'Flordia 2000', The Evening Standard

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

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'It's a tedious task, not one reporters fight for'

The Miami Herald is spending $250,000 counting the Florida presidential election votes that didn't count.

JAMES SILVER reports

MARTIN Baron is the man who could prove, once and for all, that America has the wrong president. The executive editor of The Miami Herald is overseeing a $250,000 vote-counting operation, during which an estimated 60,000 "under votes" across Florida's 67 counties - those infamous "pregnant" and "hanging" chads which didn't register in the voting machines - will be scrutinised.

"By mid-February we'll have the final tally," he says.

The media has access to ballots under Florida's Public Records Law, which classifies voting forms as public documents, available for inspection. To ensure impartiality, the Herald has secured the services - at $125 per hour - of one of America's largest accountancy firms, BDO Seidman, LLP.

Florida law states that no one but an election official is allowed to touch the ballot papers; so the process is a strange sight. The official holds the ballot up to the light, the accountant studies it, and a journalist writes down the result.

Staffers are not exactly scrambling to be assigned the story. Baron admits: "I've heard more than one of them say, 'This is not what I went to college for.' Although they recognise the significance of the story, there's no question that this is a tedious task and it's not one reporters fight for."

The Herald is not the only media organisation reviewing ballot papers. On Monday, the rival Palm Beach Post revealed the results of its investigation into uncounted ballots in the key Miami-Dade county. But, so far, Baron has kept "ballot review" updates out of his paper.

"I don't yet know what we'll report or how we'll report it. We may decide to reveal partial results before we have the state-wide picture."

He says he and his fellow executives "knew immediately that when the Miami-Dade officials decided not to conduct a manual count of the vote, we wanted to go in and take a look at what those ballots showed. We put in a request with local election officials. Initially, they denied us access, so we filed suit and came to an agreement."

The Herald's parent company, Knight Ridder - which owns other papers including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Detroit Free Press - agreed to cover all costs.

Some Republicans have reacted furiously. "This process will cast a pall over the presidency," says US Congressman Mark Foley.

"Mr Bush is President-elect. Mr Gore has conceded. It's not time to start speculating on what voters might have meant."

Baron admits: "I suppose we've ruffled some feathers. But, for all we know, these ballots may lean in George W Bush's favour. We have no other purpose here than telling people what the facts are and leaving it up to the public to decide their significance."

James Silver reports from Florida in Bushwacked! at 12 noon on Sunday on BBC Five Live.

(Evening Standard, January 17th, 2001)

Posted by James Silver - On Wednesday, January 17, 2001

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