-Caveat Lector-
[I had a good chuckle out of this GOP spin... --MS]
Panhandle Bushies want second shot
Pensacola officials say early, wrong call by networks affected
turnout
By Paul Sperry WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- Officials in the Pensacola, Fla., elections office
say they've been flooded with calls from irate voters who claim
they were discouraged from voting for George W. Bush Tuesday
when the New York-based TV networks called Florida for Al Gore
before polls closed in the state's western panhandle, which is in
an earlier time zone.
Also, a Republican state lawmaker from Pensacola is rounding up
voters who apparently "walked away" from poll lines when they
heard the premature news, which turned out to be wrong. Some
voters have told the lawmaker they are willing to sue for another
chance to cast their vote for Bush, WorldNetDaily has learned.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Republican Party in Escambia
County, Fla., has asked his precinct leaders to identify
potential Bush voters who reportedly left poll lines because of
the erroneous network announcement. Pensacola, home to a Navy
base and the Blue Angels, is the county seat.
Hosts of two talk-radio shows broadcast on local WEBY and WCOA
planned Thursday night to help round up discouraged Bush voters
by exhorting them to call into their conservative programs.
Escambia County Republican Party chairman Tom Gilliam says he's
investigating whether the early network call dampened Republican
turnout there.
"There could have been people in line around 7 p.m. central time
waiting to vote when the call went out by the networks that it
was over in Florida," Gilliam told WorldNetDaily. "They may
possibly have gone home because of the incorrect call made by the
networks."
Some local Republican voters were so confused by the announcement
that they thought election officials had "closed the polls
early," said Brenda O'Gwynn, an aide to the Escambia County
elections supervisor in Pensacola. Her nonpartisan public office
handles balloting for the county.
"They thought the media discouraged them from casting their
ballots," she said, adding that she's been flooded with angry
calls.
"We have nine lines coming into our main number and then six
other lines that other people answer," O'Gwynn said. "They are
getting complaints about that as well."
"It's been crazy," said a phone operator in the elections office.
At 7:49 p.m. Eastern time, MSNBC led the network pack in
declaring Gore the winner in Florida. ABC, CBS, Fox and
Atlanta-based CNN quickly followed.
News first reached voters in Florida's panhandle at 6:49 central
time -- with 11 minutes left before polls closed. The news could
also have affected those waiting in line after 7 p.m, Gilliam
says.
Most of the Florida peninsula is in the Eastern time zone. But 10
counties, including Escambia, are in the central time zone.
They are located west of the Apalachicola River in the state's
panhandle. See county breakout in Florida map.
Escambia County, which voted about 2-to-1 in favor of Bush, has
69,724 registered Republicans, O'Gwynn says. She's says it won't
be known for another week or so how many of them did not vote.
Bush leads Gore by 1,784 votes in the overall Florida tally. The
state, which is now in the process of recounting all votes, will
decide the outcome of the national election for president, since
its 25 electoral votes will put either candidate over the 270
total they need to win.
While discontent grows among voters in the GOP-heavy Florida
panhandle, the networks have focused on the more vocal elderly
voters in the Democratic stronghold of Palm Beach County. They
insist they were cheated out of voting for Gore by a confusing
ballot.
The Gore campaign has seized on their complaints, threatening to
sue the state to prevent it from certifying any winning tally for
Bush until voters in Palm Beach can recast their votes. Gore has
sent a team of nearly 50 lawyers to Florida.
Though there are no signs the Bush campaign is cultivating
Republican voters around Pensacola as possible litigants, voters
there are willing to sue, says Suzie West, a legislative aide for
state Rep. Jerry Maygarden, R-Pensacola.
"Some have called and said, 'If there's going to be lawsuits,
then we want to be named, because this is ridiculous,' " West
said. "We've got people calling left and right who are so
upset."
She says some suggest suing the TV networks for voter fraud,
which they hope might force the state to give any discouraged
Bush voters in Florida's central time zone another chance to
vote.
West says an unidentified voter who stood in line at a Pensacola
polling place around 7 p.m. Tuesday left a phone message
claiming he witnessed people "walking away" from the same line
after they heard the network announcements.
"People walked," West said.
Gilliam says he's suspicious of not only the timing of the
networks' early call for Gore but also their belated retraction
-- which came two hours later and after the last polls had closed
in California.
"The announcement was made at 6:49 p.m. local time, which means
it was 4:49 (p.m.) in California, where they still had two hours
and 11 minutes to vote," he said. "If I'm going to the polls in
California and I hear it's already over and that the big
battleground states have already gone for Gore, then why would I
want to go and vote for Bush?"
The networks' correction came far too late for Gilliam.
"It was suspicious," he said. "People I was with on election
night here looked at each other with a knowing smile because it
was just after 9 o'clock our time, 7 o'clock California time when
they corrected it.
"It was almost as if after the California polls closed, there was
no need to continue the charade that Gore had won, if they were
attempting to affect voters," Gilliam added. "And only then did
they go back to the true story that it was too close to call."
Conservative media critics noticed that the tote boards displayed
that night by the networks showed a 51 percent-to-46 percent
Florida lead for Bush not long after they had checked off Gore's
name as the winner. Yet none of the anchors or analysts drew
attention to the discrepancy.
Watchdogs also have complained that while the networks were quick
to declare Florida for Gore, they were slow to call other states
in the Eastern time zone for Bush. After polls closed in Georgia
and Virginia, for instance, MSNBC and CNN claimed the winner was
"too close to call" in those states. Yet both went big for Bush.
In projecting the Florida winner early, Gilliam suspects that the
networks "didn't forget" that the state has two time zones.
"It seems like every election the network news want to say it's
over based on voting in almost completely liberal, completely
Democratic Eastern Florida, which is in the Eastern time zone,
when our polls haven't even closed here," he said.
"They've done this before," he added, citing the 1988 coverage of
Republican Connie Mack's Senate race.
Appearing on CNN the night of the election, Bush's chief
strategist Karl Rove complained, "You all called Florida before
the polls were closed." He contends that the early projection had
harmed turnout in the more conservative Florida panhandle.
CNN anchor Bernie Shaw explained that races aren't called in a
state until "75 percent of the precincts are closed." Rove
replied, "That's one criteria you might think about changing."
Bush aide Mark McKinnon went on ABC News and scolded the networks
for "an unfortunate rush to judgment." He pointed out that polls
were still open in the panhandle when the call was made.
After McKinnon's appearance, ABC News commentator George
Stephanopoulos quickly dismissed his complaint by noting that all
the polls in Florida close at the same time. They do, but not all
in the same time zone. Apparently, Stephanopoulos, a former aide
to President Clinton, wasn't aware of that fact.
Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.
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