Down & Dirty (35 page)

Local GOP attorney J. Reeve Bright is here. Some of the Republican lawyers here for Bush think Bright’s something of a pain
in the ass, a gadfly. But Bright knows one thing from talking to Wallace, Johnson, and Murphy yesterday: if the canvassing
board requests an opinion from Clay Roberts on whether they can go forward with the hand recount, whatever Roberts says in
response will be binding.

This is something that Burton still doesn’t know. He continues to think it’ll just be an opinion, something the board can
consider and weigh and, ultimately, disregard if they feel it is inaccurate. Burton doesn’t even know that the division of
elections office is part of the secretary of state’s office.

Bright casually says to the board that they should get this opinion before they plunge in. Carol Roberts has been advised
that this would be OK as long as they seek similar guidance from Democratic attorney general Bob Butterworth.

“The request to be made in writing?” Bright asks.

“Yes, yes,” Burton says. “Absolutely.”

They fax requests for guidance on how to do the hand recount, one to Butterworth and one to Roberts.

Four hours later, Clay Roberts writes back: they can’t do the hand
recount at all. Such counts are only in the event that there has been “incorrect election parameters or software errors.”

Harris writes them that: “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.”

Palm Beach County attorney Denise Dytrych is back from Middlebrooks’s trial and wherever she was over the weekend. She tells
the board that Clay Roberts’s letter is binding.

“It is?!” Burton thinks. “I never would have asked for it if I knew it was going to be binding!” They can’t count. They are
now legally required to not count.

In the days to come Burton will wonder about Kerey Carpenter, who kept suggesting that he seek an advisory opinion from the
division of elections but never said anything about it being binding.“Was she putting stuff in my head?” Burton will wonder.
“Was she playing me?”

Carpenter, who has moved on to other legal matters, will not again set foot before the canvassing board.

As Monday’s protest march reaches Narcissus Avenue, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his team turn left.

A few blocks away, a stage has been assembled outside the West Palm Beach governmental building, at Third and Olive Streets.
But a welcoming crowd does not await Jackson. Approximately two dozen Bush supporters—half of them black and all of them hostile—have
reserved choice spots at Jackson’s “Democracy & Fairness, Every Vote Counts, Every One Counts” rally. While Jackson & Co.
are marching from the Meyer Amphitheater, near the inlet that separates Palm Beach from West Palm Beach, the pro-Bush contingent
stands front and center, shouting “Jesse go home!” at the top of their lungs.

Soon they can say it right to Jackson, as he mounts the stage, around 5
P.M.
And they do. And they won’t stop. One of their number, holding the “I Support Sec. Harris and Florida Law” sign, is Don Black,
former Alabama Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, founder of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, and a Bush
voter. Black has found common cause with a half dozen African-American conservatives, the members of “Freedom Fighters International.”

Whaddaya know? George W. Bush
is
a uniter, not a divider, after all!

Interestingly, the members of Freedom Fighters International—the most vociferous “Jesse Go Home” bellowers—aren’t even from
Palm
Beach. Rumor has it they have been bused in from Miami, though they won’t say who paid for their tickets. (Finally, a busing
program that conservative Republicans can support!) They all hate Gore; spokesman Michael Symonett proceeds to tell me that
Gore’s a murderer, since he comes from a long line of Southern Democrats.

It doesn’t matter what the protest organizers do or say—whether they attempt to stop the heckling with mockery or prayer or
an off-key verse of “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” The Bush-backers keep yelling. They hold their signs high, blocking Jackson
from the platform set up for the TV cameras.

Soon enough, Jackson leaves at the advice of police, who cite security reasons. He skedaddles back to the amphitheater, and
the rally is moved there.

The Jackson demonstration is clearly a disappointment for its organizers. West Palm Beach police were told to prepare for
a crowd as big as thirty thousand, but the turnout was closer to three thousand. And it is not exactly a cross section of
the local electorate. For the most part, the participants seem to be among the most fervent Gore supporters. Based on their
signs and banners, they come from liberal interest groups that detest Bush and all that he stands for—People for the American
Way, local Gore-Lieberman activists, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The most popular
sign—“Let every vote count”—is the work of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates Inc.

Jackson is staying in my hotel, so it was not tough to catch him earlier Monday afternoon. He was standing in the lobby, resplendent
in a flowing black silk shirt, his well-fed belly poking out from its midst. Surrounded by cameras, his entourage, and fans
seeking his autograph, Jackson is in his starry-eyed element.

“So why are you here?” I ask him. Angry Bush-backers have been slamming him for days; some Democrats have even expressed concern—albeit
off the record—that his presence isn’t exactly helping things.

“Disenfranchised voters have faces,” Jackson answers in his famously modulated tones. “They’re Jewish Holocaust survivors,
they’re African-Americans, they’re Haitian-Americans, they’re farm workers, they are students. They were turned away. They
have a right to vote. And their vote must count. Because they matter. There are voices that are trying to close the door on
them again. They closed the poll on them last Tuesday; they’re trying to close the polls again. Democracy puts a higher virtue
on fairness and accuracy than it does speed. Let’s have a fair count.”

“So should there be a revote?” I ask, knowing how unlikely this is.

“It could be a first vote,” Jackson replies. “That’s fair. Either undercounted, discounted, disenfranchised, voters need
a fair vote.”

What of the reports that some of the Gore chieftains weren’t happy being represented by such a polarizing, controversial figure
as himself?

“The right to vote is not about Gore or Bush, it’s about people who are disenfranchised. I marched. Our right to vote is sacred.
The issue today is not the campaign. It’s essential to vote. Now, I think Gore does appreciate what we’re doing. Because he
knows the disenfranchised people have a right to be heard.”

In the supervisor’s warehouse in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, the canvassing board—Judge Robert Lee, county commissioner
Suzanne Gunzburger, and elections supervisor Jane Carroll—begin counting the sample 1 percent of the ballots.

GOP lawyer James Carroll, no relation to the elections supervisor, asks them to reconsider. But no one on the board formally
brings up his suggestion. “The request dies from lack of a motion,” Lee says.

James Carroll isn’t happy, and things get heated. Lee in turn gets fired up. This is not a public hearing, he says, this is
a meeting, and you are here by our good graces, not because the sunshine law applies. “If you interrupt again, I’m going to
ask the deputy to remove you,” the judge tells him.

They begin with a ninety-minute debate over the standards to use. The board eventually decides—on a 2-to-1 vote—to use the
“two-corner” rule, meaning the chad has to be detached from the ballot in at least two corners. The county workers count all
3,892 ballots from the three Democratic precincts; the canvassing board inspects any disputed ones.

The end result is a net gain of just 4 Gore votes.

Lee reads the statute that says that a full hand recount is warranted only when “the vote tabulation system fails to count
properly marked” ballots. The county attorneys agree with Jane Carroll’s own attorney—they shouldn’t have to do a recount
if there’s nothing wrong with the tabulation machines and no evidence of fraud.

The Democrats vehemently disagree.

You don’t get to even make an argument, Lee tells them. It’s a two-pronged test as to whether the matter’s even open to debate—prong
no. 1 is “Is there a problem with the system?” and no. 2 is “How significant is the difference?” The 1 percent recount fails
to meet either one. “Unless we conclude that there’s a problem with that thing in there,” he says, “we
don’t go to Step Two to determine if there’s an effect on the outcome of the election.”

The attorneys keep yapping away. Rep. Peter Deutsch and local attorney Charles Lichtman square off against county GOP chair
Ed Pozzuoli, state senator Jim Scott, and Carol Licko, who resigned as Jeb Bush’s general counsel in May. Yap yap yap!

After warning them three times to keep their traps shut, Lee turns to a sheriff’s deputy. “Deputy? All of them—out!”

The attorneys look at Lee, stunned.

I have warned you guys, he tells them. Now you’re going to be behind the window like everyone else, and you can stand over
there and watch us.

“The recount has not indicated an error in the votes tabulation, which could affect the outcome of the election,” Lee says
aloud.

They vote.

“All in favor, aye,” he says.

Gunzburger says, “Aye.”

“And opposed?” Lee asks.

Carroll says, “No.”

As does Lee.

“The election results stand,” Lee says. No hand recount in Broward.

In Palm Beach Democratic HQ, discussions have been about taking Burton, LePore, and Roberts to court to force them to adopt
a more liberal ballot standard.

“This standard is going to kill us,” Dennis Newman says to Jack Corrigan and David Sullivan. They’re not counting votes that
are clearly Gore votes, he says. “We can’t wait until the end of the process to challenge this, we need to get in there now
and change it, get a legitimate standard going.”

On Sunday evening, as Newman runs a massive training for hundreds of Democratic observers, Corrigan and Sullivan are working
with Ben Kuehne on drafting the legal motions. They’re going to take these guys to court.