Kerry Finds Recount Still Resonates

The several hundred people who came to a community center to hear Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry on Monday morning seemed to be waiting for Nancy Geneivive’s question.

“You can call me cynical -- but what can we do to prevent [Republicans] from stealing the election again?” Geneivive, a 52-year-old artist from Coral Springs, asked the presumed Democratic presidential nominee. Before she could even finish speaking, the crowd chimed in with whoops and loud applause.

Kerry campaigned in three Florida cities Monday, ostensibly to rouse Democrats before today’s primary. But with all of his major rivals gone from the Democratic race, much of the focus was on election day in November and the fear of voter disenfranchisement.

“This is where people are going to go vote tomorrow,” Kerry said as he stood outside a library in West Palm Beach, the epicenter of the state’s voting problems in the 2000 presidential election.

“This is the place that reminds America that not only does every vote in the United States count, but that every vote is going to be counted in this year and in this election and in the future,” he said.

The recurring specter of the 2000 recount speaks to how the battle of the last campaign is shadowing this year’s contest. In a dispute that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bush won Florida by 537 votes out of almost 6 million cast -- and with it the presidency. This year, both parties are gearing up for months of intensive campaigning and another close race in November.

“Most people view this election as bragging rights for both 2000 and 2004,” said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida. “It’s an election of pride and proof -- pride that you won it this time, and proof that you did the last time.”

Kerry joked Monday that when asked how it felt to run for the most powerful office in the land, he responded, “I don’t know, because I’m not running for secretary of state of Florida.” He was referring to the role that Katherine Harris, who then held the office, played in the 2000 recount.

Kidding aside, he stressed that he was taking the concerns of people like Geneivive seriously. Kerry told her he was putting together a legal team to study historically troubled voting precincts, as well as the new Diebold voting machines, which have been criticized as vulnerable to manipulation.

Kerry said his campaign officials would seek court injunctions if they had reason to think voting procedures in certain places could be violated.

“We’ll pre-challenge, if necessary,” he said at the town hall meeting in Hollywood. “But I guarantee: Not only do we want a record level of turnout to vote, we want to guarantee that every vote is counted -- and we will do that.”

It remains uncertain to what extent anger about the 2000 recount will drive the state’s vote this year. Florida remains sharply divided, with registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans by fewer than 400,000 -- a close margin in a state of 9.3 million voters. Nearly 2 million people are registered as independents or affiliated with third parties, the fastest-growing segment of the voter pool.

While Democrats may be energized by the memory of the 2000 campaign, Republicans will have the benefit of increased institutional support, having gained ground in Florida’s Legislature and congressional delegation in recent years.

And there are signs that appealing to voters by reminding them of the recount doesn’t work. Two years ago, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush won reelection by 13 percentage points in a race many Democrats thought would be a referendum on the 2000 controversy. But African American voters, usually a stalwart Democratic constituency -- as well as a population that felt disenfranchised by the voting problems -- didn’t come out in strength. Their turnout dropped from 70% to 45%, despite Democrats’ repeated invocations of the contested election.

“It just didn’t gain traction,” MacManus said. “Maybe it will more in a presidential race. But it seems like that if it would have been that much of a mobilizing agent, you would have seen it in 2002.”

But Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who accompanied Kerry on his swing through the state Monday, said he believed the recount would reverberate in this year’s vote.

“To the Democratic base, it will be significant,” said Nelson, who has been mentioned as a possible Kerry running mate. “There will be a certain percentage who will remember that very traumatic experience and will want to make sure their vote counts.”

That’s true for Trish Sutherland, a Florida native who was living in Texas during the 2000 campaign. She said she had been waiting for nearly four years for a chance to reverse the outcome.

“I watched it screaming at the television,” said Sutherland, 43, who recently moved to Coral Springs.

Monday, she came to hear Kerry speak in West Palm Beach, her first political rally ever. “I just wanted to offer support and show up, and try to do what we can through to November,” she said.