From: eleader@mail.echampions2000.com
To: gwhalle@ect.enron.com
Date: 2000-11-24 15:55:00+00:00
Subject: Important Election Update

The following is the latest synopsis of important election news. Please share 
with your friends and family.

Thank you.



Contents:
1 U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Bush Appeal
2 Statement On Florida Supreme Court Rejection Of Gore Campaign Demand For 
Miami-Dade Recount
3 Facts On Illinois Ruling On Dimpled Ballots
4 What About Today's Action on Military Ballots?
5 The Greenwood Position: Now We Must Fight for Our Country
6 Washington Post: Gore Can't Heal the Hurt
7 Wall Street Journal: How Democrats Wage Political War
8 Exit Polling Says At Least 1.5% Of Americans Did Not Vote In Presidential 
Contest
9 Voting Instructions Were Clear in Palm Beach County

________________________________________________
1

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to intervene in the Florida presidential 
recount, saying Friday it will hear one of George W. Bush's appeals that 
seeks to bar hand-counted ballots in the disputed election. In a stunning 
development and a victory for Bush, the nation's highest court said it will 
hear arguments Dec. 1 on whether to overturn the Florida Supreme Court's 
decision that allowed manually recounted votes to be added to Florida's vote 
total.


_______________________________________________
2

Statement On Florida Supreme Court Rejection Of Gore Campaign Demand For 
Miami-Dade Recount

"We are pleased with the Supreme Court decision. It was our strong belief 
that the Florida Supreme Court would deny this motion. The court had already 
extended the statutory deadline for an additional 12 days and Al Gore was 
asking them to extend it yet again.

"Thursday night Al Gore thanked the canvassing boards for their hard work and 
praised the Supreme Court decision. Since then he has sued one of those 
canvassing boards and asked the Supreme Court to change its mind. It seems Al 
Gore wants the Court to keep extending the deadline until he can count the 
votes enough times to change the result."

_______________________________________________
3

Facts On Illinois Ruling On Dimpled Ballots

 ~ The Illinois Supreme Court Ruling was incorrectly cited by the Gore 
campaign and the Florida Supreme Court, and does NOT require dimpled ballots 
to be counted.

~ In fact, in the Illinois case, dimpled ballots were not counted at all. 
Illinois attorney Burton Odelson, who represented the challenger in the 1990 
Illinois case, said, "the judge did not count ballots that were indented 
because he could not determine the voters' intent."

~ Contrary to the arguments made by David Boies for the Gore campaign, Cook 
County Circuit Judge Francis Barth said, "I don't believe the fact that an 
impression standing alone counts necessarily that this voter intended then to 
vote."

~ Of the 27 disputed ballots the Illinois Supreme Court ordered Judge Barth 
to examine, he rejected nine dimpled ballots because, as he said, the dents 
were insufficient to prove the voter's intent. He rejected four others with 
pinholes that were misaligned, accepted three "hanging chads," in which the 
perforation was partially attached, and approved five ballots punctured by 
pinholes. Six
disputed ballots were withdrawn.

~ Michael Levelle, a Democrat lawyer representing the Republican candidate in 
Illinois, initially signed an affidavit on behalf of the Gore campaign saying 
to the best of his recollection, he believed Judge Barth counted indented 
ballots. But when later told that Judge Barth did not include dimpled 
ballots, Levelle recanted: "I couldn't
remember details. The affidavit was more general than specific."
_______________________________________________
4

What About Today's Action on Military Ballots?

~ To protect the rights of our military men and women to have their votes 
count, the Bush-Cheney campaign today is asking a Florida Circuit Court in 
Tallahassee to require canvassing boards to immediately go back and review 
overseas military ballots for inclusion in the final vote tally.

~ We urge Al Gore to support this action.

~ One week ago tonight, in an orchestrated effort that included a five-page 
memo by a Gore attorney, Al Gore's supporters objected to as many military 
ballots as they could find. The Gore campaign never should have knocked out 
the votes of the men and women who wear our nation's uniform.

~ That's no way to treat the men and women who serve our country. They never 
should have taken that action in the first place.

~ Today is the day to right this wrong.

~ A State Judge will conduct a hearing at 2:00 today in Leon County to hear 
our case. We hope the Judge will ask the Boards to review these military 
ballots so our servicemen and women aren't disenfranchised.

~ Given the remarks made about counting military ballots by Senator 
Lieberman, Florida's Democratic Senator Bob Graham, and Florida's Democratic 
Attorney General (and chairman of Gore's Florida campaign) Bob Butterworth, 
we can't imagine the Gore campaign will once again oppose the voting rights 
of our servicemen and women.

______________________________________________
5

The Greenwood Position
Now we must fight for our country
BY PEGGY NOONAN
Friday, November 24, 2000

"We must fight. And we all know it. And it's fine.

"We like to complain, those of us of a certain age, that history has never 
given us the gaudy challenges it gave our parents and grandparents. But we've 
had our traumas, and from the time we were children: assassinations, riots, 
Vietnam, Watergate, the ayatollah, a stuck economy, the fall of the wall. 
We've had our moments.

"And now we face a great trial.

"And we're up to it.

"So let's go."

Full Story:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=65000671

_______________________________________________
6

Washington Post
Gore Can't Heal the Hurt
By Richard Cohen
Friday, November 24, 2000

"I voted for Al Gore. I did so because I have known him since he was a 
congressman from Tennessee. I admire his intellect, his seriousness of 
purpose, his capacity for hard work and study, his political values, his 
experience and his knowledge. That being said, I now think that
under current circumstances he would not be the right man for the presidency. 
If I could, I would withdraw my vote. In the terminology of the moment, put 
me down as a hanging chad.

"I still think precisely as I have about Gore. But those 'current 
circumstances' I just mentioned change everything. Given the present 
bitterness, given the angry irresponsible charges being hurled by both camps, 
the nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy
who will make things better and not worse. That man is not Al Gore. That man 
is George W. Bush.

"Bush has incessantly proclaimed himself as that sort of guy--'a uniter, not 
a divider.' The tendency is to dismiss that sort of chest-thumping as 
campaign nonsense, but in Bush's case it appears to be true. After all, the 
Bush boomlet began among his fellow Republican governors, each of whom 
probably thought the next president should be
none other than himself.

"So it says something about Bush that the governors were able to coalesce 
around him. Some of these governors knew Bush quite well, some hardly at all, 
but the fact remains that they all seemed to genuinely like the guy and 
respected his leadership abilities.

"You hear the same sort of thing from people who worked with Bush in private 
enterprise. I talked with one of them once, a Democrat who disagreed with 
Bush on many issues. Yet he, too, praised Bush's leadership abilities, his 
talent for bringing order out of chaos and for reaching some sort of 
consensus. That man's testimony impressed
me. His disagreements with Bush were real, his admiration for him profound.

"Gore, on the other hand, has little of those abilities. His own party is 
sore at him for taking the one-two punch of peace and prosperity and running 
a race that is still not concluded. His performance was as erratic as his 
uniform-of-the-day: earth tones on Tuesday, business suit on Wednesday. The 
country sensed that either he did not know
himself, or what he did know the country would not like."

Full Story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55133-2000Nov23.html

_______________________________________________
7

Wall Street Journal
How Democrats Wage Political War
-Controlling the government is imperative to the party's survival.
BY CLETA MITCHELL
Monday, November 20, 2000

"In case you're bewildered by the machinations of the Gore
campaign-turned-law-firm, let there be no doubt that the goings on in Florida 
are perfectly in keeping with the way Democrats normally think and behave. 
Lawsuits are a key part of the Democrats' political strategy, so nothing 
about Florida should surprise anyone who has spent time in the Democratic 
Party.

"Until 1995, I was a Democrat. I've been a Democrat elected official, a party 
official and an active party member, so I know how Democrats think.

"Democrats know and internalize, understand and are motivated by, certain 
ideas, concepts and principles that seem to be foreign to Republicans. And 
Democrats are elated that Republicans don't know or function under the same 
ideas. These basic rules of Democratic thinking are at work in Florida. This 
primer should help explain what makes the Democrats tick.

"Rule 1: If we don't win, we don't eat.

"Rule 2: State courts are 'home' to Democrats.

"Rule 3, the 'golden rule': He who makes the rules wins the gold."

Full Story:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=65000648
 ____________________________________________________________
8

Exit Polling Says At Least 1.5% Of Americans Did Not Vote In
Presidential Contest

While the Gore campaign says dimpled ballots must be counted because every 
voter obviously intended to vote in the Presidential contest, FOX NEWS 
reports that at least 1.5% of voters told exit pollsters on November 7 that 
they did not vote in the presidential race. Experts say this understates the 
actual percentage of people who voted in down ballot races, but NOT in the 
presidential contest.

The number of "undervoters" in the three Florida recount counties the Gore 
campaign is trying to mine for additional votes is roughly 1.5-2.25%, well 
within the range suggested by the exit polls.

____________________________________________________________
9

From the voting instructions card for Palm Beach:
"AFTER VOTING, CHECK YOUR BALLOT CARD TO BE SURE YOUR VOTING SELECTIONS ARE 
CLEARLY AND CLEANLY PUNCHED AND THERE ARE NO CHIPS LEFT HANGING ON THE BACK 
OF THE CARD."

From the Official PALM BEACH COUNTY SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS website.
http://pbcelections.org/

Link to the "Voting Instructions" card for Palm Beach:
http://pbcelections.org/Sample%20Ballots/instruct.jpg
Or from this page, under "Voting Instructions":
http://pbcelections.org/Sample%20Ballots/sampleballot.htm

Conclusion: These instructions show that the voter was given advice to avoid 
dimple and hanging chads.

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