Down & Dirty (27 page)

TO VOTE, HOLD THE PUNCH STRAIGHT UP AND PUNCH DOWN
THROUGH
THE CARD NEXT TO THE PREFERRED CANDIDATE’S NAME OR ISSUE POSITION
. (Emphasis added.)

“The guidelines assume that these directions have been understood and followed. Therefore, a chad that is hanging or partially
punched
may
be counted as a vote, since it is possible to punch through the card and still not totally dislodge the chad. But a chad
that is fully attached, bearing only
an indentation, should not be counted as a vote. An indentation may result from a voter placing the stylus in the position,
but not punching through. Thus, an indentation is not evidence of intent to cast a valid vote.”

ADOPTED BY THE NOVEMBER 6, 1990, CANVASSING BOARD:

Robert Gross, County Court Judge

Jackie Winchester, Supervisor of Elections

Carol Elmquist, County Commissioner

Halfway through counting the precinct, Burton, LePore, and Roberts decide to adhere to the 1990 standard. If there is no detachment,
it will not be counted. Kuehne protests, predictably, but the board disagrees. “My motion is that we stick by the November
6, 1990, guidelines,” Burton says. “I want to do it, and I want to do it right.” LePore and Roberts agree. All three members
now restart. Burton takes a card, turns it around, and stays silent. His first card with the 1990 standard and already there’s
a change. “This is an example where there is light, but it’s fully attached,” Burton says. “The sun shines through it, but
the four corners are attached. It’s no.” Kuehne tries to talk Burton out of the new standard, but he’s shut down. “The board
is no longer listening to comments from the spectators,” he says. “Thank you.”

The Boston Boys are not pleased. “We’re in trouble,” Newman whispers to Corrigan. “I think they screwed us.” Newman and the
Boston Boys had counted 30 new Gore votes and 19 new Bush votes. Those are now scrapped. After the canvassing board makes
it halfway through precinct 193-E again, Gore has 19 new votes, Bush 9. The vote-pickup difference goes from +11 for Gore
to +10. One vote here, one vote there, and Gore may not be able to catch up. And why was Burton gone for forty minutes during
that break? they say to each other. Who was he talking to? How did his presentation and knowledge about this all get so polished
and developed?

Now it’s Kuehne’s turn to be Mr. Objection.

Like the talent scout who discovered Shirley Temple, Kuehne sees dimples, and he likes them.

“Objection,” he says when a ballot that would have been OK an hour ago is now not considered a vote.

Burton spends twenty or so seconds studying a ballot when finally: “I think we have to say no,” he says.

“Objection on that one, too,” says Kuehne. “I object again to the recounting of something again using a different standard.
This is contrary to what the public was informed of during the open part of the meeting.”

“Objection noted,” Burton responds.

“For clarification, members of the board, the corner rule applies?” Kuehne asks.

“The rule was stated in the memo,” says Wallace.

“I was speaking to the board, thank you,” Kuehne says dryly.

All these wasted votes! Roberts thinks.“How much is a new system?” she asks LePore.

“A lot of millions,” LePore says. “And if you go to a new system, it has its own inherent set of problems.”

Another ballot, another chad not counted, another objection from Kuehne.

“What party are you representing, Ben?” Wallace asks. “The Free The Chad Party?”

“The people of Florida,” Kuehne says.

They are getting snippy about it.

Outside, Bush spokesman Eskew is bad-mouthing the hand-recount process.

“It’s known that manual counting of ballots is prone to human error,” the South Carolinian says. “It’s prone to the kind of
potential mischief, and it’s prone to other influences that don’t serve to create confidence in this process.”

What Eskew doesn’t mention is what the Gore folks have just learned, and are starting to share with selected Democrats and
members of the media: George W. Bush himself signed a hand-recount provision into law in 1997. When Texas elections are recounted,
the law states, “a manual recount shall be conducted in preference to an electronic recount.”

Is it hypocrisy of the first order? Yes in a major way and no in a minor way. No because Texas has one standard for the whole
state, while Florida varies county by county. But yes because Eskew and other Bushies will spend the next month mocking the
very concept of hand, or manual, recounts, even while their main man happily signed a law stating that hand recounts are preferable.
And yes because the standard Bush signed into law is one of the
broadest in the nation. Texas Election Code—section 127.130—says that a hand-counted punch-card 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.

And yes because as governor, Bush would joke with Texas state representative Rick Green, Republican of Dripping Springs, about
his slim 1998 victory over the incumbent Democrat. Green lost on Election Night by 20 votes, but in his call for a hand recount—which
went ahead because of the law Bush signed in 1997—he ended up winning by 36. Bush got quite a kick out of that, calling him
“Landslide” Green. And yes because New Mexico Republican National Committee chair Mickey Barnett is setting the stage for
a possible recount in his state, where Gore’s margin of victory was rather slim. And yes because Bush and his team had no
problem with the hand recounts that went on in some Republican-leaning Florida counties the day after the election, where
he picked up votes. And yes because the Bushies are contemplating hand recounts in Oregon and Wisconsin and Iowa and New Mexico.
And yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. But Bush and his team don’t care; they almost never do. Quite unlike the Gorebies, who shiver
at the slightest negative clause in a
New York Times
op-ed.

I’m not quite sure which attribute is worse. But I’m pretty sure I know which is the one employed by the winners in political
warfare.

Bush invites a bunch of reporters out to his ranch today, to show how calm, cool, and collected he is as he greets Cheney
and Andy Card, his chosen chief of staff should he take the White House. The Connecticut-born, Andover- and Yale-educated
scion is wearing his cute little cowboy suit today, minus the boots: big, LBJ-style 30-gallon hat, western coat with “Gov.
Bush” on its breast, dungarees.

“I think it’s responsible that Dick and I and others contemplate a potential administration,” Bush says. “And so they’ve come,
and we’re going to spend the day here today. First Lady Bush will be arriving here soon. It’s
nice to be out here in the country. Last night it was such a wonderful feeling when we arrived at Crawford, at about nine-fifty—”

ARF! ARF! ARF!

Spot, his dog, seems to be channeling his anxiety.

“Hey, hey, hey, please,” Bush says to Spot. “It’s not your turn! Sorry, the dog wanted to have a few comments. What she says
was, ‘Let’s finish the recount.’” Some of the more sycophantic reporters laugh. “Anyway, arrived—”

ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!

“Hey, Spotty. Spotty!” Bush turns to his aide, Gordon Johndroe. “Gordon.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Somebody needs to take care of the dog,” Bush says. “Thank you, Gordon. Just go ahead and throw the ball. Heh, heh, heh.”
He’s got a Band-Aid on the side of his head; a lanced boil. He takes a few questions. The lifeless Cheney says a few words.
Then one last question is allowed.

“Given that this election is so close—”

ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!

“Spotty, please,” Bush pleads.

“— would you consider appointing Democrats to your cabinet?”

Bush dodges the question.

“Governor, how is your infection?” he’s asked.

“My infection?” Bush says. “Well, I’m sure glad you asked. Heh, heh. What infection? Oh, that one. I was hoping nobody would
notice this Band-Aid here.” He hides the Band-Aid with his hand. “It’s fine. It got pretty severely infected, and I had a
doc look at it. And I’m taking antibiotics and putting on hot compresses, and it’s beginning to retreat, thankfully.”

Back outside the Palm Beach Governmental Center, Carpenter and Burton are taking another smoke break. Burton has come to like
Carpenter. She’s eminently likable.

Born in Jacksonville, Carpenter was raised in Michigan, where she dropped out of high school after tenth grade to give birth
to her first daughter at seventeen. But she took night classes, even through her second delivery at age nineteen. She moved
to Lake Park, Georgia, dumped her husband, and worked, worked, worked, earning a college degree in three and a half years
from Valdosta State College and a J.D. from FSU shortly
thereafter. A year or so ago, her friend Debbie Kearney—whom she met when she worked in Governor Lawton Chiles’s legal office—brought
her on board in Harris’s office.

Carpenter is wary of Carol Roberts. She’s told Roberts that the 1 percent sample hand recount can justify a full county recount
only if it “could affect the outcome of the election.” Roberts doesn’t seem to care, Carpenter thinks. She wants a full county
recount no matter what.

Burton asks Carpenter if the division of elections has an advisory opinion on the books about hand recounts, on what the standard
is for one to be called. The statute says that one should be ordered only if there’s “an error in vote tabulation,” but what
does this mean? An error in the machine? An error in the cards? Error by the voter? How soon could the division of elections
get an advisory opinion to the canvassing board?

Carpenter says that she’ll check and get back to him.

Carpenter places a call to Clay Roberts, director of the division of elections. Is there an advisory opinion on the books?
Roberts says no. But he can have one for them on Monday. Carpenter, Clay Roberts, and Paul Craft—a division of elections mechanics
expert who’s also in Palm Beach—discuss the issue at length.

Carpenter walks back inside and tells the group that an opinion can come as soon as Monday if they want one. But they have
to make a request in writing if they want it, she says.

Carpenter does not mention that if they make such a request, whatever response the division of elections gives them will be
legally binding.

Whatever conversations Carpenter and Burton have do not go unnoticed by paranoid Democrats. One after another Democratic attorney
sidles up to Kuehne to note how friendly Carpenter is being to Judge Burton. She looks like she’s trying to get his attention,
one says. She’s sure hanging around him a lot, says another.

Wallace feels differently. Finally, some relative fairness, he thinks. He looks at the three-person board, Democrats every
one. He feels outnumbered. But at least they’re no longer finding sunshine in every glimmer of hope, he thinks.