Florida recount holds key to White House
November 8, 2000
Web posted at: 12:26 p.m. EST (1726 GMT)
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A day after Election
Day, the U.S. presidential race remains a
who-won-it mystery that will be solved when
Florida reveals the outcome of its vote recount.
GOP candidate Texas Gov. George W. Bush
has a 1,784-vote lead over Democratic Vice
President Al Gore in Florida. Because the lead is
so narrow, Florida's election officials, by law,
enacted a mandatory recount Wednesday. The
recount must be completed by the end of the
business day on Thursday.
A county-by-county recount had begun by
Wednesday afternoon, and election officials said
they would release results as they received
them.
The Electoral College and ultimate victory for
either Gore or Bush is at stake.
The Bush campaign told CNN on Wednesday
that Bush advisers expect the governor to be
declared the president-elect, despite the tight
race and the Florida recount.
But a Gore campaign spokesman said his side
believes enough votes remain uncounted to
bring victory to the vice president.
Gore overtook Bush in the national popular vote
tally by 1 percentage point, 49 percent to 48
percent.
Officials in Florida said all the precinct ballots
and all the absentee ballots had been counted in
all 67 counties with the major exception of
overseas absentee ballots. Now all the votes will
be recounted by supervisors from all counties,
with representatives from the news media and
both candidates present.
Election officials said either the number of
overseas absentee ballots or a change as a result
of the recount could tip the election for Bush or
for Gore.
It is also possible that one candidate could win
the Electoral College vote and the other win the
popular vote, which hasn't happened in a
hundred years.
Buchanan controversy
In a separate controversy, Palm Beach County
voters complained that their punch card ballots
had the names of presidential candidates on two
pages instead of one. The voters said it led to
confusion and they may have voted for Reform
Party candidate Patrick Buchanan when they
had intended to vote for Gore.
"I saw it myself with my own eyes," Rep.
Robert Wexler, D-Florida, told CNN. "I talked
to hundreds of people. There is no doubt there
was mass confusion in Palm Beach County
yesterday at the ballot box, which resulted in at
least it seems about 3,000 plus votes for Pat
Buchanan and I know that that's incorrect."
Gore leads in the popular vote count by just
over 275,000 votes -- 48,734,682 for Gore and
48,459,592 for Bush.
Green Party candidate Ralph Nader -- who
received 2,658,281 votes -- was accused of
being a spoiler for Gore by siphoning off
Democratic votes. Reform Party candidate Buchanan received 443,135 votes.
Buchanan offered Nader some advice.
"I would currently advise Ralph, given the numbers that I've seen, that he may
be interested in Secret Service protection when he comes in here this morning
from some angry Democrats, who I'm sure are going to blame him for the
defeat of Al Gore. And if he gets credit for that, more power to him," Buchanan
said.
At a Wednesday news conference, Nader said he supported the Florida recount
and said his candidacy proved the Green Party is "alive and well' and has been
established as a legitimate third party.
Turnout up
The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate estimated 52 to 53
percent of the eligible voters cast ballots. That number was about 55 percent in
1992.
Without a decision in Florida -- which commands 25 electoral votes -- Gore led
the projected tally in the Electoral College by 14 votes, 260 to 246.
The only other state yet to have a projected winner is Oregon, which holds seven
electoral votes. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
If Bush takes Florida, the state's electoral votes would push his number to 271 --
one more than necessary to win the presidency. If Gore wins Florida, he'll have
285 -- but if he doesn't win Florida, and even if he takes Oregon, he'll fall short
of 270 by three electoral votes.
Election Day
The Bush family, including Bush's father, former President George Bush,
gathered Tuesday evening at the governor's home in Austin, Texas, to watch
returns.
Gore and his family did the same at their home in Carthage, Tennessee.
Early Tuesday evening Gore aides told CNN that the Rev. Jesse Jackson had
been dispatched to Pennsylvania in a last-minute effort to increase voter turnout
among Democrats in that battleground state, while members of Sen. Edward
Kennedy's staff had been sent to New Hampshire on a similar mission.
As election results poured in, the electoral vote appeared to be moving in Gore's
favor, and at one point, news media projections showed that Gore would win
Florida. But soon afterward, media outlets, including CNN, switched Florida's
status back to a toss-up. Later the media projected Bush a winner in Florida and
then retracted that projection.
As the state vote tally appeared to be moving toward Bush, the vice president
was very close to making a concession speech, aides said, but staffers
convinced him the Florida results were too inconclusive.
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