America comes unstuck in ballot for ballot warfare

For almost 10 days, most Americans saw the post-electoral jostling as the stuff of democracy. Now the mood is beginning to change. The U.S Presidentialrace has gotten really ugly. So nasty that Democrats and Republicans have descended into a dangerous brawl over the most sacred of American institutions — its armed forces.

As Texas Governor George Bush bumped up his Florida lead to almost 1000 votes with the counting of overseas ballots on Friday, Republicans alleged that the Democrats have conspired to reject thousands of votes from America’s military personnel posted abroad. They say a majority of the ballots would have favoured Bush.

“The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,” Republican lawyer Jim Post said provocatively, as the mood across America darkened and the electoral row spiralled down into a welter of even more complicated lawsuits and legalities.

Indeed, more than 1,000 overseas ballots were rejected across Florida, including 117 out of 147 in Orange County, but authorities said many of them did not have postmarks. Republicans though complained of a “coordinated Democratic effort” to reject the ballots and threatened more lawsuits challenging the count.

The Democrats meantime exulted over two court rulings — one staying the Florida Secretary of State from certifying the results accrued from counting the overseas ballots by the Saturday noon deadline and another rejecting the Bush camp’s plea to stop hand counts. The result: No final results by the Saturday deadline; and hand counts proceed. The Florida Supreme Court will hear arguments from both sides on Monday about the validity of the hand counts.

If the court rules in favor of the hand count — as it is likely to, given that six of its seven judges are said to be Democratic appointees — the big question is: can the hand count eke out the 1000-plus votes Gore needs to beat Bush in Florida, take its 25 electoral votes, and claim the Presidency?

That’s where it boils down to the “chad— warfare down in the counting trenches. Three counties are recounting by hand some million plus ballots amid unprecedented tension and bickering. Every vote and every chad is being bitterly contested and it now looks as if it will take at least a week, possibly more, to finish counting. And it may still count for nothing if there are more lawsuits.

Lawyers from both sides — and hundreds have descended on Florida from all over the country — are locking up the process in what could turn out to be aninextricable tangle of court cases. “It has been the most frustrating thing…Every time someone coughs or sneezes, someone files a lawsuit,” one counting official said.

In one county, for instance, a court heard a Democrat petition over the correct standard for chad assessment, and another on a Republican “emergency” request to halt the counting entirely.

After the court ruled for a more liberal and expansive criteria in its manual recount that would include “pregnant and dimpled chads”, the Republicans cried foul. They plan to challenge the ruling in a higher court.They are also arguing that if an expansive criteria could be used to count dimpled ballots, the same liberal rules should apply for overseas ballots without postmarks.

The Democrats in turn are producing “case law” (precedence) to show that counting in other states in other elections had included determining “voterintent”.

Throughout Friday there were a flurry of court decisions, strategy sessions and press conferences as news and leads flowed back and forth like a tennisgame rally. Shouts, screams and sighs alternated with the ebb and flow of good and bad news in both camps.

On television across the country, talking heads — lawyers, academics and even ordinary people — screamed themselves hoarse in an unending gabfest.Pharmacies were likely selling analgesics and antacids in record quantities to temper commentaries ranging from the feverish to the bilious.

I hear America singing, Whitman wrote. Well-wishers will be hoping they will not hear Americans swinging — at each other. The post-election wrangling is now turning spiteful.

Major developments in the past 24 hours
*Florida Supreme Court bars naming a winner
*An Appeals Court refuses Republican request to stop hand counts
*George Bush increases his lead from 300 to around 1000 with overseas ballots
*Republicans complain armed forces are being disenfranchised
*A County Circuit court hears arguments over whether there could be a new election in Palm Beach County
*County judge leaves counting of dimpled chads to discretion of county officials; verbal brawls ensue in counting booths between Republicans and Democrats