In Fla. County, It’s a Circus Outside, a Matter of ‘Chads’ Inside

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —  Inside a small county election office, history was made Saturday--one ballot at a time. A hand count of about 4,600 ballots that would help determine who sits in the White House in January was solemn, unprecedented and painstakingly slow.

But outside a raucous circus was in full swing.

“Revote or revolt!” shouted one man with a megaphone who circled a shifting knot of about 100 demonstrators who turned the corner of Olive and 3rd Street, just outside the Palm Beach County government complex, into an impromptu speakers’ corner. Partisans of Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush at times debated the intricacies of tax plans and at times hurled insults like daggers.

“Florida--Don’t get Bushwhacked,” proclaimed one sign.

“Hey, you know what Democrats in Palm Beach need? Eye exams!” said another.

The recount was prompted by confusion of the “butterfly” ballot, used only here in Florida, which many voters complained was so confusing that they ended up voting for the wrong candidate. Paul and Anne Levine said that may have happened to them.

“I wanted to vote for Gore,” said Levine, 58. “But when I got home I wasn’t sure what I had done.”

Added Anne Levine, 55: “Everybody in our area is doubting their votes now. And one of the kids sent me an e-mail which said, ‘Flori-duh!’ ”

Fittingly, the most watched--and perhaps the most critical--recount in U.S. voting history was being carried out in a ground-floor office entirely visible to a swarming mob of news media that viewed the proceedings through large windows that opened onto an interior courtyard in the county’s downtown government center.

On live television, the nation, indeed the world, watched as the county’s three-member election canvassing committee held up high-tech computer cards to subject them to a decidedly low-tech “sunshine test”: If light gleamed through a pinhole, a vote had been cast.

With lawyers representing the local Democratic and Republican parties peering over their shoulders--and occasionally squabbling over what they saw--the committee judged a 1% sample of more than 461,000 ballots cast here Tuesday.

A Solemn Process and a Parade Too

The committee appeared to be carrying out its deliberations with a sober orderliness, almost able to ignore the television lights, the cameras tapping the windows and the sounds of a wild street carnival that blew in through the doors.

As has been said often since Tuesday’s election ended without a clear winner, democracy is not always pretty or even efficient. But at least here, it is colorful.

The day began with a parade. Even as hand-picked poll workers arrived to begin their extraordinary duties, bulb-nosed clowns, pixie baton twirlers in turquoise leotards and high school marching bands assembled for the city’s annual Veterans Day Parade.

Standing off to the side, casually leaning against a 1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air convertible was the grand marshal, former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.

“Today is the day of sanity to respond to the insanity of the last week,” said Haig, who now lives in the tony seaside enclave of Palm Beach, referring to the day given to honoring veterans.

Republican Haig scoffed at the Democrats’ lawsuits and request for a manual recount of the votes in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Volusia counties. “That’s looking to substitute somebody else’s brain to replace what went on inside the brain of some voters.”

For some people, the lure of a hungry international press corps, and scores of television cameras, was too much to resist. Miami activist Bob Kunst, who made a name for--if not a nuisance of--himself back in 1976 opposing Florida orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant’s denunciations of gays, passed out anti-Bush bumper stickers.

Nearby, a small dog on a leash wore a Gore-Lieberman T-shirt. Two people in Santa Claus suits turned up, and when the cameras turned their way, they produced signs saying, “Happy holidays from West Palm Beach.”

Even those present in official positions had colorful pasts. Bruce Rogow and Bob Montgomery, attorneys hired to defend the election board against any legal challenges to the recount, are well known for high-profile clients.

Rogow, a constitutional scholar, successfully defended the Miami rap group 2 Live Crew in a 1990 obscenity trial. Montgomery two years ago led a team that won a judgment for Florida smokers worth $30 billion.

Theresa LePore, the beleaguered supervisor of elections, hired as her spokesman Bob Nichols, a retired television anchorman here for 30 years who drew complaints from some reporters for refusing to reveal his political affiliation.

Observers Arrive for Volusia Recount

In Daytona Beach, 200 miles to the north, where another recount was scheduled to start today, hundreds of people gathered outside the Volusia County administration building to see the arrival of designated “observers”--the Democrats identified with yellow tags hanging around their necks and the Republicans with blue ones.

Dozens of GOP stalwarts milled around the courtyard of the administration building, waving Bush-Cheney campaign signs and chanting slogans as if the election had not yet taken place.

“Bush! Bush! Bush!” the crowd roared. “No more Gore!”

“I’ve never done anything like this in my life,” said James Mackey, a Volusia County Republican. “I just can’t believe this. It’s got me really fired up.” Fellow Republican Christopher Cutillo, accompanied by his wife and their 11-month-old daughter, said Gore should “do what’s right for the country” and concede defeat. “It’s over.”

At one point, a single Democratic supporter holding a Gore-Lieberman sign above his head stood and faced the Republican crowd. The man, a retiree dressed in a red shirt with blue suspenders, was silent at first. But then several Republicans approached and began shouting at him.

“The winner wins, baby!” screamed one woman, dressed all in black, wearing high heels and toting a Louis Vuitton purse.

In West Palm Beach, the day began when the canvassing board--a county judge, a county commissioner and LePore, the election supervisor who approved the controversial ballot--outlined guidelines of the recount sought by the Bush/Cheney campaign and the Democratic Party of Florida.

The Bush camp wanted a machine recount of the nearly 462,000 votes cast for president in Palm Beach County. The Democrats wanted--and received--a hand count of three precincts, and they picked retiree-rich precincts in west Delray Beach and west Boca Raton that had higher percentages of ballots cast with no apparent vote for president.

In those three precincts, between 10% and 15% of voters failed to cast a ballot for president.

Officials added a fourth precinct to the hand count to sample 1% of the overall vote--that’s the sample size required by law to determine whether a countywide recount is warranted. Early this morning, officials voted to authorize a countywide manual recount.

Hours earlier, on Saturday, LePore said she had taken the unusual step of researching the party affiliations of her workers who would hand-count the ballots. “That’s not something that I would ordinarily know,” she said. The breakdown: 10 Republicans, eight Democrats and five workers who had no party affiliation. LePore said her workers would be grouped in teams with a Democrat always paired with a Republican to achieve a balance.

“We all realize that Palm Beach County voters could decide this election,” said Florida state Sen. Ron Klein, who showed up with a delegation of other Democratic lawmakers, “so it’s important that we do this with legitimacy and legality.”

But as the day wore on, just how these recounts were to be conducted seemed to grow even more confused.

After 29 counters and observers had labored four hours to judge the validity of some 400 Palm Beach County ballots, county attorney Leon St. John emerged to announce that the “hanging chad” policy had been changed, and that the “sunshine test” would be scrapped.

Instead of looking for the light through pinholes, the canvassing panel would deem a vote had been cast if the chad--the dot of paper to be punched out--was hanging on by only one of its four points of attachment. That test was termed “the three-corner rule.”

So, how long would the recount now take? Nichols was asked.

“I wish I could tell you, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re all going home in the next hour to have a nice dinner,’ ” he replied. “But that’s not going to happen.”

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Times staff writer Scott Glover in Daytona Beach, Fla., contributed to this story.