Word: recounter
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...With George W. Bush possibly sustaining a lead of fewer than 400 votes after last week's statewide recount, the outcome in Florida, and thus the nation, has shifted to the most low-tech of fronts. Everything hinges on the absentee votes still drifting in from abroad, which are not expected to be fully counted until this Friday. Even more important, because they could easily reverse Bush's narrow lead, are the manual recounts that have been approved by local electoral commissions in Palm Beach, Broward and Volusia counties...
...supposed to meet this week to consider a Democratic request for a hand count there as well. But on Saturday, as the tedious process was beginning elsewhere, the Bush campaign asked a federal judge in South Florida to disqualify manual counts anywhere in the state and certify the recount already completed. Democrats quickly put out word that Bush had liked hand counts in Texas. Three years ago, he signed a law recommending them to settle disputed votes...
...mystery, then all of Florida would be vacuumed for clues. Questions mounted: When poll workers turned away people with the explanation that there were not enough ballots, when they illegally asked seniors for a Social Security number, was it an innocent mistake or deliberate obstruction? Meanwhile, a statewide recount of the Florida vote was already assured, triggered by a law that requires one for any election in which the winning margin is under one-half of 1 percent of the vote...
...ballots in a place that gave Gore 68 percent of the vote. In counties in which ballots were scanned by other means, the percentage was typically a fraction of 1 percent. In Pinellas County, when election officials removed the chaff from ballots before they were submitted for recount by the machines, Gore picked up an additional 417 votes...
...Already the pressure was building. By the time the recount was over, Bush's original margin had sagged to a mere 327 votes, but he remained ahead. Prominent Democrats like New Jersey Senator Bob Torricelli and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich called on the Gore campaign not to lawyer the race to death. Editorial pages looked for the Maginot Line...