E-Mails Tell the Real Florida Story

Looking back, the signs were there all along that Florida’s presidential election would be different.

Five days before the election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris issued a press release declaring that Election Day was Nov. 7, “regardless of party affiliation.” The reason for the curious memo? A story had circulated on the Internet that Republicans and Democrats would vote on different days. “This story is false,” wrote Harris, “and a poor attempt at humor.”

Inside her elections office in Tallahassee, no one was laughing. The phone lines were jammed with Floridians who believed the rumor. “It quit being funny here,” one official e-mailed an elections supervisor after fielding his 25th call on the matter. The state of Florida, in response to a public records request, has recently released on CD-ROM copies of the hundreds of thousands of cyber messages that poured in and out of Harris’ office in the days that followed the election. These excerpts are something of a cyber back story to the recount saga.

The e-mails reflect the mundane and the extraordinary: Harris’ executive assistant reminded staffers to “always use gold letterhead stationery” on letters signed by the boss. A Microsoft worker discovered that the state’s password had accidentally been posted on the official election-results Web site. Knowing that crucial vote tallies from Palm Beach County might be coming in at the very last minute, the Florida voting systems manager reset his watch to the U.S. Naval Observatory Clock and urged others to do the same.

Harris, whose makeup and bearing were widely lampooned, including on “Saturday Night Live,” answered messages from strangers who told her she reminded them of the biblical character Esther. “I need her handmaidens now,” she wrote. She also said she had been rereading the story of the beautiful queen who helped save the Jews because Esther was her favorite role model.

She heard from people all over the country, including Ward Connerly, who led the effort to end affirmative action in California. “I can’t imagine the magnitude of the pressure that is facing you,” he wrote. “But I can appreciate the fact that there are those who will ascribe political motives to your decision. I have had to confront such detractors myself on a different kind of issue.”

The night before the election, Chrissy Howell, a Florida college student, e-mailed election officials with what seemed like a ridiculous question: What would happen to the state’s electoral votes, she asked, if the popular vote were tied?

“I assume, ‘Don’t worry about the math, everybody would sue everybody, and the courts would have to figure it out’ is not the correct answer,” one manager quipped as he forwarded Howell’s query to Clay Roberts, director of the Division of Elections. Roberts responded: “That’s the answer. There’s got to be a better way to say it.”

Although the vote was not technically a tie, it would take another 36 days before the courts would figure things out. By noon on Election Day, there were indications that the process wasn’t going so smoothly. Tallahassee officials could not get through on the phones to the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections.

“We’re getting pounded with national press inquiries regarding an accusation that some of your ballot pages are configured [so] that Gore votes are going to Buchanan. We need to know what to say,” wrote Paul Craft.

Another e-mail soon followed--with the pager number for Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa Le Pore. Not all the e-mail involved questions of state.

Election official Roberts heard from his wife, Trelles D’Alemberte, who wrote, “I’m thinking of you--I LOVE MY PEARLS. Several people have told me how great they are.”

By noon the day after, when the state’s 67 counties were in the midst of a mandated machine recount, Harris took some time off to answer a friend’s message: “What a night!!!” she said. “Let’s catch up next week. I will be in DC the 13th.”

Roberts’ wife reported in an e-mail to a Virginia friend (which she cc’d to her husband) that she’d begun keeping a scrapbook on the election. “Clay did come home last night, and we took all phones off the hook. It was a nice night. It is CRAZY here.”

“His name is on the front page of the Washington Post today,” e-mailed the friend to D’Alemberte. “This whole thing is crazy. Have you seen him since Tuesday, or is he living at the office? Hope the hell is over soon so he can get back to the important things--like making beer!”

By Nov. 10, Harris realized she wouldn’t be getting to Washington so soon after all. “Crazy days,” she wrote her friend.

On Nov. 12, Ben McKay, Harris’ chief of staff, e-mailed a relative: “This has been an incredible opportunity and a humbling experience. I have learned more about election law in the last two weeks than in my previous 31 years. What an incredible lesson in Democracy.”

Also that day, in an e-mail, elections staffers estimated that 36,000 e-mails had been sent to the secretary of state’s office and wondered what should be done with them. Harris’ staff prepared a form letter that would be automatically sent in response to most e-mails. But she answered some personally. To a Republican official and friend in the Panhandle, she wrote: “It will get worse, but I believe this is the right thing to do.”

With certification of county recount totals due, one elections official in Clay County discovered that her paperwork had been mishandled by UPS Overnight Air. “We found that the certification went from Jacksonville to Orlando to Louisville back to Orlando, then to Naples,” she e-mailed the state. (She needn’t have worried; the returns arrived in time.)

On Nov. 14, Craft reset his watch. “I also noted (and was impressed) that although I haven’t reset my watch for months, it was only three seconds fast before I reset it,” he wrote, precisely at 6:13 a.m. Howard Claussen, who identified himself as a Yale classmate of George W. Bush, messaged Harris: “Hold firm and follow the law. I appreciate your honesty and integrity.”

In a single week, the state election Web site had received nearly 10 million hits, “close to half a year’s volume,” the assistant secretary of state noted on the morning of the 15th. That afternoon, Rush Limbaugh asked his listeners to write letters of support to Harris--which merited an e-mail alert of “high” importance from one of her aides, who urged her also to “turn on the radio.”

On Nov. 16, a voter e-mailed Harris about discovering an old essay “so applicable to this election,” warning of the perils of Communism. The tract warned that Communists corrupted the young, got them away from religion and encouraged people to register guns. Harris forwarded the e-mail, without comment, but with a red flag attached.

She thanked a New York official who sent her lyrics to the “Palm Beach Pokey”:

You put your stylus in/You put your stylus out/You put your stylus in/And you punch Buchanan out/You do the Palm Beach Pokey/And your turn the count around/That’s what it’s all about!

“That is really funny,” Harris said. “I needed a laugh today!!”

She answered a correspondent named Ben Israel: “Thank you for your e-mail! I’ve received over 200,000 and cannot begin to read all yet . . . however, I was fascinated by your name--it is a wonderful name. Thank you again for your support. Katherine.”

On Nov. 18, her staff worried about whether Harris should attend a state barbecue for visiting Koreans, since the guests were going to wear bandannas and cowboy hats. “Dave said press will be kept out of the outdoor barbecue, but telephoto lenses could work wonders, making it appear that she is celebrating with Texans,” noted her undersecretary for international affairs.

“I wish she wouldn’t go,” responded Harris’ aide. “Who knows how she’ll be misquoted--and it will be a disaster in the media--there are too many lawsuits floating around--with the possibility of more to come--and any innocent remark will be seized as evidence of some dark conspiracy to steal the election--or worse. The threats are less veiled now--every network is openly reporting the Gore campaign’s intention to ‘Watergate’ her--we can’t be naive that she can conduct ‘business as usual.’ ” (Although there was much back and forth about what kinds of gifts were suitable to give the Koreans--marble bookends or art--it is unclear from e-mail whether she attended.)

On Nov. 30, a Harris aide, Maureen Garrard, sent a message titled “I did not make this up!” that may well prove that the bizarre events in Florida could be predicted. “The patron saint of disputed elections: ST. CHAD!!! I swear!”