The New York Times
November 13, 2000
_________________________________________________________________
WEST PALM BEACH, Nov. 12 Ron Klein, a Democratic state senator
here, thought something was amiss minutes after he cast his vote
and left his polling place in Boca Raton at 7:05 Election Day
morning. He had done a double take when he saw that the second hole
in his punch- card ballot did not align with the names of the
Democratic candidates, Al Gore and Joseph I. Lieberman. He voted
for the Democrats anyway and drove to another precinct to campaign.
"There were a group of people walking out, and they were totally
upset," Mr. Klein said. "They said they didn't know who they voted
for."
What started as a nagging worry turned into a raging problem by
midmorning as hundreds of voters swamped the phones of local
officials, complaining that they had misread the ballot. But their
frantic and angry calls elicited little help from electoral
officials whom they described as overwhelmed by the flood of
complaints.
By the day's end, some 19,000 ballots would be invalidated because
voters had punched them twice and another 3,000 votes would be cast
by voters who feared that they had mistakenly selected the Reform
Party candidate, Patrick J. Buchanan, over Mr. Gore. Throughout the
county, on an Election Day that some local officials said was the
most chaotic and emotional they had ever seen, many would-be
Democratic voters lamented what they said was a mistake that could
deprive Mr. Gore of the margin of victory he needed here.
A reconstruction of the day's events, obtained through interviews
with voters, politicians and electoral officials, portrays an
overworked and understaffed system grappling with widespread
confusion over a ballot that the county's Democratic elections
supervisor originally had designed to be easily read.
The majority of voters from both parties cast their vote without
problems. But enough of them were flummoxed that the local
Democratic Party office and state Democratic Party headquarters
were jammed with angry calls. Voters seeking help from electoral
officials said they were turned away by poll workers who, in turn,
were told by their bosses late in the day to remind people they
could vote only once.
Early today, after a week in which protesters for Democrats and
Republicans held boisterous vigils on the streets outside their
offices, Palm Beach County electoral officials agreed to a hand
recount of the county's entire 462,657 ballots.
But the tumult over a vote-counting process that some have joked
makes this country look like a banana republic has now taken a very
American twist, as Republicans and Democrats have gone to court.
The county at the epicenter of the nation's electoral standoff is a
place known to most Americans as a realm of wealth and fame.
But across the shimmering ribbon of the Intracoastal Waterway is a
sprawling mix of communities that make up a Democratic stronghold:
the impoverished agricultural towns around Belle Glade,
condominiums filled with retirees, and Haitian refugees who fled a
homeland where democracy had too often been thwarted at gunpoint.
On Election Day, many Democrats flocked to the polls, intent on the
one thing that united them: casting their vote for Mr. Gore.
"I was excited because I knew that we were going to win Florida for
Gore," said Donna Lentz, a housewife from West Palm Beach. "We all
knew we could get it for him."
Early Tuesday morning
Irving Slosberg arrived at his polling place in Boca Raton a little
after 7, his body tired and his ears still ringing from the
celebrity-packed pep rally he had attended in Miami's South Beach
Art Deco District the night before for Mr. Gore. Mr. Slosberg was
less worried about Mr. Gore's chances than about his own, because
he was running as a first- time Democratic candidate for the State
Legislature.
Nervous after having heard at his gym the previous week that his
write-in opponent was going to snag votes, Mr. Slosberg dashed out
to the polling places in his district, where long lines had formed
early. He soon heard grumbling from many voters who were obsessed
with worry that they had mistakenly voted for the wrong candidate.
"People were bellyaching about the ballot, that it was confusing,
but at that point you don't think of anything and it drifts over
your head," said Mr. Slosberg, who owns a handbag company. "I'm not
sure if I was not paying attention or if I was concentrating on the
fact that I was in an election, too. Apart from Al Gore winning, I
also wanted myself to win."
Ernest Duval, a naturalized American citizen whose voice is still
tinged with the tender tones of his native Haiti, said he and his
wife were excited that morning as they went to vote in West Palm
Beach. When they got to the polls, he said, he was confused by the
ballot, wondering whether he was supposed to punch No. 4 or No. 5
for Mr. Gore. He remembered punching through No. 4, which
corresponded to Mr. Buchanan.
He went to a poll worker and asked for a new ballot, but he said
his request was denied. Instead, he was told to stand in another
line. He and his wife waited.
"We stood for 15 minutes and nobody paid attention," he said,
testifying on Saturday before a panel of civil rights lawyers
convened in Miami by the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. "I went back and punched Number 5. I lost my
vote."
Complaints like these had been coming in to Gore campaign officials
in Florida since shortly after the polls opened.
Midmorning
By now, confusion was evident at many polling stations, voters and
poll workers said. "Every two seconds we're getting another call,"
Kathy Dubin, a special assistant to the chairman of the county
Democratic Party, said Tuesday. "We are getting hundreds of calls.
When I voted this morning, there were some people who left the
polls hysterical. In my 20 years of being involved in politics, I
have never seen anything like this."
Leah Feinman, a precinct worker at the Indian Springs Development
in Boynton Beach, said the poll workers were slow at first to
recognize the scope of the problem.
"So many voters put their hands over their eyes and said, `Oh, my
God, I voted for Buchanan. Oh, my God, I voted for Bush. Oh, my
God, I voted for the wrong person,' " she recalled.
For the next several hours she tried in vain to reach her
supervisor at the county elections office. When she finally did get
through to an operator, the response was not what she expected.
"I told them there was mass confusion here," Ms. Feinman said. "I
told them we needed help. She said, `Don't waste my time,' and she
hung up."
At 10:30 a.m. in Nashville, Doug Hattaway, a Gore spokesman, was
briefing the press on five reports of irregularities at the polls
across the country, including the problems in Palm Beach, where he
said there were complaints about "confusion on the ballot."
Noon
By midday, Andy Berkowitz, a New York-born woman who had come to
West Palm Beach a few months earlier to care for her dying parents,
was also trying to call anyone who would listen to her, because she
suspected she had mistakenly voted for Mr. Buchanan. That prospect
horrified her, she said, because she felt that Mr. Buchanan was
against everything she cherished.
But she was also concerned, she said, because poll workers in her
district did not ask her for identification, but were asking all
African- American voters to provide not only their voter
registration card but also photographic identification.
"I questioned in my head, `Are these people crazy?' " she said.
She finally got a telephone call through to the county's Democratic
Party office, where she said the line was constantly busy.
"They finally picked up," she said, "and hung right up."
Early Afternoon
Electoral and Democratic Party officials knew by early afternoon
that something had gone wrong, but they were unprepared to handle
the onslaught of angry voters. Precinct workers, faced with an
unusually high, and in some places record, voter turnout, said they
were under instructions to turn away anyone asking for assistance
because it would slow down the voting. The county had 38 voter-help
hot lines, but had only 34 operators to field calls.
"Sometimes the calls would bounce into oblivion," said Patrick
Miller, the deputy county administrator, who said the problem was
fixed during the day. Other county officials had heard that voters
who made mistakes and asked for a second ballot were being denied
them. Under Florida law they are entitled to even a third one if
they mess up the first two.
The ballot had been designed by Theresa LePore, the county's
supervisor of elections and a Democrat who started working in the
elections office when she was 16 years old.
Ms. LePore, who has not spoken much with reporters since Election
Day, had said soon after the problems surfaced that she had
designed the two-page "butterfly" ballot to be easier to read. Palm
Beach was the only one of Florida's 67 counties to use such a
ballot.
Sample ballots were supposed to have been mailed out in advance and
published in local newspapers. John Robert, a resident of the
predominantly African-American community of Riviera Beach, said he
never received one. "And I'm not the only one who never received a
sample ballot," he said, adding that although he voted for Mr.
Gore, his wife may have voted for Mr. Buchanan. "The ballot was
confusing to me, and I'm an educator."
Voters who had studied the sample ballot in the days before the
election said it didn't help much anyway. Frank Friedland, a
retired shirt manufacturer from New Jersey, said the sample ballot
didn't show the punch holes, and that was the confusing part. Mr.
Friedland, who lives in the Fountains development near Lake Worth,
said he intended to vote for Gore but mistakenly punched his ballot
for Buchanan.
"I walked out of that booth cussing," Mr. Friedland said. "I didn't
feel stupid, but I felt like crying."
Midafternoon
By this time, poll watchers, politicians and party activists were
visiting polling places to stem the damage they felt was resulting
from the ballot layout.
Mr. Klein, the state senator, spoke with officials in the Gore
campaign, then went to Ms. LePore's office around 3 in the
afternoon.
"Who designed this ballot?" he asked her.
"It was me," he said she replied.
"I gave Theresa a look that said, `What on earth were you
thinking?' " Mr. Klein said.
He said he then persuaded Ms. LePore to hastily print up a flier to
advise poll workers about the ballot. He took 500 fliers and drove
south, but was soon caught in rush-hour traffic and reached only 15
precincts.
Some local Democrats, like Donna Lentz, a housewife from West Palm
Beach, had reacted on their own by then, rushing home to draw up
signs reading "If You Want Gore Punch Number Five."
"I tried to save as many people as possible," Ms. Lentz said. "I
left all these messages on people's phone machines. I was there
warning until the polls closed. We knew about this early on
Election Day."
Late Afternoon
Mr. Slosberg, the state legislative candidate, had seen a slew of
these signs when he arrived at Century Village, a retirement
community.
"Now, I'm greeted by Pauline Alterman she was working for me at the
polls and Irma Fleischman, and they're practically crying. They
said, `Irv, do you know what's going on here?' " Mr. Slosberg said.
"They start telling me voters are practically coming out of the
polling place crying because of the fact there was so much
confusion over this ballot. They're not sure if they first punched
Buchanan and then Gore. You know that none of our people would vote
for Buchanan. It was a big confused mess."
Caught up in the confusion were people like Israel Grosfield, who
lives at Century Village.
"I saw Al Gore's name, and I punched his name," he said. "I saw Joe
Lieberman's name with a box next to it, and I punched his name.
There were two holes next to the Democratic box. I know a lot of my
friends did that."
Early Evening
By about 5 p.m., the Democratic National Committee had received
enough similar complaints from Palm Beach County that officials had
Telequest, a Texas-based telemarketing firm that was urging voters
to go out and vote, switch its script. In the final hour before the
polls closed at 7, calls were made to approximately 5,000 voters.
"If you have already voted and think you may have punched the wrong
hole for the incorrect candidate, you should return to the polls
and request that the election officials write down your name so
that this problem can be fixed," the script said.
"Do NOT punch any other number as you might end up voting for
someone else by mistake," it said.
The callers reached about 100 people who had not voted. But the
callers logged the names of 2,400 people who told them they might
have mistakenly voted for Mr. Buchanan.
Late Evening Although the nation would not learn of the confusion
here until much later, local voters and politicians went home to
uneasily watch the returns. The elation they said they felt when
the television networks declared Mr. Gore the winner soon turned
into despair when the reports were corrected and the race was still
undecided.
Ms. Berkowitz, the lifelong liberal who said she mistakenly voted
for Mr. Buchanan "I wanted to shoot myself," she said ruefully
stayed up all night.
"I was so frustrated, I was screaming my head off and did not turn
off the television," she said. "They gave the vote to Gore in
Florida, then they took it back. I lost it."
Ms. Lentz, who had taken to the streets with a sign to remind
voters to punch 5 for Mr. Gore, was similarly dismayed "O.K., it's
just too close to call, even though we made mistakes, we'll still
get it for Gore," Ms. Lentz said. "But later when they announced
that Bush would be the next president and that he had won by just a
few votes in Florida, I knew what had happened. I knew where those
votes went. They went straight to the garbage because that's where
they might as well be."
Early Wednesday Morning
A similar feeling swept over Mr. Klein, the state senator, who
started the day with a twinge of doubt. At 4:30 a.m. he was
awakened by a call from a Gore campaign official who told him the
ballots in Palm Beach County could very well determine the next
president.
"That's when it hit me, the consequences of all this," he said. "It
was a totally surreal experience, and we were right in the middle
of it."
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