The reasons for the demand is different for each county. In Broward and Dade counties, Democrats were told by their canvassers at the different polling sites that they believed there was "undervoting"; meaning that more people voted than the total would represent. In Palm Beach, there was the much-reported confusion over which hole to punch, and therefore "overvoting"; voters voted for more than one candidate and their ballots (reportedly 19,000) were discarded. Lastly, in Volusia County, there were reports that on Election Night the vote tally on the county's Web site kept switching back and forth dramatically. Then, after the election, the Socialist Party candidate was credited with 9,000 votes, but after the recount, his tally dropped to just eight votes.

The Democrats are led by Bill Daley, the chairman of Vice President Al Gore's campaign. Solid, stolid and bald, but thinner than you'd expect, Daley looks like he's ready to tackle anyone at a moment's notice. He resigned as secretary of commerce earlier this year to serve as his fickle candidate's third campaign manager in just one campaign. Daley was raised on hardscrabble Chicago politics; his father, former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, is said to have helped JFK swipe the 1960 presidential contest from then-V.P. Richard Nixon.

Then there's the slight former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who led the V.P. search for Bill Clinton, picking Gore, putting him, ultimately, into this confounding spot. Christopher looks like he's melting into his expensive gray pinstripe suit. When he talks, he's barely audible. How did this man get so powerful?

Their ace-in-the-hole -- they hope, they pray -- is Kendall Coffey, a lawyer from Coffey, Diaz and O'Naghton, a Miami law firm. Coffey has been retained by "the Gore Campaign Recount Committee" to begin to pick apart what looks to be a slimmer than slim state victory -- and thus a presidential electoral triumph -- by Gov. George W. Bush. Coffey looks at Tuesday night's election and he sees things he doesn't like, things he thinks are illegal: votes, ballots and procedures that he intends to challenge. That's what he's paid to do, to see these things. And he's no stranger to desperate situations and lost causes in Florida, having represented Elián González's Miami relatives.

The recount is patiently being conducted across the capital promenade, but here in the Senate hearing room the Democratic big guns are preparing for legal challenges should the recount go Bush's way. No one will specify exactly what form such a legal challenge would take, however.

"Secretary Christopher and I have been in Florida now for over 20 hours," Daley says. "We're here to report that what we have learned has left us deeply troubled."

Daley specifically cites the reports of the voters in Palm Beach County who were apparently confused about the county's new "butterfly ballots." These were initiated by a Democrat, Theresa LePore, the Palm Beach supervisor of elections, who thought she was doing good for her county's substantial senior population by making the names on the ballots larger and thus more legible.

Apparently all LePore did was confuse a bunch of these voters, placing the hole they could punch for Gore too close to a hole they could punch for Pat Buchanan -- a man many of the Jewish voters in the area find repugnant. Nineteen thousand of these ballots were thrown out, many of them because holes were punched for more than one candidate. Buchanan scored 3,704 votes in Palm Beach County -- substantially more than in any county in the state.

"More than 20,000 voters in Palm Beach County who thought they were voting for Al Gore had their votes counted for Pat Buchanan or not counted at all," Daley says. He calls this "disenfranchisement." He calls the Buchanan votes "implausible. I'm told even Mr. Buchanan recognizes that much," Daley says, referring to a comment Buchanan made earlier on the "Today" show: "When I took one look at that ballot on Election Night ... it's very easy for me to see how someone could have voted for me in the belief they voted for Al Gore."

Only 561 votes went for Buchanan in Dade County, which is much larger than Palm Beach County. In Broward County, Buchanan only scored 789 votes.

"Those numbers cry out for justice," says Coffey.

Daley repeats the Gore talking points that are -- at least as it relates to the Electoral College -- irrelevant.

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