Gore contests Fla. results

Linda Deutsch

Monday, Nov. 27, 2000 | 11:16 a.m.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Al Gore challenged Florida's now-certified presidential election in court today, his lawyers disputing an outcome that left him merely 537 votes short of George W. Bush. The Democratic vice president asked the court to certify him as the winner.

It's time for the courts to "take a look at it and do the right thing," Gore said in a conference call with Democratic congressional leaders, staged for the cameras to show party unity.

"It's about the principle," he said from his dining room, "but there are more than enough votes to change the outcome."

His lawyers challenged the results from Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Nassau counties in a filing this morning, hoping their last-ditch effort can overcome the margin for Bush that Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush supporter, certified for him Sunday night.

The court should "certify that the true and accurate results of the 2000 presidential election in Florida is that the electors of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman received the majority of the votes cast in the election," the 24-page contest filing said.

The vote totals reported to the secretary of state Sunday were inaccurate, the Gore lawyers argued. "They include illegal votes and do not include legal votes that were improperly rejected. The number of such votes is more than sufficient to place in doubt, indeed to change, the result of the election."

Harris accorded Florida's 25 electoral votes to Bush, a step that will give him the presidency if it holds up.

The contest in Leon County court was filed by Gore attorney Dexter Douglass. Judge N. Sanders Sauls, one of four trial judges in the circuit, was picked in a random computer selection to hear the case.

The judges run in nonpartisan elections, with all the judicial candidates on a single ballot without reference to party affiliation.

Bush adviser James A. Baker III said Sunday it was time for all legal contests to end.

"I don't believe the people of America want this election turned over to lawyers and court contests," he said. "At some point, the law must prevail and the lawyers must go home. We have reached that point."

In Miami-Dade, Gore lawyers want a count of the 10,000 votes they said could not be read by a voting machine and were not hand-counted. The Bush camp said those ballots were not ignored, but probably represented voters who purposely left their choice for president blank while voting in other races.

In Palm Beach, they want to include recounted votes -- at least 180 for Gore -- that the secretary of state refused to accept because the recounting wasn't completed until after a 2 p.m. PST Sunday deadline.

In Nassau County, Democrats are seeking to add a recounted total that would give Gore 51 more votes. In that case, the county reverted to reporting its initial post-election total instead of a machine recount because some 200 ballots were inadvertently left out of the recount.

Separately a lawsuit over Palm Beach County's "butterfly ballot" was being sent to the state Supreme Court today. Some Democrats complained the ballot was so confusing that they mistakenly cast votes for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore. They are seeking a new election in the county.

Also, a case scheduled for a court in Seminole County northeast of Orlando, on allegations by a Democratic attorney that Republicans tampered with absentee ballot applications, was being moved today to Tallahassee

The parties agreed to have the case, naming Harris as a defendant, heard in Tallahassee. But the Gore team did not make the Seminole complaint part of its contest.

Democrats wanted some 4,700 disputed ballots thrown out. At issue was a decision by Seminole elections chief Sandra Goard, a Republican, to let two GOP workers add voter identification numbers to absentee ballot applications where voters had failed to put them.

In Atlanta, Bush lawyers sought to put oral arguments on hold in a case they brought before a federal court against Florida's manual recounts.

With the counting finished and attention being drawn to the coming Supreme Court hearing, the lawyers asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a motion today to delay oral arguments until early next week. The arguments had been scheduled for Wednesday.

This week's grand finale is likely to be Friday's hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court on a Bush appeal against the hand counts.

Bush's lawyers have 10 days to respond to Gore's challenge against the certification but probably would file papers much sooner than that. The law allows for an "immediate hearing" on all election contests, including witnesses and evidence.

Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, defended a court challenge.

"What is at issue here is nothing less than every American's simple, sacred right to vote," Lieberman said Sunday.

Lieberman suggested that Harris' refusal to count partial returns from Palm Beach County shortchanged its voters.

Charles Burton, chairman of the Palm Beach canvassing board, called Harris' action "a slap in the face" to county workers who labored hard to finish the hand recount.

One Bush adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the GOP camp would not be filing a contest of its own, but he indicated that answers would be filed to the Gore litigation. And he said the Bush forces did not intend to abandon their Supreme Court suit.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday a coalition of civil rights organizations intends to file a lawsuit on behalf of disenfranchised voters in Florida under the Civil Rights Act.

In an interview, Jackson criticized the Justice Department and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- the Texas governor's brother -- saying more needs to be done to stop protests that intimidate minority voters, and to ensure that no voters are disenfranchised in that state.