Down & Dirty (55 page)

De Grandy seconds that. Black precincts have been counted one way, he says, and now you’re discussing doing Hispanic precincts
a different way. This will be a blatant violation of the Voting Rights Act.

And on this issue, De Grandy has more than a little credibility. During the reapportionment battles of the early 1990s—which
Carvin, Ginsberg, and Olson worked on a great deal for the RNC—plans to carve up Florida’s 23 U.S. House districts, and the
state legislature’s 40 senate and 120 house seats, were hotly contested.

After the legislature’s 1992 redistricting plan was laid out, many Cuban-Americans resented what they perceived as an inequality.
Then–state representative De Grandy sued the legislature on two fronts.

On the congressional front, De Grandy wanted an additional Cuban-American congressional seat and three African-American congressional
seats. A panel made up of three appellate court judges found in De Grandy’s favor, and as a result, the first African-Americans
since Reconstruction were elected to the house—Brown, Meek, and Hastings—and Lincoln Diaz-Balart joined Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
in the Cuban-American congressional caucus.

More fractious, however, was De Grandy’s suit against the legislature for another Hispanic state senate seat—because this
threatened to come at
the expense of an African-American state senate seat. Hispanic-Americans’ apportioned state house and senate seats in Miami-Dade
County were of roughly equal proportion to their county voting-age population (about 45 percent of the seats for 46.6 percent
of the population). African-American advocates pointed out that Hispanic seats were out of whack with the proportion of their
population that had achieved citizenship (33 percent).

Cuban-American advocates countered that black state house and state senate seats were way out of line with
their
population—29.9 percent of the county’s state senate seats, 20 percent of the state house seats, and only 15.6 percent of
the voting-age population.

Arguing that the statewide population of Hispanics—12 percent—exceeded the statewide percentage of statewide legislative seats—7
percent—De Grandy sued the legislature in federal court to get a fourth Hispanic state senate seat and two more Hispanic state
house seats.

Some thought that Cuban-American claims of disenfranchisement were disingenuous. “The Cubans have ridden on the backs of Mexicans
and Puerto Ricans to claim privileges which, as the only middle-class émigrés of any size that we have had in this country,
they don’t need,” one Democratic state senator said. And after a three-judge panel ruled in favor of De Grandy on the state
legislature suit, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994 took
De Grandy v. Bolley Johnson, Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, et al.
and ruled against him, arguing that the representation in Dade County was fair enough. Steve Zack represented the state senate
in the case.

“You have counted one hundred thirty-some precincts, which are not representative,” De Grandy says to the canvassing board.
“And I’m not concerned with whether they are representative of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, they are not
representative of my community, which is a protected class under the Voting Rights Act.”

You can’t count the votes gleaned from the hand count of the 130 non-Hispanic precincts and not do so for the other precincts,
he says, or “you will be violating the rights of the Hispanic community in Dade County.”

But De Grandy misunderstands the plan, old-school Miami boy Murray Greenberg says. “Apparently due to lack of sleep I am not
making myself understood,”he says. They’re not going to count whatever votes have been picked up so far in the hand recounts,
they’re going to start from scratch.

De Grandy now does the ol’ switcheroo. You’re
not
going to count those votes from those non-Hispanic precincts? Horrors! How dare you!
It’s a catch-22, De Grandy knows—but it’s one of their own doing. They want to count every vote, but now they’re going to
take back all the ones they took from the table count and discount them again? “At that point you have created irreparable
error, because now you have discerned in one hundred thirty-some [precincts] that there were some votes that you could discern
the intent of the voters,” De Grandy says. You can’t ignore them. Plus, De Grandy says, King himself said a few days ago that
the board can’t count only the undervotes. He can’t just change his mind!

Jack Young steps in, deferring to whatever Leahy and King want to do. He’d rather have all the ballots counted; but better
this than nothing.

Lawyer Birchfield says that dimples counted as votes in undervotes are not seen as such when appearing next to a punched chad—which
one might then assess as an overvote, were one to be consistent—so he feels the full countywide vote is necessary.

Just like one of the many hurricanes that so frequently pound the Florida coast, they are starting to move in circles. Greenberg
steps in to try to get King to hurry it all up. “I admonish you all for the last time, you heard from both parties, you heard
from the supervisor, vote!”

The canvassing board votes, 3 to 0, to count the undervotes.

At 8:50
A.M.
, they proceed up to the nineteenth floor to start counting.

To get to the tabulation room on the nineteenth floor, you exit the elevator, enter a secured door to the elections offices,
walk maybe sixty feet, and enter a small room that has a large glass window.

In this secured space between the elevators and the tabulation room stands Mayco Villafana, spokesman for Miami-Dade County,
who is confused.

Why is the media so angry? he wonders.

In the past, reporters seemed more than content standing behind the glass window. And Villafana was providing, after all,
audio of what was going on inside, as well as a roving video camera, the signal from which any channel could take, live, as
its own if it so wished. But reporters approach Villafana and tell him that it’s unacceptable that they don’t have complete
access to the tabulation room itself. Nicholas Kulish of the
Wall Street Journal
hand-writes a petition demanding “media representation in the counting room”… “in the interests of democracy.” Outside the
window is not good enough, Kulish writes. “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 hope this can be settled without legal action.” Lawyers everywhere.
^*

As the week has gone on, Monday, Tuesday, the protests outside the Miami-Dade county building—the Stephen P. Clark Government
Center—are increasingly hostile.

After Monday’s counting had concluded, Gore had gained 46 votes—though, of course, that was because the first hundred or so
precincts were Democratic precincts. That didn’t stop Republican officials from revving up their minions with accusations
that the 46 votes were proof of fraud.

“This thing is rigged!” Republican congressman David Hobson of Ohio said. “It is a joke on our democracy.” “Unfortunately
Miami-Dade has become ground zero for producing a manufactured vote,’’ adds Congressman Sweeney.

There’s an RV outside the county government building, into and out of which protester organizers hustle, handing out leaflets,
armed with free T-shirts—emblazened with vitriolic anti-Gore mottoes—to give to the crowds.

On Tuesday, Villafana and the building’s chief of security, Ed Hollander, asked the protesters to move their RV; it was in
a space for media, and reporters were complaining. But Villafana and Hollander found the Republicans combative and confrontational.
An operative came up in Villafana’s face, bumped him, asked him menacingly,“Is there any problem here?!”

Weird, Hollander thought. I’m here with cops and everything, and here is this guy trying to pick a fight.

They negotiated that the RV would move by the end of the day.

The protesters claim to be just outraged Americans. But Villafana and Hollander discover that the RV has been rented by Sean
T. Miles, vice president of operations for the Bush-Cheney advance team.

And while the outside world might not know it, most of the demonstration is organized by Brad Blakeman, who tells reporters
that he’s just “a Long Island lawyer.” He is from Long Island, and he is a lawyer, but he’s also
the Bush-Cheney campaign’s director of advance travel logistics. Inside the RV is Republican strategist Roger Stone, last
seen publicly flacking for Donald Trump’s flirtation with presidential politics. And Bush communications honcho Ed Gillespie
is seen on the ground Monday and Tuesday directing the crowds, steering the orchestrated ugliness. One of Bush’s media advisers,
swingin’ Stuart Stevens, is buzzing around somewhere, as well.

Blakeman tells reporters that they are all just outraged Republicans who have come from all over the country. The truth is
that while some are rank-and-file Florida Republicans, a significant number of the protesters—and not just its leaders—are
Bush campaign staffers or Republican staffers from the House and Senate.

A week earlier, the following e-mail had been distributed, one of many:

Dear Friends,

I am enclosing below a request by the Bush campaign for supporters to go to Florida to assist them in monitoring the efforts
there to invent votes for the inventor of the Internet. The message states that the Bush campaign will pay your expenses.

While the Florida Supreme Court ought to put an end to this chicanery, if they do not, more Republicans will be needed to
keep a watchful eye on the highly selective and subjective hunt for phantom Al Gore votes that is set to begin in Miami-Dade
County, where there are over a million ballots. I hope you can travel to Florida to assist the Bush campaign in this effort
to preserve the integrity of this election.

Sincerely,

National Council for a Republican Congress

There were others.

Subj: Bush campaign will pay your expenses to go to Florida for recount

Date: 11/18/2000 1:40:36 PM Central Standard Time

From: Legliaison

BCC: HOUSTONRVW

FROM: Dallas County Republican Party

FROM: the Bush campaign

Can anyone help in Florida the next few days? We can’t overstate the importance of this effort—so if you can go, please contact
georgewbush.com. Right now, we have people down in Florida working on the recount. They have been there for eleven days under
difficult circumstances, and we now need to send reinforcements. Please forward this message. The campaign will pay airfare
and hotel expenses for people willing to go. Because of cost, we are doubling people up in rooms so the only caveat is that
if someone wants their own room, they will need to pay for that themselves. Also, if they need to be somewhere for Thanksgiving,
we will make sure that they can honor those commitments.

Thanks for all of your help. As you can imagine, this matter is URGENT so the sooner we can get the names of interested people
the better. Although we need any interested person, we have a particular need for attorneys. Please contact georgewbush.com
if you have any questions.