Special
Counting and counting and recounting. In a room with a glass wall, 17 election workers from Palm Beach County, Florida, spent the weekend hand-counting 4,300 ballots from four districts, seeking to determine the winner of the US presidential election.
When they finally finished their task at 2 a.m. yesterday they found that Vice-President Al Gore had gained 19 votes over Governor George Bush. With bickering and acrimony aplenty, the election commission then voted 2-1 to order a hand recount of all 425,000 ballots cast in the county.
Democrats applauded the move; if Mr Gore gained 19 votes in just these sample precincts, Democrats predicted, he would gain some 1,900 votes if all Palm Beach County votes were recounted.
That decision was immediately attacked by Republicans, who filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent a hand recount, arguing that hand counts are less reliable than machine counts, and that Democrats are trying to skew the recounts by seeking recounts in largely Democratic counties.
A judge set a hearing on that matter for this morning.
A visual survey of the scene of the Palm Beach recount was not one to inspire great confidence in democracy.
With demonstrators and media peering through the glass, the election workers sat in six teams working at three tables. They held each ballot card up to the light, trying to determine which hole connected to which candidate had been punched.
Sometimes, County Court Judge Charles Burton stared at a ballot for several seconds, then turned it upside down. The whole matter looked imprecise at best, more like a bizarre game of bingo than a presidential election.
Voters in Palm Beach, meanwhile, continued to express outrage that somewhere between 22,000 and 29,000 - depending on whose numbers you believe - of their ballots were discarded because two holes were punched in the presidential slots or none at all. Voters contended that a complex two-sided ballot used only in this county led to confusion.
"I worried all day that I had not voted right," said Ms Sophie Berman (66). "It was a confusing ballot. And there was no one to help us. All we were told was that we had a five-minute limit inside the voting booth. People felt pressured."
A Palm Beach Post computer analysis of the county found that 28,036 ballots were discarded. Of those, nearly half came from areas of the county that are predominantly elderly or black.
Nearly 10 per cent of the ballots were discarded in areas where most of the voters are over 65 years old, the Post found. And 16 per cent of the ballots cast in majority black precincts were thrown out, more than double the percentage of ballots thrown out from overwhelmingly white districts.
The Palm Beach ballot, ironically, was designed by a Democrat, the veteran Superviser of Elections, Ms Teresa Le-Pore (45), who last week told reporters she had hoped the larger print would make voting easier for seniors.
Today, Ms Le-Pore finds herself an unfortunate part of history. As friends, both Republican and Democrat defended her, calling her a person of integrity and dedication, Ms Le-Pore continued to oversee the recount. Looking exhausted and fighting a sinus infection, the woman who is the oldest of eight children in a Catholic family remained at election headquarters through the night, saying she would see this election through until the end.
The only question was when that end would come. This week promises several hearings in Florida courts.
Spokesmen for both Mr Gore and Mr Bush flooded the airwaves, seeking to rally public opinion. By any measure, the US presidential election campaign is still in full swing.