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 conference was, Judge McDermott, did you order those demonstrators removed
 from this property? I said, yes I did, and here's why. [I said], there's a time and a
 place for everything. Now, traditionally in this county, the place to make political
 statements is the steps of the courthouse, and that's the place to which I ordered
 them removed. I said, secondly, this is not a political event. We are recounting
 votes that have already been cast, and I'm not going to allow this location to
 politicized by anybody. And much to my amazement, there was no follow up
 question to that. They all seemed to accept that, yes, that's the reasonable thing
 to do.

P: One of the things that I remember coming out of here when the tv stations started
 reporting, the first thing they started talking about were the bags in the car, the
 woman with the bags leaving, and they sort of just blew it completely out of
 proportion. Were you aware of what was being reported on television?

M: In general. With twenty-four hour news, they have to talk about something don't
 they? But once the international news media got there, we put that to rest pretty
 quickly. We explained to them the investigation that the sheriff's office had
 conducted. I also explained that I got a commitment on the record in front of all
 the news media that each party was satisfied that the ballots had been protected
 and preserved, and there's no question about the integrity of the ballots
 themselves. So, in terms of questions that were asked of me, after we had been
 going about a day or so, those were no longer presented to me.

P: One of the things I forgot to ask you, for example, one thing Palm Beach did,
 they took a one percent count. The Democrats, or whoever was bringing the
 request, can pick three precincts up to one percent of the vote, and the
 canvassing board looks at that to see if there is a basis for full recount. You did
 not do that?

M: No. We made a decision, either we should do a complete recount of all votes, or
 we should not. My [idea] is if you're going to do something, either do it and do it
 right, or don't do it.

P: At this point you were aware, I'm certain, of Secretary Katherine Harris' decision
 that she was going to certify the election, as the law states, seven days after the
 vote, which would have been November 14. At what point did you determine you
 might not get finished by that time, and at what point did you decide to file the
 first lawsuit?

M: Well, we realized rather early that there were a number of problems. Finding an
 appropriate place to do the recount and get organized and everything. I forget
 exactly when it was, but it was very early. One of the meetings we had of the
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