this includes member of the military, students, people working overseas and don t know what the total will be but those ballots are still coming in and there should be several thousand in the state. heather: why does it always seem when we get to this point the party that benefits tends to be the democratic party? i don t think they are benefiting. i think the republicans have benefited. for example in broward county you have this ballot, in 2000 we had two different ballots, one in palm beach county, the butterfly ballot, one in jacksonville, duvall county, called the caterpillar ballot. those together took tens of thousands of votes away from al gore. in broward county, you have a different ballot this time that appears to thrown the election to rick scott, cost bill nelson probably 10,000 votes in broward county because people didn t see the race the way was placed on
no. it s almost down to 50/50 for the senate, for the governorship. it s chillingly close because we are a divided country. in that state where there are southern accents, new york accents, people from all over the world, it is a real collection of humanity down there. well, that s one thing to point out as elise was just doing, that there s incompetence, lack of funding, lack of modern equipment and so on. all of that s a serious concern. it s fine if the president wants to say that. but for him to say, you know what? they should just go with what the count was on tuesday night, forget everything else it s ridiculous. it would be comical if it weren t so dangerous. elise, i want you to respond to this given your republican background. republicans always say leave it up to local jurisdictions. they re much more reliable than washington. let the local then you got these ballots, the butterfly ballot that all the jewish people voted for pat buchanan which was a joke. he even
location where al gore earned 150. a butterfly ballot was confusing. this presents the real issue. human factors. stuff happens on election day. we create the apparatus twice a year, largely comprised of volunteers and people earning just a staoeuf stay. it s easy to look from the outside in and say it s fraud, but mostly it s human factors. the recount is happening because it s mandated by florida law. this is happening because the law says it has to, so scott, help me understand, then, why there are accusations being thrown and lawsuits being filed here when it s the law that says this recount needs to be happening? well, i don t know of any republicans that don t want
point to make. this isn t happening because of anything other than the fact that the numbers dictate that it has to happen. the ballot in broward county, a substantial number. thousands of fewer votes in the governor s race and other races. may very well be that it s ballot design. how frustrating is that for you, as a florida democrat? 18 years after the butterfly ballot in palm beach county may have cost al gore an election there, you have another example where ballot design may have cost a democrat thousands of votes? well, i m not quite ready to i don t think it s healthy to speculate about what the final numbers are going to be. that s why we re doing the recount. there are some who believe that this undercount that is, people who vote for the other statewide offices but not for the senate race, did so because of the ballot. others think that when these
you remember 18 years ago the butterfly ballot . they haven t found a way to make better ballots. how does that make you feel? angry, really. the election of 2000 and this year s election were close but they shouldn t be decided by the essentially mistake of an election official in the way that the ballot was constructed. clearly the butterfly ballots had an effect on the outcome. a lot of people of palm beach county, in no way who wanted to vote ended up voting for him instead of al and me. after 2000 to try to encourage a more fairness in voting but we