Reid calls for further scrutiny

Friday, Nov. 10, 2000 | 11:27 a.m.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid has thrown his support to Vice President Al Gore's push for further scrutiny of the presidential race in Florida, where a recount shows George W. Bush leading by as little as 327 votes.

More than 6 million people voted in Florida, which has 25 electoral votes deciding the fate of the deadlocked race, one of the closest in modern history.

"We all want the election to be over with," Reid told reporters at a hastily called news conference Thursday. "But I think in this instance we need a fair election, not a fast election."

Reid, the Senate's Democratic assistant minority leader, has been a close friend of Gore and avid backer of his presidential bid.

"As someone who has experienced two close recounts, I know that they don't usually lead to big changes in the vote totals," Reid said in a prepared statement. "But this election changes all the rules.

"In the Florida recount, we've seen huge changes in the vote totals, and on top of that, there are serious allegations of voting irregularities and potential fraud. This election needs to be scrutinized closely.

"That's why I am supporting the Gore campaign's call for a hand count of ballots in four Florida counties. We also should consider a new election in Palm Beach County to ensure that no voter is disenfranchised."

Reid said the badly designed ballot in Palm Beach resulted in an unusual amount of Gore votes that went to Pat Buchanan. Reid also said 19,000 double-punched ballots were tossed out there.

But Ryan Erwin, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, described Reid's call for a new vote in Palm Beach as "ridiculous.

"Just because it was a silly ballot, it doesn't mean we need to re-vote the election," he said. "At some point you have to look at the reality here, and the reality is that anyone of those voters who were confused could have gone and asked someone for help."

Erwin said about 15,000 ballots also were tossed out in Palm Beach County in 1996, and nobody complained about it then.

Republican senator-elect John Ensign said he had sympathy for the Gore campaign, saying his own narrow loss to Reid in 1998 was "torture." Following a recount in that race, which stretched into December, Ensign ended up losing to Reid by 428 votes.

"We had a lot of the same complaints that the Gore campaign has," Ensign told the Associated Press. "But you know what, that sometimes is what happens.

"You've got to ask for the recount. But you go through the recount, and if the recount doesn't go your way, you've got to accept it."

Ensign said he could have "screamed and hollered" about ballot irregularities in Washoe County in 1998, but didn't.

This month, just two years later, Ensign was elected to the Senate, defeating Democrat Ed Bernstein in the race to succeed Democrat Richard Bryan.

Reid said the problems in Washoe county "pale in comparison to what's going on in Florida.

"It's a very, very difficult situation," he said. "I think it would be wrong for Gore to concede at this stage."

Reid said he decided to speak out after his office received about 150 complaints from visiting Florida residents complaining about their absentee ballots.

Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also told him that Florida state troopers set up roadblocks near polling sites that discouraged black voters from going to the polls, Reid said.

"He said there's substantial evidence of large numbers of African-Americans who were kept from the polls," Reid said.

The senator added: "There are some real serious problems about how this election was conducted."