-Caveat Lector-
ELECTION 2000
'Coup behind closed doors'
Republican observers in Miami-Dade say Democrats attempted secret
recount
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Western Journalism Center
Exhausted, disgusted, his voice still hoarse from arguing with
Democrat floor managers, Virginia Republican Roger Morse has just
returned from the south Florida trenches, where he says he
witnessed an "attempted coup behind closed doors" to steal the
presidential election.
Morse was one of dozens of Republican observers who took time off
work for congressional Republicans to travel down to Florida to
take part in what he felt was a historic event. Like many of the
volunteers who flocked to Florida, he thought he was going to
witness democracy at work. Instead, what he saw at the Stephen
P. Clark Center in Miami-Dade County made him sick.
"After three days of changing the rules every time we walked in
the room, the Democrats finally decided to conduct a partial
recount behind closed doors, and took the disputed ballots from
the main counting room to a small, private room up on the 19th
floor without the press," Morse said. "They barred the doors to
Republican observers, and refused to let us enter. That's when
we realized we had to do something to prevent them from stealing
the election."
Under Florida's "sunshine" laws, dozens of television news teams
had been allowed to film the manual recount at county election
offices in Miami-Dade, West Palm Beach and other disputed
counties from behind a rope line. Scenes of election judges
holding up ballots as they tried to "discern the intent" of the
voters by the state of ballot chad have become familiar to
television viewers around the country.
But last Wednesday -- the day before Thanksgiving -- Democrat
officials realized they were not going to get through the full
manual recount in time for the Florida Supreme Court's deadline
of 5 p.m. on Sunday, and decided to accelerate the process.
"We were told that we were challenging too many ballots and
slowing things down," said Bryan Wilkes, another Republican
recount observer who was accredited by Miami-Dade County.
And that's when head Judge Lawrence King, a Democrat, ordered
county workers to pack up the ballots and take them to a smaller
room upstairs far from the cameras -- and from the Republican
volunteers.
Morse and Wilkes were concerned because the procedures in the
public room downstairs were already bad enough.
"We saw Democrat election officials bending ballots until the
chads popped out," Wilkes said. "We saw them knock whole stacks
of Bush ballots onto the floor. We saw them counting ballots
like a deck of cards. We saw ballots with chad taped back into
the Bush hole, making them votes for Gore. You tell me: How many
people go into the voting booth with a roll of scotch tape in
case they make a mistake? This was very carefully done. Clearly,
it was a professional job."
When the Democrats disappeared into the elevators with the
ballots, Roger Morse and a few other Republican volunteers rushed
after them to the 19th floor.
"We knew they were going to steal the election behind closed
doors, and they wanted as few witnesses as possible," Morse said.
"We wanted the press in there. We wanted them to videotape each
ballot before they made a decision. We wanted the public to see
there wasn't anything resembling a vote on any of those ballots,
so they could see for themselves what the Democrats were doing."
Morse and other Republican volunteers milled around in front of
the glass door of the recount room up on the 19th floor, when
they realized they had to do something. "It started out pretty
weak. We shouted things like 'Stop Stealing the Vote!' 'The Fix
is in.'"
Then, Morse admits, it got nasty. "We started chanting: 'Let the
press in!' I guess that's pretty vicious, pretty unruly -- pretty
unconstitutional."
That is indeed how the mainstream press has portrayed the
Republican demonstration. Taking their cue from vice
presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, who accused the
demonstrators of using "intimidation and violence" and called
them a "disservice to our democracy," Time magazine called the
demonstration a "GOP melee." U.S. News & World Report publisher
Mortimer Zuckerman accused the Republicans of starting a
"mini-riot."
Magic envelopes Beyond the glass door of the counting room, Morse
and the other Republican volunteers could see the Democrats
stuffing ballots into "magic envelopes."
It was the same procedure that had been underway for several days
in the glare of the cameras downstairs. Only this time, it was
being done with none of the volunteer GOP recount observers in
the room, and no cameras in a position to view the ballots.
Each "magic envelope" contained the disputed ballots of one
Miami-Dade county precinct. After the 3-member county canvassing
board reviewed the disputed ballots, they sealed them in the
envelopes and wrote the count by hand on the front.
No Republican sits on the canvassing board. Wilkes, Morse and
Republican lawyers familiar with the Miami-Dade recount said the
board systematically ruled against Bush in judging the votes.
"We were seeing an average two to five vote pick-up per precinct
for Gore," said Bryan Wilkes. "We never got to see those
ballots. Someone would just drop a sealed envelope on the table
and we'd be allowed to observe the final count -- so many for
Bush, so many for Gore, so many blank."
Upstairs on the 19th floor, the Democrat election judges were
racing through the disputed ballots, stuffing them into "magic
envelopes," sealing them, and writing the new count on the back.
Outside, the numbers of Republican protesters grew, and
television crews began to arrive.
At one point, an individual identifying himself as a Democrat
lawyer emerged from the room. Film crews caught him stuffing a
ballot into his suit pocket and the Republicans out in the
hallway cried foul.
"He was immediately surrounded by Sheriff's deputies and was
eventually taken away," Morse said.
The "lawyer" was subsequently identified as Miami-Dade County
Democratic Party Chairman Joe Geller. He claimed he had required
a police escort to escape the "mob," an allegation picked up by
Time, U.S. News and Joe Lieberman. In fact, Morse says that
Geller was escorted down to the 18th floor for questioning by
county sheriff's deputies.
Several hours later, county election officials emerged to report
that Geller had been handling a "training" ballot, and that these
were common and available to all accredited election watchers.
"That's simply not true," said Morse. "We'd been trying to get
access to these training ballots for days, but all our requests
to see them were denied."
County election officials said training ballots could be
distinguished from valid ballots because they did not bear the
date of the election, but otherwise they were identical.
Not only had film crews videotaped the entire altercation with
Geller, but as of early this week no police reports had been
filed.
"The sheriff's deputies were thoroughly unconcerned by us," Morse
said. "They had one deputy posted at each door, and never called
for back-up. And the only person taken into custody was Joe
Geller."
By one o'clock that afternoon, county canvassing commissioners
called a halt to the recount. Gore campaign officials blamed it
on the protesters. But in its news coverage, U.S. News & World
Report quoted canvassing board member David Leahy as saying:
"These were people in ties and jackets. This was not a mob."
Leahy explained that the board had decided to call off the
recount because members felt they still would not be able to meet
the Sunday deadline.
Despite the lack of police complaints, Democrats in Congress led
by Florida Rep. Peter Deutsch wrote Assistant Attorney General
Billy Lann Lee on Nov. 24, demanding an official investigation
of the demonstrators for "voter intimidation."
"According to many published reports, unruly and violent
protesters managed to create a climate of fear and intimidation,
with the intent of preventing the canvassing board from
completing its difficult task," Deutsch wrote. "The actions cited
in these news reports is chilling."
Despite videotaped evidence that proves no such acts of violence
occurred, a Justice Department investigation for voter
intimidation remains a serious threat for volunteers such as
Wilkes, Morse and others who have been identified as working for
Republican members of Congress, believes Barbara Olson, a lawyer
who recently authored a biography of Hillary Clinton, "Hell to
Pay."
"This is another attempt at intimidation," Olson said. "Given the
record of the Clinton-Gore administration, no one should take it
lightly. It's the same tactics they used against Linda Tripp.
The threat of prosecution is intimidating to young people who
can't battle the power of the United States government and who
can't afford to hire expensive lawyers. And that's just what
this administration is counting on."
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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