Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: It was an unprecedented circumstance. It was fraut with politics.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were in the process of choosing the
Speaker 2: leader of the free world, and she was not staffed
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 3: I had I mean, I was just there. I certified
Speaker 3: the election. It was kind of a ministerial job.
Speaker 1: Hey, Fiasco listeners, it's Leon Napok. Welcome back to this
Speaker 1: run of special bonus episodes of Fiasco Bush Vigor. Today
Speaker 1: we're going to focus on a Florida institution that played
Speaker 1: an absolutely pivotal role during the recount, the Secretary of
Speaker 1: State's Office, which, as you know, was in charge of
Speaker 1: overseeing the recount and certifying the vote totals once all
Speaker 1: the ballots were counted. Sitting at the controls of the
Speaker 1: Secretary of State's Office was a woman who turned out
Speaker 1: to be one of the most memorable figures of the recount,
Speaker 1: Saga Catherine Harris.
Speaker 4: And, in accordance with the laws of the State of Florida,
Speaker 4: hi hereby declare Governor George W. Bush, the winner of
Speaker 4: Florida's twenty five electoral votes for the President of the
Speaker 4: United States.
Speaker 1: Harris was a Republican with ties to the Bush campaign.
Speaker 1: And because of the power she held over which ballots
Speaker 1: got counted in the official tally, Harris became a symbol
Speaker 1: to Democrats of everything that was unfair about the Florida
Speaker 1: recount process. Speculations swirled that Harris was motivated by partisanship,
Speaker 1: that she and others in her office were trying to
Speaker 1: help Bush win. We'll hear directly from Harris in a
Speaker 1: little bit, but first we wanted to play part of
Speaker 1: our interview with someone who wasn't officially on her staff,
Speaker 1: but who did everything he could to exert his influence
Speaker 1: during the recount, the lawyer and lobbyist Max Dapanovitch. You
Speaker 1: might remember Stapanovitch from episode three of the series. He's
Speaker 1: the guy who says he was secretly and by someone
Speaker 1: affiliated with the Bush campaign to embed with the Secretary
Speaker 1: of State's office and steer Katherine Harris towards decisions that
Speaker 1: would benefit the Republicans. When I sat down with Stapanovitch
Speaker 1: for our interview, he told me how he landed in
Speaker 1: Harris's office days after the election.
Speaker 2: I was pursuing a master's in medieval French history at FSU,
Speaker 2: and I was in a Latin class when my phone
Speaker 2: buzzed and I stepped outside to take it, and someone said,
Speaker 2: can you get into Catherine Harris's office. This was on
Speaker 2: the ninth Thursday, two days after the election, and so
Speaker 2: I contacted Ben McKay, who was hurry, very young chief
Speaker 2: of staff, and said, you guys are besieged. Do you
Speaker 2: need any help? Ben said, boy, do we? And so
Speaker 2: I went into Catherine's office on the afternoon of the
Speaker 2: ninth and we went to work. The first thing we
Speaker 2: did was we were sitting in his large conference room,
Speaker 2: which was on the plaza level at the Capitol. I
Speaker 2: had these floor to ceiling windows, and there were very
Speaker 2: tall ceilings, and so we taped cardboard over those so
Speaker 2: that folks wandering around the plaza and there were a
Speaker 2: lot of media folks wandering around the plaza would not
Speaker 2: see us because my presence, given my partisan reputation and all,
Speaker 2: would have been controversial at the time.
Speaker 1: What was your partisan reputation?
Speaker 2: Well, I've always been a Republican operative. If that's the
Speaker 2: right word. I don't know whether I like that phrase
Speaker 2: or not. I was the executive director for Reagan Bush
Speaker 2: in Florida and eighty four. I managed then mayor of
Speaker 2: Tampa Bob Martinez's givenatorial campaign in nineteen eighty six he
Speaker 2: was elected. I was his chief of staff. I was
Speaker 2: a senior advisor on Jeb's first Jeb Bush's first huminatorial campaign,
Speaker 2: and over time helped or advise others, including then Senator
Speaker 2: Catherine Harris, who was running for Secretary of State, which
Speaker 2: was an elective office at the time. So when it
Speaker 2: was thought that Catherine could use some advice and counsel,
Speaker 2: I was asked to provide it.
Speaker 1: Now, when you say you had a reputation as a
Speaker 1: part of them, is that just because you had worked
Speaker 1: for all these folks or you were a true believer
Speaker 1: and you were known as a true believer.
Speaker 2: Probably depending on who you talk to, and you can
Speaker 2: ask the others you're going to talk to about that,
Speaker 2: the answer to your question is yes, depending on their perspective.
Speaker 1: Sorry, yes, what, Yes?
Speaker 2: I was very partisan and known for it. There was
Speaker 2: no doubt about who I was, how I felt, or
Speaker 2: why I was summoned. As Mary Madaline once said, I
Speaker 2: am a bush leech, a bush let l I e g. E.
Speaker 2: Bush Leech got a vassal.
Speaker 1: So I mean beyond the very practical fact that they
Speaker 1: needed help. Why would you say you were.
Speaker 2: Summoned because it was an unprecedented circumstance. It was fraught
Speaker 2: with politics. I mean, we were in the process of
Speaker 2: choosing the leader of the free world, and she was
Speaker 2: not staffed for that. She had very capable employees in
Speaker 2: the Secretary of State's office, but this was something of
Speaker 2: an entirely different order of magnitude.
Speaker 1: Can you describe the atmosphere and Tallahassee in those days
Speaker 1: after the election?
Speaker 2: It was very tense. It was almost circus like. I mean,
Speaker 2: there were remote trucks parked everywhere. The you know, the
Speaker 2: biggest names and most recognizable faces in national media were
Speaker 2: strolling up and down the plaza at the Capitol and
Speaker 2: doing stand ups outside, and you know, were conferences with
Speaker 2: Jim Baker for crying out loud and more than Christopher
Speaker 2: was here. I mean, it was a byguide circus.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like you were a part of it?
Speaker 2: I did not feel all of that tension. I was
Speaker 2: inside the building. I arrived at dawn, entered the building
Speaker 2: through the basement where the cabinet room is, took the
Speaker 2: stairs up to the plaza level, which accessed internally. The
Speaker 2: Secretary of State's office, and then at night in someone
Speaker 2: else's car, I was driven from the building so that
Speaker 2: people would not know that I was in there. So
Speaker 2: you know my feeling. My experience of the atmosphere was
Speaker 2: a conference table in a conference room with a handful
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: Do you think you would have had a different role
Speaker 1: in the recount process if you hadn't gotten that phone
Speaker 1: call and been asked to join Secretary Harris's office?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have had if I hadn't been called. Uh,
Speaker 2: I don't think I would have had. I wouldn't anticipate
Speaker 2: I having had any role.
Speaker 1: You don't think someone el would have called you about
Speaker 1: some other job. I feel like everyone in Florida got
Speaker 1: a phone call who had a law.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 5: I'm not.
Speaker 2: I haven't practiced law in a while. My license remains current.
Speaker 2: But no one would call me to represent them in
Speaker 2: a piece of litigation relating to that or a stolen dog.
Speaker 2: I mean, just not what I did well?
Speaker 1: So what are your special skills that they were looking for?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, this is somewhat difficult because while I'm not
Speaker 2: noted for my modesty, it would be immodest. But I
Speaker 2: will go ahead and take the chance to say that. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, basically, I'm a strategist. If I have a skill,
Speaker 2: it is you can put me in the room with
Speaker 2: a rock, you know, room full of facts, and I
Speaker 2: will be able to ask the right question pretty quickly
Speaker 2: and suggest the best answer pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Uh, what was your assessment of what Secretary Harris's office
Speaker 1: and and the people working with her, including yourself, could
Speaker 1: bring to the table, Like there was this whole thing
Speaker 1: unfolding right outside of that room with the conference table. Sure,
Speaker 1: what was your what was it you were going to
Speaker 1: inject into that process?
Speaker 2: Well, first place, she was the state's chief elections officer.
Speaker 2: Now that sounds much more impressive than it was in
Speaker 2: fact at the time and probably is in fact now,
Speaker 2: because you know, the individual supervisors of elections are powerful
Speaker 2: constitutional figures in their own right, but the Secretary of
Speaker 2: State's office did have considerable oversight. And you know, the
Speaker 2: first thing, basically I said to Catherine when I arrived
Speaker 2: that afternoon, is this again out of hand. We have
Speaker 2: to bring this election in for a landing. And I'm
Speaker 2: not big on sports analogies, but it's like a football team,
Speaker 2: you do your job. I'll do my job and we
Speaker 2: might be able to win. The secretary of State's job
Speaker 2: was not to steal the election by breaking the law
Speaker 2: or bending the law. I took the view that it
Speaker 2: was her job to enforce the election laws of Florida,
Speaker 2: which brings me.
Speaker 1: Actually to another to a question about her, like, I
Speaker 1: don't know how close you are with her or anything
Speaker 1: about your relationship, but I'm curious you could just describe
Speaker 1: her sort of state of mind during this time. How
Speaker 1: this was a fact her.
Speaker 2: Is Catherine was able, and Catherine worked really hard at
Speaker 2: that job. She was there with the first employees. This
Speaker 2: is not having to do with the recount. This is
Speaker 2: on any day. She was there with the first employees
Speaker 2: in the morning and was one of the last to leave.
Speaker 2: She took she took the job very seriously. But this
Speaker 2: this was something different. This is this was it's never
Speaker 2: it had never happened before, it may never happen again.
Speaker 2: She was very tense, she was very nervous. She wanted
Speaker 2: to get it right. She didn't want to be hated
Speaker 2: by half the country, and so she needed to be
Speaker 2: encouraged to do the job the way the statute said.
Speaker 2: And if that required her to be hated by half
Speaker 2: the country. That was part of the job. I told
Speaker 2: her at the time. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 2: run for public office, and to give them the benefit
Speaker 2: of the doubt, I assume that most of them want
Speaker 2: to do good do good things, and they believe that
Speaker 2: when that moment comes, when that you know, John Kennedy
Speaker 2: profile encourage moment arise, that they will rise to the occasion. Now,
Speaker 2: what in fact happens is is that most of the
Speaker 2: time that moment doesn't arrive, or when it does arrive
Speaker 2: and it would cost you something to rise to the occasion,
Speaker 2: you fail to recognize it miraculously or you rationalize it
Speaker 2: away so that you don't have to make that sacrifice.
Speaker 2: I told her that this is that moment. It's not
Speaker 2: ten years down the road when you're in Congress or
Speaker 2: anywhere else. This is that moment. If you're going to
Speaker 2: do something, do it today.
Speaker 1: And what did you what did you tell her was
Speaker 1: her her mission? And what was what was the thing
Speaker 1: that you that she needed to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to not be cowed, to not be browbeaten, whether
Speaker 2: by you know, the Democrats, the judiciary, or the press,
Speaker 2: to just do the job play a position forced the law.
Speaker 1: But I guess, I guess I'm what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get at. It is like, how overt was it in
Speaker 1: your conversations within the state Secretary State's office that your
Speaker 1: goal was to deliver the election to Bush.
Speaker 2: We didn't have to deliver the election to Bush. He'd won,
Speaker 2: he had the votes, they'd been counted twice. The goal
Speaker 2: was to maintain the integrity of the election and not
Speaker 2: let it be altered by others.
Speaker 1: But you're smiling as you say that, so I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're trying to you know.
Speaker 2: Well, George Bush, with two counts statewide counts, had won
Speaker 2: the election. I think after those two state white counts,
Speaker 2: before some of the recounts come in by a bigger
Speaker 2: margin than it was at the end. What kind of
Speaker 2: damn food would sit around and say, you know what,
Speaker 2: we need to just keep counting until the other side wins.
Speaker 2: That seemed like a good thing for us to do.
Speaker 1: But where your critic every day? Forgive me, but what
Speaker 1: are your critics saying, like, you guys shouldn't think of
Speaker 1: yourselves as being on the other side of the Democrats.
Speaker 2: Well, that was the advantage we had one is that
Speaker 2: we were on the side of the wall. The laws
Speaker 2: said what the dates were, and we were on the
Speaker 2: side of the results. They'd been counted twice. So if
Speaker 2: you wanted to fault somebody for trying to cook the books,
Speaker 2: I would fault ron Klean and those guys, as competent
Speaker 2: as they were, because they were the ones who would
Speaker 2: not accept what the law in Florida said and would
Speaker 2: not accept what the two vote counts had resulted in.
Speaker 2: They wanted to just keep working until they could figure
Speaker 2: out how to win an election they had lost.
Speaker 1: To put yourself in their minds, and how to tell
Speaker 1: me how they thought of these deadlines. You clearly thought
Speaker 1: these were deadlines to be enforced.
Speaker 5: What was to them, Well, they thought, they thought, I
Speaker 5: think I think, you know, in all fairness, I think
Speaker 5: their perspective was is that what this entire exercise was
Speaker 5: about was divining in some fashion the will of the
Speaker 5: electorate and taking as much time as it was necessary
Speaker 5: to do so.
Speaker 2: We thought, maybe a good idea, just to comply with
Speaker 2: the law.
Speaker 1: And so they mean they thought of these deadlines as fungible.
Speaker 1: They thought they were what.
Speaker 2: They thought they were advisory suggestions. We thought that they
Speaker 2: were statutory deadlines that a court would enforce, and with
Speaker 2: some deviations and some minor exceptions, we were right and
Speaker 2: they were wrong.
Speaker 1: When the Florida Supreme Court issued the injunction against the
Speaker 1: certification on November fourteenth, A couple of questions about that.
Speaker 1: One is did that come as a surprise to you
Speaker 1: guys in the Secretary of State's office? And two, how
Speaker 1: did you react? Where did that put you?
Speaker 2: I don't have a specific memory of that. I was
Speaker 2: tempted to make one up, but I don't have a
Speaker 2: specific memory of that. I will tell you this. There
Speaker 2: were any number both you know, the Supreme Court level
Speaker 2: and at the district court level, of what, from our
Speaker 2: perspective were legal setbacks, opinions with which decisions with which
Speaker 2: we did not agree. But again, no sense crying over
Speaker 2: spilt beer. When something like that occurs, you just keep going,
Speaker 2: You do the next thing, you play your position. So
Speaker 2: that was a disappointment. What we wanted to happen didn't happen.
Speaker 2: So we needed to work harder to make what we
Speaker 2: wanted to happen happen.
Speaker 1: There seemed like there's so many what if moments in
Speaker 1: the story you know, oh, if it had gone this way,
Speaker 1: forget that way, could have been on you know, could
Speaker 1: have had a defending Do you like a do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite what if moment? A fork in the
Speaker 1: road that went your way, or you know, and could
Speaker 1: have gone the other.
Speaker 2: I really don't. Again, I would like to say something dramatic,
Speaker 2: but I really don't. The way that I approached it
Speaker 2: in most of the people. When I say most of
Speaker 2: the people, you're talking about a handful of people. Me
Speaker 2: Adam Goodman. The lawyers, when we consulted with them, was
Speaker 2: just keep pounding away, just keep doing it, day after
Speaker 2: day after day, with nineteen days until it's done. And
Speaker 2: so there was never a eureka moment as far as
Speaker 2: I almost concern. I mean, on the last day, we
Speaker 2: were keeping the office open to cut the thing off
Speaker 2: at five o'clock. So there was never a time when
Speaker 2: I thought, well, we want it now, this is over.
Speaker 2: It's just all we got to do is just count
Speaker 2: the bodies. No, it was right until they again, dumb
Speaker 2: ass Sports Matter four played to the whistle.
Speaker 1: All right, That was Max to Panovitch. It's worth saying
Speaker 1: here that there is some ambivalence and even disagreement among
Speaker 1: alumni of the Florida Secretary of State's Office about how
Speaker 1: influential Stepanovitch really was during the recount, and we heard
Speaker 1: from a few people that his role has been inflated
Speaker 1: over the years. That includes Catherine Harris herself. We'll hear
Speaker 1: from her after the break. Here's how Catherine Harris reacted
Speaker 1: when I asked her about Stepanovitch's role on her team.
Speaker 1: The team He's telling me we where did he feel in?
Speaker 3: That's just funny. I mean, I've heard he makes quips,
Speaker 3: and I know you've interviewed him, but I considered him
Speaker 3: a friend. He would stop by the office occasionally, and
Speaker 3: I could probably count how many times he did, but
Speaker 3: he would come in and just talk about things off
Speaker 3: the topic because I wasn't going outside. He was just
Speaker 3: great to keep a calm. I've heard that he said
Speaker 3: he advised me, which is I'm glad he thinks he did.
Speaker 3: He was never at our legal meetings, he was never
Speaker 3: at our strategy meetings. He was never one time at
Speaker 3: our office meeting. Never. He was not a go between
Speaker 3: us and the bushes. Because I shut all of that down.
Speaker 1: He definitely told me that he was in there.
Speaker 3: Never, not one time in one legal meeting, not one
Speaker 3: time with Debbie Kerns, not one time with Joe Clas.
Speaker 1: I was at a conference table, like we blocked out
Speaker 1: the windows. No one know I was there never.
Speaker 3: I can't remember one thing that he directed us to do,
Speaker 3: because the things we did we decided in our with
Speaker 3: our attorneys. And by the way, with the attorneys were
Speaker 3: never sitting at a conference table. We're sitting in my
Speaker 3: office on the sofa and chairs always.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to square this with what yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I mean he can say that, but that's he
Speaker 3: wants to insert himself as important, and I understand, and
Speaker 3: I value I valued his friendship.
Speaker 1: This was one of many issues that Harris wanted to
Speaker 1: set the record straight about. When I talked to her,
Speaker 1: and when I asked her what the biggest misconception was
Speaker 1: about her role in the two thousand election, she went
Speaker 1: to consult a notebook where she had written down specific
Speaker 1: claims that she wanted to address.
Speaker 3: There are so many misconceptions.
Speaker 1: Is this as you bring a list, No, I start now.
Speaker 3: I started writing on the way home from Disney World
Speaker 3: and taking our grandchildren. I was just wondering what would
Speaker 3: be the greatest misconception. There are so many I mean,
Speaker 3: there were so many things perpetuated, perhaps that I stopped
Speaker 3: the recounts, or that I arranged that some would be disenfranchised,
Speaker 3: you know, which was never We were always we thought,
Speaker 3: we were always bending over backwards to do more.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I'm skeptical of this framing. To my mind,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't square with all the decisions that Harris
Speaker 1: and her staff made that had the effect of limiting
Speaker 1: the scope of the recount. But I'm not here to
Speaker 1: argue with Harris. Those thirty six days were not easy
Speaker 1: for her. As you heard on Fiasco. She faced all
Speaker 1: kinds of ridicule and sexist comments from the media, not
Speaker 1: to mention death threats. She also had to make tough
Speaker 1: choices in the course of enforcing laws that were contradictory
Speaker 1: and vague. That's why I wanted to talk to her
Speaker 1: to find out what her frame of mind was during
Speaker 1: the recount that made her famous. But it wasn't that easy.
Speaker 1: As Harris warned me going into our interview, she doesn't
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time thinking about the details of
Speaker 1: the recount, and nearly twenty years later, she just doesn't
Speaker 1: remember the particulars of what happened or what she was
Speaker 1: thinking at the time. Time Still, I think it's in
Speaker 1: the spirit of this podcast to give everyone a chance
Speaker 1: to explain where they were coming from as best they can,
Speaker 1: and to make their case for Harris. Part of that
Speaker 1: case was that a show called Fiasco shouldn't even be
Speaker 1: tackling the Florida recount at all.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a fiasco, it wasn't a constitutional crisis. It
Speaker 3: was close election. And what people didn't understand typically is
Speaker 3: that Florida is not a red state. We're not a
Speaker 3: blue state. We're a purple state, and we are always
Speaker 3: going to have these close elections. And there's nothing wrong
Speaker 3: with Florida. It's pretty remarkable that rule of law prevailed
Speaker 3: and there wasn't a gunshot fired and a new president
Speaker 3: was elected. So I would say what was fiasco esque
Speaker 3: was the way the media handled it, and we're so
Speaker 3: out of control with incorrect information. We had never had
Speaker 3: this kind of situation before. They were quoting their own
Speaker 3: state laws instead of looking at Florida's laws, and Florida
Speaker 3: has unique laws. They did and understand a real critical
Speaker 3: process called the protests and the contest face and even
Speaker 3: al Gore's attorneys advised him illy wrongly from out of
Speaker 3: the state, and those state attorneys that he had were saying,
Speaker 3: don't do this like Catherine's heart. So I would not
Speaker 3: say that the election was a fiasco, because the laws
Speaker 3: were sufficient to elect a president in a peaceful manner.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I've talked to now a number of people
Speaker 1: who have told us stories about like going abroad and
Speaker 1: talking to people in different countries, especially countries where they
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily democratic, and kind of being telling them like,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, this was I'm sure it looked like
Speaker 1: a big mess from outside. We guess what. We didn't
Speaker 1: have a single you know, there's no generals marching in
Speaker 1: the street. There was no you know, there was no
Speaker 1: no coup. Right, this was a rule of law situation
Speaker 1: that got resolved through the courts.
Speaker 3: He did. In fact, the law was my only safe harbor.
Speaker 3: I said early on that I asked my husband, who
Speaker 3: had just become a citizen, what am I going to do?
Speaker 3: Just kind of rhetorical question. He said it was really simple.
Speaker 3: He was Swedish. He said, you just have to protect
Speaker 3: your staff because Secretary of State when I finished my
Speaker 3: term would become an appointed position, and I'll speak to
Speaker 3: that in a moment, but he said, you just have
Speaker 3: to protect your staff, to make sure that they're not
Speaker 3: put in positions or squandered for the future, and you
Speaker 3: have to act with the most extraordinary integrity because you
Speaker 3: have to live with yourself the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: And I think that advice served me well. People still
Speaker 3: come up to me and say thank you a weekly.
Speaker 3: I'm in airports every week, so I'm surprised by that.
Speaker 3: But I've never accepted that compliment. I just say, hey,
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything special. I just followed our laws
Speaker 3: and they were efficient. Gratefully, I don't have liberals come
Speaker 3: up and say anything mean to me, at least my face,
Speaker 3: behind my back eyes, but not to my face. And
Speaker 3: so I do appreciate that gesture or lack of gesture.
Speaker 1: You mean, the folks who are saying thank you are like,
Speaker 1: there are people who are glad that Bush became president,
Speaker 1: and they think that you are to thank for that.
Speaker 3: Well I had. I mean, I was just there, I
Speaker 3: certified the election. It was kind of a ministerial job.
Speaker 3: Just thanked me for not caving into the pressure and
Speaker 3: doing something that was contrary to the law.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like you were you and your team
Speaker 1: were Maxi's family's notwithstanding. Did you you feel like you
Speaker 1: and your team were like in the trenches.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did, and we sort of felt like we
Speaker 3: because I never could go outside. I never could leave
Speaker 3: the office. All of a sudden, I had death threats, windows
Speaker 3: were shot out, people were on my property taking pictures
Speaker 3: inside my house.
Speaker 1: Oh on, you had windows shut up?
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: I had. My State Senate window was shot. I had
Speaker 3: a guy who was a murderer and released from Brazil.
Speaker 3: He began stalking me. It just was a crazy time.
Speaker 3: FBI had credible threats, people calling before I went into
Speaker 3: my very first interview, and I'd never seen a sea
Speaker 3: of camera importers like that. I opened the door, I
Speaker 3: saw them, and then the chief of police until last
Speaker 3: he said, don't worry about that credible threat from the
Speaker 3: FBI about blowing up your house. I've got it under control.
Speaker 3: I shut the door that I said, what, So, I
Speaker 3: feel like we felt like we were in the trenches
Speaker 3: of it. Yeah. You look out the windows and you
Speaker 3: see hundreds of people and endless media trucks, and I
Speaker 3: would watch TV occasionally and see they would say things
Speaker 3: that were so outrageous, so pat land true, and I understand.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you look at politics today, it's become
Speaker 3: a roadmap discredit them intellectually, discredit them their appearance, their intellect,
Speaker 3: and then discredit their integrity. And so they were doing that,
Speaker 3: and they were acting like I was some dilettante. They said,
Speaker 3: she's the baronial Florida, She's the brahmin of the highest order,
Speaker 3: she's old money. I mean, all these.
Speaker 1: Crazy things, She's the baronial one.
Speaker 3: I can't even remember what it was, you know, just
Speaker 3: saying that I was so wealthy to be discredited anyway,
Speaker 3: It didn't matter appearance, intellect, never mind that I did
Speaker 3: my master's at Harvard double course load did it while
Speaker 3: I was in office. And then they of course attacked
Speaker 3: my integrity. So you know, none of those things are pleasant.
Speaker 3: But I was elected, I swore an oath, and I
Speaker 3: was going to do it.
Speaker 1: When did all that stuff start with what you were
Speaker 1: just describing day one or two? Day one or two.
Speaker 1: What was your reaction when you learned that there were
Speaker 1: these problems with the butterfly ballot like, I've talked to
Speaker 1: a bunch of people are like, oh, the first time
Speaker 1: I heard there was an issue, like someone called me
Speaker 1: and so they were really upset. Like do you remember
Speaker 1: how you learned there were robot calls?
Speaker 3: I knew that the Democrats had hired a big marketing
Speaker 3: firm to do these robo calls to all the people
Speaker 3: on beach, and they got really scared. We all of
Speaker 3: a sudden said, what's going on? Oh, we got a
Speaker 3: phone call that said about the butterfly ballot. So there
Speaker 3: were these calls that went out that everyone got concerned
Speaker 3: about the butterfly ballot. And I don't I could see
Speaker 3: that there could be a confusion, But you know, I
Speaker 3: wasn't there on the ground for that.
Speaker 1: Did you did you get why people were upset?
Speaker 3: Oh? You could look at the ballot and see that
Speaker 3: it was confusing. I don't know what the remedy was
Speaker 3: other than what we did right, but I could see
Speaker 3: that some people were confused. I'm sure that the phone
Speaker 3: calls and the creation of that anxiety and fanning the
Speaker 3: fire flames really high, that that stoked a lot more concern.
Speaker 3: But of course I could see that.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm asking not like, do you can you
Speaker 1: imagine yourself making the same mistake on that belot, But
Speaker 1: I'm asking like, do you get why people were sad
Speaker 1: and freaked out?
Speaker 3: If you were confused? I see why they were confused.
Speaker 3: I don't think I would have made that mistake. I
Speaker 3: don't think it was not that hard to vote for Gore.
Speaker 3: That was actually kind of simple. But if somebody wanted
Speaker 3: to be confused, or I mean not wanted to be confused,
Speaker 3: but they're getting nervous in their voting, then perhaps they were.
Speaker 3: But I think that the robocalls that went out to
Speaker 3: the voters of Pabach County really stoked it up.
Speaker 1: Do you think a lot fewer people then, like the
Speaker 1: three thousand something Buchanan votes, were actually trying to vote
Speaker 1: for Gore.
Speaker 3: I think a great number of them were certainly certainly
Speaker 3: voting for Gore. But I can't you know, I can't
Speaker 3: anticipate that, I can't judge that. But yes, I do
Speaker 3: think that there would be a number, a significant number,
Speaker 3: that would have voted for Gore. And I think there
Speaker 3: would be dens of alsands that would have voted for
Speaker 3: Bush in the Panhandle of the Media hadn't told them
Speaker 3: that al Gore had already won.
Speaker 1: So then the butterfly ballot thing was entirely separate, right
Speaker 1: from the undervote over vote problem that the Gore team
Speaker 1: was pointing to in Miami Dade, Broward, Volusia, and Palm Beach. Right,
Speaker 1: that's correct, they were like connected, but they weren't actually connected.
Speaker 3: That they weren't. They were not one and the same.
Speaker 3: They were two separate issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they kind of became one story in the media, right,
Speaker 1: or at least, like, I don't know, I I'll be
Speaker 1: promly honest with you when I started, Before I started
Speaker 1: working on this, I didn't realize the butterfly ballot was
Speaker 1: not really part of the legal maneuver like legal fight.
Speaker 3: No, the butterfly ballot was only registered for Palm Beach
Speaker 3: County because that was only created in that county, right, And.
Speaker 1: So basically the problem the problem is, I understand it
Speaker 1: was that in each each of these four counties, there
Speaker 1: were ballots that the machine hadn't where the machine hadn't
Speaker 1: registered to vote, right, So it was either an undervote
Speaker 1: where it seemed like no, like the person hadn't voted
Speaker 1: for president at all, or it was an over vote
Speaker 1: where they seemed to have voted for two presidential candidates,
Speaker 1: and that there were like significant numbers of these these ballots,
Speaker 1: like tens of thousands of ballots, and those are the
Speaker 1: ones that I gather, like the Gore people were trying
Speaker 1: to get counted by hand. Was any part of you like, man,
Speaker 1: would be really great if we could count those votes.
Speaker 3: I petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to count them very
Speaker 3: first week of the recount, I mean of the election.
Speaker 3: We petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for a manual recount statewide. Therefore,
Speaker 3: you'd have equal protection under the law and uniform standards.
Speaker 1: God, why haven't I read about that anywhere?
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's kind of annoying, isn't it. I'll
Speaker 3: get you the information.
Speaker 1: And why do you want to do? Why did you
Speaker 1: want that?
Speaker 3: Because it would be a way too for everyone to
Speaker 3: feel good that every vote was counted correctly by a
Speaker 3: uniform standard and no one got special treatment, and we
Speaker 3: knew the results we wanted. We wanted who the people
Speaker 3: of Florida elected to be the person that was the victor.
Speaker 1: Now I need to step in for a second here,
Speaker 1: because this is important and it's something Katherin Harris really
Speaker 1: pressed with me that the Secretary of State's office petitioned
Speaker 1: the Florida Supreme Court to order a state wide hand
Speaker 1: recount a week after the election, and that the Florida
Speaker 1: Supreme Court turned the petition down. As far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, this just isn't true. While the Secretary of
Speaker 1: State's office did submit a petition with the Florida Supreme
Speaker 1: Court on November fifteenth, the petition was not asking for
Speaker 1: a statewide manual recount. It was asking for the Court
Speaker 1: to take control of all the election related litigation that
Speaker 1: was flying around the state, including the recounts that were
Speaker 1: already under way and the counties where Gore had asked
Speaker 1: for them. The petition calls on the Court to make
Speaker 1: clear that quote, the election of the president and vice
Speaker 1: president is not a matter of local pleasure. It is
Speaker 1: at least a statewide matter of concern. This Court must
Speaker 1: assume control over this litigation to preserve its ability to
Speaker 1: establish standards and to protect the voters of the state.
Speaker 1: But it does not request a statewide manual recount. As
Speaker 1: Harris told me, all right back to the interview, and
Speaker 1: you were. I mean, you were obviously you were against
Speaker 1: the extension of the deadline. They moved the deadline all
Speaker 1: the way from the fourteenth to the twenty sixth, right.
Speaker 3: Right, I remember if I voiced an opinion on that
Speaker 3: or not. I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, you guys argued in court against it.
Speaker 3: I didn't. I never went to any of the judiciary issues.
Speaker 3: I felt I was so politically charged. I didn't want
Speaker 3: to bring anything to the table.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it's I'm saying anything controversial by
Speaker 1: saying that you wanted to certify the election, and you
Speaker 1: thought you're supposed to certify it on the fourteenth.
Speaker 3: Well, and then the Supreme Court said no, no, you're
Speaker 3: gonna have to wait till the twenty sixth. I mean,
Speaker 3: if that's what I have to do, that's what you
Speaker 3: have to do. You what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: Well, you appeal it, which.
Speaker 3: You guys did, which we did, and we didn't win.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious, like, so, why'd you peel it?
Speaker 3: I can't answer you that we are going back and
Speaker 3: asking me what the legal quest was, and I absolutely
Speaker 3: have no recall.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking you the legal question like I'm asking, like,
Speaker 1: why was it bad to give a little more time
Speaker 1: to people for those kinds account of votes.
Speaker 3: I don't remember the legal reasons.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking the legal reasons.
Speaker 3: I don't know then, but I don't remember why.
Speaker 1: You don't remember why you thought it was preferable to
Speaker 1: have the vost counted up early.
Speaker 3: I really, I'm not going to venture a guess on
Speaker 3: what I thought then because I can't remember. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was in the midst of all the legalities. I
Speaker 3: was in the midst of all of the laws and
Speaker 3: indivisional elections, and so there must have been grounds that
Speaker 3: we felt that that wasn't correct, But I can't recall those,
Speaker 3: so I don't I'm not going to even try.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you just to I mean, I know
Speaker 1: you said you don't want to like talk about how
Speaker 1: you felt it or anything, but yeah, can you tell me,
Speaker 1: like how you felt at the end.
Speaker 3: Oh, let's see. Well, I remember my family came down
Speaker 3: from Georgia back with me. I just said, do you
Speaker 3: guys want to go back to tellhow Se'm for the certification?
Speaker 3: And they did. My sister had three year old twins,
Speaker 3: and I remember asking them in my office. What do
Speaker 3: you think I should say to them? And the little
Speaker 3: one of the little three year olds said, just tell.
Speaker 1: Them thank you, say thank you to whom.
Speaker 3: He's the three year old to the audience.
Speaker 1: What audience.
Speaker 3: So the certification occurred in the cabinet room. So there
Speaker 3: were three of us on the certification, the head of
Speaker 3: the Division of Elections, Clay Roberts, Bob Crawford, the ad commissioner,
Speaker 3: and I, and our role was to add up the
Speaker 3: votes of sixty seven counties and announce it. So I
Speaker 3: announced it, I said thank you, and we left and
Speaker 3: I flew home. I flew home that night. It was
Speaker 3: a my husband's best friend's wife's birthday, and I had
Speaker 3: a pilot with me, but I flew on instruments and
Speaker 3: I said, gosh, you got to get thirty thousand feet
Speaker 3: up because your feedback on the ground, because you know,
Speaker 3: you could only focus on flying. You couldn't think about
Speaker 3: anything else. So that's what I did that night.
Speaker 1: It was your role, like over after you certified.
Speaker 3: And it's not that we weren't highly engaged after the
Speaker 3: for the Supreme Court issues. It's just that I didn't
Speaker 3: go there. And I mean they were calling back. We
Speaker 3: were talking about things, but it didn't feel the same
Speaker 3: as as previously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who do you think on in Florida?
Speaker 3: I'm sure George Bush. Too many things could have gone differently.
Speaker 3: We just know that indivision of elections. We felt that
Speaker 3: we followed the law exactly and that's all we could do.
Speaker 3: We didn't know who it would help and who it
Speaker 3: would not help. We would hear sometimes that the Bush
Speaker 3: camp wasn't happy, but we never heard that they were.
Speaker 1: But you got a lot more bouquets from Republican voters
Speaker 1: then you got anger from the Bush campaign.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I mean, I don't. I mean it was
Speaker 3: I just heard that a few times. One time I
Speaker 3: heard I would never get to run for politics again
Speaker 3: and be elected.
Speaker 1: But but didn you say that you get thank yous
Speaker 1: from Republican voters?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: I do, So how does that make you feel?
Speaker 3: It's odd that they still recognize me, because I don't
Speaker 3: think I look the same. I'm way older. And it's
Speaker 3: it's odd that that that's kind of a flashpoint for
Speaker 3: people and that they feel gratitude because all I did
Speaker 3: was follow the law and I say that and they're like, well,
Speaker 3: thank you for following the law because other people would cave.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what caving men. I don't know
Speaker 3: what everybody's opinion was. But they felt that I had
Speaker 3: followed the law and that the results were good. And
Speaker 3: I don't know if they felt that someone didn't follow
Speaker 3: the law that there would have been a contrary result.
Speaker 3: I can't. I don't know why they say it, but
Speaker 3: it's it is odd that you know that people were
Speaker 3: pretty gracious about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, would it like, would it like be like
Speaker 1: would it like embarrass you to know that like Republican
Speaker 1: voters like think I feel like they have you to
Speaker 1: thank for Bush's presidency.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wouldn't like that. And I've never accepted the compliment,
Speaker 3: not one time, not one moment in my life. I say, oh,
Speaker 3: you can't thank me. All I did was follow the
Speaker 3: law the results or that the results are what you saw.
Speaker 3: I've always uh said that without exception.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the decision that you wish you could get
Speaker 1: a duo over on? From there? We hunt?
Speaker 3: Thank you? That's a really good question. I would say
Speaker 3: that because my husband gave me the greatest advice, and
Speaker 3: I just act with integrity. You have to live with
Speaker 3: yourself the rest of your life. I am so grateful
Speaker 3: for that because I don't have one single solitary regret.
Speaker 3: I had no idea the consequence of my actions and
Speaker 3: following the law every time. Like I said, there's some
Speaker 3: things I didn't want to do at all. I had
Speaker 3: no idea to whose benefit it would a crewe. I
Speaker 3: just know I had had to follow the law. I
Speaker 3: had no idea who was going to benefit. So that
Speaker 3: I'm very grateful for and I can live with myself.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I couldn't do it over. I mean, and
Speaker 3: if I could do it over, many people say, boy,
Speaker 3: if you could wave a wand and it never had
Speaker 3: to happen to you, would you do it? And you know,
Speaker 3: it's not the hallmark of my greatest and most fun
Speaker 3: times by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm so
Speaker 3: grateful and all the world that kind of it fell
Speaker 3: on me. And I'm grateful that I had a chance
Speaker 3: to be honorable in my actions. And so if someone
Speaker 3: could waive a match, you wine take it away, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't let them.
Speaker 1: Why are you grateful for it?
Speaker 3: I'm just grateful that I was, you know, in a
Speaker 3: spiritual sense, because I'm Christian. You know that maybe in
Speaker 3: all the earth thought I got chosen to handle that.
Speaker 3: I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I feel like I was
Speaker 3: found worthy. There would be those who would disagree, and
Speaker 3: they're entitled to their opinion, but I don't know what
Speaker 3: I could have done differently in terms of following the law.
Speaker 1: Yep, I think that's everything. I think we got it great.
Speaker 3: I thought you know, I told you and you pushed me.
Speaker 3: I told you I didn't remember these catchy feeling feeling stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't remember.
Speaker 1: It's all right. That was Catherine Harris, Florida Secretary of
Speaker 1: State during the two thousand recount. And that's it for
Speaker 1: this bonus episode. Fiasco Bush v. Gore is produced by
Speaker 1: Prologue and distributed by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced
Speaker 1: by Madelin kaplan Ulla Culpa, Andrew Parsons and me Leon Nafak.
Speaker 1: We had additional editorial support from Lisa Chase and Daniel Riley.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.