Saturday he would work with American allies to breathe new life into sanctions against Iraq. .......Powell, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff oversaw the U.S. military during the Gulf War, said Iraq had not lived up to the obligations of the 1991 truce, which called for Baghdad to account for its weapons of mass destruction and arms technologies programs. ......" Slate Magazine 12/15/00 Timothy Noah "..... "its a statistical probability that we'll see one faithless elector, given that we've seen ne elector go faithless in 7 out of the previous 13 presidential elections. Chatterbox judges the chances about even that we'll see 2 faithless electors and that as a consequence the election will be tossed into the House of Representatives.(Where Bush will be almost certain to prevail) There's roughly a 30 percent chance that we'll see three faithless electors flip to Gore, possibly on the grounds that he won the popular vote and give Gore the presidency." ...,,: Reuters 12/16/00 ".... President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites) said on Friday he hoped to enact his $1.3 trillion tax cut package despite misgivings among some key Republicans, saying a possible economic slowdown underlined the need for tax relief. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert on Thursday suggested he favored a step-by-step approach to cutting taxes, raising questions about his commitment to the across-the-board tax cut that was a central plank of Bush's campaign. ....... ``I have made it clear to the speaker once before that ... I campaigned on a package that I thought was fair and fiscally

sound and responsible, and I will continue -- and I strongly believe that,'' Bush told reporters in Austin, Texas. ....." Newsmax.com 12/20/00 "...... Those GOP "Thugs" in Miami Were Reporters The myths keep falling before an onslaught of facts. Remember all those stories charging that the unruly mob that all but stormed the Miami-Dade election offices were a mob of Republican "thugs" who intimidated officials into calling off the recount? It now turns out that most of the mob described as "thugs" were not GOP operatives at all, but reporters from the local Florida media demanding the right to witness the proceedings! That's the story revealed today by talk show tycoon Don Imus. ....." townhall.com 12/21/00 Brent Bozell "...... The big loser for the Democrats in Election 2000 was, of course, Al Gore. He was given the coattails of a (perceived) economic miracle to run on; the biggest financial war chest in the party's history to run with; a militantly rejuvenated party base to run behind; and if that wasn't enough, a perceived lightweight opponent to run against. And still he blew it. He not only lost, he lost and lost, and kept on losing until even his supporters tired of him. No one will ever want to hear the word "chad," a word forever linked to Gore, again. ... NewsMax.com 12/20/00 Carl Limbcher "..... The Democrat party, famous for its expertise in vote fraud, churned out especially fishy numbers in this presidential election. Turnout in some precincts of Philadelphia was an unbelievable 100 percent, Fox News Channel reported tonight, with an equally unbelievable 99 percent of votes going for failed Democrat nominee Al "I'll Do Anything to Win" Gore. ......" Newsmax 12/20/00 "...... Florida's Democratic attorney general's office has found no evidence to support Jesse Jackson's allegation of a plot to disenfranchise black voters in the Sunshine State. Not only Jackson but also Donna Brazile, national Democratic campaign manager for Vice President Al Gore in his losing bid for the presidency, have charged that a systematic plan to keep blacks from reaching the polls in Florida resulted in Republican George W. Bush's having "stolen" the election. ...... Brazile went so far as to say that black voters had to face "dogs and guns" in trying to get to the polls. ..... There has been no report of Gore's repudiating or apologizing for his campaign manager's accusations. ....." AP 12/20/00 Juliet Williams "..... MILWAUKEE (AP) - An investigation of alleged voter fraud in the Nov. 7 election found no evidence of double-voting, but led to felony charges against three men, the district attorney said Wednesday. Marquette University freshman Robert Bosworth, who told ABC News he voted four times but later recanted, saying he had only voted once, was charged with selling fake Ohio driver's licenses to other students. ..... Additionally, two felons on probation were charged with election fraud for casting ballots in violation of state law. ......Investigators found Bosworth was using his dorm-room computer to print the licenses, District Attorney E. Michael McCann said. None of the students who bought the fake documents will be charged. ....." Washington Times (AP) 12/21/00 Scott Lindlaw ".....President-elect Bush resigned as governor of Texas on Thursday after six years in the job that launched him toward the White House. Rick Perry, the Republican lieutenant governor, was taking over. ........ Bush was misty-eyed as he said the mansion he and wife Laura have occupied for six years ``won't be our home, but Texas always will be.'' With that, he and Perry embraced, to the applause of the State House audience. ......``Serving as the governor of the great state of Texas ... has been a higher honor than I could ever imagine,'' Bush said, ``and there's only one thing that would cause me to leave early, and that's to become your president.'' ......." UPI via VNY 12/23/00 ".....Dozens of convicted felons cast ballots illegally in two populous Florida counties during the recent presidential election, a newspaper reported on Saturday...... The Daytona Beach NewsJournal reported that at least 194 convicted felons are registered to vote in Volusia and Flagler Counties and more than 40 of them illegally cast ballots on Nov. 7....... An analysis by the newspaper found convicted felons have voted in the two counties in statewide elections at least 109 times since 1994. A Flagler County man convicted of shooting a man to death in 1974 has voted at least five times since 1994...... " Miami Herald 12/23/00 Manny Garcia Tom Dubocq "..... Andr Alism died of cancer in 1997. Yet a vote in his name was cast in last month's presidential election, one of more than 100 illegal ballots uncovered by The Herald in Miami-Dade County. Violating rules meant to safeguard the integrity of balloting, Miami-Dade poll workers allowed scores of unregistered voters -- including out-of-state residents -- to vote on Nov. 7. ...... They cast ballots at polling places where they were not listed on voter rolls. All they had to do was sign sworn statements that they were eligible to vote. ..... They were not. ..... Nobody at the polls checked, as required by county regulations and state law -- which meant that those illegal ballots counted in one of the closest presidential races in history. .......All of those voters would have been caught before casting ballots had poll workers followed a simple procedure -- making a phone call to elections headquarters to check whether each voter was indeed eligible to vote. .....The Herald examined ballots cast at just 138 of MiamiDade's 617 precincts, finding that 144 ineligible voters had been allowed to sign in at polls where they were

Dade's 617 precincts, finding that 144 ineligible voters had been allowed to sign in at polls where they were not registered. If that trend holds true in the rest of Dade, hundreds more illegal ballots may have been cast. ....." Chicago Tribune 12/24/00 Douglas Holt "..... As election officials remain baffled over why many city and suburban voters failed to cast a valid vote for president last month, a new Tribune analysis has found the "undervote" in Cook County not only dwarfed the rest of the state but was more than double that of the last two presidential elections. ...... The troubling phenomenon, which was particularly acute in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods, has sparked not only a detailed inquiry into what went wrong, but also a top-tobottom review of voting machines, ballot layout and instructions, election judge training and voter education. ......... .Downstate and in the collar counties, only 2.3 percent of ballots contained no countable presidential vote. In all of Cook County, the undervote was 6.2 percent. The disparity is all the more puzzling because the overwhelming majority of Illinois counties use punch-card voting systems similar to those in Cook County. ....." The Observer 12/24/00 Ed Vulliamy "...... As George W. Bush handed further key government posts to hardline Republican right-wingers, an unofficial recount of votes in Florida appeared to confirm that Bush lost the US presidential election. ...... Despite the decision by the US Supreme Court to halt the Florida recount in the contested counties, American media organisations, includ ing Knight Ridder - owner of the Miami Herald - have commissioned their own counts, gaining access to the ballots under Freedom of Information legislation. The result so far, with the recounting of so-called 'undervotes' in only one county completed by Friday night, indicates that Al Gore is ahead by 140 votes. ......" UPI via VNY 12/22/00 ".....A series of errors led to a mountain of problems for the Voter News Service and contributed to the confusion of Election Night and trouble for television networks trying to predict the winner of the race for U.S. president....... The Washington Post reported Friday that it had obtained a confidential report prepared by VNS regarding circumstances Nov. 7 during which the major television networks, using data provided by VNS, initially said that Vice President Al Gore ha won the election in Florida, recanted, gave the state to former Texas Gov. George W. Bush and pulled back again......" New York Post 12/25/00 Malcolm Balfour "....More violations surfaced in Florida's election fiasco when it was revealed yesterday that scores of unregistered voters, including some from New York and New Jersey - and at least one dead man - cast ballots in Miami. ...... Poll workers allowed a total of at least 144 ineligible people to vote Nov. 7 at just 138 of Miami-Dade County's 617 precincts, according to an ongoing investigation by The Miami Herald. ....." Fox News 12/29/00 ".... Houston schools chief Rod Paige, widely credited with creating one of the country's best urban school districts, will serve as education secretary; former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton will take over at Interior; Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson will helm HHS; and Anthony Principi will lead Veterans Affairs. ......." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/29/00 Jo Mannies, Mark Schlinkmann Eric Stern "..... State election officials say at least 143 unregistered voters were improperly allowed to register and cast ballots Nov. 7 in St. Louis. But an undetermined number of legitimately registered voters were improperly turned away, says the general counsel for Secretary of State Bekki Cook's office. Missouri Secretary of State Bekki Cook. (Kelley McCall/AP Photo) In any case, Cook's office has concluded that the incidents, while troubling, didn't involve large enough numbers to affect any contest on the ballot. ....." Yahoo/AP 12/29/00 Will Lester ".....Americans tend to rally behind a new president once the race is decided, and national surveys indicate that has happened with President-elect Bush, accepted as the legitimate winner by just over two-thirds of Americans. ..... Findings in recent weeks suggest, however, another basic obstacle for incoming presidents: Public support doesn't necessarily translate into public confidence. ...." Tampa Tribune 12/31/00 Brad Smith "...... Vice President Al Gore topped George W. Bush by 120 votes in an unofficial look at Hillsborough County's disputed presidential ``undervotes'' by The Tampa Tribune. Gore captured 999 votes and Bush, the president-elect, gained 879 votes in the first manual recount of Hillsborough's 5,533 ballots that machines could not read. ..... Susan MacManus, political science professor at the University of South Florida, said the results will still be disputed, even once historical perspective is gained. ``There's always going to be controversy about the standards used. People will say different standards were used by different media,'' she said. ........ So far, the only other results show Gore gained 130 unofficial votes in Lake County, according to a review by The Orlando Sentinel. ....." Freeper Carry_Okie 1/1/01 ".... There are already over 400 petitions to the International Court of Justice to protest the Supreme Court ruling on the Florida recount. Here we go. ...." CNSNews.com 12/19/00 Justin Torres ".....With the Federal Reserve deciding on Tuesday to leave short-

term interest rates untouched, Republicans on Capitol Hill are more likely to push for across-the-board tax cuts to spur economic growth, analysts say. The Fed declined to lower interest rates Tuesday, but did say it was concerned about long-term growth, signaling a possible cut in rates at its next meeting in late January 2001. ..." Union Leader 12/20/00 Bernadette Malone Connolly "...... WE'VE BEEN watching George W. Bush carefully, as we were during the New Hampshire primary when we harshly criticized him for neglecting the state and hazing over policy details. But after seven days with him as President-elect, we can offer cautious praise for the appointments he has made and the agenda he is maintaining. ........Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice were an excellent foundation for Bush's foreign policy team, which we now know will likely include former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats as defense secretary. There are reports that Powell preferred Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge for the defense post, but Bush went with his own instincts. If that is the case, Bush deserves more credit than we were initially prepared to give him. ...... Ronald Reagan was no intellectual, but he came to the White House with a principled agenda and stuck to it in the face of adversity. He sought the counsel of bright people, as Bush has done with Powell and Greenspan, but had the strength of his convictions to disagree with them sometimes. Bush has been criticized for not being the brightest bulb in the box, but perhaps he is bright enough to follow Reagan's example of leadership. ....." WashingtonPost.com 12/20/00 David Broder "....President-elect Bush came to Washington this week after a less-than-triumphant campaign and impressed both Democrats and Republicans, who found him in their private sessions to be self-assured, surprisingly direct, yet ready to listen to differing views. ...." Washington Times 12/20/00 Tony Blankley ".....President-elect George W. Bush has come to town saying he wants a bipartisan honeymoon, but from what I've heard, the Democrats have only date-rape on their minds. I have been told by Mr. Bush's aides that the president-elect has got his eyes wide open, and I concede that he and his team have proven to be shrewd political players so far............ It's not Mr. Bush's word that is in doubt. The Democratic leadership is comprised of true Washington professionals. For them, if their opponent tells the whole truth, he is just foolishly showing his hand. ..." NY Post 12/20/00 Stephen Bronars John Lott Jr. ".....Without these irregularities, Bush would have carried Florida with at least a few thousand more votes. For example, a review of voting rolls by the Miami Herald reveals that more than 5,000 felons, over 75 percent of whom were registered as Democrats, apparently voted. ....... Missouri: In St. Louis, a judge, who was a former aide to House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, ordered city polls held open for an extra three hours. The suit filed by Democrats on behalf of two voters claimed that they had insufficient time to vote. Yet, one of these "voters" had died in August 1999, and the other turned out not to be registered. ..... Wisconsin: A Marquette University student newspaper found that 174 out of a 1,000 students surveyed had exploited Wisconsin's permissive Election Day registration procedures to vote more than once. Most voted twice (at school and at home by absentee ballot), though some voted four or more times. In Milwaukee homeless people were offered cigarettes so that they would go with Democratic campaign workers to obtain absentee ballots. .... Oregon: In that state voting is now exclusively done by mail. Election officials caught four people posing as election officials and collecting mail-in ballots that voters were dropping off at the elections department on Election Day. Similarly, at a Bush rally in Oregon, voters who tried to hand in their ballots to Republican officials were apparently deceived into giving them to people not connected with the campaign. ... But the biggest problem is bloated voter registration roles. Take Philadelphia, where people apparently take their civic responsibilities seriously. In that city, 1,025,259 are registered voters out of 1,065,455 residents aged 18 and over. As a number of adults are ineligible to vote (e.g., felons and non-citizens), the number of registered voters clearly exceeds the number of eligible people. ......" Editor's note: It may be instructional to see that some Americans already consider the United States to be inferior to the United Naitons. Here is an internet appeal to the International Court of Justice by more than 400 Americans who are unhappy with the result of the election. ...... The Honorable Thomas Buergenthal International Court of Justice The Hague, Netherlands ......

As you may know, the recent Presidential election in the United States has been undermined by judicial nullification and vote suppression. We believe that this is a clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 21, Paragraph 3, adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948: "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage." ...... The subversion of democracy in the United States is a matter of great import for the entire world. In essence, a coup d'etat has taken place in the most powerful nation on earth. The peace and well-being of the international community is at risk. ......." Chicago Tribune 1/4/01 "...... With his final Cabinet selections, George W. Bush has put in place a first-rate team with the qualities needed to make his administration a success. Despite the unusually short time Bush had to interview and recruit candidates, the incoming administration looks like it will be ready to govern on Jan. 20. ..... Some of his nominees could hardly be better.. ........ His top officers include not one but two Arab-Americans, Mitch Daniels as budget chief and Spencer Abraham as energy secretary. Linda Chavez, picked for the Labor Department, would be one of the highest-ranking Hispanic women ever to serve in the executive branch. Bush's foreign policy will be in the hands of two blacks, Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose race was clearly irrelevant to their selection. ......... Bush did poorly with black voters, who remain suspicious of the GOP. But these selections should mean that minority children will grow up seeing nothing unusual about people who resemble them holding positions of power in a Republican administration--a change that is bound to help the party broaden its base. ....... But in the end, Bush knows that good government is the best politics. He's made it plain that his executive style is to get the best people and let them do their jobs. He's off to a fine start........" Chicago Sun-Times 1/4/01 Robert Novak "..... Just how powerful is Dick Cheney in George W. Bush's incipient administration? In response, a member of the president-elect's inner circle raised his eyes skyward, signifying no limit. ...... In the 40 years that I have watched new administrations take office, this is the first Cabinet selected on other than a patchwork basis. ..... Here is the handiwork of Cheney, the ultimate Washington insider. He engineered the selection for the key defense and treasury posts of two Ford administration colleagues. His primary standards are experience and competence, combined with loyalty to the administration's program. ........Cheney's emergence as a de facto prime minister is strictly a postelection phenomenon. Off to a slow start after Bush selected him as running mate, he was not a major player in the campaign. .....It was only after Cheney was named to head the shadow transition during the Florida recount that he came into his own as principal shaper of the Bush Cabinet. ....." 12/29/00 UPI ".....Georgia had almost twice the national rate of ballots that did not include a valid vote in the November presidential race, Secretary of State Cathy Cox said Friday. About 3 1/2 percent of those who cast ballots in November failed to vote for president or made errors that caused their presidential vote not to be counted...." UPI 12/29/00 "..... For secretary of education, Bush picked Houston Superintendent of Schools Rod Paige, 67, who would be the first black to head the agency. Paige worked on behalf of the presidential campaigns for both Bush and the president-elect's father, former President George Bush...." UPI 12/29/00 "..... Bush handed the Interior Department to Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton, 46, who said she backed Bush's campaign calls for oil drilling on federally protected wild lands in northern Alaska, a proposal staunchly opposed by environmentalists......" UPI 12/29/00 "..... Wisconsin Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, 59, took Bush's offer to head up the Department of Health and Human Services, a post Thompson had reservations about assuming after being the longest serving governor......." UPI 12/29/00 "..... Lastly, Bush tapped Anthony Principi, a 56-year-old Vietnam War veteran as secretary of the veterans affairs agency, where he served as the first deputy secretary of veterans affairs after being appointed by former President George Bush in 1989......" UPI 12/29/00 "..... On Thursday in Washington, Bush appointed Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, a post the veteran GOP politico held in former President Gerald Ford's administration 25 years ago......." UPI 12/29/00 "..... Rumsfeld was rumored to be Bush's choice to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a job apparently now being considered for Paul D. Wolfowitz, currently dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University......" UPI 12/29/00 "..... Bush also filled a number West Wing jobs Thursday, naming Joshua Bolten as deputy

chief of staff for policy, Joseph Hagin as deputy chief of staff of White House operations and Ari Fleischer as White House press secretary. ...." UPI 12/29/00 ".....In earlier announcements from Austin, Bush appointed Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., to head the Justice Department and named Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, an office he elevated to Cabinet level......" UPI 12/29/00 "..... For leadership at the Treasury Department Bush appointed Paul O'Neill, head of Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum producer, who the president-elect said had the economic gravitas to handle a potential recession as indicators of a slow-down emerge......." UPI 12/29/00 "..... Bush has also picked former campaign chairman Don Evans for commerce secretary, Florida's Orange County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mel Martinez for secretary of Housing and Urban Development and California attorney Ann Veneman as head of the Department of Agriculture......." UPI 12/29/00 "..... And Bush handed the top job at the GOP to Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, who will hold on to his gubernatorial seat while heading the party. Gilmore will replace Jim Nicholson......" UPI 12/29/00 "..... Additionally, Bush has tapped Justice Alberto Gonzales as White House counsel. He also announced former campaign communications director Karen Hughes would take the post of counselor to the president......." UPI 12/29/00 "..... Mitch Daniels, an Indianapolis businessman and former President and CEO of the Hudson Institute, is to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, a White House insider position certain to take on increasing importance as Bush deals with Congress on his $1.3 trillion tax cut proposal......." UPI 12/29/00 "..... Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen J. Hadley landed a White House job as deputy national security adviser after a green light from Bush......." Miami Herald 12/29/00 David Kidwell ".....A dead man's ballot was cast in Riviera Beach on Nov. 7. Herbert J. Moon, a retired hospital cook, died at age 95 on Oct. 4, 1999. ..... On Nov. 7, someone cast a ballot in his name at Palm Beach County precinct 67 in the Dan Calloway recreation center. .....The vote is yet another indication that Florida's system for protecting the integrity of balloting is far from foolproof. On Sunday, The Herald reported that at least 144 illegal votes had been cast in Miami-Dade County. These included ballots cast by unregistered voters, people who don't live in Florida and someone masquerading as a Little Haiti man who died three years ago. ....." AP 1/4/01 David Bauder ".....CBS News on Thursday recommended ways to bolster its political operation and come clean with viewers on how victory declarations are made following the network's blown calls on Election Night. As ABC and NBC have already done, CBS promised not to declare a winner in any state until all of its polls are closed......" Salon.com 1/4/01 Anthony York "..... "If you add the 250 additional votes from Lake and Hillsborough Counties to the votes the Florida Supreme Court ruled should have been included in the final count-215 additional votes the Vice President gained in Palm Beach County that were disallowed by Sec. of State Katherine Harris because they were late, plus 168 votes Gore picked up in the partial recount if heavily Democratic precincts in Miame-Dade which were also disallowed-Gore is ahead by 96 votes in Florida. If you throw out the net 97 vote gain Gore recieved thanks to dimpled chad ballots in Hillsborough, Bush leads Gore by exactly 1 vote....." AP 1/4/01 ".....A federal judge denied a request Thursday to stop Vice President Al Gore from recognizing Florida's slate of presidential electors when Congress makes its formal count of electoral votes this weekend. U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth said the people making the request had no jurisdiction in the motion brought against Gore, who serves as the Senate president. ...." Washington Times 1/5/01 Sean Scully ".. The incoming Bush administration yesterday accused liberal Democratic groups opposing Bush Cabinet nominees of perpetuating Washington's "war-room mentality" in an effort to boost their own fund-raising campaigns. .."It was disheartening to see in the papers this morning that there already are groups that are gearing up for major fights in Washington, and they're doing so, as the papers pointed out this morning, to help themselves, to raise money to warm up for the next battles in the naming of people to the Supreme Court," Ari Fleischer, press secretary for President-elect George W. Bush, told reporters yesterday morning. Senate Democrats told The Washington Times this week that they were resigned to seeing all the Bush Cabinet picks confirmed, and even privately criticized

some civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, for attacking Mr. Ashcroft and others......." AP 1/5/01 Erin McClam "..The American Civil Liberties Union sued state officials Friday to protest Georgia's voting system, claiming confusing, outdated equipment is unconstitutional and diluting the voice of black voters. The lawsuit seeks to throw out the punch-card system used in 17 Georgia counties, in which voters use styluses to poke through rectangles of paper, or chads, to select candidates NewsMax 1/5/01 Carl Limbacher " Those fanatical Gore supporters in notorious Palm Beach County, Fla., are still harassing Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore, the Democrat who approved the "butterfly ballot" that some Democrats claimed they were too incompetent to use correctly. When poor LePore showed up Thursday for a speech before Voters Coalition in Delray Beach, she found the parking lot packed with chanting protesters, the Miami Herald reported today.. Voters "need to take some responsibility for what they do," she told the Herald. "And I wonder how many people really did make a mistake, and if they did while they were at the precinct, why didn't they ask for assistance or get another ballot, which you're allowed to do?" You want people to take responsibility for themselves? Theresa, it's time to switch parties. .." Houston Chronicle 1/6/01 Dan Feldstein ".. Elementary school secretary Janice Shelvin turned in 50 to 60 voter registration cards as part of a college class project last year. It helped her earn a B+ for the semester. It has also earned her a felony indictment, because many or all of the signatures were allegedly forged. Some of the people may not even exist, said Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt. Shelvin is free on $5,000 bond and due for her first court hearing Jan. 17 for "purporting to act as a voter agent." A conviction on the third-degree felony carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. ..Bettencourt said he knew nothing of any class project -- as alleged by Shelvin and her attorney -- when he turned in the evidence to the district attorney's office. All he had were dozens of voter registration applications filled out and signed in identical handwriting, he said. . They included names, addresses, Social Security numbers and personal phone numbers of some people the office could not find and others who said they have never heard of Shelvin. " FRAUD AND OTHER ALLEGATIONS - FOLLOWUP AND REMINDERS FOR AFTER THE CONCESSION AND ACCEPTANCE: Chicago Sun Times 12/14/00 Roger Ebert "....... Now that the adventure is over, it might be instructive to consider some of the ideas that seeped into the general consciousness. How and why, for example, did it become established in so many minds that Bush was the presumptive winner and Gore the apparent loser? ....... Bush became the "winner" of a dead heat, in the midst of an incomplete recount, when a premature victory was declared on her own unnecessary deadline by his Florida campaign co-chairwoman, who also held the crucial post of secretary of state. Once this bogus "certification" was final (Ms. Harris signing several copies on TV, including a valuable souvenir for herself), the Republicans referred to it endlessly as a valid event, even though it was clearly a shameless ploy to slam the door before the election escaped. ........ The other effective GOP meme was the mantra, "we counted, and counted again, and then a third time." ....... Another successful meme was the assault on the honesty of election judges and the courts in general. They were often characterized by the GOP as partisan crooks, unless their findings agreed with the Bush cause, in which case they were patriots. .......The Republicans were not only more effective creators of memes but were also better at raising their voices. The Democrats were on the whole more civil in their public statements......... The Democrats were just plain outshouted. And Lady Luck rolled the dice and gave them the butterfly ballot, the Jews for Buchanan, the election boards that took days off, the hired mob to stop the Dade recount, the disenfranchised black voters, the illegally franchised military and absentee voters, the Bush cousin to call the election on TV, the Bush co-chairwoman to rush it through certification, and the Bush brother to mastermind operation fail-safe by the Florida legislature to certify Bush electors no matter who won. Even in Vegas they'd be amazed by luck this rotten; the Miami Herald's statisticians estimated that Gore probably outpolled Bush by about 23,000 votes. That's why it was so important for the Republicans to stop the count. .........At the end the Democrats were left with one meme that showed promise: That they were the ones who wanted to count the votes, while the Republicans did not. ...." New York Times 12/14/00 Rod Dreher "...... OUR short national nightmare is over. My guy won. And truth to tell, it feels pretty lousy. It's not because George W. Bush won ugly, as many Democrats insist. Bush and his lawyers did what they had to do to defend his legitimate victory, and in turn the rule of law. Team Bush has nothing to be ashamed of. ......... But that's cold comfort to Bush and his backers, given the circumstances surrounding that victory, and considering the awesome struggle ahead. .......... They hold the House by a relative handful of seats, the Senate by the smallest possible margin. Bush will be inaugurated having lost the popular vote, and having been granted the presidency by a muddled, half-hearted Supreme Court decision. .......Result: A substantial number of Americans believe Bush stole the election. These people are objectively wrong. But they are unpersuadable. And they aren't going to go away. ........Bush's extraordinarily weak political position, his lack of an ideological core, and the absence of a Reagan-like gift for

communication - all these things will force him to make generous compromises with the Democrats. Over time, this may erode his support with his base. ...... You watch: His first Supreme Court nomination will be openly pro-abortion, as a conciliatory gesture to Democrats. Social conservatives will be told, as we always are by the GOP, that we just have to understand. .......Conservatives were willing to fall on their swords for Ronald Reagan, who had to compromise all the time with a Democratic Congress. It's hard to see Bush maintaining that kind of necessary enthusiasm within his own ranks. Conservatives are natural pessimists, and I'll be thrilled to be proved wrong. ....." Washington Times 12/14/00 Thomas Sowell "..... Elections are supposed to be decided by voters on Election Day, not by judges later on. But once state and local courts inject themselves into postelection controversies, without any legal justification, the only institution that can get rid of their interference is the Supreme Court of the United States. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court is now being attacked for taking this election out of the hands of judges. ....The very same liberals who were telling us just days ago how terrible it is to criticize courts, despite the grotesque double standards being used in the Florida recount, are now leading the charge against the U.S. Supreme Court for putting a stop to it....." WorldNetDaily 12/14/00 Bill O'Reilly ".....The most important lesson learned from the chaotic presidential election is not that the system works -- because it does not always; it is that some of the most powerful judges in this country are blatant ideological creatures. Take for example the Florida Supreme Court which caused much of the trouble in the first place. Newsweek magazine methodically analyzed the liberal biases of four of those jurists and connected them to a variety of pro-democratic causes. The article left little doubt that no matter what -- the four most left-leaning judges on that court were not going to put the law above their political preferences. ....... And then there is the United States Supreme Court. Seven of those justices believe that there were constitutional problems with the Florida Supreme Court-ordered hand-recount because absolutely no uniform standards were in place to evaluate the votes. ......Yet federal judges John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to see that the no-standard problem was unfair to the rest of Americans who cast votes. According to Stevens and Ginsburg, it is no problem if partisans count votes. What? Is this not insane? ...." Pittsburgh Tribune Review 12/14/00 ".......The opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court that leaves George W. Bush the winner of the presidential election is a firm stand for the rule of law against the backdrop of a highly politicized Florida Supreme Court, which tried, but failed, to legislate election rules ex post facto so that Al Gore could win. ........In his dissent, Justice Stevens wrote, "Although we may never know with complete certainty the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law." .....Balderdash. ........ It must be noted that the high court ruled with a supermajority vote of 7-2 on the key constitutional issues of equal protection and due process. ... Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Stevens in the minority. ........The narrow 5-4 ruling, essentially procedural, determined that there was not enough time to craft regulations for recounting that would pass muster, given the deadline imposed by the Florida Legislature's need to choose electors.........Without doubt, Stevens contributes to what he fears in his condemnation of the high court. Why would he want to do that? Is his greater priority the good name of the court, or a particular candidate and party........" St Petersburg Times 12/13/00 Lucy Morgan "......An organization formed by three Republicans is launching an effort to oust one of the Florida Supreme Court justices who granted Vice President Al Gore's request for a recount of votes over the weekend. "Balance to the Bench," formed Tuesday, plans to raise about $1million in the next 90 days to begin its campaign to target Justice Harry Lee Anstead when his name appears on the ballot in 2002. ...." Washington Times Inside Politics 12/14/00 Robert Stacy McCain "........ "Freepers" - as regulars at the conservative Free Republic Web site (www.freerepublic.com) call themselves - are outraged that a columnist accused them of anti-Semitism for a protest at Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's New Haven, Conn., home. ......During the monthlong battle over the Florida election, Free Republic's message board was a clearinghouse for information on rallies calling on Democrat Al Gore to concede to Republican George W. Bush. More than 200 Freepers showed up Dec. 2 for a rally in front of the home of Mr. Gore's running mate. ........Yesterday, Hartford Courant political columnist Michele Jacklin (jacklin@courant.com) said the Lieberman protest raised "the specter of anti-Semitism" because Free Republic activist James Bancroft, of Bristol, Conn., was involved. .....Miss Jacklin referred to Mr. Bancroft's claims on Free Republic that "believing that Jesus is the Messiah is the most Jewish thing you could do," which he defended as "a statement of fact." She said the Web site "has been linked . . . to extremist and bigoted organizations." ......" St Petersburg Times 12/14/00 Adam Smith Sydney Freedberg "...... Florida's presidential election tally includes thousands of votes that apparently shouldn't have counted. Election supervisors throughout the state are turning up tainted votes as they match the number of signatures on precinct books to the number

of ballots actually cast on Nov. 7. .....Duval County, where some 27,000 presidential ballots were not counted because they contained no vote or too many votes, also appeared to have the highest discrepancy rate among the votes that did count. Nearly 1 percent of the Duval ballots -- 2,659 of 291,626 -- were punched by people who in many cases were not registered to vote there. ....." Freeper Eva ".......The Herald has hired people to do the counting and are tabulating the votes by category, over vote, under vote, hanging chad, dimpled chad, etc. They want to count the votes at the same time as Judicial Watch. I don't think that Klaymann will let it happen. I don't care how or when the Herald counts the votes, as long as they remember to add in the Military ballots. They can count to kingdom come and Gore still won't win, if they count the military ballots. ....." From election night 11/7/00 Freeper JohnHuang2 "....B R E A K I N G: Missouri Judge Rod Sipple was once Chief of Staff for Dick Gephardt [Free Republic...." Followed by Freeper UFO "..... A 3 judge appellate court just threw it out. ...." And Freeper Cautor "..... Appeals court reversed federal judge who ordered Missouri polls to remain open; orders them to close immediately......" Also from election night http://www.themilwaukeechannel.com/sh/election2000/stories/election2000-20001106-153215.html ".....The Democratic National Committee spent Monday trying to separate the Gore campaign from a Democratic Party fund-raiser who was discovered distributing cigarettes to homeless voters as part of a "get out the vote" campaign Saturday. ....... Milstein, however, is not your average campaign volunteer. She is the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Major Supporters Committee. In addition to hosting $25,000-a-couple fund-raisers for Democrats, election records show that Milstein has also contributed more than $400,000 to Democrats in the last two years, Milwaukee's WISN 12 reported. ........Milstein was among a group of out-of-state Gore volunteers who visited Milwaukee homeless shelters Saturday, offering citizens at the shelter a ride to City Hall so they could cast absentee ballots. ....." 11/10/00 Miami Herald/AP John Solomon "...Faced with a cliff-hanger election, the Democratic Party directed a telemarketing firm on Election Night to begin calling thousands of voters in Palm Beach, Fla., to raise questions about a disputed ballot and urge them to contact local election officials. .....The Democratic National Committee paid Texas-based TeleQuest to make the calls Tuesday night -- while polls were still open -- alerting voters in the heavily Democratic enclave in Florida of possible confusion with the ballots they cast. ....... ``Some voters have encountered a problem today with punch card ballots in Palm Beach County,'' the script for the call said. ``These voters have said that they believe that they accidentally punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate.'' ``If you have already voted and think you may have punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate, you should return to the polls and request that the election officials write down your name so that this problem can be fixed,'' the script said. ......... If voters were about to go to the polls, the script called for the caller to instruct them to ``be sure to punch Number 5 for Gore-Lieberman'' and ``do NOT punch any other number as you might end up voting for someone else by mistake.'' ......... The maneuver indicates that long before Americans awoke to the reality of the Florida ballot dispute, Democrats were already mobilizing voters there..... Within hours of the phone campaign, hundreds of Democratic voters had called election officials in Palm Beach to complain they may have been confused by the ballot and voted for the wrong candidate. ......... ``I think those kinds of calls make perfect sense,'' Nelson said. ``In terms of people getting riled up, it would be a tactic that might energize voters who might otherwise not have realized they may have mistakenly voted for the wrong candidate.'' .......Wade Scott, an account manager with TeleQuest, said Democratic Party officials contacted his company shortly before 6 p.m. EST Tuesday to make the calls. With only an hour to go before Florida polls closed, his company mobilized all of its telemarketers to make some 5,000 calls in less than 45 minutes, Scott said. .....``It was a very short burst of calling for our industry,'' Scott said. He said only about 100 of the voters in Palm Beach it contacted hadn't voted, and about 2,400 felt they may have made a mistake on the ballot. ......" National Review 11/13/00 Mark Levin "...... Indeed, Secretary Harris is right. She has no discretion to extend or waive the deadline imposed by Florida law, as demanded by Gore and his fellow Democrats. Florida Title IX, Chapter 102, Section 111 provides, in relevant part, that: ....... The purpose of this statute, and its strict adherence to a specific date and time, is to ensure that counties don't manipulate vote returns after electoral winners and losers are announced publicly. ..... But the statute is unambiguous......If the state courts in Florida, which are populated largely by Democrats, apply the law, they will lose. Unfortunately for Gore, there is, in fact, "controlling legal authority." ......" Carol Roberts: http://www.co.palm-beach.fl.us/BCCHome/Commissioners/RobertsFront.htm District 2 County Commissioner ....... Commissioner Carol Roberts, Vice Chair, was first elected to the Board of County Commissioners in November, 1986. She has been a resident of West Palm Beach since 1955, and a resident of Florida since childhood. Commissioner Roberts resides in West Palm Beach with her husband.

Prior to election to the Board of County Commissioners, Commissioner Roberts served on the West Palm Beach Commission and held the office of mayor. ...." The New Republic 11/16/00 Ryan Lizza "........ In those crucial first hours of November 8, while the Bush campaign was still waiting for the results of Florida's first tally, Team Gore was already beginning to fight a recount the same way it fought the campaign itself: ferociously. .......... Gore's advisers had actually begun preparing for a recount battle even before Election Day. Weeks before November 7, Joe Sandler, the Democratic National Committee's general counsel and the lawyer who helped defend Maryland Governor Parris Glendening against a recount challenge in 1994, had convened a team to draft a memo on recount laws in every state that might be close. Late on election night, in the Nashville campaign bunker dubbed "the boiler room," Sandler's memo became Team Gore's initial operations manual. "We knew that [Florida] was going to be a battleground," says one Gore recount staffer. "We knew that the law required the canvass to start the next day. We knew that we needed people there to watch the canvass." ............" The New Republic 11/16/00 Ryan Lizza "........ Working from a Rolodex of Democratic faithful, Gore staff began putting together a team of field operatives and lawyers to fan out across Florida in search of voting irregularities. "We got as many down there as quick as we could," says one coordinator of the effort. Many of the Gore campaign's get-out-the-vote personnel moved instantly to the recount effort. Jill Alper, the former DNC political director who helped mastermind the Democrats' successful voter-turnout program in 1998, sent dozens of lawyers and get-out-the-vote operatives to Florida on Joe Lieberman's campaign plane. (The plane touched down in Tallahassee at the same time as Florida Governor Jeb Bush's plane from Texas.) A trio of operatives from national field director Michael Whouley's hometown of Boston also pitched in. John Sasso, once Michael Dukakis's chief strategist, is leading recount efforts in Broward County, while Dukakis's former field director, Charlie Baker, is working in Gore's Tallahassee recount headquarters. Jack Corrigan, a Gore campaign lawyer and another former top Dukakis aide who has witnessed several election recounts, is in Palm Beach. Having failed to take back the House or the Senate, many Democrats see the Florida mission as a final crusade. ...... " The New Republic 11/16/00 Ryan Lizza "........ The Gore campaign didn't just send people to Florida fast; it sent the party's top recount experts. In preparation for the incredibly close election, the DNC's Sandler had kept several recount specialists on call for election night. Robert Bauer, who worked on the contested elections of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu in 1996 and Nevada Senator Harry Reid in 1998, was immediately dispatched to the Sunshine State. ......" The New Republic 11/16/00 Ryan Lizza "........ Another recount expert, Chris Sautter, had been asked to spend election night in Nashville in preparation for just such an eventuality. He ended up staying in Washington, but at 4 a.m. on November 8 he got a call from campaign headquarters. "They told me to take a 7:30 a.m. flight to Tallahassee," Sautter recalls. He dropped everything and packed his bags for Florida. ....... Sautter is a veteran of some of the nastiest and most famous recount battles of recent years. ......Along with Timothy Downs and Jack Young, both attorneys now working for the Gore recount committee, Sautter wrote a book in 1994 called The Recount Primer in which he laid out strategies for just the kind of battle now occurring in Florida. "It's been pretty much the recount guide for Democratic candidates since then," says Sautter. He has been passing out numerous copies of the guide to operatives since he arrived in Florida, and it has served as the political corollary to the DNC legal memo the Gore campaign relied upon on election night. ...." The New Republic 11/16/00 Ryan Lizza "........The Gore campaign's efforts have closely tracked Sautter's recommendations, which he summarized in a 1990 article for Campaigns and Elections that later served as the basis for his book. "The best advice to give any candidate unlucky enough to be caught in a recount is to hire a good lawyer," Sautter wrote then. "But you can't conduct a recount without organization. Many recounts--like many close campaigns--are won in the trenches with dedicated, low-paid field staff and volunteers fighting for votes one at a time." That's exactly the kind of minutiae the Gore campaign has been focusing on in Florida--for instance, going to court in Palm Beach this week to demand that "dimpled" chads be counted as votes after the county adopted a stricter standard. "Practically every recount turns up missed ballots," writes Sautter, who advises candidates to search for signs of voter intent. ............Other advice from Sautter's 1990 article is also clearly being followed in Florida. He wrote, presciently, "When razor-thin margins separate candidates on election night, the final outcome often turns on complex legal maneuverings and an arduous vote recount conducted in the weeks that follow. If your campaign is unprepared to challenge results, it doesn't stand a chance." "If you are behind," he continued, "and there are reliable reports of problems--such as fraud or eligible voters being turned away--which could affect the outcome, invite the press to investigate complaints." Sound familiar? ......" New York Times 11/17/00 Raymond Bonner Josh Barbanel "......Democrats in Duval County prepared meticulously for Election Day. They registered thousands of voters and ferried enough people to the polls in

predominantly African-American precincts to give a solid boost to Vice President Al Gore in a county expected to swing reliably into Gov. George W. Bush's column. ...... But the results of Duval County's vote left Democrats here shaking their heads. More than 26,000 ballots were invalidated, the vast majority because they contained votes for more than one presidential candidate. Nearly 9,000 of the votes were thrown out in the predominantly African-American communities around Jacksonville, where Mr. Gore scored 10-to-1 ratios of victory, according to an analysis of the vote by The New York Times. ....... Rodney G. Gregory, a lawyer for the Democrats in Duval County, said the party shared the blame for the confusion. Mr. Gregory said Democratic Party workers instructed voters, many persuaded to go to the polls for the first time, to cast ballots in every race and "be sure to punch a hole on every page. "The get-out-the vote folks messed it up," Mr. Gregory said ruefully. ..... If Mr. Gregory's assessment is correct, and thousands of Gore supporters were inadvertently misled into invalidating their ballots, this county alone would have been enough to give Mr. Gore the electoral votes of Florida, and thus the White House. ....The voters turned out by Democrats, Mr. Gregory said, took the instructions to vote in every race to mean: "I've got to vote for Gore. I've got to be sure Bush doesn't get elected. I've got to vote on every page." ....... The Duval County ballot listed Mr. Gore on the first page, along with Mr. Bush, Ralph Nader and two other candidates. Then on the second page were the names of five other presidential candidates. After voting for Mr. Gore, many Democratic voters turned the page and voted for one of the remaining names, Mr. Gregory said. ......" The New Republic 11/9/00 Ryan Lizza "......Democrats have a simple phrase that sums up their voter-turnout effort: "knock and drag." A crew of paid workers storms through predominantly black neighborhoods and coaxes, cajoles, or browbeats every registered voter to the polls. It's a form of political activity that was wellknown in the big-city, white-ethnic machines of the past but has only recently emerged as a key to black turnout. In 1989, the late Ron Brown, then the newly appointed chairman of the Democratic National Committee, introduced a revolutionary way to conduct Democratic campaigns, which he called the "coordinated campaign." It required all the candidates on the Democratic ticket in each state to pool a portion of their resources for a joint effort to turn out Democratic voters. In 1989 test races in New Jersey and Virginia, the plan was a startling success, and it became the model used to elect Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992. After the 1994 Republican landslide, when the Democratic base stayed home, the party refined the concept, dispatching a team of consultants to New Jersey to poll and conduct focus groups with black voters. ...... In 1996, Thomas put the model to work for Democratic Representative Robert Torricelli, who was locked in a dead-heat Senate race with Republican Richard Zimmer. But on Election Day Torricelli won by ten points. His margin came almost entirely from black voters. New Jersey Democrats had found the key to electoral victory. ......... " The New Republic 11/9/00 Ryan Lizza "......Once targeted districts are identified, Thomas begins a preprogram consisting of direct mail, phone calls, and visits to voters' homes. In the precinct mentioned above, for example, the Democrats sent six mailings to the 799 households that ncec had identified there. Crafting the mailings constituted a challenge, because Gore generated only tepid support among African Americans and George W. Bush proved a difficult man to demonize. And so Democrats did what they so often do when it comes to the black vote: They called the Republicans racist. One flyer featured Bush against the backdrop of a Confederate flag. Mail on behalf of Corzine said his opponent, Bob Franks, "thinks it's OK to teach our kids in trailers" and "will be hazardous to your family's health." But the most effective piece of mail sent to black voters targeted a Republican who isn't even running this year: It showcased the infamous picture of a smiling Whitman frisking a black man with his arms spread against a wall. "Republicans Like Governor Whitman Think Racial Profiling Is a Joke," the caption read. ......In addition to these mailings, Thomas hit black voters with live phone calls urging them to vote. On the Monday before the election, voters were given a reminder call; on Election Day itself, a massive phone bank operated from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. "Those phones are on a continual cycle," Thomas says. "The only way [a voter] comes out of the cycle is if [he] answers the phone." When a district is performing below Thomas's expectations, she can immediately retarget the phones, increasing calls to that area. ..........All this is supplemented by a radio and TV campaign that reaches saturation levels in the days leading up to the election. To listen to hip-hop and R&B stations the day before Election Day is to experience relentless political bombardment. "Republicans will roll back the progress Clinton has achieved," cautions one ad. In another, Jesse Jackson urges voters to take Tuesday off from work, warning, "All that Dr. King achieved can be overturned in one Supreme Court session." Minutes later Hillary Clinton is on the air talking about racial profiling and insisting, "If you stick with me, I'll stick with you." Next up is her husband, the president, with a paid ad making the case for Gore, Joe Lieberman, Corzine, and Hillary. Seconds later, Bill Clinton is back on the same station, this time for a live interview. "When they target the black community," says Thomas aide Rahman "Rock" Muhammad, "they target the black community." ......" http://www.allegedfraud.com/ "..... There are statistical anomalies in the original vote tally in Florida that would seem to indicate serious voter fraud. Of the three possible scenarios, two indicate Gore fraud, one indicates Bush fraud, all can easily be proved or disproved in a few hours. Consider the following:

8. How could Pat Buchanan get such an unusually high volume of votes above the expected number? 9. What is the probability that there were so many double punched ballots? 10. How could a 94% of voters in Florida's African American precincts voted for Gore which is significatntly above the national averages? .... ......... I know why the Democrats are screaming to the media and why they wanted a recount so badly. As a mathematician, it is statistically impossible that Pat Buchanan could have 2,500 votes higher than the predicted total for Palm Beach county. .... The odds of that many people in that county incorrectly filling out the ballot for Buchanan is way more than TRILLIONS TO ONE. If you were to take all the stars in all the galaxies and had to pick just one the odds would still not be as great. You would still have to pick one atom of hydrogen on that star to get the same odds. ..... ........ In order for Gore to close the 50-100,000 votes with 2% of the precincts remaining, 40 people would have to stuff 2,500 ballots each. Either that or have 2,000 bus loads show up to insure extraordinary final returns. ...... Now normally in a sea of ballots it would be impossible to distinguish one ballot from the next ........ unless you had a way to see that there were 2,500 ballots had some incriminating feature. Maybe they all have the same finger prints on it? Or are these 2,500 ballots identical? .......... Now imagine how freaked out you would be if you had filled out 2,500 ballots by copier or by hand or punching dozens at a time and MISTAKENLY they were for the libertarian candidate, grass roots candidate or Pat Buchanan!!!! The Democrat machine had to think fast. This error needs a spin. These ballots are evidence of voter fraud. ....... Wouldn't it have more likely been a Bush worker that would have created the double-punched ballots? Possibly, though the double-punched ballots need not indicate a BUSH worker fraud. Might a Gore worker have taken a stack of voted ballots, many Bush, few Buchanan, many Gore, some blank (no president vote) stack the ballots up, and stick a wire through the Gore vote hole. Now Gore votes are still valid while the Bush and Buchanan votes are DOUBLE-PUNCHED and disallowed, and non-voters are a Gore vote. ....... What did the Democrats do next? Call the radio station, call a telemarketer, call your preacher, call NAACP. Start drawing the attention away from the real issue. Make a media frenzy. All one has to do is look at the Buchanan ballots and you will find out why the Democrats are running scared. Look for identical fingerprints on multiple ballots, or identically marked ballots by a machine, or both.......... They want to hand count so that they can put finger prints on all the ballots. Also, if Palm Beach county had 40 precincts it would be impossible for one person to be in all 40 places at once or to have many of the ballots appear the same. ......... Imagine how freaked out you would be if you were connected to those 2,500. and how many other batches are out there. Is this possible in other states?? ....." "......... Here is a possible and alleged pattern of events (central): Tuesday during voting voting fraud occurs at unknown level. 4 PM some one recognizes the mistake. 4:05 PM huge panic attack is realized when it is not possible to get the votes back and there is evidence on the mistaken Buchanan votes, such as fingerprints or other. 4:15 PM telemarketing firm is hired, and protesters start causing a ruckus to get their votes back they are unsuccessful. 7 PM Florida is called for Gore. 8 PM irregularities occur and there is delays in getting in votes. 9 PM Bush goes on TV to challenge count. Wednesday 11/8/00 12 AM Bush up by 100 thousand. 3 AM Gore concedes to Bush when down by 35,000 votes with 95,000 remaining he must win 80% of final precincts 3:30 AM campaign officials inform Gore and or his staff that there is a problem, and that an attempt should

be made to get back those votes. 4 AM Al Gore calls George Bush to retract statement, vote is very close 5 AM voting is within 1,200 9 AM on wed Democrats send 75 lawyers to south Florida with the primary mission of retrieving Buchanan ballots. 12 noon protests over bad ballots occur. 5 PM because of mandatory recount ballots are sequestered. Thursday Democrats "war room" reports it received 5,000 (huh?) bad Buchanan ballot affidavits from Palm Beach voters. Friday recount finished. Allegedly Gore starts initiative to get hand counts in the suspect 4 counties with the goal of erasing evidence on Buchanan ballots. He succeeds in getting 1% of the palm beach ballots tested. Monday 11/13/00 A deadline imposed by the secretary of state stops the recount. Tuesday 11/14/00 12 PM the word "chad" debuts in the English language. Palm Beach man pulled over with "ballot fixing machine." Wednesday 11/14/00 10 AM Gore legal team goes before the state supreme court for special "handling" of Palm Beach ballots. 2 PM secretary of state refuses to allow hand recount extension. 6 PM Wednesday evening story broke on KSTP AM 1500 by Jason Lewis show Minneapolis, MN. 7 PM Gore will accept a statewide hand recount. 9 PM Bush rejects offer, complains about how rough they were with those hand recounts and appeals to the 11th circuit court. Thursday 11/16/00 2 PM ballots are schedule to be counted in Palm Beach. ....." http://www.pushback.com/justice/votefraud/DimpledChadPictures.html Peter Sheerin "...... In order to put the Florida recount controversy in better focus, I had the office of a government official take a few sample Votomatic punch card ballots and perform some of the experiments that Bill Wattenburg suggested in this article........To capture these images I used a microscope hooked up to my computer (a nifty USB device from Intel and Mattel called the Intel Play QX3 Microscope&8212;about $99 at better toy stores or directly at www.IntelPlay.com) at a magnification of 10 and 60. If you've got a curious kid (or one that you'd like to be) this would make a great holiday gift. Oh, and though I'm the technical editor for a computer magazine and can easily get access to this and much more expensive gadgets, I buy my own toys, thank you very much (I bought mine on sale at Zany Brainy for $70)............. There are three key characteristics that can be used to identify real dimples from fake ones * A real dimple will always have a pinprick, and it will be at the center of any circular depression. * If the stylus was pressed with anything more than very light pressure, A circular or semi-circular depression will be visible. * Because the pin-like tip of the stylus hits the paper before the rod part of the tip, a linear crease will almost

always be formed. Notice that this crease is much sharper than that created by an improvised stylus without a pin-like center ..... If made with anything more than light pressure, the pinprick will create a hole large enough to let light through (when viewed on a microscope at sufficient enough magnification). ....Voter Intent My conclusion, based on these limited tests, is that any chad (hanging or otherwise) that is missing both the pinprick and the vertical crease is likely a fraudulent vote, or quite possibly an indication that the voter started to vote, but had a second thought and decided not to vote for any presidential candidate, as a small percentage of people in all presidential elections do. ..........And just why did anyone suggest in the first place that any dimple or hanging chad should count as a vote in the first place? The instructions provided to voters using the Votomatic describe the process of voting properly quite clearly ...... and ends with a big, bold sentence admonishing the voter to make sure that all of his or her votes are clear and no "hanging chips" are left....." Vinod Gupta Freeper reports that "he bought the tele-marketing firm that did the calls to the 5,000 Palm Beach voters, the company was in Bankruptcy and then 2 days after all those calls were made, it sold to this guy, paid off all it's bill and the old owner can now open a new company" CPC Committee. Root URL on filing date: http://www.liberationdaily.com.cn/] 7/23/00 All for old school ties Nasima H Khan ...The latest initiative by ex-IITians is to collect $1 billion as a corpus for all the six IITs ...Appealing to the IIT alumni to pay up their guru dakshina, Kanwal Rekhi recently told a newspaper catering to Indians in America: ``If the 30,000 alumni in the US were to pay back just $10,000 per annum for four years it would work out to $1.2 billion ...Rekhi who is co-founder of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TIE)... ...Rekhi immediately donated $1 million... So Rekhi went back to the US, and with the help of the Heritage Fund an IIT Bombay alumni association in the US raised $7 million...the first of the six IITs which boasts a Vinod Gupta School of Management, again the first school of management in the IITs. Gupta gave $2 million to IIT Kharagpur in 1991, and the School, which is modelled on the MassachussetsInstitute of Technology (MIT), has been functioning since 1993... Gupta and Rekhi may be seen to be giving back in the anciant Indian tradition of guru dakshina. But they have also imbibed the current American value suystem in which a successful graduate is expected to give back to society. And that is mostly done by grants to educational institutions. Something which Gupta has done in the University of Nebraska as well as in his hometown Rampur Maniharan in UP... Deepak Bhagat, a senior director at Sun Microsystems Inc, is leading the effort to create IIT Kanpur alumni association chapters worldwide. The associations first fundraiser succeeded in fetching more than $1 million in cash and kind. Its future plans: to raise $40 million from IIT Kanpur alumni, some 2,500 of whom are in the US with 400 in the Silicon Valley. http://www.economictimes.com/today/23repo03.htm from the Times of India Online: Democrats court big donor Vinod Gupta Gupta, an Indian Institute of Technology alumnus, runs InfoUSA, an Internet-based marketing company based in Omaha, Nebraska, with $300 million in annual revenue and an estimated 2,000 employees......The rationale for the donors' largesse vary from wanting to influence certain issues to merely getting insider status. Gupta is among 142 people who have donated at least $100,000 in soft money to the party. Topping the list is Daniel Abraham, chairman of Slim-Fast Foods, who has donated $1.22 million. Gupta ranks 50th, having donated $200,000. But he has also written a $1-million cheque to support the Clinton presidential libraryDuring the convention, Gupta has had so much face time with Clinton that their chats became a bit giddy. The Times quoted Gupta as having told Clinton: "We're really suffering," and that he (Clinton) has "got to allow Cuban cigar imports as one of his last acts in office." Clinton reportedly had replied that "he'd see what he can do." http://www.timesofindia.com/210800/21amrc2.htm File: 21 August 2000 Democrats court big donor Vinod Gupta.url http://www.itparkchennai.com/clients.htm