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Breaking News

Election 2000: Bush Campaign Attorney Denounces Recount in Palm Beach County

Aired November 15, 2000 - 10:37 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: This is live breaking news. Right now, we want to hear somebody from the Bush campaign. This is Tucker Eskew, speaking on behalf of the Bush campaign.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

TUCKER ESKEW, BUSH CAMPAIGN SPOKESMAN: I'll turn it over to Mark Wallace, our counsel -- Mark.

MARK WALLACE, BUSH CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: The state supervisor of elections has read Florida law and concluded that the vote tally of Palm Beach County need be accurate. The most accurate results will be a machine tabulation of these ballots.

The whole purpose of Florida law is to ensure accurate, not subjective, and nonpartisan tabulation of votes. Only in the extraordinary circumstances where there is systemic machine error does Florida law allow a manual recount. That did not happen here. The Canvassing Board has said repeatedly that there has been no machine error.

The secretary of state's office has done the appropriate thing and put it before the supreme court and asked them and said: Let's stop this. Let's take a deep breath. Let's ensure an accurate result.

The Canvassing Board saw fit to do the right important thing and stopped this manual recount in the interim until that issue is decided.

Thank you very much.

KAGAN: Those were quick comments from some Republicans, representing the Bush campaign in Palm Beach County talking about they don't think that there should be a manual recount of votes in that county. Also talking about the recent actions of the canvassing board, they had voted 2-1 to go ahead with that manual recount.

That of course is on hold on two matters. One there is a hearing going on right now in West Palm Beach, talking about what kind of votes, what of ballots are supposed to be counted. And then there was a matter that we are talking about.

And let's bring in our Roger Cossack once again.

Roger, the secretary of state handing out yet another motion before the supreme court, sending the message down to West Palm Beach, saying: Just hold on you guys, I told what I am pushing for, is everything needs to come out of the state supreme court. Is this unusual?

ROGER COSSACK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: And there is also this argument that we just heard these two gentlemen say, which is they're say: Look, Florida law says that the only way you get to a hand count is if you can prove that the prior count was inaccurate. Well, what they're saying.

KAGAN: Well, if there was a machine problem they're saying.

COSSACK: That is right, a machine problem. They are saying: Look, you can't prove that there was a machine problem here. The machine functioned just properly. If the ballots were messed up, perhaps they didn't get counted, or perhaps they were set aside. But the machines worked just fine, and the secretary of state is saying, therefore, there really is no reason to have a hand count.

Now, you know, the problem with all of this is that the obvious problem. You know, you have law, which naively you would like to think at least is enforced in a pure way, in which politics do not play a part. But, obviously, the layer of politics is being laid over the law in this situation and you know you end up with Republicans coming out and telling you the law is one thing and Democrats coming out and telling you the law is something else. And then pointing to the fact that judges were appointed by Democrats or appointed by Republicans. It makes it a very, very difficult things because we are talking about the presidency of the United States.

KAGAN: That we are. What is interesting also is how we are talking about so many different layers of the law, federal versus state, versus, as we heard the chair of that board say, you know what, we are just a local election board trying to do the best that we can.

COSSACK: And you see what the Bush camp is doing, and correctly so, as an observer of the law, is it is a two-pronged attack. We just Bob Franken down in Atlanta trying to -- talking about fact that they're going to have an argument before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the hand count. Well, they are also having this same thing happening in front of the Florida state courts. So they're aggressively going forward on these, on the same issue of trying to stop these hand counts in both jurisdictions in federal and in state.

Now, most likely, I would suppose they're going to be successful in the federal courts. But they seem to be at least on a path that, at least temporarily at least, seems to slow down, if not stop, the hand count in Florida.

KAGAN: Well they have stopped it for now. Roger Cossack, we'll see you later on on "BURDEN OF PROOF."

COSSACK: OK. KAGAN: Thanks for joining us.

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