Did Bush camp encourage military personnel to vote after Election Day?

When Bartlit walked into the courtroom, he expected to see Gore lawyers there, to argue on his side that these ballots should be counted -- the argument that, after all, Lieberman made on TV. They weren't there, which Bartlit found a bit sleazy. But nor were they there to argue against him, which Bartlit found a little bit disappointing, since he had a computer file full of graphics of Lieberman quotes making his argument.

Since the point was to get Bush votes, Bartlit dropped a Bush suit against Clay County, once it agreed to take the 17 absentee ballots it had rejected the week before and accept 14 of them. Twelve of them were for Bush.

The lawyer for Bay County asked Bartlit if the Bush campaign was going to dismiss its suit against his county's canvassing board, too, since they'd reconsidered 12 absentee ballots, resulting in a net gain of two votes for Bush. The Bush team wanted the county to look at even more votes. "We still have differences with Bay County," Bartlit said. And Escambia, Dade, Okaloosa, Collier, Leon, Pasco Counties, etc., etc. The list went on. Fred Bartlit hadn't been brought there to make it easy.

As the case proceeded, representatives of the canvassing boards argued that they had just followed the law.

Michael Chesser, representing Okaloosa County, made sure that everyone knew the disagreement with Bartlit and the Bushies had nothing to do with party label. "By registration and by voting practice, Okaloosa County is highly partisan," he said. "It is a home to Eglin Air Force Base, which is the largest air force base in the world. While it may be possible for some folks in this room to be highly partisan, it is entirely inappropriate, I would submit, either for the court or for a canvassing board to let partisanism enter in to what they do."

Soon enough, Judge Smith called it a day without ruling. But before the sun set, the Bush campaign had withdrawn all its suits. Nine of the 14 counties contacted the Bush legal team and said they were going to go along with what it wanted them to do, and bend over backward to include absentee votes, even if they didn't meet the strict requirements in the law. The Bush attorneys then took their lawsuits directly to the five remaining counties, away from Smith. To Hillsborough, Okaloosa, Pasco, Orange and Polk counties they went, trolling for votes.

An anti-Gore rally was held in Pensacola. Elections supervisors were bombarded with angry, clearly coordinated, phone calls and e-mails. In Duval County, the canvassing board reviewed the absentees and gave Bush 20 net votes.

In Brevard County -- home to Cape Canaveral and Patrick Air Force Base -- Bush gained eight net votes.

Late ballots were accepted in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. Escambia gave Bush 36 net votes. The Santa Rosa County canvassing board accepted two ballots with postmarks of Nov. 8, the day after the election, and five ballots that arrived after Nov. 17.

Clay County (Bush 41,736, Gore 14,632) accepted two votes that arrived by fax.

Eventually, Bush picked up a net of 176 votes by Thanksgiving weekend. Unger referred to the operation as "Thanksgiving stuffing." In December, Bartlit told me that he estimated that at the end of it all, the suit shook out maybe 300-400 net votes for Bush.

Either number, of course, provided Bush with more than his official 154-vote margin of victory.

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