[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 145 (Monday, November 13, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H11873-H11877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Walden of Oregon). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Sherman) is recognized for 37 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, suddenly 37 minutes became available, and I 
thought I would come to this floor and address the issue that is on the 
minds of everyone in this country. I invite those of my colleagues who 
have a like mind to come down and share this 37 minutes with me. I have 
been joined by one of our colleagues from the Committee on the 
Judiciary, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), who I will 
yield to after I deal with the first and second points.
  The first point I want to make is that Vice President Gore did win 
the popular vote by well over 200,000 votes. Now, I know the point is 
often made that there are several hundred thousand votes still waiting 
to be counted in California. Well, I am from California as well as the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren). California

[[Page H11874]]

was won overwhelmingly by the Gore candidacy, and we know from our 
experience that that means that, if anything, the late absentee 
ballots, those counted because they were received virtually on election 
day, will, if anything, bolster this 216,000 vote lead.
  Likewise, there are some uncounted votes in the State of Washington, 
mostly from the Puget Sound region, which Vice President Gore won 
overwhelmingly. So when the votes are cast, it will be clear what the 
popular vote is in America.
  The American voters voted for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman by a 
plurality of roughly a quarter million. But what is before us is the 
electoral college. The electoral college requires us, as a matter of 
law, to put aside that quarter million vote majority for Al Gore and, 
instead, focus on this on a State-by-State basis.
  Now, there has been an attempt by Governor Bush to try to use 
political insult, if not political intimidation, for those of us who 
respect the rule of law and want that rule of law to go forward, those 
who want the courts to act as referees just as we have referees in 
football. I know some would argue it would be a more exciting game of 
football if we took the referees off the field, but if one believes in 
the rules, one has got to believe in the refs.
  Now, Florida seems to turn first and foremost on the vote in Palm 
Beach County. If we are to have an accurate electoral college vote, we 
need to focus on the ballots in Palm Beach County. We will see that 
there is a very strong argument for a revote in that county.
  The ballot which I am about to show my colleagues is acknowledged by 
virtually everyone to be very confusing. It did, in fact, confuse tens 
of thousands of voters in Palm Beach County. There were some 19,000 
voters in that county who double punched, voted for two presidential 
candidates.
  The Bush campaign has argued that is roughly analogous to a somewhat 
lower number, perhaps 14,000, who they say double punched in 1996. The 
only problem is that is a false number. It is not fuzzy math, it is 
false math. The figure that they use in 1996 is the sum of those who 
just skipped the Presidential race, did not want to vote for any of the 
Presidential candidates, and those in Palm Beach County in 1996 who 
mistakenly punched two holes.
  In fact, the number of who punched two holes this time was roughly 
double the number who punched two holes in the prior election. That is 
because of the famous butterfly ballot which confused voters. Not only 
were they confused into voting twice, but they were confused into 
voting for Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan has admitted that many of the 
votes he received in Palm Beach County were not voters who wanted to 
vote for Pat Buchanan. If Pat Buchanan can admit that, why cannot 
Governor Bush?
  But it is not enough that the ballot is confusing. The ballot is also 
in violation of Florida law in two important respects, both of which 
contributed to voters not being allowed to vote.
  First, Florida law requires that the names be on the left and the 
holes be to the right of the name. If this ballot had been done 
legally, prepared legally, prepared according to Florida State 
statutes, we would not have this problem. These folks would be listed 
below the other folks. There would be one hole next to each name, and 
people would punch. That is not what happened. It was a ballot designed 
in violation of Florida law.
  Second, the ballot laws of Florida require that the candidate be in a 
certain order. The party that won the governorship in Florida, the 
Republican Party, is entitled to go first. The party that came in 
second for the governorship, the Democratic Party, is entitled to go 
second. But if one pushes the second hole, one's vote is not counted 
for the Democratic Party. The second hole does not belong to the 
Democratic Party. The second hole belongs to the Reform Party. So one 
has a situation where the order of the holes is not as specified by 
Florida law. Those two problems, two violations of law led to the 
confusion.
  Now, Florida law on this was announced just 2 years ago. In the 1990 
Supreme Court case, in the Supreme Court of California, Bextrum versus 
Volusia County Canvassing Board in which the court finds substantial 
noncompliance with statutory election procedures. If the court makes a 
factual determination that reasonable doubt exists as to whether a 
certified election expressed the will of the voters, then the court is 
to void the contested election, even in the absence of fraud or 
intentional wrongdoing.

                              {time}  2015

  The court, the Supreme Court of Florida, has spoken to this very 
situation. We certainly have a situation where doubt exists as to what 
is the right outcome; there are more people gathered in our cloakroom 
some of the times than the total number of votes separating the two 
candidates in Florida; and substantial noncompliance with statutory 
election procedures was operative. So clearly, under Florida law, the 
court, in the standards it adopted in 1998, should order a revote in 
Palm Beach County.
  I want to point out that it is premature for us to call for that here 
and now. No candidate for President has yet called for a revote in Palm 
Beach County. I think, however, the argument presented here would be a 
strong one to result in such a revote.
  I should point out that there are other elements of this confusion. 
The first is reported in The Washington Post of this past Saturday 
where they reported that confused voters were besieging the county 
commissioners by telephone in the morning. By the afternoon, they were 
calling local radio shows. Then there was a hastily written memo from a 
county supervisor of elections distributed at the end, when most people 
had already voted, trying to explain the inexplicable. And, in fact, 
one senior leader, the president of the Century Village Retirement 
Community, said people were crying. They were coming to us to ask 
questions; the ballot was lousy; they did not know who they voted for.
  I can go on and on with the discussion of the confusion and the 
sorrow, the anger and the frustration of the people of Palm Beach 
County as they were denied their right to vote by a ballot that 
violated the statutes of the State of Florida. But at this point, I 
know that I have two very patient colleagues, the first one serving on 
the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Lofgren), who I know also wants to address these issues.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, 
and I just want to speak briefly on the issue of the recount.
  It is true that I am a member of the Committee on the Judiciary and 
formerly taught at a law school and practiced law and the like, but I 
would like to speak this evening more as just a neighbor and a person 
who has just come to the Nation's capital from California fresh with 
the insights from the people who are in my neighborhood who say this: 
we are not in a crisis. We all wish this were over. We want it to be 
done. But we also know that we can be patient and get an accurate 
count.
  I think it is time for all of us in America to ask everyone in the 
leadership of both parties to put patriotism ahead of partisanship. 
Now, it is true all of us had a favorite candidate. I hoped that Al 
Gore would be elected President, and some of my neighbors hoped that 
George Bush would be elected President. The truth is we do not know 
which of them will be elected. But we need to put our desire for our 
candidate to win to one side in favor of democratic processes. We need 
to make sure that the vote is counted accurately and that whatever 
happens reflects the will of the American people.
  Now, I heard some rhetoric this evening that I found disturbing, in 
all honesty. It seemed to indicate or to infer that somehow because 
there was a hand count that there was something unsavory; that there 
would be something wrong or backhanded about this. But we know that 
these recounts are going on in a fish bowl. We have hundreds of people 
watching every single ballot; designated people from both parties. We 
have CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, and the Fox News channel. It is a veritable 
convention looking at each ballot. It is very clear that there is 
nothing sneaky that is going to go on in these recounts. In fact, we 
will have the most accurate count possible.
  Before I was in Congress, I was in local government for 14 years. I 
was on the board of supervisors, and we were in charge of elections. 
Elections are

[[Page H11875]]

never perfect. Poll workers show up late, ballots get shredded, 
problems can occur. We know that that is true. But when elections are 
this close, recounts always occur. And we always, when I was in local 
government, we always respected that those recounts needed to occur so 
that the people's will could, in the end, rule the day.
  When the recount will decide who will be the leader of the free 
world, of course we need, as the American people, to exhibit patience, 
and we have time for that patience to play out. We have a President. He 
will be President until January 20. So we certainly have time to make 
sure that all the votes get counted.
  America has confidence that the current President of the United 
States, whether we support him or do not support him, was elected in a 
way that reflected the Constitution and the rules; and we need to make 
sure that the next President, whoever he is, has that same confidence 
on the part of the American people. That is why it is important for the 
partisans in this discussion to just back off, just back off and let 
the vote and the counting of the vote take place. If it is necessary, 
hand recount all of the votes in Florida. That would be fine.

  Let us make sure that the people's will is reflected in the electoral 
college; and then all of us can live with the result, whatever it is. 
However disappointed we might be, whether it is our candidate or the 
other side, the American tradition is to allow the transition of power 
to proceed smoothly and to celebrate the fact that we are a violence-
free democracy that understands that our institutions are more 
important than any election. So, please, let us, all of us, back off 
and put our patriotism ahead of our partisanship.
  I thank the gentleman from California for yielding for these few 
comments.
  Mr. SHERMAN. I thank the gentlewoman from California for her 
comments. I yield now to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my two colleagues from 
California. I do not intend to use a lot of time, but I just wanted to 
say that I totally agree with what the gentlewoman has said.
  It disturbed me a great deal, to be honest, when I heard some of our 
colleagues from the other side of the aisle come here earlier this 
evening and sort of deride the process. I think at one point one of our 
colleagues from the Republican side suggested that the campaign manager 
for the Democrats was involved in fraud or that his father was involved 
in fraud. These kinds of comments are totally inappropriate. I do not 
even know if they are allowed under the rules of the House.
  As the gentlewoman said, let us not get into this partisan argument 
and start calling names tonight. All the gentleman from California is 
saying, from what I understand, and I respect the gentleman a great 
deal for it, is that he just wants the will of the people to be heard. 
The gentleman just wants to make sure that if somebody voted, or 
intended to vote a certain way, that they be counted; that their sacred 
right to vote, which we cherish under our form of government, not be 
taken from them.
  I just want to make two comments in that regard. One is that, again, 
it upset me today to think that the Republicans had gone into court to 
stop the recount. We know that these manual recounts occur from time to 
time and are necessary from time to time. I was actually involved with 
one myself going back almost 20 years, I think it was in 1981, when we 
had a very close gubernatorial race. I had to sit in a room and watch 
and see whether those, we called them chits in New Jersey, I guess they 
call them chads in Florida, to see whether they were actually punctured 
and the votes were counted. Ultimately it did not make that much of a 
difference in terms of the total vote count; but at least people were 
assured that someone was looking carefully, and in this case a number 
of people looking carefully, to make sure that their vote counted and 
their intention to vote a certain way was carried forth.
  I feel the same way about this whole manual recount, and the 
gentleman's suggestion there about how this ballot was set up. I do not 
know whether this will end up in court or not; but it really pains me 
to think that anyone, whether they be Republican, as some of them 
earlier, a Democrat or anybody, would suggest that the will of the 
people should not be carried forth.
  I think there is a real philosophical difference here. I heard some 
of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle saying, well, people 
have to be very careful when they go into vote; treat it as a solemn 
occasion and do not get it wrong. It is as if someone gets it wrong, 
that is their own problem; that is their fault; they have to carry the 
personal responsibility of having gotten it wrong. Well, the bottom 
line is that if the ballot is set up in a way to confuse and it is 
obvious the intent was to vote for a certain candidate and the vote was 
discarded, it seems to me it is incumbent upon us to make sure that 
that vote counts; whether there is a manual recount to check to see 
whether the chit was punctured or whether a new vote has to occur to 
make sure the people whose ballots were thrown out get an opportunity 
to vote. It just seems to me that what we want is for the people to be 
able to exercise their right to vote.
  Mr. SHERMAN. If I can interject at this point.
  Mr. PALLONE. Certainly. I would certainly yield back to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Even those who say it is up to the voter to know the 
law, and if the voter gets it wrong, we will discard the voter's vote 
even if it is apparent how that voter voted, even those folks have got 
to admit the ballot was designed in violation of law. And if we are 
going to tell voters they are responsible for knowing the law, they 
have a right to a ballot designed in accordance with the law.
  The law in Florida states if someone punches the second hole that 
they are voting for the party that came in second in the last 
gubernatorial election. Only on that ballot it is not designed that 
way. So it is simply wrong to be tough on the voters while forcing the 
voter not to be able to rely on the statutes of the State in which they 
reside.

  Mr. PALLONE. I agree. And if the gentleman would just yield to me 
once more, very briefly, I strongly believe that we have to do whatever 
we can to make sure that a person's vote counts. If we do not, then 
what is going to happen is people are going to say why should I bother 
to vote.
  The bottom line is that last Tuesday was a great day because so many 
people came out to vote. I know in my own district, in my own State of 
New Jersey, there was an overwhelming turnout. It was grand to see so 
many people come out because they thought it was going to be a close 
election, and it was, and they knew their vote would count. So let us 
not let them down by saying that their vote does not count, or 
something is done to make sure that their vote does not count. Because 
that will certainly discourage people from voting in the future, and I 
certainly do not want that to happen.
  And, lastly, I would say this. Let us not make this a partisan 
process. I have to say that I am very partisan, as the gentleman knows, 
when I come to the floor of the House and I talk about issues. But this 
is not a question of an issue or a bill; this is a question of our 
democracy and upholding the Constitution. I would just expect that both 
sides of the aisle would simply not make this into a partisan battle. 
One may feel the votes should count or not count, or they may feel 
strongly about how people should exercise their right to vote; but let 
us not start the name calling, the way I heard before, against the 
candidates or against the parties or against the representatives. I do 
not really believe anybody wants that, and we should refrain from that. 
I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. SHERMAN. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for the tenor of 
his remarks, and I would join him in saying that perhaps the lowest 
point of the television debates and back and forths have been when 
there has been an attack made on the campaign chairman for the Gore 
campaign because of his father. I have never seen my father's integrity 
attacked on this floor; I have never seen the integrity of the father 
of the gentleman from New Jersey attacked on this floor; and I have 
certainly never heard of an attack on a Member's integrity for the 
purpose of discrediting his arguments on a bill. That behavior is 
certainly lower than

[[Page H11876]]

this House has ever gone and, hopefully, the Bush campaign will not 
descend to those levels again.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue to talk about how people 
reacted to that confusing and illegal ballot in Palm Beach, Florida. 
One elderly voter did the right thing. That voter asked for a second 
ballot, having ruined his first ballot. Bernard Holtzer, a retired 
community inhabitant, said he had unintentionally voted for Pat 
Buchanan on the first ballot and the clerk refused his request for a 
second ballot. Holtzer said, ``I told the clerk I made a boo-boo and 
that I wanted a new ballot. And she told me there was nothing she could 
do about it.''
  That is the New York Times, this Saturday, reporting that not only 
was the ballot confusing and illegal but that the county workers did 
not in any way allow for the appropriate legal remedy. In fact, that 
same New York Times article points out that poll workers were under 
strict instructions to turn away voters who came to them with 
questions. Quoting one poll worker named Louise Austin, Ms. Austin 
said, ``I had to follow the directive, `Don't help anyone. Don't talk 
to anyone.' '' Again, the New York Times reports that.
  So there were as reported in both the New York Times and the 
Washington Post precinct workers who received instructions very late in 
the day telling them how to help confused voters. Of course that begs 
the question, what about the well over 75 percent of the voters who 
voted before those instructions went out to the poll workers?
  So we have reason to believe that the only way that the people of 
Palm Beach County will be allowed to vote in this election, will have 
their franchise protected, is if there is a revote in Palm Beach 
County. Now, I know that is controversial and that is even a conclusion 
that I am not ready to fully embrace here tonight, because it is a 
premature conclusion. Because there is something that we all agree on, 
and, that is, the first step is a proper count of all the ballots that 
were cast. And a proper count is the best possible count. A manual 
recount is the best possible count.
  First, it is argued we should not have a manual recount because 
somehow that is the second recount. You cannot recount after a recount. 
Well, let us straighten that out. This manual recount is the first 
recount requested by the Gore campaign. Because the election was so 
close, there was an automatic recount by machine in every county. But 
that was not at the request of the Gore campaign because the Gore 
campaign appears to want the most accurate possible recount. And so the 
Gore campaign has made only one recount request, and that is for a 
manual recount to be conducted in four counties. The Gore campaign 
never asked for a machine recount. And to say that the most accurate 
recount should be ignored because there was a worse system employed not 
at the request of any candidate is absurd.
  Now, why is it that I say that a manual recount is the better 
recount? Well, we are told by James Baker that he prefers a recount 
using precision machines. These precision machines, 1950s technology, 
machines that cannot read a bent card, machines that jam up when you 
put a bent card in them, machines that cannot tell you what their 
standards are. Where there has been argument about whether a particular 
punch card should be counted, a swinging door chad, a partially 
detached chad, what are the machine's standards? We do not know. The 
engineers of the machines do not know. Sometimes the machine will count 
a bent ballot. Sometimes it will not. Sometimes if it is partially 
punched, the machine counts it. Sometimes it will not. The machine is 
not talking to anybody and nobody can look inside it while it is 
counting. It is not the same as having three citizens in full view, 
viewed by Republican and Democratic experts behind them, on cable 
television, counting the ballots one at a time.
  Those who refer to precision machines are wrong, because the 
invention of man is indeed imperfect, far more imperfect than the 
creation of God. A human being watched and consulting other human 
beings, in full public, can look at a bent card, can look at a 
partially attached chad, can apply specific standards and can reach the 
correct conclusion. That is why in Seminole County, Florida, last week, 
they did a manual count, much to the glee of the Bush campaign which 
got 100 extra votes as a result of the manual count done after the 
machine count, the machine recount. Bush husbands and enjoys that 100 
votes. In fact, it is a third of the lead he claims today. And it is 
all because in a Republican county they completed a manual recount.
  To be detailed, what happened was if a card would not go through the 
machine, they would look at it, determine the vote of the voter, create 
a new ballot reflecting that intent, and run it through the Seminole 
County machine. That is a manual recount in Seminole County. Yet no one 
in the Bush campaign has asked for those 100 extra votes to be 
subtracted from their column.
  But we do not have to look just at what is happening in Florida. We 
know by looking at Texas. Here is the statute, signed into law by 
Governor Bush, scarcely 3 years ago: a manual recount shall be 
conducted in preference to an electronic recount. How dare James Baker 
insult the Governor of Texas when he says that these words are wrong. 
Now, Mr. Baker says they have standards in Texas. They have, of course, 
standards in Florida as well. In each county in Florida, the election 
board identifies swinging door chads, partially attached chads; and the 
training is going on right now and yesterday so that each poll worker 
follows those instructions. Machines, of course, have no standards at 
all; but the poll workers in Florida, county by county, do.

  But if James Baker and the Bush campaign think the problem is 
standards, why do they go to court to try to prevent an accurate 
recount? They should be coming to the election officials in Florida and 
suggesting standards. If there are wonderful standards available, 
proven, used in Texas, why does the Governor of Texas not share them 
with the people of Florida? The fact of the matter is there are not 
really specific standards in Texas that are any better than those in 
Florida. The Florida standards are just fine. The Bush campaign is not 
looking for a manual vote based on uniform standards. They are looking 
for a quick victory that ignores the will of the Florida voters. They 
are looking to stop the manual vote, not improve it.
  That is why they went to court today and they asked a Federal judge. 
They would be the first to insult judges and the first to seek a court 
injunction and the first to be turned down by the courts. And they 
tried to get a Federal judge to prevent what the Texas Governor in his 
own State and his own statutes recognized as the most accurate method 
of recount. They failed. But justice may still not prevail, because the 
Secretary of State of Florida, herself the cochair of the Bush 
campaign, has to come up with this idea that all the counting has to be 
done by 5 p.m. tomorrow.
  Now, is this based on Florida statute? No. It is based on a 
misreading of Florida statute. She cites section 102.111 which sets a 5 
p.m. deadline. But a more recent Florida statute is in clear conflict 
with 111 and that is section 102.112, passed more recently, under our 
laws entitled to greater weight when there is direct conflict. It says, 
if the election returns are not received by the department by the time 
specified, such returns may be ignored.
  So the Secretary of State, the cochair of the Bush campaign, has 
merely the discretion, if she wants to, to disenfranchise entire 
counties in Florida because they want to do an accurate recount. No 
court should allow such discretion to be used arbitrarily and no 
campaign should want its candidate for President to win because of such 
arbitrary and wrongful action. Who could deny this country an accurate 
recount by the methods signed into law in his own State by the Governor 
of Texas?
  But it goes beyond that. Here, on a smaller chart, I have listed four 
Republican congressional candidates, each of whom wanted a manual 
recount. Each of them got a manual recount. Whether it was John Ensign 
running for the Senate 2 years ago or the famous Bob Dornan case, or 
whether it was Peter Torkildsen in 1996 or Rick McIntyre in 1984. In 
1984, Rick McIntyre demanded and got a manual recount. And Dick Cheney 
was on this floor saying he

[[Page H11877]]

would go to war over that request. The request was granted. I realize 
there were other controversies about that race. But Dick Cheney, when 
he was here, was here backing up Rick McIntyre's demand for a manual 
recount.
  So of course there should be a manual recount. And of course attempts 
to say that it has to be done by 5 p.m. tomorrow are outrageous.
  I will tell you how outrageous they are. Tonight, I hope, in several 
counties in Florida, people are going to be doing the manual recount 
all through the night. They are going to get tired. And James Baker is 
going to be on television saying, ``Oh, my God, it can't be accurate. 
They were tired. They must be ignored.'' Why are they tired? Why are 
they working through the night? Because the Bush campaign wants to 
impose a ridiculous 5 p.m. deadline. Now, is this 5 p.m. deadline there 
to assure that the election is decided more quickly? No. There can be 
no decision in Florida until 5 p.m. Friday when those overseas ballots 
have to have arrived in Florida to be counted. So why 5 p.m. Tuesday as 
a deadline for completing a manual recount? Only one reason, to 
frustrate the manual recount, to make people be tired during the manual 
recount, to ridicule the manual recount. A manual recount, which is the 
method of choice in the State of Texas, because Governor Bush signed 
the law that made it so because he was right.
  We have seen that the creation of God does a better job in this case 
than the invention of man and that human beings can do better. So it 
would be nice if the Governor was trying to get the most accurate 
recount instead of trying to slam the door on the most accurate 
recount.
  Let me deal with one other issue. The Bush campaign says that what is 
unfair is that the media at around 7:40 p.m. or 6:40 p.m., anyway, 20 
minutes before the polls were going to close in the Florida panhandle, 
called the Florida race. What the media did was inaccurate. They gave 
voters in the Florida panhandle inaccurate information. But is that the 
only stupid and inaccurate information to appear on television in this 
electoral season? The voters have a right under Florida law, under the 
U.S. Constitution, to vote and to have their will at the polls 
expressed. That is very different from saying that you have a 
constitutional right not to get bad information in the press, because I 
assure you there is no such right to get only accurate information in 
the press. We get inaccurate information in the press all the time, and 
the press has called Florida four or five different times. Every time 
they have called it wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, to summarize, the popular vote will go overwhelmingly 
for Al Gore, the Vice President, and Joe Lieberman, the Senator from 
Connecticut.

                              {time}  2045

  The ballot in Palm Beach County was responsible for twisting these 
results, which clearly possibly affected the results and was an illegal 
as well as a confusing ballot, a ballot in violation of two different 
Florida statutes, well-designed statutes, that were not carried out; 
and the Florida courts have recognized that where there is confusion 
because of a violation of the Florida elections code, a revote is 
called for. But before we get to a revote, we need to do everything 
possible to get an accurate count of the vote cast on election night; 
and that vote can best be recounted, as George Bush's signature 
indicates when he signed this bill, can best be recounted by a manual 
recount, the only recount requested by the Gore campaign, the only 
method that is recognized by the Governor of Texas as the most accurate 
way to do the recount.
  Now, there are criticisms of what the standards are that are being 
used in the manual recount. Those who criticize have an obligation to 
make suggestions. They do not have the right to say that because they 
do not find perfection in the best and preferred method, that because 
they do not find it perfect, that it should be ignored.

                          ____________________