Alan Sondheim on 25 Dec 2000 05:15:42 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] the count.... (fwd) |
NOW IT'S UNOFFICIAL: GORE DID WIN FLORIDA ____________________________________________________________________ THE OBSERVER International News Sunday, 24 December 2000 http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,415367,00.html Ed Vulliamy in New York As George W. Bush handed further key government posts to hardline Republican right-wingers, an unofficial recount of votes in Florida appeared to confirm that Bush lost the US presidential election. Despite the decision by the US Supreme Court to halt the Florida recount in the contested counties, American media organisations, includ ing Knight Ridder - owner of the Miami Herald - have commissioned their own counts, gaining access to the ballots under Freedom of Information legislation. The result so far, with the recounting of so-called 'undervotes' in only one county completed by Friday night, indicates that Al Gore is ahead by 140 votes. Florida's 25 electoral college votes won Bush the presidency by two seats last Monday after the Supreme Court refused to allow the counting of 45,000 discarded votes. But as the media recount was suspended for Christmas, the votes so far tallied in Lake and Broward counties have Gore ahead in the race for the pivotal state, and hence the White House. Gore's lead is expected to soar when counting resumes in the New Year and Miami votes are counted. In a separate exercise, the Miami Herald commissioned a team of political analysts and pollsters to make a statistical calculation based on projections of votes by county, concluding that Gore won the state by 23,000. The media initiative is likely to bedevil Bush in the weeks to come, thickening the pall of illegitimacy that will hang over his inauguration on 20 January. It has already led to a face-off between almost all the news media organisations in the state and Bush's presidential team. In the most extreme example of the Bush camp's desperation to avoid a recount, the new director of the Environment Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, has proposed that the Florida ballots be sealed for 10 years. Bush's spokesman Tucker Eskew dismissed the recount as 'mischief-making' and 'inflaming public passions' while his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, accused the papers of 'trying to rewrite history'. ______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold