Sunday, November 26, 2000
Following is the transcript of Gore campaign attorney David Boies's news conference on the campaign's intent to contest incomplete recounts.
BOIES: Good afternoon. We've had a lot of inquiries from a lot of you about what we're going to be doing tomorrow in terms of our contest. We thought it would be useful to come out and explain that briefly and give you an opportunity to ask questions.
It's obviously a work in progress. Events continue to develop around that state of Florida. Lawsuits continue to be filed by Governor Bush's people, including over the weekend. We continue to hear reports of county canvassing boards opening for business unexpectedly. And it probably will not be until tonight that we have a complete view of exactly what has happened and a complete understanding of what the nature of our contest will be.
However, there are three aspects of the contest that I think are reasonably clear at the present time that I'd be happy to talk about a little bit and answer questions about.
First is Miami-Dade, and, obviously, we will be contesting Miami-Dade with respect to two elements of what has happened. First, as you know, 388 votes were counted by the Miami-Dade canvassing board before they prematurely stopped its counting efforts. Those votes may or may not be certified.
If they are not certified and not accepted by the secretary of state, obviously that will be one element of our contest, because you will have votes that have been counted, clearly legal votes, accepted votes by the canvassing board, that have not been included in the certified results. And we believe that that, by itself, would be an independent basis for challenging the certification.
Second, in addition to those 388 votes that have been counted, there are approximately 10,000 ballots that have never been counted once for the presidential election, and it is those so-called undervote ballots that we will be contesting. And we'll be asking the court to be sure that those votes are at least counted once. They were cast by the voters, and no one has ever counted those, and no one, at this point, can tell you who the voters voted those votes for. And so a second element of our Miami-Dade contest will be to ask the court to be sure that those votes are counted and included in the results.
A second, broad element of our contest will be the inexplicable actions in Nassau County. As many of you are aware, Nassau County replaced one member of its canvassing board with another individual, who appears to be ineligible under Florida law to serve. The newly constituted group of three people then got together in a meeting that did not have the required notice provided for under Florida law, and voted to discard the results that they have previously certified based on the machine recount, and go back to the unofficial results on Election Day, even though that's contrary to Florida statute, and has absolutely, as near as we can tell, no prior precedent either in that county or in other counties in Florida that will, perhaps understandably, be another element of our contest.
Third, we will be contesting certain of the results in Palm Beach County. As I think you know, Palm Beach County requested an extension of the deadline to 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. The secretary of state has, as I think you probably also know, declined that request.
What that means is that Palm Beach County will not have completed its recount and there will be again, as in the case in Dade, ballots cast for the presidency of the United States that have never been counted even once. Those ballots, we will argue to the court, must be counted.
In addition to that, one of the things that we will be looking at is the extent to which there are other contested ballots in Palm Beach that the canvassing board did review and did make a decision on.
As you know, from a lot of the other discussions that we've had and the various discussions that legal experts have had on television, the determination during the contest period is something for the judge to decide, it's a judicial question. And one of the issues will be whether the canvassing board in Palm Beach County applied the correct standard or not.
That is also something that will likely be part of our contest. But one of the things we'll be looking at tonight is trying to review what the canvassing board has done over the last marathon session that they have gone through.
I think, whether or not one entirely agrees with the decisions the canvassing board in Palm Beach made, I think everyone who's interested in this election has to be grateful for the enormous effort that they have put in over the last many hours, working all night, working today, seeking the secretary of state's permission to work a few more hours in order to complete their work.
So whether or not we would entirely agree with their standard and whether, or not we would entirely agree with whether or not they have applied the standard that Judge Labarga directed them to apply, I think we all have to be grateful for the time and effort and dedication that they have shown in the most recent marathon session.
I'd be happy to respond to any questions, and there are others here who have more expert knowledge than I do about some of the elements.
QUESTION: In the 16 days until December 12, can you--you're talking about counting thousands of additional ballots. Spell out for us, if you could, how you think you can get all this done, including appeals, in 16 days.
BOIES: Well, first of all, in terms of the appeals, I think the Florida courts have shown an ability to be quite expeditious in a matter of this importance.
With respect to the counting, the counting now becomes a matter of judicial interpretation, and so those ballots have to come here to Leon County. Leon County is the venue for any statewide election contest. They come here, and those ballots will have to be reviewed by the court or by special master or special masters appointed by the court to review the ballots. You will then get a decision by the court as to what those ballots show.
Any party can then appeal that issue to the Florida Supreme Court. What we obviously would hope is that that process of reviewing the ballots would start very promptly, hopefully as early as Tuesday. It'll probably take until Tuesday to get the ballots up here from Dade County and from Palm Beach County.
But that process, which is the most time-sensitive process, needs to start quickly. We think it can start quickly. And particularly given the progress that both Broward County and Palm Beach County have made over the last 24 hours, I think you can see that people can review these ballots very promptly. And you can cover a lot of ground.
Both Broward County and Palm Beach County covered a lot of ground in 24 hours. And it was in some respects more difficult going for them because, in each of those cases, three people, each member of the canvassing board, had to look at the ballots and make an independent determination. Obviously, if you're talking about a single judge or a single special master, it can move even faster.
So we believe that the time is available to do the kind of review that needs to be done.
(CROSSTALK)
BOIES: There was a question that got started back there.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
BOIES: Well, the sample--there are two things. There's the sample recount, the three precincts. As I understand it, that has already been certified by Miami-Dade County. That was certified before.
Second, there are 388 votes, that resulted in a net gain for Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman of 156 votes, that have been completed, have been counted by the canvassing board.
And the question is whether or not the Miami-Dade canvassing board is going to certify those results, that is, send those results forward to the secretary of state. Obviously our viewpoint is that those votes have been counted and they need to be included in the statewide results.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
BOIES: Well, I think that the statutes in Florida say every vote should count, and what the Supreme Court has ruled is that every vote should count. And remember, nobody has ever disputed partial recounts as being countable or not countable, because partial recounts were, in the form of the sample recounts, included in the certifications.
So up until recently, there hasn't been any suggestion that if you count some votes, you should disregard them because you haven't counted other votes. That simply disenfranchises more people. The fact that some people are going to be disenfranchised because their votes are not going to be counted is no excuse for disenfranchising people whose votes you've actually counted and have recorded.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
BOIES: That's one of the questions that we're still looking at. We're prepared, I think, to say that we are going to have elements of our contest that relate to Palm Beach, to Miami-Dade and to Nassau. Those are the only counties that we've made a decision on as of now.
We'll be looking at the remainder of the issues over the course of the next several hours, maybe even longer than that.
There are a number of issues in Seminole County. One of them has to do with, as some of you know, there were defective absentee ballots, the applications that were submitted lacked the voter identification that is required under Florida law. The people in charge of the voter office there permitted the Republican people to come into the offices themselves--again, in our view, in violation of Florida law--and actually changed the applications after the applications were already on file. There are a variety of serious issues there, and I think that that's one of the things we'll be looking at.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
BOIES: No decision has been made on that. There are a variety of issues that have to be addressed in that context. As you know, there is already a lawsuit pending by individual voters relating to that up in Seminole County. But there are a variety of issues that I think Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman have to consider in deciding whether or not to include that in the contest. That decision has not been made, and what I'm really here to talk about it what we've decided to do, not what we haven't decided to do.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
BOIES: First of all, I'd be very surprised, because the issue as to whether or not hand counts should be included was the question that the Supreme Court declined to accept cert on. That is, Governor Bush asked the Supreme Court to accept review of three issues. The third issue was whether manual recounts were constitutional.
The Supreme Court refused to accept review on that issue, leaving that question where it was decided by the Florida Supreme Court.
The question that is before the Supreme Court--the two questions that they accepted review on, certiorari on, relate to the Florida Supreme Court's decision that the secretary of state was required to accept amended returns that were submitted after November 14 but before 5 p.m. today. That is the only question that is up before the Florida Supreme Court.
QUESTION: If they rule against you, though, what would you do at that point?
BOIES: Well, at that point, if the Supreme Court--if the United States Supreme Court--I think I said Florida Supreme Court a moment ago--but if the United States Supreme Court were to say that that deadline should not have been extended, I don't think that changes the activity once the certification is made.
We're all assuming the secretary of state is going to certify it today. Now, if that's right, by the time it gets to Friday, the certification will have been made and the contest will be going forward.
The question before the United States Supreme Court, or the two questions, both relate to the same issue in terms of extending the deadline, will then be passed, because you will already have the certification. And it's a little unclear what kind of remedy would be ordered, even if the Supreme Court decided that there should not have been a delay in certification, because certification will already have now taken place.
The issues before the Supreme Court really are whether the Florida Supreme Court's decision was inconsistent with prior precedent. Our view was that it clearly was not, that it was exactly following prior precedent.
QUESTION: David, on the contest issue, Florida statute says that the other side would have 10 days to reply to a contest. If the judge speeds up that process, how is that not rewriting Florida law?
BOIES: Well, every time you have a lawsuit, a court has the ability to shorten time. In fact, there's even a particular rule that you follow when you want to make a motion to shorten time. Lawyers do that all the time.
For example, it takes generally 20 days to answer a complaint. If somebody's going to bulldoze your house down and it's going to be done tomorrow, you don't let them wait 20 days to answer the complaint. The court can give immediate relief.
QUESTION: Even though the legislature gave 10 days...
BOIES: Well, the legislature always does that. In other words, you'll have 20 days to answer.
(BREAK IN COVERAGE)
QUESTION: The local canvassing board in Miami-Dade has a certain amount of discretion in deciding that they wanted to stop the recount, and the question of intimidation has come up. Can you talk about that?
BOIES: Sure. There is a certain amount of discretion that a local board has into whether to start a manual recount. However, as the district court of appeals held this week with respect to Miami-Dade, once that recount has started, the board does not have discretion to prematurely stop it. That is, there is no discretion to stop a manual recount once it's under way. The court used the word "mandatory," which is simply another way of, obviously, saying they don't have discretion.
I think the law is clear that once that manual recount started, it had to be completed. I think it's unfortunate that the disruption that you refer to took place and prevented that from being completed. But once we start a contest, the court now has the ability to judicially review those ballots and determine for whom the voter intended to vote.
QUESTION: Mr. Boies, given that the Supreme Court last week clearly set a deadline for when these returns have to be in--that being Sunday, if the office is open--what is the basis for you to contest the rejection by the secretary of state of the extension application today by Palm Beach County?
BOIES: We wouldn't be contesting the refusal of the secretary of state to extend the deadline. That would not be part of the contest. The contest goes to whether or not the votes that are reflected in the certification accurately reflect the votes that were actually cast.
The secretary of state had her own reasons for declining Palm Beach County's request. You'll recall that the Florida Supreme Court said it had to be in by 5 p.m. today or, if the office wasn't open, 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Palm Beach County thought that they could get finished if they had those extra hours.
The secretary of state, for reasons that I'm sure seem sufficient to her, declined to give them that additional time.
Our contest, though, goes to the merits of the vote count, not to whether or not she chose to extend that deadline for Palm Beach County.
QUESTION: So with these votes, are some of them going to be counted for a fourth time? Are they going to appoint people to recount all these votes for these counties?
BOIES: Well, first of all, the largest number of votes are the approximately 10,000 votes in Miami-Dade that have never been counted once, so those are obviously priority in terms of the court's review. Another group of votes are those 388 votes that Miami-Dade actually counted and recorded but may not be included in the certified results.
A third group of votes that have never been counted are the Palm Beach County votes that will not have been finished by 5 p.m. today. There is another group of votes that Palm Beach County actually did count and made a decision on that may be part of the contest as well. Those votes, the court would be asked to recount.
QUESTION: If they grant this in part and deny it in part, could they agree to count the 10,000 but not the 388?
BOIES: The court can do a lot of different things, and I wouldn't want to presume what the court could do. Obviously, when we ask the court to do four or five things, the court may do less than the four for five things that we ask.
QUESTION: All of these challenges will be filed in Leon County Circuit Court?
BOIES: Yes.
QUESTION: Not in the individual counties?
BOIES: No. Florida law provides that any contest to an election has to be filed here in Leon County if the election is, as this one obviously was, a statewide election. That is one of the puzzlements as to why the Governor Bush campaign chose to withdraw the case they filed last Wednesday here in Leon County, and then refile in four or five other counties around the state over the weekend.
QUESTION: What would be your theory on that? What are they trying to do, and how will you contest that?
BOIES: I don't have a theory on that.
QUESTION: Did any of you consider filing one contest or is it possible that you could amend the contest like on Tuesday, or will that just draw out the whole process in terms of responding?
BOIES: You can amend your contest. However, given the shortness of time, we're going to work very hard to make sure that the contest we file tomorrow includes everything that we intend to contest. I never preclude the possibility of some amendment, but I would certainly hope that that is not necessary.
QUESTION: Did you give any consideration to petitioning the state Supreme Court to extend today's deadline?
BOIES: No, because I think what the Florida Supreme Court did was to set a deadline that it felt would give sufficient time to conduct contests, and we obviously have an interest in making sure that we have sufficient time to conduct those contests.
QUESTION: The construct of the Palm Beach County so-called butterfly ballot will not be part of your contest?
BOIES: We haven't made a decision on that. That's obviously not one of the three that I've been talking about. I suspect that will be something that will be decided before we file the contest tomorrow.
QUESTION: It goes to a judge, it goes to a circuit judge, and the circuit judge then could personally oversee the recounts, correct?
BOIES: Yes.
QUESTION: Or appoint a special--does the circuit judge appoint a special master?
BOIES: Yes, that would ordinarily be the way it would do it--would happen.
QUESTION: And perhaps more than one, depending on how many recounts there are?
BOIES: It could happen.
QUESTION: What's a reasonable time? Is there kind of precedent for this where there is a timeframe for doing something like this?
BOIES: I don't think we've had a case just like this one. However, you have had cases in which courts have very promptly reviewed ballots.
And as I said before, given how many ballots that the Broward County canvassing board and separately the Palm Beach County canvassing board were able to review in a 24-hour period, and given the fact that that was inevitably slowed down by the fact that three members had to review each individual ballot, I think there is time to get these ballots reviewed.
QUESTION: Mr. Boies, once the commission certifies the vote and the secretary did say it would be tonight according to her attorney, does anything prevent them from then certifying the electors to the Electoral College, contest or otherwise?
BOIES: No, nothing prevents it. But, again, that is simply an initial step prior to the contest. In other words, you can't wipe out a contest by simply filing another piece of paper.
Until these votes have been counted, this election cannot be over. There are votes, thousands of votes, that have never yet been counted once. Ten thousand of those are in Miami-Dade County. Others may be in Palm Beach County. Until those are counted, this election cannot be over.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Mr. Boies, some people are taking a look at your plans to contest in Palm Beach County on those contested ballots and saying, you know, this is just an example that Gore is going to keep looking for ways to win this election, the fact that those ballots were already counted by hand. Your thoughts, your response to that?
BOIES: First, everything is going to be over by December 12.
Second, all we're trying to do is get the votes counted. We've said from the beginning that if they would just let the votes get counted, however that worked out, that would determine this election.
The third thing is that the Gore campaign isn't the campaign that has brought two appeals to the United States Supreme Court. The Gore campaign isn't the campaign that filed a protest last Wednesday in Leon County. The Gore campaign is not the campaign that filed five new lawsuits around the state over the weekend. The Gore campaign is not the campaign that went into federal district court to try to enjoin the manual recounts. The Gore campaign is not the campaign that went into circuit courts in Broward, Palm Beach, and Dade County to try to interfere with the manual recounts.
This is not a situation in which the Gore campaign has done anything to delay this. We've been trying to expedite matters. We've been trying to get this done.
When the recount is finished, when these ballots have been counted at least once for presidency of the United States, then we'll begin to see what Florida's votes are going to be.
But, remember, Vice President Gore has won the popular vote nationally, no matter what happens. Vice President Gore has won the Electoral College, outside of Florida, no matter what happens here. It's critically important that if, as we believe the case to be, Vice President Gore won the vote here in Florida that that not be nullified because some of those votes are not counted.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: When the judges begin to do this, or their special masters, what is the standard then for judging those ballots? Do you have to go in and argue again the Broward versus the Palm Beach standard? How is that standard determined?
BOIES: We think that the circuit court will apply the standard that the Florida Supreme Court indicated should be applied, and that's the standard applied in Illinois and Massachusetts and many other states, which is you look to find the intent of the voter, and if you find a discernible indentation on or near the chad, that is taken as a vote, because there's no other reasonable explanation for the existence of that indentation.
And if you look at the statistics, what you find is that in counties in Florida, in this election, that used optical character readers for ballots, and you compare the number of ballots that were not counted for the presidential election in those counties to, for example, Palm Beach County or Dade County or other counties that used punch card ballots, what you find is that, in Palm Beach County and Dade County, there were five or six or seven times as many people who did not have their ballots counted for the presidential election.
Now, it's hard to imagine a circumstance that would lead residents of Dade or Palm Beach County to have 1/6 or 1/7 of the interest in the presidential election than people in other counties. We think the obvious explanation is that, because of the nature of the ballot and the difficulty in actually being sure that you have fixed a ballot so that it's machine readable, that that accounts for that difference.
And if you look at what happened in Broward, that's exactly what happened. After you take into account the manual count of the votes in Broward, that brings the number of ballots that were not voted for president down to about what it was in other counties that used optical character readers. So what you find is that kind of ballot has actually worked, the optical character ballot has actually worked, and the manual counting of the punch card ballots helps bring those in-line.
QUESTION: I was just going to ask what about the military ballots? Do you plan on contesting any of the ones that Bush has sought to...
BOIES: We've said for the last couple of days that we accept the attorney general's position in terms of the military ballots, and that is that the military ballots should be counted whether or not they have a postmark, so long as, if they don't have a postmark, they are signed and dated. There has been no decision made in terms of what is going to be done in terms of the contest in terms of that.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Can you just quickly summarize your Supreme Court argument?
ATTORNEY DEXTER DOUGLASS: Let me just say this on behalf of the legal team who worked very hard, how proud we are David has been able to present our case to you and the public. But one thing all of us agree on--and Mitchell Berger, who has been the local Florida person--when this election is over, and the court has decided who won in Florida, we hope all of our supporters that supported the vice president, and we know he believes this, will accept the results of the election when all the votes have been counted that can legally be counted.
We ask those who very genuinely support Governor Bush, that they put themselves in the position if they were in our position. We would hope that they would take the same position, that whoever wins this election, in the final analysis, will be the president of the United States, and we can all accept that fact and move forward in this country.
And I think that is the spirit in which we have worked, all of us, David, the whole crew, is to get this decided as rapidly as possible so that the votes that were actually cast can be counted and we'll have a true winner.
Thank you.
QUESTION: Doug, can you say something? Is it actually the ballots that are contested or is it the county certifications that are contested?
SPOKESMAN DOUG HATTAWAY: The certifications are contested; the ballots are looked at.
QUESTION: So for the contest, would they recount all of the ballots in those counties or just the ones that you have questions about?
HATTAWAY: The ones that we have question about is my understanding.
The gentlemen standing up here, for those who need to know, I should have done this at the beginning, that was Dexter Douglass here. That's two s's on Douglass. Mitchell Berger, B-E-R-G-E-R, he's a Miami attorney who's been assisting the legal team; and Jeff Robinson, who's a Washington, D.C., attorney. He's helping the legal team with the contest.
And I also want you to know Greg Simon. He's a senior adviser to the vice president. He's in town working with us now. He would love to talk to you about dimpled ballots, undervotes, the technology of the Votomatic machine and those sorts of technical issues that have prevented people's votes from being counted. So he'll be around the rest of the week to help out with those sorts of questions.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but if I can help with any questions, I'll do that now.
QUESTION: Can you take a political question?
HATTAWAY: Yes.
QUESTION: Has Vice President Gore spoken with his legal team? When was the last time he spoke with them? How much influence is he having in what we just heard?
HATTAWAY: He got a briefing today. He got a briefing today from the legal team.
QUESTION: What is his sentiment? Arlen Specter was in here earlier saying that he ought to concede this race tonight.
HATTAWAY: Al Gore got more votes across this country and he's ahead in the Electoral College now. We believe that we need a full, fair and accurate count of the vote in Florida before either side starts conceding or declaring victory.
QUESTION: Are you preparing at all for anything the Florida legislature might do?
HATTAWAY: We think it's inconceivable that they would step in and try to overturn the vote of the people of Florida. We're monitoring what they do, and that's about it right now. They said they're going to...
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
HATTAWAY: We're focused on getting the votes counted. It's inconceivable to think that politicians in Tallahassee would step in and overturn the votes.
QUESTION: Doug, when and where are the contests going to be filed tomorrow?
HATTAWAY: They'll be at circuit court. I'll find out when.
QUESTION: When a contest is brought before a judge, is that basically a hearing where you're going to have a make a case for why this election should be contested?
HATTAWAY: Yes, it's literally a trial with witnesses and evidence, that sort of thing.
QUESTION: That will all be laid out, presumably, as quickly as Tuesday, perhaps.
HATTAWAY: Yes.
QUESTION: And then, also, that judge, after hearing that initial round of evidence and such, could reject that contest, yes?
HATTAWAY: Sure. The judge is going to, you know, look at each case and decide, based on the law and the evidence, you know, which way the votes went.
QUESTION: And the number of ballots that you're asking that judge or special master to reconsider is somewhere in the tens of thousands, correct?
HATTAWAY: It's 10,750 in Miami-Dade, and this isn't exhaustive. It's based on the notes I have. I'm not sure.
Is that information on the brief? Oh, that's right.
The 10,750 is the undervote. So we're asking that the judge review all the ballots from Miami-Dade, which is around 600,000. The undervote is...
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Is it wrapped up into one trial or would there be several trials?
HATTAWAY: It's all brought to the circuit court. I think the judge would probably determine how to organize that.
QUESTION: So effectively, it's all the votes out of Miami-Dade you're asking to be reviewed.
HATTAWAY: Right.
QUESTION: All the votes out of Palm Beach County to be reviewed?
HATTAWAY: The ballots will all have to come here, but whether the judge would review just the ones that have not been counted yet, you know, the judge will make that determination.
QUESTION: Isn't that an enormous amount of ballots for a judge or a special master to look at?
HATTAWAY: We believe they can, you know, get it done. Again, they'll decide whether they'll address just hand disputed ballots or all the ballots. I think the relevant ones are the ballots that haven't been counted at all, and the ballots that have been disputed. Those are the real...
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: But they may be forced to call the canvassers in to look at these ballots presumably and repeat what they've been seeing.
HATTAWAY: I don't know how they do it.
QUESTION: But after the contest, at least 6,000 votes will have to make their way here and they'll count at least 6,000 ballots?
HATTAWAY: At least 6,000 ballots, that's sounds right.
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: What we're asking for all the ballots from Miami-Dade to be brought here.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: What kind of witnesses would you guys have?
HATTAWAY: I haven't seen the material, so I can't really speak to that.
Can you just speak in a general way to the kinds of witnesses...
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: Our witnesses are still being developed, so I wouldn't want to show our hand before trial.
HATTAWAY: We can't do that, right.
QUESTION: Do you know how these ballots will brought here?
HATTAWAY: I don't know.
QUESTION: I know in Nassau County, you'd have to have all their ballots as well, right? Because that's a critical issue there. Which recounts...
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: We're not asking for the ballots from Nassau County to be brought here. We're asking for the machine recount total to basically be certified as the result.
QUESTION: And would that not require...
HATTAWAY: Machine recount. The automatic recount that was conducted pursuant to Florida law. There was a machine recount. We just want that result to be...
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: But you would not want a judge to look at those again?
HATTAWAY: No, we would not.
QUESTION: Which ballots would come here?
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: Miami-Dade.
QUESTION: All of them?
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: All the ballots from Miami-Dade...
(CROSSTALK)
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: The complaint will set forth the exact relief, but, in general, we want all the ballots that have not been counted to be counted.
QUESTION: So just the 10,000 or all of Miami-Dade?
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: Well, it depends. First of all, we have to wait and see what they certify. We don't what they're going to certify. Are they going to certify their partial recount or not? We don't know. We just have to work that out.
QUESTION: But even if they certify those 100 and however many it was, the 300 they already...
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: The 139 precincts that they already went through. We want to make sure that the court counts all the ballots that have not been counted by the time they certify.
QUESTION: What do you want on the Palm Beach ballots?
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: That may be necessary as well.
QUESTION: Physically coming here will probably be Miami-Dade and Palm Beach ballots?
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: That's correct.
QUESTION: When do you expect this to go to the Florida Supreme Court?
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: Don't know. Have to see how it goes.
QUESTION: Are you all hearing that Katherine Harris is going to go ahead and certify or not?
HATTAWAY: We're waiting to hear.
QUESTION: How many numbers are we talking about, then? You know, would Palm Beach be all the Palm Beach ballots or just the ones that were counted--that haven't been counted as of 5 o'clock today?
HATTAWAY: That'll be in the complaint. We'll just have to wait.
GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: Yes, let me get back to you on that, the specific--we're going to...
HATTAWAY: If that's something we can answer tonight, we'll find our for you. If not, it'll have to wait until tomorrow when the papers are filed.
QUESTION: How many lawyers are going to be on the team, working on the contest?
HATTAWAY: I'll have to check. I'll give you the number that are actually going to be on the complaint itself.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
HATTAWAY: If Harris certifies tonight, I expect Lieberman to say something later tonight.
QUESTION: Is Gore going to speak tonight?
HATTAWAY: Gore, I don't know--no...
(CROSSTALK)
HATTAWAY: And then Vice President--I don't know, I'll have to find out.
(CROSSTALK)