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The Florida Recount: Judge Refuses to Dismiss Seminole County Absentee Ballot Lawsuit; Palm Beach County Revote Request Denied

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: CNN legal analyst Greta Van Susteren is keeping a close watch on the ongoing battle -- ballot battle.

Boy, is that a hard one to say, Greta.

She joins us from Florida's capital.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Boy, it sure is.

PHILLIPS: She's in Tallahassee.

Where should we begin? A lot of things have happened within the last hour.

VAN SUSTEREN: Boy, I'll say. You know, Kyra, this is very exciting what's going on here in Florida. We have so many court cases going on in a very important election. We have the action in West Palm Beach County where the local judge there has just said that he cannot declare a new election, it would be unconstitutional.

So that issue of the butterfly ballot, for now, is dead in the trial court. We don't know if the losing party will take it up to the court of appeals. But the issue there is whether or not that butterfly ballot was so confusing that the election should be thrown out. But the judge says, look, I don't have the power to throw out the election. You're going to have to go to the court of appeals and see if the court of appeals reverses me.

Now, behind me another exciting event: This afternoon at 2:00, lawyers for both sides are going to file. The main question there is, should the hand-counted ballots be counted in the tally? Secretary of state says...

PHILLIPS: Allen...

VAN SUSTEREN: ... no, that they shouldn't. The only time you can have hand-counted votes count is if there's a power outage, an act of God or a tabulation system problem. That means a mechanical error. But what the Gore people say is, no, the statute doesn't say that, they just talk about an error in tabulation. And the Democratic Party and Al Gore say there is a tabulation problem in many of the counties, especially in Palm Beach County. Now, we can go over to Seminole County where there's another matter there. And the Republicans sought to have that case thrown out in that particular jurisdiction. A Democrat lawyer brought a case claiming that there was fraud involving absentee ballots and Republicans sought to have that case tossed out of court. But the judge said earlier today that case will not be tossed out of court. The judge didn't rule on the merits of the case, but the judge did say November 27 we're going to have a hearing on this matter.

So the legal battles continue. It's very exciting down here. And it's also very cold in Tallahassee.

PHILLIPS: Oh, Greta, but you've got your warm coat on. That's good.

VAN SUSTEREN: Look at the gloves.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Boy, we feel pretty lucky right now.

Let's talk a moment about Seminole County. That was the newest bit of information that we received, Greta. The hearing is set for November 27. The lawsuit will continue to investigate the possible illegalities. Let's talk about that. That was the registration numbers, correct?

VAN SUSTEREN: That's right. What the allegation is is that the election supervisors let some of Republican Party members come in and fix, put in registration numbers on the absentee ballots. There was a technical error. And the question there is whether or not that is fraud. Now, the judge has not said that it is or is not. The judge simply says this matter will go forward, we're going to determine that on November 27.

What's particularly important about that case, though, is that the absentee ballots in that county, approximately 10,000 for Gov. Bush, 5,000 for Vice President Al Gore. So if the ballots are tossed out, whether in whole or part, it could have a profound impact on what happens down here in Florida when they finally decide to send electors to vote on December 18 for the president of the United States.

PHILLIPS: Greta, thanks for sorting all that out for us. You make life a lot easier.

VAN SUSTEREN: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Keep warm.

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