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ballot was illegal. You may need to get
     your own lawyer,” she advises LePore.
    The phone lines are all jammed. LePore learns that Democratic voters are being hepped up, told by a phone bank to call her
     to complain if they think they may have screwed up the ballot. The lines are being blocked from voters at the polls right
     now, she thinks.
    LePore asks Burton what he thinks. Was the ballot illegal? He gets a book of election law, reads the statute. It’s clearly
     OK. The section of law the Democrats are referring to—101.151 (3) (a)—applies only to paper ballots, not ones for punch-card
     voting.
    “I don’t really think it’s illegal,” he tells LePore. “But whatever.”
    It’s not “whatever” for LePore. She feels like her world is crashing down around her.

    At 5:30 P.M ., Lieberman calls Rhodes in a previously arranged “Get Out the Vote” interview.
    “You’ve got a very confusing ballot in Florida, have you heard?” Rhodes asks Lieberman.
    “I just heard as I was listening and waiting to come on,” Lieberman says, “and that’s the first I heard about it.”
    “We have a serious problem,” Rhodes says. “And in fact, for those who found the ballot confusing, we have an attorney at one
     of our big law firms” asking us to “please file an affidavit.” The Democrats have already set up a phone number and retained
     an attorney to hear voters’ complaints. “I’m not sure if I voted for you and Al Gore, or Pat Buchanan and Ezola Foster,” Rhodes
     adds.
    “Wow!” Lieberman responds. “Now, there’s a big difference. You’ve got to be careful. The affidavit idea is very important.
     Because if the election is close, there’s going to be contests all over America.”

    At that moment, Mitchell Berger is preparing for such an event.
    Berger has known Al Gore since the early 1980s, when he was helping his dad’s flailing mall development/management business
     in Chattanooga and Gore was a young congressman. Berger was interested in environmental issues, new economy issues, things
     that few politicians were discussing except for young Congressman Gore. They further bonded after Berger moved to Florida—where
     he built a successful law practice with offices in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Tallahassee—and Gore ran for president in 1988
     with few other contacts in the Sunshine State.
    Berger’s respect for Gore knows no bounds. If you give Berger a minute, he’ll spend five telling you how Gore’s 1988 presidential
     run paved the way for Clinton’s successful bid four years later. How New Democrat Gore was distancing himself from Jesse Jackson
     during the 1988 New York primary, thus allowing Clinton to do the same to rapper Sister Souljah four years later. He thinks
     that one of the most unreported stories about Al Gore is how Gore essentially ran the country while Clinton was stuck in the
     impeachment quagmire but had to keep such a fact quiet for the country’s sake. And Berger has disdain for the reporters who
     covered the Clinton administration so aggressively, necessitating his giving Gore advice during some of the veep’s own fund-raising
     scandals.
    In frequent contact with Brochin and Palm Beach County Democratic chieftain Monte Friedkin, Berger’s alarmed. He tells Brochin
     and lawyers in his firm, mainly Leonard Samuels, to get ready to litigate. He doesn’t know who’s going to litigate, he doesn’t
     know how, but he wants to be prepared.
    At 7 P.M ., Berger’s at the Miami airport, on the phone with Gore attorneys Joe Sandler and Lynn Utrecht and Gore’s chief of staff,
     Charles Burson. He’s getting ready to hop onto a 7:15 Southwest Airlines flight to Nashville, hopefully for the Gore celebration,
     but he’s not so sure that he should go.
    “Should I stay in Florida?” he asks the Gore attorneys. “’Cause there’s a lot of bad things that went on here today.” Some
     in Nashville were under the impression that Berger was ready to file