A man in sackcloth with a 15-foot crucifix argues that only Jesus can bring this nation together. Inside, the Gore team calls its first witness, Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services and an expert on punch card ballots. Brace is here to back up the Gore team's case that dimpled chad is a valid indication of a voter's intent. The Bush team begins with a litany of objections, insinuating that the bearded, somewhat nerdy Brace is a Democrat, and unqualified. Brace says that it wasn't necessarily all that easy.
Brace testifies for hours, and signs of weariness begin to appear.
At one point, Beck gets Brace to admit that he might ignore a dimpled chad for one candidate if another candidate's chad on the same ballot had been punched out completely. Though under Zack's cross examination Brace insisted at least three times that a dimpled chad can be a reliable indication of a voter's intent, Beck insists that Brace's admission that a dimple doesn't always mean a vote is significant. At one point, Brace wishes to open up the punch ballot machine. Brace accepts it. I ask a courtroom cop if a lot of judges carry knives.