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Morning News

Election 2000: CNN Analysts Respond to Viewer Questions About Presidential Election

Aired November 28, 2000 - 11:34 a.m. ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: This is the part of MORNING NEWS where we turn the program over to you, the viewer, and we allow you to ask your questions to our panel of experts.

From Washington, we want to welcome back our legal analyst Roger Cossack.

Also, NPR's political editor, Ken Rudin.

And, from Tallahassee, CNN's election law analyst, David Cardwell, who also has been a Florida election director.

Gentlemen, good morning, thanks for joining us here on MORNING NEWS.

DAVID CARDWELL, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: Good morning.

ROGER COSSACK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

KEN RUDIN, POLITICAL EDITOR, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Good morning.

KAGAN: We are going to go right to e-mail.

And, David, I think this is going to be one that you will be able to answer.

The question coming from Ann. She wants to know, simply, "Chad? What and where did that word come from?" Most people that she talks to doesn't know.

This is a word that, David, has become part of the conversation jargon in America now, but why do we call it a chad?

CARDWELL: Well, I don't know.

KAGAN: Simply said.

CARDWELL: It's always been called a chad. It's made the dictionaries now, and I even see that it's been nominated for word of the year. But everyone just refers to them as chads.

KAGAN: So, for you, this is a word that you've used for years. CARDWELL: Oh, yes, I've heard about hanging chads for 20 years.

KAGAN: It might be new to us, but this is not new to you. Want to go to the phones now...

CARDWELL: That's right.

KAGAN: We're going to go to the phones now and take a question.

Who do we have on the phone?

Cathy (ph)? Cathy, from Louisiana, go ahead.

CALLER: Yes, good morning, thank you for taking my call.

I'm wondering, as I voter -- and I have a sister in Jersey who votes, a sister in Houston who votes -- what's to say that a voter could not sue the Florida Supreme Court for attempting to give more weight to the votes in Florida than the votes in other states where we know votes are tossed out for one reason or another by the machines?

KAGAN: Roger, that sounds like one that might go to the U.S. Supreme Court and become a federal case, so why don't you take that one.

COSSACK: Well, I was hoping you'd would ask Ken Rudin that question, but I'll try...

KAGAN: And Ken is so relieved that I turned it on you.

COSSACK: OK, first of all, I just want to say one thing: Do you know what the plural of the word chad is?

KAGAN: It's chad.

COSSACK: It's chad, that's right. OK, that's right, OK.

KAGAN: Like geese or deer. Not like deer, that's a bad example.

COSSACK: Having said that, now let me see if I can -- and not being able to duck the question -- let me see if I can answer it. The reason is is -- and that's not a bad question -- but the voting of each state is presumptively taken care of by the voting -- by the voters and the courts of that state. Now, I suppose that if that state that we're talking about, of Florida, did something which could be proven to have an effect upon the rest of the country, then I think perhaps a voter in New Jersey could bring a case, and certainly, it would go to the United States Supreme Court because this would be a clash between states, and that is the kind of thing that does end up in the United States Supreme Court.

But as you can imagine, caller, this is a tough thing to prove, to show that there is the impact that would have to be shown to get this matter to the Supreme Court.

KAGAN: Ken, we're going to let you off the hook on that one. Instead, we're going to let you start with this next e-mail question. You might not like it any better, but you'll be up on this.

It comes from Andrew, and the question is "Do you know who is paying for the attorneys of the candidates?"

We've got to be talking some bucks, here, do you think, Ken?

RUDIN: Well, yes, but, I mean, this is exactly -- both the Bush and Gore camps have asked, have asked their supporters, saying: Look, we need to -- we need to push these guys through. The election may have been November 7th, but this three-week, four-week period afterwards is far more stressful, and we certainly need the money.

The Republicans have said on e-mail to their supporters in the past week or so, saying we need anything up to $5,000 just to help support this fund. I mean, it's similar to the Clinton Legal Defense Fund, although it just doesn't seem to be any end of it.

I kind of liked the other questions better, but I'll take this one.

KAGAN: But, David, another part of that: The question was who's paying for the candidates, but who's paying for all of this in Florida? I mean, this has got to be costing the state a lot of money when you had these recounts and all these legal proceedings?

CARDWELL: That's true, it's costing the state. It's also costing the individual counties. Each of the three counties that were -- had been so much at issue with the recounts had to hire their own counsel. There have been several lawsuits, so outside counsel, in addition to the regular county attorneys, have been retained. They also had a lot of overtime pay for county workers who were counting the ballots. They had the cost of opening up the buildings and operating them over weekends and at night.

I heard, in Palm Beach county, that their costs alone were in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's been costly, but we also like the fact that so many people from the news media and all these out-of-state lawyers came here and are spending money. So we're making up for it in other ways.

RUDIN: In addition to the financial cost, of course, there's a political cost, and that we have to talk about a lot because this country -- and we saw what Al Gore said yesterday -- is not close to being over, even though we thought the final certified results were Sunday. The political cost may be great as well.

KAGAN: I'll tell you about another type of...

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Time will tell on that

KAGAN: ... another type of cost: Now, we don't have a toll free number, so Jerry is paying for this phone call from Oklahoma.

What's your question, Jerry (ph)?

CALLER: Oh, thank you so much. You know something, if the legal standard was adhered to, and only legal votes be counted -- those that make mistakes, their vote gets kicked you out -- I've been voting for 50 years, I've always known that -- if they just counted the correct, legal votes, there would be none of this problem.

Now, I want to say something else. I don't think there's a country in the world that needs election reform more than this one does. I don't think any -- I think they ought to make everybody re- register. They ought to prove absolute citizenship and just start all over again.

There are too many illegals that got into the system. This motor voter thing was crazy. They can go in there and register to vote without any documentation to prove who they are...

KAGAN: Jerry? You bring up a very good point, and that's election reform. And I bet all three of our distinguished panelists here have something to say about that.

David, you want to start? Do you expect changes coming ahead?

CARDWELL: Yes, I'm sure there will be some changes in Florida's election laws as a result of this. We've learned a lot, we've seen where there are some glitches.

A lot of the attention in the past few years has focused on our campaign finance laws, but now I think there's going to be a lot more attention directed to our election administration laws and to our voting systems. I think you're going to find much tighter standards on the voting equipment that's used, and also that will clarify a lot of these glitches and inconsistencies in our statutes. So, certainly, there will be some changes here.

KAGAN: Ken, what do you expect on a national scale?

RUDIN: Well, the problem is that every state, and, as we learned in Florida, every county has it own jurisdiction about how to conduct its election, whether it's the kind of ballot they use, whether the kind of counting. You know, Miami-Dade had a different criteria for recounting than Palm Beach. So the problem, even before we get to a national standard, you're going to have to get the states to agree, and that's going to be a monumental task.

KAGAN: All right. Well, we have a monumental task of continuing our conversation, and we'll ask the three gentlemen to stand by. We'll take a break and come back with more phone calls and e-mails right after this.

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