-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/MON/FPAGE/palm.2.html Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/MON/FPAGE/palm.2.html"> County Orders Hand Count of Votes After Test Cu�</A> ----- County Orders Hand Count of Votes After Test Cuts Bush Lead High-Risk Strategies With No Clear Way Out as Florida Drama Deepens ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Compiled by Our Staff From Dispatches ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WEST PALM BEACH, Florida - The vote-counting authorities of Palm Beach County decided Sunday to order a hand recount of all 450,000 presidential ballots cast in the county, a decision that could give significant numbers of additional votes to Vice President Al Gore if a judge does not stop it. At a raucous early-morning meeting surrounded by political operatives and journalists, the county's canvassing board voted, 2-to-1, for the new hand count after spending many hours painstakingly tallying manually a sample of more than 4,500 ballots. The sample amounted to 1 percent of the votes cast in the county and yielded a net gain of 19 votes for Mr. Gore. In arguing for the countywide count, Carol Roberts, a member of the canvassing board, said that if the 19 additional votes found for Mr. Gore were extrapolated throughout the county, there would be as many as 1,900 more votes for Mr. Gore, the Democratic candidate. That could give him Florida's 25 electoral votes and, if other states' electoral votes are unchanged, the White House. The county is a Democratic stronghold, and the decision to order a recount was made over strenuous Republican objections and with prospects for an appeal. ''This clearly would affect the national vote,'' said Ms. Roberts, a Democrat who in addition to serving on the canvassing board is a county commissioner. Another Democrat on the board also voted for the manual recount of all ballots. The chairman of the board, Charles Burton, a county judge appointed by Governor Jeb Bush, brother of the presidential candidate, voted ''no.'' He has not made his party affiliation public. A lawyer for the Republican Party, Mark Wallace, objected to a further hand recount. ''It has been pandemonium today,'' he said. ''We vigorously lodge our protest and plead with you not to put the county through that.'' Mr. Burton later told reporters he would seek to block the board's action. The Palm Beach County board plans to meet Monday to discuss the next move. On Sunday morning, Volusia County began a full hand recount of its 184,018 ballots, with employees working 14 hours a day for three days. Election boards in heavily Democratic Miami-Dade and Broward countries also are considering recounts. A Republican lawsuit seeking to block hand counts will be heard before a federal judge at 9:30 a.m. The suit was filed Saturday on behalf of the Republican candidate, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, his running-mate, Dick Cheney, and seven Floridians who voted for them. Palm Beach County has been at the center of the struggle over the presidential election. Some voters complained that its so-called butterfly ballot was so confusing it caused them to mistakenly cast votes for Pat Buchanan instead of Mr. Gore. But the hand recount was unlikely to affect any votes mistakenly cast for Mr. Buchanan because voters' intentions cannot be determined in such a count. A state judge issued an injunction Thursday in response to lawsuits filed by voters claiming confusion over the ballot design. In the manual count, 80 ballots were rejected because voters had punched holes for both Mr. Gore and Mr. Buchanan. About 30,000 ballots have been rejected in machine counting in Palm Beach County, either because they had two or more holes punched for president or because the counting machines detect no holes at all. Ballots punched for more than one candidate also are rejected in manual counts. The county figures released Sunday further cut the lead of Mr. Bush over Mr. Gore in Florida. An unofficial Associated Press canvass of the presidential vote in Florida shows that Mr. Bush now has a 288-vote lead. On Friday, the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, said Mr. Bush had 2,910,074 votes to Mr. Gore's 2,909,114, a difference of 960, with Palm Beach County's votes still unaccounted for. The totals from the AP canvass were Mr. Bush, 2,910,195, and Mr. Gore, 2,909,907. Those numbers reflected the latest figures from Palm Beach County. The state has been unable to include updated Palm Beach County figures in its tally because a state judge issued an injunction Thursday in response to lawsuits filed by voters claiming confusion over the ballot design. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
