What They Said

Quotes from the Circuit Court hearing Saturday in Tallahassee.

“These chads are very, very small, and unless you have very, very, very small hands, I don’t know how you could push it out with your finger.”

--Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services and a Democratic witness.

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“My point, I guess, would be that human inattentiveness, because you’re spending a long time counting ballots, isn’t going to vary whether it’s a paper ballot or it’s a piece of cardboard or any other kind of ballot. What they’re talking about there is human beings get tired and lose attention and don’t do as good a job.”

--Phil Beck, lawyer for the Bush campaign.

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“Are you able to see over there, Mr. McMahon?”

-- Judge N. Sanders Sauls asked Andrew McMahon, a lawyer for Palm Beach County canvassing board. Eighteen lawyers introduced themselves to the court at the outset of the hearing.

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“I’m not going to spend time arguing about how important the right to vote is or any of that; I think the court is well aware of that. I think that our purpose today is to get to the evidence, and get to the legal arguments that will deal with these particular issues.”

--David Boies, lawyer for the Gore campaign.

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“What he [Boies] is attempting to do is to begin this court down a path that inevitably leads to a destination that he must arrive at in order to win. And that destination results in a conclusion which is both unreasonable and contrary to Florida law, and it is this that this court should disregard.”

--Barry Richard, lawyer for the Bush campaign.

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“The manual recount statute allows for the losing candidate in the state to cherry-pick the counties he wants the recount in. And that, in and of itself, causes the election to be skewed to the detriment of those people in the other counties, and particularly to the detriment of those people in the counties where Gov. Bush won.”

--Bill Jennings, lawyer representing individual citizens from Duval County, Okaloosa County, Bay County, Calhoun County and Leon County.

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“From the point of view of the citizens, all votes were equal, but some votes were more equal than others.”

--Frank Meyers, lawyer representing individual citizens from west Florida.

Source: Associated Press; Associated Press Photographs