Miami-Dade not 'intimidated' to end recount

Though Democratic lawyers and officials with the campaign of Vice
President Al Gore have claimed Republican protesters "intimidated" the
Miami-Dade canvassing board into deciding not to conduct a full manual
recount of contested ballots, the elections board supervisor said the
protests had nothing to do with it.

Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor David Leahy told the Miami Herald
last weekend that the decision to end the recount was based on the
board's realization that it could not be completed by the deadline set
by the Florida Supreme Court.

"The protest was not a factor in my decision," Leahy said. "We simply
could not get it done by the deadline."

Top Democrats and officials with the Gore campaign, however, have
characterized the GOP-led protests as a "near-riot," and some Democrats
in Congress have called on the Justice Department to investigate.

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U.S. Reps. Carrie Meek, D-Miami, and Peter Deutsch, D-Pembroke Pines,
requested last week that Justice Department officials look into what
they described as "a shocking case of undermining the right to vote
through intimidation and threats of violence."

Leahy told the Herald that he and the board's other two members were
aware of the protests because Republican activists were pounding on
locked Elections Department doors and chanting in the lobby outside
County Hall's 19th floor.

The elections board supervisor also denied an earlier report in the
New York Times that had quoted him as saying the protests influenced his
decision to end the recount.

Rather, Leahy said, all three board members made their decision
because of a perception of unfairness.

"I was concerned that what we were doing was not being perceived as a
fair and open process," Leahy said.

Prior to the GOP-led protest, Leahy and his elections board members
had decided to move from the 18th floor public conference room -- where
recounts were taking place -- upstairs to a private 19th floor office,
behind locked doors.

Upon learning of the change in location, Republican observers that
had been witnessing the recount moved to stop the meeting from being
held in private.

The action worked. Mayco Villafana, the Miami-Dade County
communications director, asked the board to move back to the 18th floor.

As time wore on, Leahy became convinced that the board just couldn't
count its ballots before last Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline.

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One of the board's main problems was logistical. In order to make the
deadline set forth by the state's justices, Leahy said the board would
have to sort through thousands of ballots by hand, deciding whether or
not they had actually been punched by a voter.

At the same time, he said, the board needed to observe those and
other ballots being run through the county's ballot machines -- which
were on the 19th floor.

Leahy said he wanted to perform both functions at once, but by
returning to the 18th floor, it just wasn't possible.

"It was clear we were not going to make it," he told the Herald.

The other two elections board judges -- Myriam Lehr and Lawrence D.
King -- agreed.

"It is not physically possible to continue with this task," Lehr was
quoted as saying Nov. 22.

King's vote to end the recount may also have been his interpretation
of Florida law.

After the elections board completed a partial manual recount of just
three Miami-Dade precincts Nov. 14, Democratic Party lawyers asked the
board to recount only ballots that had no clear presidential choice.

County attorney Murray Greenberg told the board it had the leeway to
decide in favor of the Democratic request, but King didn't think so.

King said he believed state law only allowed the board to do a full
recount.

"The legislature only gives us one way to do this and that is a hand
count of all the ballots," King told reporters.

Related story:

Gore contests 'protest votes'