Election 2000: Recount Deadline Nears; Palm Beach County Races Against the Clock
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Florida, the counting is almost over. In fact, they've already gone home in Broward County, where after 11 long days officials finished their hand recount just before midnight Eastern Time. Unofficial figures show Al Gore picked up 567 votes there. They're still counting in Palm Beach County, though, and have been all night, as election officials try to get everything done by today's 5:00 p.m. Eastern deadline. After that, Florida's secretary of state can certify the results of Florida's election, but whatever the tally, don't expect either candidate to claim victory. There's still a lot of legal maneuvering to be done. Let's go first to our point person in Tallahassee this morning, CNN's Kate Snow. Good morning, Kate.</s>KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning again, Miles. We are awaiting that five o'clock deadline here tonight by which time all of the counties of Florida are supposed to have their final certified tallies in to the secretary of state. We should be clear that many of the counties already turned in their final numbers. They did it long ago. In fact, on November 14 they had the first certification, you'll remember, and on November 17 they added in the military and the overseas ballots. So at this point about a dozen, a little more than a dozen counties we expect to be turning in numbers later today, one of them Broward County, that finished counting just before midnight last night, a very late night. They had been counting for some 11 days. They looked at 588,000 ballots and in the end Vice President Al Gore gained in Broward County a net of 567 votes. Now, all of the counties, Broward included, Palm Beach as well, which continues to count, all of them have to be in here by five o'clock. That is the deadline hour. The counties must submit their amended certifications to the secretary of state by that time. Now, that does not mean that she has to certify right away. There will be a little period, probably at least an hour, of administrative work that has to go on where they'll receive those faxes, they'll receive hand delivered counts and then some time after six o'clock, the secretary of state, Katherine Harris, will then certify the Florida election results and then after that time we expect there may be some words from her. We may have some kind of signing ceremony. Not entirely clear how it's going to go just yet. But we are wired up and ready for that. I should point out that every network and networks from all over the world are wired into this spot here in Tallahassee, ready to go live with the pictures of Katherine Harris certifying those results. Miles, back to you.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, CNN's Kate Snow, watching it down there. And as the recounting winds down, we'll check on the candidates themselves, and for that we turn to Kyra.</s>KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks, Miles. CNN's Patty Davis is keeping up with the vice president, and Eileen O'Connor, CNN is monitoring the goings on with the Texas governor. And first we're going to go to Patty in Washington, where we've seen Al Gore out and about lately, but haven't heard very much from him. Patty, let's get down to the...</s>PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he...</s>PHILLIPS: I'm sorry. Go ahead.</s>DAVIS: I was going to say he's here at his official residence in Washington today. He is keeping a close eye on those hand recounts. Now, don't expect him to make a concession speech, though, later today if George W. Bush is ahead at the end of the day with the total number of votes in Florida. His lawyers have made it very clear that they will likely contest the results of the Florida election -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: All right, Patty and Eileen, let's get down to basics here and talk about the message from both camps. Eileen, why don't you go first.</s>EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, basically the message here from the Bush camp is that they believe that these manual recounts are inaccurate. They say that they are subjective and that Governor Bush has already won two machine recounts. They hope that he will prevail again in this recount. But they believe that these are, these counts are basically tantamount to stealing the election and this is what they have been saying, this is what their supporters have been saying, this is what these demonstrations, they say, have been about. And I think that, you know, the response from, of course, the Gore camp is much different. They see it a lot differently, right, Patty?</s>DAVIS: I have to say, Eileen, the Gore campaign is really deploring that kind of rhetoric like stealing the election. What they're saying is all of the votes need to be full, fair and accurately counted. They're saying that there were thousands and thousands of votes that were kicked out of the machine because it couldn't detect who the person had voted for. The Gore campaign is saying that those votes need to be looked at by hand to really determine the intent of the voter and they say that Florida law is behind them. It allows a hand recount and, in fact, they say the Florida Supreme Court was also behind them. It allowed those hand recounts to go forward.</s>PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about the demonstrations for a minute on both sides. How many do you think have been spontaneous, how many have been orchestrated? Patty, you want to start?</s>DAVIS: Well, Democrats have been alleging that, in fact, the Republicans have been orchestrating those. They point particularly to Miami-Dade County. What they're saying is that a disturbance, I believe it was last Wednesday, while the hand counting was going on at the canvassing board, they're saying that that is what caused the canvassing board to drop its hand recount. They're calling it plain and simple intimidation and they're talking about going to the Justice Department to have it investigated. Now, the Bush campaign certainly denies that, doesn't it, Eileen?</s>O'CONNOR: Yes, they do. I mean basically what they are saying is that they have party people on the ground, that, of course, some of the party people are getting people out to protest, but that Democrats do the same thing. You had Jesse Jackson down there in the beginning in Palm Beach County demanding a recount, complaining about the butterfly ballot. And so they're also calling, saying hey, look, this is politics. In addition, they say these are not mobs and that these are people who are upset with the process, upset with the manual recounts, upset with what they say are unfair counts. And by the way, they also, on these demonstrations and particularly in Miami-Dade, they deny that the canvassing board turned down that recount, stopped the recount because of intimidation and they point, actually, to an interview that David Leahy did on CNN, in which he basically said look, we didn't have time by the Sunday deadline to complete that manual recount. He's on the canvassing board and the Republicans are pointing to that saying it's proof that it wasn't the demonstrations that stopped those manual recounts -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: Eileen, what about dimpled ballots? What's the real issue here for Bush?</s>O'CONNOR: Well, basically, on the dimples, they're saying look, they're, yes, OK, there is a Texas state law about dimpled ballots but that's their standards in Texas. There are no standards in Florida. And so what they're saying is it's unfair. It's not across-the-board. Each canvassing board has been setting their own standards. So therefore it makes the counts different and thus unfair. So they're basically saying because you don't have standards on dimples, you shouldn't be counting them. And that's their basic line.</s>PHILLIPS: Patty?</s>DAVIS: What the Gore campaign is saying on this instance is that the dimpled ballots should be included, in fact, that they agree that all the counties haven't been doing the same thing, but they think, they're pointing the finger at Palm Beach, that Palm Beach should be including more of these dimpled ballots. Those are the ballots where the selection is not punched all the way through. They say there is clear evidence if you have a dimpled ballot on who the person wanted to vote for and that that ballot should be included. They were hoping to pick up many more of those dimpled ballots for Al Gore.</s>O'CONNOR: This is where the Republicans, but this is where the Republicans have a problem because they say that's where, you know, the canvassing board is looking and saying that's who they wanted to vote for. And that's why the Republicans say, you know, you have three other people trying to figure out the intent of the voter and that's where they say there's subjectivity coming in.</s>PHILLIPS: Eileen O'Connor, CNN, Patty Davis, great conversation, great insight. Thank you very much.