HIGHLAND BEACH, Fla.-For the past week, Palm Beach has been leading a double life. For most of the year, it's a place where the rich and famous, such as Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey, dwell in pink mansions built on castle-like scale atop the sandy lip of the Atlantic. But ever since last Tuesday's election, the county has been catapulted into the international political limelight as it takes part in a controversial ballot recount.
Just under 1,000 miles south of Charlottesville, a straight shot down I-95, Palm Beach seems like another world about to unravel.
Or is it? Palm Beach is a place where dogs drink out of marble water dishes at street corners and people stroll through the palm-tree studded streets in gold Gucci sandals and suave Armani suits. And yet, despite boasting the highest per-capita income in the country and possessing a reputation for being the East Coast equivalent of Hollywood, this county may decide the outcome of the presidential election.
Rallying support
"Freedom from King George," chanted one protestor while waving two homemade poster board signs as he walked behind a police barricade. The signs belonged to Edward Parker, 32, an elementary school teacher in Palm Beach County. The heavyset teacher in a ratty white T-shirt was one of about 15 protestors picketing outside the large gray County Governmental Center in West Palm Beach in protest of the current presidential ballot crisis.
"How can you legalize an illegal ballot is what I want to know," Parker said. He strongly advocated a recount in Palm Beach because he believed that although he had no trouble seeing the ballot with 20/20 vision, he thought the "butterfly" ballot was probably confusing to many senior citizen voters.
"It could have been pretty fuzzy," he said while waving his signs in the air enthusiastically. Parker characterized himself as a die-hard Gore fan who would not stand for Bush as president.
"If I could send one message to Gore, it would be: Don't give up," he added.
But Long said even if the Democrat does make his way into the White House, he is going to walk into a mess. To him, the uncertainty of the ballots in this election has caused an irrevocable split among the country's voters.
"It's going to take a war to bring the people back together," he said before running off, signs in hand to challenge another protestor, a man waving Bush-Cheney posters.
The protestors, mostly working class people from West Palm Beach, routinely bunched up together while yelling, waving signs and pointing fingers. The police would step in from time to time, but often, the heated argument was between only two or three people. After an argument, about 30 reporters, notebooks or microphones in hand, would push their way up to the grouped protestors to ask questions.
Each protestor seemed eager for the media attention, each one ready with a different story.
"Hello, I'm from New York and I'm a liberal," said Michelle Dryer, 40, of Palm Beach, as she found herself in the spotlight. She argued with a Bush supporter and later explained that she believed the rights of the people of Palm Beach had been violated, even though she had moved to the county only a few months ago.
But inside the County Governmental Center, the scene was much less sensational. A quiet buzz filtered through the air as cell phones rang and reporters rushed around with press releases and laptop computers, hastily jumping over multi-colored spaghetti tubes connecting camera equipment.
All eyes were on the scene of the initial hand recount. Within a windowed office, the 4,600 ballots from four precincts in Palm Beach County were being counted. Several middle-aged men and a few tired-looking women sat around a large wooden conference table as piles of questionable ballots came under the scrutiny of Bush and Gore lawyers and a canvassing board. Judge Charles Burton sat at the head of the table, alternately holding up rectangular ballots to the overhead light to see whether they had been properly punched through. At times, one of the lawyers would motion in protest. Outside, a few gawkers peered through the windows.
"I can't believe this guy could be determining who's the next president," said one woman leaning against the glass as she watched the judge speaking with a few of the lawyers.
Reporters and gawkers alike continued to watch the ballot counting for several hours until the news broke. There was enough of a deviation in the hand-counted ballots in the precincts to warrant a recount of the entire county of Palm Beach.
A revote for minority voices
For some groups, even a recount of Palm Beach County wouldn't be enough. These people, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, went so far as to push for a revote. In a rally held at the Temple Israel in Miami, a cavern-like synagogue with arching white stucco ceilings, the two black leaders joined their protests to Jewish voices in an attempt to gather support for a revote. They wanted a revote in areas where they felt minorities had encountered unconstitutional barriers to voting in last Tuesday's election.
"Each vote matters. There will be no gap between intent and destination," boomed the voice of Rev. Jackson as he explained why he believed there should be a revote in many of the poverty stricken areas of Florida. Heavy-jowled and speaking in a gruff, weary voice, Jackson peered over his bifocals at the crowd, saying he believed that accuracy and fairness were more important virtues than speed in choosing the next president.
The medium-size crowd gave a standing ovation at the end of each speech. Although declared a bipartisan gathering, the meeting was clearly pro-Democratic: People sported buttons and t-shirts and one tiny elderly lady wore a blue blazer with "Gore-Lieberman" crisscrossing across the jacket material.
Unlike the rally in West Palm Beach, the participants in the temple's rally were middle-class Jews and blacks. Though clearly upset over the ballot controversy, they did not seem nearly as angry as the protestors in West Palm Beach.
Perhaps this had something to do with the speakers. Jackson and leaders such as Rabbi Steven Jacobs wanted to bring together these two minority groups-groups they felt had been cheated out of a fair vote. The black leaders appealed to Caribbean immigrants, such as Haitians, who might have had trouble reading the "butterfly" ballot while the Jewish leaders were looking to extend a message to the "survivors of the Holocaust."
Back on the beach
Although the air was politically charged both inside the temple and at the Governmental Center, the scene on the South Beach of Miami was business as usual. Scantily clad beachgoers sauntered by the oceanside restaurants and shops, seemingly more concerned with getting a tan than the uncertainty of the presidency.
A large woman in a blue bathing suit lingered on a granite wall by the beach, calmly checking her cell phone messages. But Vivian Mateo, a process server who works in Miami, said she is sure something is going on beneath the surface.
"I think they should have a vote again where everyone votes the way they were supposed to," she said.
Brushing away a stray piece of reddish hair, she spoke with a slight Spanish accent. Mateo explained that she came to the U.S. from Cuba with her grandparents when she was just a baby. "It was before Castro," she said.
Mateo, a Republican who voted for Gore, said that although she thought the "butterfly" ballots were not intended to be misleading, they ended up being that way.
"I'm not sure what's going on here but I think the courts should decide. This thing is like something from another country," she added.
Mateo said she is upset by the ballot controversy, but believes the issue is ballooning out of proportion. She doesn't think that Bush should be able to demand recounts in other states in the Midwest since "there wasn't the same problem out there as there was here."
Mateo wants the line to be drawn somewhere, but she isn't ready to go out and protest. She keeps much of her political views to herself, especially, she said, because most of her co-workers are Bush supporters.
"They are really confident that Bush will be the next president. They think Gore won't win with the overseas military ballots coming in," she added.
Mateo turned to face the ocean once more, where the sea oats rustled against the sugar sand. Tan and oiled Floridians marched to and from the beach. The scene reminded her that South Florida was first and foremost a scene of leisure and pleasure, where movie stars live and the sun beats down year round in tropical heat. For Mateo, the screaming protestors and media coverage of Florida would be short-lived. In the end, it would return to being just another week in the Sunshine State.
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