NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Aug. 9, 2001

There is no indication of partisan activity on the computers during the 36 days after the election during which a furious battle over recounts was fought. Bush won the Florida count by 537 votes, which won him the presidency.

Democrats say that decisions made by Harris helped the president.

The study of the computer hard drive was commissioned by 14 news organizations, and most of them reported the results Wednesday.

Three of the four computers have been overhauled since the election. The installation of the new operating systems made it impossible to determine what had been on the hard drives after the election.

The Miami Herald said one computer revealed notes, drafts and apparent final versions of Harris' campaign speeches supporting Bush before and after the state's Republican presidential primary in March 2000.

Technicians said they found no evidence anything was intentionally destroyed.

"We're not saying they did that," said Kevin Bluml, an analyst with Ontrack Data International of Eden Prairie, Minn. "With all of these systems being in use the last several months there is a lot of potential for things to go away."

"The scope of this investigation was to determine whether any public records were destroyed and whether any partisan political activity occurred in my office during that period," Harris said.

"These findings prove that despite the innuendo and misinformation reported in the media, no partisan political activity transpired in my office during the recount period," she said.

In a piece by the New York Times into the count of overseas absentee ballots, the newspaper said the computers were used by Republican strategists Mac Stipanovich and Adam Goodman. Neither man's name were found on the hard drives.

A Times reporter was initially denied access to the hard drives of two computers that were used to draft memos to county elections supervisors. A spokesman in the secretary of state's office said hard drives also contain personal e-mail that is not public record.

State Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat, advised Harris that the hard drives are part of the public record but there is no provision in the Government in the Sunshine law that she had to turn them over. Harris later relented and allowed the inspection.

Florida Democrats called for a further investigation, calling it convenient that information was lost. They also said Harris was moonlighting for the Republicans and that was illegal.

"Perhaps the Bush campaign should reimburse the taxpayers for the state time spent on the campaign," state Democratic Chairman Bob Poe said. "She was only part-time working for the state. Someone has to make a strong statement on what should and should not be done in cases like this in the future."

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

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