Four years after scrambling to get lawyers to Florida to fight a recount battle, the Republican and Democratic parties are deploying thousands of attorneys across the country ahead of the Nov. 2 presidential election.
The Democrats say they have recruited more than 10,000 lawyers -- many of them volunteers -- and they also have teams of attorneys that can be rapidly deployed in case of legal problems or another ballot dispute like the one in Florida in 2000. The state decided the election for Republican George W. Bush four years ago only after a bitter five-week legal battle and is again one of some dozen tightly fought states in the presidential race.
"We are going to have five teams of lawyers who can be deployed to fight five simultaneous recounts," said Marc Elias, general counsel for Bush's Democratic challenger this year, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.
"That is an outgrowth of our experience in 2000 where it was clear that both sides ... were not prepared to have a Florida-type operation while at the same time there was a close race in New Mexico and a close race in Iowa," he said.
The Democrats also plan to have one attorney in each competitive precinct in each battleground state on Election Day to deal with any charges of voter suppression, ballot security or other problems.
Republicans would not say how many lawyers they recruited, but the number is likely similar to the Democrats. Republican officials say their attorneys will be monitoring the elections to ensure proper procedures are followed and there is no fraudulent activity.
The Republican National Lawyers Association ran a national training course this summer on new election law and more is being done at the state level.
Some legal battles expected
"A lot of it is a reaction to 2000 when both sides learned how to be more prepared," said Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer who was involved in the recount battle between Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
Both parties have also launched fund-raising efforts to raise money.
Several lawyers who were involved in the 2000 battle and election law experts doubt there will be a repeat of recount dispute that ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
But if the presidential vote is as close as pollsters are predicting, there is plenty of room for other legal battles and the election could drag on in the courtroom.
A sharp increase in the number of registered voters could cause problems, as traditionally new voters are the ones who have problems with the voting machines, legal experts said.
Legal challenges have already been launched over some absentee ballots, and with a large number of U.S. troops overseas absentee ballots could play a role in the outcome.
Electronic voting machines, which are being used in a presidential election for the first time in many counties, could fail or the results could be challenged -- particularly if there is no paper receipt with the machines that are similar to automatic teller machines at banks.
More legal challenges could also arise over the use of provisional ballots, which under federal law now must be provided to voters if their names are not on the registration list.
States have implemented the post-2000 election law differently, with Florida and 25 others and Washington, D.C., requiring provisional voters to cast ballots in assigned precincts. The requirement is already under challenge.
State party officials say they are resigned to the fact that lawyers will descend on them during the election. But they hope extensive legal wrangling will not be necessary.
"We don't want this election to be decided by a group of lawyers working for a political party," said Jason Mauk, spokesman for the Republican Party in Ohio. The state's provisional ballot requirement already is in the courts and more disputes could be expected since 70 percent of the counties will still be using punch-card ballots that were an issue in Florida in 2000 over what constituted a valid vote.
