The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-10-14


urged that Mr.. Knott should have
recounted the vote of the entire
State, instead of taking certain pre-
cincts here and there. 1t is certain
that Mr.. Knott would gladly have
had the recount include every pre-
cinct in the State, but the cost made
this impossible. 1t was stated that
to recount a portion of Hillsborough
county alone would cost $500, and
from this it may be judged the ire
mendous expense that would have
been entailed by Statewide re-
count.
However, after innumerable delays,
after fighting new case through the
courts every day, with legal obstacles
being put in his way every time he
attempted to make recount in any
precinct, Mr.. Knott succeeded after
several weeks in securing enough
corrections of undoubted errors to
more than offset the small plurality
given Cats on the face of the first
count. Whenever the recount of a
precinct showed any gains for Knott,
the cry of fraud was raised by Cats
and his supporters; but when these
charges were sifted in the courts no
evidence could be found to sustain
them. In the Hamilton county case,
one witness swore positively that he
saw two men changing and marking
ballots in the Jasper court house at
midnight; but the man who was
with him when he claimed to have
seen this proceeding, totally upset
this evidence, and it was proven that
the two men were two officials who
were engaged in their legitimate
work, and that the "ballots" being
changed were simply slips of figures
from an adding machine. All other
evidence of fraud produced was just
as f1imsy and unnconvincing.
Charges of fraud of particularly
virulent nature were made with re-
gard to the Madison county recount.
1t is believed that if these charges
had been sifted they. would have been
found to be as groundless as that
pertaining to Hamilton county; but
Mr.. Knott, having already a suffi~
cient number of votes to more than
Offset Cats lead, and feeling that
he did not need the Madison county
gains, voluntarily relinquished the
172 votes he gained in that county,
taking advantage only of those that
the court had found to be absolutely
Mr.. Knott then asked that the
State Canvassing Board be required
to recOnvene and make a canvass of
the amended returns, and this petit
ton was granted, and the State Can
wasting Board gave him a certificate |
of nomination, thereby cancelling
the one that had previously been is
sued to Mr.. Cats
Immediately thereafter, W. W.
Flournoy, attorney for Cats, petit
toned that 50 votes Of Precinct No.
3 in Alachua county, be counted for
his client. Just why he had not in
sisted on these votes before does not
appear; but it seems that Cats was
justly entitled to them, and no eff
fort was made to deprive him of
them. However, prior to this, Mr..
Knott had secured an order from the
Alachua Circuit Court requiring a
recount of the entire vote of Alachua
and gains made in this re-
count and in other places, notably
Hillsborough county, where the Tam
pa Tribune declares the recount was
absolutely fair, more than offset the
So votes gained in Precinct 8.
Flournoy then asked the Supreme
Court to have counted the 60 votes
Of Precinct for his client, and to
ignore the gains that had been made
by Knott after the granting of the
latter his certificate: but the Court
refused to be party to anything so
one-sided as to count the
gains Cats made and to refuse to
count the gains Knott made.
This was the final step in the re-
count proceedings, which. from
start to finish, conformed to the cleo
ion laws of the State, and were as
much part of the present election
plan as the casting of the votes them
'elves-our primary law providing
exactly the steps that should be TAX
N in case of dispute as to which
is entitled to nomina-
ion. Throughout all the delibera-
ions of the Supreme Court its atti-