Election 20C
ENNSYLVANIA I A T
ELECTION 1 JVJ V V I I
RESULTS
SENATE
Rick Santorum (R) 2,465,412
Ron Klink (D) 2,134,734
HOUSE
District. 1
Robert Brady (D) 147,959
Steven Kush (R) 20,270
Chaka Fattah (D) 175,512
Dlstd.ct..3
Robert Borski (D) 129,838
Charles Dougherty (R) 58,712
District 4
Melissa Hart (R) 145,348
Terry Van Horne (D) 100,945
District, 5
John Peterson (R) 147,425
District 6
Tim Holden (D) 136,663
Thomas Kopel (R) 68,468
District 7
Curt Weldon (R) 171,670
Peter Lennon (D) 93,655
QMtiQtd
Jim Greenwood (R) 153,779
Ronald Strouse (D) 100,520
District 9
Bud Shuster (R) Unopposed
District 10
Don Sherwood (R)
Patrick Casey (D)
District 11
Paul Kanjorski (D)
Stephen Urban(R)
District 12
John Murtha (D)
Bill Choby (R)
PiStrifiU.2
Joseph Hoeffel (D) 142,276
Stewart Greenleaf(R) 122,931
District 14
William Coyne (D) Unopposed
PiStrigt 15
Pat Toomey (R) 117,928
Ed O’Brien(D) 103,269
DMfi.Gt..l6
Joseph Pitts (R) 161,653
Bob Yorczyk(D) 79,674
District 17
George Gekas (R) 166,086
Leslye Hess Herrmann(D)66,l24
District 18
Mike Doyle (D)
Craig Stephens (R)
District 1.8
Tod Platts (R)
Jeff Sanders (D)
District 2Q
Frank Mascara (D)
Ronald Davis (R)
District 21
Phil English (R)
Marc Flitter (D)
Florida flip-flop rattles
television analysis
The presidential race that for weeks had
been described as too close to call was all of
that when the television networks began their
election night coverage Tuesday.
As a politically riveting television drama
unfolded, state by state, it turned out that the
networks didn’t know as much as they
thought about the heart of their election night
coverage: exit polling data.
Shortly before 9 p.m., just as the electoral
momentum seemed to be building for Demo
cratic Vice President AI Gore, the networks
reversed their earlier projection that Gore
would win Florida and its 25 electoral votes.
Two hours after being placed in Gore column,
the state was declared too close to call. Sud
denly the electoral vote balance tilted to Bush.
“We just don’t trust the information we’re
getting out of Florida.” said CNN’s Judy
Woodruff, not mentioning the credibility of
other exit polling data from other states.
"There’s nothing more delightful than
Officials saly more than 19,000 ballots were disqualified in Palm
124,151
111,879
130,780
66,450
separating Gore from Re
publican George W. Bush
The confusing ballot layout in Palm Beach County that some in * he or ‘ ginal Florida v ° t ®
claim led hundreds of Democratic partisans to mistakenly * a y ’ w recount Wl
vote for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan. determine the outcome of
’ the presidential election.
"At first, they be
lieved it was their own error," Henry Handler,
the plaintiffs' attorney, told the Dow Jones
News Service. "But they discovered later in
the press accounts that they were not alone.
They feel the ballot was so deceiving that they
were disenfranchised."
The new ballot layout so many Palm Beach
County voters found troubling resembles a
double-sided booklet. Some voters said that it
featured so many names (10 presidential can
didates and space for a write-in) and that its
circles and arrows were arrayed in such a way
that they still aren't sure for whom they voted.
"I looked at it and looked at it and looked at
it," Elise Richel, 68, recalled Wednesday, "and
I went through the entire ballot and I said, "Did
I do it right?’ I think I did it right. But it was so
143,547
55,541
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. More than
19,000 ballots were disqualified on election
night in Palm Beach County, election officials
revealed Wednesday.
The announcement came after three county
voters filed a lawsuit calling for a revote here,
alleging that the county punch-card ballot was
so confusing that they mistakenly had voted
for Reform Party candidate Patrick J.
Buchanan instead of Vice President Gore.
The election officials said that 19,120 bal
lots from Palm Beach County had showed
votes for more than one presidential candidate.
Florida’s ‘overseas ballots’ could be worth their political
155,400
68,554
MIAMI —They are called "overseas ballots"
and in every other election, the 2,000 or 3,000
votes received from Floridians living abroad
had almost no statistical importance in the
outcome of a presidential election.
But suddenly, with George Bush leading
Al Gore by less than 2,000 votes in Florida,
absentee ballots cast by Gls, students, teach
ers, missionaries, business people, diplomats
and other people in far-flung lands could be
worth their political weight in gold.
"Who would have thought," exclaimed
167,443
61,039
144,476
80,146
134,325
86,838
by Tim Jones
November 08, 2000
Chicago Tribune
by Richard Lezin Jones
November 09, 2000
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
by Paul Brinkley Rogers
November 09, 2000
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
watching an election where you actually have
to wait to see what
vot<
ing
anal
like Florida and then take it back... This
really is an interference in democracy.” \ L hour. MSNBC projected page
Waiting for the votes to be counted has been «—-y views of 5 million for the day. An
anathema to modern-day election coverage, m-*-' early-afternoon report from the
as television and newspapers have spent mil- online Drudge Report was headlined
lions of dollars on polling and exit polling, “EARLY EXIT POLLS SHOW CLEAR
all with the seeming intent of letting Ameri- WINNER!” The story focused on exit poll
cans know the outcome before bedtime. results from Waltham, Mass., and West Hol-
This Election Day stood as a testament to
the proliferation of technology and the
Internet as Americans tried to get an early read
Those votes were nullified
and not included in the
count. Gore won the
county by more than
110,000 votes, but the
3,407 votes for Buchanan
were far more than he gar
nered anywhere else in
Florida, and nearly a fifth
of his statewide total.
They also outstrip the
fewer than 2,000 votes
Bush-voter Margaret Sohn, who is in San
Jose, Costa Rica, and who mailed her ballot
a week ago to Duval County. She said an
other Florida resident in San Jose called her
at 7 a.m. Wednesday bemoaning the fact he
had not mailed his vote in time to help de
cide the election.
None of Florida's 67 counties know just
how many of these ballots are still en route _
and elections officials might not know for
sure until Friday Nov. 17, the mail-in dead
line for overseas ballots. Many counties don't
keep track of how many they've sent out and
they don't know how many to expect back.
About 2,300 were counted statewide in the
1996 election.
on an election that poll after poll said was
too close to call. Several news organizations
said Internet records were broken as millions
of Americans logged on to look up results and
get other information that wasn’t being re
ported on television.
\. ABC News said visitors viewed
\ nearly 13 million ABC Web pages by 4
m p.m., breaking the record of 10 million
X set in September 1998 with the release
\ of Independent Counsel Kenneth
\ Starr’s report to Congress on Presi
dent Clinton’s relationship with
Monica Lewinsky.
CNN was getting 10 mil-
lion CNN Web page visits every
lywood, Calif.
Yahoo! said the bulk of its visitors came
for election returns. The significance of the
easy to do it wrong. I have to tell you, that
ballot was so confusing."
The Palm Beach County lawsuit filed by
Delray Beach City Commissioner Alberta
McCarthy, Delray chiropractor Andre Fladell
and West Palm Beach homemaker Lillian
Gaines added to the muddle already cre
ated by the recount, the unknown number of
absentee ballots still outstanding, and a shower
of other allegations of voting irregularities
around the state.
"That ballot in Palm (Beach) County is re
ally misleading," Democratic National Com
mittee general chairman Edward G. Rendell
said at a news conference in Philadelphia
Wednesday, indicating that the party is pre
pared to ask for a revote.
"You go into court, have witnesses who say,
"I didn't know what I was doing.' You show it
to an expert who says Buchanan could not have
gotten that many votes, and you ask every
body to vote again. It's obviously a very ex
treme remedy, we have to make a very strong
case.... Clearly something went wrong. There's
no way (Buchanan) got 3,600 votes there."
Minnie Heimlich of Delray, Fla., agreed.
"My neighbors are crying because their vote
went to Pat Buchanan and they can't stand it,"
she said. “I could cry. I'm a grandmother...
but I'm very alert, I'm wide awake," said
Heimlich, who declined to give her age. "But
some of my contemporaries have slowed up.
They wouldn't have known if that hole was
for Buchanan."
Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler, whose dis
trict included part of the county, produced a
Further complicating the recount process
is that in some counties, many overseas votes
were counted on election night because they
arrived before the polls closed. In others, they
were not.
To be valid, the ballots had to be post
marked no later than Tuesday election day.
In addition, they had to be mailed from a for
eign post office or from a U.S. military post
office overseas. Gls usually vote GOP, offi
cials said.
To complicate the picture even more, there
is an additional overseas ballot category: "fed
eral write-in ballots,"
Pat Hollarn, elections supervisor for
Okaloosa County, said these are blank bal-
Intemet as an information source was due in
large part to the proliferation of computers.
But the drama of the day was reserved for
television, which offered an unusual and com
pelling display of reality television. Like in a
football game, the score shifted as the elec
toral count moved west across the country
Bush gained the early lead. When Gore was
declared the winner in Florida, 1996 Repub
lican nominee Bob Dole said, “This certainly
makes it tough.”
As the uncertainty over the fate of
Pennsylvania’s electoral votes continued.
NBC’s Tim Russert was reduced to using a
magic marker on a vinyl board to explain to
viewers how Vice President A 1 Gore could
win the election without winning Pennsvl va
Within minutes it became a moot point as
the state was declared for Gore.
The drama built as the night wore on. By
9:30. political commentator Mark Halpcnn.
speaking on ABC, raised the prospect of vote
count irregularities in several states.
“I think the lawyers will want to at least
take a look at it.” Halperin said.
memorandum issued by Elections Supervisor
Theresa LePore, a Democrat, around 5 p m
on Election Day that hinted at the confusion
among voters
The memo told poll workers to remind all
voters "that they are to vote only for one presi
dential candidate and that they are to punch
the hole next to the arrow next to the number
next to the candidate they wish to vote for."
"Hundreds of people spoke to me yesterda>
before the polls closed about their extraordi
nary confusion. I myself when I went to the
polls was confused," Wexler said. "I saw the
people who came out of the polling places.
They were crying. They were in tears. In hys
terics."
Republican officials were skeptical. "In the
end there will be 46,000 people claiming they
voted for Pat Buchanan by mistake," said U.S.
Rep. Mark Foley, a Palm Beach Republican
He told the Los Angeles Times that the
missed-punchhole argument was "a stretch of
the imagination" and asserted that Buchanan
easily could have polled 3,407 votes in a
county that gave Foley's own ultraconserva
tive, Reform Party congressional opponent
2,651 votes on Tuesday.
"I saw them going to the polls with Confed
erate flags flying on their trucks," said Foley,
who said Democrats were grasping at straws.
He and others said the ballot had been re
viewed and approved by both major political
parties and by state election regulators.
LePore declined to comment. A staffer said
her office would finish its recount before con
sidering any other complaints from the pub
lots military personnel receive from their
unit's legal office. They fill in the name of
their choice for president by hand. Okaloosa
County has received six of them.
Some large Florida counties report mail
ing out hundreds of overseas ballots. Smaller
counties sent out only handfuls.
Dave Byron, a spokesman for Volusia
County, said that 434 ballots were requested.
On election night, 298 of those were counted
with other ballots.
"We'll have to see what happens to the rest,"
he said, saying he doesn't know how many
of the rest will come back.
David Leahy, Miami-Dade elections super
visor, said he expects to get from 50 to 100