Democrats ready to stop repeat for Obama of Gore's hanging-chad fiasco...

[bridgit]

'Just before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton walk on stage in front of a roaring Florida crowd of 40,000 - arm-in-arm and beaming - Richard Siwica, a harassed looking lawyer, takes the podium to invoke the ghosts of hanging chads past.

“We'll have lawyers in every significant precinct,” Mr Siwica told this Orlando crowd. Many Democrats here still speak of the 2000 Florida recount that gave the presidency to George Bush as an evil spell hovering over the state - a hex that could yet reappear to rob Mr Obama of victory.

“Hundreds of lawyers have volunteered in Orlando alone,” Mr Siwica said. Then, in a reference to Florida's 36-day drama of disputed ballots eight years ago that, after the intervention of the US Supreme Court, handed the White House to Mr Bush by 537 votes, he vowed: “When you vote we'll be standing behind you to make sure it counts - so ‘you know what' will not be allowed to happen again.”'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4988459.ece