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 For Immediate Release
Nov 30, 2000 Contact: Press Office
202-646-5172
JUDICIAL WATCH FILES EMERGENCY MOTION TO INTERVENE IN FLORIDA LEON COUNTY ELECTION CASE

Public Interest Group Seeks Access to Ballots in West Palm and Miami-Dade and Offers Expert Testimony to the Court

Emergency Hearing Called for 1:00 pm Today

(Washington, DC and Miami, Florida) Judicial Watch, Inc., the public-interest watchdog which investigates and prosecutes government abuse and which has, in recent days, been conducting its own inspection and count of ballots in Florida counties (particularly in West Palm Beach) has moved the Court in Florida’s Leon County to intervene in order that it may have continuing access to ballots of West Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. This week in West Palm Beach, Judicial Watch and its expert certified public accounting firm, Johnson, Lambert and Company, discovered widespread problems with the vote count. These problems include, but are not limited to:
    1. An absence of vote counting methodology;
    2. An inability to identify which candidate was awarded which vote;
    3. A greater number of ballots were hand-counted than were machine-counted;
    4. Recreated and damaged ballots; and
    5. Disputed ballots inadvertently filed in the wrong envelopes for Governor George
    W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore.
Judicial Watch is moving to intervene in order that it may inform the Court about the inherent problems in any ordered recount, as well as to continue its own inspection of ballots.

An emergency hearing has been set for 1:00 p.m. today in Tallahassee, and Judicial Watch will keep the public apprised of its efforts.

“It is clear that the Court in Tallahassee could benefit from Judicial Watch’s acquired expertise in the voting mess which was created in West Palm Beach and other Florida counties. As a nonpartisan group, Judicial Watch is interested only that justice is done. To ensure this, the Court must be fully informed of the facts,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.

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