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Sunday Morning News

The Florida Recount: Palm Beach County Prepares to Start Over

Aired November 12, 2000 - 9:00 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And it is getting as though folks will be afraid to go to sleep at night, because it seems like all the big developments happen while we are asleep.

For the latest, let's bring in my partner, Bill Hemmer, who is standing by in Tallahassee. Bill, fill folks in on what was happening when they were sleeping.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I tell you what, Daryn, a lot of fireworks after a lot of folks, especially on the East Coast, had gone to bed last night.

Good morning to you again, Sunday morning now, day five in the race for the White House after the American people went to the polling booths this past Tuesday.

It is Sunday, that means Sunday talk shows. And the leading surrogates for both the Bush and Gore campaigns will be out today and throughout the morning to give the very latest on what's happening from their different perspectives.

Now, it is said through Doug Hattaway, the Gore -- from the Gore campaign that there have been no high-level talks between the two camps since last Friday, when James Baker and Warren Christopher met briefly here in Tallahassee. It is also said that even midlevel talks have not taken place between the two campaigns.

Why is that critical? Simply because there is thought that in between the two campaigns, they may be able to work something out between the two of them. However, Doug Hattaway insists that the Republicans, if they drop their current lawsuit and allow the hand count to continue, that the Friday deadline, next Friday the 17th, would be met.

However, day by day and hour by hour, increasingly it looks like that deadline may come and go without a satisfactory answer in the race for the White House.

You mention Palm Beach. Late last night it was the early morning hours on Sunday morning when Carol Roberts of the canvassing commission came out and did announce that, indeed, Palm Beach County would recount everything by hand, starting Monday morning.

Here's Carol Roberts from late last night. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL ROBERTS, PALM BEACH COUNTY COMMISSIONER: I am saying -- I will repeat this...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

ROBERTS: ... that I believe that, based on the findings we found this evening that could affect the election, that we should have a manual recount.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Chair, I was cut off. May I just (inaudible)...

ROBERTS: No, I'd like to get this...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, (inaudible), she's calling the vote...

ROBERTS: ... vote.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and we ought to call the vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Again, Carol Roberts, canvassing commission, late last night in West Palm Beach.

Now, the morning after, here's the latest live with CNN's John Zarrella this morning. John, good morning again to you.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Bill.

Well, the latest here is, I hope that they're all in bed sleeping. They had a long night into those wee early morning hours, 4:00 a.m. in the morning, before all was said and done here, and they did make that decision to go ahead and recount all of the ballots in Palm Beach County.

Now, one gentleman who has been covering this from ground zero here since the very beginning, since the election, since the initial fallout the day after, is George Bennett. And George is with "The Palm Beach Post," reporter.

And George, I guess one thing that we keep hearing is that the vice president picked up 19 votes, a net difference in the hand recount of the four precincts, which were precincts that were hand- picked by the Democrats as well. And they're extrapolating this out, well, that would mean he'd get 1,900 if you recount the entire county. Now, that -- does that wash?

GEORGE BENNETT, "THE PALM BEACH POST": No, it probably doesn't. The Democrats -- in Florida law, the challenging party in a recount gets to choose the precincts, so they picked three very strong Democratic precincts, and precincts that also had a lot of ballots that hadn't been counted by the machine and that they suspected would go for Gore. So that -- the 19 votes probably wouldn't extrapolate out.

ZARRELLA: But because it's so close...

BENNETT: Sure, it...

ZARRELLA: ... there might be enough out there, if you recounted all of them by hand, if you could get that accomplished...

BENNETT: No question. Now, you know, and it took them 10 hours to do 1 percent last night, so it's a long time to count all the ballots in the country.

ZARRELLA: Going to federal court, in Miami, 9:30 tomorrow morning, a judge, Donald Middlebrooks, who's from the Palm Beach area, a resident here, you know a little bit about him. He's probably not the ideal pick for the Republicans?

BENNETT: He probably wouldn't have been their first choice if they were judge-shopping. He's a Democrat, and also, when they sought the injunction on Saturday, he didn't issue an immediate injunction, so he's, you know, at least skeptical to the idea of stopping the recount.

ZARRELLA: So clearly he wants to hear the arguments and then who knows whether he would issue an immediate ruling or not?

BENNETT: Right, yes, no telling.

ZARRELLA: There's no way to gauge what a fed -- what's on a federal judge's mind, that's for sure.

BENNETT: Right, I wouldn't want to try.

ZARRELLA: Now, you know, one of the things we're hearing a lot, and you've been here, you know the pulse of the people, one thing we've heard a lot from people that have come up to us as saying, Hey, look, this is not about the vice president, this is not about George Bush, this is about democracy and our rights to have our voices heard, the disenfranchised, so to speak.

BENNETT: Right.

ZARRELLA: You know, they say it's not partisan, but, you know, clearly there is some partisanship there. But are you hearing that sentiment?

BENNETT: Well, yes, it's definitely partisan, and I think what's interesting is all week, the Gore campaign was kind of pursuing this litigation strategy, laying the groundwork to go to court, and the Republicans were criticizing them for that, and now it's the Republicans that are in court on Monday, and the Democrats that are saying, you know, Let's let the process run its course and not to go court. So it's completely switched around.

ZARRELLA: George, thanks so much for getting up here on a Sunday morning and spending some time with us. So clearly, a lot to be determined yet in a very short order of time, in the next 24 hours here in Florida, particularly in south Florida, a lot of movement will be taking place in the courts and here in Palm Beach County and in other parts of the state as well -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you, CNN's John Zarrella, watching things for us at the -- well, I guess it's the political epicenter of the world at the moment, Palm Beach County, of all places.

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