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 been safeguarded. He still wasn't happy about it and he said, you can't do it
 before then? I said, no, absolutely not, and he hung up.

 Then about an hour later, about eleven o'clock, the sheriff himself called me. He
 said, Mike, a lot of people are very unhappy with you. I said, well I understand
 that. So, I explained it to him again. I said, this is what I want to do and this is
 how I want to do it, and this is when I want to do it, at the beginning of our one
 o'clock meeting today, with all the news media there. That way all the
 representatives from both parties will be on record saying they are satisfied that
 the integrity of the ballots has been safeguarded. That will be a big plus for the
 whole process. The sheriff said, you know Mike, I think you're right. I said, well I
 hope I am. I told Judge Rouse what I'm doing and he said essentially the same
 thing.

 I don't recall getting anymore telephone calls that morning, so, shortly before one
 o'clock I drove down there, and indeed, all the local television stations were
 there: Channel 2, which is NBC, Channel 6, which is CBS, Channel 9, which is
 ABC, Channel 13, which is a local news, 24-hour a day type of station, and
 Channel 35, which is FOX. They all had their trucks there, and they all had their
 antennas extended. It looked like a forest with all their microwave antennas
 extended pointing down towards Orlando. I thought to myself, that [the]
 lieutenant from the DeLand Police Department was right. So, I went in. Both of
 the members of the canvassing board, Ann McFall and the man whose name I
 still cannot remember, were totally bent out of shape. They said, don't you
 understand we've got the Sunshine Law in this state, and here you are ordering a
 public building closed to the public. This is an outrage. I said, well, you know,
 talk is cheap. I came down here at four o'clock in the morning and the people
 were very concerned about the integrity of the ballots, and I've done what I think
 is necessary. Well, that did not mollify either one of them. They just kept on and
 on and on. I said, we're about to convene a meeting of the board, and both of
 you are out of order, and I said it in a way so that they knew I was very serious.
 Especially the fact that there were all these deputy sheriff's around who were
 willing to do whatever I said to do. The sheriff was there in his dress uniform;
 white shirt [and all], he looked great. I said, Sheriff Vogel, please allow the news
 media to come into this public area. So, they all came in like a herd.

 The first thing I did was I got the Democrats to state that they were satisfied that
 the ballots were safeguarded, and I got the Republicans to state that they were
 satisfied all the ballots had been safeguarded, and I asked each one of them, is
 there any need for me to keep the public area of this building closed to the
 public? And, of course, each of them said, no Judge, no need at all. I thought to
 myself, that's what I wanted. So, I turned to Sheriff Vogel, [and said] please
 open this building to the public. [He had a] big smile on his face, and he had all
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