As Al Gore's Seminole County nuclear bomb
rolled into the witness phase Wednesday of what
Judge Nikki Clark says will be a one-day trial,
the basic facts were not in dispute.
County Elections Supervisor Sandy Goard, a
Republican, allowed Republican staffers to add
voter ID numbers to some 2,130 absentee ballot
applications, most from registered Republicans,
and 1,932 of those resulted in a vote. A state
anti-fraud law requires that absentee ballot
applications include nine pieces of information
from voters, including voter ID numbers.
Technically, then, 1,932 votes — most of
them presumably cast for George W. Bush —
are invalid.
Only a "hypertechnicality"?
The question for Judge Clark, then, is
whether the punishment that the
Democratic-activist plaintiff wants —
either toss out all 15,000 of the county's
absentee ballots or come up with some
statistically derived alternative in that 1,900
neighborhood — fits the crime.
Republicans, with Terry C. Young defending
Goard and Barry Richard and Daryl Bristow
representing Bush (while doing double duty
between this case and the roughly equivalent
Martin County case down the hall), say it's a
"hypertechnicality." The applications,
because of a printing error, did not include a
space for voter ID. The addition of the needed
information in no way touched on the integrity
of the ballots themselves. Goard's action merely
facilitated voting, say the Bush lawyers, and
not one Democratic application (which did not
have the printing error) was tossed for missing
the voter ID number. Is the disenfranchisement
of thousands really the right remedy for that?
The Democrats, with Gerald Richman
representing both the plaintiff and Al Gore's
hopes for a thunderbolt victory, say it's the
only remedy. And that's their problem —
convincing Clark to throw the presidential
election to Gore by throwing away votes.
Gore weighs in
The plaintiff's case got a good p.r. billing
from Gore himself Tuesday — "The
Democrats were denied an opportunity to come in,
denied a chance to even look at the
applications, and those applications were thrown
out," he said. And that could be the
pivotal issue: whether or not Republicans got
favors from Goard that Democrats didn't.
Goard lawyer Young claimed in his opening
statement that he would demonstrate that
"no Democratic applications were incomplete
and voided." Richman claimed just the
opposite. But the burden of proof is on the
Democrats to prove that some nefarious inequity
took place and "adversely affected the
sanctity of the election," as Clark herself
put it early Wednesday morning.
But by the time the lunchtime recess rolled
around at 12:30, more than five hours into the
trial, Richman had called three witnesses
— and been admonished once by Clark for
wasting the court's precious time. And if he had
an unfairness-to-Democrats trump card that could
persuade Clark to throw Seminole County's 15,000
absentee-ballot babies out with the bathwater,
he hadn't played it yet.
Another alternate remedy
And after a low-level lawyer sat down at the
witness stand and read excerpts of Goard's
deposition, any such card was still way up
Richman's sleeve. Goard testified that Democrat
applications did not have the missing space for
the voter-ID number, and that no Democratic
staffers had asked for the same assistance with
the forms that she gave Republicans.
Witness begat witness. The statistician for
the plaintiff offered Clark an "alternate
remedy" of 1,500-1,800 tossed votes, in
case it was the "all" that bothered
her about tarshing absentee ballots.
At 7 p.m., Judge Clark had had enough for the
night. Closing statements will start at 1 p.m.
Wednesday (Barry Richard asked for the delay
— he's got a date with the Florida
Supremes in the morning). A one-day trial has
become two, and Al Gore will find out perhaps
Thursday how badly he needs the Florida high
court to help him with its ruling, probably due
Friday.
Still ticking.
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