The third board member, Elections Supervisor David Leahy, stayed behind at County Hall to work. He rode the train home. U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Pembroke Pines, met this week with top officials at the Justice Department in Washington to request a formal investigation into the day's events. Deutsch contends the board, which voted earlier in the day to proceed with a limited recount, buckled under the pressure from an angry crowd. Gore had a net gain of 157 votes when the count was called off.
Republicans scoff at the suggestion that the board felt threatened.
These people are trained not to be intimidated, said attorney Miguel De Grandy. County employees who were inside the Elections Department during and after the demonstration say the judges did not express concerns about their safety. But Tom McInerney, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement supervisor who was with the board that day, said the members were aware of the protesters and the potential danger. A Herald reporter inside the department that day overheard county employees discuss the judges' concerns. The protest erupted after the board moved the recount from a public conference room on the 18th floor at County Hall to a room inside the Elections Department with limited public access.