Free Down & Dirty by Jake Tapper

of the United
     States,” Evans says. “They’re still counting, and I’m confident when it’s all said and done, we will prevail.” He leaves the
     podium and returns to the shelter of the campaign HQ.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice says from the loudspeaker. “Thank you for coming. That concludes the program.”
    If only.

3

“Do you remember us hitting anything?”
    I n the wee hours of the morning, as Tuesday morphs into Wednesday, the Election Night that will never end gains power. Outside
     Florida, political and legal soldiers are being recruited for the tumultuous thirty-six days that will follow, while within
     the Sunshine State itself, chaos, confusion, and conspiracy take hold.
    Strange things are afoot in Volusia County, for instance.
    In one precinct, Socialist Workers presidential candidate James Harris racks up 9,888 votes. The fact that Harris has only
     received 19,507 nationwide, and that the precinct only has around 350 voters, seems to cast doubt about his new 10,000-vote
     stronghold in one tiny Volusia County precinct.
    More significant, in the city of DeLand, Volusia County elections workers have realized a big glitch in the computer programming
     that transmits results via modem from precinct 216 to the elections superviser’s office. Gore had 16,000 votes that just vanished
     in the night. The problem has since been discovered and ironed out, but Democrats are all fired up. What else, they wonder,
     could have gone wrong?
    At around 3:45 A.M. , an elections worker named Deborah Allen, forty-seven, and her younger brother Mark Bornmann walk out of the elections supervisor’s
     office to go home. Bornmann, forty-three, a volunteer who has spent the last three hours in the elections office napping,
     is carrying his sister’s bags: a briefcase and a small bag containing casual clothing she’d been wearing at her day job, as
     well as some toiletries.
    After Allen and Bornmann leave, operatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties freak out, wondering if she’s heisting
     some ballots, telling the deputy sheriff on the scene to apprehend her. Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe is sure that everything’s
     kosher but feels compelled to make sure nonetheless.
    Other sheriff’s deputies are notified. A “bolo” (be on the lookout) is put out on the two. On International Speedway Boulevard,
     a cop recognizes Allen’s brown Wagoneer as she and her brother make their way back home to Ormond Beach.
    They’re stopped and told they have to come back to DeLand. They won’t tell her where she’s going or why she’s being asked
     to turn around and drive back to DeLand escorted by two sheriff’s cars.
    “Do you remember us hitting anything?” Allen worriedly asks her brother. She’s in a panic. She’s afraid that in the elections
     office parking lot maybe she collided with someone, maybe someone’s dead.
    At around 4:20 A.M. , Allen and Bornmann arrive under police escort back at the elections supervisor’s office. The contents of the bags are poured
     out onto the pavement near the parking lot and photographed.
    No ballots.
    In the wake of this mess, the Volusia County office of elections is sealed, surrounded by yellow police tape and armed deputies.

    In Nashville, meanwhile, Gore asks Daley to phone up former secretary of state Warren Christopher, to recruit him for the
     recount effort. In addition to being an attorney with O’Melveny & Myers, a diplomat, and a respected Democrat party elder,
     Christopher is in many ways responsible for helping Gore segue from senator to vice president, having helmed then-governor
     Clinton’s 1992 search for a running mate. In 2000, Gore called upon Christopher to help find him a Gore of his own, a process
     that ended up in the selection of Lieberman.
    At 3:30 A.M . Pacific time, Christopher’s wife is shaken from her sleep when the phone rings.
    “It’s Bill Daley,” she says.
    Christopher takes the call. It’s