WASHINGTON — Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan said Thursday he believed most of the 3,407 votes he got in a Florida county belonged to Vice President Al Gore and that people had voted for him by mistake.
"I don't want any votes that I did not receive and I don't want to win any votes by mistake," Buchanan told NBC's "Today" show. "It seems to me that these 3,000 votes people are talking about—most of those are probably not my vote and that may be enough to give the margin to Mr. Gore," he said.
The entire electoral race between Gore and Republican George W. Bush depends on a recount of votes in Florida, where claims of voter irregularity have emerged in Palm Beach County.
Bush is currently ahead by little more than 900 votes in the recount that will decide who wins the White House, according to the Miami Herald.
In addition to the more than 3,000 votes he won, Buchanan also disputed about 19,000 ballot papers in Florida that were nullified because people voted both for both Buchanan and Gore due to the layout of the ballot paper.
"I don't want to take any votes that don't belong to me," Buchanan said, adding that he had not campaigned in Palm Beach and that the majority of those votes probably belonged to Gore.