CRISTINA CUNANAN Election recount protesters such as
James Joblon were seen on Wilshire in front of the
Federal Building on Saturday.
By Michael Falcone
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
A demonstration in Westwood Saturday drew more than 150
protesters, with some calling for an immediate end to the
presidential ballot recounts in Florida and others declaring they
must continue.
The group that lined the Wilshire Boulevard and Veteran Avenue
intersection in front of the Federal Building was about evenly
split between Gore and Bush supporters, unlike a similar protest
last week where few Bush supporters were present.
“The reason they keep doing this is because they want to
count until they win,” said Grace Kepler, who was clad in a
red shirt covered in Bush/Cheney stickers and buttons.
Those on the other side of the political fence used the protest
to show their support for the ongoing recount process in
Florida.
“It’s very obvious that if the vote had been
conducted and counted properly, Al Gore would have had a higher
number than George Bush,” said Scott Malsin, an investor who
volunteered with the Gore campaign during the election.
Saturday’s demonstration was one of more than 130 of what
organizers called “Pro-Democracy” protests, occurring
in 45 states. All of the demonstrations were planned and advertised
on the Internet.
The Web site, countercoup.org, is the focal point of
organization for all the protests across the country. According to
a statement on the Web site, no specific group is spearheading the
activity, except for the site itself, and there are 2,000 people
signed up on its e-mail listserve. The site’s Web master
could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Web site did not list any other scheduled protests.
Emily Salzfass, who carried a sign with countercoup.org written
in large black letters, said turnout for the demonstration was a
testament to the power of the Internet.
Malsin’s wife, Anne, who was also at the demonstration,
said a manual and visual recount was necessary to ensure
accuracy.
“I feel the technology of the machines and the punch cards
isn’t sensitive enough,” she said.
But at a press conference earlier that day in Austin, Bush
campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes and Gov. Marc Racicot, R-Montana,
alleged recount wrongdoing in several Florida counties.
Racicot, who observed the recount process in that state said
there were several examples of apparent misconduct by manual ballot
counters, including counters taping chads to the ballots and
stacking Bush ballots in the Gore pile.
In addition to demonstrating in Westwood, others protested
outside the Fox 11 studios in West Los Angeles that same day.
There, a predominantly Republican group protested the Fox
network for being the first to call Florida for Bush on election
night, alleging that if the media had reserved judgement, Bush
might have won the popular vote instead of Gore.