"What, is Katherine Harris counting the ballots in there?" Several journalists shot out the same joke after flak emerged from the closed-door House Republican conference meeting to announce that more ballots than actual voters had been tallied in the February 2 election for majority leader. The snafu resonated uncomfortably in the air of corruption and disarray that had initially set the context for this heated race to replace disgraced party leader Tom DeLay. So Republicans were relieved when they discovered that the counting disparity stemmed from an innocent clerical error and would not, in fact, produce a Florida-style donnybrook.
