Jack-Loafered Thugs?

Observers of the Miami-Dade hand recount tell their stories.

Michael W. Lynch | December 1, 2000

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Yes. And that's another thing: you had to watch which piles they put the ballots in. We saw Bush ballots being put in Gore piles. So you had to watch very, very carefully a number of things.

What types of things would make you want to challenge a ballot? They say it's obvious. It's either a vote for Gore or a vote for Bush. What's the big deal?

In Florida, you're not allowed to have a marked ballot. Nothing can be on there. Sometimes there was writing on there. Sometimes there was more than one punch. In the cases of a lot of extra punches, the board decided, Judge King said, any odd number does not count. The ballots had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and so fourth. The candidates were listed under the even numbers, four, six, eight ten, and twelve. Bush was four, Gore was eight, Nader was ten, Browne was twelve, and so on. If we saw a six and a seven, you could argue under normal circumstances that could be thrown out because it's more than one hole punched. They made the rule that no, odd numbers don't count, because there were no candidates there. There were a number of things. I had one that looked like someone took a letter opener and did it, not the machine.

What about actual tampering in the counting process, bending ballots, etc.?

Many of us filled out affidavits that county workers were counting ballots like a deck of cards, touching with their thumb and finger the presidential column (which they weren't supposed to do because that could remove the chads), bending the card like a U, dropping them on the floor, really just mishandling these things. And they are very, very delicate. I just read in the newspaper the other day that the owner of the company that makes the chads says they are not meant to be touched by hand, only by machine. We had one observer fill out an affidavit that said he saw one worker fanning herself with a ballot. So it was ludicrous.

What this is about - whether you like Bush or not, it's about stopping the theft of an election. It's a coup in process, so it's a matter of principle.

How's it a theft? They are just counting the ballots.

They are stealing the ballots through all these things I am talking about. But they also separated what they call the undercounts from the other ballots. There were 10,000 with no preference for president. The three-member canvassing board, on which there was no Republicans, were going through and examining those and making a determination: no vote, Gore, or Bush. And for the most part, Gore was picking up in every precinct two to five votes. Those ballots were put in sealed white envelopes, which we called "magic envelopes."

We would be sitting and observing, and someone would walk over and deliver a sealed envelope, on the outside of which was written a series of numbers, let's say 4-0; 6-2; 10 no vote. What that meant was no votes for Bush, two votes for Gore and 10 were indeed undervotes. We were not allowed to open those envelopes, even though we were observers. The county counters weren't allowed to open those envelopes. They were sealed and we had to use the tally on the front, on which this board, on which there were no Republicans, came up with. And we had to take their word.

There were three Democrats on the board?

The chairman was a Democrat, Lawrence King. They said the other two had no party preference.

Did you feel like you were outnumbered at the counting tables?

There were many times we felt it was three to one. Now I have to admit that a couple of times I got great county workers. They were a couple of ladies just trying to do their jobs. Keep in mind that these were all not election workers. Any county worker who wanted to volunteer could help count. At one point, they even pulled guys in from cutting the grass because they didn't have enough, so some didn't want to be there. So they might have given us some attitude back or just wanted to be done with it quickly and they would get upset when we slowed it up by issuing challenges. It was very surreal working in a room with poor lighting, trying to concentrate on this very tedious job, watching one of your fellow observers being berated at the front of the room, all the while trying to figure out if that was a mistake when the county worker put the Bush vote in the Gore pile or if they did it on purpose.

The "19th Floor Patriot"

How did we get to a point where a bunch of people in Oxford shirts were chanting and acting like leftists?