Florida absentee ballot case could help Gore

For Gore, who has adopted the cry of "count every vote," the lawsuit presents a dilemma. While it offers great potential benefit, it runs contrary to the core argument in his challenge of Texas Gov. George W Bush’s certified election win in Florida — that thousands of valid votes were not counted.

"Al Gore’s approach is to get the votes counted," Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway said, adding the Gore team decided not to add the Seminole case to its election challenge because "we thought it smart to keep it focused so we could move it quickly."

But the Vice-President’s challenge to Florida’s certification of Bush’s 537-vote win was summarily rejected by Leon County Circuit Judge N Sanders Sauls on Monday, only hours after the US Supreme Court sent back to the Florida Supreme Court for clarification a ruling extending the state certification deadline so hand recounting of votes could be tallied.

Gore, who like Bush, needs Florida’s 25 electoral votes to win the presidency, immediately appealed Sauls’ decision to the Florida Supreme Court.

The trial of the Seminole lawsuit will start at 8:30 am on Wednesday before Leon County Circuit Judge Nikki Clark. She held a hearing on Tuesday on pretrial motions, and rejected Republicans’ request to dismiss the case.

Bush’s attorneys said the law does not allow Clark to invalidate the ballots. "It is much ado about nothing," said Bush attorney George Terwilliger. "It was an inconsequential mistake that made no difference. There is absolutely no reason to believe these are not valid votes."

The lawsuit alleges the county’s Republican supervisor of elections, Sandra Goard, let two Republicans operate out of her office to modify several thousand applications for absentee ballots to add missing voter identification numbers.

In doing so, the lawsuit says, the Republicans "fraudulently caused the issuance of several thousand invalid absentee ballots" that were later cast in Seminole County, which is in central Florida on the Atlantic coast.

The Republican said the lawsuit turns on a "hypertechnical issue unrelated to the ballots themselves" and that throwing out all of the county’s absentee ballots was far too drastic.

Clark last week rejected a Republican motion to have the Seminole case added to Gore’s election challenge, and quickly denied a Republican request that she excuse herself from the case because she was passed over for an appellate post by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of George W Bush, and could not be objective.

The Seminole case is only one of several absentee ballot cases that could swing the election if they were successful. A similar Martin County case, which will also be tried on Wednesday in Leon County, could add more than 2,000 votes to Gore’s tally, and other lawsuits have challenged the state’s absentee forms and military absentee ballots.

Gerald Richman, who represents the Democrat who brought the lawsuit, is pushing for a quick resolution of the case before the date for Florida to certify its presidential electors.

"We are under an obligation to get this case tried and over with by December 12," Richman said.

Before taking a break in the hearing Tuesday, Clark granted a Republican request and said she would allow limited evidence from the heads of other county canvassing boards about practices in other counties.