Down & Dirty (91 page)

Peter Greenberger, twenty-seven, worked under Baldick for Gore in New Hampshire during the primaries and then helmed the western
Pennsylvania effort for Gore-Lieberman, but he’d spent the recount period in D.C., waiting to be sent to Iowa or Wisconsin
in case those states had recounts. They didn’t, so Greenberger watched it all on TV. Until Friday afternoon,
that is, when three different DNCers called him, attempting to draft him into three different assignments in three different
Florida counties.

Saturday morning at 6
A.M
., Greenberger shows up at the Signature Airlines terminal at D.C.’s Reagan National Airport. It’s a sea of Republicans. Two
hundred, maybe 250. All with orange “W.” caps, better dressed than the few Democrats, sporting far more pearls. Greenberger
huddles in the corner with the other six Democrats. It’s easy to pick them out—two of them are black, one’s Native American,
you got Greeny, a Jew, and two others.

When their seven-seater charter plane lands in Tallahassee, they’re met by a staffer who throws them rental-car keys and a
map. Greeny takes the I-10 to Madison County, on the Georgia line, drives into the town of Madison, and instinctively looks
for the clock tower. When he finds it, he learns that the canvassing board has already finished up its review of the 31 undervotes—plus
4 for Gore, plus 2 for Bush. So he calls in to Tallahassee, and is sent to the town of Mayo in Lafayette County. He drives
there, looks for the clock tower. When he finds it, he learns that Lafayette didn’t have any undervotes, so there’s nothing
to do here, either. There are
over
votes in Lafayette, but the Florida Supreme Court didn’t order anyone to inspect those, so again, nothing to do here for Greeny.
He calls in again. This time he’s sent to Suwanee County. All that Greeny knows of Suwanee County is Bugs Bunny singing that
“Way Down Upon de S’wanee River” song. He’s about to learn a whole lot more.

When Greeny walks into the county seat building, in Live Oak, and announces that he’s with the Democratic Party, he’s greeted
with silence. The canvassing board and four Republican observers are about a third through the Opti-scan undervotes. Greeny’s
told that Bush has picked up 4, Gore 1. Greeny asks to see the five newly discovered votes. Two of the Bush votes are fine,
good, exactly why these things need to be looked at. But what the… ?

One of the new Bush votes has solid checks by the name of every Democrat in every race except for president, and no vote for
either Gore or Bush. There’s a slight pencil mark near Bush’s name, but certainly nothing like the definitive checks for this
voter’s picks elsewhere on the ballot. Greeny objects to this. I mean, the voter went for all Democrats! All Democrats plus
Bush?! That’s crazy to think that, Greeny says.

“Well, you’re looking at someone who did that,” Greeny is told by Judge William Slaughter, the chairman of the canvassing
board. In fact, all three members of the Suwanee County canvassing board are Democrats. Old-school Southern Democrats, to
be sure. But Democrats nonetheless.

The other questionable Bush vote has check marks by the names of two or three presidential candidates—but, in Greeny’s view,
just a slightly bigger check mark next to Bush’s name.

“This is an overvote,” Greeny says. “I want to protest these two.”

“You can’t protest them, we’re not in the ‘protest’ phase anymore,” Slaughter says. “This is the contest phase.”

“Well, then I want to contest them,” Greeny replies. But he’s told he can’t do that, either.

Greeny is hit with two emotions. One is suspicion: What would this board have counted if he hadn’t shown up? The other is
sympathy. So this is what it must have felt like for Republicans when they were before what they perceived to be hostile canvassing
boards, he thinks. Shit happens in situations like these, and if no one representing the candidate you didn’t support is there—if
the GOP or Democratic observer is clueless, or lost, or stuck in traffic, or late—why wouldn’t someone fudge a bit on two
or three ballots? And if that happens in sixty-seven counties, with Bush having a winning margin of only 154 votes, well,
there’s your election right there.

While it was the Republicans who had to play catch-up in those first few days after the election, the GOP now has the state
wired. The Florida Supreme Court issued their ruling at around 4
P.M.
on Thursday, and within five hours, at least 120 Republicans were on the ground in Tallahassee.

That night, on the first floor of the Bush Building, Enwright, Mehlman, Mark Wallace, and a few others spent ninety minutes
training them on what to do, what to expect. The room was overflowing. Suitcases outside the room were lined up, a scene that
reminded Enwright of the first day of summer camp. By 1:30 in the morning, everyone was ready to go. Minivans shipped the
observers around; by 7
A.M.
Saturday morning, they have observers in each of the sixty-three counties where hand recounts are scheduled.

Drafted by Enwright the night before, Tallahassee GOP consultant David Johnson is at the Bush Building by 6:30
A.M.
He’s sent to Gadsden County, but the canvassing board there isn’t quite ready to get started yet, so he returns to Tallahassee,
where he picks up another local pol, Steve Madden. Johnson’s in the Republican uniform: blazer, white shirt, tie, khakis.
Madden, a burly giant of a man, overslept, so he’s cutting quite a
different figure with his unshaven face, black sweater, jeans, and hiking boots. Johnson and Madden’s destination: Liberty
County.

As Johnson and Madden shoot west on Highway 20, they figure they’re gonna arrive in the county seat, Bristol, right on time.
It’s 10:15
A.M
., and

Liberty County’s set to start counting at 10—but Liberty’s in the central time zone, they figure, so they should be pulling
up right when the undervotes come out. As they approach the town, Madden phones the courthouse in Bristol to get directions.

“You can’t miss it, we’re having our winter festival today, and it’s all taking place in front of the courthouse,” Madden’s
told. “But we started a few minutes ago.”

“You did?” Madden says. “But I thought you weren’t going to start until 10.”

“That’s right,” he’s told.

And then it hits both Madden and Johnson: Bristol isn’t in the central time zone, it isn’t west of the Apalachicola River—it’s
in the eastern time zone, just like Tallahassee. Kind of weird that they didn’t realize that, they think. Maybe they were
overcompensating for the networks screwing up on Election Night and forgetting that
any
of the state was in central time.

Anyway, they get there. Five Gore operatives are there, and they sneer at Johnson, instantly making the guy in the tie and
khakis as a Republican. Hilariously, however, the Gorebies approach Madden, introduce themselves to him, apparently assuming
that such a big ol’ slob could only be a Democrat.

When it’s all over, inspecting Liberty County’s 29 undervotes will end up netting Gore a grand total of 1 new vote.

Jackson County, on the Panhandle and the Alabama border, doesn’t have a lot of citizens like Joshua Green, who flew in from
New York, N.Y., to supervise the goings-on for Gore. The Jackson County courthouse this morning is not a hospitable place,
Green thinks. Especially after he starts to wonder about the weird white stickers on hundreds of the county’s Opti-scan ballots.

“What’s this?” Green asks the supervisor of elections, Sylvia Stephens, and her deputy, Vicki Farris.

Stephens explains. As Jackson County has been doing for years, before elections workers put the county’s 17,000 or so ballots
through the machine for the final Election Night count, they separated the 1,400 or so ballots that the machine didn’t read—undervotes
and overvotes. Where
the elections officer could determine the intent of the voter—say, someone filled in both the Bush oval and also the write-in
oval next to which he or she wrote “Bush”—the officer covered the superfluous oval with a white sticker so the machine could
read the ballot.

Farris tells Green that they did this to 300 or so ballots. Green looks around; the only ballots he sees fixed like this are
Bush votes.

This is a county that Bush won 9,138 to 6,868.

“The Library is CLOSED TODAY please see the branches,” reads the sign on the front door of the LeRoy Collins Leon County Public
Library, at 200 W. Park Avenue. Inside, instead of a blood drive or an exhibit of elementary school art, four tables are set
up and the recounting of the 9,000 or so remaining undervotes from Miami-Dade County has been under way since 9:55
A.M
.

Each table hosts two judges, two deputy clerks, and two observers—a Democrat and a Republican. David Leahy is in the house,
as is county attorney Murray Greenberg.

A typical counting period, at table three, begins with a deputy clerk walking to a side room and picking up a white envelope
full of ballots, then taking it back to the table.

“Precinct two-sixty-seven, eighteen votes,” the deputy clerk says, reading what’s written on the outside of the envelope.

The other clerk opens the envelope and counts the ballots, verifying the number.

Judge Charles Francis takes a ballot. “No vote,” he says.

Judge Janet Ferris assesses the ballot as well. “No vote,” she agrees. There are five shoe boxes on each table. This ballot
is placed in the box set aside for the “no” votes, as others are for Gore, Bush,“other,” and ballots on which the judges disagree.
Lewis said Friday night that he would assess these disputed ballots himself. If any of the observers have any objections,
they are told to record them and make their protests known at a later time. The observers seem to be scribbling furiously.

Subdued and serious, the four tables are working briskly, assessing about 1,000 ballots an hour. At this rate, they could
conceivably be done before the SCOTUS even rules on the Bush team’s request for an injunction to stop the count. Each table
takes a brief lunch break—sandwiches and chips.

“Precinct two-sixty-seven, eighteen votes,” ends up being 18 no votes. Table three soon goes through the 25 votes of precinct
372. Inspection of this envelope results in one additional Bush vote, 24 no votes.

One out of every 10 or so ballots bears closer inspection. Most seem to be no-brainers.

At 11:58
A.M
., some chitchat from deputy clerks and deputy sheriffs in the back room seems to annoy Ferris and Francis. The judges glare;
immediate silence follows.

At table four, the result is a bit different. Judge Tim Harley and chief circuit court judge George Reynolds hit a run of
Gore votes. Reynolds occasionally uses a magnifying glass. There seem to be no moments of the judges holding the ballot up
to the light, perhaps divining the chad.

At 12:10
P.M.
, Pataki walks in. He mingles in the back of the room.

Outside the library, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., speaks to TV cameras about the importance of “counting every vote,” while
Bush protesters try to shout her down. “Go back to the left coast!” one yells.