Election 2000

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Elderly Jewish voters in Florida hold the key to
the White House amid recount controversy.

MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Washington
n the end, the selection of the
next president of the United
States came down in many
ways to voters in heavily Jewish
south Florida.
And in a major twist, the votes that
might have mattered most were the
ones elderly Jews may have inadver-
tently cast for Pat Buchanan, the
Reform Party candidate known for his
anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements.
Florida's 25 electoral votes hung in
the balance as both Al Gore and
George W. Bush were declared
Florida's winner at different points
Tuesday night, only to have the state
wind up as the ultimate wild card.
In the wee hours of the morning
Wednesday, after the Bush campaign
had started celebrating and Gore had
conceded defeat in a phone call to the
For latest election results, please see
wwvv.detroitjewishnews.com

I

11/10
2000

6

Texas governor — a call he later
retracted — it looked like the GOP
had accomplished a trifecta, control of
both houses of Congress and the exec-
utive branch.
But state officials ordered a recount of
the presidential race in Florida, after see-
ing it was being called by a margin of less
than a half of one percent of the votes.

South Florida

At the center of it all were ballots in
Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties,
which have a large Jewish population.
Although Jews made up only 5 per-
cent of Florida's vote, a large bulk of
the constituency was from that area,
which includes many senior citizen
communities.
"Those numbers we knew were very
heavily Democratic," said media con-
sultant Matthew Dorf, who spent elec-
tion night at Gore headquarters in
Nashville. "They happen to also be the
Jewish districts."
Also needed to be counted were

overseas absentee ballots, which will
include Florida voters traveling abroad
and those who live in Israel, as well as
members of the military. The state
accepts overseas ballots up to 10 days
after Election Day.
What could prove pivotal — and
portends a legal battle — is a group of
ballots that may have been inadver-
tently cast for Buchanan.
U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.)
told CNN (Cable News Network) that
voters in Palm Beach County, a heavily
Jewish area, were leaving the polling
place crying because they had voted
for Buchanan by accident.
Some voters were apparently con-
fused because of the way the ballot was
structured.
Ballots showed candidates on both
sides of the ballot, in every-other-page
order. So while Bush/Cheney was
immediately followed by
Gore/Lieberman on the left page,
interjected between them was
Buchanan.
"There is no doubt that there was

Louis and Roslyn
Simon of Oak Park
cast their ballots
Tuesday at Prentis
Jewish Apartments
here in Michigan.

much confusion at Palm Beach
County yesterday at the ballot box,'!
Wexler told CNN. He said Buchan;
received 3,000 votes in the county, 1
compared to an average of 400 in
other districts.
It is unclear whether those votes w
all Jews, or how many of those voter:
actually intended to vote for Gore, b
with just hundreds of votes dividing'
candidates, they could be significant.
Wexler said he was unsure how th
mistake could be resolved.
Voters who feel they selected the
wrong candidate started deluging th
local board of elections Tuesday afte
noon, said Jeff Klein, executive vice
president of the Jewish Federation o
Palm Beach County.
Klein used the paper ballot in quc l
tion, and said it was easy to punch
hole for the wrong candidate. "If yoi
didn't pay close attention, you coule
have easily" voted for Buchanan, K1
said, who added that Palm Beach
County is the most Jewish county it
the United States.

