>From: <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: A washingtonpost.com article from [log in to unmask] >Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 01:26:28 -0500 (EST) > >You have been sent this message from [log in to unmask] as a courtesy of the >Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com). >To stay on top of the latest political headlines, live discussions and >breaking news, register now for the OnPolitics email at >http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/email/email.htm. > >To view the entire article, go to >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44835-2000Dec8.html > >Judges Deliver Loss to Gore on Absentee Ballots >By Charles Babington and Peter Slevin >Washington Post Staff Writers >December 08, 2000 > > Two Florida judges today rejected Democratic requests to invalidate thousands of absentee ballots, dealing another setback to Vice President Gore's hopes of overtaking Gov. George W. Bush's certified lead of 537 votes. > The two Circuit Court judges ruled that Republican election officials in Seminole and Martin counties might have erred slightly when they allowed GOP operatives to supply missing voter-identification information on absentee ballot request forms. But the judges said such "irregularities" did not justify the remedy sought by Democrats who filed the lawsuits: Throwing out thousands of absentee ballots from the two counties. > "The trial courts in both the Seminole County case and the Martin County case have determined that despite irregularities in the request for absentee ballots, neither the sanctity of the ballots, nor the integrity of the election, has been compromised, and that the election results reflect a full and fair expression of the will of the voters," a Leon County Circuit Court spokeswoman said. The announcement was made in Tallahassee shortly after 2:15 p.m. – nearly 90 minutes before the state Supreme Court announced that it was ordering the manual recount of ballots that had not recorded a vote for president. The Supreme Court also ordered restored 383 votes for Gore that had not been certified by the secretary of state. > If either of the judges – Nikki Clark in the Seminole case, Terry Lewis in the Martin case – had agreed to invalidate ballots as requested, Gore would have overtaken Bush's lead in Florida, the state that will decide the next president. > Gore was not a party to either lawsuit, but his backers quietly hoped they might keep his presidential ambitions alive. Democratic voters who filed the Seminole and Martin lawsuits were seeking to throw out thousands of ballots, a strategy antithetical to Gore's post-election mantra of "count every vote." Attorneys in both cases vowed to appeal. > In these cases, Democrats charged that Bush benefited from favored treatment by Republican election supervisors. Before the election, the Florida GOP sent pre-printed cards to registered Republicans, allowing them to request an absentee ballot. Some of the cards contained a misprint that omitted the required voter identification number. > In Seminole County, testimony showed that Republican Party staff member Michael A. Leach was permitted to use Election Supervisor Sandra Goard's offices for about 15 days to correct the application forms. In Martin County, GOP workers were permitted to retrieve incorrect forms, fix them and return them to the election offices. > Democrats charged that Florida law requires certain details to be supplied on the forms and considers invalid any forms that do not contain the proper information. They contended that the Republican elections officials gave an unfair advantage to their own party by bending or breaking the rules. > Lawyers for Bush and the two counties countered that the changes were a mere scrivener's task that did nothing to threaten the integrity of the ballots later cast. They pointed out that Democrats did not need help because their party's application forms were free of errors. > Gore's chief lawyer, David Boies, learned of the Seminole and Martin rulings as he walked from lunch back to his office. "Neither of these cases were cases we were involved in," he told The Post's James V. Grimaldi in Tallahassee. "We've said from the beginning, the issue was going to be the issue of our [post-certification] contest. Our contest is going to be decided by the Florida Supreme Court, maybe sometime today." > <em>Staff writer Roberto Suro contributed to this report. Babington reported from Washington, Slevin from Tallahassee.</em> > _____________________________________________________________________________________ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------