WEBVTT - Bush v. Gore: Episode 3 – Ballot With Butterfly Wings 0:00:16.311 --> 0:00:23.191 Pushkin. Hey Leon here, Before we get to this episode, 0:00:23.431 --> 0:00:25.191 I want to let you know that you can binge 0:00:25.231 --> 0:00:28.591 the entire season of Fiasco Bush v. Gore right now, 0:00:28.791 --> 0:00:33.071 add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Sign up 0:00:33.111 --> 0:00:36.271 for Pushkin Plus on the Fiasco Apple podcast show page, 0:00:36.871 --> 0:00:44.351 or visit Pushkin dot fm slash Plus. Now onto the episode. 0:00:44.830 --> 0:00:46.911 Previously on Fiasco. 0:00:47.510 --> 0:00:50.190 The closest election in a generation, I. 0:00:50.190 --> 0:00:52.590 Called it at seven fifty two pm. It was all 0:00:52.631 --> 0:00:53.831 downhill after that moment. 0:00:53.951 --> 0:00:56.711 Some strange, unusual things happening in Florida. 0:00:56.831 --> 0:00:59.191 Florida comes out of the Gore column. 0:00:59.231 --> 0:01:02.231 Florida goes Bush, the presidency is Bush. That would be 0:01:02.271 --> 0:01:04.590 something if the network's managed to blow it twice in 0:01:04.631 --> 0:01:05.071 one night. 0:01:05.191 --> 0:01:06.991 In some ways, you can win or lose an election 0:01:07.311 --> 0:01:08.511 based on what the TVs say. 0:01:08.591 --> 0:01:10.071 Well, someone find out for me whether it's a a 0:01:10.111 --> 0:01:11.871 tread of state as a Democrat or a Republican. 0:01:12.031 --> 0:01:14.551 Who would ever thought you'd be on a plane heading 0:01:14.591 --> 0:01:17.991 to Florida to start a recount that could determine who 0:01:18.471 --> 0:01:19.271 the president is. 0:01:23.511 --> 0:01:27.631 The two thousand election wasn't really Jackie Winchester's problem four 0:01:27.711 --> 0:01:30.191 years earlier. It would have been back then she was 0:01:30.191 --> 0:01:33.111 the Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County, Florida, a 0:01:33.191 --> 0:01:35.071 job that put her in charge of making sure that 0:01:35.111 --> 0:01:37.511 election day always ran as smoothly as possible. 0:01:37.911 --> 0:01:40.991 You have only one day to make it right, and 0:01:41.031 --> 0:01:44.791 you're dependent on thousands of volunteers who have maybe three 0:01:44.871 --> 0:01:48.671 days of training every few years, and you cannot control 0:01:48.711 --> 0:01:51.271 what's going on out there and the precincts, and things 0:01:51.311 --> 0:01:52.111 can go wrong. 0:01:52.391 --> 0:01:55.391 After holding the post for twenty three years, Winchester had 0:01:55.391 --> 0:01:58.551 retired in nineteen ninety six. In two thousand, she was 0:01:58.551 --> 0:02:01.711 a volunteer with the Gore campaign, so she wasn't entirely 0:02:01.711 --> 0:02:04.791 on the sidelines, but it was not her burden to bear. 0:02:04.871 --> 0:02:06.991 When her daughter in law called an election day to 0:02:06.991 --> 0:02:09.311 inform her that something had gone awry with the ballots 0:02:09.311 --> 0:02:11.511 in Palm Beach, it. 0:02:11.471 --> 0:02:13.550 Was in all the radios, all that cha. They were 0:02:13.591 --> 0:02:14.311 talking about it. 0:02:14.391 --> 0:02:17.150 Here's how the presidential candidates are listed on Palm Beach 0:02:17.191 --> 0:02:20.271 County's punch card ballot. Voters we talked to feel the 0:02:20.311 --> 0:02:22.631 ballot's layout is confusing, and. 0:02:22.631 --> 0:02:25.150 She said, you know, I'm not sure I've voted correctly. 0:02:25.231 --> 0:02:28.471 After hearing that word spread across Palm Beach that if 0:02:28.471 --> 0:02:30.870 you weren't paying close attention, it was easy to punch 0:02:30.951 --> 0:02:32.911 through the wrong hole and vote for a candidate you 0:02:32.911 --> 0:02:33.871 didn't mean to vote for. 0:02:34.311 --> 0:02:37.511 Here's the problem. In Palm Beach County, they use what's 0:02:37.551 --> 0:02:40.591 called a punch hole ballot. To vote for the first name, 0:02:40.711 --> 0:02:44.191 George Bush, a voter would punch the first hole. Al 0:02:44.271 --> 0:02:47.791 Gore's name was listed right under Bush's, but voting for 0:02:47.911 --> 0:02:52.071 Gore required punching the third hole down, not the second. 0:02:52.511 --> 0:02:54.391 Gore is the second person down. 0:02:54.711 --> 0:02:58.271 This is the second hole down. I made a mistake. 0:02:58.711 --> 0:03:01.191 What made the crisis in Palm Beach so gut wrenching 0:03:01.551 --> 0:03:03.591 was that lots of people seemed to have all made 0:03:03.591 --> 0:03:06.550 the same mistake. These were people who had wanted to 0:03:06.631 --> 0:03:09.151 vote for Al Gore, and instead they voted for the 0:03:09.231 --> 0:03:11.631 right wing third party candidate, Pat Buchanan. 0:03:12.271 --> 0:03:14.751 I almost drove off the road when I heard that 0:03:14.831 --> 0:03:16.391 I voted for Pat Buchanan. 0:03:16.631 --> 0:03:18.951 I am not the only one that was confused, and 0:03:19.071 --> 0:03:23.311 many people probably voted for Buchanan meaning to vote for Gore, 0:03:23.591 --> 0:03:24.351 and that's wrong. 0:03:24.791 --> 0:03:27.991 Pat Buchanan first rose to national prominence as a speechwriter 0:03:28.111 --> 0:03:31.431 and senior adviser to Richard Nixon. He'd run for president 0:03:31.471 --> 0:03:34.231 under the banner of the Reform Party, and his prospects 0:03:34.231 --> 0:03:37.111 in Palm Beach County had not been great, in part 0:03:37.151 --> 0:03:38.631 because there were a lot of Jewish people who lived 0:03:38.631 --> 0:03:41.231 in Palm Beach, and Buchanan had a history of making 0:03:41.231 --> 0:03:45.751 comments that were perceived as antisemitic. Most recently, Buchanan had 0:03:45.751 --> 0:03:48.431 reinforced that perception by arguing in a book that Adolph 0:03:48.511 --> 0:03:51.671 Hitler had never represented a real threat to American interests. 0:03:52.271 --> 0:03:55.551 Palm Beach County is heavily democratic, with large blocks of 0:03:55.631 --> 0:03:59.631 black and Jewish voters, not exactly Pat Buchanan country, Yet 0:03:59.631 --> 0:04:02.591 he polled three times as many votes here as any 0:04:02.631 --> 0:04:03.751 other county in the state. 0:04:04.151 --> 0:04:07.071 Buchanan got more than three thousand votes in Palm Beach County, 0:04:07.671 --> 0:04:09.671 six times as many as he got in Miami Dade, 0:04:09.711 --> 0:04:13.111 which was twice as big. Some voters had punched holes 0:04:13.111 --> 0:04:15.991 for both Gore and Buchanan, meaning their ballots had been 0:04:15.991 --> 0:04:19.950 automatically invalidated. Common sense suggested that most of these people 0:04:20.031 --> 0:04:23.390 had voted for Buchanan unintentionally, then caught their mistake and 0:04:23.431 --> 0:04:26.791 tried to correct it. Even Buchanan acknowledged that some of 0:04:26.791 --> 0:04:28.711 his votes in Palm Beach had probably been meant for 0:04:28.751 --> 0:04:31.911 the ticket that included Joe Lieberman, the first Jewish candidate 0:04:31.911 --> 0:04:33.951 for vice president nominated by a major party. 0:04:34.391 --> 0:04:37.510 If the two candidates they pushed were Buchanan and Gore, 0:04:38.551 --> 0:04:43.391 almost certainly those are al Gore's votes and not mine. 0:04:43.471 --> 0:04:45.671 The ballot in Palm Beach quickly became known in the 0:04:45.671 --> 0:04:48.911 media as the butterfly ballot because the candidate's names appeared 0:04:48.911 --> 0:04:51.471 on two opposing pages like wings, and there was a 0:04:51.551 --> 0:04:53.991 row of punch holes running down the middle. Most of 0:04:53.991 --> 0:04:56.391 the voters who had issues with the butterfly ballot were elderly, 0:04:56.991 --> 0:04:59.031 and there were a lot of elderly voters in Palm 0:04:59.071 --> 0:05:01.791 Beach County. Here's Jackie Winchester. 0:05:01.391 --> 0:05:05.671 Again, and most of the retirement communities, the big condos 0:05:06.031 --> 0:05:08.831 that tend to vote early in the morning, and it 0:05:08.911 --> 0:05:11.830 was in those. He thinks that all of these people 0:05:11.911 --> 0:05:14.551 were saying that they were afraid they had voted for Buchanan, 0:05:14.991 --> 0:05:16.351 and of course they did. 0:05:16.671 --> 0:05:20.591 Actually, Winchester was eighty nine years old and living in 0:05:20.631 --> 0:05:23.431 a retirement community herself. When I spoke to her on 0:05:23.511 --> 0:05:26.551 election Day two thousand. She arrived at the Gore campaign's 0:05:26.631 --> 0:05:29.390 Palm Beach office at around ten in the morning and 0:05:29.471 --> 0:05:31.751 started taking calls from distressed voters. 0:05:32.511 --> 0:05:36.391 It was just really very sad because these are people 0:05:36.431 --> 0:05:39.951 who had been voting all their allows. Voting was very 0:05:39.951 --> 0:05:42.190 important to them, and they felt that they had lost 0:05:42.191 --> 0:05:45.190 their vote and they wanted to know what they could 0:05:45.271 --> 0:05:47.911 do about it, or said there wasn't anything they could 0:05:47.951 --> 0:05:48.950 do about it. 0:05:48.951 --> 0:05:49.991 It could have happened anywhere. 0:05:49.991 --> 0:05:51.471 A rocket scientist could have happened. 0:05:51.791 --> 0:05:54.751 Meet Jim Pesh. Yes, he designs rockets. 0:05:55.191 --> 0:05:56.151 Let me get this straight. 0:05:56.991 --> 0:06:01.071 You're a rocket scientist, literally, and you had problems. 0:06:01.671 --> 0:06:04.271 As the gravity of the butterfly ballot debacle set in, 0:06:04.951 --> 0:06:07.391 Winchester started to worry about the woman who had replaced 0:06:07.391 --> 0:06:10.630 her as election supervisor in Palm Beach. Her name was 0:06:10.671 --> 0:06:14.031 Teresa Lapour. She had started working at the election's office 0:06:14.071 --> 0:06:16.751 as Winchester's assistant when she was still a teenager, and 0:06:16.791 --> 0:06:18.791 she had been climbing her way up the ladder ever since. 0:06:21.191 --> 0:06:25.031 As election supervisor, Lapour had commissioned the butterfly ballot design 0:06:25.351 --> 0:06:28.111 and she had signed off on it. Others had seen 0:06:28.151 --> 0:06:31.111 it too, both the Democrats and the Republicans in Florida 0:06:31.111 --> 0:06:33.950 had approved the ballot design in advance, but when the 0:06:33.951 --> 0:06:36.791 ballot became a national news story, it was Lapour who 0:06:36.791 --> 0:06:37.951 was held responsible for it. 0:06:38.071 --> 0:06:41.591 The Supervisor of Elections, Teresa Lapour says, voters are across 0:06:41.631 --> 0:06:45.031 the county have expressed their concerns about the presidential ballot. 0:06:45.351 --> 0:06:47.950 If voters need to remember that, they should punch the 0:06:47.991 --> 0:06:50.231 whole next to the ear next to the number next 0:06:50.231 --> 0:06:52.431 to the name of the candidate they want to vote for. 0:06:53.351 --> 0:06:56.711 Lapour didn't conceive of the butterfly ballot thoughtlessly. It was 0:06:56.751 --> 0:06:59.791 an attempt to solve a very specific problem. In nineteen 0:06:59.831 --> 0:07:02.471 ninety eight, Florida had passed a law making it easier 0:07:02.511 --> 0:07:05.591 for third party candidates to qualify for inclusion on the ballot. 0:07:06.351 --> 0:07:09.671 In two thousand, election supervisors across the state had to 0:07:09.711 --> 0:07:13.031 make for ten presidential candidates. They all dealt with it 0:07:13.031 --> 0:07:16.551 in their own way, which underscorees how strangely decentralized a 0:07:16.631 --> 0:07:20.751 national election really is. Every county in Florida had jurisdiction 0:07:20.831 --> 0:07:25.431 over their own ballots. Teresa Lapour decided that ten candidates 0:07:25.551 --> 0:07:27.311 was too many to fit on one page because the 0:07:27.351 --> 0:07:30.071 type would be too small, so she spread them out 0:07:30.071 --> 0:07:31.551 over to She. 0:07:31.671 --> 0:07:34.311 Had said that she did it that way because she 0:07:34.391 --> 0:07:38.151 felt that she could make the print larger, that there 0:07:38.151 --> 0:07:40.791 are a lot of older people in Palm Beach County 0:07:41.271 --> 0:07:45.031 with vision problems, and that she rather than do it 0:07:45.071 --> 0:07:47.071 the way the other coundies who are doing it where 0:07:47.111 --> 0:07:49.191 the print would have been smaller, that she could make 0:07:49.231 --> 0:07:50.711 the print larger this way. 0:07:51.231 --> 0:07:52.631 Lapour remained silent. 0:07:52.711 --> 0:07:55.271 In response to the anger, She says through her attorney, 0:07:55.311 --> 0:07:57.871 she designed the ballot with the elderly folks in mind, 0:07:58.111 --> 0:07:59.791 with the hopes they could see it better. 0:07:59.871 --> 0:08:02.551 And that's a heavy burden on the shoulders of Teresa Lapour. 0:08:06.791 --> 0:08:10.031 The day after the election, Jackie Winchester visited her oldfe 0:08:10.271 --> 0:08:13.191 in downtown Palm Beach to see how Lapoor was holding up. 0:08:14.151 --> 0:08:17.071 It was a sympathy call from one season supervisor of 0:08:17.071 --> 0:08:17.911 Elections to another. 0:08:18.351 --> 0:08:21.271 She was really being i would say, being dumped on, 0:08:22.111 --> 0:08:25.311 and she was crying. She was very upset, and I've 0:08:25.351 --> 0:08:27.471 told her you know that I was sorry she was 0:08:27.511 --> 0:08:31.351 having to go through all that and she didn't mean 0:08:31.431 --> 0:08:33.951 to cause any problems. 0:08:35.071 --> 0:08:36.471 Did she have any advice for her? 0:08:37.231 --> 0:08:37.711 No? 0:08:37.871 --> 0:08:38.271 Why not? 0:08:39.511 --> 0:08:42.470 At that point there was nothing that could be done. 0:08:42.550 --> 0:08:43.751 The election was over. 0:08:45.631 --> 0:08:48.751 In fact, Teresa Lapour had a whole lot of elections 0:08:48.751 --> 0:08:51.751 still ahead of her. Lapour, who did not respond to 0:08:51.751 --> 0:08:54.711 my interview requests, described the experience in the two thousand 0:08:54.710 --> 0:08:58.310 and four documentary. I kind of likened the whole thing 0:08:58.351 --> 0:08:59.550 to my perfect storm. 0:09:00.190 --> 0:09:02.831 All the planets were lined upright, and everything just kind 0:09:02.830 --> 0:09:04.511 of collided over Palm Beach County. 0:09:04.871 --> 0:09:07.231 As lawyers for the two campaigns descended on Palm Beach 0:09:07.271 --> 0:09:10.470 to litigate the butterfly ballot, Lapour would find her working 0:09:10.511 --> 0:09:14.231 eighteen hour days, facing down protesters outside her office and 0:09:14.271 --> 0:09:16.671 receiving so many death threats that she needed a security 0:09:16.670 --> 0:09:20.231 detail to accompany her home at night. Later, Lapoor would 0:09:20.231 --> 0:09:23.191 teller reporter for the Saint Petersburg Times, you want my blood, 0:09:24.070 --> 0:09:33.071 here take it. I'm Leon Nafock from Prologue Projects and 0:09:33.151 --> 0:09:38.951 Pushkin Industries. This is fiasco Bush v. Gore. Tonight the 0:09:38.991 --> 0:09:42.030 debate over when a vote is a vote? Nineteen thousand 0:09:42.030 --> 0:09:44.111 Americans were disenfranchised. 0:09:44.111 --> 0:09:47.030 I wanted to cook the books until they could figure 0:09:47.070 --> 0:09:49.231 out how to win an election. They had lost it. 0:09:49.271 --> 0:09:53.110 Results in this one county could tell the tale episode 0:09:53.111 --> 0:09:57.470 three ballot with butterfly wings. How the recount battle in 0:09:57.550 --> 0:10:02.151 Florida started, and how both Republicans and Democrats became convinced 0:10:02.471 --> 0:10:08.990 that the White House was being stolen by the other side. 0:10:09.151 --> 0:10:11.991 Catherine Harris probably the closest thing to a household name 0:10:12.070 --> 0:10:15.430 to emerge from the two thousand recount. As Florida's Secretary 0:10:15.471 --> 0:10:18.311 of State, Harris was the ultimate authority over the state's 0:10:18.310 --> 0:10:22.391 election results on election day, her office was responsible for 0:10:22.391 --> 0:10:25.190 collecting vote totals from all sixty seven counties in Florida, 0:10:25.871 --> 0:10:28.751 then declaring a winner as part of a formal certification process. 0:10:29.151 --> 0:10:32.111 It was kind of a ministerial job. You add up 0:10:32.151 --> 0:10:34.351 sixty seven counties and you say who won the election. 0:10:35.190 --> 0:10:38.231 That's Harris. She was elected Florida Secretary of State in 0:10:38.310 --> 0:10:42.391 nineteen ninety eight, so, unlike Jackie Winchester, the two thousand 0:10:42.471 --> 0:10:45.751 election was very much her problem. If her job had 0:10:45.751 --> 0:10:49.030 ever been ministerial, that flew out the window very quickly 0:10:49.070 --> 0:10:53.670 on November eighth. Throughout the recount period, Harris was part referee, 0:10:53.871 --> 0:10:57.871 part timekeeper, someone who advised county election officials on vote 0:10:57.910 --> 0:11:01.751 counting procedure and enforced statewide deadlines set forth in Florida 0:11:01.790 --> 0:11:05.391 election law. Harris's point of view on the butterfly ballot 0:11:05.391 --> 0:11:07.871 issue was that it was kind of overblown. 0:11:07.790 --> 0:11:10.471 As see you where they were confused. I don't think 0:11:10.471 --> 0:11:12.631 I would have made that mistake. It was not that 0:11:12.751 --> 0:11:15.230 hard to vote for Gore. That was actually kind of simple. 0:11:15.271 --> 0:11:17.511 But if somebody wanted to be confused, or I mean 0:11:17.511 --> 0:11:20.191 not wanted to be confused, but they're getting nervous in 0:11:20.190 --> 0:11:21.551 their voting, than perhaps they were. 0:11:24.710 --> 0:11:27.550 The two thousand election thrust Harris into an awkward role. 0:11:28.590 --> 0:11:31.470 On paper, she was supposed to be a political and independent, 0:11:31.871 --> 0:11:34.271 but she was also an elected official, and like the 0:11:34.351 --> 0:11:37.030 vast majority of elected officials, she had a part as 0:11:37.070 --> 0:11:41.271 an affiliation. Harris was a Republican. It wasn't a secret 0:11:41.550 --> 0:11:43.670 she had run for Secretary of State as a Republican 0:11:44.310 --> 0:11:46.351 and she had been aligned with the Republican Party since 0:11:46.391 --> 0:11:50.111 the start of her political career. During the two thousand campaign, 0:11:50.670 --> 0:11:53.191 Harris served as one of George W. Bush's co chairs 0:11:53.190 --> 0:11:56.151 in Florida. She also stumped for Bush as part of 0:11:56.190 --> 0:11:58.271 the Freezon for a Reason bus tour when she gave 0:11:58.310 --> 0:12:01.751 out Florida oranges to Bush supporters in New Hampshire. Again, 0:12:01.790 --> 0:12:04.951 there was nothing inherently sinister about this, but when Harris 0:12:04.950 --> 0:12:08.151 started making one decision after another that seemed to benefit Bush, 0:12:08.631 --> 0:12:10.871 Democrats had a hard time seeing her as a genuinely 0:12:10.910 --> 0:12:11.550 neutral arbiter. 0:12:11.910 --> 0:12:15.951 The Gore campaign press secretary has called the Secretary of 0:12:15.950 --> 0:12:17.151 State in Florida. 0:12:17.030 --> 0:12:21.350 A hack Gore advisor, accusing Florida's Republican secretary of State 0:12:21.590 --> 0:12:23.511 and just try to ensure a Bush victory. 0:12:23.950 --> 0:12:26.430 Harris adamantly rejects the suggestion that she was trying to 0:12:26.471 --> 0:12:29.750 help Bush win, even though she obviously did want him 0:12:29.751 --> 0:12:32.750 to win she campaigned for him. She maintains that a 0:12:32.790 --> 0:12:36.231 Secretary of State, she made unbiased decisions without any particular 0:12:36.271 --> 0:12:37.030 outcome in mind. 0:12:37.430 --> 0:12:40.310 In fact, the law was my only safe harbor. People 0:12:40.391 --> 0:12:43.470 still come up to me and say thank you a weekly. 0:12:43.550 --> 0:12:47.950 I'm in airports every week, so I'm surprised by that, 0:12:48.030 --> 0:12:51.351 but I've never accepted that compliment. I just say, hey, 0:12:51.391 --> 0:12:54.111 I didn't do anything special. I just followed our laws 0:12:54.111 --> 0:12:54.951 and they were sufficient. 0:12:56.710 --> 0:12:59.231 One of the first laws Catherine Harris had to enforce 0:12:59.271 --> 0:13:02.070 after election day was one you might remember from our 0:13:02.070 --> 0:13:05.631 previous episode. It was the law acquiring a statewide machine 0:13:05.631 --> 0:13:08.311 recount whenever the margin between two candidates was less than 0:13:08.351 --> 0:13:11.951 half of one percent. Bush's lead before the machine recount 0:13:12.151 --> 0:13:14.630 was one seven hundred and eighty four votes out of 0:13:14.670 --> 0:13:18.591 almost six million cast, so three one hundredths of one 0:13:18.631 --> 0:13:20.550 percent of the overall vote total. 0:13:21.391 --> 0:13:24.751 We did a machine recount within seventy two hours for 0:13:24.830 --> 0:13:27.910 the entire state. It was remarkable. That was not an 0:13:27.910 --> 0:13:30.270 easy task, but we did that in seventy two hours, 0:13:30.670 --> 0:13:33.751 and at that time, and for the equipment that we had, 0:13:33.910 --> 0:13:35.910 computerization to get it done in seventy two hours? 0:13:35.991 --> 0:13:39.551 Or was the remarkable feat? After the break the results 0:13:39.590 --> 0:13:48.191 of the machine recount, the new numbers came in on 0:13:48.231 --> 0:13:49.791 the Friday morning after the election. 0:13:50.231 --> 0:13:53.710 An unofficial Tallly of all Florida counties gives George W. 0:13:53.830 --> 0:13:57.310 Bush a minuscule three hundred and twenty seven vote lead 0:13:57.391 --> 0:14:00.590 over Al Gore out of six million votes cast. 0:14:00.790 --> 0:14:03.190 The margin between Bush and Gore shrank to just three 0:14:03.310 --> 0:14:07.151 hundred and twenty seven votes, so five to one thousandths 0:14:07.430 --> 0:14:13.151 of one percent. Under normal circumstances, a fluctuation of fourteen 0:14:13.231 --> 0:14:15.950 hundred votes in a state wide race wouldn't sound like much, 0:14:16.670 --> 0:14:19.871 but Bush's lead had been cut by significantly more votes 0:14:19.911 --> 0:14:23.471 than the new margin separating him from Gore. It suggested 0:14:23.511 --> 0:14:26.351 that a third recount could produce a totally different result 0:14:26.551 --> 0:14:29.990 and maybe even put Gore ahead. The magnitude of the 0:14:30.071 --> 0:14:32.470 change in the vote total called into question the very 0:14:32.551 --> 0:14:35.671 idea that an objectively accurate vote count was possible. 0:14:35.830 --> 0:14:39.151 Many in this nation are getting anxious what many called 0:14:39.271 --> 0:14:43.271 the beginning of potentially a constitutional crisis in this nation. 0:14:43.951 --> 0:14:47.551 Neither campaign had time for such philosophical angst. From the 0:14:47.590 --> 0:14:50.551 moment they arrived in Florida. Bush's people were fighting to 0:14:50.590 --> 0:14:51.311 protect their lead. 0:14:51.431 --> 0:14:54.431 They want a quick, almost mechanical recount. How George W. 0:14:54.511 --> 0:14:57.391 Bush certified on the road to inauguration. 0:14:57.031 --> 0:14:59.511 While Gore's were trying to find enough votes to overcome it. 0:14:59.551 --> 0:15:02.511 The Gore campaign is trying to lengthen out the timeline, 0:15:02.631 --> 0:15:06.311 gather the facts for any irregularities in the Florida ballot, 0:15:06.431 --> 0:15:07.750 and then moved to a challenge. 0:15:08.271 --> 0:15:11.071 But what exactly was being challenged? What were the two 0:15:11.151 --> 0:15:14.551 campaigns fighting over. The guy brought in to answer these 0:15:14.590 --> 0:15:17.671 questions for the Gore campaign was Jack Young, a lawyer 0:15:17.671 --> 0:15:21.551 specializing in recount law. On the morning of November eighth, 0:15:21.871 --> 0:15:25.511 Young briefed Gore's top advisors in Nashville. Then he got 0:15:25.511 --> 0:15:27.071 on the recount one plane to Florida. 0:15:27.751 --> 0:15:30.951 The question that was asked of May was, how does 0:15:31.191 --> 0:15:35.391 a recount work? What do you need to do if 0:15:35.431 --> 0:15:38.350 we are to go through a recount in Florida. 0:15:38.911 --> 0:15:41.311 Young knew what he was talking about. He was the 0:15:41.351 --> 0:15:43.751 co author of a short book called The Recount Primer. 0:15:44.071 --> 0:15:48.391 The Recount Primer who was, in essence, a printed set 0:15:48.431 --> 0:15:52.591 of instructions as to how to deal with a recount, 0:15:52.590 --> 0:15:56.390 starting with election night and then going through the process. 0:15:56.911 --> 0:15:59.271 It's probably thirty pages at best. 0:16:00.111 --> 0:16:02.671 As Young explained to the Gore team, the big prize 0:16:02.710 --> 0:16:04.791 on the table between their guy and the other guy 0:16:05.191 --> 0:16:07.551 was a mountain of ballots cast across Florida that had 0:16:07.551 --> 0:16:10.031 either come up as invalid or didn't record any vote 0:16:10.191 --> 0:16:14.270 for president. These ballots could be divided into two categories, 0:16:14.590 --> 0:16:18.391 undervotes and overvotes. You can think of undervotes as the 0:16:18.391 --> 0:16:21.751 result of not voting enough, and overvotes as the result 0:16:21.830 --> 0:16:22.791 of voting too much. 0:16:23.151 --> 0:16:26.991 An undervote is an instance where the machine didn't pick 0:16:27.071 --> 0:16:31.071 up a vote, and overvotes what you're looking at is 0:16:31.631 --> 0:16:36.431 people having voted for two candidates when the selection is 0:16:36.471 --> 0:16:37.871 for only one. 0:16:37.911 --> 0:16:40.351 There were all kinds of reasons a machine might mistakenly 0:16:40.351 --> 0:16:44.110 classify a valid ballot as an undervote or an overvote. 0:16:44.151 --> 0:16:46.551 With punch card machines like the kind used in Palm Beach, 0:16:46.951 --> 0:16:49.151 people didn't always punch through the hole all the way. 0:16:50.271 --> 0:16:53.391 Sometimes voters just didn't follow instructions. Instead of punching through 0:16:53.431 --> 0:16:55.511 the hole, they'd circle their candidate's name or put a 0:16:55.590 --> 0:16:57.631 check mark next to it, or they'd write it out 0:16:57.631 --> 0:17:00.231 by hand in a random spot on the ballot. In 0:17:00.271 --> 0:17:02.710 a lot of these cases, a human being could look 0:17:02.710 --> 0:17:04.911 at the ballot and discern what the voter had intended, 0:17:05.311 --> 0:17:08.911 something a machine couldn't do. That was why, according to 0:17:08.991 --> 0:17:12.110 Jack Young and the Recount Primer, the Gore campaign's first 0:17:12.111 --> 0:17:14.630 step was to demand a hand recount in as many 0:17:14.671 --> 0:17:17.910 counties as they could. The more under votes and over 0:17:18.031 --> 0:17:21.111 votes were counted by hand, the more chances Gore had 0:17:21.150 --> 0:17:23.031 to eat away at the three hundred and twenty seven 0:17:23.110 --> 0:17:25.031 vote margins separating him from Bush. 0:17:25.350 --> 0:17:27.950 If you're behind, you want to expand the recount as 0:17:28.031 --> 0:17:31.870 much as you can. Now there's no guarantee, obviously with 0:17:31.991 --> 0:17:35.151 punch cards that it's going to come out your way, 0:17:36.511 --> 0:17:38.871 but it's going to be different, and if you're behind, 0:17:39.711 --> 0:17:40.951 different is good. 0:17:41.991 --> 0:17:44.511 Young urged the top lieutenants on the Gore legal team 0:17:44.590 --> 0:17:47.751 to ask for hand recounts in all sixty seven Florida counties. 0:17:48.511 --> 0:17:50.590 This would have been consistent with the Gore team's main 0:17:50.630 --> 0:17:53.471 talking point from the days after the election that all 0:17:53.471 --> 0:17:55.390 they wanted was to get every vote counted. 0:17:59.150 --> 0:18:02.431 We have consistently maintained that every volte must. 0:18:02.231 --> 0:18:06.830 Count, but Young was ultimately overruled. Instead, the Gore team 0:18:06.830 --> 0:18:10.390 decided to make a much narrower, more modest request, zero 0:18:10.431 --> 0:18:11.711 in on just four counties. 0:18:12.110 --> 0:18:15.830 Today, the appropriate Florida Democratic officials will be requesting a 0:18:15.951 --> 0:18:19.031 hand count of ballots in Palm Beach County, as well 0:18:19.071 --> 0:18:20.591 as three other counties. 0:18:20.231 --> 0:18:24.511 Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Volusia. The request was 0:18:24.551 --> 0:18:28.590 actually less modest than it sounds. Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, 0:18:28.630 --> 0:18:32.470 and Volusia were four of the biggest counties in Florida. Together, 0:18:32.551 --> 0:18:36.190 they represented thirty four percent of Florida's population, and between 0:18:36.231 --> 0:18:41.031 them they had received approximately one point nine million ballots. Still, 0:18:41.150 --> 0:18:43.710 why didn't Gore just request a hand recount across the 0:18:43.830 --> 0:18:46.230 entire state? Like Jack Young was imploring him to do. 0:18:47.350 --> 0:18:49.830 The practical answer is that at this stage in the process, 0:18:50.191 --> 0:18:52.791 there was no mechanism in Florida law allowing a candidate 0:18:52.830 --> 0:18:55.311 to ask for a statewide recount, and one fell swoop. 0:18:55.911 --> 0:18:58.791 If Gore wanted hand recounts in all sixty seven counties, 0:18:59.471 --> 0:19:01.271 his lawyers would have to make the case in each 0:19:01.311 --> 0:19:05.631 county individually, and that would be a logistical nightmare. Some 0:19:05.671 --> 0:19:08.711 of Gore's advisors also thought it would be risky. Even 0:19:08.711 --> 0:19:11.911 if Gore could somehow get all all sixty seven recompetitions filed, 0:19:12.350 --> 0:19:14.671 the Bush lawyers could just selectively fight the ones most 0:19:14.671 --> 0:19:17.311 likely to favor Democrats while letting the ones in Republican 0:19:17.311 --> 0:19:21.031 counties go forward. At a press conference, the head of 0:19:21.071 --> 0:19:25.471 Gore's recount team, Warren Christopher, explained that Miami Dade, Broward, Felucia, 0:19:25.551 --> 0:19:28.590 and Palm Beach had been selected because each one experienced 0:19:28.590 --> 0:19:29.911 some weirdness on election day. 0:19:30.231 --> 0:19:34.071 The only four counties in which and counts were requested 0:19:34.551 --> 0:19:37.951 were counties where there was real anomalies that showed up 0:19:38.191 --> 0:19:39.431 real irregularities. 0:19:39.630 --> 0:19:42.470 Basically, it was a grab bag. Palm Beach was in 0:19:42.471 --> 0:19:44.950 there because of the butterfly ballot Belusia was in there 0:19:44.951 --> 0:19:46.630 because there had been glitches in their vote count on 0:19:46.671 --> 0:19:50.511 election night. As for Miami Dade and Broward, those two 0:19:50.511 --> 0:19:52.071 got thrown in because it looked like there was a 0:19:52.071 --> 0:19:56.031 disproportionate number of under votes there. But irregularities were not 0:19:56.110 --> 0:19:58.791 the only thing these four counties had in common, as 0:19:58.830 --> 0:20:01.791 Republicans and the media quickly pointed out, they were also 0:20:01.911 --> 0:20:03.271 full of Democratic voters. 0:20:03.551 --> 0:20:04.551 Certainly, all of this. 0:20:04.590 --> 0:20:07.271 Is them asking for things and then crossing their fingers 0:20:07.271 --> 0:20:08.830 that they're going to get the votes there. They don't 0:20:08.830 --> 0:20:10.390 have any hard evidence count of. 0:20:10.390 --> 0:20:13.191 These cherry picked counties that are designed to help Al Gore. 0:20:13.431 --> 0:20:16.271 Gore's decision to only ask for recounts in four Democratic 0:20:16.311 --> 0:20:19.791 counties was a pr disaster. It also alienated the Florida 0:20:19.791 --> 0:20:22.830 Secretary of State's office, where the perception among staff was 0:20:22.830 --> 0:20:24.471 that the Democrats were trying to pull ahead in the 0:20:24.551 --> 0:20:26.391 vote count in a fundamentally unfair way. 0:20:26.951 --> 0:20:30.910 It was unsettling to me that a candidate would cherry 0:20:30.911 --> 0:20:34.631 pick four counties out of sixty seven to recount. 0:20:34.991 --> 0:20:37.591 This is Kerry Carpenter. She was a lawyer and Secretary 0:20:37.630 --> 0:20:39.191 of State Catherine Harris's office. 0:20:39.350 --> 0:20:41.470 I believe all of us on our side were of 0:20:41.551 --> 0:20:44.511