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Bush News Update
November 14, 2000 Contents: 1 Florida Judge Rules 5:00pm Deadline Stands 2 A Proposal to End the Impasse in Florida: A Summary 3 Statement By Former Secretary of State James Baker 4 Las Vegas Sun: Statistics point to more than random error in Florida vote 5 Philadelphia Inquirer: Gore might lose a second round: Media suppressed the Bush vote 6 Chicago Sun Times: How Democrats Steal Elections _______________________________________________ 1 Court Upholds Florida Vote Deadline The Associated Press Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2000; 1:04 p.m. EST TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Florida judge ruled Tuesday that state officials may cut off the vote recount in the state's fiercely contested presidential election at 5 p.m. EST. Judge Terry Lewis ruled that counties may file supplemental or corrected totals after the deadline, and Secretary of State Katherine Harris may consider them if she employs "proper exercise of discretion." _______________________________________________ 2 A Proposal to End the Impasse in Florida: A Summary Tuesday, November 14, 2000 Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney want to bring some finality to the election process in Florida. They believe the American people are troubled by the prospect of seemingly endless counts and recounts until one side achieves the results it seeks. The vote in Florida has been counted. It has been recounted. Both times, Governor Bush has emerged the winner. And there have been no allegations of vote fraud in either the count or the recount. Confusion, yes. Fraud, no. Yet the Gore campaign refuses to accept the result. Rather than accept the result, the Gore campaign has demanded manual recounts in predominantly Democratic counties. In fact, the Gore campaign specifically selected overwhelmingly Democratic precincts in these counties to recount. Broward County Precinct 1F: 1308 votes for Gore, 62 for Bush; Precinct 6F: 1175 votes for Gore, 52 for Bush; Precinct 6C: 1071 votes for Gore, 19 for Bush This might lead to the conclusion that the Gore campaign is more focused on selectivity than fairness. Even still, Gore was only able to pick up four votes through the manual recounts of the three Gore-chosen counties in Democratic Broward County. Based on this small change in votes, the Broward County canvassing board voted to not expand the manual recount to the entire county. Yet now the Gore campaign wants to force Broward County officials to continue the manual count. This is after they have talked for days about letting the local officials run the recounts. And yesterday, the Florida Secretary of State reiterated that Florida law unambiguously requires every canvassing board to certify its election returns by 5:00pm today. Amazingly, the Gore campaign has filed a lawsuit to block the application of the statute. It seems the Gore campaign places great weight on Florida law only when they think it serves their tactics. In sum, the Gore campaign has been unwilling to accept any finality. They refused to accept the first vote. They refused to accept the recount. They refused to accept the manual recounts in selective counties. That's why today Secretary James A. Baker offered the following common sense proposal to solve the impasse: Governor Bush has objected to the manual recount. Vice President Gore has objected to today's 5:00pm deadline required by Florida law. Governor Bush is therefore proposing to accept the manual recount up to today's 5:00pm deadline if Vice President Gore agrees. This is fair proposal that will bring this divisive process to a reasonable conclusion. _______________________________________________ 3 Statement By Former Secretary of State James Baker In earlier statements, we have emphasized the importance of achieving some finality to the election process, not just here in Florida, but of course for the nation as a whole. More and more we see uncertainty in financial markets and we see uncertainty abroad. I believe that most observers, whether at home or abroad, are troubled by the prospect of seemingly endless counts and recounts until a candidate achieves the result he seeks. The vote in Florida was counted, and then it was recounted. Governor Bush was the winner of the vote. He was the winner of the recount. There have been no allegations of vote fraud in either the count or in the recount. No fraud---just confusion of some individuals. Yet the Gore campaign refuses to accept the result. For the complete statement, click here: http://www.georgewbush.com/news/releases/111400_bakerst.html _______________________________________________ 4 Las Vegas Sun Statistics point to more than random error in Florida vote Jace Radke 11/10/00 At one in 49 million, the chances of hitting Megabucks on one spin are slim, but not as slim as the odds that Vice President Al Gore would make up as much ground as he has in the Florida recount, according to a UNLV study. Economics professor Tom Carroll began running statistical equations Thursday on the net gains both Gore, who gained more than 2,200 votes, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who added about 700 votes, have made in the recount. He found that the statistical chances for such large and different totals to occur as a result of random glitches was less than infinitesimal. "The probability of being struck by lightning is about one in a million," Carroll said. "The same person would have to be hit by lightning 30 times to compare with what we've seen in this recount." For the complete article, click here: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/archives/2000/nov/10/511018638.html _______________________________________________ 5 Philadelphia Inquirer Gore might lose a second round: Media suppressed the Bush vote John R. Lott Jr. 11/14/00 With Florida's election results so close, charges of voter confusion and intimidation fill the air. Votes have been recounted and are being recounted yet again. Because of the closeness of the race, problems that have been ignored in the past are difficult to ignore now. So what has created this incredible closeness? The Gore campaign, along with the media, has focused on possible problems in Palm Beach county. Supposedly, had it not been for the 19,000 spoiled ballots where voters cast more than two votes for president and the 3,400 votes that Buchanan received, there would have been a Gore victory. But by now many have heard that the spoiled ballots are nothing new in Palm Beach, where 14,800 ballots suffered similar problems in the last presidential election. Heavily Republican Duval County apparently had over 25,000 similarly spoiled ballots. Buchanan's votes are actually not an anomaly. With 16,695 registered members of the American Reform, Reform and Independent Parties, Palm Beach is a hotbed of Reform party activity. Indeed, it has the second highest total Reform and Independent party membership of any county in the state. Hillsborough County, which comes in third, lags behind with 11,258 members. Up to two-thirds of Buchanan's vote in Palm Beach can be explained simply by county differences in party registration. A more important explanation for the close results exists. By prematurely declaring Gore the winner shortly before polls had closed in Florida's conservative western Panhandle, the media ended up suppressing the Republican vote. Bush obtained over 65 percent of the vote in the affected area. With only 329 votes separating the two candidates Friday morning, even a few hundred discouraged votes in addition to the 379,000 cast in Florida's western panhandle could have made a crucial difference. For the full article: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/20001113_xex_how_democrat.shtml ______________________________________________ 6 Chicago Sun-Times Many Partial, spoiled ballots Scott Fornek and Abdon M. Pallasch 11/14/00 Cook County--home of the notorious "butterfly" ballot--was more likely than any other Chicago area county to have voters who skipped the presidential contest on their ballots last week or mistakenly chose more than one candidate. City and suburban officials said 122,859 of the 1,987,954 people who cast ballots in the county either did not punch a choice in the top contest or spoiled their ballot for that race by punching more than one hole. In Chicago, the 72,934 ballots represented 7.1 percent of all ballots cast. In suburban Cook, the 49,925 ballots were 5.2 percent of the total. Comparable figures in the other five counties ranged from 0.4 percent for McHenry to 2.5 percent for Will, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of last week's vote. Election officials in Cook County conceded the numbers were higher than normal. But they could not provide an explanation for the discrepancy or a breakdown, so it was impossible to tell if the absence of votes was largely voluntary or a problem voters had with the ballots. For the complete article, click here: http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/orr14.html _____________________________________________________________ Paid for by Bush-Cheney 2000, Inc. http://www.georgewbush.com ============================================================================== To unsubscribe, please go here: http://www.georgewbush.com/unsubscribe.asp?email=EBASS@ENRON.COM To change your e-mail address or any other subscription information, please go here: http://www.georgewbush.com/MyGeorgeW.asp
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