Seminole Ballot Challenger Paid for Anti-Cheney Ads

The attorney behind a lawsuit charging that Republican operatives altered flawed absentee ballot request forms in Seminole County spent more than $100,000 on Al Gore’s campaign, including as much as $60,000 on a television spot attacking Dick Cheney.

Details of Harry Jacobs’ involvement in the Gore campaign--and the extent to which he has sought advice from Gore representatives--were revealed in a transcript of a deposition obtained Monday night. The deposition, which hints at questions Bush lawyers are likely to pursue when the case goes to trial Wednesday, was taken Saturday in Orlando, Fla.

In the deposition, Jacobs said he spent as much as $60,000 this year financing a television spot attacking Cheney’s business dealings at Halliburton Co., the oil services firm he headed until he became the Republican vice presidential candidate. The company dealt extensively in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, which has well-documented human rights violations, including forced labor.

Jacobs and his West Palm Beach attorney, Gerald F. Richman, have also said repeatedly that they are acting on their own--that no one from the Gore campaign has been involved in their lawsuit.

The deposition does not indicate that Gore’s campaign is directly backing the lawsuit, a notion Republicans would relish proving. But Jacobs acknowledged that he spoke to several Democratic Party representatives in mid-November before filing his lawsuit, including friend Mitchell Berger.

Berger, an influential Fort Lauderdale, Fla., attorney, is a Gore campaign insider and fund-raiser.

Jacobs said he discussed with Democratic insiders an election “protest” that he was preparing to file--a legal precursor to the lawsuit--but not the lawsuit itself. And he said that he briefly discussed “whether or not the Democratic Party, I guess Vice President Al Gore . . . would provide assistance, join this particular lawsuit.

“And they did not, have not, would not,” Jacobs said.

“Have they encouraged you or discouraged you?” asked GOP attorney Terry Young, who is representing the Seminole County election canvassing board.

“Neither,” Jacobs said.

The election supervisor in Seminole County, an elected Republican, has conceded that she let two GOP operatives use her office to correct the flawed absentee ballot request forms. Without the corrections, about 2,000 Bush supporters would not have received ballots.

Jacobs is seeking to persuade a Leon County Circuit judge to throw out all of Seminole County’s 15,000 absentee ballots--about two-thirds of which were cast for Bush.