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Morning News

Election 2000: Attorney for Media Discusses Legal Battle for Access to Florida Ballots

Aired December 15, 2000 - 11:33 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: The official vote count is over and the winner declared, but the scrutiny of the results appears to be far from over. "The Miami Herald" is among a number of news outlets seeking access to ballots cast around the state of Florida. They want to conduct their own recount.

Attorney Sanford Bohrer is representing the news agencies, and he is joining us now by phone.

Mr. Bohrer, good morning, thanks for joining us.

SANFORD BOHRER, ATTORNEY: Good morning, you're welcome.

KAGAN: Please, first of all, tell us who else is trying to get these votes, a look at these votes, besides the "Miami Herald."

BOHRER: There are about, in Dade county -- Miami-Dade county, where Miami, Florida, is -- there's about 20 people have requested access, but the other groups I represent are "The New York Times," the "Los Angeles Times," "Time" magazine, "New York Daily News" -- I think that's it for our group.

KAGAN: And what, exactly, are your clients trying to do?

BOHRER: They are here trying to arrange the process by which each undervote, that is a ballot which was cast in the general election but the machines showed no-vote for president...

KAGAN: They want to look.

BOHRER: They want to look at them.

KAGAN: But here's the deal: Throughout this whole process, no one has ever established exactly what a vote is. So when your clients, if they do get access, if they do look at these ballots, what are they looking for and who are they to determine what a vote is?

BOHRER: Well, they're going to set some sort of objective standards as to what they're looking at in the sense of has this has this physical characteristic or lacks this particular physical characteristics and log all those and let the people decide for themselves, and analyze things ,as well. The -- all the press is doing here is performing the historical, constitutional function it was designed for, which is to check and see how the government's working, and I think everyone wants to know who got the most votes. This may not decide that, but I think it'll give people an objective data base to draw collusions from.

KAGAN: And is this a done deal in Florida? I think the laws are very open. It would be easier to do in that state versus other states, but do you have to go through a court process in order to be able to do it?

BOHRER: We're in court in one county down here in Miami, but we believe that's going to be resolved and a process agreed on in the next few days. With regard to the rest of the state, I know that the "Miami Herald" has -- I don't remember who else has -- but they've sent requests for access to these records to every county. They are all public records under Florida law. The only limitation is only election officials can literally touch the ballots.

And I believe that they'll have public inspection arranged pretty shortly for all of these. In some of our smaller counties, there may only be a half a dozen or a dozen of these so-called undervotes.

KAGAN: So what's the timeline, here, of having results?

BOHRER: I don't know that. I'm just a lawyer, and I don't know how they've arranged staffing and all of that and when they'll get it all done.

KAGAN: Have your clients considered the repercussions, the possible repercussions here; let's say they do their own version of a recount and they come up with a significant result that Al Gore had more votes in Florida than George W. Bush -- what that might mean in terms of supporting a legitimate presidency?

BOHRER: I don't think that's the job of the press, to determine what the implications are of the facts. I think it's their job to find out the facts and report them, and the rest of us will deal with them. And I don't think that's what they're looking at it. I think they just see this tremendous pressure in the public to find out, and the rest of us have other jobs to do, so they put journalists on with a set of objectives, sort of physical criteria...

KAGAN: Sanford?

BOHRER: ... to determine what it shows.

KAGAN: Sanford Bohrer, thank you very much, interesting case -- will be interesting to see how this one turns out. Thanks for joining us here on MORNING NEWS.

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