NEW MEXICO Out West, the G.O.P. Seeks a Hand Recount By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Citing anomalies in the presidential voting count of a small eastern county in New Mexico, Republican state party officials have asked a district court to authorize a hand recount, saying it is the only way to guarantee an accurate tally.

In a letter sent last week to County Judge David W. Bonem, a lawyer for the party, Mickey D. Barnett, pointed out that party officials believe that an unusual number of voters in Roosevelt County did not express a preference for president.

But in asking the court to address his concern, Mr. Barnett used the same arguments that lawyers for Vice President Al Gore have been pressing in courts across Florida.

Mr. Barnett told the court: "These ballots are not difficult to tabulate by hand, and in the case of simply reviewing the results of a single race, can generally be counted by hand more quickly than by machine. There is, of course, no other way to determine the accuracy of this apparent discrepancy or machine malfunction other than the board reviewing the votes by hand and comparing them with the results."

It is possible a recount could change the outcome of the state's presidential vote. New Mexico certified the count on Thursday, with Mr. Gore winning the state and its 5 electoral votes by just 368 votes among nearly 600,000 cast, according to the tally certified by Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron.

A change could also provide Mr. Bush a cushion: if he should win Florida's 25 electoral votes he would have a total of 271, just 1 more than necessary.

"It's only speculation on my part," said Diane Denish, the state Democratic chairwoman, "but if Bush gets to 271 and some elector somewhere goes soft and believes in the popular- vote theory and votes for Gore, the New Mexico vote could be an insurance policy for Bush." Mr. Gore won a majority of the nearly 104 million votes cast nationwide.

Electors in New Mexico are bound by law to cast their votes for the candidate who wins the state. Otherwise, they face a felony charge.

Mr. Bush won Roosevelt County by a wide margin, with 3,762 votes, to 1,762 for Mr. Gore. But state Republicans contend that in some precincts the tallies show that as many as 47 percent of the voters did not express a choice for president, which "defies historical precedent and common sense," as Mr. Barnett wrote.

As a result of that situation and another in Bernalillo County, where Republicans say they have evidence of other voting abnormalities, the state party has asked the New Mexico State Canvassing Board, a three- member panel, to hear their complaints.

As the acting chairman of the three-member board and the only Republican — along with two Democrats, Ms. Vigil-Giron and Chief Justice Pamela B. Minzner of the New Mexico Supreme Court — Lt. Gov. Walter D. Bradley has called for a meeting of the board on Tuesday in Santa Fe to make official the final vote count. Mr. Bradley made the request on behalf of Gov. Gary E. Johnson, who was out of town. Mr. Johnson, a Republican, is the sitting chairman of the board.

But it is not clear if any action by the district court could delay final approval of the state's presidential vote. Albert J. Lama, director of the civil division of the state attorney general's office, said yesterday that while losing candidates are entitled to request a recount in any county, the authorization must be made by the local canvassing board, not the state.

"I don't know what they're going to do on Tuesday," he said. "The state board has no authority to order a recount. That's up to the local canvassing board," he said.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Answers

Of course, only Democrats ask for recounts, right? Why, just this morning, on Meat the P*****, some (R) muck a muck was going on about Democrats stealing 'election after election by asking for recounts'.

Of course, he was a blasted liar, whipping up the faithful for Bush, and hoping they'd never notice Republican requests for recounts.

Or other little illegal matters.

--------------------------------------- Of Bush, the Harris Rumor and James Baker's Junta by Ron Rosenbaum The world will little note, nor long remember, this petty crime. It was accomplished in a small county under cover of darkness—or at least beneath the cloak of confusion that the clash over votes in the larger counties afforded.

You might have overlooked it; references to it were buried in the midst of a long piece on a jump page in the Saturday, Nov. 25 New York Times. It involved a decision by the election board of Nassau County, “a Republican enclave in Florida’s northeast corner.” With no legal notice, the Republican election board head threw out the results of the legally mandated machine re-count. There were no hand-count or hanging-chad issues here; this was the automatic re-count every Florida county was required to perform the day after the election because of the closeness of the vote.

The legally mandated re-count had slightly increased Al Gore’s totals. The county board’s decision to discard the re-count and certify the original count, The Times reported, “cost Mr. Gore 52 votes.” Not much, but enough—if included with other re-count totals in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade that were also excluded—to give Mr. Gore a nine-vote lead, his lawyers claimed.

And why this sudden last-minute decision to ignore the re- count total? “Ms.Shirley King [GOP election-board head] acted on advice from Katherine Harris, the secretary of state who was also co-chairwoman of the Bush campaign in Florida .... Ms. Harris advised Ms. King she could certify either count....”

Hey, why not? Nobody’s looking. You go, girl! It’s just a few votes. If it feels good, do it. Does anyone doubt that if the county board had wanted to add votes for Al Gore, Ms. Harris would have laughed at a last- minute switch?

Well, at the last minute, some Democrat in the sleepy burg woke up and protested this little emblematic act of pure theft, and it’s likely to be included in the lawsuit contesting the Florida election along with Miami-Dade County’s aborted recount. But the Gore challenge is likely to fail or run out of time, and it doesn’t seem likely that those votes will ever be restored or the theft punished.

The late Lars-Erik Nelson characterized the post-election tactics used by Ms. Harris and the Bush campaign in Florida as “a mugging.” When you consider the massive pre-election fraud in Seminole County—in which Republican registrars altered thousands of absentee-ballot applications in order to qualify G.O.P. voters and disqualify Democrats—you could call it a Republican wilding. If you want to know the truth, I blame the Bush campaign for the death of Nelson, one of the best journalists in America, someone who deserves a posthumous Pulitzer not just for his powerful, skeptical reporting on the Wen Ho Lee case, but for his consistently brilliant and iconoclastic commentary over the course of a career.

Nelson saw what was going on in Florida early on, and he didn’t see it with any equanimity: One of his colleagues at the Daily News called him on the day of his death, the afternoon of the televised Florida Supreme Court argument, and recalled Nelson crying out, “I can’t believe they said that!” over some outrageous assertion by the lawyers for Ms. Harris and Mr. Bush.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Paul:

I agree. "Keep counting until I win" looks the same no matter which party requests it, and of course it's done for the same reason. Politics is like war in that there is only one rule -- Don't Lose!

You seem to be under the impression that these guys are trying to do "what's right", and "right" keeps flipping around. I think this is the wrong viewpoint. The "right" part is only the flimsiest pretext for a PR fig leaf. The "win" part is all that matters. Who here had ever even heard of Tilden before?

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Of course, we ALL KNOW the law only mandates a recount. It surely doesn't mean the numbers should be used if that mean an awful old DEMONCRAT might get an office.

After all, it is perfectly OK to have the co-chair of the campaign make such decisions, right? She could never have any bias, right?

Funny how both sides actually say the same thing - if the votes are all counted, Gore wins, if only legal votes that Republicans haven't tampered with are counted, Gore wins, if only the much bragged about recount is taken, Gore wins.

Only if Republicans are allowed to pick and choose among which votes to count, can Gore be said to have lost.

So the Florida legislature meets Tuesday, to pass the election to the guy who lost. Man, talk about lame ducks!

For eight years, I've heard Republicans yatter about Clinton 'not being my president' or 'Clinton is not legitmate, since he got less than half the popular vote'. Geez, what do you call this? The president who never was?

You know, I never voted for Clinton, I'm a motr type of guy, and I don't like the slimy sort of feeling Clinton gives off. And I have voted for Reagan, and for other Republicans.

After this, I doubt I will ever vote for a Republican candidate ever again. If Democrats run some utterly disgusting thug, I'll just stay home. But I'll probably still send money to the party.

This sort of thing simply cannot be allowed to go unpunished.

And, BTW, before y'all tell me Democrats do 'this sort of thing all the time', I want the date and time and reference to the presidential candidate of the Democratic party calling to congradulate a party of staffers/rioters flown in from another city and put up in the local Hilton with party funds, OK!

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Actually Flint, I had, because I've been reading my head off, trying to understand this entire mess.

Nearly as I can figure it out, Florida has never had the recount their law demands, as mandated in that law. I have a link to their election law online, below here somewhere, read it for yourself, I don't claim to be a lawyer, but it seems fairly clear, and leaves a lot to the local election boards.

What I think happened was this, Tom Delay saw the tie up the day after the election, and knew a manual count in South Fl would throw the election to Gore. Such counts are done all the time, as that article above shows, and nobody makes any fuss, as a general rule. Nobody was expecting any major fuss, it has always been a rule that you always count all the votes.

Delay saw a chance to put Bush in on a technicality, and went for the throat. As of right now, pending the Supreme Court decision, it seems to have worked.

And, if you didn't notice, that was a paradigm shift in American politics.

Like a four minute mile, it becomes easier the next time. And soon, everyone is doing it.

This isn't good, not for anyone, anywhere in the US.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Paul:

Myself, I'm an Independent. That means in the past, I have split my vote between the parties.

This situation reminds me of a recent experience. A couple of years ago, a friend from Puget Sound came for a visit. He packed a wicker suitcase with ice and fresh oysters. The airline lost his luggage. After one day at 90 F, they found it and delivered it to the house. I had to clean out the suitcase and, eventually, burn it. I swear, I never got the smell off of my hands. I suppose that Delay and his friends have the same problem.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Paul:

I must say you and I don't seem to be reading about the same election at all. I have seen many (but doubtful) allegations that Democratic counters are "doctoring" ballots. Your claims that Republicans are doing this, made unequivocally, is the only one I've seen. Where did it come from?

I've seen persuasive arguments made by many (which I echo frequently) that whoever counts, determines the winner of a statistical tie. You claim that "everyone" agrees that any count of any description MUST favor Gore, but I don't know where you get this. I haven't read this claim elsewhere either. Your implied claim that there are only two kinds of counts -- unfair, or pro-Gore -- is admirably partisan, but factually vacuous.

I have seen Florida law reinterpreted in Gore's interests, to the point where the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering whether it's proper for a state supreme court to override the legislative intent of a legislative prerogative. Yet you claim the Republicans are breaking the law, a claim I haven't seen elsewhere. The closest I've seen is that the Republicans are interpreting the law too narrowly, strictly by the words rather than the intent. But doing so is hardly *breaking* the law.

I've seen statistical arguments that Gore is "improperly" focusing his recounts where it will introduce bias in his favor, and against this stands the argument that doing so may not be "fair", but it's legal. And I agree it's legal, and unfair. I see you talking about "Bush hand counts" being accepted, whereas "Gore hand counts" are not. But I don't know what you base THAT on either, except that some counties voted, and were counted, and were recounted, by hand originally. These were rural counties in which Bush won a majority, but nobody else seems to be claiming there is anything unfair about them. Why do you?

I see a distinction being made between timely hand counts and late hand counts by TWO different deadlines - legislative and judicial. Are you now calling timely recounts "Bush counts" and late recounts "Gore counts"? Why?

I admit I have not read everything everyone has written, but your claims make Boies' look tame by comparison. What election are you watching anyway?

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

I'd like to quickly address the Nassau County issue. I observed the testimony given by Shirley King this afternoon, and I'm now more confused than ever.

My count totals for Nassau totals are buried under my exam review material, but I distinctly remember that the second machine count in Nassau county was 197 votes short of the original count. The difference between Gore and Bush was 51, in favor of Gore. I've been defending going back to the original count after learning that Nassau County discovered that approximately 200 ballots weren't included in the second count. I didn't know why or how Nassau "lost" 200 ballots, but I felt the Democrats were wrong in pursuing the law to the extent of disenfranchising 197 voters because they lost 51 votes.

Back to the testimony of Shirley King: She's retiring in December of this year, and had counted on the skills of an aid, who is replacing her as a result of this election. Since the aid had been on the ballot, she was unable to partake in the automatic recount procedure....UNTIL she had been sworn in, etc., sometime around Thanksgiving.

As it turns out, the ballots in Nassau had different colored strips on one side. Red indicated that the presidential election was included, and blue indicated that only local elections were included. It seems that Ms. King tried to separate the red from the blue for the second machine count, but some of the ballots were upside down, and she couldn't see the red strip.

I'm confused about two things: How exactly can a machine read a card that is upside down and come up with correct results, and why was the differential 218 after all the reds were found, versus the original 197 discrepancy?

Relating to the required notice of the board meeting to determine whether the first or second count totals should be included, 24 hours of notice WAS given, although it was given over Thanksgiving, and apparently one newspaper in Nassau County either doesn't print a paper on Thanksgiving or didn't have the notice. Either way, only 50 people showed up, and Ms. King said that many were from out of state.

Ms. King was cross examined by a lawyer even older than she, and he obviously didn't pursue much. He couldn't. She sat like a deer caught in the headlights on even the simplest questions.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Geez...final arguments are now starting, and they're beginning with the inappropriateness of Ms. King including her replacement in that final certification of the first count. Later...

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

The red marked ballots were pulled for a recount. The problem lies in the fact that some had been placed in the box with the red side down and these were not pulled. That is how they are now, sealed.Had they been turned over the red marked ones would have been pulled also, but in their haste to do it, this was not thought of at the time.

I see we are watching the same thing. My viewing habits have changed so much in the past month *grin*.

Anita, I have seen that there are a lot of parcials of land for sale pretty cheap there in Texas, is this normal? I have even found a Y2K hideaway for sale up here I am looking into, solar panels, generator and lots of storage space.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Cherri:

Anita, I have seen that there are a lot of parcials of land for sale pretty cheap there in Texas, is this normal? I have even found a Y2K hideaway for sale up here I am looking into, solar panels, generator and lots of storage space.

I have no idea. Charlie is the resident Texas Realtor on this forum. You might try asking HIM.

The closing arguments have been very interesting, IMO. Boies points out where both parties agree, Richard uses emotionalism to make his points, and Klock...well, I think the man's a joke. I really appreciate the opportunity to see these folks at work first hand. If SO were home, he'd find a sporting event to watch, but since he won't be home until perhaps Christmas, I'm free to observe what I consider to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

I was disappointed in Boies' closing arguments, in that he didn't address the arguments presented by the attorney of Thrasher [a Republican elector in this election.] I felt that Thrasher's attorney presented some good arguments regarding people up for office and the various laws cited that apply to these people.

It seems to me [as it did to Thrasher] that votes for Gore or Bush are NOT being cast as a person for office. Our votes for president are being cast for the electoral college.

I was curious to see how Boies would address this argument. He didn't reference it at all.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

>> Who here had ever even heard of Tilden before? <<

Me.

For my money, the period from U.S.Grant to Teddy Roosevelt was the most interesting era in American politics. More so than Geo. Washington to Andy Jackson. The modern era (post Taft) is pretty drab in comparison. To anyone who is interested in politics from the Civil War to the Spanish-American War, the Hayes-Tilden election was (is) notorious.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

Brian, yes, that was the 'hot' era of American politics.

And we can't afford to return to it. The simple fact of the existence of nuclear weapons, plus the fact that I am now only a day or so from China or Japan, makes it far too dangerous.

In old TR's day, it took months to travel that far, and the world was a huge place. Now we live only a short distance (in time) from everywhere.

Thinking of that era, many have speculated that Custer was trying to win a 'famous' battle at Little Big Horn, to help him in a presidental bid.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2000

I may be mistaken but I believe NM uses ballots that are counted by optical scanners rather then punch cards. There is a distinct difference. In the punch card version the people are who are asking for a recount want to use dimpled chads or any mark as an indication of intent. With optical machines there is a mark however if there are excessive marks the machine can kick it out. For instance if one fills in the area for ones choice and then, just to make extra sure the vote is counted, writes in the name, the machine will kick it out.

I think there is a difference in what can be clearly indicated in the different types of ballots.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2000

Anita,

Boies didn't just surprise me, he amazed me. He acted like he was in trial court in front of a jury (for example, when he tried to damage the credibility of one of Bush's witnesses -- a typical trial tactic).

Everyone has said he's the DOJ's whiz kid because he brought off the Microsoft thing. I think that probably had more to do with the judge than his skill.

And my opinions are on record about Gore's legal team being too clever by half. By getting the Florida Supremes to set an arbitrary extension date, Boies actually and ultimately HURT Gore in the long run.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2000